In sets of threes, the classmates had been split into groups at Alureino's discretion: someone who understood the lesson, someone with a decent understanding, and someone who only somewhat understood it.

  "Hey-hey~" Anazenpha announced cheerfully, waving her little sleeve hidden arms up and down as she looked up at Inkaro with her eyes locked up firmly tight. With all the enthusiasm but none of the understanding to make good on it, Anazenpha happily looked in the direction of the in-progress quartz curio before turning her attention to Yuuvia. Said girl, who constantly struggled to keep herself from deeply blushing, to the point of illumination, anytime the demon girl looked her way, in a non-literal way, with how her eyes were closed. Anazenpha didn't think much of Yuuvia's reaction, mainly because, from her point of view, the demon snake could only see a vague mental outline of what Yuuvia looked like, but anytime the mental image became too complete, she'd snap it out of her head in a somewhat desperate act of preservation for both her and Yuuvia's self-esteem.

  So to keep herself from thinking on the topic too much, Anazenpha locked her fingers together and scratched the bottom of her chin: "Isn't it crazy how we got paired up together? It feels... targeted, maybe?"

  "In what way, might I ask?" Inkaro asked as Yuuvia handed over the class-issued rune etching tool to him before he began etching into the face facing him.

  "Well... I think Mrs Alureino noticed I wasn't really following what she was going on about those rune thingys, so I think she paired me up with you because you know your stuff." Yuuvia thought the girl's question must've been rhetorical. After all, Alureino vocally told everyone that she'd put them in groups of varying skill. The redundant question made the noble girl wonder, was her fellow gender-matching teammate partaking in small talk? It was commendable to Yuuvia, for in her opinion, trying to get into Inkaro's head was truly a test of mental resilience for normal people.

  "Seems logical," Inkaro stated calmly while nodding and turning the quartz curio over to begin inscribing some runes on the flat surface facing Anazenpha, much to Yuuvia's dismay at Inkaro doing the other girl's work for her.

  Giggling slyly and shyly, Anazenpha playfully placed her hands on the chains of her backpacking tome and pulled on them like a pair of suspenders: "I barely learned how to speak the Humalia's main language until a week ago for attending the academy, so I'm hopeless when it comes to learning yet another language for a magic I will not be able to use, you know?"

  "I see."

  With a playfully happy smirk, Anazenpha lightly clapped her hands for the guy's help before asking, something mostly off topic, "Do you only speak in short tongues?"

  "I wish you weren't so good at rune scribing while not looking and talking at the same time, I've hardly done any work," Yuuvia grumbled as the three, well, mostly Inkaro, with some assistance from herself, worked on the curio.

  "Say... what is this thing supposed to do?" Anazenpha asked puzzledly as she snapped her fingers near the in-progress curio, picturing a tetrahedron-shaped object with vaguely noticeable notches her echolocation could pick up on.

  Propping his head up like a golden retriever spotting a treat, Inkaro happily handed the etching tool to Yuuvia and let her have a turn again as he focused on answering Anazenpha.

  "Oh. Given the runes we were tasked with etching, I assume it will be an Attribute Appraiser that can show the Complex ones." Inkaro's enthusiastic tone was very pleasing to the demon snake's ears, so much so that she almost missed the glaring mention of Complex Attributes. The fact made Anazenpha turn a little pale and ease up on her smile: If her usual smile were to be quantified in points as a hundred, then her weakened smile would be roughly eighty-three.

  "I-I, oh... so-so," Anazenpha blurted out without announcing her shock, stumbling over her words so badly Yuuvia thought it was intentional.

  While the other two toiled away, Anazenpha mentally, and slightly physically, squirmed in her seat. She was certain this was bad. If they ended up testing it and it shows her Complex Attributes, then she'd be exposed. It was the last thing the demon snake wanted to happen; she'd never hear the end of it, and her academy life would be a dreadful repeat of her elementary school days.

  Maybe she could go to the restroom right before the curio is finished, or when it's her turn, she could knock it off the table to break it?

  However, Anazenpha had no time to act on either of her plans as Inkaro clapped his hands with praise, much to Yuuvia's embarrassed appreciation and annoyance at the guy's praising. Murmuring quietly as her face turned redder and redder, Yuuvia voiced her thoughts on Inkaro's prolonged clapping that went far beyond her welcome: "Will you knock it off, and are you trying to kill me? I wouldn't be surprised if Lizu got so angry she'd somehow turn into a full-blown dragon, and in her fury ends up eating me or something?"

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  "Now that is hyperbole, I think? Besides, from what Lizu told me, only those of the Demon race can take on monster-like transformations, and the dragolytes species are a part of the Humalia race," Inkaro stated matter-of-factly, acting like Yuuvia's bizarre statement was only impossible on a biological level and not a personality level.

