(3rd Person POV)
The reassurance settled comfortably in Arthur's chest. He had someone here who could help him establish a foothold in this world, and that was no small thing. From what he'd already observed, commerce here still ran through the old channels — merchant guilds, trade licenses, formal charters issued by state authority.
Setting up a company meant navigating that system properly, or finding someone who already knew it.
"Before you proceed to setting up your company here, there's quite a lot you'll need to understand about this world first." Saza addressed the group, her eyes moving across them before settling briefly on Apollonia, who looked less like a visitor to a foreign world and more like a child who had just been told they were going to the fair. "Especially considering that if you walk around looking like that — horns and all — people are not going to take it well."
Beside her, Profellie gave a slow nod. "Indeed. At the moment, only the students in this academy know we've welcomed demons from another world. The public outside these walls has no idea whatsoever."
Arthur's brow furrowed slightly. He'd half expected this. "I already got a sense of it from the way those students were talking earlier. There's obvious discrimination against our race here."
He left the rest unspoken, but it hung in the air anyway.
'Even when I first met Saza, she wore it plainly.'
"Could it be," Firfel said, her eyes darkening, "that the demons of this world have done something to deserve it?"
"Hm?" Apollonia, who had been practically vibrating with excitement since they arrived, went still and read the room. The lightness drained from her expression.
She had understood every word of it clearly — Arthur had woven a «Tongues of the World» spell into each of them before they stepped through the portal, threading it into their mana so that the language of this world settled as naturally as their mother tongue. Nothing was lost on her.
Reiner's voice came out low and edged with something genuine. "Not just done something. They are the very embodiment of darkness. Horrendous things — villages razed, cities brought to ruin. They've thrown entire kingdoms into grief, entire continents under their shadow, and they don't distinguish between the old, children, or women. Unspeakable things against the women." He paused. "People here have sworn, to their bones, that they will never share the world with demons again."
He looked between Arthur and the others, and for a moment something complicated moved across his face.
"If Principal Saza hadn't explained your nature to me beforehand, I might well have looked at you with... with—" He stopped himself. "Forgive me. That was out of hand."
Arthur raised a hand slightly. "No. It's fine." His tone carried no resentment at all. "I understand the situation completely."
Kaiser, who had been quiet for some time now, spoke up. "So what you're suggesting is that we disguise ourselves as humans in order to move around freely."
"That should be straightforward enough," Keanu said.
Saza and the others nodded in agreement. "Yes — hide your nature, conceal the fact that you're demons. I've already erased the memories of the students in this academy, so there's no trace left there. You're free to move around as you like." She paused, then pointed. "But the ones who actually need disguising are those two." Her finger moved between Arthur and Apollonia.
Firfel was an elf. Kaiser and Keanu were neither demons nor particularly remarkable in appearance here.
As for Arthur — he was a deity, but he'd never bothered to conceal the fact that he was a demon. It simply hadn't been necessary before now.
Now was different.
"Very well." He reached inward and let his power do the work. The red horns receded and vanished. His aura settled into something unmistakably human — not a performance of it, but the genuine imprint.
Apollonia watched her brother's transformation and immediately looked alarmed. "Brother, what am I supposed to do? I can't transform on my own!" She pressed on before he could answer. "I've studied magic, yes, but outside of throwing a few fireballs, transformation is completely beyond me. And even if I managed something convincing, I wouldn't be able to hold it for more than a few minutes!"
Arthur's expression eased into quiet amusement. He reached out and flicked her forehead lightly. "Relax. That's simple enough to handle."
Apollonia pouted, pressing a hand to the reddened spot. "That hurt."
"Hold out your hand."
She extended it with mild suspicion. Arthur took it gently and let a warm, steady energy flow through the connection between his palm and hers, threading itself carefully into her mana veins.
The change came gradually — her demon features softening, her aura shifting until it settled into a fully human cast.
Apollonia turned toward the nearby mirror, eyes wide. She studied herself for a long moment.
"Is this... me? In human form?" She tilted her head. "Nothing seems that different."
Reiner watched the transformation with the mild interest of someone observing a decent parlor trick — nothing that especially moved him.
Saza and Profellie were another matter.
Both had gone still in the same moment, their attention sharpening with the particular focus of people who had just encountered something that didn't add up. At their level of perception, a transformation was always detectable — the demon nature beneath the surface still present, still readable, like an outline showing through thin paper.
