WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 41

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The lecture ended.

Baun took first place in this test as well. He won by advancing straight through the other students’ shadows, tearing them apart in droves. No magic used by any other shadow could pierce his shadow’s body.

The owner of the shadow that died last by his hand became the one who passed. They were not especially strong. They had stayed somewhere around the middle ranks in the tests so far, so they had probably survived this one by hiding well somewhere.

Of course, either way, it had little to do with me. While they were taking the test, I had simply gotten a very good rest. Only when the lecture was nearly over did I finally come to my senses.

When I woke up, the gap between my body and mind had almost disappeared, and the two fit together naturally. It was a sense of unity I had not felt in a long time. In this state, I could last another month.

Once I returned, work would be piled up again. It took two days to get from here back to the tower, so three days’ worth of work in total would be waiting for me. If I did not hurry back, there would be even more.

Still, I did not return to the tower yet.

Instead, I entered the black sphere. Before I knew it, I had been wandering through it for six hours. During that time, I managed to find quite a few puddles.

I quietly examined the puddle I had found this time. Someone’s magical power was smeared inside it. Did this place have an owner too? I slowly turned back the way I had come.

All kinds of puddles existed in this world. They were connected to the tower in reality. The students entered through puddles like these and moved to the depths of the tower. Then they claimed those places as their own territories and continued training.

The places that were easy to reach or rich in magical power had already been taken by the upper-ranked students. The rooms tucked away in corners had been claimed by those beneath them. Lower-ranked students even trained by sharing puddles with each other.

I followed the path back and reached the starting point, in front of the black sphere. Near it, several shadows had settled on one side of the passage and were absorbing magical power. They were the ones who had failed to secure rooms. Instead, they were feeding this world’s magical power to their shadows.

The magical power in this world was very peculiar. Only shadows could handle it, and only shadows could absorb it. Since those students could hardly improve their own skills, they were trying to raise their shadows as much as they could.

I carefully passed by them. I had fed my own shadow magical power like that a few times before too.

But after my shadow properly took shape, I stopped doing it. What was the point of feeding it more? It was obvious I would be eliminated first anyway.

Because of that, it had been quite a while since I wandered around this place. Until now, I had mostly used it only as a passage to and from the lecture hall. I was already busy with my own work, so I had no time to look around here on purpose.

Then Myra had told me to explore this world more deeply.

She must have had a clear reason for saying that. With that in mind, I had wandered through many areas over the past six hours. But I could not discover anything. Only the shadows moving along the walls welcomed me.

Did that mean I had to go there? Below the sphere, I saw a huge hole. It was the only place I had not gone. That was the only place left.

I slowly approached the hole. When I got close, I saw that the inside was full of dim shadows. Still, there was a path leading down.

I set foot on that path. The road downward was extremely steep, and the farther I descended, the murkier the magical power became.

This was why I had not bothered going down here before. The magical power in the upper levels was the purest. The deeper one went into this hole, the more sharply the efficiency of the magical power dropped.

I continued down that path without end. After descending for who knew how long, I suddenly realized my surroundings had become terribly dark.

That darkness came from the magical power. The magical power had grown murky, then gone beyond that and started turning viscous, staining the surroundings dark.

And within it, shadows were wavering.

The shadows moved around with half their bodies sticking out. This unpleasant magical power seemed to give them the strength to move.

I approached and examined them. But they were not in a normal state. The things moving like this had lost all sense of direction and drifted aimlessly like dust blown about by the wind. Their faint forms looked as though they might disappear at any moment.

I remembered Professor Heisen’s explanation.

He had said this was a place where the shadows of dead things gathered. The things I had seen in the upper levels had moved with great vigor. Until now, I had thought all the shadows in this world were like that.

But as I watched these ones, I realized that thought had been wrong. These were the true shadows of the dead.

These were shadows that had lost their owners, been bound to this world for a long time, forgotten even the meaning of their existence, and slowly faded away. This was the end they had reached.

They did not notice my shadow even when it passed right beside them. I carefully avoided them and began descending even farther in.

More and more shadows came into view, and the magical power now started clinging to my shadow as if it had grown thick and viscous.

I went down, then down again. Now I could not even see a clear path.

My sense of direction disappeared, and I could no longer tell where I was. I could not see any shadows anymore. The farther I moved forward, the stronger the feeling became that I was melting into that deep darkness.

How long had I walked like that? In the middle of this silent darkness, a massive current suddenly began to form. It created tremendous pressure and pulled me along.

I was swept up in that current and pushed even deeper. It was a pressure I did not dare resist.

After being carried along for an unknown amount of time, I reached the current’s end point.

