Ch.35Chapter 35

The Academy students were the type who could progress well on their own once given direction. This was possible because the Academy only accepted students with a certain level of academic achievement.

Yuria offered advice to just a few students who needed help before returning to her research lab.

As mentioned earlier, four people were seated there. Three, excluding Ourr.

The study group members. This was why Yuria had finished early and returned to the lab.

Typically, forming a study group meant more management responsibilities for professors, making it a nuisance. But for Yuria, who had taken on the role of Ourr’s guardian, it seemed like a good opportunity, so she created the group as soon as she found interested participants.

The third-year students needed to write graduation papers, so she could help them. The first-years could receive guidance from the third-years—whether through old exam papers or other means—to improve their grades. And someone with spare time among them could teach Ourr how to read and write.

She judged this arrangement to be clearly efficient.

Yuria thought it was important to first understand why the students had come, so she handed out sheets of paper.

“Here, I’ll give you these papers. Please write down why you joined the study group. Even something simple is fine.”

Sera, looking at her paper, pondered seriously. She wanted to write “I want to go to the Academy,” but since the purpose behind that was still unclear, she spent a long time thinking.

Aria, sitting across from Ourr, wrote quickly. ‘Graduation paper.’ It was her roundabout way of saying she came for Professor Yuria’s help. Though for something indirect, it was quite straightforward.

Karen glanced nervously at Yuria, and after seeing the professor nod, she began writing. She wrote that she wanted to study more in-depth. She immediately folded the paper in half, seemingly embarrassed to show it to others.

After a moment of silence, Sera finally wrote something down. Yuria thought it was time to collect the papers.

But Yuria’s voice didn’t come out.

For a moment, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She had asked them to write why they joined the study group, and seeing the word ‘human’ written small on Ourr’s paper felt like it was tearing her heart apart.

She thought about how there was a madman out there researching frantically to become a Demon God, while here was a Demon God who wanted to become human. She wondered what kind of world this had become.

Why do you want to become human? She wanted to ask. But the words wouldn’t come out. Everything felt like it was her fault, so she just kept quiet.

Whenever she recalled that day, she still felt like a villain, her heart breaking.

She could tell herself she couldn’t have known, that it was something impossible to predict, but every time she saw Ourr, she couldn’t rationalize it and just bowed her head.

Yuria always felt like a criminal in front of Ourr.

She bit her lip, blaming herself for treating Ourr like a child and for shining light on something strange inside her.

Ourr was concentrating on drawing a circle. Yuria thought she might be drawing a magic circle, but then Ourr drew another smaller circle inside. Realizing the sudden silence around her, Ourr looked up with a dazed expression.

“…Huh?”

Yuria looked at the pizza-like drawing Ourr had made and added that she would let her eat whatever she wanted.

Sera, Aria, and Karen seemed to share the same thought, immediately agreeing unanimously to make her comfortable.

**

Somehow, I ended up eating pizza in the Professor’s research lab. I’m not sure why the atmosphere suddenly changed like this, but anyway, I was absentmindedly chewing pizza in this quiet space.

When I bit into it and pulled my head back, the cheese stretched out. As the cheese snapped with a pop, I stuck out my tongue trying to catch it, making Sera, who was watching from beside me, chuckle.

“What are you doing, eating like that?”

“…The satisfaction of cheese.”

That was all I could answer.

As usual, I didn’t feel hunger, nor did I understand the sensation of a full stomach. In a body where I could simply not eat if there wasn’t enough, or eat everything if there was too much, eating something satisfyingly was rarely possible.

So in a situation where eating felt like going through the motions, what could I do to feel satisfaction?

I tried filling my mouth completely and chewing thoroughly to feel abundance, but that could lead to mannerism, and might cause the unfortunate incident of someone touching my cheeks for looking like a squirrel. So I had to find another method, and this was it.

Since it was cheese, stretching it out while eating was definitely fun—killing two birds with one stone.

“Nom.”

