– Hm, hm.
Behind the orphanage building.
In a damp space where no one’s gaze reaches, I am letting Binya smell the candy.
While it might be considered a fuss,
I can’t shake off the uneasy feeling, and my grandfather’s last words keep echoing in my ears, causing me to doubt everything.
Even though the other nuns are distributing the candy they received from my grandfather to the children without suspicion.
“Delicious smell—.”
“Is there anything special besides that?”
“Special?”
“Yes. For instance, feeling a bit hazy….”
“Um….”
To be honest, I don’t have high expectations of Binya.
This is merely an action based on my instincts, and I know well that Binya, despite having a slightly more developed sense of smell than a human, doesn’t have the ability to distinguish things much.
Expecting something from Binya, who has seen candy for the first time today, is inherently contradictory.
“I don’t know—. But I feel something strange coming from this candy.”
In that moment, while I waited calmly for Binya’s response without expectations,
a nonsensical statement suddenly slipped from Binya’s mouth.
“Excuse me?”
“How should I say it—? It feels like the feeling I had when our house broke—?”
“…What are you suddenly talking about?”
A strange remark that I couldn’t comprehend at all.
I looked at Binya in confusion.
Binya spoke those words with the same bright expression as usual, but no matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn’t make sense of the hidden meaning behind them.
“Could you explain it a bit more clearly?”
When I asked Binya directly with a slightly skeptical expression, a bright response immediately came back without any hesitation.
“It smells like the Demon Tribe from the candy—.”
Slowly, my eyes widened in surprise at an unexpected answer.
An action I took on a whim, thinking I had nothing to lose, yielded unexpected results.
“Demon Tribe…?”
“Yes. Now give me that candy.”
At that moment, my body stiffened as if turned to stone.
No, to be precise, my mind became so tangled that I couldn’t do anything.
I never thought my simple instinct would catch something of this magnitude.
“Oh, there’s something here.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. I’ll give you the candy later, but for now, just play with the kids.”
“Huh?!”
With that statement, I slowly rose from my seat.
I don’t know why the Demon Tribe is naturally mixed into a village like this.
Regardless, it seems clear they approached this village with impure intentions, so I figured it was best to move.
Just as I was about to walk back to the garden in front of the orphanage with Binya—
“Levynia-san?”
The voice of the Abbess reached me softly as I was about to pass by.
“I was wondering where you had gone. What are you doing here?”
The Abbess’s expression looked quite displeased.
It seemed she thought I was slacking off, as I could feel her voice was filled with a reprimanding tone.
However, I didn’t even blink.
Instead, I straightened my back and walked past her nonchalantly.
“L-Levynia-san…?”
And once again, the Abbess’s startled voice came from behind.
Only then did I casually meet her gaze and spoke calmly.
“Is the current head of the orphanage someone who recently started here?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m just asking.”
At my sudden question, the Abbess made a blank expression for a moment.
“Oh, no…. She has been here for quite some time…. Why do you ask all of a sudden….”
“I see. Then, when comparing the first time you saw her to now, has anything changed?”
“Well… I don’t really feel anything strange…”
As soon as I heard the Abbess’s answer, I naturally nodded my head once.
While I would usually confirm after much doubt, I didn’t want to spend that much time resolving the situation.
Especially if the other party is a Demon.
“Why are you asking me all of a sudden? Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
“To say it’s nothing, the atmosphere coming from you, Levynia-san, seems too….”
“I appreciate your concern, but it feels like you’re focusing too much on me.”
“…Excuse me?”
I didn’t have any significant grievances against the Abbess.
She was simply doing her duty.
Since I felt no malice from her, I complied without venting any dissatisfaction in this awkward situation.
After all, I’m wearing a nun’s habit now, so having learned some basic education could always prove useful.
“I’m not as special a being as you might think, Abbess. Binya isn’t a messenger of the goddess either; she’s just an ordinary dragon.”
However, contrary to my thoughts, the Abbess wasn’t purely teaching me out of innocent intentions.
It seemed she viewed me as a special being, harboring a desire, albeit unintentional, to guide me down a more proper path.
“So, I’m going to slack off for a bit.”
That’s not quite the direction I want things to go.
“L-Levynia-san—?!!”
A short hour at best.
It’s too brief a time to make a judgment.
This ominous feeling I have could just be unfounded anxiety.
But everything seems too off to do nothing and remain still.
“Binya, if you spot a child with this candy, please take it without hesitation. I’ll take responsibility for that.”
“Huh? Take it?”
“Yes. Just hold onto it and don’t eat it.”
“Why?”
“Because you shouldn’t eat it. And I’d appreciate it if you kept this conversation a secret from everyone.”
“Meow… I don’t know what’s going on, but if that’s what Levi wants, I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.”
