Lead POV

Gaaah! I'm being torn apart by rabid demons!

The stitching on my brand-new winter uniform begins to tear as I'm pulled every which way, and just hearing it makes me wanna cry.

What led up to this hellish situation?

Well, I went one step too far with trying to ride my celebrity status while it lasts!

I thought I could showboat a little when I arrived at school, let people snap a few pictures with me, maybe sign a few autographs…

But, it turns out that's just a surefire way to get bullied! Now everyone wants a piece of the new Dalet-rank! Literally!

Goemon and Camui have met the same fate, they may have been two of the flashiest players in the Harvest Festival but now they're being destroyed by the spotlight just the same as me!

So it's a great relief when the dozen-or-so demons surrounding us are distracted by a presence that eclipses the low morning sun.

"Woah…"

"Is that even a familiar?"

"It's Iruma's gang!"

The sight is so bizarre that for a moment I forget that my hair is still getting pulled.

Now that's showboating…

The Sullivan Twins and their two colorful-haired companions have found a crazy way to stay clear of the mob, casually sitting atop a familiar so tall that it wades through the crowd and keeps its riders 'dry', so to speak.

I'm pretty sure this is Rimuru's familiar, but I don't recall it being this tall!

"Hahaha! Hey everyone, heeey!" Clarin yells, eagerly waving with both hands at the people below.

"You sure got popular, Iruma!" Rimuru cheerily laughs, and her brother looks a bit embarrassed about all the attention.

That familiar is way too convenient for this situation!

My monkey familiar may be the coolest-looking guy ever, especially since I gave him sunglasses and a bandanna mask, but right now I'd kill for a big one that could whisk me out of here.

"Could we get a little help here, please?!" Goemon begs our classmates as they pass.

"Wow, you guys sure are in a pickle, huh?" Rimuru observes while lying on her familiar, half-buried in his fur. "Alright, since you asked nicely, I'll help ya'. Ranga… send 'em away for me." She lazily waves her arm at the crowd.

Camui attempts to squawk for help too, but I harshly half-whisper at him to shut up before he talks Rimuru into changing her mind.

Moving with a roar of muffled wind, a shadow leaps out from under Rimuru's familiar and makes a quick circle around us, any demons it touches falling into its inky depths as though it were a bottomless pit.

The scene suddenly got a lot less crowded in the blink of an eye.

"Where'd they go?!" I blurt out, looking this way and that.

"I just asked Ranga to relocate them. You did a good job, boy…" Rimuru, still lying down, scritches her familiar, who reacts with apparent delight.

I can feel strong air currents just from how hard his massive tail is wagging, so I quickly move ahead to Royal One before I get swept up in a tornado, dragging Camui along with me.

A few people are late to arrive to homeroom this morning, but mercifully so is Kalego, so as long as they get here before him there's still a chance their heads won't get bitten off.

The rest of us are just mucking around as we wait.

"Lead, sit still, this spell is dangerous!" Iruma fusses as he mends my damaged uniform with a needle and magically-created thread.

"How could a spell that makes thread be dangerous?" I joke. It feels like Iruma is worrying too much over nothing.

"Well," Iruma pauses for a moment, "I accidentally cut Rimuru's arm off with it once…" he whispers.

Bwuh?!

"You cut off her arm?!" I harshly whisper back, and whip my head around to stare at the girl in question, who's slumped over on the desk on the other side of Iruma.

"Haha, I'm easy to put back together…" she mumbles with a big silly grin on her face.

"W-well I'm not! Maybe we should just find some normal thread!"

"Don't worry, Iruma's not putting enough magic into that spell to make anything crazy happen…"

"And what'll happen to me if he uses too much magic, huh? Huh!?"

I wait for an answer, but Rimuru doesn't respond. In fact, she looks like she's drifting asleep on her desk.

She's gone all floppy… what's going on with her today?

"It'll be fine, and besides, I can make this thread match your clothes perfectly. It's super useful!" Iruma answers in her stead.

