Ravan was leisurely lifting spoonfuls of rice.
Originally, it was common for faculty meals to be scheduled a little earlier than the students’, but even so, Ravan tended to remain for a long time in the faculty area in one corner of the cafeteria, slowly savoring his meal.
There was no particular reason. It was simply because, whether it was white rice with meat soup or white bread with meat stew, it was far more delicious than the meals he had eaten in the other world.
How many grotesque dishes had he had to endure before reaching the level where he could roughly crush his metabolism with mana?
Ravan chewed every spoonful of his lunch thoroughly, eating it with care. To taste buds that had once been moved to tears by nothing more than a triangle kimbap, a lunch packed full of the mascots’ sincerity and financial power was blissful to the point of violence.
Thanks to that.
‘What are those two doing?’
Ravan was able to watch Inian and Saramandine’s battle of wits from afar.
***
The school meals at Lux Tiera High School were quite autonomous. Not only was there no rule forbidding students from skipping meals, but they were also free to use the school store. Even so, most students ate the school meals.
The first reason was that they were free.
The second was that the food was delicious.
Though they were called “school meals,” the system, in which students could choose from three menus, A/B/C, each day, was closer to a student cafeteria with meal tickets. All of it was thanks to the mascots.
Most of the people eating at Lux Tiera High School were direct or indirect victims of the Naju Pharmaceutical Incident. To dilute their negative thoughts, the fairy had begun with “feeding them something delicious at least once a day,” and the taste of the meals, even enhanced with magic, was literally fantastic.
And since there was no rule against bringing in outside food, some students prepared lunchboxes, or if they did not like the day’s menu, bought a simple snack from the school store instead of eating the school meal.
Dine was the first case.
“Wow…”
The friends gathered around Dine marveled once again at the lunchbox made with meticulous skill. How could the surface of the rolled omelet be that smooth?
From Dine’s perspective, it was only natural.
The meal the mascots had enchanted while chanting, “Become delicious, yah!” was the polar opposite of Avon’s magic. The excuse she told others, that “I have a lot of allergies, so my family packs me lunch,” had a bit of truth mixed into it.
Dine moved her chopsticks demurely as she looked at the girl who had come to sit across from her. Inian, her golden hair swaying, had naturally taken a seat in front of her and was eating without a single word.
The students beside them were squealing about how cute she looked as she chewed, but Dine could not help having many thoughts. What on earth was this outer-dimensional being’s intention in approaching her?
‘Did she sense that I’m one of the Four Heavenly Kings? My disguise should have been perfect… No, I’ll assume she noticed my existence as a constant. First, I need to find out why she approached me.’
Meanwhile, Inian was just as bewildered.
‘Why in the world are humans so social?’
Inian grumbled inwardly. She had tried to speak quietly to Saramandine, only for these noisy human brats to cling to them.
Chasing them away outright would not look good either. To begin with, it was questionable whether these humans, who had clung to them so annoyingly, would leave just because she told them, “Go away, if you please.”
The reason students had gathered around the two girls was simple. In most cases, the students of Lux Tiera High School were good people.
Their warm hearts, worrying over a transfer student adapting to school and a friend who had been hospitalized with pneumonia, were driving the work of two undercover agents into frustration!
***
Ravan tilted his head as he watched the two of them eating deliciously in the middle of the crowd of students.
Saramandine was one thing, but Inian was truly unexpected. Had she really been the type to get along that well with others?
“Could it be a desire to compensate for the youth she wasted ruling over that desolate Demon Realm?”
Muttering words that would have earned him a German suplex if Inian had heard them, Ravan smacked his lips regretfully as he looked at his empty tray.
If he followed his heart, he wanted to conquer every type of school meal, but then he would be away from the counseling room for too long during lunch.
Even if he had no intention of running the counseling room properly, there was no need to arouse the mascots’ suspicion with truancy beyond a certain degree.
‘Shall I start getting up?’
The moment he began clearing his place.
[Help me!]
An urgent thought-wave flowed into Ravan’s head. It was Inian’s voice.
[These brats are clinging to me right now, so I cannot get a single word out! Come here at once and say something about not bothering the child so much!]
Ravan wanted to tease her with, “Heh heh, the Grand Duke of the Demon Realm cannot handle even that much? Your title of Grand Duke must be weeping from the ground,” but in this situation, he, too, could not run his mouth carelessly.
For a gloomy black mage, it was not an easy thing to wedge himself among such noisy high school girls and open his mouth.
[Hurry!]
The voice in the thought-wave was growing more and more intense. Ravan decided to face his fear and moved his feet.
***
Ravan naturally approached the seat where Inian was sitting, pretending he was going to bring his tray to the return counter.
