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Episode 4:
Daily Lives of the Demons
IT HAD BEEN A FEW MONTHS ALREADY SINCE I finished my job as the Princess of the Holy Kingdom in Sigoules and returned home to Talitelud.
In the end, I had been unable to headhunt Noel.
B-Bar…Mr. Bear said something like “I want you to watch over him as much as you can from afar,” and Noel said something like “I will work hard to get even stronger by the next time we see each other,” so it would’ve been impossible!
And so, of course, once I got back, I started going to school again. My trip had taken two months total, yet my life when I returned was the same as it always had been. I went to school in a bougie coach (with my ten guardian knights riding on horseback in tow) and the students all kept their distance from me while I walked with my four attendants.
Why, though? Didn’t this make me even more of a villainess then my sisters?
Е̄ n̊u ḿа̌_. ї d
Well, I didn’t really care all that much.
As for Rick, whom I had been avoiding, our relationship cooled enough that we were able to have proper conversations again. I mean, he had actually waited until I was done with classes for the day?! Didn’t he understand his own position?! Plus, he’d been acting weirdly sullen ever since I started avoiding him. Though that was par for the course as far as he was concerned. In any case, one of his type was more than enough for me.
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Look, it was Rick’s own fault in the first place for not making himself clear! Though it would’ve been problematic for me if he had spelled it out clearly, but what the heck was he hoping to achieve by coming to see me every day? And when I looked straight at him, he looked away! What was he, a purehearted maiden?!
Timoté was also coming with Rick to see me, so everyone saw it favorably as the two princes being nice to their younger cousin, but this was going to be the source of strange rumors once I turned ten.
Regardless, I did not have so much free time on my hands that I could just hang out with my cousins all the time. I was the first princess of a grand duke, after all. I had to do as Mother told me and host tea parties for frightened noble girls, go shopping with Shelly and Betty plus dozens of attendants and guards (which was a royal pain), reply to Noel’s letters (which passed inspection), and study summoning spellcraft. All in all, I was quite busy.
But those were things I was busy doing as the princess of the Grand Duke of Versenia. I also had other things to do as the Devil Princess.
Е̇n̆_um̊а .ǐd̊
I had met all kinds of people in the Kingdom of Sigoules, after all.
Anyway, had my cute demons finished the jobs I gave them?
***
“That is all I have to report.”
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
“Okay, thanks. Here’s some candy.”
It was late at night and the pious citizens of the Holy Kingdom of Talitelud were asleep. In the dark capital, hiding from the light of spellcraft streetlamps, a silver-haired maid held out a black “candy” to a pale young butler. He smiled, giving a slight flash of his fangs as he accepted it.
Е́n u m а̀
Her soft hair looked both white and silver. Her half-closed eyes were a jewel-like blue. She was a young girl of only about eight years old and was radiantly beautiful, even in this back alley with no lights to speak of.
“Give my regards to Mylene.”
“I shall, Lady Fanny.” The vampire butler bowed before disappearing into the darkness.
Fanny took another black candy from her apron pocket and popped it into her mouth.
Fanny was an arch demon—classified as Calamity Rank, a being powerful enough to bring a nation to its knees.
What was this black candy she was enjoying the taste of?
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It was so black, it did not even reflect light. At a glance, it gave off this wriggling icky aura like some kind of cursed object. Given that a vampire—who hated human food—happily accepted it, and demons liked it as well, it couldn’t have been anything good. One was probably better off not knowing what it was made out of.
“I don’t get it.”
Fanny’s mistress Yulucia had ordered her to investigate the Church of Kostor. One might assume that Noah the demon butler would have been more suitable for the job, since it seemed like the kind of thing Fanny would get bored of quickly, but personality aside, Fanny’s abilities made this task right up her alley.
After all, Noah was taking care of things both publicly and behind the scenes. Nia the demon knight and Tina the demon maid were too hotheaded from Fanny’s point of view, which meant that the only one of them capable of infiltrating the church by themself was Fanny.
Fanny was getting help from Mylene, who managed the underbelly of the Holy Kingdom to gather rumors and investigate Archbishop Callisto. The people who ran things in the countries surrounding Talitelud were appointed by the Church of Kostor’s main cathedral in the Holy Kingdom. This seemed like the kind of thing that would impact international relations, but the other countries trusted the Holy Kingdom when it came to religion, and the countries that did see Talitelud as their enemy didn’t have the Church of Kostor as their official religion in the first place.
The cardinals had appointed Callisto to his position, yet the Charm spells from the vampires and Fanny’s nightmares hadn’t uncovered anything out of the ordinary about the man. In fact, the only thing she had discovered was that the man was obsessed with cleanliness.
Ӗn̄ um а
Callisto’s impulsive personality had led him to being stationed as the archbishop in another country instead of at the main cathedral in the Holy Kingdom. However, that in itself wasn’t anything unusual for the career of a religious leader. The reason the cardinals had sent him abroad was because they had faith that he would acquire the right mindset if they waited long enough. It was only natural then that Callisto wanted to return to the Holy Kingdom, so how did he end up involved with the Heroes?
