When one’s enemies were fighting among themselves, it was only natural to slip in unnoticed and stir up trouble.
“Only natural? What does that mean, rawr?”
“It refers to an ordinary feeling shared by all human beings.”
URK.
The hatchling suddenly made a choking sound.
“……Are the humans you speak of merely inferior versions of demons, Headmaster, rawr? You are rotten to the core, rawr!”
“Tsk, tsk…… You still harbor shallow illusions about humanity. Hatchling, it is time for you to cast aside those fantasies. Only by understanding humans properly can true love for humanity blossom.”
“What kind of nonsense is that, rawr?”
Ignoring the hatchling’s quiet, shrill protests, Julian surveyed their surroundings.
As they passed through the first-floor corridor from the supply room, he sensed people inside the student cafeteria beside them. The same was true now that they had climbed the stairs and were crossing the second-floor corridor.
An empty bakery, a stationery shop, a magic wand shop…… Behind every display case, Julian felt as though someone were lurking and watching them.
‘There are quite a few of them.’
Just as Julian’s eyes sharpened—
CREEEAK.
A door opened somewhere.
The sound served as a signal. The doors of the empty shops all opened at once, and people came pouring out.
“Gather behind me!”
The large man leading the masked trio shouted as he gathered Magic Power in his hands.
“O Shield of Protection! Magic Shielding!”
A massive Magic Power Shield more than three meters in diameter appeared in front of him.
Starving students charged toward it.
“Smash through it!”
They were so thin that only their eyes burned brightly, making them resemble zombies. Those in the lead swung wooden clubs.
THUD! THUD!
The Magic Power Shield repelled their attacks. As the students were thrown backward by the recoil, even more surged forward behind them.
The large man struggled to maintain the shield and shouted,
“Hey!”
“I’m doing it!”
The bespectacled man hurriedly extended his hands. Lightning erupted from the Hand Signs he rapidly formed and swept over the charging students.
CRACKLE!
The students convulsed and collapsed. Panting heavily, the large man shouted,
“Damn it! There seem to be even more of them than last time!”
Their movements showed that they had fought together many times before. Julian thought he understood why they had accepted him and Theodore so readily.
They needed more people to help repel the students’ attacks.
“Drop the sacks and get out!”
“We do not have any food either! You get out!”
The bespectacled man shouted back. The students, just as desperate as he was, glared at them with bloodshot eyes.
At that moment—
“What is that smell, rawr?”
The moment the hatchling murmured, a foul stench swept through the corridor.
“!”
Black smoke carrying a sickening odor rolled toward them from the far end of the corridor. The students’ faces turned blue as they cried out.
“It’s Maw!”
The students scattered like a pack of dogs struck by lightning. They fled into the shops, down the opposite end of the corridor, and in every other direction, abandoning Julian and the masked group they had been attacking moments earlier.
Julian swallowed dryly as he stared at Maw, who had appeared at the end of the corridor.
Something that had once been human stood there.
Its skin was unnaturally taut, contrasting with the hollow shadows around its eyes. Its glistening gaze moved ceaselessly, constantly searching for something.
Its body was withered and emaciated, with only its stomach bulging outward.
A foul stench and black smoke flowed from its torn mouth as it continuously smacked its lips. It opened its mouth even wider.
“Respect me!”
Maw screamed as he glared at the students.
He kicked the students who had given up fleeing and prostrated themselves. He wrapped those who attempted to escape in smoke and tormented them.
“Show me respect!”
His voice sounded hoarse from screaming without rest. For some reason, Julian found it familiar.
“Obey me!”
Maw extended an arm toward a fleeing student. His withered limb stretched like a hook and seized the student by the hair.
“Aaagh!”
“Speak to me with respect! Crawl before me!”
“L-Lord Maw!”
“Please spare us!”
The students whose hair he had seized and whose throats he was choking gasped and wept. Maw licked their tears with his long tongue.
SLURP. SLURP, SLURP.
While he licked their tears, silence filled the corridor. The smoke and stench weakened slightly, but no one dared move.
“…….”
Julian also stood frozen, staring at Maw.
‘I definitely know that face…….’
As he searched his memory, the creature greedily licking the students’ tears met Julian’s eyes.
“You will……!”
Maw stepped toward Julian.
“Stay back!”
Theodore, who had been guarding Julian while wielding a wooden club, sprang forward. Maw instinctively flinched before the threatening diagonal slash.
“!”
The leader of the masked trio came to her senses at the sight. She urged her dazed companions onward.
“Run!”
Her voice was quiet, but everyone understood her. The trio and Julian sprinted toward the bank. Theodore swung his wooden club and followed from the rear.
‘I am certain.’
Julian thought as he ran for his life.
‘That is Professor Martin Digby.’
***
Maw was in a foul mood.
‘Who was that bastard?’
During the past several years, no one had ever looked at him that way.
The vermin wearing human skins around him were simple.
Whenever he appeared, they recoiled in horror. They showed disgust as the stench and smoke overwhelmed them, but once his power had squeezed them dry, they trembled helplessly in fear.
He enjoyed spitting in their faces. When he stretched out his tongue and licked away their terrified tears, the sight of them recoiling in disgust yet remaining too frightened to move was endlessly amusing.
‘Worthless vermin.’
Why had he allowed creatures like them to control his life for so long?
‘I was a fool.’
He was no longer the person he had once been. Every time he was reminded of that fact, he felt so delighted that he could scarcely contain himself.
But that bastard from moments ago—
The young masked man had widened his eyes as though he knew what Maw had once been. Maw could clearly read the meaning within that gaze.
Why have you changed so much?
You were never this kind of person.
‘That ignorant bastard!’
Maw’s anger surged.
“Obey me!”
He began rampaging wildly.
