Chapter 362

Chapter 362

— Nijian, didn’t you say there was a black mage nearby?

“Ah, no. I said my body reacts to the full moon and black mana?”

Even with a wolf’s face, Nijian shook her head, widening her eyes as if she was hearing this for the first time.

— Then it wasn’t black mana?

The students whispered, and Demona drove a wedge into it.

“Now, if you have eyes, look over there!”

What she pointed at was the holy light above Roan’s head.

“How bright is the holy light Darc manifested! And how brilliant! It can indeed be compared to a lighthouse in the sky that illuminates the dark night!”

Only then did the students, grasping the meaning of what Demona was trying to say, exclaim one after another.

— Ah, I see!

— Darc’s holy light was like a full moon, so Nijian transformed into a wolf!

Her Kaiwolf blood hadn’t reacted to evil black mana, but had mistaken Roan’s holy light for the full moon!

…Of course, they were the ones who were mistaken.

Only then did the students calm their excitement and return to their respective seats.

Then they each said a word to Nijian.

— Nijian, honestly~ How could your blood mistake something like that~

“S-Sorry.”

It wasn’t something she had to apologize for, but Nijian apologized anyway, taking her cues from the room.

— When is that going to subside? But I guess it doesn’t really matter. The puppy look is cute too!

“It’s a wolf, not a puppy… and they said it stays like this until the full moon disappears.”

— Wouldn’t it subside faster if you sang a hymn?

“I-Is that so?”

Nijian hadn’t heard from her family that such a solution existed, but it felt like it might be quite effective.

Wouldn’t singing a holy hymn quickly calm a troubled mind?

“Ah, Hiloa, who sends down light upon the entire world…”

— Hmm… hearing it in a wolf’s voice is a bit…

“Sorry, I will finish quickly.”

Nijian, who was normally a delicate girl, felt embarrassed by her body, which had swollen to twice its usual size, so she just started singing a hymn as best as she could.

With that, the situation was roughly wrapped up.

And Sion, watching all this, looked at Roan with eyes that had grown even deeper.

‘To think he doesn’t lose his focus in prayer even in this situation… One has to be at this level to manifest such holy light!’

Why was she the Saintess candidate, yet she was constantly learning from Roan?

Sion reflected on her shortcomings and examined Roan’s focused face with a gentle smile.

At that moment.

Pshuung—

Simultaneously with the disappearance of the holy light floating above Roan’s head,

Thud—

the fainted Roan collapsed onto the aisle between the chapel pews.

“…?”

Sion stared the collapsed Roan, not knowing what was happening all of a sudden.

Now that the intense light was gone, she saw that his face had turned pale, and—

‘I-It doesn’t seem like he’s even breathing?’

Could this be…?

Sion instinctively made eye contact with Demona, who had returned to sit next to her.

Demona was also looking at her with a flustered gaze.

A very brief moment of exchanging glances passed, and—

“Kyaaaack!”

“R-Roan is—!!!!!!!!”

both of them began to shriek without anyone starting first.

Only then did Harden step forward to clean up the situation.

“There is no need to be alarmed. He simply fainted.”

“Pardon? But Principal. Darc’s complexion… and his breathing…”

Sion hesitated, knowing she had to maintain strict politeness in front of Harden, but the situation was too urgent.

Harden wore a benevolent expression as if he understood all her anguish and said.

“Do not worry. Darc is like this because he faced a power too great for a human body to bear.”

“T-Then Roan didn’t die?!”

Harden was left speechless by Demona’s excessively direct concern.

However, as was always the case when Demona spoke nonsense, she was extremely serious by herself this time as well.

“…Still, asking if a friend died is a bit much.”

“B-But wouldn’t someone like Roan be able to resurrect as a holy spirit?”

Harden was even more at a loss for words.

It was because he couldn’t tell the truth about how a black mage could possibly resurrect as a holy spirit.

— D-Darc is becoming a holy spirit?

— …If he becomes a holy spirit, won’t he be even scarier than now? He’ll become a real ghost.

— More importantly, do holy spirits attend school too?

— Ah, then that might actually…

Harden flared up in anger at the students’ murmuring.

“Didn’t I say he didn’t die! Tsk, tsk, pathetic fools. Darc simply could not endure Lady Hiloa’s power.”

“L-Lady Hiloa??!!??!!!”

Demona was startled, her eyes widening to the size of lightbulbs.

No matter how ignorant Demona usually was, she knew very well the weight of the name ‘Hiloa.’

And of course, Demona was not the only one shocked to hear Harden’s words.

“Principal…! Is that really true…?”

Vicius asked, tottering toward Harden.

Harden flew toward him instead, as if to say he didn’t need to do that.

“Stop coming. At your age, you must be careful with everything. At any rate, it is true. That is why both Professor Diar and I have come, is it not?”

“Ah…! No wonder, something I haven’t felt in my short life…! So this was Lady Hiloa!”

”’It wasn’t exactly a short life, though?”’

Vicius closed his eyes and shed tears, as if determined not to forget the holy and massive sensation he had felt, trying to recall it once more.

At least he could focus entirely on his emotion, but the acolyte priests in charge of practical affairs were in an uproar.

— R-Record everything!

— Lady Hiloa’s holy light, this is a major event!

— Following Lord Lu, now even Lady Hiloa…

Since the priests usually recorded even Harden’s words from their dreams, how much more would they do for Hiloa’s holy light?

And the murmuring of the students reached its peak.

— Did you hear? They say it was Lady Hiloa’s power!

— No wonder, even I couldn’t keep my head straight here!

