The following morning...
Roan quickly washed up before bidding farewell to Father Jeffrey and the orphans. He began making his way back to the Demon King Academy, and he arrived at his destination just before lunch.
Unlike usual days, there were many opulent dragon carriages stopped in front of the humongous academy gates. Even the shabbiest carriage was pulled by a Gold-tier wyvern.
There were no more classes for the third and fourth-year students after the graduation ceremony, and they had no finals to prepare for either. Suddenly, the students found their usually busy lives becoming idle.
The scions, who had come to the academy just to build their portfolio, wouldn’t linger in their dormitories. They would at least return to their luxurious manors and enjoy their final holiday before giving their all for their futures.
Those who didn’t have strong connections and were unfortunate enough to be dispatched to the frontlines had already reported to the Ministry of War yesterday.
The countdown for their service duration began when they reported to the barracks. The earlier they began their service, the earlier they could maneuver their way into a desk job. If they were lucky enough, they might even be able to escape the battlefield.
The five-meter-long wyvern lay on the ground, eyeing its surroundings with lofty eyes as if a real dragon.
Among the carriages, Roan spotted a few rare hell pegasus, a species that he had only seen in his textbook thus far.
Hell pegasuses were ‘strategic resources’ in the underworld. One would have to be from a count clan to use hell pegasuses for their carriage.
While Roan was looking enviously at the carriage pulled by the hell pegasuses, a familiar figure suddenly peeked out from the carriage and looked at him with a smirk. It was a pink-haired lady with heart-shaped irises.
‘Mia?!’
Roan quickly averted his eyes as he remembered the clash they had during the graduation ceremony, but Mia leaped down from her carriage and made her way over.
“It’s been a while, Senior Roan.”
“We’re from the same class.”
“But that’s how Egor calls you. Can’t I do the same?” Mia shyly glanced at him.
But Roan had no doubt she was acting.
As expected, when Roan displayed complete nonchalance, Mia revealed her primal nature as a demon, and her ‘shy eyes’ slowly narrowed menacingly.
“Tsk tsk. A human dares to question my faith. How have I never notice such spunk in you?”
A ‘protected species’ was indeed in no position to criticize a high demon, though it surprisingly took her very long to register that.
Seeing that Roan wasn’t saying anything, she paced to his flank and leaned closer to him as if she was examining her prey.
“So, where did you go last night?”
‘Ugh. I don’t want to get involved with this troublesome woman.’
Roan quietly sighed before replying, “Esteemed High Demon Mia, may I know what does this have to do with you?”
“It doesn’t. I’m just disappointed to have made a wasted trip last night. I thought you escaped with your tail clenched between your thighs. Hehe.” Mia laughed with malicious intent.
Roan frowned. “You entered my room?”
“Of course not. I am a law-abiding demon. I would never break the law...” Mia chuckled, but halfway through her words, she noticed Roan’s expression and narrowed her eyes. “Oh? Are you hiding something in your room?”
Roan was planning to skirt his way around this matter when a light cough rescued him from his quandary.
A middle-aged man walked over, bowed slightly, and urged with a humble but authoritative voice, “Miss, we should set off soon.”
His expensive clothes suggested that he was a butler, but Roan could sense that he was no ordinary demon. He was at least at Gold-tier, possibly even Platinum or Diamond...
Mia looked fearful of this middle-aged man. Despite having her words interrupted, she merely harrumphed in displeasure and threw a “Just you wait” before returning to her carriage.
The middle-aged man bowed before following Mia. His gaze casually brushed past Roan.
It could have been an illusion, but Roan sensed a sliver of fear from his momentary gaze.
‘Erm... Fear? Must have been my imagination.’
...
The West Tower’s canteen was crowded as usual.
As usual, the foreign students from the Goblin Kingdom were downing their food as if trolls were eyeing their lunch.
Little demons ignored the centaur chef’s angry roars and flew recklessly around the sky with their meal tray.
The thought that these sights would soon become a thing of the past left Roan feeling wistful.
He stuffed yet another piece of a charcoal-grilled minotaur ribeye steak that was perfectly prepared and sliced into his mouth before finally wiping his mouth and placing his meal tray on the cart pushed by the goblin workers.
Just as he was about to leave, a roar boomed across the canteen.
“Who is Roan? Is Roan here?”
An orc dormitory manager was standing at the canteen entrance with a lower demon... Of course, this lower demon was nothing like the ones flying around the canteen; he was dressed in a formal suit.
Roan raised his hand.
“I am. May I know...”
“Your appointment letter has arrived! I knew you would be here if not your room!” The orc dormitory manager snorted as he made his way over. He introduced the lower demon beside him, “This is Mister Kyrian, an important official from the Ministry of Personnel!”
“Please don’t say that. I am merely a servant who hopes to shoulder some of His Majesty Demon God’s burden,” Kyrian politely replied with a smile. He extended his right hand to Roan and asked, “Roan, right? I was from this academy too.”
“It’s my pleasure to meet you, senior!” Roan bowed.
While forging a relationship was no easy task, there was no harm in buttering up the person before him.
Instead of throwing out a date, he lifted his sleeves and checked his watch. “The portal should be ready by now. There’s a dragon carriage waiting at the academy entrance. I will be waiting for you there. It’ll be best to move as fast as possible, whether for you or us.”
