KABOOOOOM!!!!!
"...Tch!"
The Primordial Demon, [Jonne (Yellow)].
The most savage tyrant among the kings of demonkind.
True to that epithet, once she was genuinely enraged, she became a ticking time bomb no one could stop.
"...That vile bastard rejected my offer because he likes her?! Damn it!!!"
There was only one reason Jonne was this furious now: a certain demon Blanc had brought with her.
**
A few hours earlier.
The half-destroyed truce grounds.
At their center, immense magicules churned violently.
"...Say that again...!"
[Jonne (Yellow)] demanded, as though the very notion was absurd.
Like an active volcano on the verge of erupting, she radiated fury.
"You're saying you'll keep serving that white bitch...?!"
Her rage was a declaration that, if he did not answer properly, there was no telling what would become of him.
"...No matter how many times you ask, my answer will remain the same. I have sworn loyalty to Lady Blanc, so I cannot disregard her wishes."
Yet the ash-gray demon before her did not bend his resolve.
He was clearly afraid of both her and Viole, but even so, he continued giving the same answer.
"...! You little—!!"
Unable to contain her fury at him, Jonne immediately tried to rush him.
For those who would not obey, there was only punishment.
That was her way.
Fortunately, however, Hairo did not suffer the misfortune of that attack reaching him.
Clang!!
"Please stop, my lady."
The one who stopped her as she was about to charge into battle was—
"This is a truce ground."
—an elderly gentleman with long yellow hair.
"Will you get out of my way?! That bastard just—!!"
Jonne tried to fly into another rage regardless, but the old gentleman spoke again.
"My lady, please regain your composure. To run wild here would mean declaring all-out war against Lady Blanc and Lady Viole."
He was Jonne's subordinate, but he had taken it upon himself to restrain his mistress whenever she lost her calm. That was why he stopped her now.
"Even so...!!"
"This old man understands why you are angered, my lady. However, now that even Lady Viole has accepted his resolve, it would be improper to raise an objection."
Though Jonne was more than frightening enough, the elderly man merely stated his opinion calmly.
"What the hell..."
Having regained a little of her composure thanks to him, Jonne turned to look at Viole, whom she had expected to be raging just like her.
But contrary to her expectations, Viole was very well-behaved.
"Viole, you..."
Jonne wore an incredulous expression at the sight, but Viole remained impassive.
"..."
"Hmph. I'm not some brainless idiot like you, you know?"
Defying everyone's expectations that she would fly into a rage like Jonne, Viole simply sat where she was and waited quietly.
"..."
As everyone stared at her in blank astonishment, Viole finally smiled like a little devil and spoke.
"I don't care if he chose Blanc for now. He'll become my butler eventually anyway."
Leaving behind those meaningful words, Viole looked at Jonne and added,
"Unlike you, I actually think things through~"
**
Boom!!
"I'm so pissed off...!"
Just as before, Jonne used Nuclear Magic once again.
It was less powerful than the last one, but it still held enough destructive force to effortlessly erase dozens of mountains.
"Viole's annoying, and that bastard is annoying too!!!! 'I have sworn loyalty to Lady Blanc, so I cannot disregard her wishes,' he says...?! Why the hell is he keeping something like that when it isn't even a Contract?!"
If it had been a Contract, she could have understood.
To demons, a Contract was both a transaction and a restriction that had to be upheld without fail.
If his following Blanc had been bound by a Contract, there would have been nothing she could do. No subject could dare defy a king.
But judging from his tone and Blanc's reaction, his refusal had been entirely his own choice.
In other words, he had judged both her and Viole to be beneath Blanc.
That fact had wounded the pride of Jonne—the tyrant.
"...Just wait. One day, I'll definitely take you away from her—"
Jonne, who for the first time in a long while had been stirred by the emotion known as greed, muttered to herself.
It already belongs to me.
**
Another Primordial Demon, Viole. Though she had remained quiet at the scene, she was just as furious as Jonne.
She too was a proud king among demons.
But unlike Jonne, the emotion she felt was weighted more heavily toward 'desire' than anger.
A dark desire that might turn into obsession.