  Yuuvia scoffed at Inkaro's logic-laced retort. She found it a little comical that Inkaro made no effort to deny that Lizu wouldn't do such a thing if she were capable of doing so. Yuuvia turned to her fellow girl, intending to ask for her opinion, only to see the mortified look on Anazenpha's face. If the two Humalia had to describe the face the Demon pulled, forgetting you left the stove on while on a month-long trip came to mind.

  "Is everything alright with you?" Yuuvia inquired curiously. Getting no immediate response of any kind, Yuuvia waved a hand in front of the demon girl's face, only to look at her own palm in self-directed confusion when she recalled Anazenpha's avoidance of using her eyes.

  "Y-yeah, just remembered something... embarrassing." Anazenpha reached for the chains of her tome and scratched them deeply, targeting two particular chains like she felt a deep-rooted itch buried within them that she just couldn't reach by herself.

  "Oh, I've been there, the worst kind of embarrassing memories are the ones where someone else was a fault, but you end up with all the shame," Yuuvia vocalised adamantly with her fists planted on her hips and her cheeks primed in a pout, recalling Unuvi putting her in a doll dress, which was made infinitely worse by Yuuvia's older cousin mistaking her for a real doll for a whole day.

  Anazenpha cupped Yuuvia's hands with an understanding grip out of nowhere, grabbing them with effortless ease. The sudden act would've startled the noble girl, had it not been for the fact her mind was instantly enthralled by the texture of the demon girl's hands, being that of the scaly kind despite not showing it. Slowly but surely, the noble girl got over the scale-feeling hands' texture and back onto how they'd found her own. Anazenph's aim was so perfect that it made Yuuvia question whether plenchona had x-ray vision or something like that, but she knew that was far-fetched.

  "You wanna eat lunch. Together, later?" Anaxenpha inquired with free-spirited glee, her proposal slamming into Yuuvia's train of thought and derailing it so badly the noble girl sort of just nodded on instinct, much to the demon girl's delight.

  Just the thought of food got Anazenph drooling.

  "Are you two ready to test the attribute checker?" Inkaro asked: tetrahedron-shaped quartz curio in hand as it projected his Complex Attributes.

  [Inkaro's Complex Attributes]

  [Speciality: Grimoire Creation]

  [Stigma: None]

  [Class: Grimoire Meister]

  [Grimoire/Tapestry/Curio Limit: 1+e-1]

  "Whoa, I'm honestly surprised you didn't have a stigma, it's just the right amount of bizarre and ridiculousness for you," Yuuvia joked as she put her hand on the curio to check her own complex attributes. Much to Anazenpha's chagrin, Yuuvia's innocuous action inadvertently brought the demon snake's hand close enough to the curio for it to also read her attributes at the same time.

  [Yuuvia Noutlyine's Complex Attributes]

  [Speciality: Multi-Magic-Type Casting]

  [Stigma: Riches]

  [Class: Shamen Knight]

  [Grimoire/Tapesty/Curio limit: 7]

  [Anazenpha Zen's Complex Attributes]

  [Speciality: Mana Consumption]

  [Stigma: Voracity]

  [Class: Artistic Tome Architect]

  [Tome/Instrument/Catalyst limit: 2]

  "You've got a stigma too?" Yuuvia and Anazenpha whispered bewilderedly to one another as they hunkered down underneath the table. Yuuvia was shocked that Anazenpha also possessed a stigma, while Anazenpha was relieved that the topic of stigmas wouldn't be solely focused on her.

  "Do you also have someone's voice constantly popping up in your head and bugging you every chance they get?" Yuuvia asked excitedly, having always wondered if the stigmai who gave her a stigma was an oddball compared to other stigmai.

  "No...? I just get inexplicably ravenous whenever I see anything edible," Anazenpha remarked in a shyly bold way, feeling a strange catharsis of relief at outright vocalising the very thing about herself she saw as less than desirable to someone in her boat. Yuuvia made a befuddled and awkward "A-a-ha... heh" in response to the other girl's proclamation, suddenly feeling immensely grateful that unwanted banter was all she had to deal with.

  While the two girls chattered between themselves, Inkaro watched them while crouched beside the table, finding the discussion rather intriguing, in a not-quite-getting-it-in-the-slightest sort of way.

  "Now I feel out of place," Inkaro joked at seeing the duo's back and forth before shooting a glance over his shoulder at the third window on his left, having the oddest feeling that a gaggle of invisible forces were spying on him. Around the walls surrounding that very window was a school of invisible stigmai, ranging from D to B in Rank, huddled against the wall for dear life.