Chapter 232: Jealousy (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 232: Jealousy (4)
It was terrifying.
I didn’t know why this boy standing before me made me feel this way, but the words wouldn’t come out right, and I couldn’t meet his eyes.
Everything had been fine until just a moment ago.
But from the second he reached out his hand, I felt an emotion closer to total submission than mere fear.
— R-Run. Run away.
Run away? Suddenly? When I’ve finally managed to grab hold of an opportunity?
Look at that friendly smile. He was clearly feeling favorable toward the new and improved me.
Just like those people who were surrounding me earlier, looking on with eyes full of jealousy and envy.
If I get close to him, I’ll naturally be able to get closer to his friend, Lilac.
“What’s wrong? You look pale. Are you feeling sick?”
When I continued to ignore his hand, his expression turned concerned. The hand he had offered for a handshake reached out toward me.
I should say I’m fine. I should smile and say thank you.
But my skin crawled.
I was certain that I must not let that thing touch me.
So, by the time I snapped back to my senses…
“Kyaaaah…!”
Slap!
With a scream, I was swatting his hand away.
…Huh? What did I just do?
Is he going to be angry? What if he gets mad and asks why I did that when he was just worried about me?
I looked at him, bracing for the worst-case scenario, but unfortunately, what I had imagined as the “worst” didn’t even come close to the reality of the situation.
He slowly gave a bitter smile and bowed his head in apology.
“Sorry. You looked uncomfortable, so I overstepped.”
Ah.
“We just met, so I was being too familiar, wasn’t I? I’ll be more careful from now on.”
“A-Ah, no…!”
“I think being around me right now is making you uneasy, so I’ll head to a different training ground today. I’m sorry.”
After saying his goodbye, he truly left without a hint of lingering regret. No matter how hard I racked my brain, I couldn’t think of a single excuse to stop him.
…If he leaves, then Lilac won’t come here today either, will he?
No, that’s not the problem.
I could hear whispering from behind my back.
Fortunately, it hadn’t reached the point of mockery yet, but no matter how hard I listened, none of the murmurs were particularly positive.
…Everything was supposed to be going smoothly, but I could feel things starting to tangle.
* * *
— Why did you do that?
The “operation” seemed to have been quite successful for something done on a whim. As I headed toward another training ground in a good mood, Sun Wukong suddenly voiced her confusion.
“Huh? What do you mean?”
— That girl possessed by the demon earlier. Normally, wouldn’t you have dealt with the demon or something? I’m curious why you just scared her and sent her away.
“Oh, that? There are a few reasons.”
First, to give a practical reason, I wanted to find out why those Jealousy demon bastards were crawling out at this specific timing.
As I’ve mentioned before, the ones who are supposed to be roaming the surface right now are the Sloth demons.
Of course, things probably got messy because I messed up their initial plan, but even so, there’s almost no chance they would meekly hand over the gate they opened to other demons.
They would have either led a suicide charge with whatever meager strength they had left, or they would have taken more time than originally planned to make perfect preparations.
If those Jealousy guys came up with the intention of secretly stabbing Sloth in the back, then it’s fine.
Since they’re moving cautiously, they would have come in small numbers, and I can just clean them up.
But on the off chance they’ve joined hands with Sloth or something else, it becomes a bit of a headache.
Catching them one by one won’t end it, and if I just grab the ones I see right now, they’ll only hide deeper and move more covertly, which is just annoying.
— Hmm, I see. I understand your reasoning, but wouldn’t you normally have tried to help that cadet, even if it meant taking the long way around?
“That’s why I tried to help.”
— …Huh?
“If she had taken the hand I offered earlier, the contract with the demon clinging to her would have been nullified.”
— Ho? And?
“And the demon probably knew that too. That’s why it made the host feel a sense of dread, telling her she shouldn’t take that hand.”
— So? I’m not sure if that’s the girl’s fault, though?
True, I agree. Up to that point, it wasn’t her fault.
“Well, I don’t care about her swatting my hand away because she felt uneasy. But did you see her expression afterward?”
— Ah, aha. Now I see.
It was only for a split second, and she quickly fixed her expression—perhaps thinking she was showing fear—but unfortunately, she couldn’t hide it from my eyes or Sun Wukong’s.
After swatting my hand away, even before emotions like guilt or fear could surface, she was clearly running the numbers.
Calculating how she should excuse her behavior. How to minimize the damage to herself.
Seeing how such a calculating person wasn’t feeling any anxiety and was instead purely enjoying her transformation, it’s highly likely the demon didn’t demand anything too large as the price for the contract.
So, to put it simply:
“I can’t say for certain yet, but if I were to drive out the demonic energy and return her to her original self, she’d probably try to contract with a demon even more aggressively.”
— So it might actually become more dangerous?
“Exactly. So for now, the best course of action was to make sure she doesn’t spread demonic energy or new seeds of jealousy around her.”
— Right, I get the gist of it. I get it, but it seems things won’t be as simple as you think.
“Tell me about it. I was just thinking the same thing.”
I wanted to solve this as simply as possible, but in the short walk to the training ground, I’d already spotted five more.
With this many “pre-demons” harboring demonic energy in their bodies, the possibility of this ending as a minor incident has gone out the window.
“Now then, where should I…?”
Just as I was about to think about where to start, my smartphone buzzed. A text arrived from a very unexpected person.
[Let’s meet for a bit.]
That’s right. The ill-tempered Creator of this world, and my childhood friend.
From Seo-ha.
…She’s suddenly texting me to meet up?
* * *
“Hmm, and what does that mean?”
In a castle located at the highest point of the Demon Realm, two Demon Kings faced each other.
“That is…”
Of course, to be precise, the expression “faced each other” might not be accurate.
