I Swear I'm Not a Demon Masquerading as a Human

A strange, deep crimson clung to the lush green leaves. Droplets of blood slid slowly down the petals, their pungent odor shattering the peace. Lillete fought desperately to suppress the surge of glee rising within her and keep the corners of her mouth from twitching.

She was certain that Hyperion would never dare to attack Immortal Quicksilver. After all, if the young woman were to approach it, she would have to guard against the possibility of Lillete and the summons colluding to launch a sneak attack.

Only Lillete herself could confidently and boldly move to kill Immortal Quicksilver. For Hyperion, this was effectively a hidden death trap!

In the distance, Hyperion clearly had realized this as well, so she slumped to the ground in utter despair. Meanwhile, Lillete rushed toward the Immortal Quicksilver without a moment's hesitation.

Lance briefly shifted his gaze from the pages of his book and caught sight of the cultist, who was frenziedly mutilating her summoned beast. The outlaw seemed keen on staging a performance. She even occasionally let the silvery monstrosity counterattack her, making it appear as though she were truly a mortal enemy of the creature. Of course, this was all in a desperate bid to frame Hyperion.

Lance turned to look at Hyperion, who was sitting on the ground. Their eyes met and he winked subtly. It was a signal that the plan was proceeding perfectly.

Hyperion's eyes were filled with speechlessness and resignation. She felt that even if Lance had simply used his two demon teachers to stall the cultist, he wouldn't necessarily have lost. Of course, resolving the situation without bloodshed was ideal.

However, she strongly suspected that Lance simply wanted to witness the cultist's mental breakdown when she eventually learned the truth and realized she had been thoroughly toyed with.

***

A few minutes later, on the chaotic, debris-strewn lawn of the botanical garden, the head of the Magic Department and Lillete had finally succeeded in eliminating the summoned silver alien entity through their combined efforts.

Lillete breathed a sigh of relief and glanced toward the headmaster. She believed that the plot had successfully been played out. Next, the headmaster would help her deal with that duke's daughter.

However, that sense of relief lasted for less than a second. The moment she let her guard down, a deathly, inhuman magical force struck from her side. It was sudden and unannounced, like a thunderclap coming from a clear sky. The head of the Magic Department had ambushed her!

Lillete's reflexes were extraordinary. She had sensed the danger in a split second, and her body had contorted instinctively to dodge the lethal blow. Even so, her outer garment was slashed open by the magical force. Blood seeped from the wound, staining her dress a gruesome crimson. In that instant, terror flooded Lillete's heart once more.

In the distance, the headmaster was still reading while Hyperion remained seated on the ground. The scene was so peaceful that it appeared as though the headmaster had no intention of fulfilling his promise to execute Hyperion.

"Why?!"

Lillete parried the head of the Magic Department's lethal onslaught, her eyes filled with shock and bewilderment. Had she not reacted quickly enough, she might well have lost her life right there. Meanwhile, one of the demon instructors beside the headmaster had already sprung into action, striking directly at the Rank 2 hex caster and severing his head.

The department head of the Magic Department mockingly sneered, "You fool, did you think you could deceive the esteemed headmaster?"

He had, of course, grasped the headmaster's scheme. He was filled with awe at the man's extraordinary wisdom, akin to that of a Great Sage of the demon race. With nothing more than a few simple remarks, the headmaster had manipulated this rule-breaking student into personally destroying her own troublesome silver summon!

"Isn't the headmaster supposed to be neutral?!"

Lillete's heart pounded like a drumbeat out of control, rapid, chaotic, and frenzied. The crushing weight of reality made her mind tremble. She didn't understand why this Shadow Realm challenge was so unfair. It was as if, no matter how she had navigated the plot earlier, she was destined to be the one executed!

"I am, of course, neutral. But you were the one who violated school rules, and yet you tried to turn the tables on a model student. If I don't execute you, who should I execute?" Lance responded calmly, looking as though he were merely leafing through a book in his own garden. He didn't even spare a single glance at the buzzing pest before him.

Meanwhile, Hyperion, who had been sitting on the ground, finally dropped the act. A smile of vindictive satisfaction spread across her face, and it was a smile that was clearly meant to mock Lillete.

The scene unfolding before her eyes gave the cultist a fleeting, disorienting impression, a suspicion that the headmaster was, in fact, showing blatant, unfair favoritism toward Hyperion!

Hyperion turned to look at Lance as she asked, "Lance, can I tell her the truth now?"

Lance's fingertips brushing over the pages of his book without even looking up as he responded, "Haven't you already revealed the truth?"

