WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 25

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My eyes snapped open. My heart was pounding like it might burst. I gasped for breath. Tremors ran through my whole body. My stiff muscles twisted in shock, and my forehead and back were soaked in cold sweat.

Every sense I had was sharpened. Within those senses, my very existence felt somehow misaligned. Every part of me felt wrong, as if my body had been torn to pieces.

Warm air brushed against my skin. At the same time, heavy magical power wrapped around my entire body. That magical power rebuilt me. Guided by it, I slowly regained the feeling of my own body.

“Ugh...”

I grabbed my head and sat up. Where was I? My head felt like it was splitting open. I had definitely left the sixth floor and headed to the seventh. Yes, I remembered everything up to the sixth floor perfectly. I had gone to the seventh floor, and then...

The more I tried to remember, the more my head screamed in pain. I should stop thinking about it. I should just bury everything beyond that point in the depths of my memory. After deciding that, I gathered my thoughts.

I checked my body for a moment. Even now, something still felt slightly off. It was like my body was not my own. Maybe that was why my magical power would not move properly either. The Sapling had shrunk back completely and was hiding deep inside the foundation in my chest. Why was this thing so frightened? It had to be connected to the memories I could not recall.

I forced my trembling eyelids open. Where was this place? I had never seen it before. It was an enormous room. The first thing that caught my eye was a wide window showing the scenery outside. Beyond the window, which filled almost half the wall, clouds and mountains stretched out in layers.

A large desk sat in front of that window. I heard rustling from there, as if someone was sitting behind it. But piles of documents were stacked so high on top that I could not tell who was there. I slowly approached the desk.

A grumbling voice reached me.

“No, why are they making me handle this? Nothing like this happened for the last thousand years. What, they just can’t stand seeing someone else laze around? I swear, I’m not letting those old bastards get away with this...”

It was Professor Irian’s voice. I carefully moved past the mountain of documents. The Professor had a hollow look on her face as she scribbled half-heartedly on the papers with a magical power pen.

All sorts of things were scattered around her. As I glanced over them, my gaze naturally fixed on one object.

It was an eyeball the size of my fist. It was staring straight at me. When my eyes met it, my head, which had finally calmed down, started hurting again. The Sapling in my chest was startled and poured out magical power.

An eye, what was an eye again? The eye was looking at me. The eye was staring at meandImeltedjustlikethat.

“You’re doing this again.”

A powerful blow struck my head. Familiar pain cut off every thought that had begun to melt away. I collapsed to the floor, clutching my head. The eye. I remembered. On the seventh floor, I had seen an eye.

Through my trembling hands, I saw the Professor. And that eye, too. It was still staring at me. When I felt my brain start to churn again, I hurriedly closed my eyes. I figured seeing nothing at all would be better for my mental health.

“Mm. Don’t remember any more than that. I didn’t know this thing would be wandering around there either.”

The Professor spoke.

“I roughly sealed your memories and stitched your soul back together, but you’ll still be unstable for about a week. You did a good job cleaning up to the fifth floor. Since this was partly my mistake, the cleaning ends here.”

With her words, the magical power of the contract that had been binding my Sapling returned to my wrist. It had only been cleaning, yet I had gone through something like this. Did the Professor intend to make me do things like this from now on? The feeling of being torn apart came back to me, and my body shuddered.

Once my head settled a bit, I slowly opened my eyes. That eye was still watching me. I stared at the ceiling and slowly got to my feet. I could still feel its piercing gaze. I pointed in that direction.

“Is that... that eye... what I saw?”

“Ah, I still had this out. No wonder you had another fit.”

The Professor split space open and threw the eye inside. I felt the gaze that had been staring at me disappear. I let out a sigh of relief and bowed my head to the Professor.

“I’m sorry. I was too lacking and lost consciousness.”

“Hm? It’s fine. This was my mistake. I didn’t think something would escape the treasure vault after only a hundred years. It’s a precious treasure I obtained around four hundred years ago. If it had even a little magical power in it, you would have melted on the spot.”

“That... is a treasure?”

Without thinking, I questioned the Professor’s words. I hurriedly closed my mouth and watched her expression. The Professor did not seem to care and only kept scribbling through the documents.

“I was a little bored back then, so I went all the way down to the depths of the sea. I killed the thing that lived there and compressed it into that eye. If I fill it with magical power and show it to someone? They end up like you.”

