Begone From This Place
The rude bastard was throwing a tantrum at the counter.
Just hearing his voice was enough for me to know exactly who it was.
Asmodeus frowned as she watched the spectacle.
“Truly a vulgar human.”
“Convenience stores are full of people like him. And it’s not over yet.”
I knew that middle-aged man from my own part-time shifts here. A regular pain in the ass.
The baseline was him vaguely naming a cigarette brand and then blowing up at the employee.
What really pissed me off came next.
“Hey. And bring me a pair of underwear.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said bring me some fucking underwear! Don’t you sell underwear in this damn store? Underwear! I’m talking about underwear!”
“Ah, the underwear section is over there.”
“You go get it! Why the hell can’t you understand simple words?!”
Not only was he yelling, he was ordering the staff to fetch things for him.
When I worked the night shift he’d come in drunk and act like this, but apparently he was the same even in the afternoon.
“In the Present World, must employees personally retrieve items for customers?”
“Of course not. He’s just an entitled jerk.”
“It seems the rude customers of the Present World are no different from those in Hell.”
Asmodeus clicked her tongue.
“To display such wretched behavior before Lady Lucy… This one shall deal with him at once.”
Asmodeus radiated a terrifying killing intent.
I panicked and stopped her.
“Y-you can’t commit murder in the middle of the street in the Present World.”
“Ugh… If this were Hell, I could simply crush him beneath my rank. This one has no face. Please, I beg you to scold this worthless girl!”
“Why would I scold you? Still… that guy really is annoying.”
I had suffered plenty from him during my own shifts.
This was perfect timing.
Murder was out of the question, but there was something I wanted to test.
I walked toward the troublemaker with Asmodeus at my side.
“Excuse me, sir.”
“What? Hm…?”
The man flinched when he saw me and Asmodeus.
He seemed startled by Asmodeus’s overwhelming beauty.
It definitely wasn’t my cute appearance that surprised him.
“Ahem. What do you want? Can’t you see I’m first in line?”
Still the same rude attitude. Just as I expected.
Time to run the test.
It seemed the Great Admonition activated based on my tone and the intent behind my words.
If I kept speaking casually in banmal all the time, I might end up mentally crushing ordinary humans.
Asmodeus had only reacted with a moan, after all.
I needed to determine whether that was because she was the powerful 32nd-ranked demon of Hell or if the effect was simply that mild.
In short, I wanted to test the Great Admonition on a normal person.
I had to know exactly how it worked so I could watch my words in the future.
…He wouldn’t die, right?
“Hey, what are you staring at? It’s my turn!”
When I simply stood there, the man yelled again.
I swallowed my irritation and spoke.
Great Admonition
“Get out of here.”
Once again, my voice rang out carrying an overwhelming sense of authority.
“Urk… ge… gah…”
At the same time, the man’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed backward.
Foam bubbled from his mouth.
Sizzle…
His pants grew visibly wet.
Ugh. It was so disgusting I had to look away.
Thud—
The man fell flat on his back and began trembling before passing out completely.
Thud—
Another thud sounded behind me.
When I turned around, the part-timer at the counter had fainted too.
“Haaaaahng— Please scold this worthless one more, Lady Luuucii— More…!!”
“…”
Asmodeus was letting out her usual coquettish cry, but she hadn’t fainted.
As expected, the amount of pressure one could withstand varied depending on the target.
“Hmm… I guess I really should speak nicely from now on.”
I would definitely have to watch my tone in the future.
One wrong word and I might accidentally kill people.
“Still…”
Anyway, the experiment had gone smoothly.
…What was I supposed to do with these two unconscious people?
*
Fortunately, both the troublemaker and the part-timer woke up soon after.
“Ugh… fuck, why did I… H-huk!”
The man woke up, saw his soaked pants, and panicked.
It seemed he didn’t remember what had happened before fainting.
“What the fuck…!”
Overwhelmed by the shame of wetting himself, he fled in a hurry.
Thanks to that, cleaning the floor became the part-timer’s problem.
