—Inside a room of a royal estate owned by the Elf nation of Lorelei in Babel.
The reigning Queen of the Lorelei Nation, Avery Renren Lorelei, leaned back into her wooden chair and let out a long, weary breath.
She had encountered this disturbance while visiting Babel to attend the founding ceremony for Fiesta, the newly established nation of monsters and the demon race.
"So that was the strongest Transcender, Kai Heinemann..."
She had never dreamed she would cross paths with the rumored strongest Transcender, Kai Heinemann, right here in Babel—and under what could only be described as the worst possible circumstances.
Avery had already received reports regarding Kai Heinemann from her older sister, Inea, and her daughter, Mille-Feuille. Both had described him as a Great One who seemed far too human to be a Transcender.
Yet, simply because Vice Headmaster Crab Einstein—the number two authority in Babel—had attempted to harm a girl of the Human Race who was acquainted with him, Kai Heinemann had utterly eradicated him and ousted Inea from power. Seeing her proud sister so thoroughly defanged made it painfully obvious that he was someone who must never be made an enemy. In the eyes of the Lorelei Nation, Kai Heinemann was now an active volcano that no one dared disturb. And of all people, her own nephew, Torla, had gone and spat in his face.
"In that moment, I honestly thought all was lost."
She let out another sigh of relief, having lost count of how many she had released today.
Her nephew had provoked the strongest Transcender in history. Had full-scale hostilities erupted with Kai Heinemann, the Lorelei Nation would almost certainly have been wiped from the map.
By nature, Elves possessed sharper intuition than the Human Race. Even so, to Avery's discerning eyes, he had appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary human youth. Her sister Inea had likely perceived the same thing. That was precisely why she had committed the fatal insolence of attempting to manipulate him. After all—
"Rather than merely seeming human, he is human through and through."
Had he acted as a true Transcender, Torla's recent disrespect would have been utterly unforgivable. Even setting godhood aside, no King on earth would have let such an affront slide. And yet, the only one punished was the single contract spirit salamander; Torla himself was spared.
Judging by his past actions, Kai Heinemann was by no means an inherently merciful being. The threshold for drawing his wrath was remarkably low. The sole reason Torla had escaped destruction was that Kai had judged him to be nothing more than a student attending Babel—someone who could still be pulled back from the brink.
To calibrate one's judgment according to a subject's physical and mental maturity was a nuanced feat achievable only by someone who understood humanity down to its core. Only a human could truly understand humans. That was an undeniable reality.
"I see... Perhaps Miffy's assessment was not so far off the mark after all."
The strongest Transcender in history, yet one who believed himself to be a mere mortal. Mille-Feuille had told her as much, but the concept sounded so absurd that Avery had remained skeptical. Above all, mistakenly believing oneself to be human required an unbroken continuity of human consciousness. That meant he must have lived as an ordinary person in the past.
Ascending to godhood from human flesh was preposterous enough on its own, but becoming the strongest being in recorded history was simply beyond belief.
"If he is indeed human at heart, we must proceed with the utmost care."
Inea had adamantly warned her never to try using him. She had no such death wish to begin with. However, a tense situation was currently sweeping across the world, making it impossible to avoid him entirely.
That very situation was the reason for Avery's presence here: the emergence of Fiesta, the new nation of monsters and the demon race.
A revelation broadcast across the globe under the name of Prince Gilbert Loto Amelia of the Holy Amelia Kingdom had plunged the world into absolute turmoil.
A supposedly powerless monster had defeated Aldebaran, one of the Four Great Demon Kings, brought the demon race under its banner, and founded an entirely new sovereign state.
When this news first reached their homeland of Lorelei, everyone—Avery included—had brushed it off with a laugh as a tasteless rumor.
Yet, one piece of corroborating evidence arrived after another. Once it became clear that the strongest Transcender, Kai Heinemann, stood firmly behind Prince Gilbert, Lorelei's leadership fell into utter chaos.
For an Elf, securing an audience with a Transcender was the supreme pursuit of a lifetime. What was more, Fiesta was a nation directly linked to Kai Heinemann himself.
The veteran leaders of the Elf nation unanimously insisted on attending the ceremony. The only faction that stood in staunch opposition was the newly ascendant organization known as Libra.
Libra was an ideological faction asserting that Elves were the most noble and superior among the Human Race—a classic xenophobic, supremacist group akin to those often found among humans. Perhaps because their doctrine was so straightforward, they enjoyed overwhelming popularity, particularly among Lorelei's younger generation.
The core of their belief could be described as a meritocracy rooted entirely in bloodlines. They held that Elves, possessing superior innate ability, ought to reign at the apex of the racial hierarchy and subjugate all other races. Under this system, other races would be divided into rigid castes, with strict restrictions imposed upon their occupations, marriages, and civil rights according to their perceived worth. To Libra, monsters and the demon race were the lowest of the low—creatures that did not even possess the right to exist.
Naturally, Avery had no intention of adopting such shameless and fanatical doctrines. Lately, however, young Lorelei nobles who subscribed to Libra's rhetoric, along with gifted civil officials loyal to the movement, had begun securing key appointments throughout the government.
Torla and his associates were among those swept up in Libra's ideology. Though—
"For better or worse, it seems he has experienced a profound change of heart."
When pressed for the full truth, Torla had hidden nothing. He had offered sincere apologies to Seth Accard—a child of a clan targeted by Libra—as well as to Ariel and Schikke, the fellow Ouboro Academy students who had stepped in to halt his rampage and protect her. Above all, he had adamantly insisted that the blame rested entirely on his own shoulders.
He had inflicted unprovoked violence upon the defenseless. Babel's governing board would undoubtedly expel him from his current academy, and he was almost certain to be demoted to an institution of far lower prestige. Even so, the boy seemed at peace with his fate, wearing a remarkably clear and resolute expression. The catalyst had undoubtedly been his exchange with Kai Heinemann. To Torla, that brief interaction had apparently been worth sacrificing everything he currently possessed.
Regardless, Libra's ideology had seeped into every corner of the nation.
"This is where the true trial begins."
Following this recent debacle, Libra had clearly come to recognize Kai Heinemann as a dangerous element. Of course, Avery and her inner circle understood that danger all too well. The critical difference lay in how each faction perceived that threat. Avery and her allies saw Kai Heinemann as the strongest Transcender in history—a threat of the highest magnitude, capable of wiping their nation off the map should they ever cross him. In contrast, Libra merely regarded him as a slightly powerful human. This ignorance persisted because Kai Heinemann's true nature was classified as a top-secret state matter within Lorelei, kept entirely out of Libra's reach. After all, Libra championed pure Elf supremacy. They were people who refused to revere even the spirits, despite claiming them as their ancestors, and dismissed Transcenders as nothing more than fairy tales told by the elderly. Even if they were told that this remarkably human-seeming youth was a Transcender, they would never believe it.
Be that as it may, they had to make it unmistakably clear to him that Lorelei harbored no hostile intentions whatsoever. Should they fail, Lorelei faced total ruin at worst. That profoundly critical responsibility would almost certainly fall upon—
"It will be all right. I will ensure it goes smoothly."
Avery murmured softly to the quiet room, as if trying to reassure herself.