Conception 1

"... huh?"

Eyna was rendered speechless. Visible confusion could probably be read from her face and she had to actively close her gaped mouth.

The room fell into silence once again. Agares patiently waiting for a response, the woman, who actually was declared to be a demon, maintained her silence and Eyna was desperately trying to rack her brain around the newly found information.

With the other party being a demon, she had bluntly betrayed the angel's infallible reign. Then, Eyna remembered what she had said to the demon after the heavenly being had disappeared.

She had just reduced over four hundred years of war and a much longer time of mortal enmity to a "minor dispute". It was an embarrassing and dangerous mishap on her side.

Henceforth, she promised herself to watch her wordings more. Else, it could prove fatal in the future.

On the other side, it solved many questions which had emerged throughout the evening. From her adequate knowledge about demons, all the happening made much more sense.

The demon race existed nearly as long as the angel's race. The angel Lucifer was banned into hell after a failed coup attempt and became to be known as the first demon.

Seven more angels, who were directly involved in the revolt, had their wings cut and were thrown into hell too. Even now, they were the ones who are thought of as the leaders of the demonic forces.

Demons behaved fundamentally differently from the angels. They were much more unpredictable as they didn't have something like honor or excessive pride. The only thing they could really believe in was themselves.

The demon race even used their shapeshifting ability to turn into worthless mortal humans to undermine the angel's domination. Such an act would be inconceivable to the haughty angels. It was said that their aptitude in disguising themselves was convincing enough to even muck around with other demons.

This shapeshifting ability led Eyna to mistake the intruder to be human. As the demon's power had been dwindling through the injuries, some demonic characteristics could probably have been recognized visually.

With this, her butler was able to distinguish her from normal humans.

Demons, just as Angels, were in theory immortal. In comparison to humans, who possessed a physical soul, their souls transcended the realm of matter.

One could not kill them in the physical world, as they were able to just rebuild their bodies. Rebuilding the body meant, to just put everything back into the position as it was before.

All the blood had vanished from the office because the demon had just sucked the blood back in and closed the wound. This was done without Eyna having noticed even a single thing.

The reason why the demon hadn't done this sooner could be traced back to the metal pole protruding out of her body. Even though Eyna wasn't a doctor, she was sure that instantly healing the wound while still having a foreign object inside the body was not very healthy.

All these occurrences had ultimately led to this situation where three persons from two different races were silently facing each other in Eyna's office.

Eyna had finally chosen her next words.

"Of course I knew that I was just helping a demon while betraying the whole angelic race. What else did you think?"

The solution: Just acting as if it had all played inside the extent of her expectations.

"..."

"..."

The other two present remained silent. It somehow didn't seem like they were convinced by her desperate act. Eyna nearly teared up when imagining their pitying gazes and just wanted to end it right now.

"Ok, we have been all nice and cozy, but I think we should separate, forget each other and this situation, and just go back to our daily lives and do what we normally do."

With these words, Eyna chose to ignore the others and left them in the room behind, just like she did with her newly gained responsibilities.

The female demon and Agares were rendered speechless from her sudden escape.

Having exited the room Eyna felt that she needed fresh air and went back to the entrance of the academy. Greeting the soldiers guarding the school she stepped on the now nearly empty street.

She took out one envelope of her medicine, hoping the growing headache would fade back away. However, it didn't seem like she had gotten it from her typical illness and the medicine didn't help much.

The only thing Eyna wanted to do was to return to the mansion and get a good night's sleep.

・・・

The next morning, Eyna woke up in a bad mood. It took a few moments for her to remember the incident which happened the day before. It now all reminded her of some sort of feverish dream.

Having let herself fall into bed without worrying about changing clothes or covering herself with a blanket, she didn't feel like she had slept well and her body had grown cold. Eyna's throat ached and she could already foresee her growing sick.

Her mood didn't improve after she noticed her butler waiting patiently in front of the door after she had just left her room.

"Good morning, young Miss. You have two visitors awaiting you at the door," Agares told her calmly, probably smiling lightly.

"Who is it?" Eyna asked directly. She was already walking along the corridor, her butler following half a step behind.

"The police," he answered truthfully. Eyna stumbled in surprise and nearly lost her balance. With flailing arms, she raised herself up again.

Having the police literally waiting at her doorstep when considering the interracial dispute from a few hours ago wasn't a very welcoming sight. However, if word really had come out, the mansion would long have been raided by angels, archangels and maybe even followed by a throne.

Eyna slowly assured her mind.

Not letting her visitors wait, Eyna directly headed for the foyer, where she found two men standing indecisively on the carpet leading to the entrance.

"Good morning, how may I help you?" Eyna asked with a now confident smile while still descending the stairs.

"May the divine court bless you. My name is Inspector Reperio. And this is my assistant Officer Parvus," the man standing on the right side introduced the both of them. Eyna deduced from his voice him being middle-aged.

The assistant seemed a few years younger than the inspector and due to his unsteady breathing a little bit plump. Both of them had probably already walked around much this morning.

"It's an unusual sight having two police officers at your doorstep. Have I done something illegal?" Eyna queried entirely disregarding the happenings from the day before.

