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◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 17

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17

Ailey had been right.

Through the puppets I had scattered through the forest around the mountain, I detected enormous vibrations. Something was kicking off the ground and charging toward the mountain in a massive horde.

From up on the mountain, the dense trees blocked me from seeing them directly, but as they drew closer, I began to feel rippling waves of magical power.

The puppets quickly crossed the ground and headed toward the source of the vibrations. I needed to know exactly what was coming.

Only then could I adjust my maze to suit their traits, even if only slightly. Soon, they entered the puppet's field of vision. It was a herd of boars with huge thorns growing from their backs.

They were magical beasts I had never seen before. The magical power radiating from their backs felt quite sharp. The boars paid no attention to the puppets hanging from the trees and charged forward without hesitation.

At that speed, they would reach this place within thirty minutes. The others would probably detect their approach soon as well.

I quickly began modifying the maze's structure. The force behind their charge was not ordinary. I needed to reinforce the walls, making them heavier and sturdier so they could withstand it.

The puppets waiting throughout the maze used the magic embedded in them to widen and strengthen the walls, moving in preparation for the approaching threat.

I also minimized the number of forks in the road. When I heard the word fortress, I assumed the magical beasts invading us would have at least some intelligence. But the boars in front of me did not seem to have even that much.

If I made the paths too complicated, they would clearly ram their heads into the walls and try to destroy the maze itself. It would be better to guide them into the traps as quickly as possible.

Before long, the boars reached the mountain. The beasts swarming in from every direction charged nonstop into each person's fortress. My zone was no exception. Since my zone was the largest, even more magical beasts kept flooding in.

Seen up close, the boars were like tanks made of steel. Their charge was fast and brutal, and their bodies were as large as people. The huge thorns growing from their backs held magical power, making the boars stronger and more dangerous.

They crossed the foot of the mountain and entered my maze. What greeted their first charge were the traps I had set up in advance. The moment they stepped forward, the floor gave way and dropped them into deep pits below. The thorn spears planted inside pierced straight through the bodies of the ones that fell.

But there were far too many boars. Even when the ones in front fell and died, the others did not stop charging, as if they knew nothing of fear. Even when the floor collapsed and spears pierced their bodies, they threw themselves in anyway. No, they probably had no choice. Even if they tried to stop, the ones behind them would have shoved them forward.

Countless boars fell into the pits one after another, filling the empty space. The traps I had dug over hundreds of meters were filled with their corpses in an instant. After neutralizing the traps with their companions' bodies, their eyes were filled with some unknowable excitement.

Without stopping, they rammed their heads into the maze walls. The thick walls I had already reinforced were enough to endure their charge. On top of that, the hundreds of thick spikes attached to those walls killed them on the spot.

Then something unexpected happened. The thorns on their backs burst out explosively, striking the surrounding walls. Just like that, most of the traps attached to the walls were neutralized.

The boars behind them used the corpses of the dead as shields and charged along the path. They kept running, paying no attention to the spikes on the walls or the traps opened in the floor. The entire maze shook under their hooves.

Hundreds died like that in no time. But it was just as effective. Before this simple, mindless charge, the traps collapsed one after another. The traps were being used up faster than I had expected. The ones that came into direct contact with them wore out especially quickly. I needed to fully adapt the maze's structure to this rough, simple flow of flesh.

Those things knew nothing except how to ram forward. They blindly charged ahead, and if they died along the way, they exploded. They were running bombs. Bombs that charged, collided, and blew apart on the spot. They were weak but troublesome magical beasts, chosen to break our fortresses.

Then I needed to conserve the maze. To stand against their simple strength, I had to use a great strength of my own. I had a force greater than theirs. I adjusted the maze's flow very simply.

I removed the traps and complicated paths in the middle. I simply connected the path so the boars would run in a straight line. The intersections overlapped in layers, merging this grain of mana into one. And in the clearing at the end, the turtle silently watched them.

The turtle stood in the clearing where all the grains converged and waited for them. Looking through the turtle's eyes, the flow of beasts that had looked like a giant wave to human eyes felt like nothing more than a small stream.

The turtle looked different from usual. Its four legs had already been removed. They were parts unnecessary for the work about to begin. In that state, the turtle remained alone, with only its head attached to its shell.

The beasts began drawing closer. The turtle pulled its head into its shell and slowly began to rotate. I had used this rotation before to escape the monkey forest. But this function had not been created for that purpose.

It existed to crush everything that approached, exactly like now.

The thorn boars guided through several branching intersections naturally joined into one flow under my guidance, forming a large mass. They reached the clearing as if it were only natural.

The turtle was the final wall they had to break through. The boars rammed their heads into the rotating turtle without the slightest hesitation. Then they died and exploded on the spot. The turtle shook slightly before that explosion.

