Cid's steps gradually shifted off course.
Beneath his clothes, black slime-like liquid began seeping out across the surface of his skin, and the 1.0x Magical Power tempering technique he had been maintaining inside his body silently dropped to 0.95x.
"Haha… Astarte, you really know how to joke. You actually made me laugh."
Astarte simply kept looking at Cid.
Without receiving an order telling her to do something, she would not act at all.
Cid did not say anything further either. He stayed silent, as if nothing had happened just now.
Only, without either of them mentioning it, the route they were taking gradually changed into a side path.
The sun had long since set, and morning for vampires had arrived.
The longer Cid and Astarte walked down the narrow path, the fewer pedestrians there were around them.
A dark night, strong winds, the perfect time for murder...
...
Why hasn't she made a move yet?
We're almost at my house.
What did she mean by that earlier?
And what does she mean by this now?
Could it be that she really was just joking with me?
Thinking that, Cid discreetly glanced at Astarte, who was still following behind him, then looked around again.
A few hundred meters ahead was his house.
If she wanted to make a move, this was her last chance.
The remaining few hundred meters passed quickly.
Cid could not be bothered thinking anymore.
He made up his mind.
Forget tomorrow night.
He would reverse-track them tonight and wipe out the other side first.
The lock clicked open.
Cid stepped inside and, out of habit and basic politeness, casually said,
"Come in and sit for a while."
"Order acknowledged!"
Before Cid could even react, Astarte had already walked inside.
Seeing this, Cid could only fall silent and walk over to sit down on the sofa.
"Say it, Astarte. What exactly are you trying to do?"
Cid felt he could not keep deceiving himself any longer.
The girl in front of him clearly knew that he did not believe their scam at all.
Even taking ten thousand steps back, even if that line she said earlier really had been a joke...
What he said immediately afterward was enough to prove he had not believed their cheap scam in the slightest.
He said an artificial lifeform could joke.
That alone already meant he did not believe Astarte was really an artificial lifeform.
"Command recognition error. Requesting a new order."
Watching the girl in front of him continue pretending not to understand, Cid felt his fists harden.
"Drop the act. I've never seen a real artificial lifeform, but I have heard that artificial lifeforms don't have emotions."
"You did a very good job acting. So good it was almost like you really were an artificial lifeform."
"But in the end, you're still not a real artificial lifeform. There are still emotional fluctuations in your eyes and your voice that you can't completely hide."
Astarte's mind processed the information in Cid's words, trying to identify whether there was any command hidden inside them based on her past patterns of behavior.
I... have emotions?
What are emotions?
After confirming that Cid had not actually issued her an order, Astarte's mind instead drew a different piece of information from what he had said.
"I know that scammer uncle sent you to keep an eye on me. You probably have some skills too, but you people probably don't know what school I attend."
"I'm not bragging, but if I fail to show up tomorrow, Natsuki-chan will storm your hideout that very same day and rescue me."
So hurry up and make your move already.
Stop just sitting there.
Whether you want to go warn them or snatch the necklace back by force, either is fine.
"So let's make a deal. Don't tell that scammer uncle about me. I'll pretend I don't know that you noticed."
"I'll still report everything to the security forces tomorrow night. You can go back now."
"But before tomorrow night, you can run away. I won't tell the security forces about you."
A lie.
There would be no security forces tomorrow.
There would only be a kind-hearted good person who robbed the rich to help the poor.
And she would not escape either.
He had already memorized her aura.
When the time came, one sweep with his Magical Power radar would tell him exactly where she was.
"Order acknowledged."
Astarte stood up and walked toward the door.
In Cid's eyes, that meant she had accepted the proposal he had just made.
As for whether she might be lying, Cid did not smell any trace of deception from her.
After Astarte left, Cid took out his phone and checked whether there was a direct ship to Western Europe tomorrow night.
There was.
Departure time: midnight.
...
The next morning, Monday. Time for school—and the class waiting for him was Rossweisse-sensei's magic lesson, the subject he hated the most.
Cid glanced at the woman standing at the lectern. She was said to be a Valkyrie from Norse mythology, once a personal guard of Odin. After a brief look, he shifted his focus back inward, continuing to refine the Magical Power within his body.
It had to be said—this teacher really was beautiful. Long silver-white hair flowed down her back, her emerald-green eyes sharp and clear. With her excellent figure and the cold, composed demeanor she displayed in class, combined with her formal teacher's uniform, she looked every bit like a capable modern professional woman.
Unfortunately, although students privately referred to her affectionately as "Rossweisse-chan," her popularity was far behind that of Natsuki-chan. Perhaps it was because most people at this school were lolicons.
Of course, Cid preferred Rossweisse. After all, if he wanted a magic doll he could create one whenever he liked. Compared to that, someone with an actual soul easily beat Natsuki-chan.
And don't ask why a Magic Swordsman like him had to attend magic classes. According to the school's policy, they might not necessarily be able to use magic, but they must at least understand it.
Cid thought that made perfect sense.
That said, he had never seriously listened to Rossweisse's lectures. They were just too weak.
Not that Rossweisse explained things poorly. The problem was that her magic itself was too weak. Even now she was still at the stage of merely using magic. If someone at that level wanted to grow stronger, they would usually focus on gaining more magical knowledge, not on improving control.
"Cid, explain the formation principle of this spell."
It seemed his absentmindedness had been noticed. Rossweisse called on him directly.
Cid glanced at the problem written on the blackboard. For him, it was simple. Remove the large portion that looked useful but was actually just auxiliary detail, and the operating conditions of the spell became obvious.
"Teacher, I don't know."
"If you don't know, then pay attention in class instead of daydreaming. Come to my office after class."
This was exactly why he hated magic class.
In magic theory, he ranked dead last—because he didn't know how to answer.
For others, their understanding of magic was like a complete novel. For him, it was an outline.
From the teachers' perspective, his answers lacked far too many details that needed explanation and elaboration. The problem was that whenever he looked at the "novels" written by other students, they automatically condensed into outlines in his mind.
Normally, people who reached his level did so by reading countless novels and then deducing their outlines from them. If you asked such a person to write a novel based on that outline, even if they couldn't perfectly recreate the original, the plot would still be very close.
But Cid had started from the outline itself.
The result was that if you asked him to write a story based on the original novel's outline, he could keep the same ending and overall plot, yet the entire process in between would drift ten thousand miles away.
While Cid looked attentive on the surface but secretly let his mind wander, time passed quickly.
Before long, the class was over.