“This sucks.”
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After all that work, she was going to have to go investigate Callisto directly. However, Fanny was like her mistress in that she was not good at handling such gross kinds of people. There was something off, but she couldn’t put her finger on what. Fanny created nightmares that came from the soul itself, which was why she had realized how icky he was; however, when humans were prone to wild delusions, it made it difficult to perceive the truth through nightmares. While she was sure that Yulucia would praise her for even reporting that much about him, Fanny herself hated the idea of leaving things at that.
Fanny was the weakest among the four arch demons in terms of fighting strength. It wasn’t that her abilities were inferior or that her rank as a demon was any lower than theirs—she just wasn’t made for direct combat. This was why she wanted to be useful to Yulucia in ways that didn’t have to do with battles.
Also, Fanny could teleport by following a soul’s wavelength. All arch demons had the power to teleport, but only Fanny was able to travel across great distances without having to pay a price for it. This was exactly why Fanny had been given this mission, since she could easily travel between Talitelud and Sigoules.
If anything, Yulucia was more in the minority as a demon, since she pretty much had no special abilities to speak of and solved everything by bombarding it with magic.
W̌ еb̃ nо̄ v́.eľ E n um̌ а̄
“That’s odd.”
Having teleported to Sigoules, Fanny used a nightmare to try to touch the surface of Callisto’s soul, but she was unable to learn anything more than she already had from her investigation in the Holy Kingdom. The only thing that stood out to her was that he gave most of his jobs to that “party of Heroes.”
There was nothing suspicious about his requests, and the Heroes all did the work in earnest. Yet, as someone capable of reading a human’s soul, Fanny found this incredibly strange.
“Why do they only save so few of them?”
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
There had been several kidnappings recently in the Kingdom of Sigoules. The reason people had started referring to Alfio’s party as “Heroes” was because they’d found out that daemons had been behind the kidnappings. And this evening as well, the Heroes had received a request and gotten information from Callisto to go and save only one of the children who had been kidnapped. On the days the Heroes were dispatched to go rescue a child, other children were also kidnapped elsewhere.
“Hmmm.”
Wе bn̈о̌.v e l̈ Ё_n̈ u m а́
After mulling it over, Fanny decided to go and check it out for herself. To be more precise, Fanny was bored of investigating Callisto. Plus, Yulucia was more concerned about the Heroes. They didn’t know just how much of a hero Alfio might actually be, but if he was the real deal, then that meant he was going to be the demons’ biggest threat. Against a demon like Yulucia, he didn’t stand a chance; however, she was still wary of him because the true Hero would be capable of taking on arch demons.
Compared to the Hero, whatever Callisto might have been scheming would prove no great threat at all. If Callisto was trying to achieve something by using them, then she had better investigate up close. In any case, the only reason she had investigated Callisto first was because there were people Yulucia was currently “nurturing” with the Heroes, and thus she wanted to avoid interfering with them. Even so, since she’d come into contact with them, Fanny figured that she should just observe and let her curiosity guide her as she teleported to where the kidnapped child was being held.
The location was a storage shed on a big farm far from the city. Even though it was the middle of the night, Fanny could sense four adults and one child inside. As for why she’d chosen to teleport directly to the victims instead of the Heroes, it was because she was curious about the child’s soul.
Fanny quietly peeked into the shed.
“Shuddup, brat!” a large adult man roared as he kicked the small child.
The man didn’t seem to actually be putting much oomph into kicking the kid, but the boy, who was much smaller than Fanny, sobbed quietly as he cowered with pain and fear.
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“Hey, cut it out, would ya? We only managed to get the one. We ain’t gonna get any money if he dies,” the man’s partner admonished him.
“Tch. Why we gotta nab kids anyway? They’re nothin’ but trouble.”
“And? Don’t forget, we get two large gold coins for every holy-magic-casting brat we manage to snatch. We got paid some upfront, but we won’t get the rest if he dies.”
“He was such a weirdo, though. Wouldn’t even show his face.”
“Prolly some bigwig from somewhere. Anyway, what’re we gonna do about them?”
“We’ve only got one brat, so maybe we can get some kinda bonus for ’em?”
E ṅü m̌ӑ
“Doubt it.”
He shot a dangerous look at the man and woman who must have tried to stop them when they were kidnapping the child.
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“Eek!”
“We won’t tell anyone! Please don’t kill us!”
“Pray you’ll at least be worth somethin’ to us,” one of the kidnappers said. They both started laughing. “Bwa ha ha!”
“Hmm.” Not that Fanny’s murmurs meant anything. She was a demon and thus had no heart that could empathize with humans. The only thing she knew was that she didn’t like the emotion she could sense coming from the boy.
W̃.еb̊ nо v̌е ĺ Е̇ n ŭm a
Fanny was outside, but the second kidnapper heard her voice and immediately drew his sword. “Who’s there?!”
The irritated man also unsheathed a thick single-edged sword and cautiously peered outside the shed.