The employee was younger than the customer, so at least he hadn’t lost control of his bladder.
“I’ll help you with that.”
“Y-you really don’t have to… Thank you. But why did I faint…?”
Feeling guilty, I helped clean the floor a little.
After that, I bought dinner as originally planned and headed home.
“As expected of the magnificent Lady Lucy…! Not only did you discipline that vulgar troublemaker, you even showed mercy to the part-timer! That Admonition truly is the best…!”
“Still, I’ll have to be careful when speaking with normal people. This experiment taught me that.”
“To use an entitled customer as a test subject without hesitation… You truly are a role model for all demons!”
Asmodeus worshipped me without fail.
I wondered if making people faint was really something to be praised for, but then I remembered we were demons and simply nodded.
Once we reached home, we prepared to eat.
We boiled water in the electric kettle for cup ramen and heated triangle kimbap in the microwave.
“Are you really okay with just that?”
“This is more than sufficient for me.”
Meanwhile, Asmodeus held only a single Yonsei Milk Cream Bread.
I had told her to eat something filling, but she insisted bread was enough.
“I won’t give you a bite even if you ask.”
“Do not worry. This girl loves desserts.”
“That one’s loaded with cream. Eating only that will feel way too rich.”
“Thank you for your concern. However, this girl cannot contain her excitement for this moist, sticky cream.”
“Just eat it already.”
Since she said she was fine, we unfolded a cheap five-thousand-won folding table from Daiso on the floor of my one-room apartment and began our meal.
It was a rather shabby scene, but Asmodeus was too focused on her Yonsei Milk Cream Bread to care.
“Hamph…!”
Asmodeus took a huge bite of the cream bread.
The densely packed cream oozed out the side.
“Hng… The cream…”
Asmodeus licked the cream from her lips and fingers with seductive tongue movements.
She tilted her head slightly, face flushed, slowly and deliberately rolling her tongue to savor every drop.
“Heuup… Slurp…”
“Do you really have to lick it like that?”
“One must slowly coat the entire tongue with the cream and savor it to truly appreciate the flavor… Mmm…”
Asmodeus stuck her tongue all the way out as she licked up the cream.
The scene was so suggestive that I turned my eyes back to my cup ramen.
My meal consisted of a large cup of ramen and a triangle kimbap—my usual ordinary dinner.
Slurp—
The ramen was as delicious as ever.
But with my smaller mouth, food kept getting on the corners of my lips.
Ugh… I hated being this sloppy.
I carefully continued using the chopsticks with my tiny hands.
“Mmm… Nom… Chomp…”
Then Asmodeus, who had been enthusiastically licking cream, set the bread down.
She had only eaten about half. It was still packed with cream.
“Are you finished?”
“T-that couldn’t possibly be. This is the precious bread Lady Lucy bought for me. I was simply going to rest a moment before continuing.”
Asmodeus rolled her eyes with an awkward expression.
Just as I thought—eating only that on an empty stomach really was too rich for her.
“It’s too rich, isn’t it?”
“T-that couldn’t be! I absolutely did not find the precious bread Lady Lucy bought too creamy or feel sick while eating it! I also absolutely did not think the red broth Lady Lucy is eating looks delicious!!”
It must have been extremely rich.
As expected, even for a demon from Hell, Korean brain-melting desserts weren’t easy to handle right away.
“Is there no ramen in Hell?”
“I have heard there is something similar in the eastern regions, but in the area where I reside we mainly eat other noodle dishes. Things like pasta.”
So Asmodeus was a Western Hell demon.
In that case this ramen might be quite spicy for her.
“It might be spicy. Want some?”
“H-how could this one commit such rudeness…”
“It’s fine. Eat it. In return, I’ll have some of the bread.”
“Then this one shall humbly accept a bite.”
“Here.”
I handed Asmodeus the cup ramen and wooden chopsticks.
Truthfully, I was starting to feel full anyway.
It seemed this body had a much smaller stomach.
I couldn’t even finish a large cup of ramen and a single triangle kimbap.
On the other hand, once I felt somewhat full, that Yonsei Milk Cream Bread kept catching my eye.
