Episode 765
Episode 765
"Didn't I say it'd take just one try?"
Gainando proudly looked around at his friends.
Similarly, Lafadell, who had also bet on a single attempt, didn't show it openly, but he had a subtly pleased expression.
'Heh. Got it right.'
"What kind of bet are you guys making now?"
"Ah, n-no. I was just answering when asked."
Lafadell hastily replied when another senior from the magic academy questioned him. He was afraid of being seen as shameless enough to make bets while a friend was preparing magic.
"What nonsense? You joined in on the bet too!"
"Shut up, you princeling. Have you no tact?!"
"Guys. Keep it down."
Lee Han glared at his friends.
He was currently focusing all his mental energy on casting a newly learned spell—what were they doing, chatting so much?
"Tch. It's Lafadell's fault."
"Whose fault is it really?!"
As the two bickered, Siana thought to herself:
'If this keeps up, maybe I won't have to pay the bet money...'
"Ah, no, I'm not criticizing the bet itself. It's just amazing how you predicted it. How did you know he'd succeed in one try?"
"Lord Wardanaz usually succeeds in three or four attempts."
"Y-yeah, that's right."
The friends testified as if it were obvious.
Agdung felt dizzy at the near-insane speed of magic.
'Three or four?'
Surely they weren't talking about a spell far below his level...
And come to think of it, for a second-year like Lee Han, there was no such thing as a "far below his level" spell. Things like "minus-circle" spells didn't exist.
Gainando drove the final nail into Agdung's confusion.
"Besides, Lee Han was recently kidnapped by the Headmaster's Crazy Doppelganger, right? That's why I bet on one try."
"Kidnapped by WHO?!"
Before anyone could answer, Siana asked in bewilderment.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Lee Han's magic abilities improve when he's in danger!"
Gainando confidently analyzed.
It was the kind of statement that would make Lee Han grab him by the collar, but Gainando firmly believed in this theory.
Their top-ranked friend had a habit of pulling out and completing spells he claimed not to have mastered yet whenever he was in a dangerous situation.
Since it hadn't been long since he escaped the Headmaster's Crazy Doppelganger, that level of focus should still be intact.
So Gainando boldly bet on one try.
'...Huh, that kinda makes sense?'
Yoner thought to herself.
Lee Han himself would be horrified, but to their friends, it was a strangely plausible theory.
After all, every time he returned from danger, he did display a razor-sharp focus, like a freshly honed blade.
"The rest of the area is done too. I told you to be quiet—why do you keep talking?"
While Agdung was too shocked to speak, Lee Han finished working on the remaining area and approached.
Gainando quickly threw another senior under the bus.
"Agdung senior started talking!!"
"...Shh. Shut up, you brat."
Lee Han subtly checked Agdung's reaction, embarrassed by his friend.
If you're going to throw someone under the bus, do it discreetly—what's the point of doing it blatantly in front of someone from another school?
"Senior Agdung, could you verify this?"
"Uh, uh... uh. Uhh. Uhhh."
Agdung replied in a half-dazed voice as he inspected the mushroom field.
Suddenly, the words of his juniors from Kallarogard came back to him.
—Senior, when you visit Einrogard, make sure to check out their Black Magic School.
—Exactly! We want to know if we're better or if the Einrogard Black Magic School students are superior!
When it came to black magic, Kallarogard students refused to back down, even against Einrogard students.
They were that serious.
If they were better, they'd take pride in it.
If the Einrogard students were better, they'd take it as motivation to improve...
'...'
'I should exclude Wardanaz.' Agdung decided that upon returning, he would share the story with his juniors—everyone except Lee Han.
If he recounted the experience exactly as it happened, he feared it would shatter his juniors' spirits, regardless of their drive for improvement.
Beaver
Penguin
Fox: "What damned bastard carelessly dumped contaminated waste?! The forest is being ruined!!!"
Iactus: "Accept it. These things happen often."
Beaver
Penguin
Fox: "Accept what, you bastard? Go to hell, you fifth-year trash!"
Iactus: "Wh—what?! Did you just say all that?!"
Beaver
Penguin
Fox: "Why don't you accept it? This kind of thing happens often too, doesn't it?"
Iactus: "Judging by how loud you're being, your magic skills must be as sharp as your tongues. Want to settle this?"
Beaver
Penguin
Fox: "Fine! Let's meet in the headmaster's office! Come to the headmaster's office! We'll be waiting!"
'The seniors' squabble is quite entertaining.' After finishing his work in the mushroom patch and retreating to the 7th-floor village, Lee Han watched The Watchers of Einrogard with an intrigued gaze.
When Priestess Siana had expressed interest in watching fights, he had worried, 'Has Priestess Siana become strange from spending a year at Einrogard?' But seeing this, he could somewhat understand.
It was interesting!
Beaver
Penguin
Fox: "These seniors care deeply for the forest but have terrible tempers."
By now, an alert had spread rapidly among the students gathered in the 7th floor of the main building.
The warning was that contaminated beings had surged from somewhere and were sweeping through the area.
In Einrogard, it was all too familiar for someone's mistake to trigger a butterfly effect, summoning a storm of chaos across the school's territory. The seniors weren't startled—they simply retreated deeper into the village—but that didn't mean they weren't furious.
Already, some seniors were roaring into the sky, shouting, "If we catch the culprit, we'll kill them!"
Most likely, Beaver, Penguin, and Fox had been doing something in the 7th-floor forest before being forced to flee due to the contaminated beings.
'Still, suggesting they meet in the headmaster's office...' Lee Han honestly admired the tactic.
If he ever received a duel challenge or was pressured to reveal a location, he'd seriously consider using that method.
Iactus: "You ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■■..."
