Chapter 287

His friends each wore complicated expressions, but they could not bring themselves to deny Demona’s words.

Or rather, to be precise.

‘‘‘Isn’t she a person who looks like a divine beast?’’’

The cause-and-effect relationship seemed a bit different.

“Kyaoo, kiwu? Kyaa?”

[Master, that person is looking for you?]

‘Yes, I also roughly understood.’

[As expected of you, Master……!]

A green-haired third-year who used the language of the Desert Lizard Tribe, which was familiar to Roan and Bell.

Unlike last time, she had feathers and scales attached here and there on her face as well as her upper body, and she was none other than.

“N-Nia senior?!!?!!”

It was Nia, whose name Zion had screamed out.

Rafia was startled and turned to Zion to ask:

“Z-Zion, do you know who that divine beast—no, that person is?”

“Uh……”

Zion could not bring herself to immediately say yes and hesitated for a moment.

She had called out Nia’s name reflexively because she was surprised.

‘B-But it’s too embarrassing to admit I know someone who is doing that in the commercial district!’

To be honest, it was rather awkward to declare Nia—whom she couldn’t even distinguish as a human-looking divine beast or a divine beast-looking human—as their club senior.

Instead, Roan answered for her.

“She is the senior of Zion and my club. Third-year, Nia.”

“““Ehhhh?!”””

Naturally, the friends who heard those words were astonished.

On the other hand, Demona nodded seriously as if she had expected it and asked:

“What is her race?”

Roan, not expecting Demona to be so unstartled, replied somewhat lukewarmly:

“Naturally, she is human.”

“What? No way!”

Demona was startled, as if asking how someone with scales and feathers on their body could be human.

At that moment, Nia, who was sensitive enough to catch Zion’s voice calling her name, turned her head this way.

Naturally, she could also see Roan.

“Kyaoot!!!”

……She shouted ‘Found you!’ in the language of the Desert Lizard Tribe and charged as fast as a bullet.

Naturally, to the ears of ordinary people who didn’t know the language of the Desert Lizard Tribe, it was bound to sound like ‘I will kill you!’

Even if they had thought it had a similar meaning, the nuance was quite different.

His friends, who had been marveling beside Roan, watched Nia approach right before their eyes in an instant, and.

“U-Uaaack! A human-looking divine beast!”

“A divine beast-looking human!”

“Run away!”

Each grabbed their own divine/spiritual beast and quickly hid behind Roan.

Roan looked back at his friends with an utterly contemptuous gaze.

Two paladin candidates who should be at the forefront against threats, an inquisitor hopeful who even beat up black mages, a successor of the Wychronon family—one of the three great families of the empire—and a Saintess candidate.

‘I raised you guys too softly!’

Compared to their massive name value, wasn’t their performance far too lacking?

Instead of stepping forward to protect the pitiful descendant of a ruined family, they were hiding.

Roan glared at one person who was hiding particularly tightly and asked:

“……Zion, even so, shouldn’t you not be doing that?”

“……Ah.”

Only then did Zion realize her own state, turning red and hesitantly stepping forward.

Only then could Roan introduce Nia to his friends.

“This is Senior Nia. Everyone, say hello.”

But his friends hesitated and didn’t step forward easily.

Roan tilted his head.

“What’s wrong?”

Rafia spoke cautiously.

“Um, Roan. That is……”

Rafia timidly pointed at Nia and said:

“Are you sure it’s okay for us to look……?”

“……Ah.”

Only then did Roan realize what they were thinking.

Nia was, as always, wearing an outfit that was quite dizzying for ordinary citizens of the Empire to look at.

Roan nodded.

“Yes, there are no issues regarding censorship.”

“Censorship?”

“Naturally, I mean the school rules censorship.”

Only then did his friends hesitantly step forward, greeting Nia one by one.

“Ah, aha. I see. Hello, Senior.”

“I am……”

“I am Demona Wychronon.”

“I am Hector Pabilto.”

Leaving the other friends aside, Hector greeted her with a face so red it looked like the granite of a volcano right before eruption.

However, Nia, who was free of prejudice, was neither surprised nor displeased by Hector’s face.

It was truly a steadfast mind that resembled the grand Mother Nature.

“Kiwut, kit! Nikyatkyat!”

Nia waved her hand to the friends and said something in her characteristic cheerful voice.

Demona asked:

“Are you perhaps a foreigner?”

Roan answered:

“She is an ordinary citizen of the Empire. Though she does use foreign languages.”

“Foreign languages……”

Zion, thinking of the meaning of the ‘foreign language’ Roan spoke of, made a complicated expression.

Strictly speaking, the Desert Lizard Tribe’s language could be called a foreign language, but.

Who indeed would calmly think ‘Ah, it’s a foreign language’ once they learned its true nature?

Roan also spoke to Nia.

“Senior, could you please speak in the Imperial tongue? My friends cannot understand you.”

“Ah, I forgot! Knowing that someone can understand me makes me pay even less attention! So that’s why everyone ignored my words earlier too, huh?”

……It didn’t seem to be solely because they couldn’t understand the language.

Nia smiled brightly and finally began to speak in a language the friends could also understand.

Seeing her bright appearance, Rafia and the other friends were finally relieved.

‘‘‘Although she uses foreign languages, she is a kind senior!’’’

Surely Akerandir had a diplomacy major, so they wondered if she was a senior studying in that field.

Of course, even a diplomacy major couldn’t explain wearing feathers and scales instead of a shirt, but they just decided not to worry about that.

She might just be experiencing a foreign culture firsthand.

“And besides, there’s no need to make humans understand my words anyway, right?”

“““……?”””

However, the friends had no idea how to react to a senior who casually said such harsh things with a bright face.