But it did not stop rotating. Instead, it used that force to spin even faster. As its speed gradually increased, the protrusions embedded in its shell struck the thorn boars like massive clubs.

The beasts burst apart in every direction, turning into blood lumps. The thorns had no time to explode. The boars at the front screamed as they witnessed that horrifying sight, but the sound was swallowed by the power of the spinning turtle and the pressure of those swarming in from behind.

The thorns growing from the thorn boars' backs exploded the moment they touched the turtle's rotating shell. Some were ripped straight out by the turtle's rotational force. The boars were swept up by that power like leaves in a storm.

Bones shattered, and flesh tore away. The rotation grew faster and faster, and even more thorn boars were crushed and sent rolling helplessly across the ground. The boars' charge and the explosions from their thorns were all ground down before the turtle's rotation.

I focused on removing the corpses from the clearing. I absolutely could not let corpses pile up and interfere with the turtle's movement. I sent every puppet on standby to the clearing. The floor of the clearing, except for the center where the turtle stood, gave way, and the corpses piled on top of it fell into a deep pit along with several thorn boars. Then the floor covered the pit again.

The boars that fell into the pit died at the puppets' hands. A few exploded and took puppets with them, but the puppets did not care and focused on moving the corpses.

This place had to be emptied as quickly as possible. Corpses would keep falling from the clearing above. The puppets handled the incoming boars in coordination with the turtle.

The turtle's shell was stained with blood and shone red, while the clearing repeated the process of corpses piling up and being cleared away without end. This enormous force was exactly what I had aimed for. Even if it was not magic, physical force on this scale possessed destructive power strong enough to surpass magic.

I approached the pile of corpses discharged outside the maze. The thorn boar carcasses kept piling up. Less than an hour had passed, but already more than a thousand carcasses had gathered.

Blood and fragments spread around them like waves, and chunks of flesh that still held life writhed on top of it. All of it looked like a giant altar made of magical beasts.

I slowly approached and examined a corpse. More than anything else, I was curious about the thorns on its back. After dissecting it, I understood. The thorn boar's body was not simply made of blood and flesh. They maintained their form through magical power, and that power remained in the remains. That was a common trait most magical beasts had. Nothing about that was unusual.

"These things... are kind of interesting."

I muttered quietly. The back thorns. This was the interesting part. Most of the magical power dwelling in the thorn boar's body was concentrated in these thorns. These thorns had exploded and destroyed all my traps. I pulled out one thorn and examined the flow of magical power inside it.

My eyes widened. It was a structure I had never expected.

The back thorn continued circulating blood inside it as if it were still alive. This was not an organ that came from the boar.

If anything, it was a kind of parasite that used the boar as a host. They were scraping magical power together from the corpses of the dead boars lying around.

This was a kind of biological bomb. The parasite's body was made from a combination of magical power, but in essence, it created explosions through physical force rather than a magical property.

To this thing, magical power was like a sedative that stabilized its body.

That point was especially interesting. It restrained a collapsing body with magical power. And if it did collapse, it used even the magical power that had been protecting its body as fuel to create a greater explosion.

It was the complete opposite of the Explosion magic process I had understood until now. I had thought the only method was to cause collapse with magical power and create an explosion, but apparently, a strange method like this existed too.

I took out my flying insect. It was my favorite item, embedded with Explosion magic. But during this exam, I had not had many chances to use it. No matter how many of these small flying insects gathered, they would struggle to pierce even a single spell used by the others. In a situation like this, there had been no need to take them out.

What would happen if I applied the properties of these thorns to the flying insects?

No, what would happen if I turned these back thorns themselves into puppets? For the first time in a while, my hands began to itch. Hidden inside this worthless, unimpressive magical beast was a possibility far greater than I had expected.

From that moment on, this mountain of corpses no longer looked like mere trash. These were treasures that would strengthen my magic and, beyond that, make my adorable little bugs more powerful.

I tried feeling the grain of mana in the thorns. Along with the grain came a precarious balance, as if it might crack at any moment. If that balance broke, it would clearly cause an explosion.

I was curious, so should I make one explode myself? With that thought, I stole the magical power from the back thorn.

The back thorn that lost its magical power began collapsing rapidly. Then, once a gap formed, the part touching the air burst apart in an instant. The explosion spread in a chain and happened all at once.

I quickly unfolded defensive magic. The thorn, shattered to pieces by the explosion, scattered in every direction. Seeing the fragments blocked by defensive magic and sliding down, my chest grew hot on its own. I took out a scroll and briefly recorded the explosion just now.

There were many corpses, and plenty of thorns. I would keep studying them.

