"Ha ha, ha, mmhmm, it's, uh, it's cold here, huh?"
Kaizen scratched the back of his head awkwardly, immediately regretting the sentence the moment it left his mouth. The words floated in the air between them, weak and pointless, like they were looking for a reason to exist and failing miserably at that simple task.
Irina did not answer.
She was sitting by the window with one hand propped under her chin, her elbow resting on the window base as she gazed outside at the passing scenery with this distant expression.
Moonlight brushed against her elven features, making her look calm and ethereal, like she belonged to a different world entirely where peasants like him didn't exist.
After a few seconds of continued silence, she glanced at Kaizen with these cool eyes, squinted slightly as if evaluating whether he deserved even a syllable of effort or acknowledgment, then gave a quiet, curt response before turning back to the window.
"Mm."
That was it.
Kaizen let out a slow breath and shook his head lightly.
Actually, this was nice.
Out of all the main characters he had met so far during his cursed existence at this Academy, Irina was the only one who had not really spoken to him at all.
The others had at least thrown insults, warnings, threats, or vaguely threatening one-liners in his direction that made him fear for his life, but she had chosen something far more powerful than any of those options.
Complete disinterest.
'This is nice.'
Kaizen thought sincerely while settling into his seat.
There was no pressure to respond to anything. No dramatic tension building up in the background. No accidental plot flags being raised by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Just silence, broken only by the soft hum of the Arcane Caddy's engine and the quiet presence of someone who clearly did not care whether he existed or not.
He found himself genuinely enjoying it.
Ten minutes later, the caddy came to a smooth stop at Wing L of the boys' dormitory. Kaizen jogged out, stretched his stiff legs that had been cramping from the mountain hike, and instinctively looked back at the vehicle.
Irina had not moved.
She was still gazing out the window with her chin propped on her hand, completely unbothered by his departure, his survival, or his continued existence as a human being sharing the same planet as her.
'Nice.'
Kaizen thought approvingly while watching her ignore him.
'Good job, princess. Keep hating humans more. You're doing great.'
He gave her a mental thumbs-up in his heart, turned around, and headed toward his room feeling strangely refreshed by the experience.
Sometimes, the best conversations were the ones that never happened.
.
..
...
"Ah, human, you came back alive. I was beginning to worry that you had perished somewhere inconvenient and I would have to explain your absence to the faculty, which would have been tedious because—"
Klaus had only managed to get halfway through his dramatic greeting before Kaizen raised one exhausted hand directly in his face without even looking at him, cutting him off mid-sentence, and walked straight past like Klaus was a decorative coat rack or a potted plant.
He dropped his ridiculously heavy bag onto the floor with a dull thump that echoed through the room, took three unsteady steps forward on legs that barely worked anymore, and then collapsed face-first onto the bed.
"Haaa."
The sound came from the deepest part of his soul.
It felt amazing. Heavenly. Like every muscle in his body had collectively agreed to give up on life for the night and pursue a career in being absolutely useless.
He did not even bother taking a bath or changing clothes, because at this point exhaustion did not warrant hygiene or proper sleep preparation, it warranted immediate unconsciousness.
Klaus slowly closed the door behind him.
He stood there for a moment, staring at the sprawled human with a faint crease forming between his brows.
He was irritated.
Not violently irritated in the way that would result in someone losing limbs. But offended in a very specific, aristocratic way that only centuries of noble upbringing could produce.
The human had not only ignored him, but had physically stopped him from speaking mid-sentence, and then proceeded to flop onto the bed like a corpse that had paid rent and decided that was enough effort for one lifetime.
Nobody in the demon realm ignored him.
Nobody.
Klaus crossed his arms and looked down at the relaxed, half-dead human sprawled across the mattress.
'His flimsy body must be exhausted.'
Klaus thought calmly while observing.
'Perhaps this is why humans perish so easily in dungeons and battlefields.'
Then, naturally, another thought followed.