"Sure… So, why's she all, like, fluffy today?" I ask Iruma as he continues sewing away.

We're all a little fluffy in the literal sense since it's now the season for our winter uniforms, but compared to how she usually is, Rimuru seems placid enough to melt into goo.

"Grandpa thought Rimuru was getting too stressed, so he offered to let us both spend the rest of the weekend at a suuuper-fancy hotel. I felt a little greedy going there, hehehe…"

"Mmh, now I'm way too relaxed… I'd be completely spoiled within a week if I stayed for that long," Rimuru agrees.

"Would you happen to be talking about Hotel Helheim?" Azz asks, leaning over me.

Rimuru perks up. "Yeah! I've seen and experienced my fair share of luxury, but I've never stayed in a place where the staff have a hundred years of experience and the establishment has been around for a thousand. It's like, they can do anything you ask, but you don't have to ask as they always know what you want."

"I always wondered about that. Do you reckon it's someone's bloodline ability?"

"Can't be, it wouldn't work on me."

"I went there once!" Sabnock shouts from way in the back. "I got to pretend to be the Demon King, and a few of the people there had actually served the Demon King!"

Oh boy, all the obscenely-wealthy students are in their own little world now…

I'm at risk of being smothered as they huddle together and obnoxiously boast about the things they've gotten or gotten up to, rattling off names only the richest could afford.

"… Hahaha, you certainly have tastes befitting your status, Master Iruma!" Azz laughs after the conversation has been going on few a few minutes. "Even I consider the prices there somewhat steep, with the top-class rooms costing over two million Vil per person per night."

Both twins flinch in tandem.

"They said we were in the fanciest suite… so with two nights and two people…" Iruma pales in horror.

"That's nearly a whole Stellar…" Rimuru grumbles, seeming to have sobered up real fast.

"I guess Grandpa's just being nice, y'know?" Iruma puts his hand on her shoulder.

"But it hurts my economic sensibilities!" Rimuru slams a fist down on her table in frustration.

It's hurting mine too, Rimuru… the cost of every game and game console I've ever bought comes nowhere near what you two spent in two days!

I dunno what a 'Stellar' is either, but it's probably just something from the twins' unknown homeland. It's a lingering mystery where in the Netherworld they came from, even Allocer with his encyclopedic knowledge doesn't have a single clue.

Speaking of which, Jazz and Allocer finally arrive together, the latter of the two having dark patches under his eyes.

"Apologies for being late, I was kept up by a long night of pleasure and passion."

Jazz smacks him across the back of the head. "Don't listen to this dork, the only thing he was getting buried in was a book."

"A calculus textbook is a perfectly fine thing to spend one's time on."

I quickly scan the room with my eyes just to make sure that the entire Misfit class is here.

"Alright, we've got everyone here, so group up by rank!" I bark an order to the class. "We've only got one more exam left to all reach Dalet so we can keep the Royal One, so we need to make it clear who does and doesn't need to advance, okay?"

There are some noises of agreement and shuffling around, and soon enough the class is split clearly in two:

Elizabetta Ix – Bet (2)

Clara Valac – Gimmel (3)

Jazz M. Andro – Gimmel (3)

Keroli Crocell – Gimmel (3)

Sabro Sabnock – Gimmel (3)

Schneider Allocer – Gimmel (3)

Camui Caim – Gimmel (3)

Garp Goemon – Gimmel (3)

Picero Agares – Gimmel (3)

— The Cutoff —

Lead Shax – Dalet (4)

Iruma Suzuki – Dalet (4)

Alice Asmodeus – He (5)

Rimuru Tempest – Vau (6)

"I'm sorry, everyone…" Elizabetta apologizes, embarrassed.

I don't want her to feel bad so I say, "You're already rank 4 in my heart, Liz!"

"My~!" Elizabetta puts her hand on her chest and smiles warmly at me.

