"Children, discomfort any?"
Lushan posed the question as we soared through the skies of hell at speeds that left a trail of clouds behind us. He was using his flight magic on us, manipulating wind at the perfect amounts to shoot past.
It required a degree of calculations I couldn't see as anything but wasteful. Using my shields was rather simpler since it was a single object, and it also allowed me to control many at once.
That said, Principal Lushan who could do it like an old backpacker could grill meat was pretty formidable in his own right.
"Leaving behind a lot of memories, huh?" Noa muttered.
I said we were flying, but it was more like the two of us were sitting still while the principal was dragging us around.
"We can always come back," I said.
"Yeah, sounds fun to me. I'd like to fight that tree again."
"Right? And I want to meet octopunk too."
Thankfully, I had put back the motorcycle and the extra wyvern stone we had in my spatial dimension. Albert would probably lose his nuts when I show it to him.
"We should also go to that hotel again…" Noa said.
My, bold.
"Are my students engaging in promiscuous activities too now? There are no rules against it, but I would appreciate it if you spill the tea over some cookies in my office at a later appointment."
"Nosy, Mr. Principal."
"I do not wish to hear that from you, Student Eugene. That said, gossip, me, totes interested, you can call me the love guru of our academy. Did you know I played cupid for the principals of Volkash and Poseidon Academy?"
"No way!" I said. "I thought fire and water would never get along."
"But it's sweet to see two opposites get like that right? They had an entire enemies-to-lovers act going on!"
"Tell me all about it."
"Gross." Noa seemed to have some problem with our problem-student-principal bonding.
After flying around for a bit more, we came to the view of a large-scale battle taking place.
Demons, fighting in the middle of a large barren stretch of land. Demons with the heads of crocodiles and hawks and the usual octopi and humanoids were clashing with other demons with the heads of crocodiles and hawks and the usual octopi and humanoids. The only thing separating the two groups, aside from the colored headbands on their horns was the leader of both groups.
One was a constantly coughing and water-chugging humanoid demon, and the other was an unperturbed stone-like human.
"That's Ms. Rio von Athenus from the Atreus Empire. She's the daughter of a duke and even she was dragged to hell because of you kids."
Hey!
That would make Ms. Swordsmanship professor a distant relative of Lethe.
"Miss Rio!!" Lushan screamed from above. "Gaze skyward!"
This discount Gandalf sure tried to speak all mysteriously.
"It's because he's over a hundred." Noa, perhaps reading my mind, explained.
There was a very unsettling overlap between the ladies I had laid with and the ones that could read my mind for some reason, Lethe aside.
The swordsmanship professor looked up and waved at us. She stopped in her tracks, likely when she saw the two of us.
The war below stopped, and Lushan descended.
"Principal, it seems you found the students," said Miss Rio. It felt like we were being treated like actual students that had been lost in some weird place even though we killed a demon lord. But well, everything that been pretty strange since that killing part so I was just flowing with it.
"And it seems Noa Roselle is alive too!" Miss Swordsmanship professor raised Noa without any fluctuation on her face and flipped her around, it seemed she was inspecting her for injuries.
"Eugene, did you run all the way here to bring her out of hell?"
"That's not—"
"It is so, huh?"
???
"I can tell, I am your teacher after all."
No seriously—
Actually, let's just flow with it.
In a way, it wasn't wrong since Noa would have come down here whether I did or not.
Noa didn't deny it either, it seemed she was tired too.
"Well, then. Take care Agares' cronies."
"Hey, don't take our lord's name so easy!"
"Yeah, call him grandfather at least."
Were we always this chill with demons, or is it just this principal that's a weirdo? Circumstantial evidence was pointing toward the latter for now.
After wrapping up a quick goodbye, Lushan snapped his fingers again and now three of us were being dragged away.
We were now going past the city we had met octopunk at. Noa and I noticed him and the deer and waved away, the two saw us and ran away too. How touching.
Miss Swordsmanship Professor demanded a lot of clarification from me and Noa, but it was mostly about what we had eaten and where we had slept instead of what we were up to.
And soon, we reached the last place, the city of Agares where the old man we had met a while back resided.
"Now, how do we locate Miss Irina."
"Wait who?" I asked.
"Miss Irina Leslet, your homeroom teacher."
Fuck. She was here too?
The times that I had met her were when Dantalian was still trying to make quick work of me.
Thankfully, we didn't have to look for her since Miss Irina…
… Was in the process of setting the entire city on fire.
With a torch in her hand, she had somehow covered the entire city with inflammable liquids.
"Troublesome. Student Eugene, may I ask you to handle this?"
"Want me to start the flames?"
"Give the city a thorough wash, please. Agares has been quite helpful so we can't push his buttons this far."
I sighed.
"Reduce whatever punishment you're cooking up."
"Sly. I'd rather do it myself."
Don't try to act tough in front of me.
"You're drained from your battle, principal. Deal or no deal? We don't have time."
Irina Lester's loud cackles had started reaching us. She probably fit right in with the demons here considering what she was doing.
"Problem child to the end. I'll accept the deal."
"I'll hold you to it."
With those words, I clapped my hands together and gathered all the refined mana, arcana, inside my core and formed a giant magic circle.
The ethereal magic circle took a while to shape up, but I just had to make it rain.
Covering an entire city was tough, it used up almost all of my reserves. The efficiency would be increased when I start using Aether, just like it had with World's End.
"[Water Magic: Cloudburst]"
The magic circle spun.
And an extreme amount of water came crashing down into the city. The torch was doused off and so was the inflammable liquid, followed by Irina Lester's face as her hair fell on her. Demons stepped out of their houses and started dancing as the great downpour spurred on.
The strangeness continued, it seemed.
Lushan, with a flick of his hand, covered us from the rain with a barrier and dragged us toward Irina Lester.
"Miss Irina, good work out there. We'll be needing the corpses you've made."
"Principal…? Miss Rio too… and—HUH!?"
Irina Lester screamed out loud.
"N-Noa Roselle!? How in the world!?!"
Noa and I looked at each other.
And then sighed in relief.
"Finally, a normal reaction."
"I was starting to think I was the mad one."
"Hey! Brats, is that supposed to be a jab at me?"
We shook our heads.
Irina cracked her knuckles while laughing.
"Also, Eugene Hall. Did you come here anticipating I was going to send you to hell?"
Hah, what a pain.
As much as I appreciated the normal reaction, I didn't want to hear this person blabber.
"We were just here to kill a demon lord," I said.
Irina stopped in her tracks.
Thanks to the previous misunderstanding, even Miss swordsmanship professor took our side.
"That's true, Student Eugene was here to bring out Noa Roselle. I can tell."
Sorry for flirting with you every morning and still not remembering your name! I'll remember this favor!
Irina clasped her head and sighed.
"Fine," she said. "Let's go back."
***
[A/N: Next Chapters are the end of the volume and the rest is going to be a .5 again (smutty ofc). We're almost near done with the first part of the entire story. Thanks for reading everyone!]
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