The emerald green leaves of the plants were stained with a layer of strange crimson. Drops of blood slowly slid down the petals, the pungent odor shattering the silence.

The cultist Lyra desperately suppressed the joy welling up in her heart, preventing her lips from twitching.

She was certain Hyperion would never dare attack the Immortal Mercury.

Because if Hyperion got close, she would also have to be wary of Lyra and the Immortal Mercury secretly working together to stab her in the back.

Only Lyra dared to kill the Immortal Mercury without worry.

For Hyperion, this was actually an invisible dead end!

In the distance.

As if also realizing this, Hyperion slumped to the ground, all hope lost.

And Lyra had already rushed towards the Immortal Mercury without hesitation.

"..."

Ranch’s gaze shifted slightly from the pages of his book, glancing at Lyra, who was frantically mutilating the summoned creature.

This outlaw seemed very enthusiastic about directing and acting, occasionally letting the silver alien fight back a few times, making it look like she was truly mortal enemies with this summoned creature, doing everything in her power to frame Hyperion.

Ranch then turned his head to look at Hyperion on the ground.

Their eyes met.

Ranch quietly winked.

Meaning, the plan was proceeding perfectly.

"..."

Hyperion's eyes were full of speechlessness and helplessness.

She felt that even if Ranch took the two demon teachers and stubbornly held back the cultist, he wouldn't necessarily lose.

Of course, it was best to win without bloodshed.

However, Hyperion strongly suspected that Ranch simply wanted to see the cultist's collapsing state when she finally learned the truth and discovered that her intelligence had been toyed with.

...

A few minutes later.

On the chaotic grassy ground of the botanical garden, through the joint efforts of the Head of the Department of Magic and Lyra, the silver alien creature was finally successfully eliminated.

Lyra breathed a sigh of relief and looked in the direction of the headmaster.

She believed that the mechanism had been successfully passed.

Next, the headmaster would help her deal with that duchess.

However.

This sense of security lasted for less than a second. The moment she relaxed, a deathly, inhuman magic power swept in from her side, like thunder in the sky, without warning.

It was an ambush from the Head of the Department of Magic.

Lyra’s reaction was exceptionally quick. Almost instantly, she sensed the danger, and her body reflexively contorted, dodging this fatal attack.

Even so.

Her coat was still cut open by the magic power, and blood seeped from the wound, staining her dress red.

At this moment, Lyra’s heart was once again filled with terror.

In the distance.

The headmaster was still reading.

Hyperion was still sitting on the ground.

This harmonious state was as if the headmaster had no intention of fulfilling his promise to execute Hyperion.

"Why?!"

Lyra quickly resisted the fatal offensive of the Head of the Department of Magic, her eyes filled with astonishment and incomprehension.

If her reaction hadn't been quick enough, she might have already died here.

And one of the demon teachers beside the headmaster had already taken action, directly attacking the second-tier black mist warlock and taking his head.

"Foolish fellow, did you think you could deceive the headmaster?"

The Head of the Department of Magic sneered mockingly.

He naturally understood the headmaster's plan.

At this moment, he even more admired the headmaster's world-shattering wisdom, like that of a great Demon sage.

With just simple words, he manipulated this rule-breaking student to personally kill the troublesome silver summoned creature!

"Isn't the headmaster supposed to be neutral?!"

Lyra's heartbeat was like a runaway drum, rapid, chaotic, and frantic. The heavy despair brought by reality caused her brain to tremble.

She didn't understand why this Shadow World was so unfair.

It was as if no matter how she went through the mechanism just now, she would have been the one to be executed!

"Of course I'm neutral, but you're the one who violated the school rules, and you even wanted to bite a good student. If I don't punish you, who should I punish?"

Ranch said indifferently, as if he was flipping through a book in his own backyard, not wanting to look at the buzzing pest at all.

And Hyperion, who was sitting on the ground, finally didn't want to act anymore and let out a relieved smile, as if mocking Lyra.

The scene she caught a glimpse of gave Lyra a momentary illusion—

Making her suspect that this headmaster was actually extremely unfairly favoring Hyperion!

"Ranch, can I tell her the truth now?"

Hyperion turned her head and asked, looking at Ranch.

"Haven't you already said the truth?"

Ranch's fingertips brushed over the pages of the book, and he said without looking up.

"Ranch...?"

At the moment when Lyra's astonishment and unwillingness reached their peak in the distance.

