“I, I’m not Rukna Golden, you know?”

In the dream, Rukna was denying that it was her while showing off her skirt uniform.

Yes, it would be embarrassing for a guy to be caught wearing a skirt.

But even that was so cute that laughter kept erupting. This is crazy. Why does it suit you so well?

“Rukna Golden.”

“I told you I’m not Rukna? I’m, I’m Lulu.”

“Lulu? Can I call you that every time I see you wearing a skirt?”

Anyway, he’s a funny guy. Even coming up with a cute nickname like himself.

But I think my thoughts have been going in a strange direction for a while now.

It seemed to be a side effect of drinking the pond water imbued with a strange power until I was on the verge of death.

“You, no, stop doing that!”

The sight of Rukna Golden in a skirt blushing and being embarrassed was really something I wanted to devour.

“Don’t do that!”

Rukna covered his ears, feeling awkward.

“What should I not do?”

“You keep saying I’m cute and pretty. Heck, you even said you want to devour me!”

At those words, Matian burst into laughter again.

I think I blurted out my thoughts, but since this is a dream, it doesn’t matter. Why are you being so stern even in a dream?

“Even if this is a dream, there’s a proper line you shouldn’t cross, Matian Wiegratz.”

Rukna gave up on using polite speech and nagged.

Matian liked Rukna’s voice as he knew it, but the thin and high-pitched voice like now was also very nice to hear.

“If you’ve come to your senses, hurry and get up. Are you going to keep sitting in prison?”

Prison? Matian looked around with blurry vision and confirmed the iron bars.

“Even dreaming of being locked up with you like this would be quite fun.”

“You really! Sigh. Is the pond water spoiled? What got into you to make you lose your sense like this?”

“Haha. I lost my sense, you say?”

Matian pointed to himself and laughed. Dreams are really nice.

I never knew laughter was an expression that could flow endlessly without effort.

“Don’t act like a drunk and get up. Hurry.”

“I can’t get up.”

“Why, again. Seriously!”

“I can’t lift the holy sword.”

Matian gestured with his chin to the holy sword he was holding. Then Rukna muttered, “That damn Bisby discriminating against people?”

He said his name is Lulu, and the holy sword is Bisby? Lulu and Bisby.

They were both cute and well-matched.

“Do you want to take it?”

“Wh-why would I take the holy sword?”

“No matter how hard I try, I don’t think I can lift this.”

A child with a fragment of the Demon King embedded in him.

Whenever he felt the energy of dark magic, he felt pain in his heart, but strangely, that power did not cause him great harm.

〈E-Everyone was affected by dark magic except Matian! He’s a demon!〉

Matian still couldn’t forget the fingers pointing at him.

So he had to live a life proving he wasn’t a demon until now.

He had to change his indifferent personality, be kind to everyone, and excel in any field like a descendant of the hero Wiegratz.

However, even if he tried his best, the holy sword did not acknowledge him as its master.

As if it knew the murkiness he had hidden inside.

“Do you know the surest way to prove you’re not a demon, Lulu?”

Matian gladly called Rukna by the nickname he wanted and continued his explanation.

“It’s for a real demon to come into this world.”

“……!”

“Then people will recognize it. ‘Ah, Matian Wiegratz was just an ordinary human,’ they’ll say.”

“Why are you saying such scary things?”

Rukna, who turned pale as if he had been caught hiding the truth, fidgeted with both hands.

Maybe because it’s a dream. To Matian, those hands looked smaller than usual, making him want to hold them tightly.

“Uh, ah?”

Rukna, who was standing in front of Matian, made a strange sound and suddenly hugged him.

The body that already fit in his arms felt even slimmer.

“Let go of my hand. It hurts.”

“I was holding it?”

“You just pulled me and made me fall over?”

“I see. I grabbed you. Because you said you were scared?”

Matian looked down at his left hand. Rukna’s small hand was tucked into his palm.

His fingers seemed to let go of Rukna, then slowly intertwined with her slender fingers.

He held the interlocked hands tightly as if he would never let go, then rubbed her palm, tickling it.

“Eek, what are you doing!”

“What I want to do.”

Matian pulled the clasped hands and gave a peck on the back of Rukna’s hand.

This guy has gone crazy! Rukna slapped Matian’s shoulders repeatedly.

“I guess you’ve gone mad after drinking that spoiled pond water.”

The slaps are quite stinging? Matian rotated his sore shoulders in circles to relieve the tension.

He was about to joke that his shoulder would have been dislocated if he had been hit a little harder, but he kept his mouth shut, thinking Lulu might get hurt.

And he chuckled, finding it funny that he thought that way. It’s just a dream anyway, isn’t it too serious?

“But, Lulu. I was thinking of marrying the first woman I held hands with like this.”

And Matian brought up an even more serious topic, shaking their interlocked hands.

“Wh-what did you say?”

“I know too. That I’m a bit naive in this regard. But I was taught growing up that I should be very careful when holding a woman’s hand, so what can I do?”