She glanced at me and clicked her tongue.

“You ended up like that because you’re too weak. You were infected by the law contained in its gaze. Build a sturdier mental barrier from now on.”

I just nodded blankly. The sea, a monster, a law. It all sounded like some distant dream. I did not really understand what she was talking about, but one thing was clear. I had faced something I could not handle.

“Anyway, erase that from your head now. I sealed it again so it won’t get loose.”

“Yes.”

She said nothing more and casually charged her pen with magical power, tearing through the mountain of documents at random. I stood beside her and quietly steadied myself.

Still, could this be called a blessing in disguise? Maybe seeing that thing had helped, because the Sapling had become a little sturdier. If it grew once or twice more like this, I felt I could advance to the next stage. Of course, if someone told me to go through that again, I would run away without a second thought.

After she worked through documents for a long while, the entire mountain disappeared. The signed papers all vanished into a gap in space she opened. Once the desk was clean, the Professor collapsed onto it.

Out of habit, I took out a puppet. Butler came out of the spatial pouch and approached her. Butler brewed tea, placed a cup in front of her, and covered her with a light blanket. She accepted the tea, drank it, and smiled.

“With this, all the urgent work is done. I saw that the tower was cleaned up to the fifth floor too, so the job I gave you ends here.”

“Professor, I have something to report.”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression. I stiffened slightly and continued.

“There are several rooms on the second floor and fifth floor where space has been torn. With my skill, I couldn’t deal with them at all...”

“I fixed all of those. There was also one thing that escaped the storeroom on the sixth floor, so I caught it again.”

“I’m sorry. I should have taken care of it.”

I bowed my head. The Professor gave a small laugh and shook her head.

“I didn’t expect anything from the sixth floor onward anyway. From there, it’s my treasure vault. At your level, there are plenty of things that could drive you mad like just now if you touched them the wrong way.”

She smiled as she continued.

“Still, what you saw was one of the gentle ones. If you’d met something on the eighth or ninth floor, even your soul would have melted.”

My body trembled. I could hear the sincerity in her words. There were things even stronger than that eye? Suddenly, I remembered the title people in the slums used for the Professor.

She was called the Explorer. Before she made a contract with me, she had often boasted about the treasures she had brought back. If she had spent countless years searching for treasures, then she must have collected that many incredible things. And it seemed all of them were gathered in this tower.

“Anyway, this story ends here. Now it’s time to fulfill the contract.”

She showed me her wrist as she spoke. A contract text similar to mine was written there. I held out my own wrist and looked at it.

“If I receive Irian’s help and pass the university entrance exam, I will serve Irian until graduation.”

I had thoroughly felt what this effect was like while coming up here. This thick contract text was binding my Sapling. Every time I hesitated, it pressured me to fulfill the contract. Led by that threat, I had eventually faced that eye.

My body shuddered. Even though my memories had been stabilized and my magical power had been settled, the aftereffects of that eye still remained. As the Professor said, I felt like I needed to rest for about a week.

I straightened myself. One year ago, the Professor had offered me a contract. She would help me enter the university, and after admission, I would serve her. That became the contract text and remained on my wrist like this.

But I still did not know why she had taught me. Why had a transcendent mage like her invested a year in a mere wanderer like me?

Until now, I had only made vague guesses. But those were exactly that, my own imagination. I had never had the courage to ask the Professor for the reason.

And now, I had passed the university exam, fulfilling the condition. I had become someone who had to obey her no matter what she said. Tense, I waited for her next words. She took a sip of tea and spoke.

“When I first made the contract, I didn’t expect much from you. I thought someone who couldn’t even get admitted would never graduate alive. I figured your remaining lifespan was about two hundred years, and I planned to use you as a servant during that time.”

That much, I had to admit. Before meeting her, I had been drinking from the bitter cup of failure for ten years.

During that time, my growth had been sluggish, and my heart had only grown more impatient. Even if someone like me had entered the university, could I really have graduated? Even I knew the answer was no. I simply nodded in silence.

“But while teaching you, I changed my mind a bit.”

She clapped her hands and smiled brightly. Why had she changed her mind? Did I have more talent than expected? A small sense of anticipation rose in me. But it quickly faded again. I knew myself well. There was no way.

“You’re more talented at attendant work than I thought.”

