Chapter 38
Escape Is an Everyday Affair
Lunch servings were reduced due to an unintentional fight between the North-side Boreas dormitory and the South-side Notos dormitory.
However, dinner was served normally.
The problem was that, in the meantime, the school store had opened, and many students had filled their stomachs with food purchased there.
Having finally enjoyed some sweet food, no one wanted to eat the tasteless school meals anymore.
This time, a considerable amount of food remained.
“Anyone who wants more can take it!
But do not leave any leftovers and finish all the food within the day!
If you keep food in your dorm room and it molds or attracts mice or pests, points will be deducted!”
Gibles, speaking through his moving armor, warned the students sternly.
Idnia gathered the hard, rock-like bread that students had left untouched once again.
Most students were exhausted from the day’s chaos or were suffering from magical motion sickness due to continuous summoning of spirits and shield magic. They went to bed early, barely washing themselves properly.
However, Idnia, with her superior stamina, did not feel tired and was, unsurprisingly, still awake at this hour.
“Hmm… what to do? Shall I go again tonight? Or skip today?”
Feeling uneasy, Idnia toyed with a small potion bottle.
Inside was the liquid she had extracted using the alchemy wand in the alchemy practice room.
“I want to extract more. Let’s go.
The principal said that being caught wouldn’t be counted against me anyway.”
Idnia kicked off her bed and got up.
“Uh… where are you going?? Lady Idnia?”
Mari asked, startled.
“For a short night walk.”
“At this hour?”
Mari was flustered, but Idnia quickly slipped out of the dormitory.
Under the cover of night and fog, Idnia moved stealthily through Dunais Academy and sneaked into the alchemy practice room again, looking around cautiously.
She found the dedicated alchemy extraction wand and gathered willow branches she had used in the previous class, now reduced to scrap after having aspirin extracted.
“Phew, good! Shall we tear these apart?”
In her Emperor’s Will form, Idnia grabbed the willow scraps in both hands and tore them apart like boiled chicken.
Though the wood was fragile, having been damaged by extraction magic and unusable as lumber, it still tore with a satisfying snap.
After shredding the wood, Idnia cast an extraction spell.
“Extract!”
Using the wand, she cast the spell on the willow scraps.
Mana was naturally drawn out, briefly making her dizzy, but thanks to her excellent pronunciation of the activation words, mana consumption was minimized.
Moreover, she already understood the elemental structure, shape, raw materials, and molecular formula transformations needed for the extraction.
The deeper the understanding of physical properties, the more efficient the extraction magic.
Soon, a rich vanilla scent began to spread.
“Good.”
Idnia carefully collected the liquid in the potion bottle.
“Fragrant. Very good. Hehe. Ouch, ugh, mana sickness…”
Clutching her head, she smiled nonetheless.
What she extracted was vanillin, the main component of vanilla fragrance.
Idnia succeeded in modifying the lignin in the wood cell walls to extract vanillin.
Since vanillin can be obtained by breaking down lignin, and the willow scraps contained enough lignin even after aspirin extraction, a considerable amount of vanillin was harvested.
However, vanillin alone cannot create flavor.
‘You need base oils and sugar alcohols for it to be a proper fragrance.
Commercial vanilla flavor contains less than 5% vanillin.
Most of it is fragrance base.
Too strong a scent can ruin the flavor.’
At that moment, she remembered the bread leftover from dinner.
She could ferment it to extract sugar alcohols or, if pushing it, extract glucose, fructose, and sucrose directly from the bread.
However, unlike pure extraction, modifying chemical formulas consumes huge amounts of mana, so she had to be satisfied with the vanillin she obtained.
Having used a lot of magic during the day’s lessons, she felt her mana almost depleted just from producing the vanillin.
“Shall I crush and ferment the bread to extract sugar alcohols?
Ah, this is similar to how moonshine is made in prison… huh?”
Knock knock…
Suddenly, there was a knock at the window.
At this hour?
Startled, Idnia looked up to see someone knocking outside the window.
After a moment, the window opened, and Principal Ludwig entered.
“Hah… Your courage is remarkable.
I hinted to you gently, but to think you’d come extracting on the very same day. Usually, people think twice, restrain themselves, at least on the first day.”
“Ah, Principal?”
Idnia was surprised to see Ludwig Blackblad.
