Episode 424
Episode 424
-What are you doing?
Phil desperately scribbled and sent the message.
But the junior, deep in concentration, didn't notice the writing.
"Hmm."
Watching the junior continuously adjust their direction while using Divination Magic, Phil grew terrified.
'Does that kid have no fear?'
Misusing Divination Magic could make someone cough up blood and collapse, yet here they were, acting so recklessly.
"Done."
Professor Alcathis strode over.
After glancing at what Lee Han had extracted, he nodded in approval.
"Well done. Take a short break."
"Thank you."
"Um, Professor."
Unable to hold back, Phil raised his hand. Alcathis shot his student a look that warned against wasting his time with nonsense.
"Of course, success is what matters regardless of the means, but I'm worried about my junior."
"...Mind your own business. Your slime is still untouched."
Professor Alcathis gave Phil a look of utter disappointment.
In certain rare academic circles where talented individuals were scarce, seniors often fretted over new juniors.
That wasn't a good situation for either party. Fundamentally, magic was something one had to master on their own.
"I can handle my slime right away! More importantly, my junior is using an extremely dangerous method for healing!"
Surprisingly, Phil didn't back down.
The other students murmured, casting worried glances at the scene.
'Is he about to draw his sword?'
"I must've mentioned... If it were truly dangerous, they would've failed on their own. Why waste time nagging a junior who succeeded just fine..."
"Even so, using Divination Magic to extract something like that is absurd!"
"...Divination Magic?"
"Yes!"
Professor Alcathis frowned and turned to Lee Han.
Then he asked,
"You extracted it using Divination Magic?"
"Uh... I used it as a supplementary tool."
"Why?"
"...No other method came to mind?"
"......"
Professor Alcathis fell into deep silence. Then he turned to the seniors and asked,
"Did I not teach you all Disease Detection or Vitality Assessment?"
"No."
"You didn't teach us."
The seniors answered in unison. The dark elf professor ruffled his hair and muttered,
"I forgot..."
"......"
"......"
Not just the seniors, but even Lee Han stared at the professor in disbelief.
How could he forget something like that?
"It's a second-year spell, so I must've slipped up. Next time something like this happens, speak up. Divination Magic isn't something you should repeatedly use for this purpose."
Lee Han glared at the professor. A new line of text appeared beside him.
-Just endure it. It's the professor.
After the lecture ended, Lee Han resolved to avoid Professor Alcathis as much as possible until the next class.
Judging by what the professor had said during the lecture (Phil, keep your nights free this week. We've got incoming patients), Lee Han suspected he might get dragged along if luck wasn't on his side.
But even that resolution proved futile when Lee Han had to urgently call out to Professor Alcathis as he passed by.
The basilisk had started feeling unwell.
After the lecture, Lee Han had returned to the cabin to feed the basilisk and tend to its eggs as usual.
But suddenly, as if the eggs had eaten something wrong, they began trembling violently before rolling around the cabin.
Caught off guard by the unexpected situation, Lee Han rushed out in a panic to seek help.
Spotting Professor Alcathis in the distance, Lee Han didn't hesitate to call out to him.
"Professor! Professor!"
"Don't shout..."
Already suffering from insomnia, exhaustion, and a pounding headache, Professor Alcathis wasn't fond of students yelling at him.
"What is it? Why are you calling me?"
"I need your help right away!"
"I have medicine to prepare right now..."
Pulling out his pocket watch to check the time, Professor Alcathis raised an eyebrow.
"Know that if this isn't serious, you'll be paying with your body. What's the matter?"
"The basilisk is sick!"
"...It does seem serious after all."
Professor Alcasith revised his assessment of the student.
This boy from the Wardanaz family truly never spoke empty words.
"How on earth did you get a basilisk—"
"It's a long story."
"Then don't tell it."
"Thank you."
Lee Han was grateful for Professor Alcasith's consideration. Though the professor found his gratitude absurd, he let it slide out of sheer annoyance.
"Ah. You'll need to come this way."
"......"
Seeing that illusion magic had even been laid down to prevent any potential outsiders from approaching, Professor Alcasith grew curious about who could have ordered such measures.
The headmaster, perhaps?
"The path is narrow."
"Professor Verdus made it according to his own standards..."
Lee Han brushed off the leaves clinging to his hair and clothes. Professor Alcasith did the same.
Dark elves were generally a slender race, and Professor Alcasith, being female, was on the thinner side even among them—but even accounting for that, she couldn't help but be larger than Professor Verdus.
Lee Han stole a glance at the professor. Though he'd made the request in haste, getting dirt on the professor wouldn't end well for him.
If dirt got on the professor, the likelihood of the student ending up buried beneath it increased dramatically.
"Hurry up, will you? If I can't finish preparing the medicine because of you, will you take responsibility?"
"I'm going right now!"
Lee Han quickly opened the cottage door.
Professor Alcasith's expression stiffened when she saw the rolling basilisk egg. She'd heard about it, but seeing it in person was another matter entirely.
"You really were raising one... And you've raised it quite well, at that."
"Many professors helped. Professor Lightning Step and Professor Lezhi..."
Lee Han unconsciously left out Professor Verdus. Professor Alcasith didn't bother asking again.
"If Professor Lightning Step helped, you could've asked him instead, couldn't you?"
