Episode 487
Episode 487
Lee Han turned serious for the first time in a while.
Priest Siana, still oblivious to what was strange about the situation, blinked her serpentine vertical pupils and tilted her head.
"Was that not a threat?"
"How could I possibly threaten a professor..."
Suddenly, Lee Han recalled what he had said earlier: 'If word about the Sea Serpent traces reaches Professor Voladi's ears, forget about the request—the negotiations will turn into a complete mess.'
'That wasn't a threat. It was more like a desperate plea.'
Having swiftly rationalized it, Lee Han explained the situation.
"The matter with persuading the other guilds was resolved quickly."
"How?"
"...Because I helped?"
"......"
Priest Siana's eyes silently conveyed, 'That seems even less plausible than you threatening someone...'
Lee Han caught the suspicious glint in her gaze and asked back.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Perhaps you're mistaken?"
"Just get ready to leave. Everyone, stop what you're doing and let's go."
At Lee Han's words, the Princess, who had been retrieving a new balance scale from the corner, nodded brightly.
"Huh? You didn't leave?"
Lee Han asked Yornell in surprise. Yornell, in turn, looked baffled by his reaction.
"Did you think I had left?"
"Huh? Yeah."
"...Why?"
The Princess was one of the top students among her peers.
Someone like her wouldn't just skip out on classes without permission.
"Oh, because there's a lot of snacks being sold outside?"
"......"
Yornell was aghast.
"Lee Han, do you perhaps think of Her Highness the same way as Gainando..."
Yornell couldn't finish the question.
By the time he posed it, the rest of their friends had already gathered.
"Shall we head out, then? Is everyone here?"
"Wait. Wardanaz. Shouldn't we first check where the others who left earlier are before setting off?"
Ashan raised his hand and asked.
Lee Han shot him a look as if to say, 'What nonsense are you spouting?'
"We should have fun first and then look for the ones who left early. We don't have time to waste."
"Huh?"
As Ashan floundered in confusion, the other students chimed in.
"That makes sense."
"I think so too."
"Me too..."
"R-really?"
Faced with his friends' resolute agreement, Ashan felt his common sense waver slightly.
Ratford pondered seriously before speaking up.
"I think we might need to relocate some wallets at least once..."
"No, no!"
"If we get caught, we're done for!"
His friends frantically stopped Ratford from attempting pickpocketing.
Sure, they were short on silver coins, but that didn't mean they could resort to theft—especially not by making their friend do it.
"We can make do with what little we have."
"But what if the professor gets angry?"
"It's fine. Even if he does, he won't be able to do much about it."
"But what if Wardanaz gets angry?"
"......"
"...You bastard, why are you bringing up such ominous talk while we're trying to have fun?"
The White Tiger Tower students who had brought it up were collectively scolded by their friends.
"Then let's all think of ways to earn money."
"That's a good idea. Whenever Wardanaz comes out, he always manages to make money somehow."
At Ratford's words, the students murmured among themselves.
"How, exactly? Did he threaten people with his staff?"
"I think I heard he took on requests..."
"During an outing? In that short time?"
"That's beyond us... Let's think of something else."
Rengid of the Black Turtle Tower proposed a more realistic idea.
"If we go around the shops, there might be places that need magic. When I helped out at the Chefs' Guild, they sometimes called for mages too. If we say we're from Einrogard, they'd probably accept us readily."
Given that most self-proclaimed mages swaggering around were shady and incompetent, nothing was as reliable a guarantee as being from Einrogard.
The problem was...
"So, Rengid. Are you saying we, who just came out of Einrogard, should go around the shops on the street and say, 'We're from Einrogard, please give us work'?"
When the students from the Blue Dragon Tower and the White Tiger Tower asked sharply, Rengid shrank back slightly.
"Uh... is that really the case?"
"No. Isn't it a great idea?"
"Let's hurry up and do it."
"......"
As the students from the Blue Dragon Tower and the White Tiger Tower rushed ahead, afraid of losing good spots, the Black Turtle Tower students whispered among themselves.
"Are those guys really from noble families?"
The grand avenue stretching from Isran City's famous water statue to the harbor was so noisy from the long-established shops and buildings that one couldn't even hear the person next to them.
The stalls connected to the storefronts were filled with seafood imported from the harbor and southern-style candies baked with sugar, while nearby, customers seated at café and teahouse tables basked in the sunlight while people-watching.
These shops were bright enough that even city kids frequented them, but not all stores were like that.
The alleys connected to taverns and inns were packed with everything from antique shops dealing in suspicious stolen goods to stores selling Artifacts of dubious functionality.
The atmosphere in these alleys was so gloomy that the few travelers who ventured in were but a small fraction of the bustling crowds.
"You came from Einrogard, so why are you doing this? Uh... well... it's to... improve our magical skills."
"Y-yes, exactly. Magical prowess is honed through the small actions of daily life..."
Faced with the shopkeepers' questions, the students scrambled to come up with excuses.
Fortunately, the shopkeepers were impressed.
"Wow...! Mages are truly amazing! To think they'd stoop to such menial tasks. Are you sure this small amount of silver is enough? I feel bad..."
"No, no. What matters to us is the training."
After successfully persuading the shopkeeper, Renjid turned to Batrek.
"Hey, you're quick-witted. How'd you come up with that?"
"I just repeated what the Wardanaz kid said."
"......"
In any case, the students who had secured spots worked diligently.
They cast flame-resistance spells inside ovens, repaired scrolls that could be fixed on the spot...
Clink!
"Thank you, Mage."
