A few days later.

The frightened Randolph looked around nervously again today.

He was deliberately taking a roundabout path to the college where students rarely went.

‘That bastard Matian, he’s had his eye on Rukna Golden from way back. That’s why we keep running into each other.’

While Chad could be avoided somehow, once Matian caught sight of him, it was hard to escape that persistent gaze.

Each time, Matian would greet him kindly first, but Randolph was terrified to death.

‘Damn it, I want to be alone with Rukna Golden, but those student council bastards make it hard to approach her. Even at dawn, that Matian kid is lurking around.’

Randolph walked while chewing on his lower lip.

Just as his footsteps entered the shadow of a tilted building.

A polished shoe suddenly popped out from an alley between buildings, and someone grabbed Randolph by the scruff of his neck.

He was helplessly dragged into the alley by that hand.

“Ugh, who is it!”

Crash! Randolph, thrown into the alley, got up supporting himself on the ground. Matian was standing right in front of him.

“Hello, Randolph? We seem to be seeing a lot of each other lately.”

“Ma-Matian? Ugh!”

Randolph’s back hit the building wall as he stepped backwards. Matian pushed him against the wall.

Though Randolph wasn’t one to be outdone in height and build, he couldn’t help but tremble before Matian.

“We-we’re not just running into each other, y-you’ve been following me!”

“Why would I follow you, Randolph.”

Matian smiled with a troubled expression. Then he changed his words, saying, “Ah, today I did follow you.”

“You seem to have forgotten a few school rules. I came to remind you of them.”

Randolph made a dumbfounded face at this absurd reason.

Matian looked straight into Randolph’s eyes and recited the school rules he had violated.

His words were closer to a sermon, saying things like not continuously bullying a particular student or not attending lectures without prior registration and permission.

“I-I was just trying to get closer to Rukna Golden!”

“Whatever the reason, you shouldn’t violate school rules, Randolph. Graduation is right around the corner, how can you still act like a child?”

“Y-you’re just the student council president, how dare you try to teach me. G-get out of my way, you annoying bastard!”

“Why should I?”

“What?”

“Why should I let someone who violated the rules go? That would be against the rules itself.”

“Wh-what do I care!”

“Haa. Is Randolph Clinton’s knowledge limited to just his own name and Rukna Golden’s whereabouts? Your head is light.”

Matian lightly laughed as he took out a demerit slip.

He wrote a few letters on it, then tore it off and stuck it near Randolph’s solar plexus.

With such force that it felt like his heart would stop.

“Gah!”

Completely pushed against the wall, Randolph clutched his chest and collapsed, sliding down the wall.

Matian still wore a kind smile on his face.

“Hmm, did I stick it on too hard?”

Despite his leisurely tone, those icy eyes looking down at him.

Randolph thought that the devil’s fragment must be lodged not in Matian’s heart, but in those two eyes, and fainted.

“Oh dear.”

Matian, whose expression instantly became blank, silently looked down at Randolph with his arms crossed.

Then he raised his shoe and stomped on Randolph’s solar plexus repeatedly. It was a sort of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but without much sincerity.

“Gah, cough, cough!”

Randolph exhaled while coughing violently. His pale face was quite a sight.

“Your heart is quite healthy. Randolph Clinton.”

“Is, is this hell? Am, am I dead? Did I die?”

Randolph flailed his arms while lying on the ground.

Then he panicked when he met the smiling face looking down at him.

“Ah, devil, it’s the devil, mmph!”

As the delirious Randolph started to scream, Matian bent one knee and covered Randolph’s mouth with his hand.

“Be quiet on campus, Randolph.”

“Mmph!”

Randolph’s eyes, filled with terror, rolled back.

What does my expression look like?

Matian tilted his head and took out a small hand mirror from his pocket to check his expression.

“Oh my, I was taught not to smile at times like this.”

The smile that wouldn’t come when it should came so naturally in this situation.

Matian put the mirror back in his pocket with regret.

“Can you be a bit quieter?”

Matian asked in a very kind tone. Randolph, who had been crying and sniveling, nodded his head vigorously.

“Good.”

When Matian removed his hand from Randolph’s mouth, Randolph, who had half-risen, crawled on the ground like a dog and retched in a corner of the alley.

“You should do that in the bathroom. Damaging the school’s appearance means additional demerits.”

“Save me, save me. Save me, Matian!”

Afraid that one more demerit slip would really kill him, Randolph begged as if his hands were feet.

“Why would I kill you? Your death gives me no benefit.”

Matian slowly straightened his knees, stood up, and grabbed the trembling Randolph by the scruff of his neck.

