The Academy Regressor is Obsessed

It had already been a week since Asel regained consciousness.

Irina and Bell returned to Weiheim a few days ago. But Ena still remained near Asel, spending time closest to him. It would be a lie to say it wasn’t burdensome, but still, Asel didn’t particularly push away his master’s concern and affection.

It was natural. It’s not like Ena stayed here for her own benefit, she purely remained to take care of Asel, so there was no reason to push her away.

However, separate from that, it was a bit much that she wouldn’t let him go outside the room at all.

“Can’t I take a short walk?”
“No.”

“When will I return to the Academy?”
“Someday.”

“I need to report that I’m alive.”
“Do it later.”

It was like this for everything he tried to do outside the room. Occasionally when Ena went out, he tried to forcibly open the door, but the magic circuits were so complex that it took too long. Ena would return faster than he could undo the locking magic.

Moreover, his attempts to disable the magic were discovered, so the circuits became doubly tangled. It was amazing that it worked properly in that state. Asel admired Ena’s skill in crafting formulas while completely giving up on escaping alone.

Unless Ena was away for about three hours, he didn’t even dare to try.

‘I’m completely confined.’

By this point, he couldn’t help but realize it. Asel sighed as he realized the fact that he was imprisoned. At that, Ena, who was sitting next to him reading a book, glanced at him.

“What’s wrong, Asel? Still in pain?”
“…No. I’m fine.”

Asel said as he pushed up the glasses he was wearing with his index finger. At that answer, Ena sent a suspicious look for a moment, but soon focused on reading again. Asel secretly took off his glasses for a moment, then confirmed his blurry vision that seemed shattered, and deeply furrowed his brow.

Honestly, whether it was confinement or whatever, as long as he was with Ena, this was fine either way. If it really came down to it, he could ask for help from outside.

The important thing was his eyes.

His body had mostly recovered. His magical power moved well, and even if he exercised intensely for a short time, it didn’t cause severe pain. But just keeping his eyes properly open for a short time caused pain as if his brain was being cooked.

It wasn’t simply pain occurring because he was right before awakening his eyes. A much more advanced cause.

‘I didn’t know the talent would awaken here too.’

The artificial awakening of magic eyes wasn’t common, but it wasn’t a completely unheard of case either. In such cases, some action or absorption of an elixir causes the most suitable magic eyes to awaken without any obstacles.

Theoretically, Asel should have been the same. But his innate talent held him back.

‘There are too many suitable magic eyes, so I can’t choose just one.’

The magic types Asel mainly handles number at least five. He also tends to apply and use basic magic from other types, and if he researched and delved into them, there was more than enough potential to use them as his main focus. In that situation, with all sorts of magic eyes resonating with each type of magic, his eyes and brain were being overworked.

‘To finish this, do I need to make a choice? Or should I wait?’

He didn’t know. The fortunate thing was that thanks to the glasses, there wasn’t much hindrance to daily life. It seemed there wouldn’t be a problem even if he thought about it slowly until returning to the Academy. There was no need to act hastily.

Thinking that, Asel gazed at the bracelet wrapped around his right wrist.

Putting aside worries about magic eyes, the most important thing now was incorporating the remote interception formula he had pondered for weeks into lightning magic.

‘There’s no need to sit at a desk and ponder.’

He had already confirmed the formula. Magic that automatically intercepts and reflects attacks beyond perception. He closes his eyes and pictures the intricacies of that formula in his mind. He incorporates it into the lightning formula he had already constructed, and slowly flows magical power. In that process, he fixes places where it gets stuck or where the flow of magical power changes strangely.

The creation of magic. An extreme realm requiring an amazing level of talent and effort, though not at the grand master level. Asel achieved this in less than 10 years after learning magic. It was an astonishing achievement that would make most magicians weep tears of blood if they realized it, but Asel himself frowned, unsatisfied with the magic he created.

‘Even faster than this.’

He compresses the destructive power and speed unique to lightning magic to the extreme in the created formula. Some of the magical power that can’t withstand the compression bursts out, but he doesn’t stop compressing nonetheless. In that state, if an attack comes from outside, the compression is released and magical power and lightning explosively surge forth.

Thus he completes the creation of magic. Since it was magic he had been planning for a long time, he had already somewhat constructed the formula in advance, so the work wasn’t too difficult.

Asel smiled with satisfaction and opened his eyes. And met Ena’s gaze as she looked down at him.

She blinked her lake-blue eyes and opened her mouth.

“…You just created magic.”
“Uh… yes.”
“What kind of magic? Show me.”

Ena, who had already seen the magic Asel created at the lake, wasn’t surprised by the fact that he created magic. Instead, she chewed her lips curiously.

Asel smiled and showed her the magic he had created.

“I’ll go out for a bit. Rest.”

Ena said. She put on her outdoor hat for the first time in a while and opened the door that had been consistently locked, going outside. Asel saw her off with a smiling face, then promptly got up from his seat and opened the window.

Even this was locked by Ena so escaping through the window was impossible, but at least opening the window was possible.

