episode_0015

‘What on earth is that Raypier thinking…’

Astoria was deep in thought on her way back to her dorm room after meeting Raypier.

He always kept a smiling facade, but it seemed his true feelings were completely different.

Even when she threatened to kill him, he spoke as if he knew everything about her, in a tone that implied she could never harm him. Astoria couldn’t help but feel provoked.

‘That person called the Reaper needs to come quickly…!’

Astoria sat on her bed, vowing revenge.

She was grateful that he hadn’t reported her to the church and had let her off, but his attitude displeased her greatly, making her angry.

Knock knock

As she held her chin with both hands, suppressing her anger, she suddenly heard someone knocking on the window.

At the sound, Astoria turned around, and there, a shadow sat on the railing.

“Um… who are you…?”

Astoria cautiously approached the figure, wondering if it might be the Reaper, and the shadow replied with an odd interjection.

“Yes, I am… I am the Reaper… *kuhk*..”

The shadow touched where its eyes would be, answering Astoria’s question with a greasy voice.

“Who… are you, again?”

Astoria momentarily doubted her ears.

“The Reaper, the great Reaper of the Demonic Cult, is I, Jack.”

The shadow stood up from the railing to proclaim its greatness, but it stumbled for a moment.

Its struggle to barely balance on the railing, flailing its arms, left Astoria dumbfounded.

“How long will you leave this Reaper outside…? A great being has come, so you should receive me… Shouldn’t you… *kuhkuhk*…”

“Ah, yes.”

‘What kind of weirdo has come?’

Astoria shot a contemptuous look at the shadow and opened the window to let the self-proclaimed Reaper, who was barely standing on the railing, come inside.

As she opened the window, a woman stood on the railing, striking an odd pose.

Covering her entire face with one hand, she had placed her massive scythe beside her and was about to speak.

“I… uh… uh… uh…?”

The weight of the huge scythe was far heavier than the Reaper’s strength could support, and she flailed again, about to fall backward.

“Save meeeeee!!!!”

The Reaper, not considering the size of her scythe, kept doing that and eventually fell off the railing.

However, Astoria approached the spot with a truly enlightened expression, as if she had mastered everything, and stared at the Reaper lying still on the ground.

“Ahhhh!!! It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts!!!”

‘This… is a proper disciple…?’

The person called the Reaper was lying sprawled in the garden, rolling around.

“Um… this is the first floor…? Most dorms here are on the first floor…”

Astoria said to the Reaper with extreme pity, and as soon as the Reaper heard her, she stopped rolling around, grabbed the scythe next to her, and said,

“I, who am more overwhelming than anyone, would never do such a thing. I, who can read the hearts of surrounding nature, cried for nature that suffered when my scythe fell… Ah, I shall grant you the opportunity to praise my benevolence! O prospective disciple!”

The one called the Reaper stood up abruptly on the spot and spoke proudly.

Astoria continued to wear an expression that suggested if Buddha truly existed in this world, he would be making that exact face when looking at her.

“It would be much more believable if you just said you warped directly to the railing and made a mistake…”

“No! Well, that might be true… No! I, the overwhelming one, do not make mistakes! Be!cause!”

The Reaper, who had entered the room, once again covered her face with her hand, fixed her eyes on Astoria, and said,

“I am the Reaper.”

‘Why the Demonic Cult names and sends such a weirdo as a Reaper, I really don’t know…’

Astoria sighed internally and asked her with a sigh,

“So, did you come with information on the enemy we’re facing?”

Then Jack went right up to her and pointed her scythe at Astoria’s neck.

“Such information is a luxury for the likes of me. The only mercy I can bestow upon my opponent is to engage in battle with as little information as possible! That is how it is!”

Her white bob swayed as she spoke, and her height, even shorter than Astoria’s, gave her a childlike impression.

Astoria simply couldn’t believe that such a person was a proper disciple of the Demonic Cult.

As Astoria sighed, Jack suddenly looked around, then pulled out a hidden cookie from a corner and abruptly started eating it.