"......"
Lee Han inwardly winced.
Now that he thought about it, that would've been the safer option.
The basilisk had fallen ill so suddenly that he'd called the first professor he saw—but Professor Alcasith was far from the friendliest choice.
'I should've stayed calm no matter the situation.'
Lee Han took another lesson to heart.
"I thought consulting you on matters of illness would be the most accurate approach."
"How kind of you to think so."
Surprisingly, Professor Alcasith accepted the student's praise with grace.
If one excluded wasting time unnecessarily, making mistakes when using healing magic, and being utterly unhelpful when patients needed saving—Professor Alcasith might actually have been a kind and pleasant person to deal with.
'Hm. Now that I think about it, that's completely meaningless.'
Lee Han shook his head internally.
By that logic, there wasn't a single professor who wasn't kind. Even Professor Voladi was friendly if you ignored the beatings.
"It's Growth Fever. The basilisk is growing too quickly, so its temperature is spiking..."
"I don't recall reading about this symptom—I must've missed it."
"No... Basilisks aren't supposed to get Growth Fever in the first place."
Professor Alcasith sounded intrigued.
Though she wasn't so erudite as to know every rare creature in the Empire, she was quite familiar with useful monsters like basilisks.
Given how slowly they grew and how much mana and food they required, Growth Fever wasn't a normal symptom for them.
Among monsters, those that suffered from illnesses like Growth Fever were usually the ones that grew at an abnormally rapid pace...
"Oh dear. Did I feed it too much?"
Lee Han considered whether he should start skimming some of its food to sell on the Black Market.
The basilisk egg next to him wobbled from side to side and made noises, but Lee Han ignored it.
"If feeding could induce Growth Fever, the empire's ranch owners would be weeping with joy. There must be another factor at play. Look into it."
Lee Han scanned the inside of the hut while questioning various suspicious factors one by one.
Could it be a ventilation issue? Or perhaps a problem with the mana flow where the hut was placed? Or maybe the basilisk was stressed because of Professor Verdus...
Professor Alcasith, who had been listening quietly, stared intently at the basilisk egg.
Even while still inside the egg, the way it kept rolling toward Lee Han and clinging to him was anything but ordinary.
While it was true that monsters often imprinted on the first person they saw after hatching as their master, seeing one chase after its owner even before hatching was an uncommon phenomenon.
It might have been because he took exceptionally good care of it, but more likely...
"You're the cause."
"Excuse me?"
"That basilisk has been continuously sucking your mana dry. Even now... Wait. You didn't notice? Really?"
Every time the basilisk egg clung to Lee Han, it greedily absorbed his mana in long, steady draughts—yet the boy himself hadn't noticed.
How was that possible?
"Was it doing that to me?!"
With a deeply betrayed expression, Lee Han pushed the egg away. The egg clattered noisily, trying to cling to him again, but he firmly held it back.
"You didn't feel your mana being drained?"
"No."
The student answered instantly, without even a second of hesitation. Professor Alcasith's eyebrow twitched.
"...I see."
What could he do if the boy said he hadn't noticed?
As absurd as it was, the professor accepted it.
"I'll prepare a fever-reducing potion for the basilisk to consume. Give it one drop per day. Until it recovers, it's best not to allow anyone else near it. Basilisks are more sensitive monsters than you'd think. And stop indulging it."
"I wasn't indulging—"
Lee Han felt wronged, but the professor wasn't listening.
After swiftly finishing the potion, Professor Alcasith studied Lee Han with a look reminiscent of a slaver at a slave market assessing how much work a new purchase could handle.
Lee Han quickly spoke up.
"I'm always deeply grateful for your kindness, Professor. However, I have assignments to complete, and this week is also—"
"Don't worry, I'm not assigning you anything."
Professor Alcasith stood up, his voice slightly hoarse as he spoke.
"We are short on hands, that's true. But... the students do have a point. No matter how urgent things are, if we keep pushing first-years into actual fieldwork, accidents might..."
Mid-sentence, the professor watched as the basilisk egg once again clung to Lee Han and noisily sucked his mana.
He decided to pretend he hadn't seen it. Witnessing that scene might shake his resolve.
"...happen. Just keeping up with lectures is enough for now. In another year or two, you'll grow into a decent healing mage."
Despite his exhaustion, the dark elf professor's eyes briefly flickered with expectation for his student.
Under normal circumstances, this rare display of sincerity from the usually reserved professor should have moved Lee Han—but it didn't.
Lee Han wasn't the type to be easily swayed like other healing magic seniors.
'It's a touching sentiment, but if you think about it, he's basically saying, "Let's suffer and die together."'
Of course, Lee Han didn't voice his inner thoughts. He nodded deeply, expressing profound gratitude.
"Thank you for understanding. I'll study healing magic diligently so I can pull my weight as soon as possible."
"See that you do."
Professor Alcasith gave a faint chuckle and moved to open the door.
Just then, Professor Verdus arrived outside with rapid footsteps and immediately called for Lee Han.
"You in there?! I'm making an artifact right now and need mana! Come out! Quick! Quick! Quick!"
"......"
Professor Alcasith alternated between staring at the door and Lee Han with a bewildered expression.
...Were the other professors just ordering him around like this?