"Alright, Matilda-san, I'll leave Mochi to you! Please don't screw it up. Call Champ if you need anything— She's basically required to show up if you call her."
The Desert Scourge shrugged and smiled. "Hey, relax, kid! I got this! This'll be child's play!"
"I'm hungry."
"...You just ate."
"I want food, chicken leg aunty."
Matilda looked down at her own, very skinny and scaly legs, her raptor-like talons picking at the carpeted living room floor, then back at the Wyrm child.
"Did you just call me fat?!"
As Kuraima walked towards the school, he idly wondered if he made the right choice.
However, he was quickly brought out of his thinking by the appearance of his lover.
"Ku-san!"
"Oh, hey there Sola-san!"
Something seemed to feel a little off today.
"Something wrong, Hel?"
"W-Well, it's just t-that father's hired a few new waitresses a-and—"
Kuraima thought for a moment. "Are you worried that they might take your job?"
"H-How did you—"
"If I had a dollar every time someone back in the 'States said something about foreigners coming to take our jobs, I'd be richer than Jeff Bezos."
"Ah...u-um, wow! T-That's a lot…"
"Hey, new boss."
The two looked up to see Perfa, perched upon a brick wall.
She, amongst many others, hadn't exactly warmed up to the fact that their beloved Champ had been overthrown and that they had to answer to a new face.
"Morning patrols are done. Nothing outta the ordinary showin' up— I really wanted to fucking punch someone, y'know?"
The Astral student sighed. "Perfa, you can't be out here saying stuff out loud like this. What if someone comes looking for trouble?"
"Given how strong your girl is, I don't think anyone's gonna come knocking, new boss."
"I...ugh. At least just send me a text or something!"
"I can't, new boss. The old boss told me that I can't be trusted with phones."
…What?
"Wha- then send someone who can be!"
"But I'm the one in charge of morning patrols!"
"That's irrelevant!"
"Listen here, new boss!" Perfa said, standing up. "I am the best at AAAAAAA—" However, she stood up too fast and lost her balance, falling backwards into whatever private property was behind the brick wall.
"Isn't that the y-yard of Mr. Kobayashi? The o-one who planted all of those roses around the p-perimeter because delinquents kept t-trespassing?"
"...She'll be fine."
Helenski gave him a funny look, causing guilt to rise up within his soul. "Ku-san…"
"...Fine. Help me up. We've got some time before school starts."
After spending a few minutes getting Perfa cleaned up, Kuraima put a hand on her shoulder.
"This is an order, Perfa-kun,"
'God, that felt weird to say.` Kuraima mentally complained, having been exposed to too many memes around the "-kun" suffix.
"You either report to someone who can be trusted with a mobile device. Or you report directly to Champ-kun and have her send it to me. You got that?"
The brawler looked at him sheepishly. "Y-Yes, new b-boss!"
—
After finally reaching the school, Kuraima breathed a sigh of relief. He had a few minutes to spare before the first class started.
"Oi, Hyoudou-san! Still miss that slime?"
"Wh—?! Don't remind me!"
At the familiar forest, Issei had tried to tame a slime that ate clothing.
You heard that right.
It tried to eat the clothing of the entire ORC team's female members, save for Helenski's (As she made a profaned earth barrier around herself) and Mochi's…since she just ate the slime in one gulp.
Rias forcibly teleported them out of the forest after that, leaving Issei without a familiar.
Poor idiot.
"Come on, man. Mr. Slime wouldn't have wanted you to be sad. I guess..."
Issei's face suddenly lit up. "You're right, Kuraima-san!"
The Astral Student promptly realized what he had just said and began to feel queasy when he also realized that it had actually convinced Issei to move on.
"By the way, didja hear?! There's a new transfer student!"
Hold up.
"A what."
It was at that moment when she decided to show up, her presence made known with the faint scent of flowers. A natural scent, not like the obnoxious fumes of expensive perfume.
A rather petite girl with green hair, neatly tied in a bun.
And she was looking right at him with those beautiful blue eyes.
'I wonder...is that the foreigner Helenski was talking about?'
…
…
…
'Damn, I should actually read up on the dress code to see what their policy is on hair dye.'
Much later, Kuraima was walking to his favorite lunch-time spot alongside Helenski.
"And then I said, "Issei! Look! It's Akeno!" and he actually looked! So of course, I booked it!"
Helenski giggled as the Astral Student told her a story as they travelled down the halls of the school building.
Suddenly, he felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned around to see the green-haired girl from earlier.
"Excuse me, but could I perhaps borrow a bit of your time, sir?"
She spoke in a soft, french accent. It was admittedly…
'No, Kuraima. You already have Helenski.'