The shopkeeper bowed respectfully and handed over a pouch of silver coins.
The students accepted the pouch with dignity, then turned around and shouted.
"Money!!"
"With this, we don't need Einrogard! We don't have to go back! Let's start a new school!"
"Great idea!!"
"...???"
Intoxicated by the allure of silver, the students spouted nonsense as they ran off.
"Gasp...!"
"What? What's wrong?"
"Look, it's Wardanaz! Next to the redhead!"
"Gasp!"
The students let out strangled breaths.
They had spotted Lee Han and his friends walking toward them from a distance.
'They came to catch us!'
They had barely earned this silver—there was no way they could let it end here.
Gritting their teeth, the students crouched low.
"Uh... shouldn't we just call out to Lord Wardanaz and—"
"Hey! Shut Ratford's mouth!"
"Mmph! Mmph mmph!"
"The other way! The other way!"
The friends hastily fled. Thanks to the dense crowd, escaping wasn't too difficult.
"We made it...!"
"We can't get caught yet! We need to have more fun!"
"Right. Even if we're from different towers, this time we unite."
'Is this really worth being so dramatic about?'
Ratford watched his friends making solemn vows with puzzled eyes.
They only acted like this during exams at school...
"You must be mages, I presume."
"!"
The students startled at the voice coming from deep within the alley.
A long robe covered the figure entirely, and the voice from within was so strange that neither race nor gender could be discerned.
Before the seated stranger was a paulownia wood table, carved with unfamiliar, peculiar patterns.
"Would you care to glimpse the future?"
"......"
"A Primitive Magic user?"
"Probably a fraud. What else?"
In the empire's borderlands, there still existed peculiar magics whose principles remained unexplained—or even unknown—by the imperial magical system.
The imperial magical community referred to such magics as Primitive Magic.
But in a place like this, someone offering to tell fortunes was far more likely to be a simple charlatan than a genuine practitioner of primitive divination magic.
"Kuhuhu... I understand your skepticism. Then how about this? I won't take any money. And if I fail to predict correctly? I'll give you a silver coin instead."
"Oh...!"
If it had been Lee Han, he would have warned, 'In this world, people who offer things for free are even more suspicious,' but the students were currently parched with greed for silver coins.
Batrek stepped forward first and spoke.
"Let's try it. Which noble house do I come from?"
"No need to be so hasty. Here. Place your hand on this table."
The mage, Ianov, flashed a glint in his eyes from within his robe.
This seemingly ordinary wooden table was actually an extraordinary artifact enchanted with eight spells.
Of course, just because it had eight spells didn't mean the artifact was powerful or valuable.
Surprisingly, despite having eight spells layered upon it, the artifact had no actual effect.
It was merely an intricate overlapping of eight spells designed to make it appear as if no magic had been cast at all.
One might wonder, 'With such skill, why waste it on such a trivial trick?' But truly exceptional mages were different like that.
At the level of an ordinarily outstanding mage, placing a hand on the table would reveal nothing unusual...
But for a mage with talent so extraordinary it stood out even in the Empire, they would first be astonished to sense magic on the table, and then, despite that, be doubly amazed by the sheer precision that left no trace detectable.
Indeed.
This table was an artifact created by Antagondals.
'To distinguish jade from stone with just a single, simple artifact...'
Ianov marveled once again at the Archmage's capabilities.
For a mage of exceptional talent, the moment they recognized this artifact, their curiosity would become unstoppable.
Who had crafted this artifact?
Why had they conceived of such a thing?
What else did the mage who made this know?
Such curiosity was like an inevitable curse that came with innate talent—impossible to resist.
"I've placed it."
"All of you have?"
"Yes. I have. So?"
Ianov made a disappointed expression beneath his robe.
The dull dwarf in front of him clearly had no idea what was going on.
Ianov decided to toss him a silver coin and send him on his way.
"You... come from a knightly house."
"Gasp! How did you—?!"
"......"
"Just a little more! Try guessing a bit more! Do I have any talent for magic?"
"......"
Ianov wanted to quickly move on to the other students, but Batrek stubbornly refused to leave, which was truly irritating.
"Right now, I'm studying alchemy, but there are so many outstanding students in the field that I'm struggling. Plus, I'm from a knightly house, you know? I wonder if alchemy is really my path, but my family does have a deep history with it, so it feels wrong to abandon it... It's complicated."
"...Yes... But you see, the future isn't something that can be predicted with perfect accuracy, Honored Mage..."
Ianov's vague response only seemed to deepen Batrek's trust.
After all, wasn't it usually the frauds who claimed they could predict the unpredictable?
But Ianov was the opposite...
"An omen! At least read me an omen! What should I do?"
'Why does this talentless brat keep pestering me?'
Suppressing his urge to curse, Ianov carelessly threw out another answer.
"...I see a dragon, a noble, and an archmage. Follow this omen."
"...Gasp. The Wardanaz?"
"Wait, like the Wardanaz???"
The students gasped and murmured in shock.
When it came to nobles and archmages, only the Wardanaz came to mind.
And with a dragon-like abundance of mana...
"Follow the Wardanaz?"
"It does sound like it'd help in the future..."
"But you'd get beaten up."
"Wait, were you guys there?"
At the sound of a familiar voice, the students shrieked in terror.
Standing at the alley's entrance were Lee Han and his friends, each holding a stick of cotton candy.
"W-Wardanaz...! P-please, mercy! Have mercy!"
'What the hell is wrong with these kids?'
Ianov was utterly bewildered.
From the looks of it, they were fellow students, yet they trembled like escaped criminals facing an executioner.