Lance...? Just as Lillete's shock and sense of injustice reached their absolute peak, she heard Hyperion call the headmaster by his name. Lance!

An absurd yet terrifying hypothesis suddenly exploded in her mind like a thunderclap. At the same time, a multitude of puzzling details seemed to converge and connect within her thoughts.

Why had Hyperion's teammate been nowhere to be found? Why was this Radiant Demon's mana power so immense that it was almost impossible to detect? And why had the headmaster allowed the challengers to successfully clear the mechanics earlier?

As all these questions intertwined, the revelation that Lance was the headmaster unlocked the answer to everything!

"Could it be... that you are Lance?" It was the only explanation the cultist could find.

"Indeed, I am the headmaster, that is correct." With elegant composure, Lance took the nameplate he had originally acquired in the music classroom from his pocket and pinned it to his chest. It was as if he were telling Lillete that he was not only the headmaster, but also an official subject teacher at the school.

His attitude, never once deigning to look her directly in the eye, underscored the vast disparity in their respective statuses within the academy.

"Aaaah!! Lance! You bastard!!!" Lillete's scream tore through the air. Her fury and despair echoed amid the foliage of the botanical garden.

Her eyes were red and swollen. The bloodshot veins within them were ready to spill over with a vivid crimson. She finally realized she had been played for a fool, led around by the nose by this bastard.

Not only had she been deceived earlier in the headmaster's office by the clear hierarchy between him and the demon instructors, but she also had been beguiled by his aura and his words into personally destroying her greatest hope for escape. Meanwhile, the corridor was already packed with a multitude of demon teachers, waiting only for the headmaster's signal to spring into action.

Lance had been engrossed in reading a book held in one hand, but now he raised his right hand and flicked his index finger lightly. "Teachers, please mete out punishment to this student who has violated school rules, harmed both classmates and faculty, and caused severe damage to school property."

The very next moment, the throng of demon instructors from the corridor outside stepped into the classroom in unison. Lillete watched in sheer terror. She saw a wall of demons, so dense and numerous they seemed like a solid mass, advancing as if they were about to trample the entire botanical garden flat.

The ground itself began to rumble and roar. In that instant, she finally recalled the kind of nightmarish, soul-shattering terror that only a human could feel when pushed beyond their absolute limits. Even as her mind completely snapped, she still could not fathom what kind of madman could, in the span of a single night, rise from being a mere student to the headmaster of an academy populated entirely by demons.

***

Less than a minute remained in the Shadow Realm dimension. Still racing against time to finish his book, Lance remarked without looking up, "Hyperion, thanks for your hard work entertaining the Poet."

The moment the Poet of Boundless Love was defeated, Lance, who had been sitting in the headmaster's office, had sensed the disturbance in the botanical garden and rushed over immediately. Naturally, hurrying through the corridors had cost him quite a bit of reading time. Fortunately, he was almost finished now.

Hyperion stood up, looking exhausted. "If I keep hanging around you and that Poet, I feel like I'm practically going to become a demon myself."

She had learned a great deal during this trip to Purgatory Corridor Academy. The good news was that she had learned it all from Lance. The bad news was that she now felt as though her demonic bloodline had awakened.

Theoretically, she ought to learn how to be human from a human, yet she hadn't picked up a single human trait from Lance.

Just as they waited for this Level 4 Shadow Realm challenge to come to its end, a sudden voice rang out from the distance, where the speaker was about to be overwhelmed by the demon teachers, sounding like a final curse uttered in the face of death. "Lance!! You'll regret helping this half-demon heiress!!"

Lillete's wailing shriek was soon cut off abruptly as it was swallowed up by the surging tide of demons and sounds of tearing flesh. Lance seemed to have no particular thoughts or reaction to this. He simply kept reading. Hyperion, however, instantly turned pale. The secret she had kept from Lance for so long had been exposed unexpectedly in the final moments of the challenge.

She had known that her demonic heritage couldn't remain hidden forever, but she had planned to confess the truth to Lance herself at a suitable moment once they returned to the real world. She hadn't wanted him to hear it from someone else, making it seem as though she had been deceiving him all along.

"Lance, listen to me... I had intended to tell you sooner." The heavy silence seemed to stifle her, causing her voice to falter and trail off. Yet Lance kept his gaze fixed intently on the book in his hands, as if he had no desire to hear her explanation at all.

"...I really didn't mean to deceive you." Hyperion's voice grew fainter, like a breath exhaled in winter, gently dissipating into the cold air.

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