CHAPTER 49: CHAT WITH PRINCIPAL.

"Principal Morvana wishes to meet you."

I got up from my chair ready to follow the guy, but before I could even take a step, he snapped his finger and a swirling black portal appeared straight below me, without any warning.

Naturally, gravity, being the clingy little shit it is, did its job with terrifying enthusiasm as I was pulled into the portal before I could even react.

I had a few guesses as to why Morvana wanted to see me.

Maybe because of Bearlo.

Maybe because of how stunningly competent I was.

Maybe she just wanted to offer me a job as Vice Principal.

I mean, she would have been stupid to not know my brilliance.

So, her calling me was just a matter of time.

And I wasn’t afraid.

Why would I be?

Not like she was going to eat me. And there was no use of being afraid.

Fear, after all, is the most useless emotion. It clouds judgment at the exact moment you need clarity.

I calmly fell through a stretch of endless space...

Before a blinding light assaulted my eyes like reality itself had decided to flashbang me.

And then—

I landed on the softest surface I had ever touched.

Two pillows fluffed themselves behind my head as a warm scent like vanilla surrounded me.

I felt like I was in heaven.

And no, I wasn’t exaggerating.

This wasn’t just soft. This was spiritually transcendent.

Is it a couch?

I tried to open my eyes but everything was still a bit blurry.

I could feel the warmth, the softness... and something beneath me that breathed.

Wait.

Breathed?

I swear, I just felt a soft breath on my neck.

Then an amused and dangerously casual voice echoed from underneath me.

"Ahh. You’re here."

I slowly turned toward the couch.

Something was wrong, very, very wrong.

My eyes cleared as I saw what I was sitting on.

I wasn’t sitting on the couch. Not even on a pillow.

I was sitting on her.

On Principal Morvana’s lap.

As she sat, completely unbothered, on an obsidian throne like this was the most normal thing in the world.

I stared at her for a moment, she stared back with a smile.

Fuck.

I immediately jumped out of her lap.

Fate, you bitch.

Was that bastard Astravore not enough to screw me that you want to add even the demon king to the list?

Morvana wasn’t just principal, she was the seventh wife of Demon King.

By now, one thing was clear: This fucking fate was trying to get me killed because of some married woman.

I composed myself almost immediately as my lips curled into an impeccable smile.

Thankfully the damage wasn’t much... and it wasn’t my mistake.

If someone is to blame, it was that bastard Azriel who threw me directly into her lap.

I looked at the woman in front of me.

Principal Morvana sat in front of me with her white hair cascading like moonlight and violet eyes filled with a dangerous sort of amusement.

In one of her hands was a book.

Then there were those pillows.

And by "pillows," I meant the pair of unreasonably colossal assets that had clearly committed war crimes against gravity.

"Sorry, Principal Morvana, it seems Professor Azriel mistakenly teleported me to the wrong coordinates."

The first thing I did was push the responsibility on that hollow bastard. I mean, he was indeed the reason for my predicament.

But something else confused me even more.

Why didn’t she dodge?

She was at SS-Rank. So, she should have felt me falling from the portal and yet she didn’t move.

Did she not care?

Or do I release some hidden charm that makes married women vulnerable?

Either way, I couldn’t afford to get lost in cursed thoughts about gravity or seductively terrifying women, especially a married one.

I think I understand my father from my previous life now. His advice wasn’t simple when he said, "Son, don’t sleep with married women."

I think he knew something, I didn’t. Maybe he broke some matrix on his deathbed.

I straightened my back and shifted gears.

"Why did you want to meet me, Principal?"

I cut straight to the point without useless bullshit.

"Straight to the point, are we?" Morvana said, amused. "Good, I like that."

She didn’t say anything about the incident either.

I mean, she was a lady thirty years older than me.

Flustering over some accidental lap pillow scene? Nah. That would’ve been weirder than the incident itself.

"I will also just get straight to the point, what is that crimson-furred bear?" Her voice was soft, but I could feel the excitement hidden behind it.

Ahh, so she indeed called me because of Bearlo.

