WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 73

──────

Tentacles shot toward the turtle.

The turtle hurriedly dodged, deflecting them with its shell. At the same time, even more tentacles slammed into the spot where it had just been.

The trees brushed by those tentacles melted like water and began giving off murky air. I felt over the turtle's shell with magical power and examined it. The spot that had deflected the tentacle had gone soft and damp, and even the magic contained inside was breaking down.

Cold sweat seeped out of me. But thanks to the turtle dodging, we had an opening. That thing had shown a gap in its guard. I quickly opened my mouth.

“Now!”

The moment I said that, Cassian drew a sword. Wrapped in magical power, it flew out through the turtle's mouth and shot toward the tentacles. Then it began cutting through every single one of them.

The tentacles resisted, but under that swift blade, they dropped straight to the ground. They melted where they landed and disappeared.

The sword did not stop there. It shot straight in the direction the tentacles had come from. At the end of it was a giant egg. Hanging in a tree, the egg looked almost like a pure white eyeball.

That was the source of the tentacles. Some kind of magical beast. The sword smashed apart the tree where the egg had been perched.

The thing on top fell straight down. It barely managed to support its body with the tentacles it still had left, but it could not stop the fall.

“We're running now!”

I shouted that and gave the turtle an order. The turtle started running without even looking back. I glanced at Mira. She looked at me and nodded.

Fog began pouring from her fingertips. It flowed out through the turtle's mouth and slowly covered the turtle's body.

The sword that had knocked the thing down quickly returned to Cassian's hand. Cassian put it back at her waist and watched the creature.

I saw it raise itself up. It climbed another tree and started looking for us. It did not look damaged at all. Even the tentacles that had been cut off had already regenerated.

It felt like it was watching the direction we had fled. But thanks to the fog, it could not find us, and the thing turned around and began returning to its territory.

Some of the tension eased. This was enough. I let out a sigh. A week had passed since we left the tower. How many times had we run away already? Magical beasts were far too strong.

“That looks like it would taste good roasted too.”

Cassian muttered as she swallowed her saliva. The bear puppet nodded along beside her.

I gave a bitter smile. Magical beasts had poured down on us in absurd numbers on the way here. Like rain, really. Quite a bit of fatigue had built up from dealing with magical beasts attacking day and night.

I looked around. The inside of the turtle was full of byproducts from magical beasts. And this was after picking up only the things that seemed usable. We had thrown away countless others.

I had even tried cooking some of the things we discarded. It felt too wasteful to throw all of that away. Then I served it to Cassian too.

Aside from Professor, it was almost the first time I had given food I made to someone else. After all, my cooking had been trained solely with Professor in mind.

I did remember feeding Mira a few times as an experiment while I was learning to cook that way. Maybe that was why she seemed quite happy when I said I was cooking.

Thankfully, Cassian seemed to like it, and after eating the first dish, she became very active in hunting magical beasts.

Especially when they were strong magical beasts like the one just now. The stronger the magical beast, the better it tasted.

“Still, fighting that one would be too much for us, so there is nothing we can do.”

I said that. It looked like a high-rank magical beast. If we clashed head-on, we clearly could not handle it. Even running away like this had taken everything we had.

Cassian nodded gloomily. The bear puppet rummaged through its chest, took out a small piece of jerky, and held it out to her. She accepted it and began nibbling on it.

I watched for a moment, then took out the map. It was something I had brought along for this trip after quite a long time without using it. I checked our location with it.

Mira slipped closer and hugged my arm. Then she checked it with me.

“Oh my, we are almost there now.”

“We are. I suppose we will finally be done seeing magical beasts.”

I nodded. We were now quite close to our destination. The place Cassian said we had to go, Canyon City. Maybe it would take about thirty more minutes. The city and our location were already half-overlapping on the map.

I had not thought such a powerful magical beast would pop out when the city was this close. I had let my guard halfway down because I thought it would be similar to Stalactite City, and we had almost paid dearly for it.

In truth, my range of activity had not been very wide. When I asked the other class members in the tower, they said they moved around two or three cities as their territory.

I used only Stalactite City as my base. No, more precisely, I used only my tower as my base. Stalactite City was the closest city from there, and I had not felt any real need to go to other cities.

Because of that, in the past five years, the only places I had gone were Professor Heisen's tower and Stalactite City. Just those two. It could not really be helped. Managing the tower had been that hectic.

Anyway, because of that, there were not that many magical beasts nearby. That was what the class members said. I had not understood it at all. With all the magical beasts I had met going back and forth, how was that considered few?

Only on this trip did I finally realize those words were true. The area around Stalactite City was fairly well managed. There were no strong magical beasts, and the lower-rank magical beasts were steadily dealt with through requests.

The moment we left that area, all kinds of magical beasts poured down on us. I had only ever heard people say there were many magical beasts. This was my first time experiencing it myself.

“Hehe, once we arrive, we should buy clothes first and change. Every city has clothing that suits it, after all. Cassian, you will come with us too, yes?”

Mira said with a smile. At those words, Cassian gulped down the jerky she had been chewing and made a reluctant face. When Mira quietly looked at her, Cassian awkwardly nodded.

“Yes, Big Sister Mira.”

Big sister. It was a pretty awkward phrase. Cassian's eyes shifted slightly, as if even she felt strange saying it. It was the result Mira had achieved over the past week by constantly sticking to Cassian.