Theeeen it settled in.
'No no NO NO NO! Another anime trope?! You've to be fucking kidding me! That had better been a fucking joke!'
Ah, yes. The anime trope where a transfer student joins in, out of the blue. Not only that, but they also have some mysterious goal that directly involves the main character.
"Ah, uhm…why, exactly?"
The French girl opened her mouth to say something, and then stopped, looking perplexed.
Then she just grabbed him by the arm and booked it down the hall, dragging him away from his girlfriend.
"Wha- hey?! Help!"
Helsinki just froze, trying to figure out why a Dryad of all people had business with her boyfriend…
….hey, wait a minute!
Kuraima found himself thrown into a dimly lit janitor's closet, and could only watch in despair as vines covered the edge of the door, dashing any hopes of escape.
"Good. We're alone now."
"W-What?! No, you're not seriously going to do what I think you are. You're not!"
The French girl turned around to look at him. "I'm sorry. But this is for the good of this world."
Kuraima seemed to calm down. "Oh, so you're going to try and murder me. That's actually reassuring."
"Wh— No! No! Nobody has to die! Just-"
"Oh, okay, then we're done here." The Astral Student shoved her aside, trying to pry open the door with a fervorous drive to protect his chastity.
However, the Dryad had other ideas. With surprising strength, she pulled him away from the door, throwing him to the ground.
Before he could act, she was upon him, straddling him and placing a hand upon his chest.
"Now, sit still, lest I mess this up."
"Lest you WHAT?"
Kuraima suddenly had a warm feeling in his chest as the foreign exchange student began to work her magic. He felt something moving through his very veins as the French girl's power searched through every inch of his body.
He didn't seem to notice when Helenski forced the door open only to find him in a mildly compromising position.
What he did notice, however, was when she formed profaned flame in her hands. As a response, the Dryad quickly stood up, gathering green glowing orbs into her own palms.
The two stared the other down, daring their opponent to make the first move.
Neither of them seemed to budge.
Kuraima knew what had to be done.
Bonk!
Bonk!
Grabbing the first thing he could reach, which happened to be a broom, he popped the two girls on the head, causing their magic to disperse.
Just in time, too, as at that moment, some students came walking through the hall, right past the door. They were too engrossed in their personal conversation to notice them, but Helenski and the Dryad paled when they realized what they had nearly done.
[Meanwhile, back at home…]
"Breaking news: Mysterious 'bean bandit' strikes again, clears entire aisle of canned beans…."
"Hey, for the record, it wasn't me— this time!" Matilda exclaimed as she tried to cut through the duct tape that kept her pinned to the ceiling.
Why was she up there, you may ask? Well, you see, Mochi was quite the biter.
The brat in question was fast asleep curled up in Champ's arms as she rocked back and forth on the couch while watching the news.
"I didn't ask, Matilda."
"But you were giving me the stink eye!"
Helenski hugged Kuraima's arm tightly as she refused to let go of him, glaring at the Dryad.
"So let me get this straight," the Astral student began. "You're telling me that I'm patient zero of a world eating virus. Like Tiberium, but...organic, I guess?"
He had just been told that he apparently had this planet-killer disease inside of his body. He could vaguely remember that vision he had involving Astrum Deus when he first received his powers, thinking back to that scene of the meteor hitting the ground and warping the land around it.
"Well, uhm...I have no idea what Tiberium is...but basically, yes."
The student raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms— at least the best he could with a clingy girlfriend. "I feel awfully fine, y'know, apart from a very invasive—"
"H-Hey! I said I was sorry!"
Kuraima snrk'd.
"But that's...quite strange. Normally, you should be a rampant, mindless abomination by now...or at least that's what they told me…"
"Oh, I just don't have the abomination part."
"Ku-san!" Helenski said as she pouted.
The Dryad rolled her eyes and huffed. "This is serious! You could be a ticking time bomb!"
The Astral Student shrugged. "Could. Do you honestly think I would still be here if I were to be infected by a planet killer?"
The transfer student opened her mouth to refute, but nothing came out.
He kind of had a point there, until she remembered something rather...important!
"But you are infected! I sensed it!"
…
…
…
Helenski flinched as she felt Kuraima's body temperature drop due to the sheer surprise. "W-WHAT?!"
"I can sense it in you right now! So how are you still alive?"
He racked his brain for any possible explanations.
"Well maybe I am immune to it, then! How about that?!"
"It's a planet-killer. How could your immune system stop that?"
Kuraima sighed. "What kind of god poisons their own champion?!"
"Have you not heard of...The Tragedy of Astrum Deus?"
