Dragon
"So you did come looking for me?"
Death waved at Rayegar in greeting. He was hardly a welcome presence, but for once, Rayegar was exactly who he needed.
"Wasn't it you who made me come all this way? The mana here was trembling something fierce."
"I had no choice but to do that. You'll have to explain what's going on. I will not tolerate anyone threatening my son."
"Who was threatening anyone? He just now recognized me and got flustered, is all."
Death put on a genuinely aggrieved expression, and Rayegar frowned.
"Setting that aside — what brings you here? I heard you'd left your post for some business."
"I did. Wasted precious time dealing with some worthless piece of trash, but it wasn't a total loss. I got a little glimpse of the future."
"The future?"
"A future where you save Quinn. That's what I saw."
Even though it made no sense, Death saying it made it strangely believable. That wasn't just true for Bayul, the only one who knew Death's true nature — everyone else felt it too. Seeing the future was an absurd claim in itself, yet Death's tone brimmed with such conviction that it truly seemed possible.
"Ah, I'd briefly forgotten. You have that blind fellow with the far-seeing eyes at your side."
"Amon had some cleanup to do on my behalf, so he'll come later."
Perhaps sensing Bayul's curiosity, Death rattled off an explanation of Amon's whereabouts that no one had asked for.
"Heh. Is it because there's only one of them instead of three? The stench of lowborn demon is fainter here, I must say."
It was Professor Serarika. She glared at Death with a venomous look that would have made Academy students mistake her for a completely different person, and sneered.
"...Did you just say 'demon'?"
More than her attitude, it was the word demon coming up again that grated on Aidan's nerves. Once might be passed off as a joke, but any more than that was a different story.
"Professor Serarika seems awfully certain that Death is a demon."
This time it was Logan. He tossed her the very question he'd asked Eli a moment ago, word for word.
"How do you know? Could it be... that you're a demon too, Professor?"
"What? That I'm a demon?"
As if she had never heard anything funnier in her life, Professor Serarika suddenly burst into wild laughter. She bent all the way at the waist, cackling like a madwoman, and somehow the sight felt deeply unsettling.
"Logan, was it?"
Then, in an instant, her face turned ice cold as she issued a warning.
"I'll let it slide once — the first and last time. Just once. Never compare me to a lowly demon again. I might just snap that scrawny little neck of yours."
A dreadful killing intent poured out of Professor Serarika in that instant. Whatever her true identity was, this was absolutely not something a professor should ever do to a student.
"Sera."
Rayegar stepped in front of Professor Serarika and fixed her with a severe stare.
"I brought you here because of our arrangement. You haven't forgotten your promise to behave yourself, have you?"
"Oh dear, did I ever make such a promise? I don't remember it at all."
Professor Serarika raised a hand to her lips and widened her eyes in mock innocence. She was so beautiful, and she looked so genuinely oblivious, that everyone nearly fell for it completely. But her opponent was Rayegar.
"Really? Then shall I help jog your memory?"
As if it were nothing at all, Rayegar faced Professor Serarika head-on, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"...!"
But there was not the slightest trace of humor in his eyes. He looked at her with a savage, piercing glare the likes of which none of them had ever seen from him before.
Perhaps that was why. She averted her gaze slightly and took a step back. She had simply failed to hold in her temper and let it explode on the spot, but no one knew better than she did just how terrifying Rayegar could be. However unfair it felt right now, this was the moment to keep her mouth shut.
"I will not tolerate you threatening my students like that again, either. Next time, a resignation letter won't be the end of it. I trust you'll remember that."
Isn't the Chairman the one threatening the professor right now?
The useless thought flickered through the group's heads, but everyone kept it to themselves. This was not an atmosphere they could afford to wade into.
"Now then, shall we all finally have an honest conversation?"
"......"
"Why is everyone suddenly so quiet? If I'm guessing right, you're all bursting with questions?"
Rayegar swept the room with his signature radiant smile, but no one could step forward the way they had before. The reasons were broadly similar, though each person's differed in the details.
Bayul was the only human who knew Death was a demon. And that was precisely why Rayegar's and Professor Serarika's attitudes toward Death made no sense to him whatsoever.
From the look of it, they clearly knew Death was a demon as well — yet they treated him this way even knowing it, which he simply could not understand. Astonishingly, they showed not even a flicker of fear.
How many humans in this world could stand before a demon and act like this?
Bayul himself had feared Death and kept his distance when he first learned his true nature. By any measure, this was not a normal reaction.
If this was how Bayul reacted, what about Aidan and Logan? Aidan, who had dismissed the whole thing as nonsense at first, seemed to sense something was off, and was scanning the room with an unprecedentedly grave expression. And at the end of his gaze stood his friend Eli.
Ian, for his part, had already found Death strange for some time now. Logan had never imagined such a scenario, but piecing together the circumstances, the claim that Death really was a demon was gaining more and more weight.
And so, at some point, he found himself standing at Bayul's side alongside Ian, as if guarding him. Death had never done them any harm, but having just heard the chilling word "demon," they couldn't simply stand there in a daze.
