Demons are a race that never forgets defeat.
They understand better than anyone how strong they are by nature.
That was why they had such overwhelming pride that they called their own defeat [Subjugation].
And the higher their rank, the more weight that carried.
For those who had reached the nobility, defeat was like losing the stature they had built up over at least centuries, and at most millennia.
And for those who had reached the rank of [King], defeat was a concept that should never exist.
There were exceptions. Two demon kings had willingly placed themselves under [Rouge], the demon called the strongest of all, but that was only possible because [Rouge] was a monstrous being absurdly beyond reason.
The other demon kings were demons who held seats among the Primordial Demons, and their very instincts refused to accept defeat and eternal submission to anyone.
The same was true for [Jonne].
No—if anything, she might have been the most persistent of the five.
[Viole], who always acted like a child yet knew how to recognize her own limits, and [Rouge], [Noir], and [Blanc], with their cool heads and exceptional intellect, all possessed the ability to rule out defeat before it ever happened.
But [Jonne] did not have that ability.
What she possessed instead of that kind of restraint, with her fiery temperament, was an inability to forget not only defeat, but humiliation as well.
*
"...?! How are you here?!"
[Jonne] glared at the ash-gray demon with savage eyes.
It was the kind of gaze that looked heavy enough to kill a person on sight, drenched in murderous intent.
That killing intent came from the rage of having tasted the humiliation of rejection at his hands.
But the ash-gray demon accepted [Jonne]'s bloodlust with calm indifference.
In the past, he surely would have been frightened. But not now. He had not wasted these past few years either.
He had gained a body in the material world, become Guy Crimson's disciple, and grown into a warrior worthy of standing among great heroes.
"...You. Don't tell me you really switched sides in the material world and became [Rouge]'s subordinate?"
[Jonne], having seen straight through the demon before her, seemed briefly startled by his power. But then, as if she had realized something, she burst into mad laughter.
"...Ha... hahaha... hahahaha!!! So [Blanc] got robbed too, didn't she?! She acted so lofty, and in the end she wound up just like me, didn't she?! Hahahahaha—!!!"
Mockery.
It was mockery aimed at [Blanc], who had failed to obtain him just as she had.
Because she had known as well. She knew he had left hell because of [Rouge]'s intervention.
For several years now, the soul of nothingness had no longer been felt in hell.
"......"
"Haha—this is interesting. So what kind of [game] are you trying to play this time? You rejected me and abandoned your old master, and now you've come to see me again on purpose. Don't tell me you came without a reason—?"
The eyes of [Jonne], smiling darkly, shifted ever so slightly.
The killing intent was still there, but another emotion had begun to bloom again.
An emotion she knew well.
Obsession.
"...Before that, it seems you're under one misunderstanding."
But the tyrant's expectation—no, her delusion—was soon shattered to pieces by the demon's reply.
"......What?"
[Jonne]'s laughter stopped.
It was an ominous feeling.
A deeply suggestive, ominous feeling.
"—What do you mean by that?"
Suppressing the sudden wave of unpleasant emotion rising inside her, she waited for the answer that would come from the ash-gray demon's mouth.
And that demon—
—gave an answer that stood in exact opposition to [Jonne]'s feelings.
"It's true that I became [Rouge]—Lord Guy Crimson's subordinate, but I have never once betrayed Lady Blanc."
There had never been even a single moment when he had abandoned his former master.
No, she was not even a former master to begin with.
He had always been a servant of two masters, Blanc and Guy. He had never treated either one lightly, and he had always done his utmost to carry out both of their orders.
That was the best he could do as a subordinate, and as a disciple.
"Even now, at this very moment, I still follow Lady Blanc."
And the reason he had come here was also for her sake.
To him, waiting hundreds of years had felt far too long, so he had sought another method.
After all, there was more than one way to reach hell.
"Lady Jonne. Would you be willing to make a [Contract] with me?"
He had come to offer the tyrant a gamble.
To win her invitation by staking himself as the chip.
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