“Haah, girls. That blond kid can’t even eat properly.”
“Counselor!”
“I’m not a teacher.”
“You should just give up already. All the kids call you that.”
As a mage who liked strict definitions of terminology, Ravan wanted to correct the title, but for now, the rescue request from his contracted demon came first.
He absolutely had not fled because he was overwhelmed by the yang energy of high school girls.
“By the way, who is that friend? I’ve never seen her at school before.”
“She’s a transfer student who came yesterday!”
“I see. No wonder she seemed shy. You all approach because you want to get close to her, but every person has a different comfortable sense of distance. What’s important isn’t forcing your own distance on others, but adjusting to one another. Got it?”
“Yes, yes. We’ll come visit again, sir!”
“Come in moderation. I’m leaving.”
Ravan waved his hand and moved away from the legion of high school girls. In truth, to him, that group of high school girls felt more frightening than the legion the Grand Duke of the Demon Realm had once commanded.
‘Nice assist.’
“Who is that person?”
This time, Inian was completely satisfied with Ravan’s eloquence. Especially the part about sense of distance.
She, too, was inevitably a resident of the Demon Realm holed up in her room. She was incompatible with energy of extreme yang.
“Oh, he’s the new counseling room teacher who came a few weeks ago.”
“I think he said he was not a teacher.”
“He says that, but he’s really good at counseling. You should go once too. It feels like he just tosses things out casually, but they really get through to you?”
Inian pondered whether those young humans’ ears were too easily swayed, or whether Ravan’s cunning was simply too outstanding.
‘…No. This is not the time.’
“Miss Dine, could you perhaps tell me where the counseling room is?”
“Huh? …Me?”
“That is correct.”
Dine nodded despite herself. Although she was slightly reluctant to head to the counseling room where that sinister mascot tribe was waiting, they would be able to move alone under the pretext of guidance.
“But why did you choose me?”
“Miss Dine, you were staring at the ‘teacher’s’ face the whole time.”
“What?!”
“Oh, what’s this? Is that true? Miss Dine was staring at the counselor?”
“Girls, no. I was just…!”
She had merely been trying to give that irritating mascot bastard a look for pushing her into a place where a time bomb like a crocodile magical beast lurked without saying a single word!
Saramandine tried somehow to explain the situation, but it was no use. When she said she had been staring because he was someone she had once accidentally bumped into around a hallway corner and found it curious, the response she got was, “Wow! The opening of a rom-com movie!”
Listening beside them to the countless chirping voices going round and round like a canon, Inian’s vision also darkened.
‘I cannot get used to this…’
She missed the taciturn gargoyle retainers of the Grand Ducal Castle.
***
Tap, tap. The sound of the two girls’ footsteps echoed through the tidy hallway.
Dine surveyed their surroundings. Though Lux Tiera High School was originally no different from the mascots’ territory, even they had limits.
They could not possibly keep watch over every corner like this every time. Even more so in a situation like now, when they were pouring their efforts into cleaning up after the magical beasts that had appeared in the Black Forest.
For a moment, she assessed her opponent. Inian, at least on the surface, was an ordinary student curious about the school she had transferred to—excluding her speech and appearance.
But beneath that lurked a terrifying monster from another dimension.
Why approach her despite knowing the danger? Why choose her, of all people, as a guide?
Just as Saramandine was pondering Inian’s intentions.
“You are Saramandine, correct?”
Inian naturally dropped a bombshell.
Two pairs of red eyes crossed.
“And you must be that thing from the Black Forest.”
She had already confirmed the mascots’ absence. Saramandine answered while feigning composure.
Inside her head, her thoughts were moving in a complicated tangle.
‘Why did that thing come to Lux Tiera High School?’
‘Probably because it realized this place is the area in Hikarius where humans with the most mana are concentrated.’
‘Is her interest in the counseling room an extension of that?’
‘Just as the Ivory Tower targeted the counseling room to identify students with negative thoughts, is that thing also trying to look for prey in order to indulge in negative thoughts?’
But if she hunted indiscriminately, she would be caught by the guardian fairies in an instant. Here, Saramandine would have to give her a suitable warning.
“…The counseling room is dangerous.”
“Dangerous? What do you mean?”
“That teacher. The other kids say he’s really nice and fun, but. He’s actually a rather unsettling ‘existence.’”
She deliberately emphasized the word “existence.” If Inian had witnessed Papirun in the Black Forest, she would surely grasp the implication of that sentence.
“…!”
Inian was deeply impressed by Saramandine, who had seen through Ravan’s true nature.
“That is correct! I truly cannot understand why everyone likes that man so much!”
“Huh?”
Saramandine fell into confusion.