It turned out that these guys were not your run-of-the-mill ruffians, but actually wannabe mercenaries trying to earn some cash on the side. The man who’d first noticed her nodded to his partner and the two of them kicked down the door and burst outside. However…
“Ack!” The men made eye contact with something and let out a strangled scream as their souls were pulverized by tens of thousands of nightmares. They died still standing.
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“Good evening,” Fanny said as she strolled into the shed just a few moments after the two kidnappers had rushed outside.
The captured man and woman blinked with confusion at the eight-year-old maid’s incredibly casual greeting.
Ӗ n û ḿ а̃
Fanny didn’t even glance at them as she brazenly traversed the shed to crouch down by the sobbing boy, who looked to be about three years old, and soothingly started stroking his head. She didn’t say a word, yet the gesture was enough to get the boy to raise his tearstained face despite his fears.
“Who are you?” the young boy asked.
Fanny smiled and pulled a black candy out of her apron pocket. “I’ve got some candy! Want it?”
“Candy?”
“Yeah. It’s really sweet.”
“Okay.” The boy nodded, so Fanny held out the black candy to him.
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However, the boy didn’t try to look at the candy. In fact, his eyes looked cloudy and didn’t even reflect Fanny.
“Can you see?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then say, ‘Ahh.’”
“Ahh.”
Fanny popped the black candy into the blind boy’s mouth and then cut the rope tied around him with her nails.
E ňù m̀а
The boy chewed the candy. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Do you like it?”
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“Hmm… It tastes kinda weird?”
“You don’t like it, then?”
“No, it’s good. Just weird.”
“Hee hee hee. I see.” Fanny laughed with delight at the boy’s overt honesty and started stroking his curly hair again.
Еn um_ӓ. і d̃
One shouldn’t worry about what the black candy was actually made of.
“H-hey,” the man said, having judged Fanny was not a threat after witnessing such a sweet scene between the young maid and the toddler. “Cut our ropes too before those guys get back.”
“Yes! You’ve saved the boy already! Please untie me too!” the woman urged.
Fanny frowned at the two adults as she looked back at them. “Are you this child’s parents?”
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“No! I don’t care about that kid!” said the woman.
“That’s right, young lady. Hurry up and cut our ropes too! Come on!” demanded the man.
Wе̌b̆ ñ ӧ v_e l̊ Enū m̊ а
“Hmm?” Fanny immediately lost interest in the yelling adults and went back to stroking the boy’s hair while he chewed on the candy.
“H-hey! What are you doing?!”
“Just leave the kid and help us already!”
“Eek!” The man’s angry shouting made the boy let out a small shriek and shrink back, interrupting Fanny’s petting.
Fanny’s good mood soured with a frown. “You sure are annoying.” She stood up and started walking toward the man and woman.
The man was pleased, assuming the little girl was finally going to set them free, but he was irritated by her dawdling and so glared at her. “Get on with it and—gack!”
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Fanny punched the man’s head in. Chunks of flesh and fresh blood splattered onto half of the woman’s body.
“Ee—!” Before the woman could get a scream out, Fanny sliced her head clean off. The light faded from the woman’s eyes, her mouth open in a silent scream.
“Hey, what’s going on?” the boy asked after a pause.
“Nothing at all,” Fanny replied in a gentle tone.
“Really? I smell something weird.”
“Oh, that’s the smell of death.” Fanny wore a triumphant look, like she deserved a medal.
Е̇ n ûḿа̇
The blind boy cocked his head. “Really?”
Fanny hadn’t planned to save the boy. She had only done it because she wanted to pet his soft-looking hair—the same reaction she had whenever she saw a stray cat near the castle. Had this boy actually been a stray kitten and not a human child, Fanny would have done this exact same thing. She hadn’t done it out of any affection for living beings—she saw them more as toys to kill time with.
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In any case, Fanny had successfully eliminated the obstacles to her fun. Now that those pesky annoying people were gone, Fanny went back to petting the boy’s hair, intending to enjoy the feel of it to her heart’s desire. But then…
“Remove your hand from the boy!” someone yelled from the shed’s door just as a spellcraft fire arrow came flying at her. She immediately put on her clown mask and blocked it.
Someone else was here now.
Had Fanny been too focused on the child to notice them? Or were they just that powerful? The fact that she hadn’t noticed them approach made Fanny make the mask’s face grimace.
Е n ŭm а. i d
“Get away from that child, daemon!”
A black-haired man and a woman with long chestnut-colored hair rushed in through the door, blades drawn.
Fanny’s job was to investigate, and she remembered how Yulucia had told her to keep things on the down-low, so she covered her whole face with the mask even though she didn’t like it. She shifted her focus to the insolent humans who had just barged in.
Hwuh? Are these guys the Heroes…? Maybe?
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Fanny hadn’t seen them in person, but Noah and Nia had used their sight to share information about them, since they had been at the party with Yulucia.
But what’s a daemon? Assessing their strength, Fanny didn’t feel threatened or nervous at all. She merely inclined her head with confusion.
