WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 38

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She came to see me on the third day after I regained my freedom.

Of course, I still had to manage the tower and prepare lectures, but to my surprise, even after all that, I had time left over. Including sleep, I had gained four whole hours of free time.

Compared to the days when I could not even sleep properly and had to stop by the infirmary to force my body to recover, it was heaven. I was flipping through a magic book for the first time in ages when someone called me.

The call had come from Puppet No. 134. I ran through the puppet list in my head. Who was that again? No. 134... No. 134... Ah, Cassian. During the second Treasure Hunt, I had exchanged names with her and learned who she was.

The walking embodiment of talent who had defeated me, a skilled student who had reached the second floor within a year of entering. Rumor had it she was being taught directly by the professor too. Whether that was true or not, it did not change the fact that she was someone I found a little difficult to deal with.

Still, she had called, so I had to go. She and the sword-wielders had taken three of the empty rooms on the second floor. Excluding the lecture hall and the infirmary, there were eight rooms total on the second floor. The fact that they occupied three of them showed how strong they were.

No one dared to mess with them either. During the second Treasure Hunt, they had tracked down mages they held grudges against, cut off their limbs, and hung them from pillars. They kept doing it until the lecture ended. After seeing something like that, who could treat them carelessly?

I was no different. I knocked on the door of the room where Cassian was as carefully as possible. Soon, a blank-looking face popped out. It was Cassian. When she saw me, she quickly came outside. Behind her, a puppet engraved with 134 followed along.

“Did you call for me, Cassian-ssi?”

“Uncle, change this for me.”

She pointed at Puppet No. 134. I quickly took control of the puppet and began examining it. But soon, I could only tilt my head. There was nothing especially wrong with it.

“There is nothing wrong with it. What seems to be the problem?”

She covered the shoulder where the puppet’s number was engraved with her hand and shook her head.

“If I cover it like this, I can’t tell whether it’s mine or not at all. I don’t like that.”

To be fair, she was right. Every puppet had been made to the exact same standard. The only mark that distinguished them was the number carved into their shoulder.

When I made them, I had not been thinking about their appearance or anything like that. I had only wanted to escape that work hell as quickly as possible. To do that, I needed to turn out puppets as fast as I could. That shape was the result of chasing efficiency.

“I apologize. I have already used up all the materials, so I can no longer make a new puppet.”

I said it with my head bowed. It was true. Since I had poured all my points into making puppets, I could not get any more materials either. After thinking for a moment, she held out her hand. It was the hand with the ring on it.

“One hundred points.”

“Mm. It is true that I have no materials, but now that I think about it, a method comes to mind. If I use Puppet No. 134 as the base, I think I can make a new puppet. What form would you like?”

I said it with a smile. At that, she pulled a sheet of paper from her chest. On it was a clumsily drawn bear whose head and body were roughly the same size.

“Can you make something like this?”

I took the paper and looked it over carefully. There was nothing especially special about it. It was just a bear with a strange shape. Changing only the appearance was actually quite simple. Especially in a case like this, where I only had to add flesh onto it.

“Of course. Please wait about thirty minutes, and I will bring you the new puppet right away.”

I bowed to her and took the drawing and the puppet. After seeing her back into her room, I quickly went up to the workshop. Then I began studying the drawing properly.

The bear’s face had been roughly drawn with a few simple lines, and the body lacked detail. The overall balance was off, and because the legs and arms were drawn too short, the bear looked somehow awkward and twisted.

Even so, what the drawing wanted to express came through clearly.

Cuteness.

This drawing, which seemed to have been drawn by her herself, was full of traces of someone trying to express nothing but a cute bear. I could feel that from the grain of the drawing.

Then I had to make the puppet to match that.

First, I completely disassembled Puppet No. 134. After working carefully while paying attention to every part and every circuit, I managed to finish taking it apart. These parts would become part of the new bear puppet and move again.

Then I began making the body. I carefully carved the wood so it would match the puppet parts and their grain. First, the torso took its place at the center. I carefully connected the parts of Puppet No. 134 to it and revived the existing functions.

Next came the arms and legs. Just as the drawing expressed, I made very short limbs. They were only long enough for the two hands to barely meet in front of the chest. I attached them to the torso.

