“Teleportation…magic?”
Charlotte uses her brother’s teleportation door daily, so she’s familiar with the magic, but it’s a near-impossible feat for one person to harness alone. Not even the great Demon King was able to pull off such a tremendous spell.
Liza refutes her little master’s hunch…
“No, it’s different. What was that, though?”
…but she couldn’t place her finger on the answer.
Irisphilia finally joins the conversation.
“I was able to grasp what just occurred because I was watching from the side. She backed up at the same exact speed as Liza approached. To be more accurate, she maintained a fixed distance from Liza when she reached a certain radius.”
The girl with the golden eyes straightens her posture and smiles wide.
“Bingo! Well, it’s exactly as you saw, so the answer’s easy.”
“With that said, I don’t know what combination of magic spells she incorporated to make that possible,” Iris says and turns to the girl. “At what point did you determine Liza to be the point of fixture?”
She would’ve needed to notice Liza approaching even before she warned Charlotte. At the same time, it didn’t seem like she noticed Liza’s presence before she yelled.
“I don’t know. My self-defense magic activated automatically.”
“Automatic? Are you wearing some sort of magic device?”
“Er, more like…”
At the sight of the girl’s hesitation, Charlotte realizes something.
“Never mind that!” she exclaims as she steps forward next to Liza and bows her head deeply. “I apologize for the sudden scare! Liza’s─she just misread the situation and thought I was in danger─”
“Lady Charlotte, please raise your head. I didn’t misread. She is dangerous. This creature is not a demon or a human. She’s more like…something I can’t explain.”
Liza senses a resemblance to Iris, but the young girl with the silver hair is clearly spreading an aura of menace.
Thus, the dragon maid maintains her battle stance.
The silver-haired girl smirks slightly.
Iris is unsure whether she should intervene or not.
“Hua-wa-wa-wa…” Charlotte is completely flustered.
The girl with the silver hair shows a bit of sweetness in her smile and speaks to Liza, “You’re worrying your friend, see? I have no intention of harming anyone. Although I won’t deny your claim of seeing me as a threat. After all, you are a demon. Aren’t you?”
“Huh?!” Liza raises her guard up to the max.
“Stop!” cries Charlotte, “Stop it, Liza. Let us hear her out first.” She turns to the mysterious girl. “How did you know she’s a demon?”
Char manages to settle down Liza, but she can feel the temperature around them dropping significantly.
“Two short things on top of her head, and one long thing growing out of her lower back. They’re horns and a tail, right?”
“You can see them?” asks Char.
“Not quite. I cannot see them physically. But I do see a barrier─just like the ones in your hair ornament─fixed on them.”
She continues with great intrigue, “They’re bending the refraction of light to make the horns and tail blend into the background,” she giggles. “Fascinating. How does one even come up with a spell like that?”
“Indeed! Brother Haruto is so, so, so, sooo amazing!”
Liza almost eases her guard at the sight of her master’s merriment, but she quickly glares at the strange girl. Her doubts aren’t cleared yet.
“There’s no need to scowl at me like that. It’s not a look befitting such a pretty face.”
“Then stop looking at her with bloodlust,” warns Liza.
Charlotte tilts her head.
The silver-haired girl smiles. “I suppose a demon would interpret it that way. But you have it wrong. This isn’t bloodlust; it’s curiosity. I’m just a little excited.”
“Excited…?”
“That’s right. I have no thirst for blood or intention to harm you. Killing and hurting people isn’t any fun. But for some reason, demons and monsters interpret my feelings toward an object of interest as bloodlust. It’s quite a dilemma,” says the girl─although she doesn’t seem troubled at all. Her true intention underneath her smile is hard to read.
She continues, “But I suppose it’s nobody’s fault but my own. I mean─”
Liza, unable to assess what to do next, is baffled by what she says next:
“─I’m probably not an ordinary human.”
“““Huh?”””
Everyone except for the mysterious girl gasps.
“Originally, I was just one human called Yulia Martienna who was feeling small and constricted with who I was. After tweaking my body around here and there, I think I veered off the classification of man. The spell for the self-defense magic you saw earlier isn’t infused in my clothes or accessories─it’s etched inside my body. I’ve got other spells, too.”
The girl who calls herself Yulia chirps, “In other words, I’m somewhat of a customized magic device for myself.”
Charlotte freezes at the girl’s casual deliverance of the rather disturbing confession.
Liza and Iris, too, are speechless and cannot seem to decide whether they should continue to be in defense mode.
Yulia─seemingly blind to their reactions─lets out a little “Oh!”
“I haven’t introduced myself. I already said my name earlier, but I’m Yulia Martienna. This is my first day here at the academy as, uh, an exchange student, I suppose.”
She smiles as if to say, “and you?”
Charlotte straightens herself. “My name is Charlotte Zenfis. I just transferred into this school the other day, too. I’m a first-year.”
“Oh, really? I’m a first-year student, too. I’d love to stay and chat, but I have to meet with someone. It’s too bad,” she laughs. Again, it’s hard to tell if her words are sincere or not.
“It’s nice to meet you. Say hi if we have the same class, Charlotte.”
“Yes! Nice to meet you!─oh, and this is Liza. She’s here as Brother Haruto’s attendant.”
“Nice to meet you, Liza,” greets Yulia.
“Nice to meet you…”
Yulia’s earnest cheery expression doesn’t relieve Liza in the slightest.
Charlotte continues, “And this is Miss Iris. She’s also a first-year student.”
Yulia purses her lips and smiles softly. “I see. You too?”
“Me too? What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing. Just that you’re similar to Liza. Your mind understands the situation, but you let your instincts get in the way. All I can do is ask that you get used to it.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that…” says Iris, even though she knows what she means.
She might be a…
“I’ll stop myself now. I do want to be on good terms with you, too. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
Yulia walks past the three girls…
“““HUH?!”””
That was all Charlotte, Iris, and Liza could say as they watched two people walk past them.
Two.
Following right behind Yulia is a male student.
He’s not a stranger who happened to pass by. He was likely there from the beginning, hiding right behind Yulia.
Their suspicion is confirmed when Yulia speaks to him. “Are we going the right way, Uranis?” she asked without so much as a glance behind her.
But the three girls didn’t even need to hear her to confirm their relationship.