After eating the last thin strand of cheese, Aria got up and touched my lips.

It happened so suddenly that I was dazed, and then her finger moved to her own mouth.

“Oh, there was sauce on it.”

“Huh, what?”

Karen, sitting next to Aria, looked at me with a surprised expression, and so did the Professor. At the same time, Sera pointed at Aria in protest.

“Y-you, why are you eating that?”

“I can’t feed it to Ourr, can I?”

Well, that’s also a problem, but you could have just told me about it.

I wanted to object, but I decided to just keep chewing my cheese. I figured Sera would say something, and Aria would respond accordingly, so I let it go.

As I was chewing, the Professor gently brushed my hair and smiled.

“Is it delicious?”

“Yesh.”

She made a slightly choked-up expression, which gave me a strange feeling. I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination or not, so I tilted my head and looked at her.

“…Professor, aren’t you eating?”

I carefully asked, remembering how I had selfishly tried to reach into the vending machine before. The Professor patted my head as if proud of my consideration.

“Watching Ourr eat makes me full.”

Yet I’m the one who doesn’t need to eat.

Since I had a body that didn’t need food, whether others ate or not had nothing to do with me.

I never thought I’d realize that the world revolves around “oneself” like this, which made me feel a bit strange.

Anyway, as the Professor tried to brush it off saying she was fine not eating, I went “hmm” and stared at her for a while before putting down the pizza in my hand.

“You’re not eating anymore?”

Ignoring the Professor’s surprised voice, I picked up a new slice of pizza. I couldn’t give her what I had been eating.

The newly separated pizza slice still felt hot as not much time had passed. Using the minimum number of fingers that could withstand the heat, I held it out to the Professor.

“Professor, please eat…”

I already felt small, and sitting in the chair made me feel even shorter. Despite struggling, I stretched out both arms, and seeing this, the Professor smiled.

Holding both arms up high made me feel like I was being punished.

“My goodness, Ourr doing this makes the Professor happy.”

The Professor wore a genuinely happy expression as she took a bite of the pizza. She seemed to restrain her expression somewhat because Sera and the other students were present, but she couldn’t help humming softly.

The Professor took the pizza from me after taking a big bite. Thanks to her quick response, my arms were freed. My clothes were already heavier than my size, but now that weight was gone.

Catching my breath, I made a “phew” sound and tried to continue eating my pizza. The Professor slightly held out her pizza to me.

“Would Ourr like a bite?”

“Uh, okay.”

I wanted to say I had my own, but sometimes people can’t say what they want to due to the atmosphere. This was exactly that situation.

The Professor’s mood seemed to fluctuate a bit, which worried me, so I silently took a bite, hoping to reduce any mood swings.

I didn’t intend to take what the Professor was eating, but I felt a bit self-conscious.

I could see Sera, Aria, and Karen all staring at the Professor and me. As I sweated under the gaze of three pairs of eyes, proposals bordering on protests came rushing in.

“Ourr, e-eat my pizza too…!”

“I’ll fill your mouth completely.”

Sera and Aria aggressively brought their pizza over.

Startled, I quickly chewed the pizza in my mouth and swallowed it with my eyes tightly shut. I gasped and tried to back away, but sitting in a chair, I had nowhere to retreat.

As I frantically turned my head looking at Sera and Aria in horror, Karen carefully tore a piece of pizza with her hand.

I thought nobody ate like that these days, but it seemed she wasn’t eating it herself as she stood up from her seat.

“…F-friends usually eat like this.”

She approached me and held out the pizza piece. Though misshapen from being torn by hand, she offered it as if it was perfectly fine.

As I stared at it, she popped it into my mouth. Somehow I ended up looking like I was sucking on Karen’s fingers, but she acted like it was nothing and put the rest of the cheese into my mouth.

Everyone eats like this…? This seems a bit much, I thought, when Sera next to me exclaimed in admiration.

“This is what first-years are like… not easy.”