That’s what Asel was aiming for. He slightly poked his head out the window and moved his gaze to the side. Then he could discover the messenger bird stuck in the corner, trembling. As soon as the messenger bird’s eyes met Asel’s, it ran to him while making crying sounds.

[Chirp chirp!]
“Yes, you came well.”

Asel grabbed the messenger bird’s hot metal neck and brought it into the room.

The messenger bird that didn’t return after being ordered to send a letter to Ena. That metal machine returned after Asel was confined in the cathedral, but following its master’s order to not show itself until directly found, it had been waiting outside the window continuously.

As an engineering machine with autonomy, the indefinite waiting was a rather difficult experience even for the messenger bird.

Of course, Asel didn’t care about such things. He immediately sat at the desk and wrote a letter to send to the Academy.

Ena said there was no need to report his survival to the Academy. She basically doesn’t like the Academy much, and with this incident on top of that, her feelings towards the Academy must have gone below rock bottom and dug into the underground.

He understood. Even Asel himself was realizing his trust in the Academy had lowered compared to before.

They said it was a request that had been vetted, but suddenly an 8th circle spirit magician popped out.

From Asel’s perspective, he couldn’t help but suspect that either the Academy didn’t properly vet the request, or there was a traitor who manipulated things to drive students to their deaths.

Whether it was true or not wasn’t that important. The problem was that the most prestigious Academy on the continent had acted in a way to arouse suspicion. Frida was probably running around frantically giving explanations by now.

But separate from that, he intended to report his survival. Rather than for the Academy’s sake, it was a decision for the people he had become close to at the Academy.

Even if they weren’t extremely close, the death of someone considered a friend can be quite a big shock.

Moreover, Grace had directly seen Asel’s death in the previous iteration. If she heard news of his death not long after reuniting, it was obvious her mental state that had just improved would rapidly worsen.

‘I have to prevent that.’

It wasn’t just Grace. The team members who escaped including Saya. Asel didn’t want to make them feel guilt or a sense of debt.

“Deliver this one to the Academy headmaster. It’ll be at the Academy so there’s no need to give a magic source to find the location, right?”
[Gurgle!]
“Good. And give this to Saya at the Academy too. I’m counting on you again this time.”

Asel said as he stuffed the letter into the messenger bird’s body. The messenger bird nodded its head vigorously and greedily devoured the magical power Asel gave it.

Then it disappeared, performing acrobatic flight beyond the open window. Only when the messenger bird was no longer visible did Asel close the window again.

When he turned around, the unnecessarily large room came into view.

‘Now there’s nothing special to do.’

The letter he finally delivered after waiting for Ena to leave. There were no other scheduled tasks besides this. Asel pondered how to spend this time, then decided to do some light exercise.

He needed to do rehabilitation activities anyway. He needed to oil the joints that were creaking from not being used properly for days, and stimulate the muscles to recover the lost muscle strength.

And… thinking of muscle strength automatically made him review the battle with the spirit magician.

The battle patterns he had experienced before meeting her were mostly not moving much, acting with minimal movement while firing magic. But in fights with strong opponents like the spirit magician, he absolutely couldn’t do that. He had to move as fast as possible to change the tide of battle or turn the situation to his advantage.

Stamina was essential for that.

‘It’s annoying though.’

Asel let out a deep sigh at the fact that he had to do exercise he had never done in his life, but since exercise wasn’t bad for the body, he decided to do it with a good attitude since he was doing it anyway. He immediately threw his coat on the bed, lay face down on the floor and started doing push-ups.

He relied on memories from his past life for knowledge about bodyweight exercises. He did push-ups to failure, then continued with squats and burpees.

After that, sweat poured like a waterfall. Asel regulated his breathing as he brushed up his sweat-soaked hair, and slightly lifted his top to wipe his face.

At that moment, the door swung open and Ena returned.

“I’m back. Asel, are there any uncomfortable… places…”

Ena, who came in carrying a bag full of bread, said that and then closed the door again upon seeing Asel with his upper body slightly exposed.

Bang!

The door closed with a loud sound. Ena stood in front of it and took deep breaths.

“??”

A violent torrent of emotion that even she didn’t know why she was feeling. She had just briefly seen Asel’s sweat-soaked abdomen, but her head was so hot it felt like it would cook. Her heart was pounding as if broken and the blood flow throughout her body accelerated crazily.

“Master? What’s wrong?”
“…Nngh!!”

The electrical signals throughout her body reacted with a tingle at Asel’s worried voice coming from beyond the door. Ena prioritized calming down rather than figuring out the cause of all these abnormal phenomena.

“Hoo ha, hoo ha, hoo ha.”

She took deep breaths to subdue her heart, and cooled her hot head with a magician’s reason. After that, her emotions subsided somewhat. Ena let out one last long breath, then put on her usual expressionless face and opened the door.

At the same time, her eyes met Asel’s as he stood in front of the door.

“Are you alright?”

Asel asked with his sweat-soaked face.

Bang!

Ena closed the door again.