The Noble
What is this? Are they suggesting we play freeze tag or something?
The classroom was steeped in an air so frigid it seemed anything doused in hot water would freeze solid in an instant.
I stared at the students who had frozen before my eyes, then frowned at Isolde—the very person responsible for turning them into ice sculptures.
“Did I do something wrong…?”
Isolde caught my frown and shrank back with an aggrieved look, as if she had no idea what she’d done wrong, before whispering the question to me.
She looked genuinely frightened even though I had only furrowed my brow.
Fortunately, the sight of her like this seemed to act as a thawing agent. The frozen students began to stir one by one.
Watching them, I spoke in a low voice meant only for Isolde’s ears.
“Speak more gently. If you talk to them the way you did as a demon executive, the students will freeze up exactly like this again.”
“…Understood. I’ll try.”
Having once been a high-ranking demon officer, Isolde’s ingrained habit of speaking like a superior would naturally terrify students who had barely tasted any real harshness.
That was why I had ordered her to soften her tone. Isolde gave a slight nod and took one step back.
When I turned toward the students again, the icy atmosphere had melted away, leaving the room in considerable chaos.
Students whispered and chattered among themselves. It was at least a relief that no curses slipped through the murmurs.
I scanned the class for a moment, cleared my throat with a cough, and raised my voice.
“Ahem! She will be your assistant homeroom teacher for quite a long time, so I hope you won’t be too scared to at least open your mouths. She really is a kind one, so there won’t be any problems. I guarantee it.”
“Kind…?”
If she wasn’t kind, I would simply command her to become so. I hoped the students would refrain from freezing in fear if possible.
Isolde, standing behind me, rolled the word “kind” around in her mouth—it suited her about as well as a silk gown on a battlefield—but my sharp glare made her lips tremble and snap shut.
I was giving her the look of a tyrant, but that was hardly my concern.
When Isolde finally yielded to my gaze and nodded without protest, the students at last showed visible relief.
By then the morning assembly was drawing to a close. I seized Isolde’s arm, opened the classroom door, and stepped out.
“For reference, Isolde will usually be in my office on the third floor. If anything comes up, speak to her.”
With that final remark—essentially telling the students to make full use of Isolde—I strode away faster than anyone else.
Today’s first class was magic.
But general lessons followed the assembly, leaving a full fifty minutes of free time.
Most professors used the interval to slip outside for snacks, cigarettes, or idle chatter. I, however, preferred holing up in the office.
So I left the classroom, climbed the stairs with Isolde, and headed for Aria’s private office on the third floor.
Click──
The moment the office door opened, the musty yet somehow comforting scent of old books washed over me, mixed with the dust of a room that still hadn’t been properly cleaned.
As soon as we entered, Morgan, perched on the desk, greeted Isolde with a wicked grin.
“Finally decided to show up? Miss Isolde, who’s so much smarter than me.”
“Shut up, Morgan.”
The fact that she could tease without growing tired of it told me the words I had used to lure Isolde—“You who are smarter than Morgan should take the assistant role”—were still firmly lodged in her memory.
And Isolde, without thinking it through at the time, had accepted.
So Isolde ignored Morgan with a sharp rebuke, then floated the ordinary staff I had lent her instead of her original magic-drenched one and lounged on top of it.
Morgan, seeing herself so thoroughly dismissed, only grew more excited. She clung persistently, unable to wipe the grin from her face.
It was genuinely entertaining to watch. As I observed their little comedy routine, Mu—currently wearing Kama’s appearance—quietly approached my side.
“You’ve returned, Mother. The next lesson is magic class, I believe?”
“Yes. I plan to head out in fifty minutes.”
Perhaps because she wore Kama’s form, Mu’s speech was even more impeccably polite than usual.
I answered lightly and turned back to the show, but a small groan escaped me. I pulled my attention away from the pair and summoned the avatar window instead.
It was better to handle it now that the subject had arisen rather than deal with the annoyance later.
“Avatar.”
Mage — Meiel
Would you like to select her?
“Select.”
The moment the word left my lips, my body began to shine.
