Chapter 737
“Wait a second!”
“?”
At the professor’s shout from behind him, Lee Han paused.
For a moment, he thought Professor Bendozol might be about to offer some advice.
“It’s dangerous in there, so how about leaving the basilisk behind?”
It was the kindest voice Lee Han had ever heard from Professor Bendozol.
Shouldn’t have listened.
Lee Han ignored it without hesitation and kept walking.
*****
“Sharkhan. Track their scent and traces.”
The jade-green leopard, Sharkhan, nodded and declared that it would faithfully obey its master’s command.
“Gonadaltes. Take the other Skeleton Warriors and search the area. If ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) you run into evil spirits, don’t fight. Retreat immediately.”
The undead warrior Gonadaltes nodded and waved its black-green bone sword.
“Basilisk.”
-!
“Here, have a snack and go back to sleep. If you stay awake, there’s no telling what Professor Bendozol might do.”
-……
The baby basilisk looked baffled, but it still bit down on the jerky Lee Han gave it and shut its eyes again.
Move fast.
Unlike Professor Bendozol, Lee Han had dealt with evil spirits and other incorporeal monsters several times before, so he had confidence against them.
He knew that most of them would back off instead of approaching.
There was no point wasting time by being overly cautious. It was better to let the others know he was here as quickly as possible and gather the students together.
“Light of truth, descend!”
Completely unlike before, the spheres of light Lee Han launched in earnest began gathering one by one.
The light pierced even the darkness of the Nightmare Echo Forest, where damp, sinister mana-fog drifted through the air, and spread in every direction.
“Answer me, all of you!”
“……”
“Answer me! If you can hear—”
“Wardanaz?”
From somewhere ahead came Nillia’s voice, thick with suspicion. Lee Han shouted back in delight.
“Nillia! It’s Wardanaz!”
“You got lost too?”
“No. I already made it there, and I came back in to bring you all out.”
“…That does sound like something you’d do…!”
The moment she heard him, Nillia thought that really was exactly like Wardanaz—but she still didn’t let her guard down.
She had met far too many fake friends on the way here.
“Prove to me you’re real!”
“What…? Ah. Did you see illusions?”
“Yes! It wasn’t this bad last year! They weren’t using illusions!”
Hearing the fury in his friend’s voice, Lee Han shivered at the thoroughness of Professor Bendozol’s methods.
As if the forest weren’t difficult enough already, the professor had deliberately chosen a time when it had grown even more vicious before calling the students in.
At this point, it was almost at the level of 0.8 Skull Principal in sheer malice.
Illusions too. This really is going to be troublesome.
Incorporeal-type monsters were irritating enough on their own. Add illusion-making abilities on top of that, and even experienced students could get blindsided.
Lee Han resolved to move even faster.
“Nillia. I’m the real Wardanaz.”
“Yeah? The fake Yonair and the fake Siana said the same thing!”
“I see. Then, Nillia, I’ll attack you and subdue you right now. Once I catch you, you’ll know I’m not an illusion.”
Pressed for time, Lee Han chose the most efficient solution.
Nillia would take a few hits, but after that, she would know he was the real one.
“…It really is you!”
Nillia became certain on the spot and ran toward him.
She had judged that the evil spirits that tempted people by showing them what they wanted would never create something this absurd.
“Nillia! The power of friendship!”
“Y-yeah. I’m not sure this is really what friendship looks like, but…”
Nillia was covered in mud and dust, as if she had rolled around the forest several times. Brushing off her hair and shoulders with one hand, she spoke with a grave expression.
“Wardanaz. I think we got tricked.”
“What? Are you talking about getting admitted here?”
“Not that! This lecture. I think it’s fake.”
At first it had just been suspicion, but after wandering through this forest for so long, Nillia had turned that suspicion into certainty.
No normal lecture would ever be held in a place like this.
“Nillia.”
“Hm? What?”
“Sorry, but it’s a real lecture.”
Lee Han explained Professor Bendozol’s educational philosophy, along with all the bizarre situations that could happen in second-year and above classes.
Some lectures required students to steal from the professor’s own work to learn anything, and in others, the wall of the lecture hall got smashed apart by a furious professor’s blow.
Nillia’s eyes, which had been unable to believe it, trembled violently—then blazed with hatred for Professor Bendozol.
“If there were someone like that in the Northern Mountain range, they would’ve disappeared immediately!”
“…Should we go find the others?”
Instead of asking about the Shadow Patrol’s discreet methods of execution, Lee Han smoothly changed the subject.
“Yeah. Let’s go. I don’t want to have class on the weekend.”
“Neither do I.”
Nillia let out a snort of laughter. Then she noticed Lee Han’s serious expression and froze.
“…Wait. You weren’t joking?”
“What part of what I just said sounded like a joke?”
“Well, I mean. You… take way too many classes.”
“So if someone takes a lot of classes, that means they should have class on weekends too?”
As her friend’s voice turned chilly, Nillia hurriedly tried to explain herself.
“That’snotwhatImean—Ijustmeantthemoreclassesyoutake,thehigheryourchancesofhavingweekendclasses!”
“…That’s true.”
Lee Han nodded with a bitter look.
He really couldn’t deny that.
Someone who took a lot of classes was, in fact, more likely to end up with weekend lectures than someone who didn’t.
“C-cheer up.”
Nillia wasn’t confident in her ability to encourage anyone, but she did her best.
“I ended up giving up summoning magic.”
Back in first year, there had been plenty of students who showed interest in three or more schools, but by second year, most of them had narrowed their focus.
As freshmen, they hadn’t fully understood their own abilities yet, so they could try a little of everything. But from second year onward, concentration became necessary.
Nillia was one of those cases, so she had dropped summoning magic after taking it in first year.
