WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 46

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The turtle slowly moved forward.

Each time it set down a foot, the ground shook with a tremendous rumble. Its massive strength suited both its name and its form.

Not even the countless magical beasts before it could stop its advance. They were crushed beneath the turtle’s feet.

Where did Professor get all these magical beasts? I had never once seen her leave the tower, yet she somehow gathered this many magical beasts for her classes. I was always curious about that.

They looked very familiar. Red eyes and white fur. They were the same fog monkeys I had encountered during the entrance exam.

Back then, the turtle had fallen to them. Their claws had torn into it, wounded it, and shattered all four of its legs. It had barely escaped the fog by rolling away in its shell. That memory was still vivid.

This time was different. The turtle did not even glance at the ones rushing at it. With its body now larger and heavier, it passed straight through the swarm of monkeys.

Every casual movement trampled monkeys flat. Those monkeys, which had once been so terrifying, were no longer a threat.

Less than three years had passed since I came to the university, but I had already changed this much. No wonder every mage clung to the university with such desperation. Even I could hardly believe how much I had grown.

The moment I first saw them, I knew Professor had deliberately thrown these creatures in front of me. It was a kind of consideration, telling me to measure myself as I was now. The problem was that her consideration was far too excessive.

Ten hours had already passed since they began pouring in without end. The ones charging at me made no sound at all. Their eyes held none of the savagery or intelligence they should have had. They simply moved like puppets.

This strange place was still hard to get used to. I looked around through the turtle’s eyes. The scenery remained the same. Fog covered everything in every direction.

Not a single sound could be heard. Every sound vanished inside this fog. The turtle’s footsteps only shook the ground. They produced no noise. Everything around us was simply silent.

That was the trait of this treasure.

A total of ten Treasure Hunts had been held so far. Today was the eleventh. Through them, Professor had established one very clear rule. We had learned it from experience.

The dungeon Professor built always took a form connected to the treasure. The labyrinth had been like that, and so had the desert and the undersea city. Sometimes the treasure formed the environment, and sometimes the treasure was hidden within it.

Within that pattern, I could also read Professor’s confidence. She was confident that even if we figured out where the treasure was, we would never be able to obtain it. As if to prove that, no one had obtained a treasure since the first class.

The treasure Professor prepared this time was a huge heart made entirely of white. She said she had killed some strange magical beast and extracted its essence. She had given it the rough name Fog Heart.

Its effect was exactly what we could see around us. When the heart beat, fog flowed out of it. Over the past ten hours, this fog had continued to grow thicker, and now I could barely see an inch ahead.

I layered defensive magic around myself again. The fog that had seeped all the way into the workshop where I was vanished behind that magic. But the fog began melting through it again and drawing closer.

This fog was no ordinary fog. Any being inside it slowly had everything taken by the fog. Once their soul, memories, mind, and emotions melted away, their body became a puppet controlled by the heart.

Just like the ones the turtle was stepping on now. If they still had their old intelligence, I would not have been able to advance this easily. The ability to set traps and identify weaknesses had been the fog monkeys’ greatest strength.

Their trait of reviving endlessly, however, remained perfectly intact. Because of that, they had been harassing me this entire time. I sighed.

As if unaware of how I felt, the turtle stomped around in high spirits. It seemed to enjoy bursting the monkeys so much that it even rolled around once.

My tree swayed along with its mood. Half assimilated with the turtle’s ego, it had recovered quite a bit, though not as much as before.

The turtle had reason to be this excited. Ever since its ego formed, it had never been able to move properly. It had spent nearly two months clinging only to my chest, so a mere ten hours of running around would hardly satisfy it.

More importantly, I still had not met anyone.

Over the past ten hours, I had met fewer than twenty people. This was a serious problem. I had packed all sorts of things and brought them with me, yet I had not sold a single item. My plan had gone off course.

Damn it. I was going to earn points here and take care of the interest.

I had not expected that meeting people, let alone earning points, would be this difficult. This fog made it impossible to see someone if they moved even one step away. It carried a clear will to keep people from gathering together.

Professor must not have liked watching the students form groups and search for treasures. She must have gotten tired of seeing the same scene repeat over and over. No wonder she had not been watching the fights in the tower lately.

Then the turtle suddenly stopped. When I checked what was going on, a huge wall stood before me. It was a wall made from fog that had hardened solid.

Even when the turtle rammed it, it did not budge. I smiled bitterly. So it was the same here too. It was time to turn back.