“Oh my, our Beeeeell! Did you miss big sister? Hello, Charlotte, and Sunset, Flutter, have you guys been doing well too?”

Regardless, Nia stroked the divine beasts that were hesitantly clinging near their master and greeted them warmly.

Then, she looked at the other friends’ divine/spiritual beasts with astonished eyes.

“My goodness! What on earth are you guys? A Dream-Eating Thousand-Mile Horse, an Arbor Emperor Ape, an Adamant Beetle, a Fanatic Rabbit King……”

Originally, the divine and spiritual beasts of Roan’s friends were all rare species, but they were even more special in Nia’s eyes.

Since they were creatures that barely lived near Akerandir, it was practically a whole new world.

However, the creatures Nia was most startled by were different.

“A Purgatory Penitent Beast and even a Thousand-Eyed Hole Serpent?!?!?!”

They were none other than Eong-eongi and Sil-sil-ie, who were clinging next to Hector.

Nia gaped with her eyes and mouth wide open, observing the two spiritual beasts this way and that with intense interest.

“!?!?!!!?!?”

The friends were naturally astonished by the sight of Nia, who showed no aversion at all toward Eong-eongi and Sil-sil-ie, whom everyone else was busy fleeing from in fright.

It was so extreme that Hector even whispered to Roan:

“R-Roan.”

“What.”

“This senior, she seems to like me for some reason.”

“……?”

Roan glared at Hector with a look of utter contempt, as if he had heard the most garbage-like nonsense.

[Bleeegh!]

……Bell dry-heaved rather severely.

Eong-eongi and Sil-sil-ie also shed whatever they could shed, mourning their master’s foolishness.

In particular, Eong-eongi even shed the clear tears that it was said to weep upon witnessing sin.

But Hector still said what he wanted to say, even if he flinched.

“B-But otherwise, who else would look at Eong-eongi and Sil-sil-ie and be this glad to see them?”

Surprisingly, it was a fairly plausible point.

If only the other party were not Nia.

Nia, whose bright expression from moments ago had vanished somewhere, reacted as sharp as a blade.

“Why would I like a mere human?”

“Ah, you don’t?”

“Consider your life saved thanks to the cute Purgatory Penitent Beast and Thousand-Eyed Hole Serpent, junior.”

Thump──!!

Hector seemed significantly hurt by the vicious threat, the likes of which he had never heard in his life.

……Well, anyone would show such a reaction upon being told to consider their life saved.

‘Still, Nia doesn’t normally say that kind of thing to just anyone.’

However, Hector and his friends likely wouldn’t know.

The fact that for Nia, who harbored absolutely no expectations of humans, receiving such a threat was actually a milder response.

It seemed she particularly and exceptionally disliked Hector among all humans.

Nia asked Hector with a slightly brighter expression:

“I hate to even ask someone like you this, but where did you get these guys?”

“Ah, I obtained Eong-eongi as an egg from the Headmaster.”

“Right, that makes sense.”

“For Sil-sil-ie, I rolled down a cliff on a mountain, climbed back up to find a nest, and brought the egg.”

“…….”

At that moment, Nia’s expression was:

“H-Hieeeeek──! Roan, save me!!!”

enough to make Demona, who was simply standing nearby, feel a threat to her life.

Actually, it was just that Demona’s reaction was the most violent; the other friends, including Zion, looked similar.

‘Is this guy really that dense?’

Roan also thought a corpse would have to be cleared at this rate, so he quickly stepped in.

It was obvious at a glance that she hated humans and loved spiritual beasts, so what was the point of saying something like that!

“Senior, I will discipline this fellow.”

Saying so, Roan immediately shot a curse magic at Hector.

Not the paralysis he frequently used, but ‘Abyssal Flesh-Severing.’

At this level, it was a truly vicious curse where someone without a certain amount of resistance could die from shock.

He had seen Hector withstand paralysis easily on normal occasions, and since Nia’s anger would likely not be appeased easily, Roan specially increased the intensity.

“Keuhuk, ugh! Kaaaaack!!!!”

Hector screamed at the top of his lungs and rolled around on the ground at the pain, which was truly the first he had experienced in his life.

“Fanatic, get up now…… huh?”

Demona, his partner (?) who usually rolled on the ground with Hector, casually spoke to him but tilted her head upon sensing something strange.

This guy is not someone who would roll around for this long?

“Hmm……”

Then, Demona tactfully shut her mouth and decided to stand quietly.

……She figured that even if she were the one hit by it, it wouldn’t end well.

─ What is wrong with Pabilto?

─ Well, Darc must have shot some punitive holy magic.

─ Huh? L-Look, isn’t that Senior Nia?

Students passing by whispered as they watched the scene.

A few current students began to recognize Nia, who rarely came down to the school.

─ Ah, did Pabilto perhaps confess to Senior Nia?

─ What? Is he insane?

─ I heard the Pabiltos do that occasionally?

─ Good grief…….

They possessed excellent deductive skills, proving their time spent at Akerandir was not in vain.

─ So Darc basically saved Pabilto’s life.

─ He did a good deed for the first time.

─ You know, that Tom who confessed to Senior Nia last time…….

Then, without paying any more attention, they naturally went on their way.

The fact that Roan’s reputation rose slightly despite casting curse magic was an added bonus.

‘As expected, casting curse magic on these guys is the right thing to do.’

Roan felt a strange sense of pride.

Meanwhile, Nia, who noticed at a glance how powerful the punitive holy art Roan cast on Hector was, decided that fortunately she did not need to step in herself.

Instead, she left a remark with extremely sinister eyes.

“Kiwukiwut, kiyarihit……”

Flinch─

Roan and Bell, who understood those words, momentarily shuddered.

[T-To say such harsh words…….]

‘At that level, it might cause issues with censorship.’