Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

'No. In a situation like this, he's actually reassuring.'

Thinking about it, this magical criminal's madness was useful at times like this.

Even magical criminals generally did not want to get involved with evil-god worshipers. Who liked picking a fight with madmen?

But judging by what this Antagondals was saying now, it did not seem like he would run away alone just because evil-god worshipers had appeared.

Squeaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueak!

Antagondals's hamster shrieked ferociously. Enster unconsciously frowned at the sight.

'That taste really is bizarre. What does he even like about a hamster like that enough to carry it around?'

It was not some rare beast capable of using magic, just an ordinary-looking hamster.

The inner thoughts of archmages truly were impossible to fathom.

When the other man kept staring at him, Lee Han felt vaguely uncomfortable and changed the subject.

"Why did those Sanguros bastards come here?"

"......"

Since Lee Han already knew the answer, it was a question he tossed out casually, but for Enster it was extremely difficult to answer.

"Did you make some kind of deal with them? There's no need to hide it. It's hardly anything remarkable."

"Y-yes."

When the other party opened a path for him, Enster immediately took it.

Of course, Antagondals probably did not know just how deep Enster's relationship with the Sanguros Order had been.

But there was no need to tell him. If the other party was misunderstanding something, was it not the nature of a magical criminal to exploit that misunderstanding to one's advantage?

"We should prepare to fight."

Lee Han spoke belligerently and gestured toward Enster.

It meant that he should hurry and bring out his golems and prepare for battle too.

Naturally, what Lee Han was thinking was completely different...

'I'll wait and stab him afterward.'

If the Sanguros assassins and Enster fought, Lee Han could only be grateful.

Why would he stop people he hated from destroying each other? He intended to wait and attack whoever remained afterward.

But Enster was not stupid.

"No. We'll get out first. Nothing good comes from trading blows with madmen."

Whatever the remnants of Sanguros wanted, it was dangerous to remain here.

There was no way they could have entered a mage's workshop this boldly unless they had something they were relying on.

Besides, these madmen were difficult to predict by ordinary standards.

Robbers at least committed robbery, but people like this might simply blow themselves up first.

'Damn.'

Lee Han was disappointed.

He had wanted to make the two sides fight somehow...

-Huh. Wait.

'?'

-...Did your memory get blown away or something? Did you forget what you were doing underground until just now?

"...!!"

Only then did Lee Han remember what the situation beneath them was like.

Hadn't Lee Han himself been diligently sabotaging it until just moments ago!

'But are you sure that really worked?'

The method the hamster had advised him to use was fairly weak.

It was like continuously pouring water into a cauldron with a hole in the bottom.

If so, there was a possibility that the escape methods underground had not actually been disabled properly.

-If we'd had a little more time, I could have been certain, but I can't guarantee it.

'I knew it. I thought the method was too weak.'

-We're doing it this way because you, you brat, can't even perform proper spatial movement. Don't blame someone else. It would be enough if we could just buy time until those madmen come down...

Even if they had not been completely disabled, a certain amount of damage would be enough to delay them.

Lee Han and the hamster waited for Enster's reaction with slight anxiety.

Clunk-

"...Aaaaaaaaargh!!!"

After opening the underground door, Enster threw away all the composure he had shown until now and screamed.

There was no trace of a mage's dignity or calm. That was how horrific the situation underground was.

Perhaps the dozens of installed spells had flowed backward and malfunctioned, creating a synergistic effect, because not a single intact object could be seen.

There was not even a fragment left of the carefully preserved scroll, and the dimensional gate installed in the wall was gushing out bizarre slime, apparently having connected to some strange dimension.

If the most precious objects stored there were in this state, there was no need to mention the rest. The hamster quietly squeaked.

-I don't say this often, but aren't your methods a little too vicious?

"......"

Lee Han was so dumbfounded that he nearly knocked the hamster off his shoulder.

You told me to do it!

-You should have sent just enough to break the scroll. Did you have some grudge against the basement or something?

'How was I supposed to know what the right amount was? I've never done anything like this before!'

