Once she disappeared, the students gathered in front of the bulletin board began to disperse one by one.
“Should I try entering the badge category?”
“Wouldn’t the portrait category be better?”
“Haku looked cute with his ears folded down, too.”
“Wouldn’t he hate it if you drew that?”
The person in question is listening right here.
From within Elysia’s arms, I looked at the students with a complicated expression.
Fortunately, the students no longer crowded around us.
Perhaps because the Seonghwi Council president had just passed by in person, everyone seemed to feel that they had to maintain a certain line.
That was a good thing.
I still couldn’t quite accept that petting me had become an official system of three times a week, twenty people a day, thirty seconds per person,
but at least it would reduce the number of times I was suddenly surrounded like this.
“Haku, are you all right?”
Elysia asked carefully.
After thinking for a moment, I nodded.
I was all right.
Probably.
Except for the fact that my face might become academy merchandise.
Whether Elysia knew what I was thinking or not, she gave a small smile and stroked my back.
“Today’s been hectic in all sorts of ways, too.”
It really had.
One month since I came to this world.
I thought I was finally starting to adapt, but apparently not at all.
My common sense was useless again today.
A massive academy event called the Seonghwi Festival.
A Haku badge and portrait contest.
And the Seonghwi Council, which handled all of it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I quietly let out a sigh.
That was when it happened.
“Elysia von Valerion.”
An unfamiliar voice called out to us.
It was a calm, clear voice.
Even though it rang out in the middle of the noisy hallway, it reached my ears strangely distinctly.
Elysia turned her head.
I also shifted my gaze from within her arms.
Beside a pillar in the hallway.
In the space where the crowd had thinned, a female student stood quietly.
Silver-blue hair flowed softly down past her shoulders.
When it caught the light, a faint blue sheen lingered at the ends.
Her eyes were blue-green.
They were the color of looking down into the depths of a clear lake.
Her ears were just slightly longer and more delicate than a human’s.
Elf.
The word came naturally to mind.
She wore the neat uniform of the Department of Elemental Magic,
but she gave off an air less like a student and more like someone who had spent a long time reading books in a quiet research room.
Rather than cold, she seemed more like the type who did not reveal her emotions carelessly.
Elysia’s eyes widened slightly, as if she recognized her.
“Iris Asteria.”
Asteria.
At that name, my ears perked up slightly.
The Marquisate of Asteria.
A family known for magic and knowledge, and called the masters of the Ivory Tower.
If Valerion was a prestigious house of swords and military affairs, Asteria was a prestigious house of magic and scholarship.
Why was a young lady of such a family looking at me?
No, in truth, I could roughly guess the reason.
In situations like this, people who came looking for me usually had one of two purposes.
They either wanted to touch me.
Or investigate me.
Iris Asteria clearly seemed closer to the latter.
She stared intently at me, then slowly shifted her gaze to Elysia.
“May I have a moment?”
Elysia naturally drew me closer into her arms.
It was a very small movement, but it was clearly an attitude meant to protect me.
“What is it?”
Seeing that reaction, Iris blinked very faintly.
She seemed intrigued.
“There are a few things I would like to confirm regarding Haku.”
As expected.
I muttered quietly to myself.
‘Here it comes. The researcher type.’
Elysia’s expression stiffened a little.
“If it’s something Haku dislikes, I will refuse.”
At those words, Iris was silent for a moment.
Then, unexpectedly, she immediately nodded.
“That is only natural.”
Huh?
I looked at Iris with slight surprise.
Iris seemed to view me only as an object of research,
but at least she did not appear to be the kind of person who would recklessly reach out or use magic on me.
She continued speaking calmly.
“I am also aware that touching another person’s registered familiar or using measurement magic without permission is a violation of the rules.”
“Then why were you looking for Haku?”
Elysia’s voice remained cautious.
Before answering, Iris briefly looked around me.
More precisely, she was not looking at me.
The air beside me.
The edge of the hallway.
The sunlight hanging near the window.
Those were the things her eyes were examining.
Then she said in a low voice,
“The spirits are reacting strangely.”
In that instant, my body stiffened.
‘What?’
What did that girl just see?
On one side of the hallway, near the sunlit window, a small cluster of light was floating.
Most of the students did not notice it.
But I saw it.
It was a small light spirit.
A very small, faint low-ranking spirit.
That spirit tried to approach me, but at some point it stopped, then curled its body into a circle in midair.
As if making way for me.
No, more precisely, as if showing respect.
It was a reaction I had often seen since coming to this world.
For some reason, spirits and familiars were not afraid of me.
Instead, they treated me cautiously, as though facing something ancient.
I had simply brushed it off as such.
But Iris had seen it.
And accurately, at that.
Iris’s blue-green eyes grew a little deeper.
“Most low-ranking spirits do not react that way to humans or familiars.
They either become frightened, show curiosity, or ignore them. But the spirits around Haku are different.”
Elysia looked down at me.
I blinked, pretending not to know.