I try to ignore the fluttering feeling in my chest and force myself to move on, "Four of us are ranked Dalet or above, eight of us are ranked Gimmel, and one of us is ranked Bet. That's doable, right? I mean, we got so many promotions after the Harvest Festival, so we just need to do the same again… and it should be even easier since we'll all be working together instead of competing this time!"

"That's all well and good, but remember how Kalego said we forgot to count all the staff after we collected the stamps for the Royal One?" Rimuru reminds us, "If we were to all get Dalet rank, he might just say 'Fools, you forgot about your secret invisible classmate!' or something like that."

How does she even do that with her voice? Rimuru's impression of Kalego was so spot on that it was almost disturbing. Hilarious too.

"Kalego may be unfair, but it's not like he can pull a new classmate out of thin air just to mess with us," Azz suggests.

"Haha, yeah!" Jazz laughs at the concept. "And even if there was a 'secret invisible classmate' this whole time, you'd have definitely seen them, Rimuru."

Rimuru just smiles in response.

There's an uncomfortable pause as we all think about what that could mean.

"So… you have to agree that there isn't an invisible classmate…" Jazz pushes for an answer, but doesn't get one. "...right?"

"As you say," Rimuru finally answers after an uncomfortably long pause, "if we had an invisible classmate, I'd have seen them." She's still smiling in a way that makes me think she knows more than she's sharing.

"And you haven't seen them, right?" Jazz prods further, his eyes narrowed at Rimuru.

"Where's Kalego anyway?" Rimuru asks, looking toward the door, "He sure is late today."

"Rimuru!"

Sullivan POV

"Kalegooo~! How are you doing this fine, fine morning?" I burst into Kalego's office with a twirl.

"Since my schedule for the weekend unexpectedly cleared up, I'm doing just–"

A pitch-black shadow appears on the ceiling directly above him, over a dozen students pouring out in just a few seconds.

He telekinetically holds one of them above him as a shield from all the others, but the torrent of young demons ends up making a mess of everything else in his office instead, toppling books and piles of papers and sending them all across the room.

"…I'd say I'm numb with rage, actually."

"My my, you probably shouldn't have picked a fight with Rimuru," I observe, both a little troubled and amused by this sudden event.

"You're blaming me for this?! Just listen to yourself! You didn't even question who it was, you know she's a troublemaker!"

With a wave of my hand and a flurry of magic, I teleport the students to their respective classes, and the poor teenager unfortunately used as a shield to the infirmary.

"Oh please, Professor. You're both such prideful demons that you'd drag each other into Hell itself before giving an inch of ground to the other. What's that saying your clan has? 'Sink your fangs in and never let go'?"

"She's perfectly welcome to return to normality at any time. Anyway, did you need this back?"

Kalego reaches under his half-destroyed desk and picks up a large rifle, presenting it to me handle-first.

"My, I don't think I've ever seen a newfangled weapon like this," I comment with curiosity, though understanding that this must be what was used to shoot Ocho. "It seems like an interesting gift, but I have to turn it down."

I know that Kalego knows that it was someone from my household who was responsible for the recent assassination.

But I can't show that I already knew that he knew because that would prove he was being spied on even after the killing took place, which might make him think that someone small and cunning was responsible.

Certainly, I wouldn't want this pinned on Rimuru, especially after what we discussed…

**Flashback**

Once Lead left, Rimuru requested a private discussion with me to report how she handled the incident that Opera told me about.

Given that she had the leeway to leave this report until the evening so she could spend time with friends, she must have decided that the situation wasn't going to develop any further.

In other words…

"So, is the captive dead?"

Rimuru mutely nods before speaking. "Balam listened to the recording and destroyed it so no one else would hear, but then Ocho tried to yell out about Iruma being a human, so I dealt with him then and there. It was a pretty messy death too, since I used a gun to avoid personal suspicion."

She sounds rather irritated, only somewhat placated by the tea and biscuits on the table between us.

"Ah, my apologies… When I asked you to protect Iruma, I didn't think you'd have to do anything so heavy-handed."