I carefully checked the surroundings. Places with walls like this usually had powerful magical beasts nearby. Last time, there had been a huge fish swimming through the sky. The moment I saw it, I had no choice but to run away like my life depended on it.

I quickly moved away from the wall. Thankfully, there was no reaction. It seemed the magical beast had stepped away for a while.

I focused my mind inside my chest. The vast shadow stretching beneath the tree responded to my will. The countless stars that had once sparkled inside it were nowhere to be found. Only two lonely stars shone there.

If I excluded the turtle I was currently riding, there was only one star. That was because the entire sixth floor had become another world and cut off its connection to the outside. I focused my will on that single star.

It was giving off a faint light. That meant it was a little far away. The turtle slowly moved in the direction where that light grew stronger.

When the turtle first ran around here, I thought this place was an extremely wide plain. Even with the turtle’s body, I could not find the end no matter how far I ran.

But that was not it. I had simply been wandering. The signal it sent weakened for a moment. The direction had clearly twisted again.

I turned the turtle’s body. Then I slowly circled the area, found the direction where the light grew stronger, and began moving again.

In this way, the fog was twisting all my senses. What I had thought was an endless run had only been me circling the same place over and over.

After repeating that several times, I found myself fairly close to it. Far away, I saw a blurry mass of shadows. Someone was definitely fighting magical beasts. The signal was coming from there.

I slowly headed toward it by following the signal. The magical beasts rushing toward that place spotted the turtle and charged at it, only to be crushed beneath its feet. At the end of that path, I saw a pile of magical beast corpses.

There was a circle floating in the air. I saw magical beasts rushing to enter that circle. The moment they crossed the line, they were split diagonally.

Even the fog did not dare invade the inside of that circle.

I sent my will toward the star within me. It received the signal and sparkled. Soon, the circle before me turned hazy and opened a door in my direction.

I moved the turtle and headed inside. The first thing I saw was the bear puppet. I smiled bitterly at its cute appearance, which did not suit this place at all.

The bear puppet was carrying someone on its back. When that person swung a sword once through the air, the faded circle became clear again.

The approaching magical beasts were split apart and collapsed to the ground. No matter how many times I saw it, it was bizarre magic I could not understand.

As I drew closer, I could finally see the person properly. A woman with a vacant expression was riding on the bear puppet’s back. It was Cassian.

I climbed down from the turtle and carefully walked toward her. She waved and greeted me.

“You came again. I’m glad you look all right.”

“It’s thanks to you, Cassian-ssi.”

I could relax here. Smiling, I took a table out of my spatial pouch and set it down. The puppet that popped out with it prepared a chair. Then it began setting tea and snacks on the table.

Cassian climbed down from the bear puppet and promptly sat in the chair. She lifted the teacup placed in front of her and breathed in its aroma. Then she took a sip. I watched her closely. She smiled for a moment, then pouted.

“Mister, can’t you really put this into my bear puppet?”

“Unfortunately, that’s impossible. Given that friend’s body structure, it can’t handle tea with that level of finesse.”

At those words, the bear puppet looked down at its own hands. It wiggled them for a moment, then flopped down on the spot. Cassian watched it and sighed.

“Then it can’t be helped.”

“It’s not much of a substitute, but I’ll show you the map I’ve figured out so far.”

I took a scroll out from my chest and unfolded it. Then I began drawing on it with a pen. Thanks to my search just now, I could draw a rough outline of this fog.

The reason I readily showed it to her was because of the promise we had made after I first met her here. It was a simple promise. If she stayed in one place, I would explore the entire surrounding area.

Thanks to her holding her position like this, I could use her bear puppet as a sort of lighthouse. While wandering through the fog, I kept figuring out the surrounding area based on the puppet’s location.

I repeated the process of going all the way out, confirming a wall, and coming back. This was the tenth time I had stopped by here.

When I marked the walls I had confirmed so far as dots and connected them, a spiral-shaped picture appeared. We were located near the lower part of that spiral.

“Then is there something in the center?”

She pointed to the place where the spiral gathered. I shook my head.

“No. I already went there, but there was nothing special.”

I had checked that place a long time ago. The fog was just a little thicker there. Nothing else seemed strange. I had no idea where the treasure was.

I could not ask for help from others either. Aside from Cassian, most of the people I had met so far were steeped in exhaustion and suspicion.

They guarded against me and showed hostility. If they were like that even toward me, they would clearly be even more hostile toward others.

A situation where everyone suspected one another. This was extremely bad. For my points, that is, regardless of the treasure. I needed to change this situation. For the past ten hours, I had steadily searched through this fog for that purpose.

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