I mean, of course it was. I didn’t remember the exact name—since she wasn’t a major character in the novel—but her Nexus had something to do with beast taming.

So yeah, her curiosity made perfect sense.

My expression didn’t change in the slightest. My skill [Poker Face] was as active as ever.

"He is my familiar beast." I kept my voice perfectly calm.

"Hmm. I see," Morvana nodded. "But isn’t it... a little strange for a martial-path resonator to have a familiar?"

I didn’t flinch.

Of course she knew.

The Empire made it standard practice to verify the Nexus paths of all newly awakened.

Although no-one else except oneself could know the exact Nexus, the people of this world had a way to check the path of Nexus depending on various mana frequencies released by the resonators.

But I didn’t go through the regular route.

Thanks to my father’s influence, my Nexus had been officially registered as B+ Rank Martial path one.

Just the way I wanted it.

"It might be a bit unusual," I said with a smile, "but it’s because of my Nexus-exclusive skill."

This wasn’t a lie. And I was carefully avoiding those on purpose.

See, once people hit a certain level, they start developing that terrifying sixth sense for bullshit.

Lie to someone like Morvana and she wouldn’t just catch it, she would play you with it.

So, I stuck to the truth. As for how I twist it using different tones and interpretations, yeah, that was the trick.

"I see, I see." She nodded, her interest from before gone as if it never existed to begin with.

I could guess the reason behind it.

You see, talking beasts weren’t unheard of. There were a few obscure rituals and methods to teach animals human speech. Still, that was rare.

So, for a brief moment, she probably thought Bearlo was something... exceptional.

But then I said the magic words—familiar, Nexus skill—and just like that, the mystery crumbled into something boring and explainable.

She knew my Nexus was only B+ ranked.

Not trash, sure. But definitely not enough to tame something truly dangerous.

So in her mind Bearlo got filed under: interesting but not worth much.

And honestly, even if she had known he was special, I doubted she would’ve tried to steal him.

Because unlike what most outsiders believed... demons weren’t cunning tricksters or backstabbing bastards.

No, demons were honour-bound maniacs.

They valued honour more than their own lives.

And stealing from someone weaker wasn’t just frowned upon. It was considered crude and disgraceful.

And a crime punishable by death according to demon laws established by the demon king himself.

If you ignore the death-filled schedule and the staff’s charming indifference to student death... Noxvalen might actually be safer than most human academies.

Because unlike Human academies, I didn’t have to worry about some wrinkled old snake of a professor stealing my opportunities while spouting lines like—

"You are courting death."

In Noxvalen, if you earn it, you keep it.

No one would dare to steal what’s rightfully yours.

Morvana was probably just curious about Bearlo. She didn’t have any plans to take him away.

Still, I didn’t want to take any chances.

"You may leave now. Azriel is waiting for you outside."

Morvana waved her hand dismissively and picked up her book again, already looking past me, losing all her interest in me.

I didn’t wait either.

I just turned and left.

A vast corridor stretched before me.

At the end I saw Azriel casually leaning on the wall with his eyes closed.

The moment I came within ten steps, he opened one eyelid slightly and snapped his fingers.

Fuck, not again.

Before I could so much as blink, the floor beneath me rippled. A swirling black portal opened and I fell.

Again.

But this time, there was no soft surface... instead I landed with a dull thud.

Through it all, my cloak didn’t so much as flutter because I had told the little bastard not to even breathe until I said so.

Thankfully for once it listened. Probably understanding the seriousness.

I got up, brushed nonexistent dust from my shoulder, and looked around.

I was no longer in the orientation hall.

Instead, I stood in an open clearing surrounded by students—Some familiar human faces, others clearly demon or dragon-blooded.

And in front of us, stretching far into the horizon was a forest cloaked in a dense mist.

The Forest of Unmasked.

Even from here, I could feel a faint pull from within it.

But I didn’t care.

Because right in front of me stood a face I hadn’t seen in years.

White hair, crimson eyes and detached expression as if he didn’t care about anything at all.

Noah Ashen Noctharion.

The protagonist of this world and also the character designed after my best friend.