"Guess that's just how life is as a Demon Lord," Rimuru tiredly mutters, reaching for another biscuit. "Besides, we didn't exactly work out the details, and something like this was bound to happen sooner or later given this realm's temperament."

She may say that, but she's plainly exhausted from a tumultuous and frustrating week, and I feel a little bad that she can't always be a normal student like Iruma.

From what I understand of Tempest's history, Rimuru never learned what it's like to live the mad and carefree life of an ordinary magical being, she simply went straight from being a human to being responsible for managing all the madness of others herself. I can only imagine how many misunderstandings arose from that disconnect.

So while it may just me foolishly doting on a Demon Lord as a granddaughter, I hope that her time in Babyls can be something that remains a valuable experience long after she leaves this world.

"Did you wanna know how the teachers reacted? I think that's important to know," Rimuru prods, and I realize I've let myself get a little too lost in thought.

"Ah, yes, please go on."

"Well, Robin and Marbas were terrified, but Kalego and Balam were quick to execute a search. Although they didn't find me, unfortunately, Kalego still managed to figure out that Ocho had been assassinated to hide a secret about Iruma; so he highly suspects the assassin is from this household."

"That's fine!" I say with an okay-sign. "It's for the better that we're suspected, better than leaving the teachers paranoid that a dangerous outsider was able to do all this."

It seems that I owe the teachers a bit of compensation, so I'll send them to a nice bar on my tab and say it's for their good work during the Harvest Festival.

Rimuru certainly looks like she could use some pampering too, but it'd take something a lot more upmarket than that to qualify as pampering, seeing how nicely I was treated in Tempest.

"One last thing I'd like to address," I say, and the Demon Lord's attention is stolen from the reflection in her teacup. "Do you think Iruma should know about any of this? Part of me feels that he shouldn't be blind to his situation, but my darling grandson is a very gentle-hearted child. Telling him that someone had to be killed over something he said in private seems a little… cruel."

"It's worse than just that…" Rimuru murmurs. "Are you familiar with Orobas's bloodline ability, 'Trauma'?"

"I understand that it was used on Iruma, and that it shows someone their worst, most prominent fears. There's a tremendous variety of bloodline abilities in Babyls, but as they recur over the generations I've had plenty of time to learn about them."

"Iruma's worst fear… His worst fear is me. That I'd kill anyone I deemed a danger to him. So what would he see me as if he learned I did it again? Even if I didn't lose myself to anger this time?"

I frown as I imagine what might happen. There's an ambiguous line between senseless and necessary violence, and if Iruma can't find it, he may lose trust in Rimuru. It should be simple in a clearly-justified case like this, but unfortunately Orobas and that 'Beluran' fellow poisoned the well and made it more likely that Iruma would see this as blind sadism.

Rimuru is clearly anxious about that possibility, so I change my expression to a reassuring smile.

"I understand, I certainly wouldn't want to put a wedge between my favourite pair of 'twins' in the Netherworld. If anyone asks who killed Ocho, we can say it was Opera."

"And Opera would be fine with that?"

"Of course. He would have carried out the assassination himself if things weren't so urgent. He is my security devil, after all."

For some odd reason, Rimuru nearly chokes on her tea at the words 'security devil.' But I have no idea what to make of such a reaction, so I simply ignore it and move on.

I continue, "It's his job to take care of any 'problems' that may arise, sometimes in this manner. I'm certain he would be glad to take credit."

"If you say so." Rimuru says as she takes another sip of tea to try to cover up her surprised reaction.

"So, now that all the nasty stuff has been sorted out, how about a nice weekend getaway? I hear new mothers go through a lot of stress," I say, with a pause afterwards as Rimuru actually chokes on her tea this time. "… So, I can book you into the Netherworld's finest hotel and you can tell me how it compares with Tempest," I offer with a wink.

"Don't say it like that!" Rimuru blurts out after coughing, slightly flushed in her cheeks. "But… yes, that would be nice."

