“Didn’t I say one try?”

Gainando looked at the others in triumph.

Raphaedel, who had also guessed one try, didn’t show it openly, but the expression was quietly pleased.

Hah. Called it.

“What exactly were you betting on just now?”

“Ah, no. I just answered because someone asked.”

When a senior from another magic school asked, Raphaedel answered in a fluster.

Raphaedel was afraid of looking like the kind of shameless person who made bets while a friend was preparing a spell.

“What are you talking about? You put money in too!”

“Shut up, you prince brat. Do you have no sense at all?!”

“Guys. Keep it down.”

Lee Han glared at the friends.

Lee Han was focusing with every ounce of concentration on casting a newly learned spell, so why were they chatting so much?

“Tch. This is Raphaedel’s fault.”

“How is this my fault?!”

Watching the two argue, Siana thought to herself.

If this slides by, maybe I won’t have to pay the stake I put up…

“N-no. It’s not that I’m saying there was anything wrong with the bet itself. I’m just surprised you predicted it. How did you know he’d succeed in one try?”

“Usually, Wardanaz succeeds in three or four.”

“R-right.”

The friends testified as if it were only natural.

Agdung felt dizzy at the magical speed, nearly to the point of madness.

Three or four?

Surely they weren’t saying that about a spell far beneath Lee Han’s level…

…And come to think of it, for a second-year student like Lee Han, there was no such thing as a spell far beneath Lee Han’s level. There was no such thing as negative-circle magic.

Gainando drove the point home for the stunned Agdung.

“And besides, Lee Han got kidnapped not long ago by the Skull Principal’s insane duplicate, you know? So I bet on one try.”

“By who for what???”

Before Agdung could even get a reply, Siana asked in confusion,

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“When Lee Han gets into danger, the magic gets better!”

Gainando gave the analysis with complete confidence.

If Lee Han had heard it, Lee Han would have grabbed Gainando by the collar on the spot, but Gainando had a theory and was committed to it.

Whenever that top-ranked friend got thrown into danger, Lee Han would casually pull out and complete spells Lee Han had supposedly not yet mastered.

And since it hadn’t been that long since Lee Han escaped from the Skull Principal’s insane duplicate, that heightened focus was probably still lingering.

That was why Gainando had boldly bet on one try.

…Th-that actually sounds plausible?

Yonair thought inwardly.

Lee Han would have hated the idea, but to the friends listening, it was a surprisingly convincing theory.

After all, every time Lee Han went through some dangerous ordeal, Lee Han did show that razor-sharp concentration for a while afterward, like a blade honed to an edge.

“I finished the other sections too. I told you to be quiet, so why do you keep talking?”

While Agdung stood there too shocked to speak, Lee Han finished the rest of the field and walked back over.

Gainando immediately sold out a senior from the other school.

“Senior Agdung started talking to us!!”

“…Shh. Keep it down, you idiot.”

Embarrassed by the friend, Lee Han cast a sidelong glance at Agdung.

If Gainando was going to sell somebody out, then at least do it discreetly. How could Gainando do it so openly with someone from another school standing right there?

“Senior Agdung. Could you check it for me?”

“Uh, uh… uh. Uh-huh.”

Agdung answered in a half-lost voice and checked the mushroom field.

Suddenly, the words left behind by the juniors at Kalarogard came back.

—Senior. If you visit Einroguard, please make sure to check what the dark magic school there is like.

—That’s right! We want to compare whether we’re better, or whether the students in Einroguard’s dark magic school are better!

When it came to dark magic, Kalarogard’s students never backed down easily, even against students of Einroguard.

That was how serious they were.

If they themselves were better, they would take it as pride.

If the students of Einroguard were better, they had intended to accept it as motivation to improve—

…No. Wardanaz has to be excluded.

Agdung decided that once Agdung returned, this part would have to be told with Lee Han omitted.

If Agdung described what had happened exactly as it was, then forget motivation to improve—Agdung was worried the juniors’ spirits would simply break.

