The habit of seeking help from senior mages whenever a problem arose was more important than one might think.
Just look at Lee Han. How many hardships had he endured because he had never developed that habit?
Even with this dimensional erosion investigation, if Lee Han had asked a senior mage for help…
‘No, that’s not right.’
Come to think of it, Senior Alshicle had been the one to drag him along, so this case was an exception.
Even so, Lee Han called for Alshicle.
Surely there would not be a second exception where asking for help proved useless.
“Sir Alshicle!”
-Huh? What?!
Alshicle, who had been purifying the poison in the reagent storage room with the priests, flinched at Lee Han’s urgent shout.
“A ghost appeared here!”
“What?!”
Crash!
Not only Alshicle, but all the other friends immediately drew their staffs or swords and came running.
“Where?!”
“Here.”
“…There’s nothing there?”
“I cast a spell on it.”
“…”
His friends looked at Lee Han with deeply displeased expressions. Giselle thought to herself.
‘Reacting too fast is a problem too.’
Because he had defeated it too quickly on his own, there was nothing left for the others to confirm even if they wanted to.
“W-well, then. Good… good work. Counterattacking is important…”
“What kind of ghost do you think it was?”
“How would I know? You smashed it to pieces.”
Alshicle grumbled as he checked the area near the fireplace.
A faint spiritual energy could still be sensed, but nothing beyond that. It seemed Wardanaz had landed a proper fatal blow.
“It does seem to have been a real ghost. And a mage’s ghost at that.”
Statistically, mages often caused trouble for their surroundings even after death.
Magic left behind in workshops leaking out after the owner’s death and turning the surroundings upside down was so common it hardly needed to be mentioned. Summoned creatures or dimensional portal restraints being released, causing monsters from other dimensions to flood in, was also fairly frequent.
Even if the mage had neatly organized the workshop before death, the danger did not completely disappear.
The mage’s own soul and body, having experienced countless forms of mana and mysteries, were themselves risk factors.
The powerful will of mages who craved hidden truths often caused strange resistance phenomena against the decay of the flesh.
“Ah. Like the Principal?”
“…N-no. That is also… a lich is technically correct, but that is too much to place in the same category…”
Alshicle was flustered by Gainando’s innocent question.
Although lichification had now become one of the ways mages resisted death, the difference in level was too severe to place it in the same category as ordinary ghosts.
Lichification was advanced grand magic that only mages who had reached the highest realm of the dark magic school could perform, whereas becoming a ghost was simply…
“You just need to have a lot of lingering attachments and resentment.”
“There should be plenty of those at Einroguard, so why haven’t we seen any?”
When someone voiced the question, Alshicle answered as if asking what kind of nonsense that was.
“Half-baked ghosts would be exorcised immediately. What do you think Einroguard is, Valdrogard?”
“Ah.”
While the others were talking, Lee Han, who had been deep in thought, belatedly recalled something.
“Wait. I think the ghost asked me to undo the magic it left behind!”
“Indeed. That is a fairly common purpose among mage ghosts. Prince, did you not hear anything like that?”
“I just told it to get lost and chased it away.”
“Hmm.”
Alshicle seriously pondered the difference in the ghost’s reactions.
Most ghosts that were not evil spirits like this one were not all that dangerous, but there were no absolutes in magic.
Had they not almost gone straight to the Empire’s prison after acting carelessly while tracking the dimensional monster?
“Did it not ask Gainando because it thought he looked unreliable?”
“That might be…”
“As if that would be the reason. Everyone, think about this seriously.”
Alshicle lectured the Einroguard students. Lee Han asked while continuing to inspect the kitchen.
“Would it be difficult to completely exorcise the ghost through combat?”
“No. If you blew it away immediately as you did earlier, it does not seem to be a ghost with strong combat ability. It was probably a non-combat mage in life as well. However, it is better to resolve such matters peacefully…”
“Ah. Of course. There’s no need to fight and damage the facilities, lowering the manor’s value.”
“…T-that is true too, and mage manors originally tend to contain many secrets. There is nothing bad about receiving them intact from the owner.”
“Then let’s change the plan and go down to the basement.”
Gainando made a mournful face as he looked at the untidy kitchen, but the other friends were all in favor.
“Good thinking, Wardanaz. You won’t die from skipping one meal.”
“Let’s check the suspicious places first.”
“Ugh. This is why people from other towers…”
Gainando grumbled at Salco and Giselle’s reactions, but the Blue Dragon Tower students also wanted to check the basement first.
“I hope it was the alchemy school.”
“I hope it was summoning. If there’s any useful research, it might help.”
“…”
Gainando became dejected and moved behind Lee Han. There were many people here, but not many friends he could rely on.
“Oh dear. You must be hungry, Gainando. Want to eat this?”
“…!”
When Lee Han rummaged through his basket and pulled out a sandwich, Gainando’s eyes widened.
“When did you make this?!”
“I made it earlier while cleaning up after the dimensional erosion.”
“Lee Han…!”
-Undo the magic I left behind…
“…Aaaah!”
Gainando screamed and threw the chicken sandwich.
The mage ghost had appeared again from the direction of the stairs leading to the basement.
Lee Han skillfully caught the sandwich with telekinesis, put it into Gainando’s mouth, and pushed him back. It was a technique close to artistry.
Alshicle watched in admiration.
‘The mages of the <Green Pyroxene Mage Tower> would shed tears of emotion if they saw this!’
Mages who had polished the detailed control of telekinetic magic to that level were truly rare.
“What magic do you want us to undo?”