"Oh! And I can offer Iruma the same thing as a prize for winning the Harvest Festival! Hold on, I've got a call to make…"

**Flashback End**

"Well, if that's how you're going to play it, it's of no concern to me," Kalego says dismissively. "So, did you have an actual reason to visit me right before I was about to head to my class?"

"Of course, I wanted to ask if you got any useful information out of Ocho before, you know…" I make a gesture at my head and blow a short raspberry.

"We actually did find one useful thing, he was collecting data on students with high potential for–"

"And also, I wanted to get some pictures of you in your familiar form together with Ranga and my grandchildren! It was just so cute seeing the tiny Rimurus cuddled up to her familiar in the Harvest Festival, but Iruma didn't try summoning you!" I declare with a huff.

"What?! NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT, I REFUSE!"

Iruma POV

While walking to the cafeteria with some of my classmates once class breaks for lunch, everyone seems to still be focused on the 'invisible classmate' subject that was brought up earlier. I'm convinced there's more to it than a simple joke, I can just feel it!

"Don't let her get into your head, Jazz, she's just messin' with us!" Goemon assures him, but Jazz seems unconvinced.

"But there's a spot on one of the seats that's always empty…" I recall, trying my best to remember. "Like, none of us ever seem to sit there."

"There's lots of empty seating! It's a big classroom," Lead points out. "If we had an extra classmate, we'd know about it since Kalego does the roll call every day."

"That's very clever of you, Lead!" Elizabetta pipes up.

"You think? Ehehehehe…"

"Ah, about that…" Jazz looks like he suddenly realized something.

He shows us a piece of paper, with 14 tally marks.

"During the roll call, I made sure to count each name as it was said, to make sure I was paying attention. I don't understand it, but I counted 14…"

Lead stares at the paper in shock. "Jazz…"

"Mhm, do you see it now?"

"… Yeah, I see you suck at counting!"

A swearing match begins instantly, making Rimuru's soft snickering noticeable only from the way her body twitches.

I walk ahead to catch up with her. "Hey, Rimuru… is there a secret 14th classmate?" I whisper.

"You've got that Magic Field ability, if there was one you'd probably be able to see them," she replies with a shrug, grinning.

I'll have to try that next time I'm in class. I don't use it most of the time since it wears me out, but if we really do have a secret classmate, I need to know about them.

"I wonder what's for lunch today," Rimuru muses.

"Uh… aren't you banned from the cafeteria?"

"What's Kalego gonna do if I go there? Yell at me? C'mon, Iruma."

I guess I can't blame Rimuru for wanting to eat in the cafeteria, despite being banned from it for life. The food there is really, really good. Still, if she gets caught…

Just as we walk through the cafeteria entrance, something falls right on top of Rimuru.

"Ahahaha! A net? This must be Kalego's way of apologizing for his rudeness, not withdrawing his punishment but enforcing it so pathetically it might as well be withdrawn," Rimuru laughs. "I never took Kalego as the boobytrap sort, but I guess everyone enjoys setting pranks up like this once in a while."

"Want some help?" I offer, "You're pretty tangled up."

"Nah, I've got this." Rimuru waves me off and starts unwrapping the metal-threaded net from around herself.

"Oh my, Rimuru! I must say, seeing you caught like a damsel in distress is rather exquisite!" A voice from behind us chirps, and Rimuru's smile gains a certain fierceness as she turns around to face it.

"Your tutor taught you eloquence but nothing else, huh? Well, that was slightly less pervy than your usual comments, so as a reward, I won't kick you."

Rimuru tosses the net off of herself, and it lands on our bird-like classmate.

He starts screaming.

"Wait, the net was electrified?!" Rimuru exclaims in genuine-seeming surprise.

"KWAAAGH!"

"I guess Kalego didn't wanna play nice after all."

"AAAH! WAAAH!"

"Looks like he set the power real high too, since he knows I'm tough…"

"KYAAAAAAGH!"

"Alright, quit your yelling," Rimuru says with annoyance as she yanks the net off of Camui. "I really don't need to be reminded of how my weekend went."