“A truly naive person doesn’t say things like that, you know?”

“Haha.”

Matian shrugged his shoulders and this time pulled Rukna’s hand, which he was holding, towards the holy sword.

Then he relinquished the sword hilt he was holding to Rukna.

“Try holding and lifting it.”

“Y-you can’t lift it, so how can I?”

Rukna, who ended up gripping the sword hilt, blinked rapidly. And Matian knew that expression well.

“You’re not Rukna, you’re Lulu.”

Matian uncharacteristically unfolded a strange logic and placed his hand on top of Rukna’s hand holding the sword hilt.

In that state, when he lifted the holy sword, the holy sword that was as heavy as a huge lump of metal felt as light as a feather.

Matian was not very surprised to see that scene.

Because he often had nightmares of someone other than him drawing the holy sword.

But seeing Rukna holding the holy sword felt refreshingly new. It didn’t feel bad enough to be called a nightmare.

Thoughts like if he couldn’t possess the holy sword, he could just possess Rukna who was holding it were running through his head.

“P-possess what?!”

Rukna’s face turned bright red upon hearing those words, probably because Matian had spoken his thoughts out loud again. So cute, it’s driving me crazy.

Meanwhile, a suspicious energy was felt beyond the iron bars.

Although his vision was still hazy, it wasn’t difficult to find a weapon he could roughly swing.

Even an ordinary wooden chair turned into a great weapon in the hands of a weapon master.

Soon the sound of a beast growling was heard, and something charged quickly towards this direction.

Bang! The sturdy iron bars bent greatly and were mangled.

A boar-like magic beast was glaring at Rukna and Matian from beyond the iron bars.

“They don’t give me a break even in dreams.”

As Matian lifted the chair, Rukna, holding the holy sword, blocked Matian’s path.

“You’re in bad shape, so leave this to me.”

“I’ve dreamed hundreds of times of having the holy sword taken from me, but this is the first time I’ve dreamed of someone protecting me with that holy sword.”

“You have a long way of saying thank you, Matian Wiegratz.”

At the same time as those words, the magic beast rammed the iron bars with its fangs once more and charged at Rukna.

Rukna gripped the holy sword short like a dagger, dodged to the side, and made a long cut on the side of the beast’s neck.

Kweee! The magic beast screamed as it spewed green blood.

The cutting force was weak, but the blade dug in like that? Matian frowned and examined Rukna.

“I’m pretty good, right?”

Seeing Rukna smirking for a very brief moment, Matian didn’t know why his heart was pounding so much.

The management office of St. Agnes Girls’ School.

The Red Eagle bishop with red hair draped to one side was leaning his butt on the desk and biting his nails.

The desk nameplate that read ‘Superintendent Mofin’ was shoved aside without grace.

“Everything is going beyond expectations.”

“I am ashamed. I did not anticipate Rukna Golden jumping into the pond.”

The former dark mage superintendent bowed his head and trembled.

According to the plan, Lady Sarah, who threw herself into the pond, should have summoned magic beasts with the prepared black magic and disrupted the girls’ school.

Then they intended to blame Matian, who neglected the Sarah incident, to worsen public opinion and shatter his solid mind.

Because the fragment of the Demon King embedded in his heart would gain greater power only if he was broken and tainted by evil.

However, the meticulously prepared plan that took a very long time was ruined again by a single variable named Rukna Golden.

“We should have gotten rid of that bastard long ago!”

As Bishop clenched his fist, his long nails dug into his palm, causing red blood to ooze out.

The bloodshot eyes turned to the superintendent who had failed in the plan, and immediately reached out and strangled his neck.

“What exactly do you predict correctly?”

“Gah, ack! P-please spare my life!”

The superintendent tried to remove Bishop’s hand with both hands, but could not overcome the tremendous grip strength.

As his lips turned blue.

“That’s enough, Bishop.”

From behind the opaque curtain on one side of the wall, a man’s shadow flickered.

He was a man called the reincarnation of Karjan, the first dark mage, the messiah of the dark mages in the prophecy book, the leader and priest of the Red Eagles.

As he pulled back the curtain and reached out a hand, the dark mage who escaped from Bishop’s grasp crawled to his feet.

“I will definitely succeed next time, Mofin.”

The priest drew a cross-shaped sign on Mofin’s forehead with his thumb.

The beast’s blood on his fingers left a mark as it was.

“Yes, yes, of course, Priest!”

“Although the contents of the prophecy book have been twisted, there is no need to be impatient. Let’s just do it more perfectly.”

At the same time as those words, the priest snapped his fingers.

Then a magic circle appeared under Mofin’s feet, his neck snapped with a crack, and his body rolled on the floor.

“I’ll have to deploy a ritual using the life force extracted from Mofin to clean up that place.”

The priest began writing advanced magic formulas on the floor with Mofin’s blood on his fingers.

Then he smirked while looking at Mofin, who had died without being able to close his eyes or take a breath.

“Now you’ve become perfect, Mofin.”