He didn't know why a demon had been at Bayul's side — as a servant, no less — but it seemed clear that a firm line of vigilance needed to be drawn, and drawn now.
"I suppose it's faster if I say it myself. It's already come up, and no one believes it anyway, so what can you do."
Death admitted it with a wry smile.
"I'm a demon. There were circumstances, so I took a job as a servant at Bayul's place and have been working there ever since."
"...Seriously, Bayul?"
Death's tone was so flat, so matter-of-fact, that it almost failed to feel real. Aidan asked, and Bayul nodded with an apologetic look, adding,
"I didn't know at first either. I found out during the break. I'll explain all the details slowly, later."
Now was not the time for that kind of conversation, so Bayul cut the questions off in advance.
"So... is this okay? Us, I mean."
A demon stood before them. Not once in their lives had any of them imagined this.
To them, humans, demons were wicked beings who devoured human souls. They were absolutely not to be trusted, not to be met, the very first on the list of things to avoid at all costs. Without anyone willing it, the group's footsteps drew away from Death.
"Slow on the uptake, aren't you."
He had expected exactly this, so Death merely shrugged.
"Death is fine. Being a demon doesn't make you bad — I said that to you before, Aidan, remember? Bar and Amon are all good demons too."
"Wait — all three of those brothers were demons?"
"I'm staring right at him and it still doesn't register."
"That hazy feeling, as if veiled behind a curtain. So that was the reason."
For Ian, this was the moment his confusion finally resolved. If this was why even Duke Randert hadn't recognized it, then everything made sense.
"Now it's your turn. Time to explain yourselves, no?"
Death, apparently finished with his part, jerked his chin at Rayegar and handed over the floor.
Bayul drew in a sharp breath without realizing it. Death had said before that Rayegar was not a demon.
But whatever he was, it was certain he wasn't human. And if Death's words were true, Rayegar held the key that could save Quinn.
Lai... who are you?
What could you possibly be, that you hate demons so much?
Bayul's attention — and that of Aidan, Logan, and Ian — turned to Eli, Rayegar, and Professor Serarika.
Yet even after a long while, none of the three opened their mouths. Rayegar and Professor Serarika looked like they had no intention of speaking at all, and Eli just fidgeted and hemmed and hawed again.
"Lai......"
Bayul took a step toward him.
"I don't know what you're hesitating for, but it doesn't matter to me who you are. Whatever your true form is, the fact that we're friends hasn't changed. Right, Aidan? Logan?"
"Obviously. We've got a demon standing right there — what could possibly shock me more? This continent is crawling with other races, it's not like they're rare."
"To us, Lai, you're just Lai. That's all."
"You heard him, Lai? Quinn's life is on the line here. I really wish you'd stop dodging the question."
Bayul still didn't understand why Rayegar's power — Eli's adoptive father — was needed to save Quinn. He didn't know why they absolutely had to learn their identities, either.
But what mattered was that Quinn needed to be saved quickly, and the fact was that the Chairman was the one who could do it.
"I'm......"
"What?"
"Say it louder. What are you trying to say?"
"What I mean is...... actually, I'm not human...... I'm—"
"God, can any of you actually hear that guy's voice?"
Aidan scrunched up his face in irritation and looked around at his friends. For someone usually so brash and self-assured, it truly didn't suit Eli at all.
At that moment, Rayegar, unable to watch any longer, tossed the word out as if it were nothing.
"Dragon."
"......?"
Perfect pitch, perfect tone. But the word was so unfamiliar that everyone blinked and tilted their heads, even though they'd heard him clearly.
"Don't tell me you don't know what a dragon is? You know what demons are, but not dragons?"
Misreading their reactions, Rayegar furrowed his brow.
But that wasn't it. A word none of them had ever imagined hearing had simply short-circuited their brains for a moment — of course they knew what a dragon was.
The strongest beings in existence, walking the earth.
The very incarnation of magic.
Guardians of the human realm.
Born with lifespans of ten thousand years, they were noble, magnificent beings — beings that, next to humans, could almost be called gods.
"...How would we not know what a dragon is, sir? Of course we know."
"Right? I was starting to wonder, with all that silence — nearly scared the wits out of me."
Rayegar ran a hand through his hair with a 'well, of course' look.
"But... I have a question."
"Go ahead."
"If I'm understanding correctly... Lai is a dragon, the Chairman is a dragon... and Professor Serarika too? All three of you... are dragons?"
At Aidan's bewildered question, Rayegar grinned and answered.
"You've understood it exactly. And since we're spilling secrets, let me ask you something in return. How does it feel to be facing three dragons at once? One of you at a time, tell me. This is a first for us too, you see, and we're terribly curious."
How does it feel?
Within the span of mere minutes, a demon and dragons had appeared before them. These were beings they'd assumed they would never lay eyes on in their entire lives — and in truth, they had been living alongside them all along.
At their true identities, identities they had never even dreamed of, Bayul briefly — just briefly — forgot even Quinn's death. As always when the shock was too great, his mind went utterly blank, and no thoughts came at all.