Even If the Sky Falls, There Is Always a Hole to Crawl Through
The sky could fall and there would still be a hole to crawl out of. The human hadn’t simply died, nor had he been reduced to dust like Aloken… he had returned to his original state. I had never heard of such an absurd, cheat-like ability. And to begin with, the fifth heroine, Adeline, was supposed to be a power-type fighter who transformed into Celine and swung a massive war hammer! She wasn’t supposed to use some holy power bullshit like that! I died with my skull caved in by Celine’s hammer, damn it!
“My head hurts.”
It really did. If those two met Sehwa and Yuria… they might be purified. If they survived the purification, that would be fortunate, but since Sehwa and Yuria had become demons of their own free will, they might end up like Aloken—turned to dust and erased. Marcela fidgeted anxiously, tapping her feet. She seemed just as worried as I was.
“U-um… what should we do…?”
“I don’t know.”
It was exactly as I said. I had no idea what to do. Silvia, who had easily handled Aloken without even transforming. Adeline, who used that ridiculous power to annihilate Aloken and then purified a human tainted by evil. Both were completely outside my expectations, so my mind had gone blank.
The purified human tilted his head when he saw the troubled expressions on Silvia and Adeline’s faces.
“Um… are you two alright?”
Are you alright? Doesn’t your body feel sore anywhere? Is your head not foggy? And yet you’re a vicious criminal. How can someone like you have such pure, innocent eyes? Do you think that suits you? I get it. You’ve fallen into the cult after being deceived by that hypocritical Adeline. I’ll personally grant you salvation.
“Detonate.”
“Yes, My Demon King.”
Marcela’s tail tapped across the keyboard. Immediately—
Subject has been successfully eliminated.
“What the hell is going ooon…!?”
Bwoooong! The human’s body swelled like a balloon in an instant, and with a grotesque pop!, it burst apart. Silvia and Adeline took no damage. Of course they didn’t. The moment the human’s body began to inflate, Silvia had grabbed Adeline and leaped backward.
“@#*!*$!@!”
“@*#*#((%#*”
The two women, now clear of the blood-soaked area, frowned deeply and shouted something unintelligible. They were clearly shaken. Adeline in particular was trembling with rage.
What’s wrong, bitch? Can’t your precious purification handle the nano-bomb I planted inside him? Did you like my little gift?
“Send the next one in secretly.”
“Understood.”
A short while later, while the two were still speaking in agitated tones, another human crawled out from above them, moving sluggishly. This one had been injected with the absolute minimum amount of malice. Adeline hadn’t detected the demonic energy until he was right in front of her. So that’s the limit. I acknowledge that you two are strong. You’re genuinely insanely powerful. But you have a clear weakness—you can only sense weak demonic energy when it gets close. Just learning that was a huge gain.
I nodded to myself and spoke.
“Test concluded. Dispose of the remaining subject.”
“As you command.”
Marcela manipulated the keyboard once more.
While Silvia and Adeline moved about in a fury, they were spotted by an American military aerial patrol unit flying over the Grand Canyon. Silvia initially tried to attack them, but Adeline stopped her, so the two remained docile. They were then loaded onto a helicopter and flown off somewhere.
At least they still have some common sense in their heads. Of course, you couldn’t attack humans who carried no demonic energy. Now, because of the three exploded humans, Silvia and Adeline would be treated as suspects and taken to the CIA. That bought us a little time. But the situation was also a loss for me. I had wanted to run more experiments, but with the two of them willingly turning themselves in, that was no longer possible.
What a shame. But it can’t be helped.
I let out a low sigh and turned to Marcela.
“Attach tracking demons within surveillance range, but make sure they aren’t detected.”
“Understood.”
“We may have to suspend operations for a while.”
“By suspend operations, you mean…”
“Among the demons currently on Earth, the stronger ones might be sensed by Adeline. We’ll have to send them all back to the Magic Realm.”
We still knew far too little. Until we figured out why Silvia and Adeline had come, how they possessed such power without Aether, and what the weaknesses of Purification were, it was best to lie low.