Mira moved away from me and approached Cassian. Then the two of them began chatting quietly.

I checked the map and looked at the surroundings through the turtle's eyes. I could still sense the magical power of quite a few magical beasts. They were watching the turtle. But because of the fog wrapped around it, they could not seem to pinpoint its exact location and merely brushed past nearby.

What would have happened if Cassian and Mira had not been here? If I had come out alone, I probably would not have reached the destination even after a month. Because they were here, all I had to do was keep moving.

I suddenly thought of spatial gates. Had Hwaryeong mentioned it? In the past, the cities had been connected to one another by spatial gates. It must have been really convenient back then. For no reason, I found myself envying the people of that era.

Still, the number of magical beasts began decreasing little by little. The turtle smashed through trees and pushed forward without hesitation. The fog around us had started to thin before I knew it.

After crossing who knew how many mountains, we finally reached the area near the city by following the map. A strange mark began appearing in the distance.

Should I call it a thin gap? I saw several people coming out of it. It was a split canyon located between mountains. Cassian looked at it and nodded.

“Ah, that is the right place.”

“Is it?”

I quietly examined her. She looked completely downcast. The bear puppet patted her. Mira simply watched the sight as if she found it very cute.

I understood why Cassian looked like that. The people she had to enter the city and face were that impressive.

I had been very surprised when I first heard about the people who had sponsored her. It had not been sponsorship from an ordinary organization. The ones who sponsored her were the Blade Association, the rulers of Canyon City.

It was also an organization I had never paid attention to because I thought it had little to do with me. They only accepted sword-users as members. So it made sense that they sponsored her.

And they had called her. Apparently, they wanted to confirm why she had failed to reach the third floor. When she talked about that, she had gone so limp she almost sank into the ground.

They had called her because the lectures had ended. No one knew how the conversation would go. Cassian also tilted her head, saying she did not know much either.

I had been through something similar. I thought of the people I had dealt with. Miryeong and Myra. What would it be like if I had to talk with them face-to-face?

The thought of dealing with them again made my lower stomach ache a little. Cassian was probably the same. Even more so because she had to report her failure to them.

“Do not worry. We are going with you too, so everything will be all right.”

Mira gently stroked Cassian's waist. Cassian's body trembled slightly at that. Mira began softly massaging her body. The ‘improvement’ work had started. I quietly turned my gaze away.

Before I knew it, the canyon was close. The gap and its shape became clear. I looked at it and opened my mouth in admiration. The gap was incredibly wide. It was a truly enormous canyon.

Enough that the name Canyon City made sense at once. The massive split canyon continued all the way down underground. At the very bottom, I could see a huge lake.

Looking down at the canyon like this, it almost felt as if sharp, honed magical power was shooting toward the turtle. Because of that, the shape of the canyon caught my eye again.

It looked like the trace left behind by a giant sword slicing through. As if proving that, the magical power flowing through the canyon itself moved very sharply and quickly.

The city showed itself openly and confidently. That was different from Stalactite City. If that place felt like it was hidden inside a mountain, this place felt like it had laid everything bare.

Even so, there was one thing that was the same. The city was underground. It was built along both walls of the canyon.

Buildings formed in many layers like a beehive continued vertically along the canyon. Their atmosphere differed greatly depending on the layer. The farther down they went, the rougher the structure became.

It was a very familiar structure. I had heard that most cities were located underground like this. It made sense. Here too, the problem was the cost of magical power.

The turtle stopped near the canyon. It did not approach any closer. That was because people were coming toward us from far away with magical power wrapped around their swords. It seemed they had mistaken the turtle for a magical beast.

“Then shall we get down?”

At those words, Mira slipped away from Cassian. Cassian composed herself and hugged the bear puppet. Her face, buried in its back, had turned slightly red.

The turtle's side opened and began forming a path down to the ground. I took the lead and walked out through it.

Then the magical power around me became even clearer. Sharp magical power brushed past my body along with a faint metallic smell.

Cassian and Mira got down behind me. The turtle shrank its body and hung from my chest. Maybe because there was so much stored inside it, the thing had become very heavy.

I stroked the turtle and looked at the city. The people coming toward us confirmed our appearance and sheathed their swords. Then they turned back and began returning to the city.

We could just follow them. Thinking that, I started walking.

In that way, we entered the city, and time passed.

I looked at Cassian beside me.

“Are you all right?”

“No, it hurts...”

She groaned. The clothes she had bought with quite a lot of points were torn to shreds beneath rough sword marks. Her whole body was covered in wounds.

Mira was treating her. Every time the fog wrapped around Cassian's body, the wounds were covered, leaving traces like a kind of bandage.

Cassian's body recovered quickly. Along with that, her complexion eased a little too. She hugged the bear puppet and slumped over completely.

I looked around.

It was a clean room. Should I say it had an atmosphere similar to the room used at the auction house before? It felt a little luxurious too.

But the walls were surrounded by strong magical power. Several layers of protective magic seemed to be wrapped around the outside. The door was the same. The firmly closed door had been sealed tightly, as if blocking us from leaving.

I gave a bitter smile. There was no way to get out. This was a kind of prison. I glanced at Cassian. Looking at her left my chest feeling a little heavy.

---

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