Episode 581
Episode 581
Whoooosh—
As the wind grew fiercer and the blizzard raged, their field of vision narrowed.
"Sharkan. I need your help."
Lee Han summoned his emerald panther to scout the path ahead.
With the familiar landmarks now buried under snow, they had to proceed with extra caution.
The only saving grace was that Lee Han and his friends were already bundled up in heavy winter gear.
"Thanks to Professor Garcia."
"Didn't we make these during Professor Verdus's lecture?"
At Durgyu's question, Lee Han pretended not to hear and averted his gaze.
Just then, Sharkan returned. The panther nodded, signaling that the path ahead was clear.
"Wait. We still have a long way to go, and we can't keep carrying them forever."
"Wardanaz. Even if it's a hassle, we can't just toss them off the cliff."
Giselle spoke up, half-teasing, half-testing Lee Han.
But Lee Han and Durgyu reacted differently than she expected.
"No..."
"That's a bit..."
"..."
"It was a joke."
"O-Oh, right."
"Y-Yeah, just a joke. I knew that."
"Hey. Both of you, shut up."
Giselle vowed never to joke with these two again.
"So, Lee Han? Got any bright ideas?"
"Arise, warriors of bone."
Lee Han swung his staff and chanted. Three Skeleton Warriors sluggishly hoisted the unconscious knights onto their backs.
"This should do."
"Yeah. But, Lee Han."
"What?"
"What if these knights wake up?"
"..."
"Want me to blindfold them too?"
Not satisfied with just tying them up, Lee Han also covered the knights' eyes with blindfolds.
Only then did he look relieved.
"That should do it."
"......"
"......"
Giselle and Durgyu wore complicated expressions as they watched.
The sight of knights being knocked out, tightly bound, and carried by skeletons was... unsettling.
'He looks genuinely evil.'
'Like a black mage straight out of the old tales.'
"Why are you staring like that?"
"W-We were just impressed by your skeleton-handling skills."
"What's so impressive about this?"
Lee Han scratched his head, slightly embarrassed by Durgyu's praise.
"Ugh..."
Labda groaned as he stirred awake.
He couldn't quite remember what had happened.
He'd been sitting in the carriage, and then—a sharp pain in his gut...
"Gah!"
Labda and the other knights opened their eyes.
They were inside an unfamiliar cabin.
Outside, the howling wind was fierce, but a roughly built fireplace blazed warmly, driving away the chill...
The pantry was stocked with canned mutton, a few eggs, peas, marmalade, sugar, salt, tea leaves, coffee grounds, and more.
'Where... are we?'
"You're awake!"
Lee Han, who had been stirring a pot with a ladle, rushed over when he saw the knights stirring.
"We were worried. You all collapsed!"
"W-What happened, Wardanaz? Where are we?"
Lee Han hesitated, exchanging a glance with Giselle.
"You don't remember? The carriage was attacked! A monster ambushed us!"
"R-Really?"
"Yeah. We barely managed to escape with you."
Lee Han and Giselle launched into an elaborate explanation—how a vicious, grotesque mountain monster had attacked the carriage and tried to devour the knights.
Durgyu silently kept his mouth shut and chopped onions.
No way could he spin a tale like that.
"Th... Thank you. This is embarrassing. We were supposed to protect you, not the other way around."
"Couldn't be helped. It was a surprise attack. The mountains are dangerous."
"Were there giants too? I heard rumors about giants in these parts."
"..."
"Well... maybe there was a giant too..."
Lee Han happily escalated the monster threat level to whatever the knights wanted to believe.
If it made them feel better, why not?
"So, where is this place?"
"Probably a hunter's cabin."
"There are hunters here too?!"
'Seems like they bought it.'
Lee Han exchanged meaningful looks with his friends.
Fortunately, we managed to overcome the biggest hurdle.
'We just need to stay here for one day!'
The apprentice knights exchanged opinions among themselves.
"Um. Are we really allowed to use a place like this?"
"We have no choice. Since things have turned out this way, we should just prepare to face the monsters. The professor did say he'd come find us."
"?"
Lee Han froze.
"What exactly did the professor say?"
"Huh? He said there are monsters in the mountain range, so we should be fully prepared to fight."
"Didn't he just say he'd come find us?"
"Ah. Right. He said the monsters would come find us. But isn't that just a given if we enter a dangerous area?"
"......"
Of course, Labda wasn't entirely wrong.
In a dangerous area, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say monsters would come looking for you.
But Lee Han, trained in Einrogard, sensed a different meaning behind those words.
'This is strange...?'
Thud thud thud!
At that moment, someone knocked on the cabin door. Durgyu lifted the wooden plank covering the window to check outside.
"!"
Surprisingly, it was other White Tiger Tower students.
Half-buried in snow and shivering violently, the White Tiger Tower students pounded on the door and shouted.
"H-Help us!"
"O-Open the door! We're freezing to death!"
"Batrek? Kltran?! How did you guys...?!"
"W-We were ambushed! C-Cold... Open the door!"
Durgyu hurriedly opened the door.
The White Tiger Tower students outside immediately tried to rush inside.
"Paralyze!"
Lee Han swung his staff and unleashed a paralyzing curse.
As one of the fastest-casting and widest-range curses in magic, the paralyzing curse struck the White Tiger Tower students perfectly.
"Ghk... Ugh!"
"!?"
Durgyu turned to Lee Han in shock, completely baffled as to why he had cast the spell.
Squelch—
The bodies of the White Tiger Tower students collapsed like slime, then writhed and transformed into grotesque monsters.
"Shape-shifters!"
Giselle shouted in horror.
