[The current world is deviating somewhat from the route leading to the DLC, a world fated for destruction.]
Somewhat, rather than slightly.
I should call that a good thing, right?
The assessment had changed from slightly to somewhat, after all.
Considering I had steered no fewer than three protagonists away from their bad endings, perhaps this was only natural.
Still, I could not let my guard down.
Unlike Dolnesia, who would not see a bad ending as long as she did not die, since I had rescued her from the bandits, Iris would reach a bad ending if Haede died unless she ended up with someone.
And Angelica, the moment she lost the title [Rival of the Sword Demon], was guaranteed a bad ending no matter which route she completed.
Well, judging by what the notification said, it seemed that the structure was such that the instant even one protagonist reached a bad ending, we would head straight to the DLC.
That only left Isabella, then.
Her bad-ending branch would not appear until later, so there was probably no need to think about it right now.
More importantly, was there not something else I needed to deal with?
"What are you doing over there?"
Someone calling for me pulled me out of my thoughts.
And the first thing I felt upon coming to was the stares.
Quite a lot of stares, at that.
While I had been agonizing over the notification window...
They had apparently already finished talking and were all looking at me.
Perhaps they thought it was strange that I had been staring into empty space; everyone except the Holy Maiden was looking at me as though I were odd.
"So, have you decided on Squeaky’s name?"
"I told you, it’s not Squeaky."
I hurriedly changed the subject to Squeaky’s name.
Dolnesia, who had been holding Squeaky, hugged the little creature tighter and retorted in a tone that made it clear she disagreed.
Did she hate Squeaky that much?
"Then what is its name?"
"We decided to call him Niklas."
Niklas. It was certainly an unusual name.
"You like it too, don’t you, Niklas?"
Smiling, Dolnesia stroked him as she asked. As though he understood, he squeaked with smiling eyes.
Then Dolnesia looked at me with a smile.
There was unspoken pressure in that smile.
It seemed to say that my opinion did not matter, so I should hurry up and agree to Niklas.
"Well, all right. Niklas it is."
It was not as though naming him meant I would have to feed him, so it did not matter what we called him.
But... was Squeaky really that bad?
At that moment—
Squeak!
Squeaky flapped his wings and flew toward me.
Though he had been born only moments ago, his wingbeats were full of strength. He easily crossed the distance and landed on my shoulder.
His eagle-like front talons gripped my shoulder. His horse-like hind legs, lacking claws, slipped about several times as they failed to find a foothold, but my shoulders were broad enough that he managed to settle in.
He had been born only minutes ago, yet he was already flapping his wings on his own and landing on my shoulder.
Somehow, I felt immensely proud of him.
Was this how a father felt while watching his baby take its first difficult steps toward him?
Without hiding the smile spreading across my face, I stroked him.
"From now on, your name is Niklas."
I gave him his name.
[You have given the pet hippogriff a name.]
A notification window appeared the very moment I named him.
【Niklas】
◈ Level: 1
◈ Rank: Legendary
◈ Traits: [Eagle Forelegs, Horse Hind Legs], [Prince of the Sky]
◈ Attack Power: 40
Not only the notification window, but his status window had changed to Niklas as well.
Perhaps he liked the name Niklas.
Niklas kept chirping atop my shoulder as though singing.
"But... are you really going to keep Niklas like that?"
Resting her chin on her hand, Isabella looked at Niklas perched on my shoulder.
"Pets are forbidden under academy regulations, aren’t they...?"
Was there a rule like that?
Still, it did not matter.
Pets were not skill-based entities like spirits. They could be equipped and unequipped like items.
That meant pets could be toggled on and off.
After opening my status window, I pressed the picture of Niklas in the little square beside the equipment slots, and a notification appeared.
[Niklas is being unsummoned.]
With the notification, Niklas vanished with a pop. More precisely, he entered my shadow just like that.
Everyone looked startled at the sight.
It was only natural. Niklas, who had been on my shoulder moments ago, had suddenly slipped into my shadow.
Kafka in particular looked fascinated, and at the same time, she too entered my shadow.
She apparently wanted to confirm whether Niklas had really gone inside my shadow.
A short while later, Kafka emerged from the shadow. Her two large ears perked up, and her narrowed eyes grew even thinner.
"He really did go inside the shadow."
A report confirming the facts, as a bonus.
In the game, it had simply been handled as an on/off toggle, but here it seemed to be implemented as physically entering the shadow, like Kafka did.
