342 342 Welcome Back
“Welcome back to the Academy, honoured guests.” Peach greeted them with a cheeky smile.
“It’s good to be back. Are these the ones we have come to meet?” Ella asked, gesturing to the five waiting staff members.
“We are. It’s good to see you again, though I’m not sure if you remember me.” The kitchen staff member replied.
“Of course I do. You work in the staff kitchen, and you always let Wolfe in to sneak late-night snacks when we were studying.” Cassie replied with a wink.
“The staff kitchen is open twenty-four hours a day.” She replied with a smile.
“Well, as touching as this is, everyone is waiting for us to finish here and meet them at dinner. Wolfe cleansed the entire Academy, and there are more than a few questions waiting for him.” Peach reminded them.
“Right, we can talk later. Like about how you’re going to make an entire airplane tomorrow to get us home.”
———
The dining hall fell silent when they saw Cassie and Ella at the door, and everyone was so shocked to see them that Wolfe was nearly forgotten in the chaos.
“We didn’t know that you two were coming back to us. When did you get here? You’ve been with Wolfe, so you know that he can help us, right? Oh, you’re both Rank Two. Holy Goddess, Headmistress, did you know that they were so powerful?”
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There was only one Witch sitting at the table he chose, with her hair down, not looking at the room as she ate. Then she noticed Wolfe sitting across from her and looked up in shock.
“Wolfe? Maybe you can help.” Christa Abilene nearly whispered, and Wolfe noticed that she looked much younger than she had a few minutes ago but even more emaciated and desperate.
“What happened to you? Your aura seems fine, but your body is in rough shape.” He asked.
“Now that I have my aura back, I tried to summon my Goblin back. It’s a Demon. You should be able to call them if they’re killed. But when I tried before, this same thing happened.” She whispered.
“How was he killed? It might make a difference.” Wolfe asked quietly.
“We were attacked on the bus on the way to the front lines. I was hit with a curse and kicked out the back door, then they slit his throat and threw the body at me. I tried to heal him, but it was too late.” She explained.
Wolfe increased the power of [Detect Hidden] and then inspected the mana flows around Christa. That should give him a good idea if she were still under a curse, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
There had to be some reason that her Goblin couldn’t come back though. So, Wolfe kept looking until he found the issue.
“The Curse damaged your Familiar Bond. That’s why you can’t summon him and why you’re taking a backlash. Here, it’s part of the mana flow around it, not the spell itself that the Curse has damaged. I can fix that.” Wolfe explained, then set to work trying to undo the damage of the curse that Christa had taken.
It was intricate work, and the lingering damage kept trying to spread as he repaired new sections and destabilized it, but after a few minutes, Wolfe had it contained, and the damage was repaired.
They were so into it that they didn’t even notice that the huge amount of mana being used had attracted the attention of everyone else in the room.
“Alright, now gently try to call him back. Stop if you feel any backlash, and I will work on any damage that I missed.” Wolfe instructed.
The Familiar Bond flared to life, and a small black cloud began to form above the table between them. It was much like doing the summoning over again, but this time, the spell was already active inside her. The Familiar began to take shape, and Wolfe noticed right away that it was not the same creature as before.
It was taller than the Goblin he remembered and not green.
The Demonic Curse was supposed to reflect their personality, so was it possible that the efforts to make the Demon a better person had actually changed the form he appeared in this time?
Then the black fog began to fade, and Wolfe realized that it WAS still a goblin. Sort of. The creature had grown to nearly a metre tall, and he was now wearing full plate armour and carrying a vicious-looking black bastard sword and a halberd covered in glowing black runes.
Wolfe spent a moment committing those runes to memory so that he could test them later and see what exactly they did when linked in that way, then examined the changes to the evolved Goblin.
The visible portions of his head were still green with a Goblin’s long ears, but his eyes were glowing red orbs, and his armour gave off a sense of power like [Unholy Armor] did.
Headmistress Peach and Professor Ashcroft both came over to inspect the returned Familiar while Christa smiled at him and cried happy tears.
The Goblin turned to Wolfe and gave him a crisp Salute. “It’s all thanks to you, Demon Lord. I felt her summons before, but I couldn’t return. I felt your power in this link, and I managed to make it back from the Underworld. Plus, with your advice, I earned a promotion. Goblin Paladin Grok at your service.”
“You can speak now? You really did make out well.” Wolfe congratulated him.
Peach looked the Goblin Paladin over. “It takes a lot to change the very nature of a person, and a Paladin is only chosen if they’re true and devoted to their oaths. I would say that moving from a base and lustful Goblin to a Goblin Paladin is a huge change.”
Wolfe smirked at the Headmistress’s words. It was indeed an enormous change, but since he was still a Goblin, Wolfe suspected that he hadn’t given up on his ambition to get his Witch in bed.