How your weekend went… Rimuru still hasn't told me exactly what happened during the time she left. All I know is that it stressed her out enough to worry Grandpa.

"Riri! Iruma-chi! Were you playing Shaky-Shaky Net Dancing?" Clara asks as she catches up to Rimuru and me. Azz follows closely behind her.

"Clara, don't touch–" I try to warn her, but a grumpy voice cuts in before I can.

"What are you fools doing?"

It's Professor Kalego, glaring at Rimuru with disappointment. "I see that you're not civilized enough to listen to the rules laid out for you, Miss Tempest."

Rimuru seems slightly offended by the insult, but then she grins and offers up the net to Kalego.

"Hey Professor, your electric net ain't working."

"Just my luck…" Professor Kalego grumbles and reaches out to take it from her, but his hand stops short. "… Hold on, how do you know it's electrified?"

She just gives an evil-sounding giggle in response and takes a step toward Kalego while still holding the net at arm's length. Professor Kalego takes a simultaneous step back, clearly averse to touching it.

"You truly are a bizarre creature, resistant to everything but your own intrusive thoughts. It's no wonder you were on that list…"

"Wait, what list?"

"Never you mind, that is not for you to know."

Jazz raises his hand, having caught up along with the rest of my classmates.

"Eh, Prof, I swear we're not crazy, but do we have an invisible classmate you haven't been telling us about?"

Professor Kalego smirks. "If that was the case, don't you think someone would have seen them by now?"

"Seriously, you're giving a non-answer too? Are you and Rimuru in on this together?"

The two look at each other.

"… As if I would join in on this fool's pranks," our teacher scoffs, crossing his arms.

"He's running a whole conspiracy!" Rimuru jabs a finger in Professor Kalego's direction, "Get 'im!"

Rimuru attempts to make a distraction to abscond into the cafeteria, but she's stopped by Professor Kalego's hand on her shoulder.

"Anyway, I'm here because I thought it pertinent to uphold your ban in person, Rimuru. Especially as you might be tempted by all the limited-time offerings that are available only shortly after the Harvest Festival."

"Limited-time offerings?!" she exclaims, glancing back with shock and excitement in her eyes.

"Yes, it would do no good for your temperance if you were to indulge in sweet peppers stuffed with crispy meats and other complimentary ingredients, or the fresh pickings from a spaghetti tree lathered in a complex sauce made from fine herbs."

That sounds so good…

Rimuru is almost drooling as she listens, making me realize that I'm actually drooling. I wipe my mouth as Kalego continues with his flattering descriptions.

"The heady aroma of the stew they make at this time of year is also quite something," Professor Kalego continues, smiling at Rimuru who is looking more and more eager with every word. "Even demons with normal appetites can become lost in the flavor and order second or even third helpings."

"I… I want it!" I can't help but blurt out.

"So do I! Let's go, Iruma!" Rimuru cheers.

We both make a move to trot inside, but Rimuru is again snagged by Professor Kalego, this time held by the collar of her shirt.

"Rimuru, might I remind you that you managed to single-handedly made all these dishes more limited by eating so many rare ingredients? Would you care to explain to the Babyls chefs why they can't make hundred-flaringo apple pie this year?"

"Would you care to have a piano dropped on your head out of nowhere? Just let me have this!"

"Your threats don't work, you didn't manage to hit me with a single one of those students!"

So that's where she sent them! Right above Kalego's head, huh? What a crazy sister I have… I hope nobody got hurt.

"Then the next time I'll send an… um…"

Rimuru's attention seems caught by something, though I can't see what. Her expression is suddenly much more meek, and she finally relents.

"Y'know what, never mind. I'll see you later, Iruma," she says with a hint of irritation in her voice and briskly walks off, huffing.

I glance at my classmates, who also seem a bit worried about what just happened, but nobody else seems like they're gonna chase after her.

I'm torn. I don't want to leave my friends behind to eat lunch without me, but I also want to go after Rimuru. No matter what choice I pick, I'm neglecting at least one of my friends.