For the first time in a while, I remembered the old days. When I first escaped the island, I used to develop my magic like this while facing magical beasts. At the end of that process, this Explosion magic had even passed through the hands of that difficult Professor.

Explosions were my hobby.

Though they did not suit me, magic contained a charm I simply could not give up. It was also the magic that had helped me most in reaching this point. If not for the combination of Explosion magic and flying insects, I would not have survived until now.

If I could properly understand the structure that formed these back thorns, my Explosion magic would grow another level. I might also discover a more effective way to deal with thorn boars. If so, there was no reason not to continue researching this.

I began dismantling the corpses one by one. The turtle kept crushing the magical beasts, and the corpses piled and piled until they formed a mountain. I got so much blood on my hands that I lost track of how much time had passed.

Then I felt deep magical power behind me. I quickly composed myself and turned around.

"Oh, thorn boars."

Hongryeong was examining the mountain of corpses. When I checked the time, a little over ten hours had already passed. The boars had kept rushing in for all that time. I did not know how many more would come. I wondered if they would keep swarming in for the full two weeks until this task ended.

"I did not realize you had arrived, and showed you such an unsightly appearance. Haha."

I lowered my head and apologized to Hongryeong. Hongryeong shook his head.

"No, I like thorn boars too. As you can see, Evron-ssi, the structure of those back thorns is quite interesting. I heard there was even a time when people studied whether they were synthetic creatures made by someone."

After saying that, Hongryeong pulled out one back thorn. It began melting in his hand. But there was no explosion. Its structure was wrapped in magical power and revealed as it was. Hongryeong put it straight into one of the scrolls I had spread out everywhere. Then he held it out to me.

Moved, I carefully accepted the scroll with trembling hands. I had learned the structure while researching it all this time, but directly examining such a vivid, living specimen was a different matter. When I looked over the scroll for a moment, there was also a simple note that seemed to have been written by Hongryeong. It was full of interesting content.

"Given the current situation, I cannot even treat you properly, and yet you have given me something this precious. I can only apologize."

"You are taking care of something I should be doing, so I should be the one treating you. I hope this helps you even a little, Evron-ssi."

Hongryeong said that while pulling another thorn from a corpse and examining it.

"This is the first attack, so I came to check how things were progressing. I did not expect you to be blocking them this easily."

Hongryeong looked at the maze with a gaze that subtly showed his curiosity about its interior. I unfolded the modified maze structure before him. It was a structure where the flows that began across a wide area gradually overlapped and converged into one final point. At that final point, the turtle was spinning fiercely.

The rotation had already settled into its proper track, so it could be maintained indefinitely with only a little magical power. Unless something stopped it with power and mass greater than the turtle's, it would keep crushing magical beasts endlessly. Hongryeong examined the turtle closely.

"Is this the puppet we rode here on?"

"Yes, it is."

I magnified the clearing where the turtle was. The turtle continued rotating, using its hard shell as a weapon. That shell kept absorbing blood and restoring itself without pause through the magical power contained inside.

"Mm, at this level, there should be nothing to worry about until the end."

Hongryeong smiled as he said it.

"Then let us talk about the task instead of the magical beasts."

At Hongryeong's suggestion, I grew slightly tense. I did not know what he was going to say, so I asked carefully.

"The task, you mean?"

"Your fortress should be enough at this level, and you should endure the two weeks without trouble."

Hongryeong folded his fingers one by one as he spoke.

"Then now there is only one task left, isn't there?"

I paused for a moment.

"Are you speaking of the fifth task? I will do as I promised before."

Hongryeong shook his head while smiling.

"After thinking about it, I believe there is something we need to add to that. Besides the First Contributor, is there not one more thing we have to choose?"

He must have meant the fifth contributor. It was unexpected. I had never dreamed he had someone in mind.

"You see, I want to choose that person."

Hongryeong lightly gestured with his chin. I checked the direction and was surprised.

I could not guess the reason at all, but there was no need for me to know. I simply nodded in silence. Hongryeong seemed satisfied, and the smile at his lips deepened.

"Then I will be going now. I should not disturb your research any further, Evron-ssi."

Hongryeong raised a wind and floated into the air. I lowered my head and respectfully saw him off. After he left, I thought for a long while. With just me and Hongryeong, there was already a high chance of creating both the First Contributor and the fifth contributor. But with one more vote, we could control everything. I needed to think about how to gather that one vote.

There was no need for me to guess why Hongryeong had made that choice, or to doubt his decision. As long as it was not me, that was enough. I steadied my mind again and began researching the structure of the thorn boars a little more. I had to enjoy this living specimen Hongryeong had left behind to my heart's content. What mattered to me now was developing this maze and myself.

The corpses kept piling up, and the magical beasts kept flooding in.

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