Surviving as a Mage in a Magic Academy

-If you just look through the records...

"There's a limit to what you can learn from records. A lot of things would have been omitted or left out."

The mage of House Wardanaz was at his most irritating when he said something correct.

It was certainly difficult to understand events of the past through records alone.

Why else would mages who specialized in historical research continuously develop and improve all kinds of magic capable of reading traces left behind?

No matter what magic they used, there were inevitably things that would be missed.

-Understood. Still, don't miss the magic.

The hamster was a mage in the end as well.

There was no way it could avoid being curious about the magic mentioned by the Yaksha King and Sanguros.

"Well, if the opportunity comes up, I'll look for it."

At the way he answered so casually, as though browsing merchandise in a general store, the hamster nearly cursed out loud.

Honestly, who would benefit if they found this magic?

This brat from House Wardanaz, obviously. The hamster couldn't even learn it right now.

And yet he was acting as though it had nothing to do with him!

-Wait. The mana nearby moved a little. Could there be an ambush?

"That's probably because of the telepathy I received. The professors contacted me."

-What did they say?

"They told me not to go in."

-?

The hamster showed confusion for a moment.

His words and actions were far too contradictory.

Besides, wasn't this Wardanaz bastard someone who listened well to his teacher?

'No. Let's not question it.'

After thinking for a moment, the hamster quietly shut its mouth.

It was afraid that if it asked whether they shouldn't leave, Lee Han might actually leave.

Fwoosh!

-You insignificant humans! How dare you enter the territory of vampires as you please!

-Don't let them leave alive!

"!"

Lee Han stopped when he saw the vampire dead gathered in the lower section of the fortress walls.

Having lost their reason, they were still trapped in the past, preparing for battle.

The dead mistakenly believed that this was still a strategic stronghold of the vampires and that the outside was swarming with wicked Imperial troops led by an evil archmage, so they unleashed attacks at enemies who did not exist.

The attacks were poorly aimed, but their power was extremely threatening. The blood-red mana dwelling in the fortress was granting even ordinary attacks vicious destructive force.

-Unpleasant mana. Mages would easily become intoxicated by it.

The hamster expressed displeasure as it sensed the mana flowing through the fortress.

Not every magical criminal liked strange and corrupted mana.

Of course, magical criminals were willing to endure any kind of magic in order to reach greater heights, but fundamentally, the mana of an evil god was a ticking time bomb whose eventual consequences were impossible to predict.

Looking inside the fortress now, every troublesome kind of mana imaginable was running wild, from mana the evil-god worshipers had obtained by offering sacrifices to natural mana polluted by negative emotions.

Mana like this might increase the power of magic, but it also made it easy for a mage to become intoxicated.

A mage had to be the master of mana, not a slave bewitched by it and dragged around wherever it led.

"Is it because of Sanguros?"

-That's part of it, but mana becomes polluted naturally when a war drags on. The negative emotions released by souls influence it. Mana existing in nature is quite vulnerable to the influence of its surroundings.

Because of that, commanders preparing for battle needed to carefully watch changes in mana like these and purify excessive contamination when necessary.

'A typical berserker army.'

It was obvious that the commander of this fortress had been drunk on blood and had only encouraged the rampage further.

Would those immersed in faith in Sanguros ever reject power like this?

Saratan, dwelling inside the staff, whispered in disgust.

-This is truly filthy and unpleasant. I'd like to get out of here quickly.

"I heard tree spirits are skilled at purification. Is something like that impossible for you?"

Saratan suddenly fell silent. It seemed to be pretending it had not heard the question.

"......"

Lee Han said nothing.

Well, if Saratan were powerful enough to purify a fortress of this enormous scale, there would have been no reason for it to be sealed inside this staff.

'At that level, it wouldn't have been caught in the first place.'

-What are you! Who are you!

The armed dead vampire warriors emitted red light from their pale, fragmented faces.

At last, they had noticed the intruder.

Lee Han responded calmly. Having already dealt with the dead several times in this domain, he had prepared something.

"Calm down. I too am a noble from a vampire House."

'He's unbelievably shameless.'

The hamster muttered inwardly.

It had worked once by luck, and now this brat was using it a second and third time.

At this point, the hamster became curious in the opposite sense.

Why were the dead falling for that statement?

At first it had thought Lee Han had simply encountered exceptionally stupid dead, but since it kept working afterward, there seemed to be some other reason.

However, the hamster did not have long to ponder. A sharp voice rang out.

-You do seem to be a noble from a vampire House... But I've never seen your face in this fortress! How do we know you're not a traitor who sided with the Empire?!

"Oh."

Lee Han was momentarily flustered by the unexpected variation in their response.

He had not anticipated that.

'Well, even if I look like a vampire noble, it would be suspicious for an unfamiliar face to appear in the middle of a siege.'

There must also have been vampire nobles who realized the rebellion was going badly and surrendered to the Empire...

If the dead were not convinced, they looked ready to attack at any moment. Lee Han thought deeply about whether he should strike first with magic or whether there was another way.

Just then.

There was movement outside the fortress.

'Did the professors come out of the shadow dimension?!'

Startled, Lee Han wondered whether he should apologize right now for ignoring what they had said.

He needed to send them back into the shadow dimension first before anything else could happen.