That was simply how it worked. No matter how convincing the disguise, the truth of what someone was never fully disappeared to eyes trained to find it.
And yet.
Arthur and Apollonia registered as human. Not almost human, not human-adjacent — human from the ground up, as though they had never been anything else to begin with.
Saza could trace back the faintest residual demon aura from the moment before the transformation, a ghost of it, barely there. But now? Nothing. If she had encountered them on the street without prior knowledge, she would not have looked twice. She would have walked past two humans and moved on.
The two ancient academics exchanged the briefest glance.
"Not bad at all," Saza said, studying Arthur with genuine appraisal. "Your transformation technique is very admirable."
Arthur's eyes carried a quiet flash of pride. 'Of course.' The jutsu was the product of years of refinement — the original technique borrowed from the Naruto world, then taken apart and rebuilt by the system until it had become something that bore only a passing resemblance to its source.
The Godly Transformation Jutsu. A technique that didn't merely change how someone looked, but rewrote what they were, at least to any perception trying to read them.
"Can we go look around now?!" Apollonia asked, already rocking forward on her heels.
Saza's expression warmed into something genuine. "Of course. You've made it clear enough that you mean no harm and just want to see the world. Go ahead."
"Yes!" The excitement that had been barely contained since their arrival broke free entirely, and Apollonia looked very much like someone who had just been let off a leash.
"That said." Saza's gaze moved — and when it landed on Arthur, Kaiser, and Keanu, the warmth in it had been replaced by something considerably colder. "I have a specific warning for you three."
The deities.
"This world enforces very strict laws against foreign deities. Not suggestions — laws, with real consequences attached to them. One wrong move — eliminating this world's Demon King, say, or upsetting the balance of power, or acting in your capacity as foreign deities in ways that aren't yours to act — and you will face those consequences. I want that understood clearly before any of you take a single step outside."
Firfel, still new enough to the weight of divinity that warnings like this landed differently on her, blinked. "We're not permitted to move against the Demon King? But isn't he a source of genuine evil? Doesn't someone need to deal with him eventually?"
Saza turned to her with something warmer — an elf to an elf, a small but real familiarity in the regard. "Think about it this way. Beyond this world, there are countless foreign deities — beings like you — who may already have their eyes on it for its faith energy. Without laws in place, any of them could descend freely, spread their influence, and drag this world into a war far worse than anything a single Demon King could cause. The «Origin» established these laws to protect the local deities, and to prevent an overflow of outside powers from tearing the balance apart."
Firfel absorbed this slowly. "I understand. But — can you tell me more about the Origin itself?"
Profellie stepped in. "The Origin is the consciousness of the world. It has existed since the very beginning — since the first creatures moved through the waters and walked the land. It holds an intelligence that has developed over all that time, and a power to match it. It can stand against gods. It has the means to repel foreign deities entirely." She paused. "In that sense, this world is not as unprotected as it might appear from the outside."
Firfel inhaled. Beside her, Kaiser and Keanu had both gone very quiet — the particular quietness of people recalibrating their understanding of where they were standing and what might be watching them do it.
"If it's that powerful," Firfel pressed, the curiosity in her voice genuine, "then why hasn't it dealt with the Demon King already? He's caused enormous suffering."
Saza folded her hands. "The Origin's existence is confirmed, but it has not shown itself in thousands of years. It only moves when the threat reaches a certain threshold — something catastrophic enough to affect all living beings, something that endangers the world itself. The war between demons and humans is brutal, yes. But so far, it is a human problem. In the Origin's reckoning, that does not meet the threshold. If it stepped in at every conflict, the world would never develop its own strength, and the Origin understands that." She added, "It takes no side between human and demon — it watches both, equally, and stays its hand. Though it does appear to have given humans certain gifts to hold their own against demons. Perhaps to keep the balance from collapsing entirely."
Kaiser and Keanu listened without comment, but something shifted behind their eyes. The Origin of their world had operated by the same logic — perfectly content to observe while demons lorded over humans, entirely unmoved by the ordinary cruelties of the age. It had only stirred when Solarus arrived with conquest in mind.
And even then, Solarus had claimed it. Absorbed the Origin into his own power and left the world stripped of its guardian, protected now only in the sense that it had become his territory — held by the Three Known Gods as their domain, no longer its own.