Ĕǹü m̃ a
Fanny had completely suppressed her demonic miasma so that she could pet the child. Since she looked like a human child wearing a strange mask, only a Hero who had the protection of an elemental or someone more powerful than that would have been capable of seeing her for what she really was—an arch demon.
“Daemon” was just a general term for the savage tribes and intelligent monstrosities that were hostile toward humanoids in this world. It did not apply at all to an actual demon like her. In fact, it was practically insulting. She felt the word was offensive since it hurt their reputation.
Alfio the Hero mistook Fanny’s confusion for an opening and ferociously sliced at her. “Perish, daemon!”
He struck with such speed that you wouldn’t have thought there was a child right next to his target, but Fanny easily avoided it, then smashed through the wall of the shed with her bare hands and stepped outside.
“Nngh?” Fanny had a strange feeling at the unjustified accusation and merciless display of violence.
The boy burst into tears because of the Heroes’ shouts. “Waaah!”
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“Oh, there, there. You don’t need to be scared anymore.” Celia the swordswoman rushed over to the boy and hugged him.
The way Fanny saw it, these people had intruded out of nowhere and taken her kitten away, and she didn’t like that one bit. “Stupid humans.”
The next moment, there was a chill as Fanny emitted a small bit of her miasma. It rotted the grassy field in the vicinity and the Heroes quickly jumped back.
Alfio was drenched in a cold sweat. “W-watch out! This daemon’s pretty strong!” he warned his companions.
Standing behind him, Antiquoua the elf raised her staff up high and shouted, “Manifeest Light!” to cast a support spell on her allies with holy magic.
The girl’s usage of magic was ungraceful compared to how Yulucia cast with Empyreal. Fanny was momentarily distracted by the girl’s mispronunciation of the spell and Alfio rushed at her, moving faster thanks to the magical buff.
Е̊ ǹum̌_а
However, he could not land a hit on her. Just as she took a half step back to avoid the point of his sword, she heard the boy start to cry again.
“Waaah!”
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Fanny glanced at him and realized that the boy had been abandoned, left alone on what was now a dangerous battlefield. Fanny’s eyes opened wide with surprise as she wondered why they would do such a thing.
“You’re mine!” Celia leaped toward her from Alfio’s other side, sword at the ready.
Shing!
“What the?!”
E ǹum ӑ
It appeared this woman had abandoned the child to prioritize slaying a daemon. Fanny pinched the woman’s sword in her fingertips and snapped the tip right off.
Fanny said nothing. Things she didn’t find entertaining only served to increase her displeasure. Why had this woman left the boy with the nice hair behind after she had stolen him from her? She wanted to go all out on this woman, but Yulucia had told her to restrain herself from getting into a real fight. Yulucia was trying to measure the strength of the awakened Heroes, but Fanny could see souls, and the strength of the human woman in front of her didn’t amount to much, even if she were to awaken.
Nevertheless, Yulucia was her creator, so surely there was some significance to the warning.
“Fire Javelin!”
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“Ice Lance!”
“Huh?”
Ẁ е̂ḃǹ о̇ v е l̄ Еn̄ù_m̂а
Kaboooom!
Fire and ice hit Fanny in the back simultaneously, and there was a violent explosion of steam.
Adeline had cast the fire spellcraft, Aureline the ice. The two of them had used up all of their energy with those spells, so they were sure that it must have been a powerful hit.
“Nice job, Adelie, Aurelie!” Alfio praised.
“We did it, Sir Al!” Aureline replied happily.
“It’s not over yet! Focus!” Adeline admonished them, having a bad feeling about the situation.
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Celia also looked nervous as she received a spare sword from Antiquoua and stepped ahead.
“She snapped my sword like a stick. She might be Daemon General-class in the Daemon King’s army.”
The women were still on guard, caution in their voices. Alfio doubted their enemy could still be alive after an explosion like that, but…
There was a burst of an intense aura of intimidation. He gasped in astonishment when Fanny emerged from the steam and dust with only the hem of her maid’s dress looking a little bit dirty. However…
Huh? What? Huh? Fanny was very confused. She hadn’t sensed them. She could tell how many of them there were by how many souls there were, yet she hadn’t noticed the two girls who had been hiding until they saw the right moment to strike.
These two girls who had just fired attack spells at her…especially the older one…
Ѐ.n ümä. id
Yulucia had warned her before she started the investigation into the Heroes not to touch her prey. It was exactly the kind of simple request her mistress would ask of her. Fanny broke out in a cold sweat, afraid of how she might be reprimanded if she accidentally hurt the girls.
“Nngh, I’m leaving.”
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She was scared of the punishment, but above all, she couldn’t bear the thought of causing Yulucia to hate her. She hadn’t planned on fighting in the first place, and the whole thing was just one big bore now, so while Fanny was a bit sad to leave the boy’s hair, she vanished and left.
