Episode 526
Episode 526
"Are We Really Being Attacked??"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Gainando."
Professor Garcia didn't take the bait despite Gainando's question.
"However, at Einrogard, when the seasons grow colder, undead attacks do tend to increase a bit. Everyone should stay vigilant."
"Huh? I've never heard that before?"
"Hey. Shut up."
Gainando's friends quickly covered his mouth.
Professor Garcia was giving them dedicated advice—it wouldn't do any good to interrupt.
"Mmph—you guys don't even know Black Magic... mmph!"
'That actually makes sense.'
Lee Han fell into thought after hearing Professor Garcia's words.
Given the Skeleton Principal's personality, as the year drew to a close, he was likely growing restless from not tormenting the students enough and would probably become more active.
Professor Garcia's words were probably a metaphorical way of saying that.
"...And it's not just undead—sometimes other types attack too, so don't just focus on undead."
"......"
"......"
One White Tiger Tower student, who had been chewing on a quill, was so shocked that he dropped it.
What in the...?!
* * *
"Gainando. Help us."
"Yeah. Summon some undead, quick."
"No way, you bastards! My Skeleton's pissed off!"
Gainando snapped at his friends' complaints.
These ungrateful jerks had just forced him to dismiss the Skeleton Warrior he'd painstakingly summoned, and now they were whining for him to summon it again right away.
"Do you have any idea how finicky Summons are?! Didn't you learn anything in Summoning Magic class?!"
"Huh?"
"Wait, what?"
Gainando gave them a look that said, Now you get it?
"Undead are like that too?"
"...Itch uncontrollably! Itch uncontrollably!"
"Ah! This idiot cursed me!"
While Gainando chased another student around, Ashan marveled.
"Wow. So undead have emotions like Summons too."
"......"
Yoner silently pitied the students studying Black Magic.
Even Gainando, who had once bragged about Alchemy, seemed pitiful now.
"Of course they do. They're beings summoned through contracts from other planes."
"But Wardanaz uses undead like they're nothing?"
Ashan pointed at Lee Han, who was summoning Skeleton Warriors to help his friends understand.
-Now, as you can see with these Skeleton Warriors, their joint connections are weak here...
CRACK!
-Wh-whoa, Wardanaz. Is it okay to treat Summons like this?
-Huh? Oh. Don't worry about it.
"...Lee Han's just... special, so don't think too much about it. He's the weird one."
Yoner glared at Lee Han, who was making explanations harder, and changed the subject.
-Undead extermination, undead extermination... Huh? Wardanaz. That Skeleton Warrior just ignored everything and walked in?
-I forced it to. It's fine, don't worry about it.
-...
If you forced it, doesn't that mean it wasn't working? Shouldn't you recast the spell?
-No. It was working fine.
-???
After diligently teaching his friends how to deal with undead, Lee Han took a short breather and sat down.
Professor Garcia looked at him with an expression that seemed to say, I'm so proud I could die.
"You worked hard, Lee Han."
"Not at all, Professor. Compared to you, who taught us—"
"I don't know what you're talking about?"
Silence.
For a moment, silence hung between the two priests.
Professor Garcia glanced at the lake, then muttered in a voice neither too soft nor too loud.
"Boxes..."
"?"
"One should be careful... with the contents of food boxes someone might give you. An enemy could be hiding inside."
"......"
The professor's brightest student immediately grasped the hidden meaning behind those words and was horrified.
The Skeleton Principal often distributed snacks to students during important exam periods.
Of course, it wasn't ordinary snacks.
They were lethal snacks that would immediately induce sleep if consumed.
Normally, knowing that fact should have made them avoid touching it altogether, but the students, being Einrogard students, had adapted by confronting and overcoming such challenges.
They countered by either eating after exams, neutralizing the effects before consumption, or simply eating and sleeping like Gainando did.
In Einrogard, tasty snacks were an irresistible temptation.
It was clear the Skeleton Principal had set another trap, counting on that very weakness.
Once students received the boxes, they would place them in the break room storage...
'Do we really have to go this far?'
Lee Han expressed his gratitude as he replied.
"I'll keep that in mind. But how did you know all this, Professor...?"
"My friends fell for it before."
"......"
"I was fortunately unaffected even after eating it. Thanks for your concern."
"O-oh, I see."
Though he hadn't actually been worried, Lee Han pretended he was.
Silence fell again.
Lee Han quietly waited for Professor Garcia's next muttered warning.
"When the snow starts falling... you might need to be careful of the accumulating snowdrifts..."
"......"
"Professor. I'm thinking of raising chickens."
"Chickens?"
Professor Thunderstep, walking over while puffing on his pipe, looked puzzled.
Lee Han already had chickens.
Though, strictly speaking, they belonged to Professor Thunderstep, while managing the garden beside the cabin, Lee Han had earned the right to take a reasonable share—including the eggs they laid.
"More of them? Won't that be hard to manage?"
For any other student, it might not be a concern, but with Lee Han, adding more tasks seemed genuinely risky.
"I'll be careful. Anyway, I want to raise chickens, but these are Ghost Chickens."
Cough!
Professor Thunderstep choked on his smoke, coughing violently.
"You caught a Ghost Chicken? Those things are notoriously difficult—how?"
"Ah. Let's assume that's the case."
"What... So you haven't caught one yet."
The professor's face fell in disappointment.
If Lee Han had caught one, he could've asked to buy some eggs...
Then again, thinking about it, catching such a troublesome creature would've been astonishing.
"If that thing is docile, why do you think that is?"
