Idiot Lambda Lilion
Devil. The name sounds pretty rough, but around here, it's just one of the racial labels. Like saying Aztec, for comparison. This world counts anything humanoid as a race, which is why, but in moments like this, I can't help questioning if it's really the right classification.
The textbooks in this world define demons as the result of the evils piled up by their ancestors, crystallized into the species' name.
But the line Lambda Lilion just uttered—"I summoned you"—is something no one who's even skimmed a fantasy novel could easily gloss over.
"Isn't summoning something humans shouldn't do?"
Not a racial difference, but something more... other.
As soon as my question ended, a clicking sound rang out. Countless gears spun inside her cross-shaped pupils. They turned in harmony, almost like laughter. In reality, the Lambda Lilion before me was frozen like a wax doll. Not even the corner of her lips twitched, yet my ears filled with hallucinatory chuckles. The weirdest part? While I heard this explosive laughter clicking away, my ears only picked up the faint, slow turning of the golden gears—part of her body—in the silent space. The laughter, instead, was visible. From the golden gears peeking between her cross pupils.
"Indeed, it's not something for humans. I used the term 'devil' to make it easy for you to understand."
The gear-clicking laughter didn't actually exist. With her clear voice came the real sound here: just the tiny whir of gears turning, something you wouldn't hear outside this empty silence.
I set aside that dissonant sensation for now. What mattered was parsing her words.
To make it easy for me to understand, she used 'devil.' So, not a 'demon' in the usual sense? But others on that train called her a demon too. Contextually, then, she just picked a simple word? I've seen this character type plenty in stories. The cliché where they say, "You call us demons, but we're something entirely different—you just slapped the label on us." So, what 'demons' would I know? The term probably derives from religious origins here too. If it merged with a label for a particularly vicious race, she might mean something more essential. A demon straight out of mythology. And in myths, demons usually arise denying this.
"God?"
"Fallen."
The word hits like a vicious joke, far worse than expected. Yeah, that explains the summoning. Though for a supposed god, she doesn't look all that impressive.
"Even as a former god, can't you show off some omnipotent flair?"
"Fallen. Down to the maggot at the bottom of the abyss."
She's plummeting into a bottomless pit, she says. So, no wish-granting, all-powerful free servant. Pity. When I heard "god," a corner of my brain had hoped I'd finally built some connections. Nope.
Fine. Curiosity about this one satisfied. I reached for the iron door marked with stark yellow-and-black diagonal hazard stripes. Unconsciously, I started to point with my index finger but hesitated. My inner Confucian dragon scolded me for rudeness toward such a grand being, so I folded my finger and politely extended my open palm toward the door.
"What the hell is that?"
"You called it hell."
"Yeah. Looked like a place where victims suffer eternally."
Instead of answering, Lambda Lilion tilted her head, scanned the surroundings, and slowly approached the door. No trace of divine grandeur in her plain movements. She examined every corner without touching the door rashly. Occasionally prodding the detached outer wall or stepping back to check for mechanisms—it reminded me of my own actions when I first arrived. The difference? A seasoned detective's savvy, fitting her self-proclaimed profession. Echoes off the walls to map the interior, sharp sweeps along seams for tiny gaps—her hands especially shone.
"This is just the facade. If there's a hydraulic system like this, there needs to be space inside for mechanisms to move. And doors like this usually have emergency releases, but here it's just traces of forced extraction."
Tap, tap. With her strikingly pale fingers, she pointed to one wall. I'd missed it—a faint line on the floor, slightly offset.
I watched and asked, "No miracles or magic?"
"How?"
She countered as if I'd said something bizarre. I conjured elementary magic even a kid could do. The little flame I'd made to mark the maze last time by leaving black scorch marks. Admittedly, worse than a ten-year-old's—mine was a clunky polygon blob, like a kid's first try. No clean spark.
I lightly pressed the crude fireball to the floor and pulled it away. Confirmed the scorch mark, then withdrew the mana.
"See?"
"Impressive you can manage that. Know this: even I can barely hold this form here."
