Surviving at the Magic Academy

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I opened my eyes wide. My heart was racing like it was about to burst. I gasped for air, feeling a tremor spread through my body. My stiff muscles jolted in surprise, and sweat slicked my forehead and back.

All my senses were on high alert. Within this sensation, I felt a kind of disjointedness. Every part of me felt awkward, like my body had been torn apart.

Warm air brushed against my skin. Along with it, a heavy magical energy enveloped me. That magic began to reconstruct my body, and slowly, I started to regain my senses.

“Ugh….”

I grabbed my head and got up. Where in the world was I? My head throbbed as if it would split open. I had definitely come down from the sixth floor and was headed towards the seventh. Yes, I remembered everything perfectly up to the sixth floor. I went to the seventh floor, and then… well, trying to recall it only made my head hurt more. Let’s not think about it. I resolved to bury the memories deep.

I took a moment to inspect my body. Even now, there was still a slight awkward sensation. It felt as if my body wasn’t mine. Perhaps that was why my magical energy wasn’t responding well either. My sapling was also deeply retracted, hiding in the depths of my chest. Why was it so frightened? It was surely related to the memories I couldn’t grasp.

I forced my trembling eyelids open. Where was this place? It was a room I had never seen before. A very large room. The first thing that caught my eye was a wide window displaying the outside view. Beyond that window, clouds and mountains spread out in abundance.

In front of that window was a large desk. I could hear someone rustling around, but papers were piled high, concealing whoever was there. I cautiously approached the desk.

Then I heard a grumbling voice.

“Why in the world do I have to handle this? This hasn’t happened in a thousand years. Can’t stand seeing others having fun. I’m really going to deal with those old farts…”

It was Professor Ilian’s voice. I carefully maneuvered through the mountain of papers. The professor was scribbling on documents with a tired face, using a magical pen.

All sorts of objects were scattered around her. As I glanced around, something naturally caught my attention. It was an eyeball the size of my fist, staring at me intently. Meeting its gaze made my previously calming headache return. My sapling within my chest also flared up in shock.

Eye, what was it? The eye is looking at me. The eye gazes at me, and I start to melt away.

“Here we go again.”

A strong jolt hit my head. The familiar pain shattered my thoughts like glass. I clutched my head and collapsed to the ground. Eye. I remembered. I saw an eye on the seventh floor.

Through trembling fingers, I could see the professor. And the eye too. It was still staring at me. My brain felt like it was swirling again, and I quickly shut my eyes. It seemed better for my mental health not to see anything at all.

“Hmm. Don’t try to remember more. I didn’t expect this to be roaming around.”

The professor said.

“I roughly sealed the memories and pieced the soul back together, but for the next week, it’s going to be unstable. You did a good job cleaning up to the fifth floor. That was partly my fault, so let’s call the cleaning done.”

With her words, the magic binding my sapling returned to my wrist. It was just a cleaning job, but I’d gone through this saga. Was the professor planning to make me do such things from now on? The sensation of being shattered came flooding back, making me tremble.

Once my head calmed down, I cautiously opened my eyes. The eye was still watching me. I slowly got up, gazing at the ceiling. I could still feel the piercing stare. I pointed in its direction.

“That… that eye… is it what I saw?”

“Ah, I left this out! No wonder you had another episode.”

The professor split the space and tossed the eye into it. I felt the gaze staring at me disappear. I exhaled a sigh of relief and bowed my head to the professor.

“I’m sorry. I lost consciousness because I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Huh? It’s okay. This was my mistake. I didn’t expect anyone would leave the treasure room after just a century. I found this precious treasure around four hundred years ago. If you had even a little magic, you would have melted right there.”

“That… that’s supposed to be a treasure?”

I couldn’t help but pick at her words. I quickly shut my mouth, glancing at the professor. She seemed indifferent, continuing to scribble on the papers.

“Well, I was a bit bored back then and went deep into the ocean. I killed a creature living there and made that eye out of it. If you show it to someone with magical energy? They’ll end up like you.”

She shot me a glance and clicked her tongue.

“You became that way because you were too weak. You got infected by the rules contained within that gaze. From now on, make sure to strengthen your mental barriers.”

