The next morning, as the first rays of sunlight pierced the clouds and gilded Ranoa's courtyard, a scene worthy of magical realism unfolded in the Cui family's dining room.
The members of the Cui household sat around a long dining table. In the guest of honor's seat, a mountain of a six-armed Demon King was enjoying his breakfast with spectacular gusto.
Of his uppermost pair of hands, one elegantly held a cup of black tea, while the other held a pristine white napkin, occasionally dabbing at the corners of his mouth.
His middle pair served as highly efficient eating implements. Fork in his left hand and knife in his right, he swiftly carved up a sizzling, grease-dripping dragon lizard leg half a meter long and fed the pieces into his mouth.
His lowest pair was busy, too. One held a freshly baked, steaming butter roll that he was noisily devouring, while the other was... performing intricate string figures for Aisha, who sat nearby with stars in her eyes.
The whole scene was strangely harmonious, yet beneath that strangeness lay another, indefinable feeling.
Cui Ciyou sipped his black tea without expression, while inwardly unleashing a torrent of complaints.
This guy... Vice Principal Jinas and the others took him away yesterday. Even counting every minute, it hasn't been twelve hours yet, has it?
I remember the detention rules in my previous world having something about twenty-four, forty-eight, or seventy-two hours. How come a Demon King who could qualify as a walking natural disaster gets released here as casually as someone hauled in for a chat over a minor offense?
Of course, he knew there must have been extremely complicated political maneuvering and exchanges of interests behind it. Even so, the sheer extent of this Demon King's connections and influence left him speechless.