*****

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Which cursed bastard dumped contaminants around carelessly?! The forest is getting ruined!!!

Iactus: Accept it. This kind of thing happens from time to time.

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Accept what? Go to hell. You fifth-year-bound bastard!

Iactus: Wh… what?! Watch your mouth!

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Why don’t you accept it? This kind of thing happens from time to time too, doesn’t it?

Iactus: If you’re that loud, I suppose your magic is as good as your tongue. Want to test it?

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Gladly! Meet me in the principal’s office! Come to the principal’s office! I’ll be waiting!

The seniors’ fights are pretty entertaining.

After finishing the work in the mushroom field and evacuating to the village on the seventh floor, Lee Han watched <Einroguard’s Watchers> with interested eyes.

When Priest Siana used to want to watch fights, Lee Han had worried, Has Priest Siana become strange because of that one year spent in Einroguard? But looking at it now, Lee Han could understand a little.

It was interesting.

Senior Beaver-Penguin-Fox cares about the forest and has a filthy personality.

The alarm was spreading quickly among the students currently on the seventh floor of the main building.

A mass warning had gone out that tainted ones were pouring out from somewhere and sweeping across the surrounding area.

At Einroguard, it was far too common for a disaster caused by someone’s mistake to trigger a butterfly effect and come roaring across the entire school territory like a gigantic storm, so the upperclassmen weren’t shocked and simply evacuated deeper into the village—but that didn’t mean they weren’t furious.

A few had already started shouting at the sky that if they caught whoever caused it, they would kill the culprit.

Senior Beaver-Penguin-Fox had probably also been doing something in the seventh-floor forest, only to be forced to abandon it and flee because of the tainted ones.

Still, telling somebody to meet in the principal’s office…

Lee Han honestly admired the method.

If anyone ever challenged Lee Han to a duel in the future, or threatened Lee Han by asking where Lee Han was, Lee Han almost wanted to use that method too.

Iactus: You ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■■…

Gonadaltes: Why is it showing up as ■?

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: For the honor of the Watchers Club. Magic automatically censors vulgar nonsense like that so the members don’t have to see it. More importantly, does anyone have information on the tainted ones? I’ll pay well.

“!”

At the Watchers member’s words, Lee Han’s eyes widened.

A request for a transaction.

Judging by how desperate the other side sounded, the price would probably be quite good too.

Gonadaltes: What kind of information do you need?

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Anything that would help with extermination. Why? Gonadaltes, do you have something?

Iactus: Don’t sell to a rude bastard like that, Gonadaltes!

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: I’ll apologize first. Iactus. Even taking everything else into account, saying you were headed for fifth year was probably too much.

Iactus: Hmph.

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Everyone, if you have information, contact me privately. Like I said, I’ll pay well.

Hm. A spell like <Tainted Ones, Begone!> is probably something the other side already knows.

Lee Han fell into thought.

Since this dark magic wasn’t some secret spell, there was a high chance the other side knew it too.

And judging by how Beaver-Penguin-Fox was acting, the other side probably wanted to exterminate the tainted ones in the forest. That might work for a mushroom field, but the entire forest was too large in scale.

Besides, it would have needed to be cast before they arrived.

Now that the swarm of tainted ones was already roaming the seventh floor, that spell would be useless.

“Senior.”

“Hm? What is it?”

Lee Han called out to Agdung, who was seated nearby and pantomiming the act of drinking from an empty cup.

The group was currently sitting inside the tea shop Hot Water and Cold Water in the Exiles’ Village on the seventh floor.

This tea shop, run by a third-year from Black Turtle Tower, was almost identical to any tea shop outside.

Except for the small fact that the tea was brewed without any tea leaves.

“Could you explain a little more about those tainted ones? Ways to exterminate them, or…”

“Y-you! Don’t tell me you’re planning to exterminate them?!”

Agdung shouted in alarm.