I just nodded blankly. The ocean, monsters, rules. It all felt like a distant dream. I didn’t fully understand what it was about, but it was clear that I was facing something I couldn’t handle.

“Anyway, erase that from your mind. I’ve sealed it again so it doesn’t come loose.”

“Yes.”

She stopped speaking and randomly infused magic into her pen, hastily clearing away the mountain of papers. I stood quietly beside her, trying to calm myself.

Could this be a blessing in disguise? Seeing that did seem to strengthen my sapling a bit. If I could grow a few more times like this, promotion to the next stage might be possible. But if I were told to go through this again, I would run away without hesitation.

After a considerable amount of clearing, the entire pile of papers had vanished. The signed documents disappeared into the space she had opened. With the desk now clean, the professor collapsed onto it.

I instinctively took out a doll. The butler stepped out of the spatial pocket and approached her. The butler poured a cup of tea for her and laid a light blanket over her. She smiled as she took a sip of tea.

“With this, all urgent matters are concluded. I saw you cleaned up to the fifth floor, so the duties I assigned you end here.”

“Professor, I have something to say.”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression, stiffening slightly as I continued.

“There are some rooms on the second and fifth floors with space torn open. I can’t handle it with my abilities…”

“I’ve fixed that all. There was one that escaped from the warehouse on the sixth floor, but I caught it again.”

“I’m sorry. I should have taken care of it.”

I lowered my head. The professor gave a light laugh and shook her head.

“I didn’t expect much from you starting from the sixth floor. That’s my treasure room from there. If you accidentally touch anything, you could go crazy like just now.”

She said with a smile.

“But the things you saw were relatively mild. If you had run into something on the eighth or ninth floor, your soul would have melted away.”

My body trembled. I could feel her sincerity in her words. There were things stronger than that eye? Suddenly, the nickname I used to call the professor came to mind.

She was called the Explorer. Before I made a contract with her, she always boasted about her treasures. If she’d been searching for treasures for an uncountable amount of time, she must have collected an astonishing amount. And it seemed all of it had gathered in this tower.

“Anyway, this story ends here. Now it’s time to fulfill the contract.”

She said, looking at her wrist. There was a contract written there that looked similar to mine. I pulled out my wrist to look at it.

‘With the help of Ilian, when I pass the university entrance exam, I will serve Ilian until graduation.’

I had felt the weight of this dense contract all the way up here. It was binding my sapling. And every time hesitation crept in, it pressured me to fulfill the contract. It was that pressure that finally led me to meet that eye.

I trembled. Even though I had stabilized my memory and sorted my magic, the aftereffects of that eye still lingered. Just as the professor had said, I felt the need to recuperate for about a week.

I straightened up. A year ago, the professor had proposed a contract to me. She would help me enter university, and after that, I would serve her. That had become the contract engraved on my wrist.

But I still didn’t fully understand why she was teaching me. Why would someone like her, an extraordinary mage, invest a year in a mere wanderer like me?

Until now, I had merely speculated without any solid basis. But that had just been my imagination; I didn’t have the courage to ask the professor for the reason.

And now, I had fulfilled the condition by passing the entrance exam. I was now in a position where I had to obey whatever she said. I waited anxiously for her next words as she took a sip of her tea.

“I didn’t have much expectation when we made the contract. I thought there was no way you’d be able to survive long enough to graduate. I figured your lifespan was about two hundred years, and I would just use you as a servant during that time.”

I had to admit that part was true. Before meeting her, I had faced rejection for ten years.

During that time, my growth had been stagnant, and my mind had only become more anxious. Even if I passed the entrance exam, would I really be able to graduate? I definitely thought not. I just nodded silently.

“But while teaching you, my thoughts changed a bit.”

She clapped her hands and smiled brightly. I wondered what had triggered her change of thought. Did I have more talent than I realized? A subtle expectation arose, but it quickly faded. I knew myself too well. That wouldn’t be the case.

“You have more talent for servant work than I thought.”

Well, of course. Sensing my disappointment, she slightly furrowed her brows. I could feel the magical energy around her shifting. I quickly smiled and hid my thoughts.

