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With homeroom over, we headed to the Puppet Sorcery classroom.

『Will she be there in the Puppet Sorcery classroom?』
『We’ll find out either way, but I have a hunch she’s the type who would be there. She probably considers that to be her place of belonging, you see.』

I think she’s like those students who are always in their club rooms or researchers who sleep over in their laboratories. Carol is probably the same, and Mia would likely be similar had she been born in a different family, in my opinion.

『So in my case, by Ain’s side.』
『We’re always together though.』
『Oh, but there was a time when you were away without a word, you know?』
『I’m sorry about that.』

The Creator God practically kidnapped me when we met, but me not being able to be with Ciel for 3 whole days was partially the consequence of me neglecting myself.
I honestly feel guilty about it, so the apology naturally left my lips. Ciel replied, 『It’s alright,』 in her usual tone, but I seriously want to make sure something like that never happens again.

Walking through the ever-empty halls, we reached the Puppet Sorcery classroom where we were met by Munyechka, who clearly looked like she was just in the middle of a task.

「Good morning, Ms. Munyechka.」
「Ainsel, is it? Hm, morning. What brought you to my sanctuary? If you came with no particular reason at all, then I might have to consider using extreme methods to remove you.」
「My apologies for having interrupted your work. There was something I wanted to inquire about, but Ms. Munyechka, were you always that kind of character?」
「Hm, oh. Sorry. I don’t have much of a proper personality to begin with. Iena and Semiette are unquestionably still me.」
「Good point. Do you perhaps have a different persona in a previous version or something similar?」
「Hmmm, for that, I suppose I’ll leave it as a yes.」

That’s quite a suggestive answer… So, in short, it’s not that there’s a main doll that can house her soul; any suitably made doll is capable of housing her soul.
The perquisites are unknown, but that implies that she can have as many “spare lives” as she needs. If her doll’s functionality is improved, will it directly strengthen Munyechka herself?
If you hope to defeat Munyechka, you might have to, at worst, destroy every single one of her dolls first. If she has one hidden, then she can survive. Is she some kind of action game character or what?

Perhaps this is exactly the reason why Munyechka is an S-rank hunter.
No matter how unknown an area is, she can explore it without any risk of dying; if she “dies,” she’ll just return with information, and the usefulness of that is immeasurable.

「Now then, what business do you h—two have with me?」
「We wanted to ask what kind of person the headmistress is.」
「You mean Katrina?」
「Ms. Munyechka, you are in a position to speak casually with the headmistress, aren’t you?」

I don’t know about the other faculty members, but since she’s a hunter undertaking a request, it shouldn’t be unusual for her to be seeing the headmistress.
Even if that’s not the case, she’s likely interacted with the headmistress as Semiette. After all, she did previously say something about being scolded.

「Well, that’s right. Katrina is one of my apprentices, so we do speak in casual terms.」
「So she was your apprentice. With you as a master, the headmistress having the potential to be S-rank does sound convincing now.」
「I do recall her being described that way. But S-rank is impossible for Katrina in my opinion.」
「Is that so?」
「Even with a lifetime spent on learning sorcery, normal people can’t really reach the realm of magic, you see. And the only way I can think of to reach S-rank without magic is by defeating a dragon in a life-or-death struggle.」

Defeating a dragon, huh. Well, doesn’t that sound awfully familiar? This is making my head hurt a bit.
I guess if one can defeat a dragon without it being a mortal struggle, then that means they should already be S-rank. Fighting a dragon-class opponent is not as straightforward as it sounds. It should be difficult enough to search for them, and if you exhaust yourself before reaching one, you’ll most likely just die. Now I understand just how large the gap between A and S-rank is.
In short, one would need an experience as intense as fighting a dragon in a battle to the death; there isn’t really any need to hyperfocus on the dragon part itself. For example, defeating monsters of the 90th stratum should be enough. That said, reaching that stratum might actually be more difficult than finding a dragon.

「Capabilities aside for now, could you tell me what kind of person she is?」
「To start off innocuously, she loves to take care of people. She previously took the initiative to take care of me, you see, and now she’s even the head of this academy. Currently, she seems to enjoy teaching people more than improving her own sorcery skills.」
「Does she have any interest in sorceric tools?」
「Being my apprentice, I’ve had her try Puppet Sorcery, but she wasn’t interested at all. She’s not particularly disinterested in sorceric tools as a whole, but she’s not the type that wants to create sorceric tools or daydream new ones.」
「Thank you very much. That’s good to hear.」
「Glad to be of help.」

As I thought, it seems that the headmistress is also unlikely to be the one. Still, it’s a bit risky to make a final judgment from secondhand information, so it might be best to personally approach—no, that sounds bothersome, but I also can’t ignore a task entrusted to me, so…

「What should I do if I want to meet with the headmistress?」
「You can just have Semiette bring you there. Being fellow teachers, that should allow the meeting to be somewhat organic. Katarina knows Semiette, and she shouldn’t have any reason to turn you down.」
「Can we ask that of you?」
「It’s perfect for showing that Semiette is doing her duties, so I’ll take on your request. Semiette will leave immediately after guiding you, so feel free to take your time.」
「Thank you very much.」

Immediately after giving my gratitude, I reconsidered and spoke to Ciel.

『Can I give her some of our magic pouch’s excess monster materials?』
『I don’t really mind. We don’t really have any use for them anyway.』
『Thank you.』

Receiving her permission, I think I’ll give away the horn of a den stratum 70 monster.
Being one of the many monsters Ciel defeated, it was a bull that had gem-like horns. If properly processed, it may potentially end up more beautiful than any regular gems. There were other bull monsters of the same type with different colored horns, so there are many colors to choose from.
We should have stored all the horns we broke in battle, so this should be alright.

I want to organize the contents of our magic pouch, but it’ll likely cause a ruckus if we do it at a Hunter’s Guild, and I’m not really sure if there’s anyone who can dismantle monsters at Mother Fii’s manor. I would leave them the task if there was one, though.
Anyway, for now, I handed Munyechka the horn.

「This may not be much, but please accept it.」
「This is… you’ve brought quite a rare item. This should be from a monster in the lower strata. Oh right, you two have gone to the lowest stratum.」
「We still have more, so please use it as you please. You can even sell it.」
「I can’t sell this. If I tried, no one would purchase it for an adequate price. Still, I have my own uses, so I’ll gladly accept. Well then, I’ll have Semiette lead you to Katrina’s place.」

Semiette began moving like a living human and instructed us to follow her. I was getting ready to leave, but recalling something, I decided to ask for Munyechka’s opinion first.

「That reminds me, I felt the headmistress looking at me during the freshmen welcome party; do you have any idea why it could be?」
「Katrina loves promising individuals, so it must be that.」
「I see, thank you very much.」

Now then, I wonder how Ailneige is in the headmistress’ eyes. I just hope this won’t lead to anything bothersome.