Eventually, Iria ended up gulp eating a human nearby. It was one of the members of a crime organization that hadn’t completely vanished yet.
They often used the back alley for trading illegal goods, and Iria just happened to catch one of them.
There were two of them, but taking both at once felt a bit excessive, so she let one go after erasing his memory.
A little later, with blood smeared on her lips, she sauntered through the back alley.
Though she looked human, for her, murder was like instinct, straight out of a monster handbook.
Killing and sipping blood while momentarily putting her reason aside felt utterly delightful.
The sensation of crushing something alive and the rush of sweet blood flowing into her mouth paralyzed her sanity. So much so that when she drank, her memory blurred, much like being tipsy.
Her breaths were ragged. Her body was hot, and her feelings were through the roof.
That’s just how it is when pent-up desires are unleashed all at once.
She’d been avoiding unnecessary murders, worried she might become addicted, but now Iria shivered at that spine-chilling sensation.
Deep down, she wanted to gobble down another person just to cling to this feeling.
Clad in blood, she looked less like a student of the Academy and more like a bona fide killer.
It was the true face of a monster hiding behind a mask of a student.
Today too, Iria blended in among humans, concealing her ugly features.
She was the hidden monster within the Academy.
*
Once she filled her belly and regained her senses, things that were invisible to her while hungry began to manifest.
Iria attended the Academy, listened to the lecture, and spent time hanging out with Ariel and Sera.
Surprisingly, other than that, nothing else happened. Just like any ordinary day.
Though she didn’t dislike the peaceful atmosphere, it felt a tad strange, just about the time to notice something was off.
Ariel was the protagonist of this world. Iria was now certain of that.
It used to be a doubt, but now it was a conviction.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense. The various circumstances were screaming it.
Ariel was the protagonist, and this was a world from a novel.
Usually, when someone’s a protagonist, don’t things start getting all chaotic around them? Iria tilted her head slightly.
Still, it felt overly peaceful lately, didn’t it?
“Hmm.”
“What are you thinking about?”
Iria was pondering in her seat when Sera poked her. Annoyed, Iria jabbed at Sera’s wound with her finger.
Normally, she’d back off after this.
“Hehe, sorry but it’s all healed up! You can’t get under my skin now!”
Yet, the effect was minimal.
Time had passed, and Sera seemed even healthier than before.
She had a wound that should have taken a month to heal, but Sera was frolicking around, completely recovered in just two weeks.
It was remarkable natural healing power. Honestly, could Sera even be human?
Nah, that’s impossible.
Iria jabbed Sera’s wound once more.
“Ugh?!”
Yep, looks like she was still holding back from healing entirely with her resilience.
“Ugh! D-Don’t!”
Iria poked her again just to tease.
Planning to mess with her a bit more, she noticed tears welling up in Sera’s eyes, so she stopped. Even if they’re close, going too far could ruin their relationship.
After shaking off the clingy Sera, Iria fell back into deep thought.
No matter how she looked at it, being around Ariel felt way too peaceful for her taste. She thought there’d be some incidents popping up.
Iria knew this world was a novel. She had run various experiments to confirm that the world she knew was indeed right.
But she didn’t know the plot. She had eaten humans and lost most of her memories from her human days.
Being memory-less, all she was aware of was that this was a novel world.
Even though things were peaceful now, she figured it wouldn’t be odd if an incident were to strike at any moment.
Eventually, if she was indeed reincarnated into a novel, the main episodes would definitely be in play.
‘······Maybe the original plot got twisted up.’
Perhaps Iria had muddled things up just by being there. What was supposed to happen may not have taken place after all.
But there’s no way to find that out now, is there?
Iria sighed softly and redirected her attention. She was watching Ariel having his meal on the roof of the Academy.
Because she had just poisoned Ariel’s meal.
The blood of a monster becomes a lethal poison when it enters a human body. The magical energy within the blood destroys the body from inside out.
Iria dripped a drop of thickly infused magical energy blood into Ariel’s meal. This wasn’t a vicious act; it was simply curiosity.
She was just wondering if he would die from this.
“······.”
Ariel continued eating, completely unaware. At this concentration, a normal human would have died immediately, but Ariel seemed fine.
Looking closer, the starlight within him was purifying the magical energy.
The terrifying aspect of magical energy is that it destroys the body’s mana, but since he had none, it looked like he was unaffected.
Tsk, Iria clicked her tongue. Though there weren’t many visible changes, this time, her brows seemed slightly furrowed.
As she stood there, staring blankly, Ariel tilted his head. Was it perhaps because Iria’s red gaze was overwhelming?
“Did you get something on my face?”
“Nope.”
Another failure today.
Iria was waiting for another chance, just like always.
After the Demon King was slain, most of the remaining remnants of the Demon King’s army were wiped out by Sertia before the curse could manifest.
However, there were limits to how many monsters could be eradicated single-handedly, of course.
The warrior Elion, who had been covering the frontline of their three-member party, perished along with the Demon King, and Saint Karen had succumbed to the curse first, making her unable to fight.
Left alone in the party, the mage buried over half of the demon kind in the ground and retired without receiving any help.
This happened roughly twenty years ago.
The Demon King’s army, bereft of their leader, plunged into chaos. They hadn’t just lost their leader; they had lost most of their kin as well.
The memory of their defeat at the hands of a single human had rooted itself in their minds like a nightmare.
Thus for a time, they lived quietly, like mice in hiding, wary of the legendary mage from the past.
And now?
“It’s time to attack the Empire.”
One of the few remaining executives from the Demon King’s army proposed.
The ones present here were those who had lived in fear of humans. Once regarded as inferior beings in the distant past, they were now remnants of the defeated, who nearly faced extinction.
What kind of race are humans anyway?
Compared to demons, their physical capabilities were weak, and they couldn’t even regenerate their bodies.
And that’s not all.
They were easily susceptible to sickness and even had a shorter lifespan than demons.
They were a lower race that fell short in every aspect, unworthy of any caution, until they got wiped out by three superhumans.
What about now…
They couldn’t see Sertia moving, hiding away in case she decided to act.
The humiliation of defeat isn’t something that fades easily, no matter how much time passes. They were still plotting their revenge.
Sertia doesn’t move.
For all the incidents they had caused thus far, the mage they feared the most had yet to reveal herself.
She had been quiet for twenty years, so it was likely she wouldn’t move again now.
“That monster was ultimately human, huh? Looks like her lifespan as a mage has run out.”
“That’s quite a stretch; considering she’s held out this long, how many corpses has she amassed?”
“If it weren’t for that woman, we could’ve wiped out the remaining humans a long time ago.”
“How many times are we going to revisit this topic… You were too scared to even step out yourself.”
“What?! You’re saying I didn’t meet her on the battlefield! I almost got turned into a kebob!”
Most of those who survived by fleeing the battlefield had extensively etched Sertia’s fear into their bones.
Consequently, they had been keeping a low profile.
“But, isn’t she not moving now? If not now, when do we get a shot at revenge? These humans could barely handle a monster, acting like mere guppies. They’re born in an era after the war.”
“You’ve got a point there.”
“We’ll head to the Empire soon. We owe her a debt.”
For a long time, Sertia had been safeguarding the Empire.
For them, it was a golden opportunity.
Though their activity had been slow of late, their objectives still remained unchanged from the past to the present.
Destruction of humanity and the demonization of the continent.
In that regard, it made sense to eliminate any budding threats as soon as possible.
The first place they intended to assault was the Academy of the Empire.
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