— Since he received that power directly, even the Great Demon King Darc wouldn’t be unharmed…

They were interpreting Harden’s words in their own perfect way.

— If Darc is at that level, those black mages would probably turn to dust just by being exposed to the light.

— C-Could he have trained a decisive weapon to execute black mages in a secret holy light training facility?

— H-Heek!! What a terrifying guy…!

[—Those kids aren’t saying that because they know something, right?]

[Do not worry. They are just saying that because they are stupid.]

Harden and Diar found it utterly absurd to hear the students’ reasoning, which raced sharply between sharpness and stupidity.

At any rate, now that the holy light had ended and Hiloa’s power had disappeared, leaving only traces, they could finally intervene in Roan’s condition.

Diar flew toward Roan.

[I will do it. It seems I must use the Divine Language.]

[Go ahead.]

Diar began to use the Divine Language next to Roan, rustling its pages.

“……. ……. ……. …….”

Words in the Divine Language signifying the stabilization of body and energy, recovery of vigor, and even restoration of events poured out.

It was a language on a completely different level from the basic words of the Divine Language Roan and Sion heard in their Ancient Hilonian class.

“L-Look at that! The book is speaking! I can’t understand a single word!”

“…Demona, are you really an idiot? That’s Professor Diar.”

Sion asked in a voice that was utterly pathetic, looking at the startled Demona.

Demona scratched the back of her neck in embarrassment.

“Ah, really? Seeing him from here, his image is quite different. But can you understand it, Sion?”

“…”

Sion had nothing to say.

“What~ You can’t understand it either.”

That wasn’t why she called her an idiot, though.

At any rate, as Diar’s treatment progressed, Roan’s complexion became more comfortable, so it seemed they could be relieved.

— Now, now, since the Principal and Professor Diar have come, the other students should not be agitated and continue the exam…

It was when the situation was settling down to some extent.

Crash—!

The window, which the acolyte priests diligently wiped morning, noon, evening, night, and dawn, suddenly broke.

And beyond it, a dark, small figure burst in.

“Th-That just now was Lady Hiloa’s holy light, which only appears in ancient history books!!”

“…Professor Timothy.”

He was none other than Timothy, the dwarf history professor.

Judging by his appearance, he seemed to have been working on an excavation quite far away, but seeing how he recognized it as Hiloa’s holy light at once, should he indeed be called a history professor?

Not that Harden would praise his ability, though.

“Awoooo! Grrr! Bark, bark, bark!”

— Kya! Nijian, what’s wrong with you all of a sudden?

“Ah, s-sorry. I thought he was a crazy person and got startled. Our family’s blood is also a bit sensitive to crazy people.”

— If that’s the case, you can keep barking.

Leaving behind the sad story of Nijian, who had been trying hard to calm her excitement by singing a hymn but returned to her wolf form.

Timothy tilted his head, seeing Harden and Diar who had already arrived.

“Oh, Principal? And even Professor Diar? How… Ah.”

Then he spoke with a sly smile.

“It seemed like both of you usually disliked me, but you actually loved history! You are indeed the living history themselves.”

Hearing up to that point, Harden waved his hand without hesitation.

Bam—!

“Cough, hack, sob!”

Timothy crashed into the wall, unable to offer any resistance.

— Oof, that’s going to hurt a bit.

— That’s much worse than what Darc does to Demona.

Shrrrk—!

Diar secured Timothy’s custody using the Divine Language.

— Oof, that too is a bit…

— Looking at him again, Darc was an angel.

— You idiot, Darc is a guy.

He bound even his mouth tightly so that he couldn’t speak a single word, to a degree that even the students felt was a bit excessive.

But Harden did not stop there.

He beckoned a couple of paladins waiting nearby.

“Paladins, come here for a moment.”

— Yes!

“Lock up that professor for a few days for daring to break the window of the Great Temple. Clear out all the items inside. I mean the history books, statues, and the like. Right, instead, fill it with a few pseudo-history novels. For instance, books babbling about how the universe was created through an explosion, or how animals evolved to become humans.”

— We will follow your orders!

The paladins nodded loyally, then grabbed the short Timothy’s shoulders and legs respectively and lifted him up.

If it were Earth, that ‘pseudo-history’ would be the established theory of academia, but this world where gods and demons actually existed was completely different.

“Mmph! Mmmph! Mmph-mmph!”

Even as he was carried out, his body bound, he shouted something diligently.

It seemed to translate to, ‘Please, anything but pseudo-history!’

But Harden didn’t even pretend to hear.

And after Timothy was dragged out.

“Greetings, Principal.”

“Ah, Assistant Joy. You’ve come at a good time.”

Timothy’s assistant, Joy, walked in normally through the door of the small prayer room.

— What, the history professor actually enters through the door instead of the window?

— Isn’t it because she is the assistant and not the professor?

— Ah, that could be.

The students nodded, satisfied with their plausible reasoning.

Joy did not even change her expression, despite having clearly seen her professor being dragged away with his limbs held and the window he had obviously broken.

It was a very familiar occurrence to her.

“We detected a holy light presumed to be Lady Hiloa’s, so I have visited to investigate.”

“That is correct. Darc manifested Lady Hiloa’s holy light.”

“…Darc?”

Joy slightly shifted her eyes to look at the collapsed Roan visible beyond Harden.

Then she muttered in a small voice, ‘An Abyssal Dragon and even Lady Hiloa’s holy light?’

At the same time, a trace of madness flickered in her eyes.

‘Should I isolate him from Timothy even now?’

Was Timothy raising a tiger cub all this time!

…Of course, if one was a professor, they had to raise their disciples first, but it naturally did not mean in that sense.