"Those damned sons of bitches are really making a scene because they want to die..."

Enster's eyes turned red as killing intent poured from them.

He had concluded that this disaster was advance sabotage carried out by the Sanguros assassins.

Lee Han immediately agreed.

"Their handiwork is truly vicious!"

"Do they think I avoided fighting them because I was afraid? I'll kill them! Those vermin not even a stray dog would bite dare to..."

"We should teach them a lesson!"

"All golems, come out!"

Driven mad by vengeance, Enster brought out every golem that could still operate. Lee Han praised him and encouraged him onward.

The hamster looked at Lee Han with lukewarm eyes.

'This little bastard is genuinely terrifying once he shows his true colors...'

He really would have made an excellent magical criminal.

***

The worshipers of Sanguros had not actually come to assassinate Enster.

As everyone knew, this Order had already been destroyed once, currently had many enemies, and was not in a particularly good situation.

This was the time to persuade and recruit the old remnants, not assassinate them by force.

"Ens—"

"Kill them!"

"!"

Hearing the murderous shout and the activation noises coming from the golems' components, the worshipers quickly lowered themselves.

Wooooong-

The golems immediately fired concentrated beams of mana from artifacts mounted on their arms. It was an attack powerful enough to show they intended to kill the intruders the instant they came down.

"Enster, stop! We came in the Regent's name. The Regent expects your loyalty!"

Instead of answering, Enster sent additional golems charging forward.

These combat puppets, modified for close combat, spewed poisonous mist from their faces and projected powerful force-field blades from their arms and legs. They were powerful summons that had taken the lives of many swordsmen and knights.

At the sight of the charging golems, the evil-god worshipers became furious. Even an idiot could understand what that meant.

"You dare?!"

One worshiper's body dissolved into blood and immediately vanished. Enster tensed at the sight.

Having once belonged to the Sanguros Order, he recognized what that sign meant.

They were sacrificing one person to bring forth an Authority!

"...Graaaargh!"

An explosive force burst from the body of one relatively ordinary-looking worshiper, transforming the person into a monster of a form Lee Han had never seen before.

It then tore apart the approaching golems in a single blow. It paid no heed even when poison and force-field blades struck it.

Enster's expression immediately darkened.

"Antagondals! Help me!"

But Antagondals did not step forward. Enster gritted his teeth at the sight.

That attitude of refusing to help another person for free even if it meant death was truly the very essence of a magical criminal.

"Fine... Explode!"

One golem immediately detonated, blasting apart the surroundings.

The vibrations and commotion might be heard outside, but there was no choice. For now, they had to stop the attackers first.

But the worshipers did not stop. Instead, they attacked with even greater fury.

At the sight, Enster felt as though all the blood in his body were flowing backward.

These bastards had attacked and ruined the mana core at the heart of his workshop, and now they were acting like the injured party.

Normally Enster would have thought first about how to escape rationally, but at this point there was no turning back. He continued throwing in golems and detonating them.

-Are these bastards really allowed to fight this explosively??

The hamster was bewildered.

The evil-god worshipers might be half insane, but Enster was a magical criminal.

If he kept blowing up golems like that here, there would be no way to deal with the aftermath.

'Isn't he simply paying the price for worshiping an evil god? The price for obsessing over power without caring about the means or methods.'

The hamster privately thought that this had less to do with karmic justice and more to do with Wardanaz egging him on, but did not bother saying so.

The war of attrition in which neither side backed down ultimately ended in Enster's victory.

Since he was fighting inside his own workshop, he could not help but have the advantage.

The last remaining worshiper staggered and glared at him.

"Enster, don't think you'll survive after rejecting the Regent's glory. He is watching you!"

"Then in the names of Frahgal, Ksaksarigol, and Gonadaltes, go fuck yourself."

Having lost every last shred of affection he had ever possessed for them, Enster replied coldly.

When the worshiper collapsed, Enster quickly gulped down a potion as well. The damage was severe beyond words.

Only about one-fifth of the golems remained, the workshop was half destroyed, and the commotion must have been heard outside by now, so he had to abandon his attachment to this place and flee first.