Compared to the King of Pride, who sat on the throne maintaining an attitude befitting her name, the King of Sloth—who had knelt of her own accord without being told—couldn’t even meet Lucifer’s eyes, looking utterly pathetic.
However, he—no, the Demon King who had now become a she—wasn’t maintaining this attitude because she enjoyed it. Since she didn’t know how Pride would react to hearing about her failure, she had no choice but to prostrate herself and apologize.
“Hey, Queen.”
Rather than being angry, the King of Pride chuckled as if she found it somewhat amusing and tossed a question to the succubus who had recently become her subordinate.
“Yes, you called?”
“I don’t really want to say it myself. Could you repeat what our Belphegor just said?”
“She reported that while the entrance to the human world was left unattended, most of the authority over it was stolen.”
Belphegor felt like she wanted to rip that talkative succubus apart right then and there, but since there was no lie in what she said, she could only flinch.
But she felt it was somewhat unfair.
Of course, there’s no such thing as business ethics among demons, but who would have thought there’d be a lunatic who would just hijack an entrance that a fellow Demon King had invested in and opened?
“I understand. In terms of personality, Jealousy is the biggest psycho among us. How could you have known she’d pull something like that?”
Belphegor suppressed the words ‘I don’t think so? In terms of being crazy, you’re right up there too,’ which had risen to her throat, and simply nodded.
* * *
Leviathan, the Demon King of Jealousy.
She was famous for being a beautiful Demon King who usually took the form of a mermaid, but at the same time, she was notorious for being one of the top mental cases in the Demon Realm.
This was because she would use any means necessary to obtain the emotion of jealousy, and she didn’t hesitate to include her own kind, the demons, as targets.
Even if it was someone she had no interest in, if someone else loved them, she would often take them first solely for the sake of jealousy. The number of times she had stolen or destroyed precious items just because she was bored was beyond counting.
Even she had never picked a fight with a Demon King before, but considering her usual behavior, it wasn’t entirely strange.
However, that was exactly why the Demon King of Pride harbored suspicions.
All Demon Kings were like that, but since she was one of the top psychos in the Demon Realm, it wouldn’t be strange for her to act erratically.
In other words, she could get away with most things without raising suspicion.
There seemed to be a reason why Levi had suddenly gone mad and hijacked Bel’s plan.
Even though the party involved, Belphegor, seemed unable to think that far ahead due to being crushed by fear—and her naturally lazy disposition.
“This is troublesome. I thought it would be a good experience.”
The plan—thinking it would be more beneficial to let her precious contractor take a Demon King’s head himself rather than gifting it to him—had gone awry from the start.
Of course, she could pivot the plan and switch the target to Leviathan, but…
“I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
Then, what would be the best way to move?
Pride, who had been stroking the broken horn and head of the kneeling Sloth from her throne, stood up with a smile as if a good idea had struck her.
“Shall I consider this an opportunity to show whether the artifact he truly needs is that monkey, or me?”
— The Touch of the Devil offers a helping hand.
* * *
There’s a point about this situation that makes it even trickier than the drug addiction—the Sloth demon incident. It’s that these demon bastards are being much more cautious.
Well, I mean, the Sloth demons were cautious in their own way.
The plan to infiltrate society using contracts disguised as drugs and corrupting humans would have likely succeeded if I hadn’t been there.
But the Jealousy lot were taking much more careful measures.
Low risk, low return.
Amplifying emotions using a tiny amount of demonic energy, leading to voluntary contracts.
If the demon demanded a lot and the contract used a large amount of demonic energy, it would be obvious. But from what I’ve seen so far, the wishes they’re granting are really trivial.
I want to be prettier.
I want to have that new weapon or those clothes.
Things like that, which one could achieve with just a little bit of effort.
Even in cases where they wished to become stronger, they were only given the level of power one would have gained from training intensely over a summer break.
Of course, as a result, they are able to harvest the emotion of jealousy while using very little demonic energy.
They simply feel jealous of a friend who has suddenly changed, or a classmate who brags about a new item.
Since the power used is minimal, the risk of being caught is low. While it’s an undeniable fact that envy toward one another is steadily building up, the part that felt off to me was something else.
Whether based on the original story or my memories from before the regression…
The Leviathan I knew, the Demon King of Jealousy, was absolutely not a demon who would come up with such a strategy.
For a strategy devised by a demon who is just a self-centered mass of emotions prone to sudden outbursts, this felt too petty and strangely fishy.
— I wonder what kind of expression you’ll make if I take that woman from you? Or conversely, it might be fun to take you away from her!
…That crazy fish bitch.
Even thinking back on it, I basically have no good memories of those things called Demon Kings.
Belphegor, who died in a double-kill with Lilac, goes without saying, and then there’s Satan, who claimed to have anger management issues but suddenly managed his anger perfectly the moment he started losing.
If I had to pick the only Demon King I feel neither favor nor hostility toward, it would be Lucifer.
Unlike the other Demon Kings, I’ve never met Lucifer.
By the time I had reached a certain level of power, she had already been betrayed and killed by her own kind, so how could I have met her?
Anyway, I’ve gone a bit off-topic, but considering Leviathan’s personality, it was right to assume there was someone behind her.
Now then, I need to think about how to find that out…
— The Touch of the Devil offers a helping hand.
Right on cue, the Touch of the Devil began to react.
— The Touch of the Devil proposes to provide the information you need in exchange for one portion of life force.
“Hmm, one portion of life force is a steal, isn’t it?”
— The Will of the Saint rebukes you, telling you to please stop talking crazy.
These guys are the same as ever.
While spending time chatting with the bickering artifacts, the appointed time drew near.
“She should be here soon. Should I order something in advance?”
Since it’s summer, wouldn’t it be good to order some gelato?