'Should I turn him into a vampire?'
Klaus mused while scratching his chin.
'Or perhaps a werewolf would be more suitable for his constitution?
Both options were perfectly reasonable from a logical standpoint.
A vampire required only a bite and some basic supervision during the transition period.
A werewolf required a ritual, a specific moon phase, and some preparation with herbs and incantations, but the result was a massive upgrade in physical durability and longevity that would solve most of the human's fragility problems.
Stat-wise and skill-wise, both races were vastly superior to humans in every measurable category.
Of course, Klaus was not seriously considering it in any immediate sense.
Mostly.
Kaizen's eyes snapped open.
Every single hair on his body stood straight up.
He could feel it. That unmistakable sensation of being stared at. Not casually. Not accidentally. But analyzed with purpose, like a slab of meat on a butcher's table being evaluated for the best cuts.
'What the hell. What the hell, what the hell, what the hell!'
Then it hit him like a truck.
He had just ignored the Demon King Candidate.
Ignored him completely.
Stopped him mid-sentence like he was some kind of annoying telemarketer.
Kaizen felt his soul physically try to crawl out of his body through his pores.
He let out a weak, awkward chuckle and slowly rolled his head to the side to look at Klaus with mounting dread.
Big mistake.
The demon was staring directly at him with his hand resting on his chin, eyes unfocused and distant, clearly deep in thought about something.
Deep. In. Thought.
'No.' Kaizen panicked internally. 'No no no no no.'
His brain immediately filled in the blanks in the worst possible way his imagination could conjure.
'He's thinking about how my organs taste.'
'About how my blood tastes compared to other humans.'
'About turning my intestines into some kind of demonic chain weapon for his collection.'
'Why is he THINKING so HARD about something while staring in my general direction?!'
"H-ha ha ha!"
Kaizen laughed nervously, forcing himself upright despite every single instinct screaming at him to fake death and hope the predator lost interest.
"Klaus! H-how was your day? Did you have a good evening?"
'Forget tiredness.'
He thought desperately while sitting up.
'What is tiredness compared to not having a beating heart anymore because it got ripped out?!'
He fully sat up in bed, facing Klaus with the expression of a man who had just realized he was standing on a landmine.
Klaus finally spoke.
"I was thinking, human," Klaus said calmly while nodding to himself like he had just solved a complex mathematical problem, "there is likely very little in your body that is worthwhile in its current state, so why do you not simply become reborn into something better?"
Kaizen's brain shut off.
Body not worthwhile.
Reborn.
Those words echoed through his mind like funeral bells announcing his impending doom.
'That's it.'
Kaizen thought with absolute certainty.
'He's going to eat me. This is demon talk. This is how demons tell you they're going to consume your body and send your soul through some kind of reincarnation blender.'
Klaus, meanwhile, had already sat down in his chair and leaned back comfortably, still staring at nothing in particular as he continued his train of thought out loud.
His gaze was not even on Kaizen anymore, because he was genuinely considering racial optimization and long-term survivability strategies for his fragile roommate who kept nearly dying.
Of course, his human speech proficiency was still lacking in certain nuanced areas.
But Kaizen did not know that.
Kaizen was seconds away from pissing himself.
'REBORN?!'
His thoughts screamed at maximum volume inside his skull.
'REBORN INTO WHAT?! A BLOOD SLURRY?! A SOUL BATTERY FOR DEMON RITUALS?!'
He stared at Klaus in pure, undiluted horror, hands clenched into the bedsheets like they might somehow save him from whatever demonic fate was about to befall him.
'This is it.'
Kaizen decided miserably while watching Klaus think.
'I ignored him, and now I'm getting spiritually recycled into a lamp or something.'
The silence stretched between them like a rubber band about to snap.
Klaus hummed thoughtfully while considering the pros and cons of vampirism versus lycanthropy.
And Kaizen prepared himself for the worst possible interpretation of demon hospitality.