You Know Too Much

A day had passed since the exam began.

So many invitations had been sent out that well over a hundred thousand people had taken on the trial, and a considerable number of them had actually managed to clear it.

As expected, the most eye-catching result was Leo's downright devastating time. She'd cleared the castle nearly three times faster than Beriad, who had relied on tricks of his own. I'd wondered how many more times she intended to keep throwing herself at the Progenitor, but at some point she must have decided it was hopeless, because she finally gave up and proceeded down the standard route.

Eighteen people had passed so far in total, most of them rankers or well-known pro players I already knew. Scrolling below the top ten, I even spotted a few faces from the DCK finals. At this rate, I figured we'd fill around thirty seats.

"Lily, ma'am!"

"Welcome."

Leo had come to the academy headmaster's office, saying she had something to ask me. Her snow-white hair and matching eyes told me she was still maintaining Spirit Descent even now.

"So, how does it feel to be entering as valedictorian?"

"Hehe. This much is just the basics, you know. Mm-hm."

Leo nodded along, singing her own praises. Had she been here quite a while again? The Penalty had eroded her so deeply that she looked like a nymph through and through.

"Is it all right to keep Spirit Descent going like that? I was under the impression it burns through quite a lot of your strength."

This was Leo — the Leo who never used Spirit Descent unless she actually had to fight. And it wasn't even an ordinary spirit she was merged with, but the notoriously unruly spirit of light.

Leo shook her head.

"Nope. We're really one now, you see."

"?"

What on earth had happened? I stared at her, puzzled, and she proudly balled her tiny hand into a fist.

Crackle!

Lightning sparked from her hand, and her snow-white hair began to shift toward gold — but only halfway. The rest stayed white.

"...?"

A strange, otherworldly aura surged up from Leo, who now bore heterochromatic eyes of white and gold. Light and lightning. Leo, who had succeeded in Spirit Descent with both, had seized hold of white lightning.

"I wasn't sure this would even work, but it totally did! Pretty amazing, right?"

"...And where exactly did you learn something like that?"

That was supposed to be a realm she couldn't reach yet — something she could only touch after sitting through many more of my lectures and tearing down a forced wall the way Yena had. Achieving Spirit Descent with two attributes at once was already absurd enough on its own.

And on top of that, Leo had pulled off attribute fusion.

Had she sensed that things were turning serious? The Leo who had been giggling playfully shrank back a little.

"Ah, w-well, I didn't do it on purposhe..."

"It was Rasty, wasn't it."

"Eep. Yes, it was."

I'd expected it, though I hadn't thought she'd get to work this quickly. It was true that I'd granted Rasty a certain degree of authority. The whole reason I bothered opening a dimensional gate to show off those two monsters — Rasty and Pharaoh — was to employ them as professors. The larger the academy grew, the less I could teach everything myself, so the plan was to build familiarity, close the distance with the students, and manufacture a legitimate justification for appointing them.

"Um, w-was that baaad...?"

"No. It wasn't a bad thing. I was going to teach you sooner or later anyway."

There was no problem here. As I said, the realm Leo had reached was one she was always destined to reach eventually. With the Kraken a hair's breadth from waking, the sooner Leo awakened, the better.

Still.

"What exactly did Rasty say to you?"

"...Umm. 'Do not deny it? Mind and body are one, so accept them. Only then will you grow stronger'?"

"......"

"Was that wrong?"

It wasn't wrong, no. It was true that she'd grow stronger, and true that power flowed smoothly only once the union of body and mind was complete.

"It's not incorrect. I simply don't agree with it."

"Huh? She said that too."

"Said what?"

"That humans must remain human. She said that's what you told her."

"......"

"I didn't really get what she meant when I heard it, but... could you maybe explain it to me?"

Humans must remain human. It meant exactly what it said.

"It's a simple question. Is your essence, Leo, that of a human — or of a nymph?"

"......Hmmmm."

Leo pondered. The Leo of the past — the Leo who had feared the Penalty before her eyes were opened by the Progenitor — would have said human. But her eyes had already been opened, and she had even acquired a unique trait. For her, the question of whether her essence was human or nymph had simply stopped mattering. If anything, the nymph side was...

"You'd consider yourself more nymph, I take it?"

