The White Girl and the Black Demon
The White Girl and the Black Demon. And…
Scribble, scribble. Only the sweet fragrance of black tea and the soft sound of a pure white quill pen gliding across paper gently rippled through the tranquil atmosphere of the office.
Then came the frantic patter of footsteps—thudthudthudthud!—that churned the calm into muddy chaos, like a loach thrashing in a still pond.
“…Sigh.”
The white-haired girl, who had been working on documents with a serious expression, let out a small sigh at the familiar, frivolous noise approaching from afar. She calmly set down her quill.
Bang!
At the same moment, the door burst open.
“Uwaaaah! The time has come, it is! You must fulfill the contract, it is! Contractor!”
A girl in a pristine white shirt charged into the room with a black ponytail whipping behind her, shouting at the top of her lungs. She yanked off the black necktie that had strangled her neck all day, then leaped toward the plush leather guest sofa. She rolled around on it as if claiming the entire thing for herself, acting like it had never belonged to anyone else. The sight was strangely fascinating—like watching a pig wallow in mud.
“Uwaaaah! It’s time to clock out, it is! Regina Gura is now a free woman, it is! Offer me food according to our contract right this instant, it is! What is today’s menu, it is!? Especially, I want something sweet today, it is!”
“…Is that so.”
Less than a minute had passed since she’d come face-to-face with Regina Gura, yet the girl already felt dizzy. She pressed a hand to her forehead. If she’d had a fever, she might have used it as an excuse to rest for a day. Unfortunately, her unnecessarily sturdy body only felt lukewarm at best.
It’s all my own doing.
So no matter how exhausting it became, she had to endure it. After all, she was the one who had unleashed this noisy demon into the middle realm.
“Sigh.”
Another powerless sigh escaped her out of habit. Yet despite her resigned expression, her small hands moved busily.
“I thought you might want something sweet today. I prepared fruit pies. I’m not sure if they’ll suit your taste, Gura.”
As she spoke, the girl set out enormous pies—large enough that an ordinary girl could barely finish a single slice—onto the table. It was less a table and more a feeding trough… no, Regina Gura’s personal feeding station.
Regina Gura, who had been sprawled across the guest sofa like dried jerky, drooled at the growing tower of pies and shrieked with excitement.
“Wow! Wooooow! How did you read Regina Gura’s mind, it is? As expected! The contractor likes Regina far too much, it is! It’s unpleasant, it is! You should like me in moderation, it is!”
Twitch.
A blue vein rose on the girl’s snowy-white forehead. It was a clear sign of anger. Still, she held back. Getting angry at the shameless demon would only go in one ear and out the other. Demons truly were such bothersome creatures.
Because ‘terror’ doesn’t work on them.
But that ends today, Gura. Soon, a new source will bloom in this world.
And it would be an overwhelmingly powerful source, one beyond description.
The foolish idiot Regina Gura, completely unaware of this fact, simply continued her meal in blissful happiness.
Even a pig would probably eat more quietly than that. Is she even tasting anything?
Om nom nom!
Regina Gura stuffed various pies into her mouth until her soft cheeks looked ready to burst. Beside her, the white-haired girl stood watching with a bored expression. Their days always ended like this—ordinary, tedious, and utterly unremarkable.
But today was a little different.
The demon who normally shoved food into her mouth, waved goodbye, and returned to the staff dormitory had instead requested a meeting with an unusually serious face.
It wasn’t particularly interesting. The girl could already picture what the demon was going to say. What a simple-minded demon, she thought.
“Contractor. I have something to say, it is.”
Her voice had dropped low. Her thick eyebrows drew together, and her lips pressed into a firm line.
She’s an idiot, but she looks needlessly solemn.
It was as dramatic as a rookie adventurer heading out for their first dungeon exploration. There was jam smeared around her mouth; it would have been better if she’d wiped it off first, but the simple-minded demon who only cared about eating apparently lacked the intelligence for that.
“Yes, go ahead, Gura. I’m listening.”
As she spoke, the girl gently wiped the sticky jam from the corner of Regina Gura’s mouth with her fingertip, then casually cleaned it with a pure white napkin she pulled from her pocket. One might wonder why she bothered cleaning up something so cute, but the girl simply disliked seeing her own likeness behaving so childishly. There was no deeper meaning.
