WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 59

──────

A heavy pressure bore down on me.

If they had tried to crush me by force, I would have died in an instant. Once again, I was grateful that this place was the university.

The advancement evaluation had ended surprisingly simply. Myra had said I passed the moment she saw me. After how tense I had been walking in, the result felt almost anticlimactic.

The problem was what came after.

They wanted my mirror bugs, just as they were saying now. They intended to stick their hands into the result I had made with blood, sweat, and tears.

I remembered the process of my research. How much pain and despair had I endured, and how much blind uncertainty had I pushed through to reach this point?

And they wanted to just swallow it whole. In a situation like this, there was only one thing I could say.

I looked straight at them. I could feel strength filling my entire body. My hesitation vanished, and only conviction remained in my chest.

With fierce determination, I opened my mouth.

“Of course. I’ll do everything I can to cooperate.”

I rubbed my palms together and smiled obsequiously. Myra burst into loud laughter, and the man blinked. His face was full of obvious confusion.

“I was... right, wasn’t I... Miryeong-ssi...?”

Myra spoke, still unable to wipe the laughter from her face. Miryeong. So that was the man’s name. I burned it into my mind.

I had only been guessing before, but hearing his name made it certain. Hongryeong and Hwaryeong. He was clearly from the same family as them.

“No, we haven’t even brought up the conditions or anything yet.”

Miryeong said it with doubt in his voice. He stopped releasing magical power to pressure me. With that, the atmosphere around us began to lighten. Only then did my body finally seem to calm down a little.

“If my esteemed seniors want it, of course I should comply.”

I shook my head as I spoke. They had clearly come here after working out every detail. No matter what I did, they would achieve their goal in the end. The moment I came here without noticing this in advance, there was nothing I could do.

As Myra had said, this was a notice.

So I changed how I thought about it. There was no need to set myself against them. What benefit would that bring me?

They must have brought a way to force me to submit anyway. If anything, by cooperating as much as possible, I could make myself a little more useful to them.

And I trusted my Professor. Professor Irian had told me she had warned them. That meant they could not simply treat me like a disposable tool.

Miryeong stared at me. Then he gave a small, incredulous laugh.

“Interesting. Is this why my grandchildren liked you?”

I swallowed. Grandchildren. That did not suit his youthful face at all. He must have meant Hongryeong and Hwaryeong.

Then just how old was he? Well, if he had climbed all the way to the eighth floor, he must have lived long enough to have descendants. It was only natural.

Miryeong, that young man of unknown age, crossed his arms and looked at me.

“Mm, I really prepared quite a lot, so this is a shame. The fun of this sort of thing is watching someone despair after being forced to submit to power. That’s why I came here in person.”

He clicked his tongue as he spoke. Then he sank deep into the chair, as if all the wind had gone out of him.

“Well, I can see why Professor Irian values you. For a mage who rolled around in the wild, you’re very quick on the uptake. In cases like this, the usual response is, ‘I can’t do that,’ or ‘Just kill me instead!’ Something like that.”

I smiled awkwardly. As if I would be insane enough to say that in front of this writhing magical power. He turned his head and looked at Myra.

“Still, if we’re going to work together, Evron-ssi should know what happened. Myra-nim, may I continue?”

“Go ahead....”

Myra nodded. At that, Miryeong straightened from his slouch and looked at me.

“The first person to see the possibility was Myra-nim. She grasped the structure of the shadow puppets and planned this whole thing. True to someone from the Abyss Secret Association, it was carried out very quietly.”

Myra smiled shyly. The Abyss Secret Association. It had been a while since I heard that name. It was the organization I had bought information from. I had never imagined she belonged to it.

“I heard from the children that there was an interesting item, looked into a few things, and then joined Myra-nim’s plan.”

I only blinked as I listened. Miryeong continued.

“In fact, this advancement evaluation being held was largely thanks to Myra-nim as well. She was the one who provided the wraith tree.”

“The wraith tree... you mean?”

I had no choice but to ask in surprise.

“Myra-nim should explain this part, shouldn’t she? I don’t know the details either.”

He said that while looking at Myra. She slowly cleared her throat and opened her mouth.

“That... I knew well that it would suit shadows.... And it was easy to predict... that you would need an object... to store information... in place of shadows.... So... I thought if you used it... you would be able to advance....”

After finishing, she leaned back against the chair again. I turned over the meaning contained in those leisurely words. Miryeong lightly scratched his head.

“Ah, so that was what happened? I thought you had simply used it like an elixir.”

He clapped his hands and continued.

“Anyway, that was originally an item we should have charged at least five hundred thousand more points for, but we accepted some losses to open the advancement evaluation quickly. We had to finish things before anyone else interfered. This is what you call an investment, isn’t it? An investment.”

