Positive little sun, magical girl, I am awesome

"I'm sorry, teacher." Lilith covered her head and quickly turned back to the page she was talking about.

Teacher Terra then let her go and turned gracefully to walk towards the podium.

Jaina finally found an opportunity to raise her hand and asked Teacher Terra her question, "Teacher, my hometown is in the Ausser Mountains. I often follow my parents into the woods at the foot of the mountain to collect firewood. But I have never seen the forest creatures in the Ausser Mountains that you described, such as the filthy crows and fire badgers. Why is that?"

"Oh, good girl, I like your desire to explore." Terra stretched out his scarlet nails and scratched Jaina's face, then put the pipe to his mouth, took a deep breath, and exhaled a large puff of white smoke. The tobacco did not seem to be something that Lilith knew in her previous life. The white smoke jumped and stretched in the air like a living thing, covering Mrs. Terra's entire head, making her expression unclear.

"The scenery at the top of the Ausl Mountains is beautiful. You can see the snow-capped mountains of the Western Highlands in the distance. Have you been there, my dear girl?" Lady Terra leaned against Jaina's table and asked as if she was chatting casually.

"No, teacher." Jaina answered honestly, "It's too dangerous there. Only adults in the village are allowed to go up there."

"Oh? What are you going upstairs for?" Terra tapped his pipe on the table and replaced it with some new tobacco.

"There is a very precious spice...we can use that thing to offset taxes." She had told her classmates these words before.

"It's a mushroom covered with pink and blue spots, right? After you pick it, you have to process it roughly." Mrs. Terra seemed very familiar with the process.

"Yes..." Jaina nodded in surprise. She had been doing this job since she was a child. After the adults picked the fruits, the children were responsible for washing, drying, and grinding them into powder...

"Oh, poor child, that's not some spice, it's Feline mushroom. Maybe your teacher Wanda in Potions will talk about it in the future. It's a relatively safe hallucinogen ingredient, so it's sold at sky-high prices by the nobles as a kind of - hehe, something that provides happiness."

"What?!" Jaina's expression was as if she had been electrocuted, and she felt that her simple worldview was shattered.

"Have your parents ever talked to you about the caves in the mountain?" Terra was amused by Jaina's expression and continued to chat with her while leaning sideways.

"Yes... If they encounter heavy rain, they will sometimes hide in there. So, so what?" Jaina seemed to finally realize that the appearance of caves was not a gift from nature.

"That's a griffin's nest, baby." Terra sighed.

"But they are probably all abandoned nests. The ravens and fire badgers are companion creatures of the griffins. The griffins are picky about food. After hunting, they only eat the best parts of the prey. The rest will be shared by the ravens. As for the fire badgers, because of their naturally high-temperature tails, in winter, the griffins will catch some of them and put them in their nests to keep their eggs warm so that the griffin eggs can withstand the most severe blizzards. Oh, the griffins like to pick some Felin mushrooms to feed the fire badgers, so that they will be very obedient."

"So... when the nobles discovered the magical effects of the Felin mushrooms, the Ausser Mountains were no longer a safe place for animals to live. They were slaughtered and driven away. Tsk tsk, they had already built their nests in such high places..." She looked down at Jaina's changing expression and hurriedly comforted her.

"Oh dear, of course, this is not the fault of your fellow countrymen. Ordinary people have no ability to kill a griffin, and that happened many, many years ago." Terra touched Jaina's head and smoothed her brow.

"When the griffins disappeared, their companion creatures naturally also..." Lady Terra shrugged regretfully, the implication of her words was self-evident.

"Can't they run? How stupid." Another student muttered.

"Haha, just take this as a beautiful blessing, dear. I also hope that some of them really ran away."

Mrs. Terra left the desk she was leaning on and paced slowly in the classroom corridor. She seemed to love gorgeous and complicated styles. The huge purple skirt swayed as she walked, like a blooming violet. Whenever it passed by the corners of the students' desks, it would make a slight rubbing sound, which, coupled with the stories she told, was full of mystery.

"Gaia was once filled with all kinds of magical creatures, but now it belongs exclusively to humans. The magical creatures have no choice but to disappear and even be wary of each other, fearing that they will be discovered. Most of those that pose a threat to humans have been eliminated or have migrated on their own."

"Migrate? Where will they migrate to?" Lulu asked curiously. The Ausel Mountains already stood on the western edge of the Gaia Empire. If they went further west... "Will they go to the Western Highlands?"

"Who knows, dear, maybe it's further west." Mrs. Terra blinked, seemingly unwilling to go into details, and continued walking forward.

As she walked over to Catherine, she paused.

"But the world is always changing. Maybe one day, magical creatures, or other races, will flourish again. Who can predict fate?"

Catherine looked at the book quietly with a calm expression, as if she was studying seriously, or perhaps she was already daydreaming.

……

"Hey, did you guys have a fight?" Lucas, who is always out of touch with the situation, gossiped with today's partner Lilith after the afternoon training session.

"Why is everyone acting weird lately?" He missed the message and found that the atmosphere among his classmates was a little different recently.

Lilith paused while removing her protective gear when he asked her this. "...What a gossip! Stop worrying about trivial things. But you, didn't you say you would buy a house when you came back? Have you bought it yet?"

Lucas stopped smiling when he heard that. His eyes flickered and he forced a laugh. "Ha, I suddenly feel that the house I liked before is not interesting. The location is too remote. I deserve better!"

"Hmph! Be careful not to be spoiled for choice!" Lilith successfully changed the subject and dealt with Lucas in a random manner, searching for Ian in the crowd. Ever since Neva said those words in the cafeteria, Ian always avoided everyone and disappeared as soon as the training was over. Lilith wanted to chat with him, but could never catch him.

This time, she started searching as soon as she finished, and finally saw the familiar black hair. She hurriedly raised her foot——

“Lilith!” The wheat-skinned boy suddenly jumped in front of Lilith. Seeing her startled expression, he laughed triumphantly, revealing his two pointed fangs. “Haha! Success!”

"It's not good to skip class as soon as you get here, Neva." Lilith walked around the people in front of her and continued to move forward, but when she looked up again, Ian had disappeared in the crowd again.

"Hey! You recognized me again!" Neva turned to Lilith again in surprise, "And I didn't skip class. My training opponent was injured, so the teacher let me rest."

He was talking to Lilith as he backed away. The sticky blood from the black knife on his back, which had not yet dried, slowly dripped onto the gravel of the training ground.