"He'll continue following Blanc, huh... Well, I don't mind. Taking him away will be fun in its own way."
The most childlike king.
The most innocent Primordial Demon.
Like a mischievous child always looking for entertainment, she regarded taking that demon away as a game.
That was also why she had not caused a scene there, instead turning Jonne into a ridiculous clown.
"...His name was Hairo, wasn't it...? He's rather good-looking too~"
His void-like soul was fascinating enough that she wanted to investigate it immediately, but it was not yet time.
There would be plenty of time once he sincerely served her and became her retainer.
"Ahaha, someday I'll make you my butler~ Hai. Ro~"
Today as well, she wore a dark smile, satisfied at having found a new source of entertainment.
While eagerly awaiting the opportunity she believed would come someday.
**
Meanwhile, in the white castle toward which the two tyrants' anger was directed, Blanc and Hairo were meeting alone.
"...There's something I'm curious about. May I ask?"
The long silence that had continued throughout their return was broken by Blanc's question.
"Yes, please ask me anything."
At my answer, Blanc seemed to deliberate for a moment before finally asking.
"Back then... why did you deliberately say that? To be honest, I thought you'd want to leave here."
Blanc tilted her head, as if she could not understand the reason.
"..."
Say that.
She probably meant my saying that I had sworn loyalty to her.
Just as I expected as much, Blanc continued.
"I thought you might choose to go with one of those two, so I'd even found out their weaknesses in advance. Well, thanks to that, I kept two cards hidden, so it wasn't a bad outcome in the end."
As she said that, Blanc wore her characteristic smile—cold and chilling.
...As expected, she'd already taken measures to make sure I couldn't go with Jonne or Viole.
Then again, among the Primordial Demons, only Rouge or Noir could probably engage her in a battle of wits. Perhaps it was only natural.
One reason I had not betrayed Blanc was precisely because she was intelligent.
"I'd like you to answer honestly why you decided to remain here."
"...The reason?"
...Naturally, there were several reasons beyond her being intelligent.
To name just a few, compared to Jonne, who freely fired off Nuclear Magic depending on her mood, and Viole, who would pursue anything that interested her no matter how many sacrifices it caused, Blanc—with her cruel but cool-headed way of thinking—was the better master.
And life over the past three months had not been as bad as I had expected.
But the greatest reason of all was—
"...There is a demon I wish to find here."
"A demon you wish to find?"
"Yes. A demon of the white lineage... whom I knew until a few years ago."
A friend.
I wanted to find Ria.
...
Only a few years.
For demons, who were practically immortal, it was a short amount of time. But for me, the time I had spent with her was the most precious of the roughly hundred years I had lived as a demon.
It was not as though I had never formed connections with other demons before meeting Ria, my first friend since reincarnating.
I had met quite a number of demons, made deals with them, and formed ties with them.
But none of those connections could compare to the time I had spent with Ria.
Our bond had grown much longer than I had expected, and so I found myself wanting to find her.
Yet the only information I knew about her was that she was a demon of the white lineage, like her hair, and that she held a fairly high rank. Those were the only two things.
The reason I knew so little despite our time together was that Ria herself hated talking about herself. To the point that I wondered if she had some kind of trauma.
In the end, I had to find her using just those two pieces of information, and the easiest way to do that was to remain under Blanc.
...
...But why was she suddenly acting like that?
"...Lady Blanc? Is something wrong?"
Blanc's expression after hearing my answer was strange.
Her snow-white skin had flushed slightly, and the way she avoided my eyes made her seem flustered.
As if... she had just received a confession.
...Did I answer too readily and catch her off guard...?
Maybe she had expected me to make excuses, only to be surprised when I immediately came clean.
"...Lady Blanc?"
When I called her again, Blanc finally came back to herself. She answered in a voice higher-pitched than usual.
"...Ah, it's nothing. You may return now."
"...?"
Her face was still red, and even at a glance her flustered state was obvious, but I decided to keep my mouth shut for now.
If I said something unnecessary and made her angry, I would be the only one in trouble.
"Yes... understood."
Not knowing her true identity, he dismissed that reaction as merely his imagination.
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