The wraith tree was something I had bought because I needed it. I had grown another step while handling it.

But according to this, all of my actions had only been guided by Myra. A chill ran down my spine.

“We prepared plenty of threats while looking forward to this moment. Obvious things, like keeping you from entering the city. There are many ways to pressure someone while bypassing the university’s basic rights. But I never thought you would agree so easily.”

He muttered while sprawling over the desk. He looked deeply disappointed. He drew strange patterns on the desk with his finger as he continued.

“After seeing how great the wraith tree’s effect was, we thought about it for a while too. If we implanted several things like that into your body and fed you some elixirs, rapid growth would be possible. We calculated that we could somehow create an area about the size of a city. Of course, you would never be able to raise your realm again.”

“If Professor Irian hadn’t stopped us, we might have gone ahead with it.”

He said it with a smile. My blood ran cold. I had never dreamed they had been discussing how to use me without my knowledge.

“So we returned to the original plan. Simply receiving items from Evron-ssi. What we want is for you to deliver around one hundred mirror bugs every month. That is probably the most you can handle, after all.”

“But if you only take those, they won’t be useful, will they?”

I asked carefully. They could only perform their true function while tied inside my shadow tree. The mirror bugs alone could do nothing.

“Even if making the puppets... is impossible..., I can make... that connection too....”

Myra said it quietly. I gave a bitter smile. She might actually be able to do it. My puppets were based on shadows, and everything I had learned came from Professor Heisen’s tower.

And she had researched shadows for far longer than I had. Seeing how confident she was, she must have had some way to form that connection.

“That’s right. As long as we have the terminals, we can construct it somehow. Really, points are the problem everywhere. To produce the same performance as what Evron-ssi made, we would have to pour in thousands of times more points.”

I swallowed. One hundred per month. Just as they said, that was the limit I could handle right now. The fact that they knew my limit meant they had investigated me that thoroughly.

Yes. Maybe this was an opportunity.

Assuming I expanded my territory, even if I reached the very edge of the Young Tree realm, that territory clearly would not reach all the way to the city.

It would only become possible after crossing realms and becoming a Complete Tree. Something I could only achieve after training for several hundred more years.

But if I joined hands with them, my mirror bugs would spread across an area wider than that. Perhaps even across the entire university. It was clearly something I could not do while only in the Young Tree realm.

There was one problem, though.

The mirror bugs spread this way would not belong to my connection. They would only be used as tools within the fake connection Myra created. No matter how much of a connection was formed, it would not originate from my shadow tree.

The mirror bugs spread that way would function only as puppets, never accumulating information or experience. Their egos would lose the chance to grow.

That was the guess I formed while listening. And from what Miryeong said afterward, I became certain that guess was true.

“I would like the functions simplified too. Myra-ssi will handle the information, and I will handle the transactions. Let’s remove the free board and instead allow simple communication between mirror bugs. We should remove the rest of the unnecessary functions as well.”

As he said that, he glanced at Myra. Then he spoke carefully.

“After all, it is only a copy of the structure Evron-ssi achieved, so the connection likely won’t be smooth. We need to cut out as much inefficiency as possible.”

Myra quietly nodded. Seeing that, Miryeong gathered his fingers and drew a circle toward me. He smiled brightly enough to show his teeth and spoke.

“Lastly, we can’t leave out the matter of price. The mirror bugs were fifty points per month, was it? That’s a perfectly reasonable price. You could say it suits their convenience. We are thinking of around that price as well. If Evron-ssi provides the mirror bugs, we will give you five points per month from that price.”

“You’re even giving me points. How could I possibly refuse such a good offer?”

I answered his smile with a loud laugh.

The conversation continued steadily after that. Compared to the beginning, the atmosphere had become much lighter, and jokes and laughter came easily.

Within that, many conditions for the deal were set, and the functions attached to the items were carefully adjusted. In that discussion, my mirror bugs were thoroughly turned into tools.

And the advancement evaluation ended. I felt my body go limp. In an alley of the city, I looked at the abyss-like darkness beneath a bridge and smiled bitterly.

Their offer sounded quite good. At least when it came to earning points right away. But those were also things I could have achieved on my own someday, even without them.

Looking back, I had been rather arrogant lately.

Professor Irian’s tower could be called my territory. Inside it, everyone respected me. Everything seemed to work out as I thought it would, and move as I wished.

Drunk on that feeling, I had briefly forgotten where I stood. I was nothing more than a small ant on this vast land called the university. A plump little ant that would have been devoured in no time without Professor’s protection.

That was why, the moment I left the tower, a very large bite had been taken out of me. It was the result of my own carelessness.

Four years after coming to the university, I reached the second floor that way.

---

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried