He had only meant it as a joke, but to his surprise, everyone except Marie nodded in full agreement.
"Hey—"
Shiomi nearly choked on his pastry.
Touko smiled sweetly at him.
"It really is a den of demons. The extremely dangerous kind. If the Director doesn't leave soon, she might not be able to leave at all."
"Huh?" Olga Marie blinked.
"What kind of demon, you ask?" Scáthach tapped her chin as if thinking. "Ah, right. An Incubus."
Shiomi immediately pulled a long face.
"What kind of Master calls her own disciple an Incubus? Aren't you at all worried about your reputation?"
"No need." Scáthach's foot slid under the table and brushed deliberately against Shiomi. "All of my disciples are more or less like that. But the only one who doesn't even spare his own Master… is you."
She paused, then added casually,
"Fortunately, you haven't left your name in human history. The only ones who know you're my disciple are those in Chaldea. We just won't record it later."
As she spoke, she cast a pointed look toward Marie.
Olga Marie listened in a daze, instinctively nodding along before realizing something was off and quickly shaking her head instead.
Meanwhile, Shiomi had gone rigid, slumped forward over the table. With his weakness currently under his Master's "control," he couldn't even form a proper rebuttal. After a long struggle, he finally managed to squeeze out:
"…Who exactly is the lust demon here…"
"Oh?" Morgan raised a brow. "Are you denying it?"
"..."
Shiomi fell silent.
He couldn't bring himself to say something that would so blatantly contradict reality.
In the end, he could only give a faint, reluctant nod.
Sensing something strange, Olga Marie hesitantly glanced beneath the table.
The moment she understood what was happening, her face flushed bright red.
And after that, there was no escaping.
"So this is what you meant by 'tea party'…?" Olga Marie asked timidly after being pulled into Shiomi's arms.
"Do you hate it?" Shiomi murmured beside her ear.
His breath brushed against her skin, making her head spin. Warmth spread through her body almost instantly. She gave a small shake of her head.
She didn't hate it.
She just suddenly understood what Shiomi had meant a few days ago.
Back then, she'd worried that she was monopolizing too much of his time, taking away from the others. Shiomi had told her not to worry. He hadn't explained why, only saying that for her, it might feel a little too intense.
Now she understood.
This was the "intense" he had meant.
Being held in her teacher's arms in front of everyone, Olga Marie was so embarrassed she didn't dare look at anyone else.
Shiomi didn't go any further.
He simply held her gently, almost tenderly, as if that alone was enough.
"Relax a little, or I'll start feeling bad for you," Shiomi reminded her with a smile.
"Mm… mm…" Olga Marie was still trying to steady herself.
"By the way, where were we in the conversation?" Shiomi tried to redirect the topic.
"The demon's den," Touko answered immediately.
"No, before that," Shiomi corrected. "We were talking about the puppet body, weren't we? After this, maybe we should run another check on Marie. See why the doll can't replicate her original Magic Circuits."
The moment the topic shifted, Olga Marie snapped back to her senses. The awkward heat in her chest subsided somewhat.
"There's probably no need," Morgan said, looking at Olga Marie. "As I mentioned before, Marie was born as an Animusphere for a specific purpose. Much like the Einzbern homunculi, she was likely adjusted even before birth, while still in the womb. Otherwise, it's impossible to explain how someone with only E– rank in quantity could possess Magic Circuit quality rated at an immeasurable EX."
At first, Morgan had assumed Olga Marie was simply a rare prodigy born within the Animusphere lineage.
The truth, however, was far more ruthless.
"In other words, it's not that Touko's puppet can't reproduce a Magus's innate aptitude," Artoria said thoughtfully. "It's that Marie's original body was already modified from the start. But if that's the case…"
Her gaze shifted to Shiomi.
"But my beloved disciple himself has nothing particularly unusual," Scáthach said. "I confirmed that when I brought him back from the Land of Shadows."
He had the aptitude of a Magus and the potential to be forged into a warrior.
The only remarkable thing was that he had survived in a realm saturated with the concept of death.
That alone had been enough for her to take him as a disciple.
Whether he had arrived there on his own or been sent made no difference.
What Artoria was really pointing to was his ability to touch upon Authority itself and ultimately ascend to godhood.
Were the trials arranged by Mooncell all leading to this outcome?
Or was becoming a god merely one step in something even greater?
"Why not look at it from another angle?" Skadi suggested. "Perhaps what's special isn't the body, but the soul. Even if Tenkei's body had been destroyed in that explosion you mentioned, and he had to transfer into a backup puppet, it wouldn't have changed anything."
"Why has this suddenly turned into a discussion about me?" Shiomi sighed, lightly gathering Skadi's hands in his as if holding a doll's. "I've already stopped digging into my origins. Even Grímr said I'd understand when the time comes. If nothing else, I'll trust Allfather Odin."
Skadi inclined her head faintly.
She could feel that Shiomi's trust in Odin had already surpassed her own.
From the results alone, Odin's favoritism toward him bordered on excessive.
Not only in Proper Human History, but even in the Lostbelt, Odin had foreseen his arrival and left Skadi a path to retreat.
Thinking of that, Skadi rose and stepped behind him, wrapping her arms around him from the back.
No matter how many times it happened, this tightrope-walking fate always left her feeling as though she, too, had been granted a blessing.
Even though she was a goddess—she was supposed to be the one granting blessings.
"Hey, hey…"
In the blink of an eye, Shiomi found himself surrounded.
One after another, they closed in around him, and even the mouth that was about to complain was silenced.
It was Olga Marie.
As if acting on instinct, she turned and kissed him.
The decorative ribbon at her collar slipped loose in the tangle and fell to the floor.
Hands moved; clothes shifted; warmth pressed close.
"I'm starting to feel like prey surrounded by wolves…" Shiomi murmured teasingly.
But he didn't get to finish.
Different body temperatures encircled him, and the last fragile thread of composure stretched thin, then snapped.
He reached out blindly, fingers brushing against smooth skin as he lost his balance and fell back onto the carpet.
In that final moment before everything blurred, he felt his fingertips touch something warm and damp.