He narrowed his eyes as he mentally processed the term "Tragedy" in this situation.
"You tellin' me that there was more than one, besides him getting decimated by another giant worm?"
The Dryad sighed, dramatically turning towards the window like she was a Disney character about to tell a tragic backstory.
Except it wasn't quite rainy outside on this fine day, so it was just...a little awkward.
Helenski quietly took out a bento box with the intent of soothing her anxiety with the power of stress eating.
"You see, this virus didn't take over just planets. Nothing was safe from its grasp. Not even Astrum Deus himself. He sought to contain it, and devoured a fragment of infected matter."
"It consumed him from the inside out, turning him into nothing more than a feral beast, a slave to the virus. As for how the Tyrant's Devourer was able to kill it without being infected, nobody knows."
'Hold on. That Devourer had a master?'
"Damn. That's crazy." Kuraima said while holding a rice ball soaked in soy sauce with a pair of chopsticks, having taken out his own boxed lunch. "How exactly do you know all this?"
The Dryad paused, trying to think of a response.
Before she could answer, the door opened as Rias and Issei walked in.
"Aaaay! Kuraima-sensei! I knew you'd come around to the idea of having a harem!" The pervert exclaimed, completely ruining the mood.
Bonk!
"O-Ow! R-Rias…!" Issei rubbed his head, having just been bonked on the noggin by the Gremory Devil, who was holding a rolled up newspaper.
"Ufufu~! You were right, Kuraima-san, this is kind of funny."
The Astral Champion, at some point, had taught Rias the western art of the anti-horny bonk.
"Yeah, really works wonders, doesn't it?"
"That it does~! Anyways, onto business…"
Her face turned a bit more serious.
"Sensou Kuraima." Kuraima's face paled, as one does when someone uses your full name. "We need to talk in private."
"...O-Oh. Okay. Lemme just finish up my lunch and—"
"No! Ku-san stays with me!" Helenski suddenly declared, abruptly hugging Kuraima's midsection.
"Woah! Sola-san!"
"I will not lose him to the likes of anyone!" She declared, glaring at Rias.
"Sola-san! Calm down!"
The red-headed devil sighed. "Fine. I suppose you can stay."
[A few minutes later, after finishing their meals…]
"So...where to begin…" Rias said in a serious tone. "You have a stray devil living under you. Is this correct?"
The Astral Champion sighed in defeat. "Yeah. It's true, I guess. Her name's Matilda."
"Matilda...the Desert Scourge, D-Class Stray Devil. Ran away from her master…I see. But tell me...why?"
"...I couldn't bring myself to kill her, I guess. And uh, y'know, maybe someone dumb enough to nearly die of thirst in a suburban neighborhood needs a little supervision."
Rias turned away to write this down, before stopping to look at him again.
"Are you serious?"
"About what?"
"The thirst thing."
"Yeah, she came crawling back. Literally."
…
…
…
"Huh. Okay then. To tell you the truth, Kuraima-san…I'm not mad. Just disappointed that you didn't tell me any sooner."
The Astral Student sunk into his seat as Helenski tried to comfort him.
"But I don't blame you for sparing her. I can tell that you're a kind soul. Now, onto the next subject. Who is this Nyke?"
"Oh, uh…well, he's the guy who helped me beat Matilda. I don't think he's….a bad bad guy. I mean, yeah, he wanted to break into my house but he's a victim of circumstance. His sister took off with his passport so he kinda got stuck here."
There was a moment of silence.
"Wait. No wonder I couldn't find anything about him. He's not registered as a Japanese citizen…"
"...How many registries did you look through when trying to find him?"
Rias sheepishly narrowed her eyes at Kuraima, refusing to give a definitive answer.
"As for who he works for…I don't know. At all. I never asked him about it…"
"...I see."
The Astral Student opened the front door of his house to find Champ sitting on the couch, while Mochi sat on the floor with some other kid from the babysitter's gang.
"Runnin' a daycare in my house, are we?"
Champ only gave him a deadpan glare.
"Yeah, nice Kiryu impression. Even got the same type of coat."
That got the former mob boss to look away. "Money's on the table." She muttered loud enough for the Astral Student to hear.
'Shit, about time you paid rent, ya goddamn freeloader.'
The student's eyes scanned over the kitchen table, but he didn't see even a single 1-yen-coin. Just some papers and a briefcase.
"...What money?"
"In the briefcase."
What?
He undid the latches and hesitantly opened the case to reveal several stacks of yen bills.
…
…
…
'Ah, right. Mob boss.'
But that thought didn't stop him from making an uncannily accurate impression of a certain sound effect.
"Bruh."