Gonadaltes: "Why is it censored?"
Beaver
Penguin
Fox: "For the honor of the Watcher Club. The magic automatically filters out vulgar language so members don't have to see it. More importantly—does anyone have intel on the contaminated beings? I'll pay well."
"!"
Lee Han's eyes widened at the Watcher Club member's words.
A trade request?
Given how physically capable the other party seemed, the reward would likely be substantial.
Gonadaltes: "What kind of information do you need?"
Beaver
Penguin
Fox: "Anything useful for extermination. Why? Gonadaltes, do you have something?"
Iactus: "Don't sell to those rude bastards, Gonadaltes!"
Beaver
Penguin
Fox: "I'll apologize first. Iactus, telling you to 'just advance to fifth year already' was too harsh."
Iactus: "Hmph."
Beaver
Penguin
Fox: "Everyone, if you have intel, contact me privately. Like I said, I'll pay generously."
'Hmm. A spell like Begone, Contaminated Ones!—they probably already know it, right?' Lee Han fell into thought.
This black magic wasn't particularly secretive, so the other party likely knew it too.
And judging by their behavior, they seemed eager to exterminate the contaminated beings in the forest. But while the mushroom patch was manageable, the entire forest was far too vast.
'Besides, they should've cast it before coming.' With the horde already roaming the 7th floor, that spell would be ineffective now.
"Senior."
"Yeah. What?"
Lee Han called out to Agdung, who was sitting beside him, pretending to drink from an empty cup.
The group was currently inside the Exile Village on the 7th floor, seated at the Hot Water and Cold Water teahouse. Run by a third-year senior from the Black Turtle Tower, this teahouse was nearly identical to the ones outside.
"Except for the fact that we're served tea without any tea leaves."
"Could you tell me more about those Contaminated Beings? Like how to exterminate them or..."
"You, you! Don't tell me you're planning to exterminate them?!"
Agdung exclaimed in shock.
The group of Contaminated Beings approaching the mushroom field earlier had just been the beginning. If you looked beyond the village barrier now, their numbers had multiplied dozens of times.
And yet he was talking about exterminating them?
Even for the Magic Tower's disciple, wasn't that an overly reckless judgment?
Heh. Senior. Lee Han actually enjoys exterminating things in situations like this.
Lee Han signaled Yoner with his eyes. She obliged by smacking Gainando's back instead.
"I'm not planning to exterminate them. I was just purely curious and wanted to ask."
"Y-you feel investigative curiosity even in this situation?"
Agdung's expression had shifted to one of utter disbelief, quite different from before.
"No, I was just curious..."
"Right. Got it."
There seems to be a misunderstanding.
Though Lee Han sensed a misunderstanding between them, he decided to clarify later, as there were more pressing matters.
"Anyway, that horde of Contaminated Beings will disappear on its own eventually, right? Since the 7th floor's mana possesses strong homeostasis."
Einrogard's Main Building was a magical realm layered with countless spells—so many that even the Skeleton Principal couldn't keep track of them all—but there were a few fundamental principles.
One of them was homeostasis—the tendency to recover and restore the original state no matter what disturbances or accidents occurred.
Just as the human body strives to maintain a constant temperature, the Main Building also struggled to preserve its fundamental nature.
With the seasoned insight of a Black Magic practitioner, Agdung had noticed that the Contaminated Beings were being rejected by the 7th floor's mana flow.
Such beings couldn't last long. Just as summoned undead would vanish if they failed to secure mana, these Contaminated Beings would eventually deplete and scatter on their own.
"I understand."
"In that case, the only viable approach to exterminating the Contaminated Beings would be along those lines. Any other method would be too labor-intensive. Do you remember the location of the disturbance you sensed earlier in the mushroom field?"
Agdung pulled out a map of the vicinity that Professor Taswan had previously compiled and unfolded it.
"If I recall correctly, there was a spring connected to an underground water source in this direction. And as you know, underground water is one of the easiest things to contaminate when mages are nearby."
Though time would eventually solve the problem, if the source of contamination remained, Contaminated Beings would continue to emerge for a while.
Purifying such contamination sources would significantly shorten that time.
"Fascinating. Let me jot this down quickly."
Lee Han called Beaver
-Penguin
-Fox one by one and began relaying what he had just heard.
Gonadaltes:The homeostasis of the 7th floor's mana... time... method... contamination source... From what I've gathered... underground water...
Beaver
-Penguin
-Fox:W-w-wait. Sir. Hold on a second!
The recipient was so startled they nearly fainted, their handwriting shaking wildly.
Far more useful information had arrived much faster than expected.
Just who is this???
For a moment, they felt a chill, wondering if it was actually the Skeleton Principal in disguise.
Of course, they reassured themselves—The Headmaster would never have the patience for something like this!—but deep down, every Einrogard student knew one thing:
The Skeleton Principal was not an entity that could be measured by their common sense!
What if he was truly disguising himself just to teach them a grand lesson in despair...?
But right now, this is exactly the information we need!
Having been preoccupied with research outside the Main Building and only belatedly realizing the attack on the 7th floor, Beaver
-Penguin
-Fox found Gonadaltes' information like rain in a drought.
Gonadaltes:Don't interrupt. You're disrupting my writing. But you're not actually planning to exterminate them, right?
Beaver
-Penguin
-Fox:Huh?
Gonadaltes:Ah. That last part was a miswrite.
Lee Han paused mid-transcription of Agdung's words.
"You're not actually planning to exterminate them, right?" had actually been directed at Lee Han himself.
"Don't worry, Senior."
"Your questions seem a bit too detailed for mere academic curiosity..."
Agdung eyed the Magic Tower's disciple with a suspicious glare.