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“I don’t want to.”
“May I ask the reason?”
“I am the Master of this Demon Realm. To imitate things which only those incubi do…”
Her skin was tingling. She could again feel that the air surrounding her, which had barely subsided, was trying to run rampant once more.
If one were to interpret Bael’s words, it seemed to have brought the meaning that he—the absolute monarch who had accomplished the feat of unifying the whole Demon Realm—had been utterly dissatisfied that he were to gain powers through such affairs, like those merely low-level incubi did.
Whatever he had in mind, it was actually good. Julia nodded her head passionately since she, herself, didn’t wish to be devoured by him either way.
Regardless of the fact, Lerazier, whose senses seemed to have completely evaporated, soon came up with a much more and more unpleasant plan.
“Then, Master, simply leave it by your side for now and just watch instead.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t really matter if you roast or even boil the key. You’ll need an attendant anyway, right? He died a few days ago. To be honest, whenever the Master goes on a rampage, it’s actually too annoying to clean up…”
The main point appeared to be in that last sentence, but the two other demons started showing their empathy instead as they thought that it might have been a not-so-bad suggestion anyway.
The three of them, who had been arguing with each other, eventually took a step back and closed the door just when Bael had turned away for a moment—as if they were running away. As she witnessed it, Julia immediately screamed inwards.
‘You said that you’d be protecting me from dying!’
Julia was rather timid basically and yet that wasn’t consistent at all, even when her life was at stake. The shards of magical power that had shattered and scattered all over amongst the heavy air, which had already crushed the lungs, still seemed to have come alive.
The woman who was simply left in the middle of the spacious bedroom hadn’t dared to follow the demons through the closed door, but still, she couldn’t even approach the Demon King. Thus, there she stood—stunned. She felt a sense of uneasiness as she began thinking if she were to draw her foot by mistake, even if it was just a little, a magical storm would have about to hit her in an instant.
Bael wrinkled his brow as if his head was still throbbing. Yet his red eyes were all fixed on Julia. Feeling frightened, she then hunched her shoulders and merely leveled her gaze towards the floor.
‘I’m scared. I want to run away.’
Even though his eyes were closed tightly, she could still feel his gaze blatantly on her body. The gaze was moving slowly upwards from her toes, then passed through her slender waist and skinny chest before stopping right at her face.
The suffocating silence began to press her down.
How would he actually rate her as a human being? She was not as noble as Estelle, who had been the real key, nor was she as beautiful and enchanting like those mistresses of Ingrem V. In Bael’s set of eyes, she must have looked completely unappealing.
“Alright, human.”
“……”
“Tell me what it is that you can do.”
Bael had only uttered that one sentence, but once Julia heard it, she immediately felt as if she was just worthless. Perhaps Bael had already despised her.
She hadn’t been sure of what was the actual truth since she couldn’t perceive his expression, but based on her experience so far, it was certainly so.
She had barely spread her slouched shoulders before she continued her words with much difficulty.
“Cleaning, washing and also a little bit of cooking…”
“Does it look like I’m actually free enough to listen to such kind of jokes?”
Despite her own hard work, her shoulders still shrank, albeit slightly. She appeared to be an 18-year-old Princess, but in reality, she had already lived for 20 years in the modern world where their common sense couldn’t be applied here.
Even with the memories of both worlds being put together, she still couldn’t do anything but just those merely chores to live on. She didn’t know what kind of grandiose thing Bael was actually expecting, though.
He then smirked at her, perhaps knowing that Julia’s words weren’t exactly a joke at all.
“Are you serious? That’s just so trivial. It’s not even worth touching on.”
“……”
“Then, just do that cleaning of yours with such confidence. Don’t even think about being silly.”
Along with a voice that was mixed with irritation, he looked quite fatigued as he closed his eyes altogether.
After she had quietly cleaned up the messy room for a rather long time, Julia suddenly realized that Bael had already fallen into a deep sleep. As if his insomnia had long been thrown away, a low, regular breathing sound could be then heard.
‘Is it the power of that white noise?’
He had been the object of fear when he was awake, but when she thought how he had fallen asleep to the sound of her cleaning away, she lifted her head while feeling absurdly proud. She had put the Demon King to sleep.
‘Oh, right.’
Julia recalled the fact that she had forgotten about the icon right after the prologue scene. As she had carefully examined her left and right sides, she then made sure that Bael was completely asleep before she crouched her body down under the table and sat down.
The icon was still at the upper-right corner within her field of view. Julia slowly reached her hand out to it.
[Julia Vestra]
STATUS
▷PROGRESS
▷SKILL
▷ITEM
▷SETTING
The name appeared right at the top while the selection window was lined up straight away below it. It was just like what she had seen on the game screen.
Julia mechanically selected STATUS. And again, a familiar set of figures came to her mind. She then lowered the short scroll at once.
▷HP
▷SP
.
.
▷REP
▷LUK
SIGHT
A few types of stats eventually stopped moving at the last sight.
It was the first time that the screen appeared in those 4 years after she had entered the game world. Julia began to wonder why the icon had just come into existence.
[Demon’s Paradise] was a game in which, like any other dating simulation games, one would train the protagonist to raise her ability level before using that ability to target a character, then solve the whole case and eventually, reach the ending.
Of course, there were some elements that had been quite different from those normal games. The fact that one could create a reverse harem ending merely by aiming as many characters as one desired, which could then develop independently from the main episode titled, ‘Key of the Magic Stone’ as well as a rather lot of gory episodes and endings that were absolutely befitting of the tragic R-19 genre.