Lee Han asked the question while preparing to counterattack immediately if the other party made any suspicious move.
Even if it seemed like a harmless ghost, he could not lower his guard.
-Below… my research is there… follow me…
“Wait! Why didn’t you ask the Prince here earlier and instead just chased him away?”
Asan asked curiously, pointing at Gainando.
Then the mage ghost answered in a slow voice.
-I do not ask… those without qualification…
“…”
“…As expected!”
“N-no. I do not think that is what it means?”
Alshicle panicked and stopped the students who were starting to be convinced.
The qualification mentioned there could not possibly be magical skill.
What ability would a mage ghost have to guess Gainando’s Einroguard grades just by looking at him?
“Ghost, for the sake of your purpose as well, please answer. What do you mean by qualification?”
-Mastered magic… that mage… is qualified…
“Magic Wardanaz has mastered?”
Only then did the students realize that the qualification was not about Einroguard grades.
“Is this a summoning mage?”
“No. It might be an enchantment mage.”
“Well, since the Prince was excluded, apparently not a dark mage.”
“…I’ll just ask directly.”
Lee Han cut off his friends’ conversation.
No matter how he thought about it, there were too many possibilities.
“What magic are you referring to?”
The ghost pointed at Lee Han’s staff.
Lee Han was startled when it pointed at the blue gemstone of the Frost Giant King.
‘Was it related to the Frost Giant race?!’
“Lee Han. I think it’s talking about the space teleportation stone next to that stone, not that stone.”
“Ah.”
Lee Han felt embarrassed.
So it was someone related to spatial magic!
***
“But you cleverly guessed that I had mastered spatial magic just from this stone.”
Something like a space teleportation stone was a convenient item that even mages who had not mastered spatial magic could use.
Then the mage ghost answered in a faint voice.
-The watch…
“?”
-Such… ostentatiously magically decorated objects… are not carried around unless one is a mage who specializes in spacetime magic…
“!”
Lee Han finally realized what the ghost was talking about.
The cracked glass pocket watch with <Limited Time Acceleration> magic cast on it!
It was referring to the artifact that some professor at Einroguard had made during their school days.
“Is… is this so ostentatiously magically decorated? It looks ordinary to me.”
-Read… the space…
At the ghost’s words, Lee Han cast <Spatial Perception> magic in puzzlement.
Even if there were any distorted spaces nearby, this magic would allow the mage to make accurate measurements with absolute senses.
However, nothing was detected.
-Deeper… with more concentration…
“???”
Though he did not understand, Lee Han concentrated his senses further.
He wondered whether the other party had misunderstood something, but since he had already cast it…
“…!”
Surprisingly, Lee Han’s senses caught a faint distortion. Along the outer surface of the pocket watch, twisted space had been carved like decoration.
The most amazing thing about this delicate magic was that it was truly, completely useless.
What meaning could such twisted local space have?
Only mages capable of perceiving space would see it and react with, ‘Amazing! Such meticulous decoration!’…
‘Would they really react that way? Wouldn’t they think it was pointless busywork?’
-Do not waste magic on such things…
“…”
The ghost also seemed to think so and offered advice.
Showing off through a means that only one person in a hundred could even see was undoubtedly a stupid thing to do.
“…I didn’t cast this magic. And the person who did is dozens of times wiser than you.”
-I do not know…
The mage ghost did not seem to pay much attention to Lee Han’s words.
And it was questionable whether the ghost could think properly in the first place. According to Alshicle, was this kind of ghost not an incomplete being?
Unlike liches, who inherited almost all their knowledge and abilities from life, there was no telling what parts a ghost might have lost.
“But the facilities upstairs didn’t seem particularly related to spacetime magic. Did you also research magic from other schools?”
-I do not know magic from other schools…
“Definitely other… Ah.”
Lee Han paused.
“Do you happen to know someone named Erindarvel? She’s an archmage, has a kind personality, and makes mistakes quite often…”
-I do not know…
‘The owner must have changed several times.’
Come to think of it, there was no rule saying that this mage ghost had to be the immediate previous owner.
It would not be strange if the owner had changed several times in between. Rather, judging from that diverse and complicated mess, it was likely that several mages had used the place.
“But didn’t the previous mages dispel the magic?”
-They tried to dispel it but all failed…
“!”
Lee Han became slightly worried.
Hearing that other mages had failed suddenly made his confidence vanish.
‘Is this really something I can solve?’
“Wait. Even if they failed, couldn’t they get help from other mages? Or would that be cheating by any chance?”
-No… it does not matter…
The ghost did not care at all whether help was received or not.
As long as someone completed the magic left behind, nothing else mattered.
-However, the other mages… all asked me to keep it secret that they had failed…
“…”
Lee Han was dumbfounded.
What was this?
‘What are they even doing?’
If they failed, they should have talked to other mages and solved it, but instead they hid it until the manor was sold because of pride.
And it was not just one person. Several people had done the same thing.
Mages really were…!
‘Hmm. But if I can’t solve it either, I’ll have to keep it secret until it’s sold.’
Separate from his disbelief, Lee Han learned another lesson.
When selling a mage’s workshop, defects should be hidden as much as possible.
-Here…
When they reached the end of the long underground spiral staircase, the ghost passed through a door.
Lee Han opened the door and tried to enter. At that moment, the space beyond the door split into countless spaces.
“???!?!”
-I was trying to create a space of infinitely changing possibilities, one that would be determined according to the mage’s will… but it became uncontrollable… Please dispel this magic…
“…Wait. Let me call someone.”
Lee Han immediately gave up and prepared to call Professor Garcia.
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