Chapter 128

“Ki-ki-kit?”

Roan woke up, feeling dumbfounded.

Ki-ki-kit— Ki-ki-kit—!

Bright morning had arrived before he knew it.

The Abyss Dragon was kneading with its two paws on Roan’s chest while letting out cries.

“Oh, dear…”

Only then did Roan realize why his mother had said their names were Ki-ki-kit.

It was the sound of the Abyss Dragon.

‘Whether on Earth or here, dreams waking up at the critical moment is just the same.’

As Roan opened his eyes, the Abyss Dragon’s kneading stopped.

However, it was still looking down at him, tilting its head.

“I’m awake, so stop.”

Roan set the Abyss Dragon aside and carefully pondered the contents of his dream.

Although he had unfortunately failed to find out his parents’ names, the words his mother had left were quite significant.

‘Who is the older sister?’

The first person who came to mind was, of course, Yusina.

Since Roan’s parents said they had been watching over him continuously, they would likely know of Yusina’s existence.

She was indeed an ally who could be of great help to him.

And the ‘sister candidates’ that came to mind…

‘Seemed to number around 150…’

Roan recalled their profiles, then quickly realized it was a waste of effort.

…Knowing too much only made things more confusing at times like this.

‘And what’s this about my father being angry because of the Abyss?’

On top of that, the Abyss had apparently angered the previous Darc.

Roan soon came to a conclusion.

‘Was it just a nonsense dream?’

For a dream with some significant meaning, the fact that it ended with ‘Ki-ki-kit’ made it highly suspicious in many ways.

Since Roan knew so much information to begin with, perhaps those pieces had just combined.

Roan decided to keep it in mind but not get consumed by it.

Whirrrr—

The False Divinity and the Administrator of the Forbidden Library vibrated simultaneously, as if dumbfounded.

Even so, your deceased mother appeared…

Brother, isn’t this fellow’s character completely rotten?

‘You guys shouldn’t join in on that too!’

Roan clicked his tongue at the two authorities instead.

Even if he went around outside talking about his parents’ dreams.

The authorities shouldn’t get caught up in it as well.

Roan decided to study the black magic grimoire again until Hector or Demona woke up.

Normally, he would have prepared in advance for today’s classes, but today happened to be.

‘Professor Vulcan’s class isn’t particularly…’

The morning was Professor Vulcan’s class, and the afternoon was Professor Vicius’s class.

Neither of them had anything he needed to prepare for in particular.

─ Aaargh! I’m late, I’m late!

Just then, after a loud crash outside, the sound of Beanin hurriedly running out of the room echoed.

‘They must have another pop quiz today.’

It must have been tiring returning late yesterday, and she seemed to have overslept a bit.

The freshmen had only recently enrolled, so they were still free, but the current students were in their busiest period.

Consequently, not long after Roan began studying, Hector and Demona also crawled groggily out of their rooms.

Knock, knock—

─ Roan, are you awake…?

“Yes.”

─ Let’s go eat…

Demona called out to Roan in a voice that was still half-asleep.

Roan familiarized himself with the magic circle he had spread out, then closed the book and stood up.

Sure enough, outside, Hector and Demona were waiting, unable to even open their eyes properly yet.

Roan frowned and said.

“……Go wash up first.”

“Huh? Ah…”

Demona, Hector, and Roan took turns washing up and came out.

The three headed down to the cafeteria, each bringing along their divine beasts and holy beasts.

Since it was still quite early in the morning, there weren’t many people in the cafeteria.

The freshmen likely hadn’t woken up yet, and the current students would have gone to take pop quizzes like Beanin.

Thanks to that, they were able to secure seats with plenty of room.

Roan soaked bread in milk and gave it to the Abyss Dragon, which sat on the table.

In addition to that, a chunk of meat brought from the kitchen.

While divine beasts and holy beasts loved their master’s holy power and mana, they naturally needed to consume a certain amount of nutrients.

Ki-ki-kit—

The Abyss Dragon fluttered its wings happily and tore into the food Roan had given it.

“You two must feed your partners well, too.”

“Ah! Of course! I already bought pet food in advance!”

Hector and Demona also nodded at Roan’s advice.

Seeming to cherish their partners quite a bit, Hector and Demona rummaged through their clothes to pull out food.

However,

“……Do you really have to feed them on the floor?”

The two filled the bowls with food and, very naturally, placed them on the floor.

Of course, the Purgatory Penitence Beast and the Adamant Beetle seemed happy, satisfied with just that.

But to Roan, it didn’t look right at all.

‘These bastards call them family and friends only in words…!’

Demona and Hector tilted their heads, seemingly failing to understand Roan’s point.

“Huh? What’s wrong with this?”

“No matter how much they are holy beasts and divine beasts, they cannot be the same as humans. Mmh.”

“If you share a table like Roan does, it spoils the divine beast’s manners~”

“If that’s the case, shouldn’t you stop calling them family?”

“Come on, family is family.”

Roan shook his head.

Apparently, there was an impassable wall between a real citizen of the Empire and a fake one.

Then again, it wasn’t Roan’s concern how those two raised their divine and holy beasts.

It wasn’t as if the eating spot held any great significance.

“Oh? Everyone is here early.”

At that moment, the female students also arrived at the cafeteria.

Lafia waving cheerfully, Sion wearing an inwardly welcoming expression, and Riel who was ice-cold as always.

However, the three who were walking toward Roan faltered midway.

“……Why are Crybaby and Sparky eat on the floor?”

“Yeah. Yong-yong-ie is eating next to Roan.”

“It’s not Yong-yong-ie, it’s Belzahar.”

Roan corrected the Abyss Dragon’s name, but no one paid attention.

Hector and Demona replied.

