Alice walked along the road to school, unable to stop herself from yawning. After wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes, she continued forward with barely any energy.
After gaining the power of a magical girl yesterday and learning the name of the person who had saved her, she had stayed up late discussing her future path with Lief.
As a result, Alice had gone to sleep extremely late. The fact that she had managed to wake up at all was already impressive, and she was clearly still exhausted. Had her magical-girl powers not strengthened her body somewhat, she might not have been able to get out of bed.
"Lief, is this really all right? Won't anyone notice you flying beside me?"
While sitting on the train to school, Alice quietly spoke with Lief, who had been flying beside her the entire time, hoping the conversation would keep her from falling asleep and missing her stop.
"Don't worry, Alice. I've cast fairy magic on myself. Only other magical girls can see me and communicate with me."
"That fairy magic sounds really useful. Could you cast it on me too? Then, when I fight monsters, couldn't I sneak up on them while they aren't paying attention?"
"I wish it were that convenient, but I'm sorry, Alice. You're far too large for me to conceal."
By talking with Lief, Alice managed to avoid falling asleep on the train and arriving late.
After hurrying to school, she reached her classroom and discovered that another student was missing.
This was already the second student from her class to disappear this month.
If this continued, the entire city would soon fall into panic, and the school might no longer be able to operate normally.
Thinking about this made the weight of Alice's responsibility feel even heavier.
Her determination to defeat the monsters and restore everyone's peaceful daily lives grew stronger.
At that moment, a heavyset middle-aged man with a balding crown entered the classroom. He held a thermos in one hand and teaching materials beneath the other arm, giving him the air of an old-fashioned family doctor.
He stood behind the lectern, coughed to draw the attention of the students who were talking among themselves, and said, "Students, your mathematics teacher has recently experienced some difficulties at home and will be unable to continue teaching you for the time being."
"The school has therefore assigned you a new mathematics teacher, who has also only recently joined the faculty."
After speaking, the man turned toward the doorway.
"Caelus, come in."
The classroom's sliding door opened.
A gray-haired young man wearing a black trench coat entered. He stood beside the lectern, wrote his single name on the blackboard, then looked down at the seated students with his golden eyes.
"My name is Caelus. I will be teaching your mathematics classes for the foreseeable future."
His introduction was extremely brief and gave the impression that he would be difficult to approach.
However, his handsome appearance and faintly distant presence more than compensated for it, making him seem like a cool and aloof celebrity.
Most of the girls in the class were already staring at him with sparkling eyes.
Teenage girls at that age always had all kinds of imaginative thoughts.
Alice, who was sitting at her desk, stared blankly at Caelus beside the lectern.
She had almost turned to stone.
"That is the situation. Prepare for class."
After speaking, the middle-aged man quietly left with his belongings.
Caelus stepped behind the lectern without carrying a textbook. In fact, he had entered the classroom without bringing anything at all.
"Open your mathematics textbooks to page twenty-eight."
"Teacher!"
A girl raised her hand.
She had altered her uniform to make it noticeably shorter, exposing more of her skin. Her blond hair was curled, her nails were professionally decorated, and her appearance gave the impression of a flashy, fashionable girl.
She smiled and said, "This is our first time meeting you. Could you tell us a little more about yourself?"
Caelus calmly looked at the first student brave enough to ask him a question.
The smile on the girl's face immediately faded as an indescribable calmness washed over her.
All the scattered thoughts in her mind seemed to vanish completely.
Her mind had never felt so clear, and her thoughts had never moved so quickly.
It was as though her entire being had been purified.
"I am the teacher, and you are the students."
"I will teach you, and you will listen carefully and study."
"There is nothing about me that you need to know. Direct that curiosity toward these mathematics problems instead."
"Now, class will begin. Do not make me repeat myself."
Caelus's steady, calm voice brought every distracted thought in the classroom to a halt.
Even Alice, who was still stunned that the person who had saved her was now her teacher, felt her mind become clearer.
Much of her drowsiness also disappeared.
Once the lesson began, every student in the classroom was astonished.
Mathematics classes that had previously sounded like an incomprehensible foreign language now somehow made sense.
After Caelus explained the material several times, they were even able to understand it completely.
Mathematical formulas that had once made them feel irritated after only a brief glance no longer caused the slightest restlessness.
No strange or distracting thoughts entered their minds.
Every student sat with the focus of someone deep in meditation, completely free of distraction and entirely absorbed in mathematics.
When the bell rang, Caelus said, "Class dismissed," at exactly the same moment.
He then turned around and left without hesitation.
The students seemed to awaken from a meditative trance.
Even those who normally never studied stared in shock at the notebooks they had somehow filled with notes.
As Caelus walked toward the faculty office, he wiped the corner of his mouth with one hand, as though removing grease after finishing a meal.
"This truly is a world shaped by desire."
"The minds of these adolescents are incredibly chaotic, and their interest in such matters is particularly intense."
"One lesson allowed me to taste quite a few things and receive a considerable amount of stimulation."
Caelus had come to teach at the school partly because his assigned identity was already that of a teacher.
Another reason was the opportunity to devour the students' turbulent emotions.
If there was any stage of human life in which people were especially emotional, it was adolescence.
Teenagers in the middle of puberty and rebellion could often have their emotions stirred by only a few simple words, causing them to act impulsively.
"Alice! This is bad!"
"I warned you last night that he was definitely dangerous."
"Just now, that man devoured your classmates' desires!"
Back in the classroom, Alice had been about to speak with her friend when Lief's voice suddenly sounded beside her ear.
Her expression immediately changed.
After telling her friend that she needed to use the restroom, Alice hurried out of the classroom.
A dark-purple-haired girl in a school uniform silently watched Alice run away.
"Bell!"
Hearing a classmate call her name from behind, the purple-haired girl withdrew her gaze and walked toward a small group of students gathered together.
Among them was a well-proportioned white-haired girl.
Beside her stood a beautiful girl with pale pink hair and star-shaped patterns in her eyes.
(To be continued.)