Surely Ludwig hadn’t expected her to come out again and cause trouble that night.
“Am I getting demerits? Or sent to punishment?”
“No, I won’t deduct points this time.
However…”
Ludwig touched his temple.
“Gibles! Have the dormitory heads conduct a student headcount.”
“…”
Having the dorm heads check attendance would reveal Idnia’s nighttime escapades.
Ludwig was using this to inform Gibles that Idnia had sneaked out.
“That’s harsh.”
“I’m not lying. I’m an educator, after all.
I encourage flexible thinking among wizards, but flexibility requires boundaries; without any constraints, things become chaotic.”
“Sigh.”
“What are you extracting anyway?
It doesn’t look like you’re making psychoactive substances like the seniors.”
“Oh, that scent… vanilla.”
Ludwig smiled as he caught the vanilla aroma drifting in the air.
“Impressive.
Extracting fragrance from already-used wood.
Could you have known this recipe? How?”
“Well, dealing with scents makes you familiar with such things,” Idnia replied with a slight excuse.
Most fragrances sold today traded at prices equal to or above silver by weight.
Yet, nobles in high society considered it uncultured not to burn incense at parties or studies.
Studying fragrances reveals a nearly infinite variety of scents hidden within wood.
“You wouldn’t have the budget to burn incense in the Duchy of Betelgeuse, would you?”
“What?”
“Well, you could burn incense, but considering Draken Katze Betelgeuse’s character and disposition, I don’t think he would indulge in such luxury while his people starve.”
“You know my father well.”
“Of course.
Though he withdrew from the academy under unfavorable circumstances, he was my student.”
“Unfavorable circumstances? What happened…”
“Want to hear it?”
“No, not really.
It probably involves Professor Rakias.
Anyway… I should be going.
If I don’t hurry back and make excuses, I’ll get way too many penalty points and end up in the punishment room.
I’ve probably used up all the mana I needed for extraction today.”
Idnia turned to respond to the summon Ludwig sent through Gibles.
Suddenly, a bell rang loudly.
An alarm bell.
Chaos erupted outside.
“It’s an emergency! The experimental magical creature has escaped!”
“Ah! It’s heading toward the freshmen dormitory!”
Screams of the assistants echoed.
Being suddenly ordered to check attendance in the middle of the night, the dorm students were furious.
After a tiring day, just as they were falling asleep, they were abruptly woken.
On top of that, dorm heads had to count and report the number of students.
The dorm heads grumbled, unhappy with getting only two points from the shop for their troubles.
Then… the alarm sounded.
“Ah! Can you hear me?
Students! Stay put in your dorm rooms!
An experimental creature has escaped, but don’t worry—it’s just a large rat-like thing.”
Gibles’ voice tried to calm the students.
Upon hearing this, students nodded to themselves.
“Oh, so that’s why we were woken up.”
“There was an accident at the academy.
Haha, relief. I was worried they’d wake us for no reason.”
“At least they had a reasonable excuse.”
Suddenly awakened students felt comforted that their sudden wake-up was for a valid reason.
“But wait—if it’s an experimental creature, shouldn’t it be a terrifying magical lifeform?
A monster escaped?
Shouldn’t we be worried instead of relieved?”
Because of all the recent incidents, students found the situation almost normal and were oddly reassured, though some raised caution.
“…Yeah?”
“Now that I think about it…”
“I want to quit school.”
It hadn’t even been a week since enrollment, yet such words were uttered.
At that moment, Gibles’ voice came through the moving armor.
“Ah, relax.
Our academy’s treasure, the moving armors, each can handle ten soldiers and can easily suppress most magical creatures!
By the way, why is the dorm head’s attendance check taking so long?
Could it be that some of you are sneaking around at night?
Are you already sneaking out for impure relations?
Unacceptable!”
Gibles was furious.
Then a voice came from the Boreas dormitory.
“Our dorm head is currently in the punishment room.
What should we do?”
“What? Ah… I see.”
“We’re going room by room to check.
We just woke up and are changing clothes—we can’t wander around naked.”
Voices also came from the Zephyrus and Notos dormitories.
The Euros dormitory remained quiet.
Since complaints had come from other dorms, Gibles could not imagine that the Euros dorm head might also have run off somewhere.
