/
She couldn’t really fathom the emotion in his eyes. Maybe he was angry that she had bothered him or the fact that he had arbitrarily gone out of his way just for a mere human subject.
‘But first, I have to say a word of thanks. Since he was the one who saved me.’
Julia swallowed her saliva and she was just about to rise when a thunderous roar could be heard from somewhere else.
“Master, why did you have to go first! Didn’t you always trust me as you also entrust me to do such trivial things!”
“Shut up.”
The two demons, Barbatos and Agares, could be seen to be flying through the lightly lifted cloth. And amongst all of them, Agares eventually found Julia who was lying under the black cloth before she immediately landed next to her and held her close.
“It’s the small key—are you okay?”
“Miss Agares…”
“Revenna and Kimaris—those bastards, how dare they!”
The black cloth that covered Julia before was probably Bael’s own clothes. Agares threw it away like she was peeling it off before peering all over Julia’s body. The half torn dress and scarlet scars that had carved underneath her were eventually revealed.
Agares instantly saw it and began growling faintly as if she was the one who had been injured.
“I know you’ll never be able to kill her nicely.”
“Who……?”
“Why did you let the little key look like this when you were the one who left first?”
She was very concerned about who the target actually was.
Julia tried very hard to justify that it wasn’t her intention to get out of her castle, but Agares didn’t listen to her as she took off her military jacket and hugged her tightly instead. Then, she snarled back at Bael.
“Agares, you are being rude to your own Master.”
It was Barbatos, the loyal servant of Bael, who instantly stopped her from doing so. Of course, there was no way that Agares’s ears could hear his remarks by then.
“You had already gone far ahead of us, so you could have stopped it all before the little key got to this point, couldn’t you?”
“……”
“Master!”
“Isn’t it enough to keep her life instead?”
Just for a very short time, Bael was unable to take his eyes off Julia’s wounds. Then, he wrinkled his brow—seemingly annoyed—as he began to spread his wings and return back to the castle first. Barbatos also followed after his Master straight away before leaving only Julia and Agares at the scene of that ghastly carnage.
“Tsk, it’s annoying.”
A sound of something being clenched could be heard over Julia’s head at once. Nevertheless, the moment Julia had looked up at her, Agares was only raising the corners of her lips seductively in return as she made eye contact with Julia who was now already in her arms.
* * *
A day eventually passed ever since Julia, who had arrived in the Demon Realm, entered Bael’s bedroom.
In the late afternoon when the sun was still up in the middle of the sky, Lerazier was walking out as he trod along the hall of the castle. From a distance, he appeared to be quite dissatisfied.
“Older Brother is just too easy. He actually tells this body, which boasts the 14th highest magical power, to serve as a mere human servant.”
Nevertheless, as one listened more closely to what he was talking about……
“Still, the key isn’t really that bad. She’s appetizingly cute too. Might as well give her a little bit of touch in addition to the monitoring?”
In fact, Lerazier’s aesthetics were actually quite high. Besides, he was a gourmet as well. He hated the demon-like and ungraceful people—those picky and greedy ones—the most. Just being in the same space as them made him feel like they were entirely out of his own league.
In that sense, the key that had fallen a while ago became an object that stimulated his desire for over a long time. Just thinking about that innocent face had made a pool of saliva secreting in his mouth.
“Older Brother must have expected this when he entrusted it all to me.”
Everyone in the Demon Castle was only watching that one human. It was not possible for them to have their nose up in the air, but it was not that they did not understand it at all either.
It was actually to find an existence with a high possibility of being the real ‘key’ in return.
So far, humans who had been sacrificed or dragged away as keys would have been dead as soon as they entered the Demon Tower while the other half of them would either die or just went crazy the moment they stood in front of the Magic Stone itself.
And each time, the Master became very displeased and began turning the Demon Realm into ashes. The reason why only demons who were up to the 72nd rank could reside in his nest was hidden behind that very reason. Not all magic could truly withstand the wrath of the King himself.
Even if they never said a word of their pride, everyone would have still felt like they were treading on thin ice every day. Therefore, being able to stand in front of those supernatural powers while feeling that visceral fear at the same time was a completely different story in all.
‘Even though the key is only a mere human, she didn’t even blink an eye at the Master’s powerful magic. The Master must have been inwardly surprised as well?’
The possibility that she might have been the real key then turned into some sort of a certainty. Those guys who had never seen her in person still talked a lot about this and that, but Lerazier was positively confident. This time, ‘Estelle Vetra’ had truly been the real key.
‘Thanks to that, the Master seemed to be in a good mood. He didn’t say anything special though, but from the wavelength of his magic, he was definitely calmer than usual.’
The complaints and grievances that had been accumulated up until now eventually slipped from Lerazier’s mind, who had reached the conclusion by himself.
He had been given the task of monitoring the key that would turn his Master into the Demon God. It was unthinkable that the little pitiful key would escape with her own two feet, so it was actually closer to having kept someone from harm than to just watch over her.
He opened Bael’s door with such a light step before he could only freeze up in an instant.
The key wasn’t there at all.
“I don’t really know what kind of mouse it is, but they can’t fool these eyes of mine.”
A dark tinge of murderous energy slowly permeated the slightly lowered corners of his eyes. The unpleasant magic trail left in the air seemed to have no intention of hiding its own identity, which made him even more so annoyed.
“This bastard… actually dares to challenge this body?”
Lerazier, who instantly drew his sword, turned around with no delay at all. The nervous set of footsteps quickly faded away in the distance.