I made the head too. It was almost the same size as the torso. This head was the core of the puppet. Round, large eyes. A very small mouth. Even a nose that stuck out. I adjusted every part with great care.

After attaching every part like that, I completed the puppet. The puppet had very awkward body proportions. The head and torso were the same size, while the arms and legs were not even half that length. A bizarre figure.

But it was cute.

It was extremely inefficient, but that was enough. This was definitely the form she had wanted. Since I was receiving points, I needed to realize the client’s wishes as much as possible.

As a finishing touch, I attached magical beast fur over its body to bring out a sense of life. I deliberately used bear fur and magical beast fur to make it look as natural as possible. Looking at the finished thing, I was confident Cassian would like it.

I infused magical power into its body. After receiving my magical power, its mana heart began beating again. Then it took an awkward stance. Mm, there were still parts that needed some adjustment.

After checking its functions one by one like that, I brought it back down to the second floor. Cassian was waiting at the second-floor stairs for me to come down.

When she saw the bear puppet waddling down the stairs behind me, her eyes sparkled. She simply watched its movements until it stood in front of her.

“Is this it?”

Her gaze would not leave the bear puppet. I smiled with satisfaction. Since I had always made puppets while thinking only about the best body proportions, this was my first time making a puppet like this.

But inside this inefficiency, a new value had bloomed instead. It was something I had never considered before. I handed control of the puppet over to her and gave her a few warnings.

“Because the puppet has been modified this way, several functions have been removed. They are things this form cannot do. Also, it will consume more magical power than before, so please do not make it move too much. If you do, it will stop moving before the day is over.”

“Yeah, I like it. Thank you, uncle.”

She held out her ring. I brought my ring to it as well. Magical power moved, and points came over. One hundred points. A very satisfying number. For me, who had already spent all my points, it was like rain in a drought.

She took the puppet and returned to her room. I headed back to my workshop too. After making that, fresh inspiration kept rising inside me. I felt like using this abundant free time to try making a new puppet.

After that, she began showing off the bear puppet in front of others. Whether on the first floor or the second floor, whether they were hostile or friendly, if she saw someone, she would subtly push the puppet forward and smile. Thanks to that natural advertising, other people began coming to me as well.

To be honest, I had expected this when I decorated her puppet. They asked me how much it cost to decorate a puppet. But the standard had already been set.

One hundred points.

If I accepted less than that, Cassian would surely feel uncomfortable. The first customer had to set the standard if I wanted to earn trust.

On top of that, the price of the puppet itself was included in that one hundred points. Fundamentally, all the puppets I had handed out to them belonged to me. How could I just give them away? Did they have any idea how many points had gone into them? Just the materials alone were worth thirty points each.

I explained that to those who came and began receiving customers. Many shook their heads and left.

That was understandable. It was only changing a puppet’s appearance. There was not much difference in function. Who would burn one hundred points on a puppet like that? Even I found it strange that Cassian had spent so many points.

A few more days passed like that. Cassian kept showing off the puppet, and people came to me, heard the price, and gave up.

In that situation, the first person to ask me to modify a puppet was Jun.

After obtaining the space-eating box, he gathered independent mages and created a kind of group. Most of them were lower-ranked people who had gathered to somehow secure their own territory in this tower. They barely managed to obtain one room in the corner of the first floor.

But he was not satisfied with that. While the great families, sword-wielders, and mage association that made up the upper ranks had gone to the second floor, he took control of the first floor. The power contained in his treasure made that possible.

After that, he began collecting usage fees from the mages on the first floor who did not join his group. Most of the mages, feeling burdened by those points, joined him as they were.

As that process continued, almost half the people taking the lecture came to belong to his group. In this way, he became the head of another giant force supporting this lecture.

I was deeply impressed by his skill. Just look at that excellent scheme of turning every opportunity into his own. It was the slyness I had noticed from the moment he stole the treasure. Unlike his quiet and heavy-looking outer appearance, a fox was hiding inside him.

Since I had seen that whole process, I could easily guess why he had come to me. He clearly wanted to show off to others. Trying something other people did not dare to do first was the fastest path to making yourself seem special.