Of course. As if she had noticed my disappointment, she frowned slightly. I felt the magical power around her churn. I quickly smiled and hid my thoughts.

“It’s a flaw that your thoughts sometimes stray like this, but you still try to finish the tasks you’re given. Should I call it a servant’s mindset? I can see it clearly, and it’s very pleasing. Maybe that’s why you also grew more than I expected.”

Professor Irian leisurely took a sip of tea and said,

“So I’m going to entrust this tower to you.”

For a moment, my mind went blank.

Were the aftereffects from that eye still lingering and making me hear things wrong? Or was the Professor joking? My mouth fell open at those unbelievable words.

“Pardon?”

I asked without thinking. She waved her teacup around in the air and grumbled.

“It’s annoying. I said it’s annoying. I’m busy collecting treasures, so why do I have to be tied down here teaching other people?”

Annoyance was written on her face, and irritation filled her words. The magical power around her churned in response to her mood. She glanced at me.

Then she sank into thought for a moment. Soon, she pulled a scroll from a gap in space and threw it to me. I received it respectfully.

“You need to know this now too, so read it.”

I carefully opened the scroll. The first word I saw was “Warning.” Below it, writing filled the page densely. I slowly read through it. The more I read, the more I began to understand her situation.

No, could I really say I understood it? I was more shocked than anything. I had never imagined a university professor could be such a free position.

I roughly summarized the scroll. In short, it said, “Since you have not conducted classes for a thousand years, you will continue teaching for the next hundred years.”

Seeing this, I also understood why she had brought me to the university. Just as this warning said, she needed a slave to handle the annoying work for her from now on.

But now she was suddenly entrusting the tower to me? I looked at her with a question in my eyes. As if she felt my gaze, a smile appeared on her face, which had been full of nothing but annoyance.

“I got you as a servant to use during the period written there, but you’re more capable than I thought, aren’t you?”

Her finger pointed at me. The smile on her face slowly deepened. It was full of interest and mischief. A bad feeling made my body tremble.

“So I changed my mind. Ah, is there any need for me to step forward?”

She rose from her seat and approached me. Then she patted my shoulder and smiled.

“You can just do all of it.”

I could not say anything. I simply could not understand what was happening. A servant, that much made sense. I had guessed that too. I had served the Professor all this time and learned her personality. I had thought it might be to ease her own annoyance.

But what came after that was something I had never imagined.

“You’ll plan the classes, hold the exams, and grade them. You’ll also manage the tower. I’ll spend that time relaxing in the tower. I came up with it myself, but it really is a groundbreaking idea.”

The moment I heard that, I almost lost my mind from shock. Facing that eye from earlier might have been the better choice. That was how unreal her words felt.

What in the world was this person saying? I looked at the Professor with an aggrieved expression. The Professor only had a playful sparkle in her eyes.

“So... you’re telling me to conduct classes in your place, Professor?”

I asked carefully. She nodded with absolute certainty.

“Yes.”

“And I grade them too?”

I asked again. She answered firmly.

“Yep.”

I grabbed my head. My body and mind, which I had barely managed to settle, slipped out of my control and began screaming in pain. What in the world was happening? The situation was moving in a completely different direction from what I had imagined. The Professor laughed loudly at the sight of me.

“Now, shall we decide on the lecture right away? They told me to submit the syllabus by the end of this week!”

She shouted with a bright smile. I could only clutch my head and stare at her.

“I don’t know anything. About the university.”

Drained of all strength, I answered weakly. Her eyes sparkled as she shouted,

“It’s fine. I don’t know either! I became a professor and never did anything.”

Hearing that made me lose my mind even further. Was this really okay? My mind, which had been analyzing the situation, gradually slid toward resignation.

It was something I could not refuse anyway. Then maybe I should just accept it and enjoy it. In any case, I had received immeasurable grace from the Professor by entering the university. This was simply the process of repaying that.

The harder and more thorny the path, the better the chance to prove my loyalty to the Professor. Yes, this matter was the same.

While I was rationalizing everything like that, her eyes slowly began to narrow. At the same time, magical power pressed down on me. I forced a smile and quickly nodded.

“I’ll do my best!”

I straightened my shoulders and shouted with confidence. Inside, I was shedding tears of blood. From the moment I made the contract, there had only ever been one choice given to me. I could not even dare imagine what would happen from now on.

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