The swarm of tainted ones that had approached the mushroom field earlier had only been the beginning. Looking outside the village barrier now, their numbers had multiplied dozens of times over.

And Lee Han wanted to exterminate that?

No matter if Lee Han was the Imperial Mage Marshal’s disciple, wasn’t that far too arrogant a judgment?

“Hah. Senior, this is «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» what Lee Han is like. When something like that happens, Lee Han enjoys exterminating them.”

Lee Han signaled with the eyes to Yonair. Yonair slapped Gainando on the back instead.

“It’s not that I’m trying to exterminate them. I was only asking out of pure curiosity.”

“E-even in a situation like this, curiosity?”

Agdung’s gaze was different now from before. It was the look of someone a little appalled.

“No, I was just curious…”

“All right. I understand.”

I think there’s a misunderstanding here.

Lee Han felt there was clearly some misunderstanding between the two of them, but something more urgent had come up, so Lee Han decided to explain later.

“For now, that swarm of tainted ones will disappear on its own eventually, right? Because the mana on this seventh floor has a strong kind of homeostasis.”

The main building of Einroguard was a magical realm with so many enchantments layered onto it that even the Skull Principal did not fully understand them all, but a few fundamental principles did exist.

One of them was a kind of homeostasis that tried to restore the place and return it to its original state no matter what kind of problem or accident occurred.

Just as a human body tried to maintain a constant temperature, the main building also tried to preserve its own nature as much as possible.

As befitted an experienced dark mage, Agdung had already noticed that the swarm of tainted ones was being rejected by the mana flowing through the seventh floor.

Beings like those could not endure for long. Just as summoned undead disappeared if they could not secure mana, those tainted ones too would eventually run out on their own and scatter.

“I understand.”

“In that case, the way to exterminate the swarm has to approach it from that side too. Any other method would take too much work. Do you remember the location of the wave we felt by the mushroom field earlier?”

Agdung pulled out a nearby map that Professor Taswan had once drawn and spread it open.

“If I remember right, in this direction there was a spring connected to the groundwater, wasn’t there? And as you know, groundwater is one of the easiest things to contaminate when mages are nearby.”

Even if time would solve the problem on its own, if the source of contamination remained, then tainted ones would keep coming out for a while.

If that kind of contamination source was purified, the time needed could be shortened drastically.

“I see. Let me make a note of that.”

Lee Han opened a private exchange with Beaver-Penguin-Fox and started writing down exactly what had just been heard.

Gonadaltes: The homeostasis in the seventh floor’s mana… time… method… contamination source… from what I can tell… groundwater…

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: W-w-wait. Wait a second, sir. Just a moment!

The other side was so startled the handwriting shook violently, as if on the verge of fainting.

Information far more useful than expected was coming in far too quickly.

Who in the world is this???

For a moment, Beaver-Penguin-Fox felt a chill, almost wondering whether this was actually the Skull Principal.

Beaver-Penguin-Fox told the self, There’s no way the principal would patiently do something like this! but every student at Einroguard understood it in the back of the mind.

The Skull Principal was not a being they could dare judge by ordinary common sense.

What if the Skull Principal really was in disguise, doing this to teach the students an enormous lesson in despair?

But this is exactly the information I need right now!

Beaver-Penguin-Fox had been focused on other research outside the main building and only found out late about the attack that had broken out on the seventh floor, so Gonadaltes’s information was like rain after drought.

Gonadaltes: Don’t interrupt me. You’re making it harder to write. But you’re not really going to exterminate them, are you?

Beaver-Penguin-Fox: Pardon?

Gonadaltes: Ah. I wrote that wrong just now.

Lee Han stopped short in the middle of writing down Agdung’s explanation word for word.

You’re not really going to exterminate them, are you? was what Agdung had said to Lee Han, not something meant for Beaver-Penguin-Fox.

“Please don’t worry, Senior.”

“For mere academic curiosity, you seem to be asking for a lot of detail…”

Agdung looked at the Imperial Mage Marshal’s disciple with a suspicious gaze.