"Big brother, you're here!!"
"Raion!"
Amari was bombarded by a series of greetings as soon as he stepped into the large room. A small furry body jumped onto his face and the slimy viscous liquid that was Belat's sweat covered him completely.
Fortunately for him, this stopped Lilia from coming any closer. Despite his feelings towards everything, he wasn't sure if talking to her frequently was a good decision after meeting her father.
The other Ifrits were there to greet him, too. It looked like most of them had good impressions after he'd saved them. He saw Ken and a few others, but the only other familiar person wasn't there.
'Huh, where's Isla?'
He quickly pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind upon noticing that other people were there. They looked the same age as the rest of them, but they stood out in one fact. These demons were not Ifrit.
"Oh, hello," he waved to them after a brief mental argument.
It would more or less be better to get acquainted with as many people as possible.
There were three of them, two boys and a single girl. The boys didn't look happy or sad and nodded rigidly, but the girl on the other hand visibly perked up from his greetings.
The girl jumped behind someone, staring at Amari from there.
'Heh, one of those I suppose,' he smirked to himself then turned to Lilia.
"Hey Lilia, mind introducing your friends to me?"
She crossed both arms and rolled her eyes after a short moment of reluctance. Then she started.
"Those two guys over there are Geryon and Melchomar. They aren't related and are both in the same class as the rest of us."
Geryon, the first boy, was a tall and lanky fellow standing at almost seven feet in height. He had dark green hair and yellow eyes. Two horns slightly smaller than Fuller's own stuck out of his forehead, obviously marking him as a demon.
He wore an ordinary dress suit and tie embroidered with the school's colours, which were black and red.
Amari didn't want to judge people based on looks alone, but this Geryon fellow looked pretty slimy and suspicious.
He then directed his attention to Melchomar, unwilling to dwell on the topic even further. This other demon, Amari, could read almost like an open book.
Melchomar, unlike most of the other demons, had an ordinary mop of black hair atop his forehead. His eyes were a light blue colour that reminded Amari of the vast and lovely oceans back on Earth. He was way taller than Geryon at almost ten feet tall, barely being able to stand at full height in the room.
The demon's large horns stretched out further than Fuller's and curved back to rest slightly above his head.
'Isn't horn length and size one of the immediate dictators of strength? He definitely can't be as strong as Fuller, though. Or is he?"
This fact caused Amari to be slightly confused, but he held off from checking the boy's status and decided to approach the demons instead.
He walked up to Geryon and stretched a hand forward. "Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Raion'shalang. You can call me Raion, though. I'll be joining you all from today."
Geryon eyed the hand up and down before reaching in to shake him.
Something snapped in Amari's hand with the small grasp. The demon's grip was stronger than expected, but did he really expect him to be intimidated by such small shenanigans?
He applied a bit more strength in his own grip, and the boy's face lost all colour.
The stare-down lasted a feel second before Geryon scratched the back of his head and put on a sheepish smile.
"Haha, I hope we get along just fine!"
"Yeah," Amari let go of the hand and moved over to Melchomar.
He already started moving his hand but saw that Melchomar's hands were already stretched forward. Initiative.
"Hello, as Lilia told you just now, my name is Melchomar. But everybody calls me Mel! I hope you can make yourself feel comfortable in the school. It's a very fun place to be in!" Then the demon's voice came down to a hush as he whispered "And they got the best food too!"
'Eh?'
Amari was kind of stunned. That was not what he expected. Not by a long shot.
'He's very honest. I kinda like that?'
He chuckled a little at the gentle giant's antics."Yeah, you're right we gotta go grab something to eat one of these days!"
After that, he kind of just stared at everyone until he finally remembered something.
"Oh right, what about that little girl?!" he exclaimed, quickly searching the room for that little girl he'd seen.
He completely forgot about her while immersed in his analysis of Geryon and Melchomar.
His eyes scanned the room a few times before he finally saw her standing behind Fuller, Lilia and co.
'Why's she acting like a child?' the question remained on the tip of his tongue with concern.
"Right, you never introduced this little lady. I hadn't even noticed she was there until just now."
A collective eye roll emerged from both Fuller and Lilia, but it was Fuller who answered.
"Her name is Sitri. She entered the academy based on special circumstances much like yours but not quite the same as yours," he said, giving Amari a knowing look. "Sitri isn't in the second year, but instead the first. And normally first years don't share dorms with second years but this is like I said, different,"
Well, there was his explanation for why she looked so young, but he still wanted to know.
"Do you mind me asking how old she is?"
Fuller shook his head and gave a quick answer. "She's turning seven in a month, so she's quite younger than us."
'Seven? Ayooo. Pause. Wait on second thought. She's turning seven, doesn't that mean?'
"Say, how old are all of you, per se?"
"All of us?" Ken asked, speaking to him for the first time since he got there.
"Yeah,"
"Ugh, most of us are eight, and Fuller is nine."
"Ahh, I see." Amari gave a nervous laugh as he nodded his head.
'Am I a freak? Judging based on their appearances, demon ageing isn't that strange compared to human, only with them looking two times as old as their human counterparts while remaining two times as young. So I got it all wrong. I'm not meant to look like this?'
At this time, he recalled the old woman's warning and thanked her that he didn't take her for granted. Something like this was bound to be dangerous for him in the long run.
'Think about that later!'
For now, he was just interested in this Sitri girl. How was it possible that she would warrant such special treatment as a first-year?