Fortunately, however, the ones causing the movement were not the professors.

It was the Undying One and the priests under the bishop's command.

"Move quickly!"

The Undying One gave the order in a cold voice.

From the bishop's perspective, it was only natural.

While they had been fighting desperately, that mage had done nothing but watch, then suddenly slipped into the newly revealed fortress. How could that possibly not seem suspicious?

The Undying One had no choice but to conclude that the mage was plotting something.

And in order to figure out what that scheme was and counter it, the bishop had to follow into the fortress.

"Don't be afraid of them. They're dead who've lost their reason! They're nothing more than shadows of the past!"

-More intruders! They must be the vanguard of the Imperial army! Draw them in and then unleash everything at once!

-You! Aren't you working with those intruders outside?!

The vampire dead, reacting violently, interrogated Lee Han again.

They looked ready to execute him on the spot if he showed even the slightest connection to them.

Flustered, Lee Han quickly shouted.

"I came inside to report their intrusion!"

-!

"I had no choice but to enter the fortress without permission. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to warn you that the enemy was approaching."

-I see...

The dead murmured among themselves and seemed convinced.

-You may pass. So you weren't a traitor to your own kind!

Lee Han let out a sigh of relief and started walking. Behind him, the vampire dead began unleashing attacks outside the fortress walls all at once.

The Undying One cursed and raised defenses. The assault was fierce enough that the bishop had to use up the entire life force of one priest.

When that damned mage had gone in, they had been blindly attacking empty space, so the bishop had thought it would be fine!

'That damned mage... He definitely knows something! That bastard!'

From knowing the location of this dimension in the first place to manipulating the dead and entering the domain freely.

For Lee Han himself, it was closer to unintended luck, but from the Undying One's perspective, it felt as though this mage possessed some secret even the bishop did not know.

Just what kind of secret was it...

Unaware of what sort of misunderstanding the Undying One was having below, Lee Han stroked his chest in relief.

"We mustn't let our guard down. I didn't expect dead who had lost their reason to ask questions like that."

'For someone who says that, didn't you sacrifice someone else far too naturally?'

The hamster felt slightly uncomfortable.

For a mage who had encountered an unexpected situation, Lee Han had offered up someone else as a sacrifice far too smoothly.

If this was him letting his guard down, what in the world did he look like when he wasn't?

-Where is that assassin?

-We locked the assassin in the fortress dungeon. But can we really negotiate? It could be a trick.

-...Of course it could, but there's nothing to lose by trying. That mad mage's army is too powerful.

"?!"

The vampire dead Lee Han encountered this time in a corridor of the fortress's middle levels were dressed differently from those below.

The dead below had looked like ordinary warriors, but anyone could tell from the clothing of these ones that they had been nobles in life.

Because Lee Han had studied the fundamentals of all kinds of methods while helping Professor Verdus in the enchantment magic school, he could tell just how expensive those clothes were.

The distinctive attire of vampire nobles, with magical embroidery painstakingly stitched thread by thread over red silk, required an enormous amount of gold.

'It would cost dozens of times more to create embroidered patterns with thread and produce magical effects at the same time instead of simply inscribing magic onto the fabric.'

At the very least, they seemed likely to have been among the leadership of the rebel forces in this enormous fortress.

Someone of that status could hardly have been an ordinary warrior.

-There's an assassin?

The hamster sounded puzzled.

The rebellion of the western Imperial vampires was an incident the hamster also knew about, but it had never heard that an assassin had infiltrated this rebel fortress.

Someone like Gonadaltes would have had more than enough Imperial troops and subordinate forces to tighten the noose around them.

There would have been no need to send in an assassin. That was not Gonadaltes's style.

"Hm. I think I have a guess..."

-??

While the two whispered, the nobles ahead began moving again.

It seemed they intended to bring out the assassin locked in the underground dungeon and attempt negotiations.

The hamster muttered.

-If they're talking about a mad mage, that should mean Gonadaltes. It's strange that they think they can negotiate with just one assassin. Have the memories of the dead been distorted? That's entirely possib...

Lee Han already had a suspect in mind, but saw no need to tell the hamster.

The vampire nobles walking ahead suddenly let out savage shouts.

-The underground dungeon has collapsed! They've broken in!

-You worthless curs, you cowardly bastards! You filthy mage without a shred of honor! And you still call yourself an archmage!

"!!!"

The vampire nobles were raging as they pointed toward the collapsed entrance to the fortress underground.

The area nearby had been completely destroyed, apparently by intruders who had entered at some point. Naturally, the assassin who had been locked inside was gone as well.

'Those marks look strangely similar to the weapons the Death Knights use.'

Lee Han thought as he looked at the numerous sword marks around the entrance.

It somehow looked like the work of some familiar knights!

The hamster became even more confused.

-What kind of clue is this supposed to be? A clue about the magic hidden in this fortress?

"I think so too. Let's check underground."

Lee Han urged the hamster onward in order to find out how Professor Voladi had ended up getting captured.

'I'm only trying to obtain information from memories of the past. If there's magic hidden in the fortress, I might be able to find clues about that too.'

He had absolutely no intention whatsoever of later telling Professor Voladi, 'Professor, you did whatever you wanted and even got yourself captured!'

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