I never used to even glance at things like this before.
Why did it suddenly look so delicious?
“Nom.”
I took a bite of the cream-filled bread.
Hmm. It really was rich. But the satisfaction was enormous.
I could probably finish the remaining half. Yum yum.
When I looked up to see how Asmodeus was doing with the ramen—
“Heu… The chopsticks that touched Lady Lucy’s lips…”
“…Why are you licking the chopsticks?”
“Hah! I was just about to eat now.”
Instead of eating the ramen, Asmodeus had been licking the chopsticks.
Only after I scolded her did she finally lift some noodles.
“Slurrrp— …! Haaaaahng……!!”
Why was she reacting like that again?
Was she feeling something from the ramen now?
I didn’t even need to use the Admonition.
“T-this is… The refreshing, tingling spiciness… It feels like it’s washing away all the richness!”
“You said it wasn’t rich earlier.”
“Slurrrp—”
Well, as long as she was eating it happily, it was fine.
I was already full anyway.
We finished each other’s food, and the meal came to an end.
“Then shall we enter the Tower now?”
“Yes.”
With a full stomach, it was finally time.
The Tower of Trials was simple in concept.
You fought monsters, fulfilled the clear conditions, completed a floor, and received rewards.
The higher the floor, the greater the difficulty—the difference grew exponentially.
There were even cases where people with mediocre awakened classes couldn’t clear even the first floor.
“I heard on the Hunter Gallery that a group of hobgoblins appears on the first floor. Lady Lucy, please preserve your noble body and leave the extermination of such insignificant creatures to this one.”
“Sure.”
Asmodeus puffed out her impressive chest and spoke confidently.
Asmodeus, the 32nd-ranked demon of Hell.
I didn’t know exactly how strong that rank was, but it seemed more than enough to clear the first floor.
“I heard the first-place score on the first floor is 9,771 points. This girl shall definitely surpass that record and proudly place Lady Lucy’s name at the very top.”
The Tower ranked players according to their clear score.
You could retry the same floor, but only the score from your first attempt counted toward the rankings.
That was why the first-floor ranking held special symbolic meaning.
It was the score recorded on your very first try—the clearest indicator of talent.
“Well… good luck. I’m sure you can do it, Asmodeus.”
“Lady Lucy is cheering for me…! This girl feels like she could fly!”
Since I wasn’t the one fighting, I simply offered encouragement.
First place with 9,771 points. Could she really surpass it?
That record had been set by the S-rank hunter currently considered the strongest in the world.
It was the highest score achieved back when the Tower hadn’t even been properly revealed to the public.
Even now, long after the Tower’s appearance, no one had broken that initial record.
I wasn’t doubting Asmodeus, but… if she actually surpassed it, it would probably cause a massive stir.
“Then let’s go in.”
“I am ready.”
Will you challenge the 1st floor of the Tower of Trials?
I took a short deep breath and pressed the enter button.
My body floated upward as my vision flipped.
Beginning strategy for the 1st floor of the Tower of Trials.
When I regained my senses, Asmodeus and I were standing inside a dark cave.
A few torches provided the only light.
Beyond the darkness, a group of hobgoblins was charging toward us.
There had to be at least twenty of them.
As expected of the infamous Tower—the difficulty started high right from the beginning…!
“Ugh…”
“Leave it to me, Lady Lucy. This girl shall erase those insignificant monsters.”
Asmodeus stepped forward, hiding me behind her.
What she did next was nothing special at all.
“To present something like this as a trial…”
Snap—
A crisp sound echoed through the cave.
It was a simple finger snap.
Asmodeus had merely flicked her fingers.
Yet—
Swoosh— Slash—
Red lines drew themselves through the air as the hobgoblins’ bodies were carved apart.
The creatures that had been rushing forward with their tongues lolling out were instantly sliced to pieces and collapsed to the floor.
You have cleared the 1st floor of the Tower of Trials!
Strategy Score: 15,162 points
You have updated the 1st floor ranking of the Tower of Trials!