No, I really didn’t know the details either.
What kind of being this body had been, how the spirits of this world sensed me—there was still much I didn’t know.
Iris continued.
“And that is not the only strange point.
I cannot sense a distinct flow of mana from Haku.
But it is not as if there is nothing there, either. There is a flow similar to mana,
but it cannot be classified as mana.”
At those words, Elysia’s eyes sharpened slightly.
“Did you just measure Haku?”
Iris immediately shook her head.
“No. I did not measure him directly.
Just now, I was only looking at the flow of mana throughout the entire hallway.
I did not cast any magic on Haku.”
She looked at me for a very brief moment.
“Nor do I intend to do so without permission.”
Her tone was composed, but it did not sound like a lie.
I relaxed slightly.
Still, my wariness had not completely disappeared.
Someone who might notice my true identity.
She was the first.
Of course, Cecilia and Selena also did not see me as an ordinary fox.
But Iris was different in direction.
If the Seonghwi Council saw me as a “popular familiar who needed protection,”
Iris was seeing me as “an existence that deviated from the laws of the world.”
This was a little dangerous.
“So what do you want?”
Elysia asked.
Iris thought for a moment, then answered.
“I am not saying we should do anything right away.
However, I would like to obtain permission to observe Haku through the formal procedure.”
“Observe?”
“Yes. Not contact or measurement, but observation for now.
In what situations Haku reacts with spirits, whether he affects the flow of mana,
and what relationship he has with Student Elysia’s aura.”
Elysia’s shoulders stiffened minutely.
I thought I knew why she had reacted.
Aura.
The change that had occurred between Haku and Elysia.
That was still something we did not want to talk about carelessly to others.
Iris did not miss that reaction.
“So there is a connection after all.”
“Iris Asteria.”
Elysia’s voice lowered.
“Please do not speak based on speculation.”
“My apologies.”
Iris apologized readily.
But strangely, it did not feel as though she was backing down.
Rather, she looked like someone who had become even more certain.
I muttered inwardly.
‘This girl is the troublesome type.’
She did not seem like a bad person.
But her curiosity ran deep.
And she was smart.
On top of that, she had good powers of observation.
From my perspective, it was the worst possible combination.
This time, Iris lowered herself slightly toward me.
As if trying to meet my eye level.
“Haku.”
When my name was suddenly called, I flinched.
With a face nearly devoid of expression, she said,
“Are you truly a fox-type familiar?”
The air around the hallway seemed to stop for a moment.
Elysia and I both could not say anything for a while.
Well, I couldn’t talk in the first place.
I looked into Iris’s blue-green eyes.
There was no mockery or greed in them.
Only pure doubt.
The fact that the existence before her did not fit into any classification she knew—
she simply could not overlook it.
I slowly tilted my head.
Why are you asking a fox such a difficult question?
That was the expression I wore on the outside.
Seeing my reaction, Iris’s eyebrows moved very faintly.
“Are you pretending not to know?”
‘Did she catch me?’
I tilted my head to the opposite side again.
I don’t know.
I am a cute fox.
I know nothing.
At my desperate acting, I saw Elysia press lightly at the corner of her mouth.
Don’t laugh.
This is a serious situation.
Iris stared at me for a moment, then eventually let out a very small breath.
“……Very well. I will stop here for today.”
She backed down more easily than I expected.
But her gaze still had not let go of me.
“Student Elysia.”
“Yes.”
“I will send a formal request. You may refuse it. However, please review it at least once.”
Elysia was silent for a moment.
Then she answered calmly.
“I will review it, as long as it is within a range Haku does not dislike.”
Hearing that, Iris looked at me again.
“You are giving Haku the right to decide as well.”
“Of course.”
Elysia’s answer held no hesitation.
At that moment, the look in Iris’s eyes changed slightly.
If she had only been looking at me at first, now she was looking at Elysia as well.
“How interesting.”
That again.
I folded my ears slightly.
‘Why does it keep going in an interesting direction?’
Iris bowed her head slightly.
“Then I will take my leave for today.”
After saying that, she turned around.
Her silver-blue hair swayed quietly.
After taking a few steps, Iris suddenly stopped.
And without turning back, she said,
“Ah, one more thing.”
Elysia asked,
“What is it?”
“The spirits around Haku do not fear Haku.”
Her voice was still calm.
“Rather…… they seem to treat him like an ancient being.”
In that instant, I felt the tip of my tail twitch.
Leaving those words behind, Iris disappeared down the far end of the hallway.
Elysia silently watched her back for a long while.
I did the same.
Until just moments ago, my head had been full because of the Seonghwi Festival contest.
All I had been worried about were strange things like Haku badges, portraits, and merchandise.
But the moment Iris Asteria appeared just now, the atmosphere changed completely.
For the first time, someone had looked at me not as a cute fox, but as something else.
An existence that could not be classified.
An existence with a flow that was not mana.
An existence to whom spirits showed respect.
Within Elysia’s arms, I quietly curled up.