She heard Hyperion call the headmaster's name.

Ranch.

An absurd, yet terrifying, conjecture instantly exploded in Lyra's heart like muffled thunder.

At the same time, more and more doubts seemed to converge and connect in her heart.

Why had Hyperion's teammates been nowhere to be seen?

Why was the magic power of this Radiant Demon so strong that it was almost imperceptible?

And why did the headmaster previously let the challengers pass the mechanism smoothly?

At the moment when all these questions were intertwined, coupled with the explanation that "Ranch is the headmaster," it was as if everything had been solved!

"Could it be that you are Ranch?"

The only explanation Lyra could find was this.

"Indeed, it is this headmaster, that's right."

Ranch elegantly and calmly took out the [Ranch, Music Department Teacher] nameplate he had initially obtained from the music classroom from his pocket and hung it on his chest, as if to tell Lyra that he was not only the headmaster but also a formal subject teacher in this school.

This attitude of never looking at her directly from beginning to end seemed to highlight the vast difference in their identities in the Demon Academy at this moment.

"Ahhh!! Ranch! You bastard!!!"

Lyra's shouts tore through the air, echoing between the bushes of the botanical garden with rage and despair.

Her eyes were swollen and red, and the bloodshot eyes under the tearful light seemed to overflow with crimson.

She finally understood that she had been fooled around like an idiot by this guy.

Not only was she deceived by the distinct superior-subordinate relationship between this guy and the demon professor when she was previously in the headmaster's office.

Now, she was even more bewitched by his aura and words to personally obliterate her greatest reliance for escape.

And at this moment.

The corridors were already crowded with a large number of demon teachers, just waiting for Ranch's order to take action.

"Teachers, please punish this student who violated school discipline, harmed classmates and teachers, and seriously damaged school property."

Ranch, who was single-handedly holding a book and reading it intently, raised his right hand and moved his index finger slightly.

The next second, the demon teachers on the corridor behind them stepped into the classroom together.

In Lyra's terrified gaze.

She saw a dense wall of demon teachers, as if they were going to flatten this botanical garden.

The earth was rumbling.

At this moment, she finally recalled the nightmare-like fear that a human could feel beyond the limit.

Until her mentality collapsed, she still couldn't understand what kind of madman could rise from a student to the headmaster in a school full of demons in one night.

...

"Hyperion, thanks for playing with the Great Poet of Love."

Ranch said, still racing against time to read his book.

There was less than a minute left in the Shadow World.

From the moment the Great Poet of Love was defeated, he had sensed the changes that had taken place in the botanical garden while sitting in the headmaster's office.

So he set off to rush over at the first moment.

It was also when he was on the road between the corridors that he delayed a lot of reading time.

But fortunately, he was finally about to finish reading.

"If I continue to hang out with you and the Great Poet of Love, I feel like I'm going to officially join the Demon race."

Hyperion stood up tiredly.

She had learned a lot in this trip to the Demon Academy.

The good news was that she had learned it all from Ranch.

The bad news was that she felt like her bloodline had awakened now.

Theoretically speaking, she should be learning how to be human from humans, but she hadn't learned any human elements from Ranch at all.

Just as they were waiting for the end of this Tier 4 Shadow World to arrive.

"Ranch!!"

At this moment, a sudden voice came from the place in the distance that was about to be submerged by the demon teachers, like the last curse words before death,

"You will regret helping this mixed-blood demon duchess!!"

As these words came to an abrupt end.

The voice of the cultist Lyra, along with a desperate scream, was drowned out by the sound of flesh being torn apart in the demon tide.

Ranch didn't seem to have any feelings or reactions.

He just kept looking at the book.

And Hyperion's face suddenly turned pale.

The secret she had been hiding from Ranch for a long time was unexpectedly revealed at the last moment of this Shadow World.

Although she knew that she wouldn't be able to hide her demon background for long.

But she had planned to wait until she returned to the real world and find a better opportunity to confess to Ranch proactively.

Instead of hearing it from someone else in this way, as if she had been deceiving him all along.

"Ranch, listen to me, I... I was planning to tell you as soon as possible."

The heavy silence seemed to suffocate her, causing each of her words to come to an abrupt halt.

But Ranch's gaze was still fixed on the book in his hand, as if he didn't want to listen to her explanation at all.

"...I really didn't mean to deceive you."

Hyperion's voice became even softer, like winter breath, gently dissipating in the cold air.

(End of this chapter)