Defeating Jhin head-on—that was the mindset of most lord-tier monsters. Though a small handful of them figured a sneak attack from the shadows was also a viable path to victory, that notion was never actually put into practice, because the Red Dragon's overwhelming aura kept a special watch over that treacherous little group of monsters.
However, there was one monster who had only just been promoted to lord rank and didn't know its place, relying on its own peculiar nature to try and ambush Jhin while he was resting. That monster was the Volcanic Mist Wraith.
It was a monster born from the mutation of a Volcanic Specter. Its once-formidable spiritual power had grown abnormally frail, yet it had mastered an utterly terrifying mental illusion technique. So long as it was cast upon a single target, it was guaranteed to trap them within an illusory realm, slowly eroding the enemy's spirit until they were finally reduced to a walking corpse.
A wisp of mist, too thin to be seen, crept stealthily into the stone hut. The Volcanic Mist Wraith concluded that Jhin, having finished a day of battle, would now be at his most spiritually relaxed—the perfect moment to unleash its mental illusion technique. Perhaps, after devouring him, it might even gain a physical form of its own.
Indulging in that beautiful daydream, it saw Jhin seated on a stone stool, wolfing down chunks of meat, his back turned to it completely defenseless.
Now is the perfect moment—Illusory Dream Bubble!
A pale red wave of light shot out from the Volcanic Mist Wraith's eyes. Kyaru, sitting across from Jhin, suddenly felt every hair on her body stand on end. She looked up and saw the ghostly monster behind him launching its attack, and she threw herself toward him without a second thought for her own safety: "Jhin!!!"
Because of Kyaru's leap, the light wave abruptly expanded, enveloping them both. The Volcanic Mist Wraith, whose spiritual power was nowhere near enough to sustain the illusion technique on two people at once, let out a wretched shriek and dissipated like steam.
The commotion inside the stone hut naturally drew the Red Dragon's attention. By the time its spiritual power probed the interior, all that remained were Jhin and Kyaru, clinging to each other with their eyes tightly shut, along with a pale purple, cylindrical gemstone on the ground.
To think that, even under its aura, there had been a monster foolish enough to defy the rules and attack Jhin. It gave a cold snort and intensified the pressure it exerted on certain lord-tier monsters, while at the same time contacting its own boss.
"Boss, what do we do now? We Red Dragons aren't exactly skilled in illusion techniques."
"Just make sure no other monster threatens their lives for three days. If they haven't woken from the illusion after three days, then they're lost for good—just have one of your subordinate monsters eat them, that's all. And... a disobedient race like that, I don't think it needs to exist."
"U-understood!"
After hurriedly instructing its subordinates to protect the two inside the stone hut, the Red Dragon beat its wings and flew to the skies above the region where the Volcanic Specter race dwelled. Scattered across the ground stood small volcanoes belching black smoke, and the volcanic specters lived within that smoke.
It drew a deep breath, and dragon-flame that could melt all things spewed from its mouth. In an instant, crimson fire blanketed the earth.
Having done all this, the Red Dragon flapped its wings and departed without so much as a backward glance. By the time the dragon-flame faded, the once-scorched earth had become a lake of magma, and the Volcanic Specter race was struck from the rolls of this region.
...
"Achoo!"
"What's wrong? Are you catching a cold?"
"I don't think so, my nose just suddenly felt itchy."
"Could it be Jhin talking bad about you behind your back?"
"Eh? Does he actually talk bad about me behind my back?"
"I just said it off the top of my head, don't take it seriously." After saying this, Megumin puffed out her little cheeks jealously: "I'm the one who's his girlfriend right now, so why were you the one who sneezed first? Could it be he hasn't thought of me at all?"
"Ahaha..." Pecorine gave an awkward laugh. Ever since Jhin had directly returned Megumin's feelings, two out of every three sentences she spoke were about emphasizing her status as his girlfriend: "He's definitely thinking about you."
"When he gets back, I'm going to punish him by making him give me five bottles of cola all at once!"
"Why does cola somehow feel like an indulgence pardon with you..."
"Hmph hmph, cola happens to be my third favorite thing. It's just perfect as an indulgence pardon for a great Jet-Black Explosion mage—even the color matches. It looks black, but hold it up to the light and it's actually deep red!"
Seeing her smug pose, arms folded and legs crossed, Pecorine couldn't resist teasing: "So cola's only third, huh. Let me guess—number one has got to be Explosion magic, and number two... is Jhin, right?"
"Ngh—" Megumin bit her lip lightly, glanced at her beaming face, and figured that since that jerk Jhin wasn't here anyway, there was nothing embarrassing about admitting it. The fingers hidden under her arm clutched at her clothes as she forced down her shyness, and she adopted an air of self-righteous confidence: "Th-that's right, it's him. Th-this is perfectly normal, isn't it? After all, we're lo... lovers."
The smile on Pecorine's face didn't fade: "And what if, in Jhin's heart, you're the one ranked number one?"
"Uuu~" At that possibility, Megumin covered her scalding cheeks with both hands and let out an adorable whimper: "Then... then for now I'll just let him tie for first place with Explosion magic. Only for now—just for now, okay!"
"If I could snap a picture of this moment and show it to Jhin, he'd definitely be over the moon."
"Don't you go picking up that guy's nasty personality!"
"Ehe~ I just think he'd really want to see this cute expression of yours. Besides, I don't have any tools to capture the image anyway."
Megumin decided to ignore, for the time being, the Jhin-corrupted Pecorine. Through the glass window she gazed at the distant azure sky, and thinking of him off adventuring somewhere unknown, a thread of worry welled up in her heart.
"Jhin... where are you?"
The very same words were spoken by Hitori Gotoh, who knew her boyfriend had gone far away on business. She lay sprawled across Jhin's desk like a Wild Hammer Snake that had been wrung dry of every drop of moisture, her lovely nose twitching gently as she tried to catch his familiar scent through it—but apart from the smell of wood varnish, she caught nothing at all. Bitterly disappointed, she rolled her eyes back and her whole body gradually lost its color.
"Awawa! Bocchi-chan, pull yourself together!" Kita Ikuyo flustered as she propped her back up: "School let out almost half an hour ago—we should hurry up and get to STARRY!"
"No... without Jhin I'm going to die."
"Jhin's only away for a single day and you're already like this. What are we going to do if we hold a nationwide concert tour someday? You can't exactly make him tag along the whole time, right?"
"Eh? That's not allowed?" Hitori Gotoh's eyes were full of surprise.
"Of course it's not!" Kita Ikuyo let out a soft sigh, clearly not having expected the other girl to hold such a notion: "He definitely has things of his own to do—he can't stay by our side forever, so you need to get properly used to the days when he isn't around. A week will fly by in no time. Let's just hurry over to STARRY and practice."
Hitori Gotoh grew even more confused. She tilted her head and stared intently at Kita Ikuyo, then said a line that nearly made her heart stop: "Since all of us are his girlfriends, why can't he come along with us for a nationwide concert tour?"
In the classroom bathed in the glow of dusk, only Kita Ikuyo's violently pounding heartbeat echoed. Gazing into those calm blue eyes, she forgot, for a moment, to breathe.
____
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