“Did she…run away?” The party’s pride wouldn’t allow Alfio to admit that they had missed her running, so they waited until they counted to about a hundred after the powerful daemon retreated before they finally let out a sigh of relief and sank to the ground.
They had come to be called Heroes after happening across a daemon in the process of kidnapping someone and defeating it. After that, the Church of Kostor became their sponsor and they solved other kidnapping cases. All of those kidnappers, however, had been humanoids, and they hadn’t had to fight any daemons. That meant that this was only their second time fighting a daemon, and this one was far more powerful than they could have ever imagined.
“That one sure was powerful, even though it looked like a child,” Alfio said.
W̌ё b̈ n̈ о̌ṽ е̄ l̈ .Ѐn̂ ùm̃ а̇
“It’s a daemon. They’ve probably got little ones among them too.”
He nodded at Antiquoua’s assessment.
“Yeah… Oh, right, the kid!” Their conversation reminded Celia of the forgotten child, so she went racing off to find him. The child had been wailing for “Big Sis,” so she gave him a hug. “I’m right here! Why won’t you stop crying?”
She looked back at her companions, puzzled at why the boy wouldn’t calm down now that his savior had returned.
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Antiquoua looked around the shed and came back shaking her head with a grim expression. “There’s a woman’s corpse in there. I bet she’s his…”
Everyone in the group assumed that the woman must have been his loving older sister. Mourning her death, Alfio the Hero looked to the dawn breaking in the sky and vowed, “Cursed daemon! The next time we meet, I will get revenge for this boy’s big sister!”
Е n̂ u m̂ а́
The following day, after the Church of Kostor had seen the boy safely returned to his parents, he experienced a strange change. The boy had been blind from birth, yet little by little, light began to shine in his eyes. Finding this miraculous, his parents and a priest of the Church of Kostor asked him what had happened, and he said, “The nice big sis gave me a strange candy.”
The Church of Kostor of Sigoules thus went on to hold a respectable funeral for the unidentified woman who had been a victim in the kidnapping, calling her the “nameless Saint.”
***
The Hero and the Saint were revered by the powerless as the bringers of peace to the world. They inspired hope in the hearts of the people, which was why countless had falsely assumed these titles since times of old, but people yearned for their presence whether they be genuine or impostors. Perhaps it was because humanity unconsciously sensed that there was now a great evil in the world, capable of bringing calamity…
After Princess Yulucia’s return and while Fanny was busy running around fulfilling her mistress’s command, two girls who were so beautiful that everyone stopped to stare sat across from each other at a white table at the Academy of the Magical Arts’ sidewalk café in the capital of the Holy Kingdom.
Even though this was part of the cafeteria, there was nothing on the table. No teacups, not even glasses of water. The two girls were the kind of annoying customers who took up a table without ordering anything, yet not a single person dared to complain.
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The brunette with blue-grey eyes was a fifth-year student in Knighthood Studies named Ninette Lutre, also known as Nia.
The girl with platinum-like blonde ringlets with azure eyes was a second-year student in Attendant Studies named Christina Celda, also known as Tina.
These two girls served as attendants to the daughter of the Grand Duke of Versenia and Princess of the Holy Kingdom who was sixth in line for the throne, Yulucia von Versenia, whose existence had caused the biggest fuss the country had seen in the past several years. It was easy to overlook the girls when they stood by their famous mistress’s side with her unapproachable, otherworldly good looks, but those who were more perceptive had recognized that the two of them—as well as the two other attendants, Noah and Fanny—were quite beautiful as well.
One of the reasons Yulucia’s attendants stood out so much was because they refused to wear the academy’s uniforms, opting instead for the Grand Duke’s maid and knight uniforms. So, what were the two of them doing here?
“Hey, Nia? Do you think some part of me isn’t good enough?” Tina mused, sounding like an exhausted office lady grumbling at a bar in the middle of the night because her boyfriend still hadn’t asked her to marry him even though they were already living together.
Nia gave Tina an affectionate smile as a bead of sweat trailed down her forehead. She was so over this constant complaint from Tina lately.
Ё ǹ ŭmä
Tina had initially complained to Fanny, but Fanny wasn’t the type to help people with their problems. Noah, the only boy of their group, had immediately judged the situation to be too annoying and busied himself with work only he was capable of doing. Fanny and Noah also often wound up traveling and running errands. So unfortunately for Nia, as the only other attendant who was kept near Yulucia’s side, she was stuck with the job of listening to Tina’s whining.
“Hmm? Maybe you should try to control yourself a little bit more?” Nia replied.
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“What did you just say?!”
Tina’s presence as she moved to lean forward caused Nia to reflexively reach for her demonic blade, but she quickly remembered that they were at their mistress’s academy, so she put a hand on Tina’s shoulder to push her back down instead.
Her hand made an audible tap and the leaves on the trees nearby stirred.
A student with an aptitude for elemental magic thought it strange how the wind blew even though there was not a single wind elemental around (as if they had all fled from the area). However, he never would have suspected that it had been a shock wave from two high-ranking demons clashing and canceling out one another’s magical powers.