“But what if My Demon King is put in danger? Opening a dimensional portal from the Magic Realm to Earth takes a great deal of time. The demons will have difficulty coming to your aid.”
“The human injected with the minimum amount of malice was only detected when he got right up to Adeline. In my human form, my demonic energy is sealed… so as long as I don’t deliberately create malice, I should be safe.”
“That is merely My Demon King’s prediction. It would be better to keep some on standby until we are certain. I have an idea.”
“Speak.”
“I will capture one test subject and modify it to match My Demon King’s human state. Then I will erase its ego and send it toward Adeline to confirm—”
I shook my head.
“Beings without ego act like zombies. Those two have already been through something similar, so they will be extremely wary.”
“Then have Amon—”
“Amon’s hypnosis is a technique that relies on powerful demonic energy. There is no way Adeline would fail to notice it.”
Marcela’s face crumpled into a pout. It seemed she truly couldn’t come up with an answer. I, too, was so troubled that I couldn’t think straight. We definitely needed to run more tests, but…
As I sat in the quiet base, lost in deep thought, a good idea suddenly came to me.
“Choi Aram…”
“Yes?”
“I will use Choi Aram.”
“But Miss Aram’s brainwashing is not yet complete…”
“I know. However, she has not been tainted by malice, and she has reached the point where she won’t suspect me no matter what I do. Isn’t that right?”
“That is true.”
Even if Aram were purified, she wouldn’t die, and her devotion to me would remain unchanged. Because I hadn’t brainwashed her with malice. In simple terms, she was a safe asset in the current situation.
“What do you need to make her similar to my human state?”
Marcela also understood that time was short. She answered without hesitation.
“Please allow me to draw just a small amount of your blood.”
I nodded and rolled up my sleeve.
“Begin.”
-I saw the photo. It’s such a shame…
“When I get back in a few days, let’s meet right away. I’ll run straight to you first.”
-Really? You promise?
“Yes.”
-Okay. Have a safe trip.
I ended the call with Yeonsoo and let out a shallow sigh. I had called her under the pretext of a sudden business trip. She had doubted my words at first, but after I sent her a real-time authentication photo from the unmanned private jet, she finally believed me.
Since the appearance of Silvia and Adeline, the need for a safehouse had grown even greater, so I couldn’t afford to discard Yeonsoo just yet. I looked at Aram, who was sitting in the seat across from me on the private jet.
“Aram.”
“Yes, President.”
Dressed in a modest business suit with large, thin-framed glasses, she sat primly. To anyone looking, she appeared to be the very picture of an intellectual secretary. After scanning her entire body, I took out a small capsule from my pocket and held it out to her.
“Swallow this. Don’t chew—just swallow it whole.”
“Ah, yes… thank you.”
Even though she had no idea what it was, Aram accepted the capsule with both hands and gave a polite thank you. She obediently swallowed the pill. I watched her slender throat bob and felt satisfied. Inside that capsule, processed through multiple stages, was my malice solidified with blood. Aram was now in exactly the same state as me in my human form. Her demonic energy was completely hidden.
If Adeline sensed something strange from Aram…
Just thinking about it is irritating.
If that happened, I’d have to change my approach… My head was starting to hurt again. I decided to think positively.
“Aram.”
“Yes?”
“You memorized the script, right?”
“Yes. I am to act as a lawyer and converse with the individual secretly handed over to the CIA. If I meet them, I will attempt conversation a few times before leaving.”
“Correct.”
“But… President, there’s a high chance my identity will be exposed… The CIA will definitely verify my credentials…”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s all been taken care of.”
By whom? By Marcela, of course. Aram would be able to enter the CIA headquarters smoothly.
“Understood.”
The unmanned private jet arrived in Virginia, USA, at incredible speed. Thanks to the advanced technology of this world, the trip took only three hours, but I was still dissatisfied. In the past, I could have simply put Aram to sleep and sent her through a portal. But because I was worried that demonic energy might cling to her body, I had to go through all this trouble… It was annoying, but I held it in. I had promised myself to think positively.
