Episode 79

But for a trap, the posture of the bone hand was much too polite.

When Ihaan took a step closer, the bone hand trembled violently and rolled backwards, as if it wanted to prove it bore no ill intent.

“…?”

Just as Ihaan was about to grow confused, Professor Mortum began to speak.

“Ahem. It’s easy to be fooled by the magnificent and imposing appearance of undead summoning, but in truth, summoning undead is never easy.”

Wizards who studied summoning magic by designing the inanimate objects they summoned often fell into such worries.

—Do I really have to summon inanimate objects? Can’t I just summon something with a will of its own??

Even if you tried to summon a magic sword, you had to plan in advance what attributes it would have, and how it would move autonomously.

At a high level, it required autonomy on par with artificial intelligence, so it was easy to imagine how painful it must be for mages studying summoning.

Why did they have to design every detail themselves?

Couldn’t they just summon something with a will from the start??

Of course, naturally, the downsides of summoning something with a will were obvious—that’s why they designed it like this.

Having a will meant it might not follow the summoner’s instructions.

And undead monsters were generally ‘a bit’ more disobedient than other monsters.

Their natures were opposed from the start.

Summoners were mostly alive, and undead were all dead.

Even if you tried, it was only natural that they were hard to befriend.

That’s why black mages used various methods to get along with the undead.

Living in tombs, rubbing themselves with decaying substances, making necklaces out of various bones or pieces of flesh…

It wasn’t because black mages were perverts.

It was just desperate effort to hide the vitality of the living and get close to the undead.

“……”

“……”

The students listening grew as pale as the undead themselves, but Professor Mortum didn’t notice.

“Ahem. So for now, use any means necessary to befriend the bone hand. If you become friends with the bone hand, someday you’ll be able to befriend other undead monsters, too.”

Spending time socializing closely with undead monsters would eventually imbue your soul with their aura.

If you got along with the lowest-tier undead monsters like bone hands, you would, in time, be able to handle more powerful undead monsters as well.

“Professor.”

“?”

Ihaan, who had quietly waited for the professor to finish, raised his hand.

“Are there undead that are a bit timid?”

“??”

Generally, undead monsters were fearless.

It was only natural, considering they weren’t living.

Professor Mortum gave a dismissive snort as if to say “what nonsense”…

…and then, seeing the bone hand trembling in front of Ihaan, he was shocked.

“?!”

Professor Mortum stared incredulously at the bone hand he’d summoned.

He’d told it to deal with students—so what was it doing now?

The bone hand bowed its head in embarrassment in front of Professor Mortum.

‘Can’t you hurry up and approach?’

Despite the professor’s command, the bone hand was trembling and didn’t want to approach Ihaan.

Professor Mortum wondered if something was wrong with the reagent he’d used.

Smack! Smack!

Other bone hands were happily slapping Gainando’s cheeks as he tried to approach. They were all perfectly normal.

‘Did it feel an affinity for the bone summon Ihaan walks around with? No… then there’d be no reason to be scared.’

Only one conclusion remained.

Professor Mortum was inwardly shocked.

Surely not…?

“Ahem. Try summoning one yourself.”

“Is that all right?”

“Of course. The advantage black magic has over summoning magic is practical experience. If it had been summoning magic, you’d spend a year just studying.”

“……”

Professor Mortum tossed him a bone fragment necessary for the spell and drew a magic circle on the floor.

Ihaan picked up his wand and focused. With Professor Mortum acting this way, he’d be foolish not to worry.

‘It feels like he’s rushing the curriculum just to show black magic is better…’

The saving grace was that even if the bone hand attacked, Ihaan thought he could overwhelm it.

Ihaan chanted the spell.

“Appear, bone hand!”

As he threw the bone fragment and swung his wand, the mana-imbued bone fragment transformed into a bone hand with a sinister smoke.

This was not one of the bone hands Professor Mortum was strictly controlling, but a new bone hand summoned by Ihaan himself.

The summoning spell controlled the undead monster like a chain around a beast’s neck, but for inexperienced beginner mages, it was difficult to handle that chain well.

Professor Mortum kept a close watch on the bone hand.

If the bone hand broke the chain and attacked Ihaan, he intended to forcibly un-summon it first.

Roll, roll, roll—

“……”

“……”

The new bone hand Ihaan summoned prostrated itself even more vigorously than the one Professor Mortum had summoned.

The bone summon hanging from Ihaan’s belt shook its body in jealousy.

• * *

“You have too much mana.”

The real Professor Mortum explained calmly.

Now that he thought about it, there were signs of this even back during curses.

He hadn’t guessed it was so serious—enough to make undead monsters cower and grovel.

Ihaan, like a patient given a terminal diagnosis, asked seriously,

“I see. Professor, is there any way to fix it?”

“Ahem. Why would you fix that? It’s a blessed talent!”

“??”

Ihaan was taken aback.

But…

It’s hard to even use magic, and even spirits run away from me!

“Ahem. If you have a talent like that, you don’t need to bother making friends with undead monsters. Just suppress them with force. That’s an excellent talent.”

It wasn’t as if black mages rolled around in graves for the fun of it.

They did it because they had to befriend undead monsters somehow.

But if you didn’t need to?

Even Professor Mortum thought subjugating the undead was a much higher level of control than befriending them.

