Within Arm's Reach

Eighty years ago, Tina would never have concluded that Alix was difficult to deal with.

To put it in school terms, she was a bona fide athletic girl.

Her grades were mediocre, but she excelled in swordsmanship and combat. With a bit of light affinity, she was considered one of the bottom-tier apprentice Saintesses, right along with Tina. Tina would often see her running across the sports field in her breezy school uniform.

She was also very kind, often helping other Saintesses whenever she could, always greeting everyone with a warm and enthusiastic attitude. And people like her were always the easiest to weed out.

She eventually died during the Sacred Mutiny, and even when she vanished, not many people remembered her.

But the reason she was so troublesome now was that her personality was completely different from the past.

Alix used to be a somewhat rigid, simple girl. Among the Class A students, she should have been the cheerful, open-minded type.

If it were really Alix, she would have rudely walked up to Tina and invited her to a nearby bar for a wild night of drinking.

Her way of speaking was also like that of an entirely different person.

Her identity was already obvious.

An entity capable of possessing another person and acquiring all of their memories—in Tina's knowledge, there was only one such being.

The most dangerous magical beast, one capable of destroying humanity all on its own.

“The Deceptive Magical Beast.”

Was the entity before her a clone? The main body? A double? Or a time bomb meant to self-destruct?

No one knew—or rather, no one would know until Tina killed her with her own hands.

Unlike the Flame Magical Beast or Sathya.

She was a truly dangerous magical beast under the leadership of the Demon King, an entity that existed solely to carry out the will to destroy humanity.

Before she was fully prepared, Tina had absolutely no desire to interact with such an entity, and she would act as if she didn't exist.

Talking to someone like that was the real headache.

Yet even though Tina had no wish to communicate, Alix acted incredibly warm and enthusiastic.

Alix handed her the juice in her hand.

“I bought some orange juice for you. Want some?”

“No.”

Naturally, her enthusiasm was instantly shut down.

Tina shook her head and turned to leave.

“Hmm~?” Alix actually followed behind her. “Class is starting soon, and the Principal is going to give a speech in person. Are you really not going back?”

...

Tina continued to walk away from the Holy Church Building, completely ignoring Alix.

She wanted to return to her dormitory now to prepare to eliminate the next member of the Sacred Mutiny organization, or simply close her eyes to rest and train her body.

Her magic circuits were now perfectly intact, which meant she could learn more spells for combat.

Babarol was dead, but Ulrich was still around. He was another target Tina had to deal with.

But after walking only a few hundred meters, Tina caught a glimpse from the corner of her eye. Alix was actually following her closely, trailing right behind her.

She still held her drink, looking completely carefree.

Alix didn't even try to hide it. She followed her directly, maintaining a set distance from Tina.

Left with no choice, Tina had to loop around the sports field and head back to the Holy Church Building—the very building where the Class A students had their classes.

At that moment, the Dean of Students was still wallowing in self-pity in her office. Spotting Tina outside the window, she smiled and gave Alix, who was trailing behind, a big thumbs-up.

“You actually managed to bring her back? Impressive!”

Tina went upstairs, and Alix followed.

The two of them entered the classroom right at nine o'clock, just as class was starting.

The classroom was massive, but there were only about a dozen scattered students inside.

At the podium stood a familiar figure—Principal Ulrich.

He smiled and nodded in greeting, a grin on his face, though he didn't say anything immediately.

Tina sat in the very back row, the spot furthest from Sathya.

Yet Alix sat down right next to her, still wearing a cheerful grin.

Tina chose to continue ignoring her, and Alix didn't say anything either.

Before long, Ulrich began his speech in a formal tone.

“Congratulations to all of you outstanding talents for being selected into Class A.”

“Each of you excels in different fields, but you are undoubtedly the strongest of the new batch of students.”

“We will dedicate everything we have learned throughout our lives to pave the way for your future. May the future be bright. Glory to the Goddess.”

Ulrich went on to discuss many other matters.

This included their curriculum, the Holy Academy's next goals, and the path ahead for the Class A students.

Most of these students were high achievers. Among them were geniuses who could rival even the Saintesses, elite descendants of nobility from all over the world, and even the cream of the crop among various royal families.

It could be said that becoming a Class A student at the Holy Academy truly meant being a one-in-a-million genius favored by fate.

However, when it came down to it, Ulrich's speech could be translated as...

“I value you, but please work hard for the Holy Academy.”

The Church was not stingy with educational resources, but their attitude toward the students was rather perfunctory.

In this world full of long-lived beings, not many were willing to see a transition of power, especially among the upper echelons of the Church.

Ulrich was in his fifties, which was still considered very young for this position.

There were students in the Holy Academy who were seventy or even eighty years old, yet they still looked like teenagers.

Take Miranda, the Astral Sage, for example.

Ulrich's speech dragged on for two hours, to the point where Tina felt like she was developing calluses on her ears.

What made it even harder to bear was that Alix kept watching her the entire time.

Any movement from Tina would elicit a reaction from Alix.

For instance, if Tina looked out the window, Alix would look too.

If Tina read a book, she would sneak a glance at where Tina was looking and read the words along with her.

And whenever Tina looked back at her, Alix would just smile warmly.

Under normal circumstances, Tina would have thought she was crazy.

But now, Tina only felt a chill of eeriness.

She remembered when the Deceptive Magical Beast first appeared in the public eye. In just a few days, it had managed to infiltrate and assassinate high-ranking officials of the Church and various nations. The leaders of every country were killed, and tens of thousands of people were hypnotized by illusion magic into becoming puppets—most of whom were key figures of humanity.

Only a handful of human elites fought on bravely, yet even they were toyed with and run in circles by the Deceptive Magical Beast.

Too many lives were lost in that war. It was the most powerful magical beast they had ever encountered.

The humans deployed to the battlefield feared nothing more than seeing human camps in the wilderness.

At the time, due to constant harassment from the magical beasts, humans didn't even have the ability or conditions to pitch camp.

Instead, many exhausted, unfortunate souls would be lured in, only to be slaughtered by the puppets and buried underground, or enticed by illusions to become puppets themselves.