With that conversation finished, Binya and I briefly parted ways.
I walked steadily toward where the head of the orphanage was, and Binya naturally blended in with the group of children.
There were several parts of Binya’s behavior that worried me, but for now, I had to focus more on the other matters, so I had no choice but to trust her.
“Um, Abbess?”
“Ah, yes. What is it?”
The head of the orphanage spent her time leisurely chatting with the children without any specific actions.
I approached her calmly and spoke softly.
“Could I possibly get some more candy? I’ve distributed it so haphazardly that there’s not much left.”
“Already?”
“Yes. Do I need to go into the building to get more?”
“……”
At my question, the head of the orphanage blinked in surprise for a moment.
But that was brief; soon, she nodded slowly with a bright, harmless smile.
“Yes, of course. Please follow me.”
“Thank you.”
She hesitated briefly but surprisingly led me into the building, walking casually ahead.
Her demeanor remained gentle.
“It seems the children aren’t quite responding well to you, Sister.”
“…I’m trying my best, but it’s not easy.”
“That’s alright. Compared to other children, the ones in this orphanage are a bit warier.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Since they are children abandoned by their parents, they find it hard to trust anyone easily.”
“Considering that, Binya seemed completely unguarded.”
“Hahaha, it’s a first-time encounter for her, isn’t it? Plus, her size is similar to that of the children—.”
As we reached the office, the head of the orphanage continued to maintain her gentle demeanor, chuckling lightly.
It almost made me feel like I was the one suffering from a severe case of paranoia…
“Now, come on in.”
At her invitation, I stepped into the office somewhat bewildered.
The room was cozier and more ordinary than I had expected.
There was a large desk on one side, and various pictures and drawings were hung on the walls.
“Let’s see… I had the candy somewhere around here….”
The head of the orphanage stood in the middle of the office, staring blankly.
At this point, I couldn’t help but tilt my head in confusion.
He was still looking for the candy in a perfectly normal manner.
I didn’t sense any hidden schemes at all.
“……”
As I waited silently with my eyes wide open, suddenly he muttered something strange that I couldn’t make sense of as he searched through the desk drawer.
“Didn’t you have something you wanted to tell me?”
His unexpected statement made my eyes widen in surprise.
However, he still didn’t meet my gaze, focused solely on rifling through the desk.
“You can relax; it’s just the two of us here. If there’s something you want to say, feel free to speak.”
His tone was quite significant.
It gave off a strange feeling of pressure.
“Could it be that an order has come down from above to withdraw?”
“……”
I fell silent for a moment, closely observing his words and actions.
“You’ve sent quite a few human children over the years, haven’t you? You seemed satisfied at the beginning, so why now….”
When I didn’t respond amidst the flow of his incessant chatter, only then did he stand up and finally make eye contact with me.
His expression was now filled with considerable anger.
“The children you currently have won’t be of any help to that fellow.”
“……”
So I remained silent.
Wishing they would just end up being simple suspicions, but with the ongoing conversation, my doubts began to solidify into certainty.
After all, my instincts and suspicions were correct.
“Please, trust me and wait.”
Moreover, it seemed he thought of me as one of the Demon Tribe.
The fact that I had covered my face with a veil seemed to have unintentionally worked to my advantage.
“What’s the reason for this?”
“…Excuse me?”
At my low inquiry, he looked momentarily flabbergasted.
However, when I calmly asked for the reason again, he tilted his head slightly and responded in a perplexed voice.
“To take revenge on the vampire that made us like this.”
His answer caught me quite off guard.
Setting aside his identity as a Demon, I had never anticipated I’d suddenly be included in this narrative.
Moreover, I assumed my appearance and attire would have become sufficiently known among the Demon Tribe, yet his behavior showed no signs of that.
“How much do you know about that vampire?”
“…Am I being underestimated too much? I know just about everything. Her skin is very pale, she appears as a woman wearing a nun’s habit, and so on.”
“But, as someone in the same nun habit, I’m not suspected at all?”
“Hahaha, don’t try to scare me unnecessarily. That one is a vampire. She can’t roam freely in broad daylight.”
I fell silent for a moment.
It seems like they still think I’m weak against the sunlight.
“This kind of testing is pointless. I wouldn’t recklessly engage in such matters without that level of information.”
Well, I can’t blame them for not knowing.
I evolved into my true form only after everything was settled, and since then, I haven’t shown any particular signs.
I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Anyway, if we use the human children here to strengthen that one, we should be able to easily subdue that one called Aizen, who has been running rampant lately.”
As I pondered how to handle the situation while he wore a hesitant smile,
a chilling, suspicious remark quietly echoed in my ears.
“And we’ll feed that one with them. If we do it that way, even a vampire reputed to be very strong shouldn’t be able to resist easily.”