"Like, eighty percent...? B-but I'm still kind of a person too..."

"Then that settles it."

"Huh?"

"Accepting whichever ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠side you are is a job for the person themselves. I am human, and I think of myself as human — but you'd rather be a nymph, wouldn't you, Leo?"

"Ah... well, yeah."

Human or nymph, either way, she was still Leo. As long as the heart she carried stayed the same, nothing else about it mattered.

"But from now on, you'll need to be careful."

"? Careful of what?"

"Rasty told you, didn't she? The Penalty is a suppressant designed to block 'complete union.' Now that the suppression has broken, it won't be loosened again — not even by medicine."

"I braced myself for that much!"

"And it will bleed into reality as well."

"...Whaaaaaaaaat?!"

Leo convulsed, her whole body shooting up off the floor into midair. What a fantastic reaction.

"Why are you so shocked? You'd already noticed, hadn't you?"

This DeoEn was not merely a game. Yena was proof of it, and so were Choco and Devil, who had mastered techniques that touched the soul: damage that went beyond the system's protection reached into reality itself. The same held true for Leo, who had torn down the wall.

From now on, the Leo of the real world would steadily be 'nymphified' as well.

"Th-that part's kind of scary, though..."

"You've stabilized, at least, so you'll have a measure of protection. More importantly — there was something else you were curious about, wasn't there?"

"......I told you once before, didn't I. That I saw a strange scene."

Nymphs were endlessly playful, but not playful in every situation. They had the minds of children — but that in no way meant they were naive or deficient. Leo in particular had always possessed remarkably sharp judgment.

"The Golden Empire. I saw a woman lecturing with a mana stone set beside her. I was watching through the condensation stone, and when I asked you about it, you said it was an error."

"That's right."

"And when I asked whether it was fake or real, you told me to find out for myself. Am I right?"

"You are. I left it with you as homework."

Slam!

Leo's cute face scrunched up, brows snapping together, and she smacked the table with both hands — the unmistakable gesture of someone shouting, Gotcha!

"It was real! All of it definitely happened! Right?!"

"......."

A brief silence settled over the headmaster's office. Leo gulped, her face tight with suspense, and at last I shook my head as if there were no helping it, and admitted it.

"Whew... the number of people who know my secret keeps growing."

"...! It's really true...?"

"It is. I've lectured before, you know. I taught countless students before I ever came here."

Sliide.

I rested both elbows on the desk and folded my hands together in the center. Why was this moment so fun, every single time?

"I come from another ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dimension."

"...Huh?"

"An alien from a faraway planet. I was once a professor who taught young children, but these days I've been dispatched here on a classified mission."

"......Huh?"

Question marks piled onto Leo's face, one after another, until dozens of them were stacked high. What? Even after I'd told her the truth, she couldn't process it?

"I was never supposed to get found out, you know. More and more people keep figuring it out, and it's becoming a real problem."

"...That's a lie, right?"

"Why would you think it's a lie? You saw it yourself, didn't you?"

She had looked upon a scene of the past through the condensation stone's 'error.' So why couldn't she believe it?

Leo's delighted reactions drew a laugh out of me.

"Hmmmm... what's the planet's name?"

"Classified. It's a secret mission, after all."

"Then mana, and all those advanced techniques — those are alien planet technology too?"

"You could look at it that way."

"Whoa."

Whoa! Leo threw both hands up into the air.

"I knew aliens existed! DeoEn, I totally called it!"

"DeoEn was made by an alien too, as it happens."

"Are you two on the same side, then?"

"Someone I don't know. Also my enemy, actually."

"Hmmm... I did always think you weren't an ordinary person, but wow, you really are exactly what you seem."

"I am an ordinary 'person.' I'm simply not an 'ordinary' person."

There was a very real difference between the two.

"Huh? W-wait, doesn't that mean I'm in huge trouble now?!"

Leo shrieked and scrambled backward. When I tilted my head at her, she wound white lightning around herself and dropped into a combat stance.

"Now that I know your secret, you'll go 'You know too much!' and kill me—!"

"Hmm."

I drew out my hammer. It had been quite a while since I'd last used it.

I swung the white hammer and spat out my divinity.

"You know me all too well."

The hammer came crashing down on Leo.