The terrified Randolph stroked his grabbed nape, trying to remove Matian’s hand. But he couldn’t move even one of Matian’s fingers.

“Ma-Matian? Matian Wiegratz? Wa-wait! I just remembered some important information! That’s right, the holy sword. The holy sword!”

Thud. Matian stopped moving.

“Damn it, my, my memory is hazy but it was definitely the holy sword. So where did I see it… where did I see it!”

At Randolph’s words, Matian stood still without saying anything.

Seeing his contemplative expression, Randolph thought this was his chance and added an explanation.

“It’s, it’s true, Matian! I definitely saw it but my memory, my head hurts like it’s going to split! It really hurts if that’s right!”

“I see. Don’t worry now.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll make your headache seem like nothing.”

Matian dragged Randolph along again and walked deeper into the alley.

The dark shadows of the alley swallowed up the image of the struggling Randolph.

And from the very next day after returning from that alley, Randolph didn’t go anywhere near Rukna and cut off all interest in her.

He was sparing with his words not only to Rukna but to other students until graduation.

Even after graduation, he never showed his face in social circles, as if he was afraid of something.

The drizzle that had started late at night continued until dawn.

The humid night air cooled in the summer rain.

Students opened their dormitory windows wide to enjoy the cool night air.

Only Room 414, Rukna’s room, and Room 514, Matian’s room, remained closed side by side.

The sleeping Matian’s brow was deeply furrowed. It was because of the dream he inevitably had on days like this.

‘Take me out, Wiegratz.’

Standing in a completely black space, a woman in a black hood stretched out her arms to Matian.

‘It’s stuffy here. I want to go to your side.’

Only her snow-white skin that showed above the hood shone like moonlight in the dark space, and her plump lips were like the red tail of a meteor.

The rest of her appearance was not clearly visible.

In the dream, Matian desperately tried to save the woman.

But there was an impenetrable transparent wall between her and himself, so they could never meet.

‘You can feel it too. That I’m lodged in your heart.’

The woman’s slender finger pointed at Matian’s heart.

What was lodged in his heart was only the fragment of the demon king. Does that mean that woman is the demon king?

Matian’s heart raced and his breathing became uncomfortable. His cold body temperature rose. Was it panic? Or anxiety? Or maybe…

‘Get a grip. There’s no reason for me to have feelings for a demon.’

He must have been seduced by the demon.

Matian desperately tried to escape from the dream and opened his eyes wide.

After having this dream, there were always tears in his eyes. It was unpleasant.

‘What time is it?’

Confirming that the clock hands pointed to 4 AM, Matian sat up and habitually reached for the mirror placed beside the bed, staring at his own face.

In the meantime, his face, devoid of emotion, was expressionless and stern.

Matian got up and opened the window, habitually looking down at the floor below.

Inside the modest windowsill where a sprig of Alechi he had given was growing vigorously, the window was tightly closed.

Perhaps because of the incident when Randolph had intruded, it seemed she was taking thorough precautions despite the hot weather.

‘I wonder if that window will open in about 30 minutes.’

Matian clenched his right hand tightly until his nails dug into his palm.

The faint breath he had felt on his hand when he caressed Rukna’s lips on the airship was still vivid and ticklish.

Then suddenly, Randolph’s words came to mind.

Matian, who had thought of Rukna first without any substantial evidence, attributed it to Randolph’s personal feelings.

However, if by any chance Rukna had the holy sword…

Matian gripped the metal railing of the window firmly and burst into a hollow laugh.

He had thought that if he found out who the culprit was, he would become the owner of the holy sword even if he had to eat them alive, but Rukna’s existence twisted the direction of his anger, making him want to eat her in a different sense. How extraordinary indeed.

‘You’re quite talented in many ways, Rukna Golden.’

Matian let go of the metal railing he had been gripping.

Part of the railing, twisted and broken by his tremendous grip strength, was sharply pointed, just like his current behavior.

‘When did I start feeling this damned mood every time I think of Rukna Golden?’

Matian took a deep breath. Cutting off all the endless questions and various assumptions, he left the room for his dawn training.

If he didn’t, he felt he might be trapped in dark fantasies and never escape.

Matian walked quickly along the corridor and turned his gaze to the lockers lined up along the wall.

Was it because of the nightmare he had today?

He suddenly remembered the incident from a few months ago when Rukna was trapped in such a locker and cried out for help.

‘Damn it, thinking about Rukna again.’

Matian roughly ruffled his hair to shake off the idle thoughts.

As he did so, he walked towards the northern training ground that Rukna occupied every day, instead of the southern training ground he usually used.