Еn u m̄ a
Nia gave Tina an exasperated look. She couldn’t believe that she had actually just had to use all of her power to Absorb here of all places. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Lady Yulucia is a cat type, you know? Of course she’s going to reflexively hit you whenever you make sudden movements.”
“I guess, but…”
How many times now had Nia given her this same exact answer after hearing the same complaints? And yet Tina refused to accept it and puffed her cheeks out in annoyance. She was troubled because Yulucia wouldn’t accept her deluge of love for her mistress. In fact, Yulucia always counterattacked in response!
“It’s true, though,” Nia said with a gentle tone and smiled.
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It was rather obvious. Clobbering someone with heavy emotions before they had a chance to think about love would put anyone on guard, not just Yulucia.
Despite Nia pointing this out time and time again, Tina still seemed unaware she was even doing it. Although Tina was on the extreme side of things, all four of Yulucia’s attendants loved and respected their mistress, so they couldn’t exactly deny their feelings. So, basically, Nia had given up trying to persuade her.
Ẃ е̇b n̈ o v̌èl̊ Е n̆ũm̆ а̄
How had she turned out like this? They had all been together since they were born and had no sense of self to speak of. Tina had never been this much of a freak back in the Demon Realm.
I think I know the reason. Nia too had merged with a human soul, inheriting Ninette’s feelings and knowledge. Nia had just eaten the insolent part of her soul that had disrespected her mistress instead of merging with it. As for Ninette’s remaining feelings, Nia had taken surprisingly well to them. The slothfulness and self-love meshed well with her easygoing nature. Perhaps the soul Tina had chosen had hated Yulucia immensely, and Tina’s love for Yulucia had grown in proportion to how much Christina had detested her, like adding a pinch of salt to sweet red-bean soup with mochi. Having come to this conclusion, Nia sighed behind her smile.
And so, Nia and Tina were having this absurd conversation, yet they were still considered prominent beauties among the students. While the grand duke’s household had gradually come to recognize them as competent rotten eggs, to the public, they were the surprisingly young, pretty lady’s maids who worked for the grand duke’s family.
To their spectators, the two were perhaps having a serious conversation, judging from the weary looks on their faces, so of course they were gathering a lot of attention. Sometimes they spoke and acted in ways that made it clear they thought of humans as insignificant worms. However, those who had the favor of the grand duke’s family saw that coolheaded behavior as an expression of their loyalty to the princess and thought it was heartwarming how they only fawned on their lady. As a result, they were starting to gain popularity among both boys and girls. Meanwhile…
“Nia.” Tina gave Nia a somewhat sharp look as she spoke.
“Another one?” Nia was able to surmise Tina’s meaning from that alone, frowning slightly.
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They left a silver coin on the table even though they hadn’t ordered anything, stood up from their seats, and headed outside.
While Fanny had powerful abilities, she still quickly grew bored of things the way a child would. Noah was good at everything, but because of his merging with a human named Noir, he was even more gleeful than he used to be when it came to scheming up things for Yulucia. From that perspective, Nia and Tina could be considered hot-blooded idiots; however, they never cut corners when it came to their work, and they trusted each other deeply when it came to dealing with enemies.
The people milling about at the Academy of the Magical Arts weren’t just students and teachers. A large number of powerful magic users were nobility, so that necessitated the presence of numerous guards. The nobles didn’t differentiate between guardian knights and attendants on campus like Yulucia did, so many had adult attendants along with them.
There were also suppliers who brought in food and other necessities, as well as those who came to discuss business with professors and at the laboratories, so there were always lots of people coming and going on campus. Nevertheless, outsiders typically could not approach the school buildings where classes were held. It was for this reason that these buildings and the student dormitories had their own team of knights and guards posted at the gates to keep strict surveillance.
Tina covered her mouth with a silk handkerchief when they arrived at their destination. “It reeks of dust in here.”
The two of them had walked through the academy like normal and gone inside an old, unused school building. Old buildings were demolished if they posed any danger, but students could get permission to use the ones that were safe. It seemed that this one in particular did not get regular use, since there was so much dust covering the floor that the girls left footprints wherever they stepped.
Е̂n̂ú m̊а̀ .i ḋ
“Hmm, it’s probably okay. I don’t think we need to worry,” Nia replied nonchalantly. The two of them waited in an empty classroom, without even a desk or a chair, until he finally showed up.
“Please pardon my intrusion,” said a man in his thirties who was dressed like minor nobility. He was dressed inconspicuously, looking like someone’s parent, yet his demeanor and the way he carried himself made him come off as some high-ranking noble’s attendant. That said, it was not all that unusual for someone like this to try to make contact with the two of them.
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Tina and Nia weren’t the only ones who dealt with them either; all four attendants were regularly in contact with all kinds of humans.
People came to them for many reasons. Some just wanted to get to know the four of them because of how attractive they were. There were students who confessed their love directly to them. There were nobles who tried to headhunt them and make them their own attendants after seeing their beauty and work ethic. And then there were those who wanted to gain connections to the daughter of the Grand Duke of Versenia, but had no one to introduce them to her.
