Preparation Was Thorough
He had prepared thoroughly.
The blue-haired woman had changed her style.
A lighter shade of hair, flowing freely down her shoulders. Round glasses perched on her face, giving her a look that was intellectual yet sharp-edged.
But the attributes and movement of the mana radiating from her were identical to those of the guild master I had seen at the information guild.
"……"
She glanced my way, then bowed her head deeply.
Like Broa, she seemed to be disguising herself as an ordinary student, hiding amid the crowd.
I recalled the conversation we'd shared.
'W-we'll contact you as soon as we finish the investigation, Lord Demesis. And... and...'
'And?'
'N-nothing.'
She'd had something to say to me but had been too afraid to say it.
'Why did you apply to the Imperial Academy?'
She'd asked about my reasons for applying as well.
Was it because she would end up in the same class as me?
I stared down at the woman seated in the Special Class section of the Academy, then tilted my head.
I could always ask her the reason later.
For now, she was swallowed up in the crowd that feared me, barely visible at all.
Ahem, then. We shall proceed with the entrance ceremony.
The headmaster, who had frozen mid-sentence in his flustered state, finally gathered himself and cleared his throat.
Everyone in the ceremony hall had been so overwhelmed by my presence that they were holding their breath, making it difficult for him to continue.
Of course, he too was terrified by the fact that I was watching.
After sitting in the designated seat for a short while, I rose to my feet.
I had no intention of sitting there for hours watching an entrance ceremony.
I'd gotten a read on the atmosphere, and I'd seen the general outline of how the ceremony unfolded, so I left my seat.
Before heading out the exit, I took one more look around the hall.
Come to think of it, there are quite a lot of people here.
There were far too many figures in the audience, and their caliber seemed high, to be merely friends, family, and affiliates of the incoming students.
Did they come to see me?
People flinched and averted their eyes whenever I looked their way, yet they still stole glances at me every chance they got.
It seemed they wanted to gauge just how much power a Dragonian like me possessed.
I smiled brightly at them.
Now that they'd seen me up close, they must have realized it was even more frightening.
Plenty of people kept an eye on me, but not one of them actually approached.
I was used to that kind of reaction.
Savage rumors always swirled around me, drawing people close out of sheer curiosity.
But in the end, no person or organization ever reached my side and truly came to understand me.
Because they were afraid.
Overwhelmed by fear, they could never close the final distance — they ended up on their knees, heads bowed.
And so, neither idle curiosity nor keen vigilance meant anything to me.
Things that could not reach me were things that had nothing to do with me.
Whatever interest, thoughts, or fear people directed at me, I simply walked my own path.
What about you, then, Your Majesty?
The next person I would meet was the Emperor of this very empire.
I had received a formal invitation to the imperial palace, so I planned to visit him in person.
I looked forward to seeing how the sun of humankind would react.
The entrance ceremony had ended.
The crowd that had gathered in the hall was buzzing as they filtered out of their seats.
"What in the world was that?"
"W-when that Dragonian prince looked down at me, I thought my heart was going to stop."
"Do you think he used magic?"
"It didn't feel like it."
Though a variety of figures had appeared at the ceremony and all sorts of events had taken place, the crowd's attention had been riveted on one person: Demesis.
The Dragonian who had appeared midway through the ceremony, cast a brief survey of the hall from the seat of honor, and vanished. His overwhelming, powerful presence — that dangerous aura — had felt like a sheet of ice settling over the room in an instant.
A razor-thin tension, as though one wrong move would slice the skin right off your body.
Everyone staggered around with shocked expressions.
"Hey. You okay?"
Broa was trembling like a leaf, arms drawn together in front of her, hunched over as small as she could make herself.
At the sound of her name, she lifted her head.
Silian was patting her shoulder.
"I-is he gone?"
"Who?"
"Th-the Dragonian prince."
Broa narrowed her eyes, face scrunched, and looked toward the spot where Demesis had sat.
It had been a long while since he'd left, but she still shivered as though he were standing right there, looking down at her.
"Broa, seriously — are you all right?"
Silian bent down to examine his sister's condition more closely.
Was this what a frightened squirrel hiding in a knothole looked like?
She sat rooted in place, refusing to budge an inch.
"He's g-gone. He really left. Phew."
With Silian beside her, Broa gradually steadied herself and let out a long, deep breath.
It seemed only then that her mind finally accepted that Demesis was gone.
"The Dragonian left ages ago. He didn't even stay seated long. And you're still shaking?"
She couldn't even answer, just fidgeted awkwardly at his question.
Only after Silian cast a Recovery spell to snap her back to her senses did the focus return to her eyes.
The Recovery spell cleared and sharpened the mind.
"B-brother. What did you think? Of that man?"
"You mean Demesis? What do you mean, what did I think?"
"D-does he really eat people?"
Broa blurted it out of nowhere.
Demesis had been so terrifying.
When he'd stood up in that high place and looked down — directly at her — their eyes had met.
It felt as though she were being sucked into those vertically slit pupils.
It was far more frightening than the imaginary Demesis from her nightmares, and the chilling realization that he knew exactly who she was sent a shudder racing through her entire body.
"Here to eat people? I don't think so."
At Broa's question, Silian thought back to the Demesis he had seen.
Their eyes hadn't met when Demesis surveyed the audience, but Silian had ducked his head anyway.
If he catches me, I die.
That was the feeling.
