School uniform. The change of clothes Kaede left him was a freaking school uniform.
And she was gone before Konrad noticed the phone had no numbers saved. At all.
Why, of course. She put some coordinates in the GPS instead, a ten-minute walk from the flat. So he'd have to show up early in the morning with a fake ID, dressed as a student.
Why? Because nothing screamed true chaos incarnate louder than that.
If that weren't the most obvious sign he dealt with Lily, he had no idea what was.
No matter what name she used, what era she came from, she still got him good.
Torn between looking for shops and a telepathic scolding, he decided to peel off his armor first. Even if minuscule, his mental messages burned mana.
She said no magic unless necessary.
Plus, it was already late. Going out as a school boy sounded like guaranteed trouble, and the bed was too comfortable to let him go anyway. Nope. He refused to play her games.
He had to rest.
Think.
He'd gotten himself into something weird again, and—
And—
An ear-shattering beep jolted him awake.
It took a while to figure out that his alarm went off.
Konrad never even set one. But his muscle memories kicked in.
He was back in his past life, scrambling to get ready for work. A mundane day awaited that he'd hate from start to finish. Deal with greedy bosses who'd abandon him at the drop of a hat.
Which was how he died when the pandemic hit. Right.
As much as this place looked like his old flat—small, simple, and sad—he was Konrad, the duke of Halaima now. Not in Kasserlane, per se, but somehow he ended up in Tokyo.
He thought about how that happened when he passed out, as soon as his head touched a pillow.
And now, he was hungry and late.
Who the hell sets a clock to seven-fifteen for a meeting at seven-thirty?!
No. Forget that. Food.
Kaede said she left some, but he only spotted slices of bread next to a toaster. He shoved two in and turned it on while scrambling into the uniform. Reluctant or not, he had no other option.
Seven-twenty already?!
The buttons on the shirt were too small. He kept fumbling, but also refused to leave without his toast. He stuffed a slice into his mouth while fighting the uniform—and what a bad idea.
It scorched him too much to choke it down, no matter how much he huffed and puffed.
Still, he had to go already, with three more buttons left, and another slice waiting.
Oh, and he'd better lock the front door.
The second slice had nowhere to go but between his teeth, crumbs falling everywhere.
That gave him a strange case of Deja Vu. This had either happened to him before, or he had seen it somewhere. Not that he had any time to think about that.
He had to run, which in turn made his fight with the last two buttons even more difficult.
And of course, without the GPS, he had no idea which way to go.
He paused his one-sided struggle to fish his phone out, hunting for the correct app.
Seven-twenty-five.
How the hell did actual school kids do this? Waking up early and getting ready in record time? He felt like he was too old for this, at least his soul, even if his body would still keep up.
He had to wonder how serious Kaede was about arriving on time.
Another button fixed, but he gave up on the last one. His phone said to take a sharp turn.
That's when he topped his morning by running headfirst into someone. Or rather, toast-first.
"I'm so sorry," Konrad muttered, his palms dampening the rough landing on the sidewalk.
It couldn't have been more clicheed—except his victim was a boy in the same uniform. No first-love rom-com meetings for him. He already had that covered a long time ago anyway.
The boy grumbled something he couldn't decipher, and—wait, what language did Konrad use?
"Gomennasai," he repeated to be sure, yanking him up without even looking.
The kid was furious, swatting his hand away to wipe his chest and—yeah, that's where his toast went. He didn't even realise it was gone until now, surprising even himself with his reflexes.
He caught the slice mid-air, but his brand-new phone wasn't so lucky.
It lay on the concrete with the display down, and Konrad felt a kind of dread he hadn't felt since his second birth. Reaching out with trembling hands, he prayed to both spirits and angels.
When he found the screen intact, he let out a deep breath he didn't know he was holding, and—
The poor guy he knocked over was already gone.
He never even looked at his face, only at the stain his toast left on him.
Seven-thirty-one.
"Crap."
He got up and ran—only to turn around seconds later, realising he had taken the wrong turn.
His phone was upside down this whole time, and he was still five minutes away.
From the local high school.
That's where Kaede was already waiting, leaning against its fence.
"Ohayo, Konrad-kun," she greeted with an exaggerated sigh, pushing herself off. "You're late."
And she wasn't alone. Kids arrived in droves, chattering as they entered the school.
Konrad had a terrible feeling when he realised they all wore the same uniform as his.
"No. Definitely not. We're not doing this," he muttered, taking a shaky step back.
"Oh, we definitely do," the girl rebutted, matter-of-fact. "I already handled all the papers, but you'd better hurry to sign them before the bell rings. The headmaster's office is—"
"Why?!" Konrad interrupted, louder than he meant to.
His voice—and the language he used—turned heads again, the last thing he wanted.
He didn't know how he even ended up here. He wanted to figure out, gather information, but—
Not as a high school student.
"Told you I tracked the Demon Lord down three months ago," Kaede noted. "This is the closest I've got to him. More or less. So, uh—let's go? Don't do anything stupid, though."
Her tone cracked. She seemed embarrassed—or was it a straight-up lie?
But what could he do? Lily—Maple—Kaede was the only person he knew here.
He had to trust her, even if his guts told him to run.
"I'm going to regret this," he moaned, taking in the building.
And within thirty minutes, he became a student of that school, pretending to be sixteen.
"All right, we got a new transfer student. Please introduce yourself," the teacher prompted.
Konrad took a deep breath, watching a bunch of strangers staring him in the face.
"Ore wa Halstadt von Konrad Desu; Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu."
He hoped he didn't butcher the grammar, but he had other things to worry about.
"You have to be kidding me," a kid complained in a tongue way too familiar.
He had a dark patch on his shirt—shaped like a toast.
That kid. Well, yeah, he had every reason to be mad.
"Oh? Do you know each other, Midori-kun?" the teacher asked, and—
The name felt like a slap in the face.
Konrad didn't move, but it felt like the world was spinning around him.
So this was what Kaede meant by tracking him down?!