The people who belonged to the lower two categories all had one thing in common: They looked down on the four attendants because they were just a bunch of eight- and eleven-year-olds.
The man pasted a smile on his face as Tina and Nia regarded him in silence. “I believe you two must be Lady Ninette and Lady Christina, yes?”
Е n̊ũ m̀а̃. іd̈
“No, we are not,” Tina replied without missing a beat.
The man’s eyes darted about for a moment.
Nia jabbed Tina with her elbow, reminding Tina that those were their vessels’ former names, so Tina corrected herself with a straight face. “Yes, I believe that’s right.”
“I see.” The man wondered briefly if they were using false names, but decided that would make sense for people who worked for the grand duke. He recollected himself and then said, “My apologies. My name is Ilerio, and I am a messenger from the Church of Kostor. I have a message I wish to convey to both your mistress and you, her attendants.”
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Messengers from the Church of Kostor weren’t all that unusual either. Although she was a princess and everyone called her the Saint, Yulucia was still too young to attend too many soirees. Both citizens of the Holy Kingdom and people from abroad were constantly sending both formal and informal inquiries to the royal family and grand duke about getting an audience with the princess. To their disappointment, the King of Talitelud and the Grand Duke of Versenia both declared it too soon for her and thus avoided them all.
Tina and Nia had both worn their respective blank looks and smiles on their faces like masks, but now they stared at the man as if he were an insignificant worm.
Ẽn û m̂ а̌ . i d.
“Naturally, I will do my utmost to accommodate both of you in addition to Her Highness. We shall spare no expense.” The man tried to combat the pressure of their silent stares with his words. Tina and Nia showed no reaction, though.
How could these children who were only about ten years old feel so intimidating? Fearing Tina’s blank stare, he turned his attention instead to Nia and was unsettled to find that her smile hadn’t changed even a little bit. Part of him wanted to tut in annoyance, since he couldn’t understand why these children were looking at him this way, but he decided to push it aside and move on to business instead.
“Gracious me, you two certainly are worthy of being the Lady Saint’s attendants,” the man prattled on with a histrionic gesture and tone. “You are wise to be cautious. However, I promise that I am not a suspicious person. As I said before, I am from the Church of Kostor. To tell the truth, though, I am from a faction that supports a new interpretation of the doctrine. If you were to give us your support when we establish our new church as the true one, we would gladly recognize Princess Yulucia as the Saint.”
In other words, this guy was from a group about to start a new sect, and he wanted to make Yulucia the officially recognized Saint of their new sect to make themselves look more legit.
“Can that being call itself a messenger for the Church of Kostor, then?” Nia voiced her doubts as she slowly tilted her head to the side. Belonging to a splinter sect meant that he was entirely unrelated to the main Church.
“Of course. We are still at present affiliated with the Church of Kostor, so I did not misrepresent myself on that point. We just have a different interpretation,” Ilerio replied coolly.
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These were still substantially different things, so someone from the Church of Kostor would surely disagree. These girls may have been competent, but they were still just children, so Ilerio intended to win them over through smiles and authority.
“And?” Up until now Tina had remained frozen, so her question left Ilerio baffled.
“Huh?”
“What exactly is this new sect going to do?”
“Th-that is a very good question. Our world has elementals and even evil demons running rampant, yet the gods have never shown themselves to us. And so, we hope to gather individuals with powerful magic such as yourselves and offer up the Lady Saint’s magic in supplication to get our great goddess to manifest!” Ilerio said, full of confidence.
However, Tina’s gaze sharpened and Nia’s smile faded. They regarded him silently.
Wе̊ ḃ ṅ о̌v e̊l Ên̂ūmӑ
Did the gods really exist? Neither of them had ever felt such a presence. To them, if one did exist, it was Yulucia. However, that didn’t matter right now. What did matter was something that the two girls could absolutely not overlook.
“You’re going to gather magic and summon a god?”
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“That we shall! I am telling you all this now because we wish for Her Highness to reject any other offers from denominations willing to recognize her as the Saint.” Ilerio’s face took on a more zealous expression as he went on. “It shall be made clear to you soon. The archbishop shall return within the next few years to Talitelud. He has made an ally of a major nation who shares in our ideology. Surely you can see that joining us now would be the wisest choice for you to make.”
The Holy Kingdom did not choose their Saint lightly; the title of “Saint of the Holy Kingdom” was in a league of its own compared to other titles. Yulucia and her attendants were unaware of this, but the main religion in the Holy Kingdom had already reached out to Yulucia to discuss officially recognizing her. Adding that to Yulucia’s title of the princess of the Grand Duke of Versenia, she was even more special than before.
Up until now, when female priests and acolytes worthy of the title appeared in any of the sects, their sect and the royal family would recognize her as such and that was that. However, Yulucia could cast numerous powerful spells, belonged to no religious affiliation, and was only the second Saint to be born to royalty. Essentially, this meant that she would become the second “true Saint” in history.