I hid that guess deep in my chest and welcomed him. Now he was full of confidence. There was no trace of his former weakness. He held out a drawing to me.

“Could you decorate a puppet based on this drawing?”

I took it and looked it over. A beautiful woman was drawn inside. Even though it was only a drawing, her bearing was so full of grace that I could not take my eyes off it for a moment.

“Who is this person...?”

“It is a drawing of my wife while she was alive. She was not a mage, so she died a very long time ago.”

He gave a bitter smile. I also offered a brief moment of silence in mourning. He left the points and the portrait behind.

When I returned to the workshop, I checked the portrait again.

The woman in the drawing was sitting in front of a table in very neat attire. She held a teacup in one hand and drank tea elegantly. The dignified smile resting lightly on her lips and the relaxed look in her eyes made her stand out even more.

She was a very beautiful and graceful woman. To be honest, I did not really believe that she was Jun’s wife. Now he looked very confident, but the Jun from before had looked deeply pitiful. He did not seem to match the woman in this drawing at all.

But whether that was true or not had little to do with me. I had received points, so I simply had to carry out the commission as well as possible.

Unlike with Cassian’s case, there was no need to alter the puppet’s structure itself. I only had to analyze the woman’s body type and readjust the puppet to match it.

Expressing the woman’s appearance based on the drawing did not take long. I poured more effort into the face than any other part. I wanted to preserve the deep eyes and relaxed smile felt from the drawing as much as possible.

To do that, I began imitating the grain of the drawing on the puppet. I was trying to use the puppet’s face as a canvas and redraw the woman’s face in three dimensions. After several failures, the woman soon came out of the drawing.

It was a little awkward, but I managed to draw the best face I could on the puppet. The moment that face was drawn, a faint sense of life also began to flow from the puppet.

What kind of clothes would suit a woman like this? Something like a dress seemed best. That would fit Jun’s purpose very well too. The perfect example was also in the drawing.

The woman in the drawing was wearing a very old-fashioned, elegant dress. The upper body had been cut to fit closely, elegantly revealing her curves, while the skirt descended below her knees, showing delicate embroidery and creating an even more refined atmosphere.

I worked to bring out that feeling as much as possible with the cloth and leather I had. Of course, because the limits of the materials were clear, a perfect reproduction was impossible. Still, I managed to complete a dress with as similar a shape as possible.

When I dressed the puppet in it, I could feel a fairly graceful atmosphere, even if it did not reach the level of the drawing. The puppet with its eyes closed held a quietness as if it were sleeping.

I infused magical power into the puppet’s heart. The heart beat again, and the puppet opened its eyes. It was perfect. I moved the puppet as it was. Since I had not changed it much, the puppet moved its body very naturally.

But that alone felt lacking somehow. The puppet’s movements traced only extremely efficient paths. Those movements did not seem to suit this puppet.

Then what kind of movement would suit this puppet? Suddenly, I thought of the bear puppet from earlier. It had created value from an inefficient appearance.

Grace felt like a similar kind of grain. When something moved inefficiently, a special quality unlike anything else was born. With that thought, I adjusted the puppet’s movements.

I also used Ailey as a reference for those movements. Among the people I had met so far, she had the most elegant gestures.

It had been a long time since I thought of her. Where was she now, and what was she doing? I could not imagine it at all.

The completed puppet was full of grace. I smiled as I looked at it. At this level, Jun was sure to be satisfied. That guess was exactly right. He was very pleased when he saw the puppet, and he left after giving me fifty extra points as an additional fee.

Then commissions began coming in.

The people who had hesitated after seeing Cassian’s bear wanted their own puppets decorated after they saw Jun’s woman, even adding extra fees.

Points began pouring in.

I smiled very happily. Then I began thinking of ways to sell even more puppets.

What if I sold functions attached to the appearance too, instead of simply changing the look? With that thought, I added various functions to the puppets.

Things like pouring more tea, giving off fragrance, changing expressions, and so on. I made these functions available for a small number of points.

I had spent so much time modifying puppets that most of my free time disappeared, but I did not care. Points were multiplying on their own. How could anything be happier than this?

I noticed something strange after modifying the fiftieth puppet.

It was the day marking one year since I had come to the university.

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