Shido had one question on his mind.
“I can’t find my lunch box!”
“Huh...?”
It had definitely seemed like he brought it with him, hadn’t it?
Where on earth could a perfectly still lunch box have gone?
The answer to that mystery was simple.
“I left it at home!”
He came to the truth that, in his exhaustion that morning, he had left without even packing his lunch.
It was a matter serious enough to trigger an emergency.
He had left at home the lunch box that was supposed to at least soothe Toka’s monstrous appetite.
Normally, Toka ate an enormous amount, and when she was at school, even a lunch box wasn’t enough—she would buy bread from the cafeteria too. Thanks to that, Shido’s wallet kept getting thinner and thinner, and even though Ratatoskr covered the costs, the expenses were bound to be huge.
At least it had been manageable when he had the lunch box.
But now that he had left it behind, just imagining the food fight Toka would unleash made his vision go dark.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a commotion outside the window.
“Huh?”
When he looked toward the suddenly noisy outside, Shido saw it.
A figure drawing everyone’s attention as it strode boldly through the school gate.
A being clad head to toe in armor, giving off an eerie presence, was trudging into the school with a bundle in one hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“......”
Shido could not say a word.
Cold sweat began trickling down the back of his neck at the absurd sight.
He had never imagined that Jae would show up at school, still wearing full armor no less.
“Why?!”
That question would not leave Shido’s mind.
What was that bundle, and why hadn’t he taken off his armor?
He could not understand either Jae’s behavior or his condition.
The only small relief was that, unlike usual, he was wearing ordinary-looking armor rather than the warped one.
Though whether it was even right to call armor “ordinary” in the first place was another matter.
Even as Shido stood there in confusion, Jae kept walking.
“E-excuse me... Who are you...?”
The guard stepped in front of him.
After watching him in a daze because he had seemed so brazen, the guard finally blocked his way.
“......”
Jae, naturally, gave no answer and simply stood there facing the guard.
“What should I do?”
The guard did not seem to intend to hurt him.
What Shido could read from his eyes was not killing intent or hostility, but confusion.
He ruled out fighting and considered other options.
After thinking it over, Jae decided to ignore him.
If Reine, who had told him to bring the lunch box, had heard that choice, she would have grabbed the back of her neck.
But for Jae, it was a reasonable decision.
When it came to talking with the guard, Jae’s communication skills were not exactly impressive.
And if he tried to persuade him, the lunch box would lose its meaning with time.
As for forcing his way through with violence...
That was, of course, ruled out right after fighting.
In truth, it had been a choice he had considered very deeply, but in any case, a forceful solution was likely to create other problems.
After eliminating one option after another, the result was simply “ignore him.”
Crack!
When Jae lightly stepped on the ground, the schoolyard split a little.
Then his figure shot into the school grounds.
“...Huh?”
The guard could not understand what was unfolding before his eyes.
How could anyone believe that a person wearing heavy full armor could run at a speed the eye could not even follow?
Even a guard tasked with protecting the school had no way to deal with something that could not be explained in words.
No one could possibly blame the guard for the current situation.
Jae passed the dazed guard and reached the inside of the building.
He turned on the communication device and muttered, “Interpreter, I’ve arrived.”
At those words, a woman’s voice flowed through the device.
“...Hyun, what on earth did you do?”
“A trivial matter. Where is he?”
Reine forcibly suppressed the sigh that threatened to escape.
As the physics teacher at Raizen High School where Shido attended, and as the homeroom teacher for Class 2-4, there was no way she had failed to notice the commotion outside. She could already see in real time that this would mean more work to clean up after school.
After somehow holding back her sigh, she told Jae that Shido was in Class 2-4.
Once he heard that, Jae gave a single nod and started walking again.
“......”
Jae checked the internal map and pinpointed the location of Class 2-4.
“Wow...”
“What’s with that armor?”
“That’s so lame~”
Three girls were whispering as they watched his back.
The sudden appearance of a strange intruder at school was, for students starved of dopamine, practically a source of it.
They felt curiosity more than fear and watched Jae from a distance.
The armor covering his entire body reflected the light from the lamps and shone impressively.
It was the kind of sight that stirred a man’s romance, so the boys’ eyes turned toward him as he passed.
Not only the boys, but even the girls and the teachers were drawn to look at him, and Jae did not care.
He would simply complete the task he had been given. There was no danger, so there was no reason to worry about anything else.
“Is this it?”
At last, Jae reached the sign marked 2-4 and opened the door without a care.
Crack!
Because he truly had no care at all, the door was a little damaged in the process.
“...There you are.”
Once again, he ignored it and confirmed Shido, who was trying to avoid his gaze.
After locating Shido, he walked over without hesitation.
The closer he got, the more Shido turned his head away and tried not to meet Jae’s eyes, but it was completely pointless.
“Hm? Why are you here?”
Because Toka, sitting beside him, asked as if she knew Jae.
As Toka tilted her head and asked why he had come to school, the students in the class began inventing all kinds of rumors.
Tohka was absent due to injury, so Shido’s reputation was still decent for now, but he could already sense it.
From this point on, rumors about Toka or himself would spread widely, and his reputation would not remain very good.
“It’s your lunch box.”
In the end, swallowing tears inwardly, Shido accepted the lunch box Jae had brought.
“Th-thank you very much...”
“Oh! Thank you!”
Shido was awkward, while Toka was delighted.
Even with those contrasting reactions, Jae simply gave a silent nod and turned his head away.
The hallway outside the classroom had become noisy.
“That person over there...”
“I-I’ll try...!”
A woman had come after hearing the students’ words.
Tamae Okamine, the homeroom teacher for Class 2-4, stepped forward bravely.
Her trembling arms and legs showed that she was frightened.
“How troublesome.”
Seeing that, Jae muttered to himself.
It seemed that if he got caught by that woman, things would become very troublesome.
His decision was made quickly.
Jae immediately turned around and opened the window.
“W-wait a sec—?!”
Shido instinctively tried to stop him, sensing what he was about to do, but...
Rattle!
Jae was faster, opening the window and slipping out first.
“......”
Watching him brazenly drop down and then run off out of the school, Shido was left speechless.
“Itsuka-kun...?”
And the task of explaining Jae was Shido’s alone.
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