Everybody made choices like that, and yet her friend alone kept stubbornly attending every school’s classes. It really was impressive—
“Why? You should’ve just kept taking it.”
“……”
At the malicious voice of her friend, Nillia quietly put a little distance between them.
In some ways, the friend next to her might have been even more dangerous than the evil spirits.
“Lee Han!”
“That’s Yonair.”
At the voice calling from afar, Lee Han turned to Nillia in delight.
But Nillia still looked cautious.
“It could be a fake Yonair made by an evil spirit.”
“Don’t worry. If it’s an illusion made by an evil spirit, it’ll scatter the moment I get close.”
Nillia looked at him with newfound admiration, belatedly realizing that her friend was a monster.
In a forest like this, that ability was practically invincible.
“You’re right. You… I can’t believe you had a method like that. If I’d found you first, I wouldn’t have gotten fooled earlier.”
The dark elf girl ground her teeth in frustration. Suddenly curious, Lee Han asked,
“How did the illusion you met earlier approach you?”
“It came up to me saying it was quitting Blue Dragon Tower and moving to Black Turtle Tower. Damn it.”
“……”
For a moment, Lee Han thought, Isn’t it stranger that you fell for that?
Nillia must have realized the same thing, because her ears turned red as she shouted,
“It sounded really convincing when I heard it in person!”
“I-I see.”
*****
Lee Han began gathering his friends one by one.
Sometimes illusions approached pretending to be students, but they never lasted long. The moment Lee Han charged at them, the illusion scattered, and the evil spirit lurking behind it screamed and fled.
“Aaagh! Wardanaz! Why—why are you running at me?! The assignment isn’t even out yet!”
“Ah. Sorry. I was checking whether you were an illusion.”
A few of his real friends saw Lee Han charging at them to verify their identity, panicked, and fell over, but fortunately none of them were seriously hurt.
“Is this everyone?”
“Judging by the numbers, I think so. The rest should be taking it at another time.”
The gathered students counted heads.
Since it was a second-year class, and a required lecture rather than one tied to a specific school, they could roughly estimate how many students should be attending one session.
“Then let’s move back.”
“Wardanaz… it feels like the evil spirits are increasing.”
The students from Phoenix Tower spoke cautiously.
Since they were all priests from the orders, they were more sensitive than most to the movements of monsters with malicious intent.
Right now, they weren’t approaching because Lee Han was here, but they were circling at a distance, surrounding the group and waiting.
Lee Han had already sensed the unease in the movement of the mana around them, so he nodded.
“They’re more persistent than I expected. I thought they’d just flee or scatter, not keep following like this.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m thinking of dragging them all the way to Professor Bendozol. Then the professor can deal with them.”
At Lee Han’s violent solution, the students cried out in shock.
“That’s a really good idea!”
“Let’s do it right now!”
Even the Phoenix Tower students agreed, and Lee Han felt pleased.
It seemed the year they had all spent together had truly forged his friends into a solid group.
SHWIK!
“!”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and <Bagreg’s Momentary Foresight> traced the trajectory of the incoming attack.
Lee Han immediately activated one of the spells he had stored in <Low-Grade Magic Storage>. He still hadn’t mastered it well enough to hold two, but somehow, he could manage one.
Gonadaltes’s Quickening Agility!
As he accelerated and dodged, a murky incorporeal arrow struck the place where he had been standing just a moment earlier.
“It’s an ambush!”
“Defensive formation!”
The students all moved at once, preparing defenses.
Potions fumed into smoke and drew in the surrounding mist, obscuring the enemy’s vision, while several scrolls formed barriers.
The students who had bought time began chanting additional spells, trying to detect the enemy’s position.
“Reveal your malice, enemy—”
There!
As the spell dyed the enemy’s outline red, Lee Han launched himself forward without hesitation.
“Lightning Spear!”
His wand blazed with lightning and took the form of a spear. Lee Han exploded mana through the tips of his feet, kicked off a tree, and shot straight upward.
Perhaps it hadn’t expected a mage to come that fast, because the enemy fluttered in alarm and tried to flee.
“…?”
Astonishingly, it was a sparrow.
But Lee Han did not let his guard down.
Small as it was, the mana it contained was absurdly powerful.
And there was something so sinister and uncanny about it that unless someone possessed overwhelming anti-magic power like Lee Han, even a mage would likely suffer mental damage just from facing it.
CRACK!
The branch the sparrow had perched on shattered, lightning bursting from it.
The sparrow fired waves of evil spirits at him, but it quickly realized they had no effect on Lee Han and gave up.
Instead, it started recklessly pouring out ghosts of yin nature, weighing down Lee Han’s spear.
At the sight, Lee Han frowned.
Can I make it in time?
The creature was commanding so many incorporeal monsters that breaking through quickly wasn’t easy. Even though Lightning Spear kept burning them away, more kept surging in.
If the thing managed to escape like this…
CHOMP!
In that instant, the baby basilisk sprang out from Lee Han’s sleeve and bit down precisely on the sparrow hidden among the incorporeal decoys.
Like a true king of serpents, it had not been fooled by any of the dazzling tricks and had instinctively identified the enemy’s real location.
“…Good work!”
The baby basilisk nodded proudly.
*****
When all the students arrived on time, Professor Bendozol started the lecture while grumbling.
“As you brats must have felt on the way here, the forest is currently overflowing with yin energy and baleful force. That’s because a cute little Nightmare Sparrow has settled in. It looks like an adorable sparrow, but its power is enough that ordinary bird monsters can’t even begin to compare! It’s the height of good fortune that you lot came here today. To get to see such a rare monster…”
“……”
“…Uh…?”
As they watched Professor Bendozol grow visibly excited while talking about the monster, the students looked confused.
Something about the explanation sounded strangely familiar.