He roared at everyone he saw. Whenever someone showed even the slightest disgust, he seized them and forced them to their knees. Even then, his anger did not subside, so he kicked them in the stomach.
“Urgh!”
The people he struck expelled their breath and fell prostrate, weeping and begging.
The stomachs beneath his feet were hollow. The arms raised in supplication were so thin they appeared ready to break.
Maw smiled at the sight. Black smoke rose from the corners of his torn mouth.
‘Look at me!’
Those who had once mocked him behind his back and asked what was wrong with him had been reduced to this wretched state.
‘I am no longer the pathetic fool I once was! I rule over those bastards now!’
When he crumbled stale bread and dropped it onto the floor, they fought over the larger pieces. Some even licked his shoes while begging for more.
Starving animals.
Maw laughed loudly as black smoke billowed around him.
“Gahahahaha!”
No matter how long he laughed, the heat in his stomach only grew more intense.
‘These worthless vermin……!’
Why had he ever allowed them to control him?
His mood plummeted abruptly. He threw aside the student he had been shaking and turned away.
“Respect me!”
Maw staggered forward while spewing black smoke.
A long corridor led toward the Faculty Dining Hall.
People suspended high above the ground struggled to breathe as the rising smoke choked them.
“Cough! Cough!”
Whenever the hanging professors coughed, their tears touched the black smoke and evaporated.
“Haaah…….”
This was it.
The tears of these men soothed the fire inside him far more effectively than the students’ tears ever could.
Maw shouted in a harsher voice filled with emotion.
“Respect me!”
Only a hollow echo answered him.
Their tears quickly stopped, and the professors merely hung there, swaying like corpses.
This would not do.
He could no longer squeeze tears from them in their current condition. He could not quench this burning thirst.
Growing agitated, Maw bit his fingernails.
He had to find some way to make them cry more.
***
Julian’s group and the masked trio entered the bank, the only shop that remained open.
“Hrrm?”
The Lesser Demons guarding the entrance flinched when they saw Julian and Theodore. Their instincts had warned them that something was unusual.
Julian tapped the hatchling through the outside of the bundle.
“!”
The hatchling’s Concealment Magic intensified. The guard demons tilted their heads.
“These humans are strange.”
“Yeah. They smell rotten. Did they contract with a High-Ranking Demon or something?”
“Damn it…….”
The Lesser Demons lowered their eyes and grumbled.
“I thought coming to the Human Realm would help me advance, but the competition only keeps increasing…….”
“Humans who are truly rotten outclass even us.”
“Just look at his eyes. He looks exactly like the type.”
Unhappy with being told by demons that he looked wicked, Julian entered the bank with an uncomfortable expression.
‘What kind of magic did that hatchling use on us?’
A long line stretched before the reception counter.
Every student in line clutched something tightly in their hands. They repeatedly glanced around or stared at their feet with dark expressions.
‘This feels less like a bank counter and more like a vicious pawnshop.’
Julian’s impression was correct. He heard the student leaning over the counter pleading,
“I-It is a locket my family gave me. There is a family portrait inside when you open it. It is expensive, and it is truly precious to me…….”
“What a heartbreaking story.”
The frivolous-looking young man behind the counter pretended to dab at the corner of his eye with one fingernail.
“I am so moved that I will give you one loaf of bread. You know how valuable even that is these days, correct?”
“I-I cannot trade it for that! G-G-Give it back!”
“Our dear student appears to think this is still a real bank.”
The demon conspicuously raised and lowered both hands. The many golden bracelets hanging from his wrists glittered brightly.
“I, Vasago, greatly dislike returning something after it has been given to me.”
“G-Give it…….”
Vasago grinned and pretended to bite the locket.
“Look at this. You cannot even eat it. Your family would rather you survive after eating a loaf of bread than starve to death while clutching this, would they not?”
Gulp.
Conflict briefly crossed the face of the student who had surrendered the locket. Vasago snickered.
“Perhaps I should send this to your family and ask them for money. Imagine how proud your parents would be.”
Vasago raised the locket high, making his golden bracelets flash. He spoke in an exaggerated theatrical voice.
“‘Oh, our child even sold the memories of their parents to avoid starvation!’”
“G-Give it back!”
The student gritted his teeth and reached for the locket in the demon’s hand. As though he had been waiting for precisely that response, Vasago easily forced him down.
“G-Ghkk!”
Vasago dangled the locket beside the student’s face, which was pressed against the marble counter, and whispered.
“That is why you must always be careful when making a deal with a demon.”
The student struggled with his face crushed against the counter and began to sob.
The demon smiled as he watched. He even collected a tear on the tip of his finger, touched it to his tongue, and savored it.
An ecstatic expression crossed his face.
“Haaah. This is why I cannot give up the Human Realm. Now I understand why everyone in the Demon Realm wants to come up to the Academy.”
“Hehe. Humans who have been raised in comfort are bound to be delicate.”
Seir, who had appeared inside the bank unnoticed, swept back her long blond hair and looked down at the student Vasago had subdued.
“My goodness. What shall we do with something so pathetically weak?”
Her hand seized the student’s head.
“It looks as though it would slide down without even needing to be chewed.”
“H-Hic……!”
The student’s eyes nearly rolled back into his head. Vasago smacked his lips.
“This human is entertaining to torment. Perhaps I should swallow him whole right now.”
“Why not feed on his emotions one more time? The souls of fragile humans are so tender.”
“Shall I? Hah. After spending centuries listening only to the filthy screams of grave robbers, hearing children shriek gives me so much energy.”
“Emotions and souls are both delicacies. Shall we establish a human farm here at the Academy?”
“Seir, you are a genius. What a magnificent idea.”
Julian gritted his teeth as he listened.
‘These damned bastards.’
What the hell did they just say they were going to do in my Academy?