'Should I strike now?'

Lee Han prepared a spell, intending to finish it in a single blow.

Enster was a powerful mage, but he was ultimately a summoning mage whose fighting style relied on golems.

At this distance, Lee Han had the advantage. On top of that, the opponent was exhausted and had lowered his guard.

-If I had to compare his level, he's around an Einroguard fourth-year. Since he's exhausted, you could lower that by another half-year.

'Are you saying it'll be difficult for me to win?'

Lee Han asked in confusion. The hamster snapped irritably.

-No. I'm saying you can beat him, so attack right now! You idiot!

Lee Han grumbled inwardly at the hamster, which had made an incomprehensible comparison and then gotten angry at him.

That was when it happened.

A gigantic red pattern appeared over the corpses of the fallen worshipers. Enster reacted far faster than Lee Han.

"San... Sanguros!!!"

It was a pattern he had seen while he belonged to the Order.

And the fact that the pattern had appeared over men who were already dead was extremely ominous.

What in the world...

So we meet like this.

A voice came from beyond the pattern.

It was not a voice produced physically with vocal cords. Telepathic speech composed of hundreds, thousands of overlapping meanings was reaching them from beyond the dimension.

Enster, who had never directly contacted the evil god even while he belonged to the Order, went deathly pale.

Could a god really appear in person just because they had killed a few worshipers?

"That's impossible! Because of trash like them?!"

Lee Han was calmer than Enster.

Although his career as a mage was far shorter, the scale of what he had experienced was on an entirely different level, allowing him to judge the situation coolly.

'...Can an evil god possess an ego like that?'

-!

The hamster stared at Lee Han in surprise.

Astonishingly, it was exactly the right observation!

Even a mage like the hamster had been startled and confused, yet this youngest brat had immediately identified the crucial point.

-Right. It's strange. An evil god isn't... a being capable of conversation like that.

As an archmage, the hamster also believed that the origin of faith was the collective unconscious.

It was not that gods had existed first, but that the power of mortals had created gods.

That was why a god was a kind of law or rule without an ego.

Then how?

-Nothing is impossible. The evil god may have been contaminated, or altered. I don't know how that could have happened, but...

The hamster's voice was weaker than usual.

Unlike other times, it lacked confidence, and there was nothing to be done about that.

What an unusual hobby for a mage.

Sanguros said while looking at the hamster.

Why would a mage of °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° that caliber deliberately abandon magic and become a hamster like that?

-......

I have a proposal for you mortals. Stop pursuing my followers.

At those words, Lee Han and the hamster simultaneously gave it incredulous looks.

An evil god was making such a flimsy proposal?

-Showing weakness like that means it must be in truly desperate straits. Never accept.

Wrong. What I mean is that even if you capture and kill my followers, nothing will change. Do you think destroying the Order will make my existence disappear? I have already attained real existence. A shabby organization like that means nothing to me anymore.

"I wonder whether you could still say that if someone at the bishop level in the Order died."

Lee Han replied without wavering.

Of course, even if the Order were utterly destroyed again from the roots, the evil god could still endure.

But there was no way it would suffer no damage at all.

A bishop? Hahahaha... There isn't anyone among my followers who could even be called bishop-level! Every last one of them is nothing but pathetic scraps.

The gazes of Lee Han and the hamster wavered.

Until now, they had assumed that a powerful figure around bishop level had revived the Order according to some meticulous plan.

But that was not true either.

Had all of this really just been the rampage of insane remnants who never thought about what came next?

If you want to hunt down and kill those vermin, do as you please. I have already gained enough existence, so I do not care.

Lee Han's expression turned grave.

If those words were not a bluff, there was a major problem with their plan.

Even if they destroyed the Order, would the evil god not remain with its power intact?

Even worse was the fact that it possessed an ego.

-Let it go. We don't have any way to catch it right now anyway.

'Because even stealing and using another evil god's Authority wouldn't damage it?'

-That thing is closer to merely transmitting its voice, so attacking it would be diffic—w-wait. What did you just say?

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