Of course, it was just very difficult.

“But Professor, while it’s one thing to subdue the undead, I can’t do that with spirits.”

Unless you befriended spirits, they wouldn’t even answer your call—what good was it to just scare them?

Professor Mortum replied kindly to Ihaan’s question.

“Ahem. There’s a great method.”

“What is it?”

“Just give up on spirit summoning.”

“……”

Ihaan thanked the desk.

His hand was under the desk, so his clenched fist went unnoticed.

But Professor Mortum was serious.

“Ahem. Why try to graze on grass when you have such fine teeth and claws? What suits you best is black magic. I don’t usually say this, but… you have genius-level talent for black magic.”

“…I see.”

“?!”

This time, it was Professor Mortum who was flustered by Ihaan’s deadpan response.

It was truly a rare and precious compliment, but the student was too unfazed.

Maybe because he was from the Wardanaz family, but the reaction was unlike what he’d expected.

‘The days are gone when you’d be fooled by professors’ praise.’

Originally, professors would compliment you whenever needed. Especially in unpopular fields, you had to be extra careful.

If you were easily swayed by a compliment, your life could go sideways.

Ihaan changed the subject.

“But professor, because of the amount of mana, it’s hard to cast magic.”

“You’ll get used to it. Ahem. I’ll help you practice.”

‘Damn, professors are really no help.’

They just wanted to keep students for themselves.

Can professors really do th…

…then again, that’s how professors have always been.

“That’s… Thank you very much.”

After fixing his expression, Ihaan nodded.

Of course, he hadn’t decided to specialize in black magic yet, but just in case all other magics failed and only black magic was left, he had to prepare.

In that case, it wouldn’t do to look bad in front of Professor Mortum.

With teacher and student smiling at each other, inwardly thinking very different things—

“You bastard, I’ll destroy you!”

With his swollen cheek, Gainando grabbed his wand and struck the bone hand.

Rafadiel, not faring much better, drew his practice sword and beat the bone hand as well.

The only one faring well was Imirgg.

He pinned the bone hand that came at him with brute strength and nervously looked for what to do next.

Noticing Ihaan’s exasperation, Professor Mortum spoke.

“Ahem. Just because you have talent for black magic doesn’t mean you’ll quickly befriend the undead. That’s not a good method. It’s a classic mistake young black mages make.”

“But if you keep beating them like that, wouldn’t the undead monsters at least respect the summoner?”

Professor Mortum looked at Ihaan as if he was crazy.

Ihaan felt wrongly accused.

‘Didn’t you say subjugation was a good method…?’

• * *

After the extra class, Gainando grumbled as he dabbed ointment from Professor Mortum onto his cheek.

“They’re undead monsters with no sense of nobility… Ihaan.”

“?”

“Let’s hurry and go to the summoning magic class. Anything’s got to be better than undead monsters.”

“……”

Would it, though?

‘Except for spirits, demons are probably even more ferocious than undead monsters, and monsters themselves must be wild by nature.’

While Ihaan was thinking this, Rafadiel shouted with his swollen face.

“You evil black mage! I’ll get you for this. I’ll be watching you!”

“Gral. I think there’s a misunderstanding between us. Must we really fight as fellow students taking the black magic course?”

“You bastard! You hit my cheek earlier!”

“That was an accident.”

While the rest were struggling to get along with the undead monsters, Ihaan, at Professor Mortum’s instruction, tested just how far his commands could go with them.

After even succeeding at the difficult command of making the undead monster self-destruct, Professor Mortum clapped in admiration.

But there were mistakes, too.

Due to a slip-up with commands, the bone hand he’d summoned had smacked Rafadiel’s cheek while Rafadiel muttered “evil black mage.”

It was an unfortunate mistake.

“Gral. Why don’t you trust me…”

“Ihaan. He already left.”

“That’s a shame.”

Gainando looked at Ihaan with fearful eyes.

…Is this why undead follow him so well?!

“Imirgg, see you next class.”

“Y-yeah. Ihaan. But not outside…”

Ihaan was slightly hurt but didn’t show it.

• * *

Spirit Hall.

The Spirit Hall, Professor Millay’s workshop and tower, had a completely different atmosphere from the Hall of Dark Shadows.

‘Feels like a library.’

The academy’s actual library evoked more the chaos of an abandoned company warehouse than a library, but Spirit Hall was more like a library than any library.

The path to the tower was neatly paved with bricks, and nearby were a pond and walking trail for strolls.

‘The Hall of Dark Shadows had a pond too.’

Though it was a purple pond bubbling with poison…

Gainando knocked cautiously at the door to Spirit Hall, then turned to Ihaan.

“Wait a second. What should we say?”

“The truth.”

“Saying we were late because we were slapped by undead…?”

“…I’ll do the talking. Professor Millay! Sorry we’re late. Another professor had booked us first…”

“If you had a prior appointment, it can’t be helped. No need to apologize.”

Professor Millay replied as she opened the tower door.

Walking out to the first floor to greet the late first-years, she raised her eyebrows when she saw Ihaan.

It was as if she was surprised that Ihaan had come.

‘…What is this?’

Ihaan suddenly felt uneasy.

Surely Professor Mortum hadn’t gone around telling the other professors, “This one’s my student now, so don’t mind him,” or something, right?