Haap. Om nom nom.
Despite the thorough cleaning, Regina Gura couldn’t wait and immediately dirtied her mouth again. The girl’s eyes twitched slightly at the sight, but whether she noticed or not, Regina Gura simply chewed her pie and lightly snapped her fingers.
Snap!
With a clear sound, a black curtain spread out with the two of them at its center. The corner of the girl’s mouth lifted ever so slightly.
A sound-devouring ward. She must be quite frightened of him, Gura.
As if to prove the girl’s thoughts correct, Regina Gura continued with a darker expression than usual. The exaggerated gestures like a bard were an added bonus. To the girl’s eyes, they looked no more impressive than a baby chick flapping its wings.
“At lunchtime today, Regina Gura encountered an incredibly—incrrredibly!—dangerous being and barely survived, it is! Not a single one of Regina Gura’s authorities worked on it, it is! It was as if the System itself was protecting it!”
She’s an idiot, but she can be sharp at times like this.
Still, that glutton would never reach the truth. Information about ‘him’ was classified at the highest level, accessible only to assistant administrators.
Regina Gura flapped her hands dramatically, recounting the day’s events with vivid realism. The girl, however, wasn’t really looking at her. She simply savored the bittersweet aroma of her black tea and offered appropriate responses so the demon wouldn’t sulk.
“I see. That must have been quite frightening.”
“It was too frightening, it is! All the adventurers inside the guild were frozen stiff with terror, it is!”
“Oh dear, that sounds like a serious problem.”
“It wasn’t just serious, it is! It was the greatest crisis in demon history, it is!”
“I see……”
Empty, formal sympathy repeated on loop. Nevertheless, Regina Gura kept whining, as if she had accumulated quite a lot over the course of the day.
“Haa.”
The girl was starting to grow tired. What a truly bothersome demon.
Sighing deeply, she drank the rest of her black tea. As the soft, rosy liquid slid down her throat, a cozy warmth spread through her body, and the gray world full of paperwork became slightly more bearable.
Just as the girl was savoring the sweet aftertaste, a rather irritating remark reached her ears.
“The adventurer who was with it thinks it’s just a normal demon, but from Regina Gura’s perspective, it absolutely is not, it is! It is clearly a new type of freak, it is! ■■… no, the Dungeon seems to be scheming again to raise ‘hostility’ like during the fairy tale incident. We must summon the executioner immediately and eliminate it, it is! Otherwise, Bastion might truly be destroyed this time, it is!”
Eliminate ‘him’… you say.
Sorry, but that’s not going to happen.
“Hmm. That would be a bit difficult.”
“Why! Has the contractor finally become a corrupt, fallen public official, it is?”
“That’s not it. The truth is…”
“The truth is?”
“…Ahem.”
The girl parted her lips as if about to speak, then firmly closed them again. Regina Gura, who had been watching silently for several minutes, suddenly hurled the pie she was eating, clutched her head, and shouted.
“Aaaagh! It’s happening again, it is! If you’re going to open your mouth, at least finish the sentence, it is! It’s a hundred times more infuriating than the boring wordplay of those anger-affiliated demons, it is!”
The act of stopping mid-speech—the very thing that angered demons the most. Unable to contain the spicy rage boiling up from her stomach at this abominable behavior, Regina Gura charged straight at the pure-white girl—no, at the White Dragon Lily.
“Uwaaaaagh! Speak already, it is! What exactly were you trying to say, it is! I’m going crazy from curiosity, it is! Tell me right now, Contractooooor!!!”
“Hmmm~”
Whether Regina charged or not, Lily nimbly dodged her with mysterious footwork, swallowing her next words and simply smiling faintly to herself.
He is a guest personally invited by the Administrator.
And a very special guest at that.
“Heee? Looks like a very special guest has arrived. Or rather, a very peculiar one? So. Mr. Crow Head guest, what will you eat? A rotting corpse? Or should I give you some oat soup? Wow! But the more I look, the more reeeally, reaaaaally weird you look! Is that actually a face? Pfft. Ah, sorry. I wasn’t planning to laugh, but seeing that stupid-looking crow head just makes laughter come out on its own. Who told you to be born looking that dumb? You ugly crow♡”
Why are you doing this to me?