Mu retreated toward the bookshelves at the soft glow that enveloped me like a gentle lamp. Morgan and Isolde stopped their routine at once and turned to stare.
I paid their gazes no mind and simply savored the sensation of my body changing.
A feeling like my entire frame was shrinking washed over me. When I opened my eyes, the world sat lower than before. A large, pointed hat rested on my head, and beneath it spilled wavy dark-blue hair. A voluminous robe draped all the way to the floor.
“Uum… It really has been a while in this body…”
This form usually belonged to Mu, so it had been nearly a week since I last wore Meiel’s skin.
As I hopped in place a few times to readjust to the smaller frame, Morgan and Isolde—who had been watching the transformation in real time—spoke up.
“No matter how many times I see it, that changing trick is still amazing.”
“It’s almost impossible with magic… If it were possible, I’d love to study it.”
Even though they had witnessed it several times, their eyes still sparkled with fresh curiosity. They offered the same impressions as always.
It was an incomprehensible phenomenon by any common standard, yet their wonder and desire to understand clearly outweighed that.
As the person experiencing it, I found their reaction hard to relate to, but since that was simply how they were, I gave a modest nod.
“You won’t be able to anyway, so no research is allowed… From the beginning, you two are bound by contract. I’m only showing you. Don’t entertain strange ideas.”
I narrowed my eyes. They nodded reflexively.
Isolde, who had been defeated by Mu while she wore this very Meiel form, nodded with particular vigor, as if the memory had triggered PTSD.
Satisfied by their crisp, well-trained reactions, I let out a pleased hum and trudged over to the desk chair, throwing myself into it.
Plop──
My small body meant my head barely cleared the desktop, but it caused no trouble for resting. Besides, I had nothing urgent to do right now.
“…”
The very thought of “nothing to do” sent a single question drifting through my mind.
It was not a major issue, yet in the current situation it became the single greatest problem of all.
‘Fifty minutes left. What do I do now?’
Come to think of it, it was always like this.
After the morning assembly came long, lazy rests, then classes alternating with Mu.
Those breaks had once felt perfectly normal and pleasantly idle. But now that the story had truly begun, they suddenly felt like an enormous waste of time.
The plans were already in place, yet it seemed a shame to squander even the smallest scraps of free time on simple rest.
I knew the thought was pointless. Still, the nagging sense of waste refused to disappear.
I glanced around, wondering if any unfinished tasks remained, but the last real obligation had been settled that very morning.
Realizing that only made the lethargy sink deeper into my bones.
“…Mother, is something wrong?”
Mu must have read my expression. She approached with a worried face, but I simply waved a hand in reply.
To live long enough to worry about having nothing to do—it was more shocking than I had expected.
Fortunately, our dear goddess Lady Iriel had no intention of letting me wallow in helplessness.
“What kind of nonsense is that! Didn’t I order you to bring them right now!!!”
“I apologize, but His Majesty has already issued a summons to the palace for tomorrow…”
“Then come today before you go to His Majesty!!! This is exactly why you’re all idiots…!”
A commotion drifted through the open window.
The noise came from the direction of the school gate. Everyone in the office straightened at once.
“It’s loud… What’s all that racket…?”
“It sounds as if a noble has arrived…”
“A noble? Well… Only nobles would dare barge in so brazenly.”
“People with power being a nuisance is the same whether they’re demons or humans.”
I grumbled with a faintly expectant expression. Mu, deducing the situation from sound alone, answered me.
Morgan and Isolde each added their own remarks as they moved to the window.
Pressing close to the glass revealed the scene outside in perfect clarity.
A gaunt man surrounded by at least ten knights was shrieking at the top of his lungs. Before him stood Mira, head bowed low.
Even so, the full picture remained unclear.
All we had heard was the noise after he had already begun shouting at full volume. The next instant, however, the noble’s bellow made everything snap into focus.
“Is the title of Count a joke to you?! Bring that bitch Aria and that bitch Meiel here right now!!!”
“Hoo…”
“How dare he speak of Mother that way…!”
It seemed something far more entertaining than I had anticipated had just begun.