A man was standing there. He pulled me out of the flow of darkness.

“Hey there. This is the first time I’ve seen you outside!”

He laughed while holding me in his hand. It was a familiar voice. Baun. He was blocking the path with his whole body, as if standing against that massive current. Hanging from his hand, I lowered my head.

“Thank you for helping me.”

“No, I’m the one who should apologize. I didn’t know anyone was here, so I absorbed as much magical power as I wanted, and you ended up getting swept all the way here.”

I carefully looked around. Because he was completely blocking the current, the surrounding darkness had also vanished. As I examined the area, I could tell why this current had formed.

It was because he had exposed his living body. The magical power drawn to it had become a huge current and was rushing into this place. Then all that magical power was being sucked into his shadow. His shadow was devouring that enormous current whole.

So something like this was possible. I swallowed inwardly. Only now did I understand why his shadow was so strong. He set me down on the ground. Then he stroked his short beard and looked at me.

“How did you end up here? The tower’s facilities are all above, and there’s nothing here but this turbid magical power.”

“I received Myra-nim’s advice and came down because I wanted to see the depths of this world for myself.”

“Oh, from Myra-nim, you say. That’s interesting. So, now that you’ve seen it yourself, what do you think?”

I quietly raised my body and looked around. There were strange sights here that I had not been able to see through my shadow’s eyes.

What I had thought was a flow of magical power was an enormous shadow. It was a massive shadow created when dead shadows lost their minds, mixed with magical power, and became entangled with other shadows.

“I never imagined it would look... like this.”

Was this what Myra had told me to examine? I could not take my eyes off that bizarre sight. As I watched it, several sparks of inspiration seemed to rise inside me.

“It hasn’t been that long since I came here either. The magical power upstairs can’t temper my shadow any further anymore, you see. I was searching for stronger magical power, and that brought me all the way here.”

He puffed out his chest as he said it. His shadow kept absorbing magical power endlessly, as if it knew no limit.

“I see. Thanks to you, I was able to reach this place too. If I had come down alone, I wouldn’t have been able to see a sight like this.”

“Not at all. Think of how much you’ve done for me until now. This much is nothing.”

I smiled bitterly. I remembered my shadow being torn apart by him in every test so far. The thing seemed to have no thoughts at all, because it quietly followed Baun’s shadow and tasted one mouthful of magical power.

It smacked its lips for a moment, then spat that magical power right back out. Baun watched it and burst into laughter.

“Looks like it doesn’t suit this one’s tastes. Fair enough. In a way, it’s a lump of dead shadows, isn’t it? My shadow took quite a while to get used to it too, so it would be hard to absorb right away.”

“I see.”

My shadow kept dry heaving. The thing looked at me. Along with that, it sent its will through our magical power connection.

It was a signal asking for magical power so it could wash out its insides. When I handed over magical power, it rinsed its mouth with it.

The thing looked at Baun’s shadow with trembling eyes. I felt strong fear inside it. That was understandable. In a way, it was watching one of its own kind devour the corpses of its kin.

Baun and I silently watched the shadow feed. Why could shadows mix with each other like that? As I studied that question, time passed naturally.

Watching this sight made my chest tingle a little, but I could not be sure whether I could grasp anything from it.

I would just have to use this sight as one direction and continue my research. If experiences and experiments like this built up and kept building, I would surely produce results someday.

At last, Baun’s shadow finished absorbing magical power. It covered Baun with its own body, which had been giving off magical power.

Then the current of magical power that had lost its target gradually began to settle down. I felt that enormous shadow sweep across the surroundings, but it could not find the living body that had already hidden beneath a shadow.

Just like that, the surroundings filled with darkness again. In it, Baun’s voice reached me.

“Well then, I’m thinking of heading out now. Will you come with me?”

“No. I want to stay here a little longer.”

I shook my head. It felt as though there were still things I needed to confirm. I needed to study the nature of this shadow a little more. Baun’s laughter spread through the darkness.

“Don’t think about going any deeper from here. More ominous things are wriggling down below.”

With that, he left, leaving only a streak of wind behind. As the darkness thickened and everything around me sank into silence, I closed my eyes and continued thinking.

Maybe because I had seen that sight before, I could feel the shadows living and moving inside this darkness. They had lost their forms and melted away, but within that enormous whole, they were maintaining themselves.

The darkness was not just magical power mixed together in disorder. It was like a space where individual shadows gathered and formed harmony. This realization stayed inside me like a fragile shard of glass, incomplete and broken into pieces.

To make it even a little more complete, I sank endlessly into the darkness.

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