"You'd be better off asking Madam..."
"Ah. Sorry. Something came up, and you were the first person I thought to ask. My bad..."
Lee Han spoke with an innocent face, feigning ignorance.
He was deliberately spreading out his questions to avoid raising suspicion by constantly consulting Professor Lightning Step.
Whether the excuse worked or not, Professor Thunderstep answered with a pleased expression.
"But I do know about Ghost Chickens. You say it's docile? That's unusual... If its eyes are dull, its energy weak, or its comb discolored, it's probably sick."
"And if not?"
"Hmm. Then it's scared—but they don't scare easily. They're vicious, foul-tempered things."
"I see... By the way, I've heard they're clever and cunning. If I do catch one, is there a way to keep it from escaping?"
"Simple but threatening traps. Since it's not the type to get caught, if it sees barriers, it'll realize escape is futile and give up."
"Brilliant. Thank you, Professor."
Lee Han stood up, carrying a basket filled with fresh vegetables and newly caught fish.
Professor Thunderstep, now too bothered to speak, didn't say another word. The fact that Lee Han hadn't disturbed the cabin's supplies was commendable enough.
"My, my. No wonder Professor Willow is so fond of him."
After Lee Han left, Professor Thunderstep muttered while glancing around.
The areas recently devastated by floods had recovered at an unbelievable speed.
To make garden and flowerbed plants grow this fast...
While there were cases of mages with spirit-blood ancestry or special constitutions excelling at plant growth, Lee Han's speed and power were exceptionally strong.
"I'd heard he received a blessing from a mountain spirit, but this..."
'This brat couldn't possibly be leaking mana everywhere, could he?'
Professor Thunderstep briefly entertained the thought but shook his head.
Not only was it impossible to affect the surroundings on this scale by leaking mana, but Lee Han himself would surely have noticed if he were leaking that much.
What concerned him more was the matter of the Ghost Chicken.
'Oddly specific, wasn't it?'
Professor Thunderstep wasn't oblivious.
He couldn't help but find it strange that Lee Han had asked such detailed questions.
'As I thought...'
After some deliberation, the professor reached a firm conclusion.
There was only one explanation.
That reckless student must have heard how rare the Ghost Chicken was and was now planning to hunt it down in the mountains.
"Tsk tsk tsk."
Professor Thunderstep shook his head vigorously.
Attempting to catch a Ghost Chicken directly was sheer madness.
Perhaps because he'd never experienced failure, that student truly had no fear.
Honestly, stealing one would be safer...
"See? You understand, right? It's very dangerous if you come out here."
Lee Han pointed out the traps he'd laid at the entrance, warning the Ghost Chicken.
To really drive the point home, he even summoned a Skeleton Warrior and tossed it into one of the traps.
Inside the hut, the Ghost Chicken—pecking at its feed—stared blankly at Lee Han with dull eyes.
Seeing that his opponent wasn't the least bit fazed, Lee Han grumbled.
"That thing's way too clever. I can't let my guard down for a second."
The baby basilisk tilted its tail in confusion.
The Ghost Chicken wasn't particularly fierce or radiating hostility.
It just seemed... tame?
Checking the time, Lee Han issued one last warning to the Ghost Chicken before turning to leave.
He had tower duty that evening.
After slipping past the hut's entry barrier, Lee Han dusted off his coat and was about to step away when—
Gasp.
"......"
Few things were as heart-stopping as running into a professor after sunset.
Faced with Professor Paselet Kraer of Divination Magic, Lee Han's mind raced.
'I have a legitimate reason to be out today. Panicking will only make me look suspicious.'
"Good evening, Professor."
"......"
Professor Paselet didn't respond.
For a moment, Lee Han wondered if the professor was angry, but he was just staring vacantly at the sky, paying him no mind.
'Ah. Must be magic-related matters.'
Lee Han knew well that Professor Paselet had multiple personalities and specialized in Divination Magic—the most esoteric and eccentric field of magic.
For someone like that, wandering outside at night, lost in his own world, wasn't strange at all.
Not when there were professors who hid undead in boxes or snowbanks just to torment students, or others who hurled steel balls around...
'Better not engage further and just move on.'
"Lord Wardanaz?"
Lee Han had to tense his body to stop himself from yelping in surprise.
Priestess Dijiling stood behind him, looking puzzled.
"Dijiling... Priest. What brings you here?"
"I heard Rock Plantain works well for exterminating Lightning Rats, so I came to gather some."
"Ah."
Remembering his tower duty, Lee Han replied,
"Wasted trip, then. I was planning to handle it myself."
"If you were going to gather them, why not do it together? Why alone...?"
"Ah, not gathering—I was going to wipe them out in one go. The books said they emerge during strong lightning, so I was going to cast lightning magic around their burrows and clear them all at once—"
"......"
Priestess Dijiling was aghast at the absurd method before noticing Professor Paselet and raising an eyebrow.
"Professor?"
"Huh? Oh, right. The professor. He seems deep in thought—better not disturb him."
Since they both studied Divination Magic, Dijiling quickly grasped what Lee Han meant.
"Understood. I'll head back then—"
Just then, Professor Paselet snapped out of his trance and opened his eyes.
Spotting Lee Han, the professor spoke.
"I reviewed the spell you sent me tomorrow, Headmaster."
"I think you've mistaken me for someone—"
"Truly, as expected of the one His Highness Gonadaltes chose as his successor."
"...You've seriously mistaken me for someone else!"
Lee Han instinctively shouted in firm denial.