"No, not at all. We are currently pursuing an extremely dangerous criminal and are searching for witnesses who may be able to give us some clues," Inspector Reperio replied slightly flustered. Eyna could already guess what this would result in.

"Oh no, this sounds terrible! I assure you I will do everything in my power to help you catch this criminal," Eyna said with a faked shocked expression. She could feel the expressions of the officers turning gentle after witnessing her resolution to help.

"May I invite you to a cup of tea? We should relocate this conversation to my lounge which would be a more comfortable environment," Eyna proceeded to put up her most friendly smile.

"Yeah sur-"

"We must humbly decline. We will only ask a few questions and will have to visit other houses　after that," Inspector Reperio interrupted his assistant, who had wanted to accept her good-hearted invitation.

Officer Parvus appeared to be sorrowful.

"I understand. You must have many important businesses to do, so I don't want to hinder your progress in such an important case," Eyna submitted to his reply.

"I thank you for your understanding. Now Parvus, if you may," Inspector Reperio said and passed the word to his assistant.

"Yes, we are tracking a young woman, around twenty to twenty-five years old, 1.6 meter tall, blond, pretty face-"

The inspector interrupted his assistant again. Eyna could imagine the questioning face on the officer silently asking his supervisor what he had done wrong this time. Inspector Reperio probably tried wordlessly to transmit his meaning.

"Is something the matter?" Eyna asked innocently while intentionally staring with her artificial eyes to an empty space a little bit next to the two men.

Being blind had its advantages. Only a few persons would ever suspect a blind person of any crimes and Eyna empathized her own victim role by showing with her hollow gaze that she couldn't even completely locate the two police officers.

And with Eyna's, by own opinion, great charisma no one would ever even think of suspecting such an innocent woman.

Officer Parvus finally realized the stupid idea of describing the appearance of a criminal to a blind person. He cleared his throat and corrected himself.

"Oh no, it's nothing. Well… yeah… We are searching for a young woman…"

His voice broke off again, this time without outer intervention, because he didn't seem to find any other non-visual characteristics of the suspect. Eyna feigned ignorance.

"A young and good-looking woman… Next to myself, I don't think I remember anyone else with this description," Eyna said thoughtfully while subconsciously enhancing the description by one trait.

"I'm sorry, but I really haven't seen anything suspicious which could have helped your case," she continued, appearing sorrowful because she was a useless eyewitness.

"No! Not a problem. It is more assuring to know that an upstanding citizen such as you would not have crossed paths with such dangerous criminals," Officer Parvus quickly tried to reassure her.

"What did the criminal do to get this much attention?" Eyna asked, genuinely intrigued. She had already met the criminal and had helped her escape from the angel's grasp.

"This, even the police force itself doesn't really know. However, there are rumors that the criminal is, in reality, a demon, shapeshifted in a beauti-"

Inspector Reperio interrupted his subordinate once again by kicking into his leg. Officer Parvus let out a painful groan. This was the price paid for having a loose mouth and giving away semi-classified information.

Eyna quickly digested the new information given by the unprofessional part of the duo. It didn't really contain anything mind-breaking but it verified her thesis that the police was moved into action by the commands of the angels.

It wasn't an uncommon sight of angels giving away strenuous tasks to humans which they didn't want to do by themselves.

The orders were often short and let mortal race in the dark of the bigger picture.

"A demon! This sounds terrible. The police must be really courageous by trying to catch such a dangerous creature," Eyna voiced out her seemingly high respect for the two police officers. The younger of the two appeared to be visibly embarrassed. Inspector Reperio himself didn't show any audible change in expression, but said in a polite tone and probably with a gentle smile.

"I thank you for your trust. However, we need to continue our investigation and can't waste the time of our esteemed citizens much more. If you remember anything related to the case, please pay a visit to the nearest police office."

"I understand. I'm truly sorry that I wasn't of any help. I reckon that I wouldn't even be able to differentiate this demon criminal from a human if I ever met him," Eyna replied and wanted to let out a self-deprecating laugh. Then she bid goodbye with a friendly smile.

The moment the door had closed Eyna's kind expression immediately crumbled and her bad mood emerged again.

Eyna turned around and faced Agares, who had just silently stood a few meters behind her throughout the whole discussion and had not even thought of helping her to resolve this matter.

"What happened with the problem from yesterday?" Eyna queried, slightly upset.

"The problem is solved... Probably." Agares answered.

The response wasn't what Eyna had hoped it to be.

"Probably?" Eyna asked.

"Probably." Agares stated again.

Eyna sighted and let the matter slide. The past couldn't be changed and it was of no use to rack one's head about a finished incident. A mortal human like her was of no importance to a divine creature, so this was the first and last time she would meet this demon.

"Prepare breakfast and inform the academy that I will take the morning off and reach there only shortly before noon," Eyna ordered her servant thinking of taking a half-day break.

"It is already past noon," Her butler responded.

"Prepare breakfast," Eyna commanded annoyed while discretely erasing the entire existence of her second order. She only noticed now that she had overslept the whole morning and it would already be time for lunch.

"I understand," Agares said and left the scene.