Shape-shifter-type monsters possessed the formidable ability to freely alter their forms.
The most notorious example was the doppelgänger, but it wasn't the only one with such abilities.
The Shifting Slime before them was also one of the most infamous shape-shifter monsters.
And a highly advanced one at that!
"Be careful, don't let them infiltrate! If a shape-shifter slips into our ranks, things will get messy!"
Giselle drew her twin swords and created distance. If that slime got inside and used its transformations, the situation would become extremely troublesome.
The slime, seemingly panicked, rapidly shifted forms—mimicking the White Tiger Tower students a few times before locking eyes with Lee Han and transforming into him.
"Don't attack! I'm your friend!"
"Sure!"
Giselle cheerfully stabbed her sword into the face of the slime that had taken Lee Han's form. It was the most beautiful and clean strike she had ever executed.
Squelch!
Between the paralyzing curse and the magically enhanced sword strike, the slime seemed to take significant damage. It frantically retreated outside the cabin and threw itself into the piled-up snow.
'If we let it escape, it'll be a headache!'
"Sharkan. Go!"
The leopard snarled and pounced. With his keen sense of smell, Sharkan had a clear advantage against shape-shifter monsters.
Not stopping there, Lee Han summoned Skeleton Warriors and positioned them at the door—just in case of any unexpected intrusions.
Crunch!
Sharkan precisely bit down on the ankle of the Shifting Slime as it tried to burrow into the snow.
The slime abandoned its ankle and attempted another transformation. With the snow piled so high, pinning it down wasn't easy.
"Snow, turn to sand!"
Lee Han hastily chanted the spell.
He had practiced converting sand to rock and rock to sand many times, but turning snow into sand was something he'd never tried before.
Lee Han quickly recalled the properties of snow and sand, completing the spell on the spot.
The piled-up snow scattered and transformed into sand.
'Got it!'
"Lightning Spear!"
Lee Han summoned lightning onto his staff, solidifying its form. Thanks to Professor Voladi's harsh training, he could now cast the spell without lengthy incantations.
Zzzzt—CRACK!
The spear of lightning pierced the slime precisely, causing it to lose cohesion and melt away.
Fundamentally, slimes were simple-structured monsters—once they took enough damage, their cores couldn't withstand it, and they collapsed like this.
In an ordinary situation, there would be no need to panic or tense up like this.
But this was no ordinary situation!
"...Truly, you've become a full-fledged Einrogard professor!"
Lee Han sighed.
Who else could have obtained this Shifting Slime?
It was obvious that Professor Ingoldel had requested it from the other professors. Given how rare these slimes were, he couldn't have acquired one without their help.
'Fighting that magically enhanced bull was better than this.'
Lee Han could now guess the sinister scheme Professor Ingoldel had hidden within the final exam.
Scatter the students across the mountain range, then release pre-trained Shifting Slimes to attack them.
Students who thought this was just a winter survival test would let their guard down around slimes disguised as friends—only to suffer dearly.
"Th-That's insane."
Durgyu still looked utterly shaken.
"It spoke exactly like Batrek! How did it mimic him so perfectly?"
"Probably trained in secret by the professor. He must've had them observe us when we weren't looking."
Having learned about Shifting Slimes from Professor Lightning-Step, Lee Han had some knowledge on the matter.
Slimes were primitive clusters incapable of higher thought.
They didn't think intelligently—they simply mimicked what they saw.
Durgyu was horrified.
"They went that far?!"
"I was shocked too. But if it's an Einrogard professor, it's entirely possible."
Lee Han cleared away the slime's remains.
Those remains felt like the last fragments of trust he had left for Professor Ingoldel.
'From now on, I'll consider Professor Ingoldel a true Einrogard professor through and through.'
While Lee Han was indulging in this very rude thought, Labda let out a genuine sigh of admiration.
"All of you... you're truly amazing. We came here to help, but now I just feel embarrassed."
"Haha, don't mention it."
Lee Han, seeing the warm atmosphere, felt slightly grateful to the Shifting Slime.
If Labda had asked, "Why does my head hurt like I drank a sleeping potion?" it would've been annoying—but thanks to the slime, the issue was smoothly brushed aside.
"Wardanaz. I was really impressed you recognized it was a slime right away."
"Right. It was barely visible, yet you noticed the difference."
"Being close friends, I naturally sensed something off."
Durgyu was deeply moved by Lee Han's words.
'And here I couldn't even tell!'
He resolved once more to pay closer attention to his friends from now on.
'A Shifting Slime, huh?'
Lee Han was inwardly astonished as well.
He had assumed it was just other White Tiger Tower students coming to interfere—he never expected it to be a monster outright.
Einrogard truly never allowed for complacency.
'From now on, I'll have to attack more aggressively.'
"East slope."
Giselle, who had been observing outside instead of listening to the conversation, spoke with a grave expression.
"Approaching from this direction. More than ten."
"...!"
Lee Han opened the cabin door and looked down the slope.
To his shock, over ten students and apprentice knights were heading their way.
"Let's stop them from getting close."
"Agreed."
The two were in perfect agreement.
They didn't know why such a large group was coming, but the cabin couldn't hold them all, and handling the aftermath would be a nightmare.
And if there were Shifting Slimes mixed in among them...
"......"
"......"
But as the group drew nearer, Lee Han and Giselle's expressions hardened.
Because within that crowd—were Lee Han, Giselle, and Durgyu.
The fake Lee Han pointed at the real one and shouted.
"There they are—the imposters!"
"Are you kidding me?!"
Lee Han was stunned.
The slimes' intelligence should've only been at the level of observing and mimicking him—so how were they pulling off incitement now?!