“Divine beasts and holy beasts also need etiquette training. They shouldn’t try to equal humans.”

“Right!”

“““…….”””

The three female students glared at the two simultaneously.

Roan was momentarily relieved.

‘I wasn’t the only one who thought so.’

In any case, hanging around with Demona and Hector sometimes made him feel like the abnormal one.

Sion sat Sunset Shadow next to the Abyss Dragon and fed it specialized food.

By the time the six roughly finished their breakfast, the cafeteria grew quite bustling as freshmen and current students without pop quizzes gathered.

Just then, the cafeteria door burst open, and several people dashed in like lightning.

For some reason, these students wore brown flat caps and carried brown leather messenger bags.

Swish— Flutter— Flutter—

─ Extra! Extra edition!

─ We even skipped our pop quiz to bring this extra!

─ It’s really big news! You’ll regret it if you don’t look now!

They were Acherandir’s newspaper club, ‘News.’

As their hands moved busily, grey newspapers flew all over the cafeteria in an instant.

However, the strange thing was that despite so many newspapers flying around, not a single person readily picked one up, or even spared a glance.

Only a few freshmen looked around, wondering what was going on.

Demona asked Roan.

“Huh? Roan, why is everyone ignoring them?”

“There is a good reason. So you too—”

“Wow! This looks like a real newspaper! So neat~”

“……”

Before Roan could even finish his words, Demona had already picked up the newspaper that fell beside her and was reading it with interest.

Roan clicked his tongue.

At the same time, one of the News members rushed over to Demona.

It was a pelican beastman wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses.

“That will be 100 Talents.”

“Yes?”

“You read the newspaper.”

“So?”

“You have to pay for the newspaper. It’s normally 50 Talents, but since it’s pop quiz week, there’s quite a heavy surcharge.”

“I don’t have any, though?”

Demona said proudly.

At that, the pelican beastman from News was the one who became flustered instead.

As mentioned yesterday, unexcused absence from a pop quiz carried a fine of 200 Talents.

News also had to make a living.

But his fluster was brief; in truth, the members of News were highly experienced in such situations.

The pelican beastman smiled and said brightly.

“We accept tabs, Imperial currency, or barter!”

“Oh~”

Demona admired, as if to say he should have mentioned that earlier, and pulled out a 10-gold Imperial gold coin from her clothes and handed it over.

“……Are gold coins the only thing in your pockets?”

Roan said in bewilderment.

Even for Acherandir, readily handing over 10 gold coins for a single newspaper was far too excessive.

For reference, Roan was confident that he could bargain it down to about 40 Talents, surcharges and all.

Demona nodded casually.

“Do people actually use silver and copper coins? Aren’t those just souvenirs they give you when you buy things?”

“……?”

Was this indeed the difference of a descendant of a Great Family?

At any rate, for News, this was a massive windfall.

“Thank you! But we don’t have enough money to give you change for this right now… Instead, we’ll give one copy to each of the six of you!”

Although paper was scarce in this world, the value of a single newspaper outside was roughly 1 silver.

With 10 gold, she should have bought shares in the newspaper company rather than a newspaper.

Seeming content with their massive haul, the News members gathered the newspapers from the ground and left the cafeteria.

Demona leaned back, cradling her head in her hands.

“Well, it’s not like I can spend gold coins here anyway~”

Roan clicked his tongue and said.

“If you exchange it with Professor Wooly, it’s worth 1,000 Talents even after the commission fee. That’s why they accept gold coins. Of course, if you get caught, you have to return it and pay a fine.”

“!!!!!”

Demona seemed quite shocked.

Since it looked like Demona would rush off to find Wooly immediately, Roan added a few more words.

“But students with accumulated fines are subject to special monitoring. Don’t even think about going to Professor Wooly.”

Even if they weren’t under special monitoring, News was a special case.

If one carelessly attempted to exchange currency with Wooly and got caught, the fine would double.

“!!!!!!!!!”

In any case, Demona was further shocked.

And then she spoke to Roan cautiously.

“Roan, can only smart kids like you join the newspaper club?”

Roan shook his head with a pitying look.

It wasn’t that only smart people joined, but it would definitely be difficult for someone like Demona to get in.

“Anyway, since we bought it, let’s read it together!”

“Thank you, Demona. We’ll read it well.”

The friends each expressed their gratitude to Demona and opened the newspapers.

Fitting for a world where holy magic and sorcery existed, the newspaper was colorfully composed of moving photos and text.

This was also the reason why News’s newspapers were expensive.

And the headline at the very top was, without a doubt, this:

─ The 150-Year-Old Wailing Wall, Collapsed Overnight! Exclusive Interview with a Passing Student! ─

The very Wailing Wall that Roan had broken yesterday.

Of course, he knew that breaking news would appear the day after the Wailing Wall broke, but Roan felt a pang of guilt.

‘An exclusive interview… could I have been caught? I was careful, but…’

He couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that someone had seen him by chance, just as he had run into Monk Donly Gebosh while leaving the Hill of the Setting Sun last time.

Roan immediately flipped to the page containing the exclusive interview.

Fortunately, they hadn’t seen Roan’s actions; it was just a story about a student who went on an errand for a professor and, hearing a loud noise, went to check, only to find the Wailing Wall shattered and a cave bored into the mountain.

Roan felt much more at ease.

On the other hand, the other friends seemed to have their eyes drawn to the more gossipy articles.

“Look at this. It says the History Club is already selling fragments of the Wailing Wall.”

“Really? I want to sell them too!”

Where his friends pointed, there was a photo of Geodain, the president of the History Club, holding a fragment high at a stall he had set up in no time.

Since he had intended to keep the fact that he broke the Wailing Wall a secret, he didn’t care.

‘Still, isn’t it a bit shameless for them to sell it exclusively like that?’