Demesis had simply been looking around, yet Silian had found himself hiding of his own accord.
It was the survival instinct every living creature carried.
The desire not to be noticed by the apex of the food chain.
Fear etched into the very genes of the prey.
"H-he saw me. What if he wants to eat me? I swung my sword at him last time, after all."
"Calm down."
Broa couldn't stop worrying about the incident at the entrance examination.
Determined to test herself, she'd heedlessly swung her sword at him.
It had been within the official rules, to be fair, but no one besides her had dared to stand before Demesis.
What if he sought revenge for it? What if he just slashed her dead?
In her imagination, her fear of Demesis only grew and grew.
At this rate, the nightmares that haunted her every night would only get worse.
"By the way — what exactly were you thinking when you applied for the Academy Special Class?"
"Urk. D-dad said that no matter who the opponent is, what matters is believing in yourself. That if you're too scared, you can't do anything at all..."
"Courage is for knowing when to use it, you idiot. You look at who you're up against first."
"I'm not an idiot!"
Silian clicked his tongue and rapped his sister on the head.
His little sister, five years his junior, admired their father so much that she occasionally lost all common sense.
And that lunacy meant attending the Academy alongside Demesis — half pitiful, half absurd.
"Anyway, he definitely doesn't eat people. I caught a glimpse, and it seemed the Imperial Knights and even the palace mages are keeping an eye on him. If he'd caused half the trouble the rumors say, they wouldn't have let it slide."
Not that letting it slide or not would have made any difference — none of them could touch him anyway.
Silian swallowed the rest of the thought.
Looking at the faces that had attended the ceremony, it seemed Broa wasn't the only one wary of Demesis.
He didn't know the details, but if Demesis were truly the vicious Dragonian the rumors painted him as, the imperial family would have issued a wanted decree long ago.
The fact that he'd been allowed to attend the Academy meant the higher-ups had already passed judgment on him.
"Don't worry too much. Just don't go poking at him, and steer clear."
Silian continued offering advice, trying to reassure his sister.
"Still, just in case — I'll give you a defensive item, so you have to carry it on you at all times."
"A defensive item?"
He had decided to prepare a protective charm for Broa especially.
She ought to have at least one means of protecting herself in an emergency, after all.
If Demesis truly set his sights on her, survival could hardly be guaranteed — but at the very least, it would offer some measure of protection.
Silian took out the item he had been saving, just for her.
The imperial palace. The Emperor's office.
The Emperor was receiving reports from his subordinates who had attended the entrance ceremony.
What assessments were the people who had met Demesis in person giving him?
He listened to every word with careful attention.
"You can't fathom how strong he is at all?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. I beg your pardon, but I am incapable of judging his level. I could not even approach him."
The captain of the Imperial Knights bowed deeply before the Emperor.
He had attended the entrance ceremony to measure Demesis's power, only to return having confirmed nothing but, once again, that the man was terrifying.
The Emperor furrowed his brow.
"Then can you at least tell me his disposition? When he attended the ceremony, was he friendly toward anyone? Did he meet with anyone in particular?"
"I c-couldn't read his disposition at all. When he came to the ceremony, he merely glanced down from above for a moment and left. His cloak and hood were drawn up, so I couldn't see his expression, and he met with no one."
"So we know nothing at all, then?"
He regarded the Knight-Captain with displeasure.
This was hardly a man who handled matters so clumsily — something at that ceremony must have sent him home quaking with fear.
What in the world had he seen?
What kind of Dragonian was Demesis?
The Emperor touched the dispatches laid out on his desk.
Letters from the King of Draikna, sent with repeated, solemn warnings to be careful.
Documents from investigations into Demesis.
Every single one pointed to the same conclusion: he is frightening.
Nothing about his detailed personality or disposition could be found anywhere.
He didn't even know what the man liked.
The King of Draikna had scribbled a few notes in his letters that might serve as reference, but a judgment like this was one a ruler had to make for himself.
To receive a dangerous foreign prince while knowing nothing about him — the Emperor's stomach churned.
"Weren't you able to learn at least one thing? That he stands immeasurably above the Captain's level."
Duke Hailon, who had entered the office alongside the Knight-Captain, spoke up.
Sword Saint of the Continent. The Swordmaster who guarded the imperial house.
Such were the titles Duke Hailon bore.
He looked at the Emperor with an expression of frank intrigue.
"What good does that strength do us? He has no point of contact with us."
"Do you truly believe we can tame him?"
"Don't we have no way of knowing at all? Whether he stands above us or below us. Whether he's a tempest that will sweep away the Empire, or a gentle spring rain."
Admitting Demesis to the Academy had been a somewhat political calculation.
Peace had come to the continent, but the struggles over influence between powers had only grown more tangled.
If they could draw to their side the man hailed as the reincarnation of the Progenitor Dragon, the imperial family could hold the advantage in every dispute that arose across the continent.
But there was no information about him.
Everyone who spoke of him said only one thing: he is terrifying.
Demesis's true nature, they said, was unknowable.
"I will confirm his strength for myself. He'll be receiving an invitation from the imperial family this time — so let us make our preparations airtight."
"You couldn't even get close, any more than the Captain did. Don't talk nonsense."
"Haha, surely not, Your Majesty. If that Dragonian is as terrifying as they say, you should start by stocking up on calming items — for your own sake."
The Emperor and Duke Hailon had made their preparations thoroughly, in anticipation of receiving Demesis.