...
The Demon King Academy’s main tower was shrouded by bats as usual.
While Roan was flabbergasted, the old lich looked at him from the principal office’s frosted windows with a satisfied smile as if looking at a seedling he had personally nurtured.
Vice Principal Doreen Weber stood behind him with a hint of worry on her frosty, unageing face. Her presence left the room feeling chilly.
“I don’t think this is a good thing, Sir Evan Krueger. Your trial is too much for a Copper-tier student.”
She had only recently heard about Roan. She was delighted to learn that a demon king had finally emerged from their academy, but the other party was only a Copper-tier necromancer.
He was too weak!
Principal Evan heard the vice principal’s concern, but he merely replied with an enigmatic smile, “Do you think that he’s a mere Copper-tier?”
“Is there... any doubt concerning that?” Doreen stared at the old lich in disbelief, wondering if his mind had finally begun to ail.
There were plenty of ways to conceal one’s true strength, but deceiving the eyes of a Half God-tier lich was no easy feat. There was no point doing that here, since that this was an academy and not the battlefield.
“What you should doubt is not his strength but his ambition. It’s hard for me to believe that someone who wants to be a demon king is only a Copper-tier necromancer. I would rather believe he had secrets we don’t know about.”
Principal Evan briefly paused before continuing, “I noticed this boy a long time ago. I know quite a few people in the Inner Circle, including Kaiser Clint. He was once my student.”
The Demon King Academy, as a place for high demons to enhance their portfolio, had produced many talents over the years... except for demon kings, of course.
“Kaiser Clint?” Doreen’s eyes narrowed in displeasure. “What does this have to do with him?”
Principal Evan shrugged. “Don’t you think they look similar? I noticed that from the day he stepped into the academy. They are practically made from the same mold, other than their eyes.”
“Ah?”
Doreen was stunned. Her eyes bulged as if she had heard something unbelievable.
“You’re saying he is Kaiser’s illegitimate...”
“Stop! I have never said that,” Principal Evan interjected. “I’m talking about Kaiser’s son, Lockser Clint. Have you forgotten? The ‘00 student!”
Doreen was confused.
‘’00? Which ‘00? 800, 900, or 1000?”
She had taught in the Demon King Academy for three hundred years and managed it for decades as vice principal. Having sent off many batches of graduates to date, she couldn’t possibly remember every single student.
Only one of them in this room was that carefree.
Principal Evan continued with a sigh, “Let’s stop here... I shouldn’t have dug into our student’s personal affairs, but Kaiser is both my student and an old friend, so I couldn’t resist the urge to investigate a little. The truth was as dramatic as I thought.”
“Dramatic.” Doreen glared at Principal Evan, knowing that he relished in drama.
Principal Evan could see through her thoughts, but he paid her no mind and continued, “The Clints will have a new patriarch in a few years’ time. Kaiser will be moving to the Clints’ Elder Council, and his son, Lockser, will be taking over his position. They will then decide the next successor during a family meeting.”
“What does that have to do with...”
“I can feel that child’s ambition! He desires his father’s acknowledgment, and that’s why he came to the Demon King Academy! Because only we can fulfill his dream!”
For some reason, the old lich suddenly got extremely excited. The green flames in his eye sockets blazed with fervor.
“He knows. Only with enough strength and influence can he be recognized by the Clints and receive the Embrace... Otherwise, he would be doomed to remain Copper his entire life!”
‘That’s just your imagination. Why is this old thing so obsessed over this? Or do all undead eventually turn mad?’
Doreen stared at Principal Evan.
“He’s just a child. Aren’t you overthinking it?”
“Child? Ha! You better not think of him as a child. I have never seen a human child who can resist a succubus, a feat that his father nor his father’s father failed at—Cough! I mean, the child is amazing!”
Realizing he had let something slip, Principal Evan hurriedly covered it with a cough and stopped gossiping.
Peering into others’ lives and influencing their life trajectory was one of his few joys as an unageing lich. He could skip in joy for an entire year if a chess piece with unlimited potential received an unprecedented fortuitous encounter because of him.
Still, spying was nothing honorable.
In any case, Roan was one of the chess pieces that he had high expectations of at the moment. He had never felt so eager to see a story’s climax and conclusion before.
“I know you don’t believe me, but I can feel it. He’s playing a huge game of chess. He will surpass everyone’s imagination.”
Doreen looked at the yapping principal with worried eyes.
“Even if that’s the case, is it really fine for us to interfere in the Clints’ internal affair? That’s the Clint Clan we’re dealing with...”
The Clints were one of the six noble clans governing the netherworld, frequenters of His Majesty Demon God’s Inner Circle...
Compared to such behemoths, the Demon King Academy couldn’t even count as a power. It was just a place to study at.
“Interfering in the Clints’ internal affair?” Principal Evan shook his head, laughing. “You think a millennium lich like me would be interested in that? Relax, I’m not overstepping my boundaries. I’m merely fulfilling my responsibilities as an elder.”
He finally reined in his smile and regained his usual poise.
“I’m helping him because he’s my student.”
“...”
‘I might have believed you if not for everything you have said.’