After disembarking, we went through private customs and completed the process quickly.
“Welcome to the United States.”
The customs officer spoke in a visibly tense voice. Marcela’s disguise of us as high-ranking World Coalition officials had clearly worked. The officer would report our entry to the World Coalition, but Marcela would handle that as well. I smiled, thanked him for his hard work, and left the airport. Together with Aram, I took a flying taxi toward the CIA headquarters.
Aram was surprisingly calm. She really does have the talent of a natural actress. Should I sign her to WW Entertainment too?
After chatting with Aram about WW Entertainment for a while, the taxi arrived at the CIA headquarters. Once we got out, I lightly brushed off her suit and said,
“I’ll be waiting at the café next door. Finish your business and come back. You know who you’re meeting, right?”
“Yes. A woman with light red hair, and another with hair as bright yellow as platinum blonde.”
“Try to meet both if possible, but if not, meeting only the platinum blonde is fine.”
“Understood.”
Aram hung the forged ID around her neck from her handbag. I kissed her forehead as a sign of encouragement, then we parted ways. I ordered a coffee at the café and waited quietly for Aram. All sorts of thoughts ran through my mind. Even though nothing was certain yet, the worry made my head feel cluttered.
Fifteen minutes… Thirty minutes… One hour… Two hours…
As time passed, my throat grew dry and my anxiety increased. What the hell is taking so long? Is just meeting face-to-face and exchanging a few words that difficult? It wasn’t because the fake ID had been caught. Marcela’s skills weren’t that sloppy.
While I soothed my burning insides with my fourth cup of coffee, I saw Aram finally emerge with someone. It looked like a headquarters staff member. After parting with him with a smile, Aram let out repeated sighs of relief and walked over to the café where I was sitting. Since there had been no commotion, it seemed Adeline hadn’t detected the malice… A spark of hope lit up in my heart.
Aram, now visibly relaxed, approached the café at a leisurely pace and sat across from me. She tucked the ID hanging from her neck into her pocket and spoke in a quiet voice.
“I met them…”
“Both? Or just the platinum blonde?”
“Both of them. Just as you said, President, I was able to meet them without any suspicion. The woman with light red hair was so scary that I got nervous… The platinum blonde woman was incredibly kind… I tried to have a conversation with both for about thirty minutes, but they kept using a strange language I couldn’t understand at all. They did look very frustrated, though. It was as if they wanted to get out of there.”
So Adeline is keeping the rather aggressive Silvia under control. That gentle personality of hers is proving very helpful to me.
“Did the platinum blonde do anything strange to you?”
“Strange?”
“For example, giving you wary looks or…”
“The light red-haired woman did, but the platinum blonde didn’t. She stayed calm with a friendly expression.”
“Good. Let’s go back.”
“Yes, President.”
We took a taxi back to the airport. On the way, I secretly examined Aram’s body. My malice was still there, unchanged.
Perfect.
I cheered inwardly. If Aram was fine, that meant I would be fine too. In my human form with demonic energy sealed, Adeline wouldn’t notice me. If Sehwa and Yuria simply hid their demonic energy, contact would be possible. The burning anxiety that had plagued me completely vanished, replaced by confidence. The lump that had been stuck in my chest melted away, and the thick fog clouding my mind lifted, leaving everything clear.
Even if the sky falls, there is always a hole to crawl out of. That saying fit perfectly. There was still more to uncover, but at the very least, I had confirmed that this state was safe… Now it was my turn to approach them.
Silvia, and Adeline. Just stay there two or three more days. I’ll rewrite the board and pull you out. I’ll thoroughly act my part, extract every piece of information, and corrupt you both into my loyal subordinates. Just thinking about walking that tightrope makes my heart race with excitement. If you had come a little sooner, you might have had a chance to defeat me. What a shame. Villains usually act too late, but you two are far, far too late.
Oh, right. I was the villain. Anyway, you’re too late.