“Um… that’s my…”

“I am granting your wish now, but do you think it’s right for me to listen without any offering? Ah, ah, truly lamentable! It wasn’t like this in the era I lived in!”

“Um… you’re not much older than I am…”

“I do not care for age! I merely exist in all eras and overwhelm all beings… Anyway, this cookie is delicious!”

Jack was gobbling down the cookie as if she hadn’t eaten in a long time.

Astoria just stared at her silently.

‘Still… even like this, who knows what might happen in battle… She might even defeat Raypier…’

“Surely you’re not thinking that I cannot kill the target you wish to eliminate…?”

As Astoria stared at her with pitying eyes for a long time, Jack, sensing something, asked her,

With her mouth full of cookie crumbs.

“Yes.”

Astoria, without a single moment of hesitation, blurted out the words she had kept only in her mind.

“Even though I am an already overwhelming being, I have not neglected my training. So what makes you think you know enough to disparage this great me?”

“What kind of training did you do to be so boastful…?”

To Astoria, who was now almost in a state of resignation, Jack excitedly opened her mouth.

“First! I moved my residence to a dungeon! It was an unavoidable choice to train even harder…”

“Proper disciples are provided with beds and such, aren’t they…?”

Astoria was no longer even using honorifics.

“Such things only lower my vigilance! To be a true Reaper and a great being, one must have no weaknesses! I even sleep while remaining alert!”

‘She’s just an idiot… Why is she creating self-inflicted losses…?’

“Furthermore, I even make my own meals!”

“No, seriously, why would a proper disciple of the Demonic Cult, with full room and board provided, do such things…?”

Jack was no longer listening to Astoria, lost in her own world, giving Astoria her own lecture.

‘I just wish Raypier would come and kill her…’

She even missed Raypier now.

***

‘Hm…?’

I felt something strange in my room.

I had been casually scanning the entire academy and noticed that something had warped in the direction Astoria had gone.

Given the weapon strapped to its back that didn’t suit its body, and its not-so-tall stature, the probability of it being the Reaper was extremely high.

“Ha… my anti-demon power is lacking…”

It wasn’t my place to say that, as I had used a Mind Sword while talking, but the Reaper showed even worse chunibyo symptoms towards enemies, making her more fearsome than anyone I had faced so far.

Of course, it would end if I just killed the Reaper, but,

‘If I kill a proper disciple, not just a prospective one, the Demonic Cult might retaliate with something even bigger… Scaring them off and sending them back seems like the best method…’

I hadn’t mastered all the Sethus-style techniques, nor could I use that strange weapon that could be stored in a Mind Sword, so I simply shook my head and thought.

‘Wait a minute… The Reaper isn’t a particularly strong proper disciple… She’s famous, but not for her strength… So, perhaps Astoria is from the Demonic Cult…?’

My thought was close to the truth, but only close.

If this thought were correct, I could have just killed the Reaper and protected my eardrums, so I wished I had pursued this thought a little further, but,

‘No way, even if she’s a prospective disciple, she’s been faithfully working for the Demonic Cult for a long time, would she betray them…?’

I had considered the Demonic Cult a very loyal group.

Knock knock

Someone knocked on my mind, which was full of thoughts about the Reaper.

I looked towards the window, and a dark shadow sat there.

‘No one else would be doing such idiotic things besides the Reaper.’

Coming to this conclusion, I was about to approach her, but the shadow spoke in a relaxed voice.

“This is the first floor, so it should be easy to come to the garden. Don’t rush. It’s a matter of hurrying your demise. I’ll let you say your last words to a friend.”

The Reaper seemed to be speaking with her hand on her chest.

Picturing the scene, the Reaper had been speaking with her eyes closed from the start.

As if she were something grand.

After leaving such words, the Reaper turned around and was about to take a step into the air.

“Um,”

By the time I opened my mouth, she had already stepped into the air.

“This is the third floor, though.”