I put Niklas’s icon back into the pet slot.
[Niklas is being summoned.]
Along with the notification, Niklas reappeared atop my shoulder.
Perhaps he found going into the shadow fascinating; he squeaked with smiling eyes.
"You have a roommate now, Kafka."
I made what I thought was a little joke to Kafka.
"I do."
Kafka nodded and continued.
"Still, it is rather stuffy inside the shadow, so it would be better to let him out when you sleep, at least."
That was what I intended to do.
Kafka had once said that the inside of the shadow was dark and uncomfortable, so she did not like it much either.
As though he understood how I felt, Niklas closed his eyes and rubbed his head against my face.
And so, the academy’s first attack incident—
Scaramuccia’s terrorist attack on the academy—seemed to come to an end like this.
#
There was not much afterward.
"You have all done well, cadets."
Professor Luke, who had apparently been slacking off somewhere, appeared before us only after everything was over.
The person most surprised by his appearance was Iris—more precisely, the Holy Maiden.
And I was rather surprised too.
The reason was that the effects of the blessing had not yet ended, and an enormous amount of holy power was still flowing from around her.
There was enough holy power to send not just an ordinary skeleton, but even a lich, a top-tier undead, peacefully on to the afterlife where it stood.
It was so dense that the place where she stood could have been called a temporary temple, yet Professor Luke casually let that holy power wash over him as though it were nothing.
It was as if he were personally demonstrating that even if his essence was that of an undead—a skeleton—the number Level 90 was not something one attained lightly.
So it was not because he could not approach due to the Holy Maiden’s holy power?
Seeing him stand so brazenly amid the Holy Maiden’s holy power made me find it even stranger.
If it was not because of the holy power, there was even less reason for him to arrive only now.
Arghalia was an event boss designed to be defeated from the outset.
But even if he was meant to lose, they could not exactly let him truly kill the protagonist. Someone needed to take on the role of defeating him or driving him away in the protagonist’s stead.
And at Dawnstar Academia, that role had belonged to Professor Luke.
Originally, once Arghalia’s health had been reduced by a certain amount and enough time had passed, Professor Luke would intervene and subdue Arghalia in the protagonist’s place.
But this time, Professor Luke had not appeared.
Even when I retried twenty-eight times and fought for the twenty-ninth time, Professor Luke had not appeared once throughout those twenty-nine long battles.
Forget taking off a certain amount of his health—he had not appeared even when we were on the verge of defeating him, nor had he shown himself even after we finally succeeded in slaying the bastard.
Then, only after every last thing was over, he appeared before us as though he had been waiting for this moment.
What on earth was he plotting?
I briefly wondered whether Professor Luke might be the mastermind, but soon shook my head after realizing there was no point.
At Dawnstar Academia, he had only ever served as a comic character, so it was difficult to predict what he would do next. More than that, a Level 90 powerhouse had no need to go to the trouble of scheming and setting the board in the first place.
And there was the Insight Eye, too.
【Luke Eaenril】
◈ Level: 90
◈ The target feels favorably toward you.
◈ The target feels amused.
The system window gave information far too innocuous for this man to be the mastermind, making it awkward to pursue the matter further.
Thanks to him, I had gained levels, traits, titles, and even items, so I should just consider it a good thing.
Whether or not he knew what I was thinking, he walked past me toward the Holy Maiden.
"Miss Iris, seeing that you have awakened holy power..."
The blue flames in his eye sockets gradually shrank, as though expressing narrowed eyes.
"It seems that you, too, possessed the qualities of a Holy Maiden after all."
At his words, Iris’s body silently nodded.
"Yes, I think that must have been the case."
But the voice that emerged from her lips belonged not to the Holy Maiden, but to the original Iris.
Judging by the fact that the holy power that seemed to belong to the Holy Maiden had not yet faded, she had not been forcibly expelled. However, perhaps she did not want to confuse Professor Luke unnecessarily, so she remained silent.
"In any case, how fascinating. Two Holy Maidens in the same generation."
Having finished speaking, Professor Luke moved his jaw while resting a slender, snow-white finger against his jawbone.
Grind.
Suddenly, the sound of teeth grinding rang out.
More precisely, it came immediately after he said there were two Holy Maidens in the same generation.
The source of the sound was none other than Isabella.
The instant Professor Luke uttered the words that there were two Holy Maidens in the same generation, it was as though they had set her off.
Her lovely face twisted into a deep frown, and she wore an extremely displeased expression.
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