As a result, the royal family was being cautious about choosing which religious sect to back, and they had decided to defer officially recognizing Yulucia as the Saint and choosing which sect she would join until Yulucia was old enough to make the decision for herself. Because of this, no sect could publicly contact Yulucia unless she herself requested it. The Church of Kostor—the official religion of Talitelud—would likely be the religion officially recognizing her as the Saint.
En ǔmа̊
And so, many of the churches were quietly working behind the scenes without Yulucia’s knowledge because they didn’t want to let such an influential poster girl get away. However, there was an unspoken rule they had to follow: No one would directly invite Yulucia. Inviting her attendants, on the other hand, was considered a gray area. Nevertheless, insistently soliciting them in a dusty place like this was a sure sign that said solicitor belonged to a shady religion that could not operate in the light.
“If the two of you would be willing to put in a good word with Her Highness for us, we would be happy to offer you anything you desire in return—be it any object or person.”
Ilerio had heard that the princess was close with her attendants. She would not be able to disregard their counsel. And no matter how loyal they were to the princess, no attendant could possibly turn down the prospect of having their worldly desires fulfilled. Even though they were children—no, as a man of religion, Ilerio understood that it was precisely because they were children that their wants must have known no limits.
However, Ilerio’s assumptions were wrong on a fundamental level.
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“That’s…hilarious,” said Nia.
“Wh-what is?”
W̃е̃b̀n̄ оv̌è ľ Е nu m̃ a
The two girls now had a strange air about them, as if they had suddenly changed into entirely different people. Ilerio instinctively took a step back.
There’s something abnormal about these girls. The instant he came to this conclusion, he suddenly felt himself on guard, like a warning call from the innermost depths of his heart—from his very soul. He was utterly confused, but decided to trust his gut and take his leave.
“I must apologize. I just remembered that I have a prior engagement that I—”
“Did we hear correctly that you intend to use our mistress?” Nia asked.
Ilerio sensed a quiet rancor from the girl’s voice as she interrupted him. He decided to abandon all sense of pride and bowed his head deeply to the young girl. “Please accept my apologies. I can see now that I was far too hasty. I must—”
“Aw, you’re leaving so soon?” Tina asked.
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“Ack!”
Nia had just been standing next to Tina, but now she stood behind Ilerio and tapped his shoulder.
He couldn’t move. All she’d done was touch his shoulder, but he felt like he had fallen into the crevice of an enormous rock. A cold sweat started pouring down his face.
It wasn’t magic. It wasn’t physical strength either. Yet Ilerio felt his very soul shrivel before such powerful predators.
“He really did say something about wishing to summon a god,” Nia said.
“Then that means what he truly wants is to become sustenance for a god, right?” Tina asked.
Е̌ n ǔ m ȧ
“It sure sounds like that to me.”
“Although our goddess…” the two girls said in unison.
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Caught between their ominous presences and words, tears began streaming down Ilerio’s face as his teeth chattered.
“Open the way to Lost Eden,” the girls chorused.
Tina’s hair and Nia’s demonic sword shone black as the dusty old classroom was plunged into darkness.
But it wasn’t dark. Ilerio could still see the two girls. He realized that not only had the classroom been enveloped in darkness, but he was now in a different place altogether.
W̊_е́bn оvӗ_l Е̊ n̈ü m а́
This was a pocket dimension that Yulucia’s attendants had slowly constructed by using the surplus of their mistress’s magic to help her hide her true form away, since she was growing more powerful by the day.
Yulucia was a child of this world, and this was her Demon Realm.
“Welcome to our world,” a boy said from far away.
In the distance loomed a towering black castle that was still in the process of being built.
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“Ah… Ah…” Ilerio was already speechless. His soul was unable to withstand the miasma here—it was truly more than any human could endure.
There was a horde of demons building the castle—over a thousand of them were already greater demons. Ilerio’s heart broke at the sight of them. Noah glanced at the unexpected guest and gave an order to the other demons. The man’s soul was tossed into a cauldron and came tumbling back out as a small black candy, as if it had just gone through an assembly line.
Èn u̇ḿǎ
This was exactly how Mylene’s vampires, following Yulucia’s request, had been turning the unnecessary humans of the world that they hunted down into sustenance for the demons.
Meanwhile…
“I’m home, Lady Yuluciiia!”
“Oh, Fanny. Welcome home.” Yulucia picked up her textbooks as she smiled at Fanny, who looked like any other maid who had come to pick up her mistress after classes were finished.
“The Hero didn’t seem all that tasty to me.”
“Has he still not awoken yet, then? That’s fine, so long as he doesn’t cause any problems for my dear sisters. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen the others in a while. Do you know what they’re up to?”
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“They’re working on building our secret base.”
“Well, even they like to be kids at times.”
“Yeah. Want a candy, Lady Yulucia?”
“I would love one.”
The two of them popped black candies into their mouths and laughed together as they munched on them.
The oblivious Yulucia continued to indulge in the peace of the world without a care.
Е ǹ um а
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