She spun around and held her hand near the door. No, not touching—summoning a small golden gear between her palm and the metal. But it blackened on contact and crumbled to ash, scattering into the air.
"Assistant. You went inside, right?"
"Yeah, yeah. No reply for so long, I figured it never happened."
I grumbled a bit, but Lambda Lilion didn't flinch. Gods gonna god. Thinking that inwardly, I stepped up and reached straight for the door to open it.
"Wait!"
Too late—my hand touched, and it pushed open easily, as if always meant to. A chill worse than midwinter mountain dawn pierced my fingertips, but fake, so fine. I opened the door fully and turned to Lambda Lilion. She stared, backing away a few steps. If I read her face right, she'd witnessed something beyond rational explanation.
"What?"
"You're far too familiar with death."
"For a reincarnator, death's a done deal. And one I'll face again."
I shrugged. "Weren't you a god? Isn't this overreacting?"
Lambda Lilion backed away slowly without answering.
"First, pull your hand out. Come here."
Not fear of me, but desperate calm to guide someone at the edge of a horrific place. I withdrew the hand that had pushed the door—and crossed the boundary—and stepped out as she said.
"Guess even gods can't enter hell?"
But she silently grabbed my hand, inspecting it. Less detective, more adult checking a kid's hand after touching fire—desperate.
"Intact."
"Told you I went in."
She released it and stood squarely before me, rigid as a mannequin. What now? I wondered.
"Can't accompany you inside, so best to talk here. Your first tip: the photo from Station Hotel entrance shows traces of recognition dissolution magic used by an old cult. That tech's now absorbed and managed by the Guardian Knights."
Sudden answers to questions I'd never heard back on. Phaenax's insight spotting anomalies at the hotel, snapped in photos.
"Second tip, Grey Ark Research Institute nearby empty lot photo. Nothing visible, but records show a secret lab once ran unethical experiments there."
She pointed to the open iron door and the white corridor beyond.
"The name you heard inside, Philip Goldberg, is real. Set to graduate three years ago but dropped out abruptly. No traffic records leaving the city. Parents bought tickets to Pristine Comprehensive University, but no gate or train logs."
Questions from days of unanswered reports poured from her mouth. As expected. I'd guessed their miserable ends.
"Found something too. Ailia Secrem. The girl whose horns grew to pierce her eyes, head only left. Library enrollment list: entered eleven years ago."
Bisected Philip Goldberg. Head-only Ailia Secrem. Nameless girl with ribs sharply excised below. If those forms preserved their death moments, conclusion's simple: all brutally murdered.
"They're all still in hell. With the institute's victims from sixty years ago."
Proof death was preserved? Plenty. The meat chunks and guide inside matched the photo victims. But Lambda Lilion didn't react.
Her cross pupils' golden gears spun leisurely. Slowly dawning: those gears aren't physical. Whatever they are, they show her thinking intensity. Right now, just absorbing facts.
"You're angry."
An unexpected word flew out.
"Death is past for you. But they were preserved after death. Eternal pain only. Anger there, I get. But you're furious at them. Odd for you. Strangers are just numbers, no?"
Truth like a club. Stings.
So?
"Faced them. Already. Lambda Lilion."
"No different from statues. Never even talked."
Her expression blank and smooth as a street inflatable doll.
"Kids. Rotting spread out like that, grotesque?"
My inner Confucian-dragon monster dragged up the corpse scene memory, shoved it in my face, sneered. Not mockery—malice, mouth splitting in grin.
"You chose apathy over hatred for humans. Now angry there? Why?"
Lambda Lilion asked the me so far.
Yeah. True. But that's that, this is this. People gotta have decency.
"Humanity."
"Ah. Disability from your past life. Misfit thoughts, not of this world. Breaking shell, overflowing poison."
Now Lambda Lilion laughed. Not gears this time—childlike guffaws.
"Rootless ideology is mere evil. Spreading it? First step as villain. Fine. Taste. Go unleash your poison. Abelian Anion."
She brushed past, approached the door. Like a courteous guide, bowed politely, pointed down the white corridor.
"Lambda Lilion will help you dissolve the poison."
The devil laughed at hell's gate.