I decide to follow Rimuru.

"Master Iruma!" Azz calls out behind me, but I just reply with "Enjoy your lunch, Azz!"

I quickly catch up to Rimuru, and before I can even ask why she changed her mind about breaking the rules so suddenly, she speaks up.

"I realized I was only adding to the rumors that I'm a 'gluttonous abomination' by making a whole petty scene over the cafeteria ban. You probably couldn't hear, but people were starting to talk. So annoying…"

"If it matters… I don't think you're an 'abomination', and I don't think anyone in the Misfit Class does either."

Rimuru smiles wryly, "Thanks Iruma, but I don't need any comforting. I'm just doing the mature thing and giving up. It's my own choice." She pauses for a moment. "But why don't you go back and take advantage of those 'limited-time offerings' yourself? There's no sense in us both missing out, right?"

"What are you gonna do over lunch break then? Hang out with Ranga?"

"Ranga? Hmm…" Rimuru looks thoughtful for a moment, and then snaps his fingers. "That's a great idea! But rather than hanging out with Ranga…"

Rimuru instantly transforms into a slime, and before she hits the ground she's already transformed into something else, much to my surprise.

"I'll hang out as Ranga!" a small wolf declares.

I stare, dumbfounded.

My sister is a wolf.

The mighty Demon Lord is now a fluffy creature that doesn't even reach past my knees.

Somehow this feels even stranger than her slime form, because she could be described as 'formless' in that state, whereas this is a whole new thing of its own.

"Now I can go with you and try all the limited-time specials! Right? Right?!" the wolf I can't believe is Rimuru eagerly asks, eyes bright and tail wagging furiously.

So much for doing the 'mature' thing. I don't mind one bit, though.

"This is completely insane!" I laugh, slapping a hand on my forehead.

"The remaining normality I thought my life still had vanished when I came to Babyls. Might as well embrace the ridiculousness of it all," she chuffs as she heads towards where delicious things lie.

"I know, right? I knew my situation back in Japan wasn't normal for a kid, but now it's gotten even stranger."

"Is it a good strange?"

"The best kind of strange!"

After an excellent but odd feast, Rimuru leads me away from everyone again so she can de-transform.

Her embarrassment over the whole affair shows much more clearly in human guise.

"Ugh, I think I 'embraced the ridiculousness' a little too much…"

"Eating with a muzzle sure looked hard."

"Yup, now please forget what you saw, it'll never happen again."

"I can't blame you for giving up on politeness halfway through and just wolfing everything down, I doubt I could eat politely with a muzzle either."

"I said it won't happen again and you should forget about it!" Rimuru snaps with the faintest spark of aura. It was so small that I almost think I imagined it.

"Haha, don't worry, no one will ever think that wasn't Ranga!"

"Mm… Perhaps, as long as I don't abuse that loophole. I'm satisfied though, I got to try all the special dishes. The cuisine here 'nether' disappoints!"

We stare at each other for five seconds in silence.

"… Get it? Because we're–"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it," I sigh in amused exasperation, having obtained more evidence that becoming a parent causes you to make bad jokes. "By the way, I think that was the first time I've seen you turn into an animal. I'm kinda surprised you don't do it more often, that sounds like such a fun trick to be able to do."

"Hey, I don't exactly have the time to frolic around as various woodland creatures. Besides, what am I gonna do? Turn into a bulldeer and amuse myself by munching grass? That's some nostalgia I'd much rather not experience."

"Ah, I was thinking more like a bird…"

"A bird so I could fly, huh? In case you're forgetting, you're the only one here who can't fly," Rimuru pokes my cheek accusingly.

"Rimuru!" I blurt out and then frantically look around, hoping no one was sneakily listening in.

"Relax, I'm being careful. But we really ought to see what we can do about your lack of wings. Let's test out that 'Quartz-Quartz' spell in the weekend, 'kay? See how functional those wings you made with it are."

I give a fervent nod. I'm sure she's eager to get over this shortcoming of mine, and I definitely am too!