“Sometimes your thoughts diverging like this is a flaw, but you still do your best to see things through. I could call it a servant mentality, but it’s clearly visible and very nice to see. Perhaps because of that, you’ve grown more than I expected.”

Professor Ilian said leisurely, taking a sip of her tea.

“So I’m going to entrust you with this tower.”

I froze for a moment.

Could I still be feeling the effects from that eye, or was my ear mistaken? Or was the professor just joking? Her unbelievable words left my mouth agape.

“What?”

I asked reflexively. She waved her teacup around in the air, complaining.

“It’s such a hassle! I’m busy gathering treasures, so why should I be stuck here teaching others?”

Her face showed irritation, and her words were laced with annoyance. Her magic swirled around her, reflecting her discomfort. She gave me a sidelong glance.

She fell into thought for a moment. Eventually, she pulled out a scroll from the space and tossed it to me. I received it respectfully.

“It’s stuff you need to know, so read it.”

I carefully unrolled the scroll. The first two characters I saw were ‘Warning.’ Below it, the text was densely packed. I slowly read through it, and as I kept going, I began to understand her predicament.

No, was understanding even the right word? I was more shocked. So, being a university professor could be this free?

I roughly summarized the scroll. In short, it said, ‘Since I haven’t taught for a thousand years, I’ll have to teach for a hundred years going forward.’

Seeing this, I realized why she had brought me to university. Just like the content of this warning, she needed a slave to take care of annoying tasks for her.

But suddenly, she was entrusting the tower to me? I looked at her in confusion. Perhaps sensing my gaze, a faint smile appeared on her face, which had been filled with annoyance.

Her finger pointed at me, and the smile on her face started to deepen. It was filled with curiosity and mischief. I felt a shiver of dread.

“So I reconsidered. Do I really have to step in?”

She stood up and approached me, patting my shoulder with a laugh.

“You can just do everything.”

I couldn’t say a word. I simply couldn’t comprehend what was happening. The idea of being a servant, that I understood. It had been something I had suspected. I had been observing the professor’s personality while taking care of her needs. I had thought perhaps this was to lessen her own burdens.

But the story after that was something I hadn’t considered at all.

“You’ll plan the classes, administer the tests, and grade the papers. You’ll handle everything regarding the tower, and I’ll just lounge around it. It’s a truly revolutionary idea I came up with.”

Hearing this, I nearly lost my mind. I would have preferred facing that eye again rather than this. I couldn’t feel any reality in her words.

What the hell was she saying? I looked at her with a face full of injustice. But the professor merely sparkled her eyes playfully.

“So… are you telling me to hold the classes in place of the professor?”

I cautiously asked. She nodded with confidence.

“Yep.”

“And I’ll be grading the papers?”

I asked again. She answered firmly.

“Yep.”

I clutched my head. The body and mind I had barely managed to stable began to spiral into chaos again, screaming in pain. What the hell was going on? Things were spinning completely in a direction I never expected. The professor laughed heartily at the sight of me.

“Alright, let’s set the classes right away. I told you to submit the syllabus by this week!”

She exclaimed with a bright smile. I could only hold my head, stunned, and look at her.

“I know nothing about university!”

I weakly replied, utterly drained. She shouted back with sparkling eyes.

“That’s fine! I don’t know either! I haven’t done anything as a professor!”

Hearing that, I lost all remaining sanity. Is this really okay? My mind, still trying to analyze the situation, began to resign itself.

After all, there was no way I could refuse this. So simply accepting it and having fun might be the way to go. After all, I had received countless favors from the professor when I entered this university. This was just a process of repaying that.

The more difficult and challenging the thorny path would be, the more it would be an opportunity to prove my loyalty to the professor. Yeah, this was the same.

While I was rationalizing everything, her eyes began to narrow dangerously. At the same time, I felt a strong pressure from her magic. I forced a smile and quickly nodded.

“I’ll do my best!”

I stretched my shoulders and shouted confidently, all the while shedding tears in my heart. Since the moment the contract was made, I realized there was only one choice available to me. What would happen next was something I couldn’t even dare to imagine.

 

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