The Devil in the Study
"Lillim. Who are you?"
Charles and I trembled as we made our way through the garden. Strangely, there wasn't a soul in sight from the garden to the front entrance. A house this massive should have required at least five housekeepers. As we stood before the front door, devoid of any sign of life, it swung open on its own, as if waiting for us.
Charles spoke, her voice trembling. "Brother..."
"It's okay. Don't be afraid."
I gripped Charles's hand tightly, trying to give her courage as we stepped inside. I wouldn't let anyone hurt her. Not ever.
'...Brother, thank you...'
Kangmin didn't know what kind of expression Charles was wearing behind him. If he had seen it, he would have been shocked. Her eyes were filled with gratitude, thankfulness, love, and desperation. Charles followed Kangmin into the house.
'As long as I'm with Brother, I think I can handle anything...'
Yellow incandescent lights flickered on along the walls. Most of the house was plunged in darkness, with light only visible in the second-floor hallway. As we scanned the house, shivering in terror, a low, rumbling voice echoed through the air.
"Welcome. I am Park Sangyeon."
We jumped, frantically searching for the source of the voice. But there was no one. As we stood paralyzed by anxiety, a mechanical whirring sound—vroom, vroom—reached our ears. We turned our gaze to the second floor, where the sound originated, and saw a human head. It moved horizontally without any vertical bobbing, as if a ghost were floating through the air.
"W-what is that, Brother...?"
I hid Charles behind my back and glared at the second floor. The person standing at the landing glided down the stairs.
'What the...?'
As they rounded the flat landing on the mezzanine, we finally identified the head's owner. A man in a wheelchair was sitting on a lift. Once we realized what it was, our tension deflated. His appearance was pathetic—shrunken ankles that couldn't walk, and trousers that didn't fit. However, his upper body was as sturdy as a log, and his eyes shone with a piercing intensity. He didn't seem like an ordinary person. When he opened his mouth, a deep, pleasant voice flowed out.
"Welcome. I am Park Sangyeon. You had a long journey. Google! Turn on the lights on the first floor!"
White fluorescent lights illuminated the room all at once. Once the lights were on, the terrifying first floor simply transformed into a lavish home. The man who introduced himself as Park Sangyeon smiled sheepishly.
"My apologies. It's been a long time since I've had guests. I had the lights off. I made things unnecessarily frightening."
I stood there stunned for a moment before I could finally manage a question. "Are you... a member of the Cathedral Knights? No, are you a person from the Knights?"
He had used casual speech in his Pornhub messages, but face-to-face, I couldn't bring myself to speak informally. A beard covered half his face (thankfully, it was well-groomed, giving him a Hugh Jackman-esque vibe). Long hair fell to his shoulders. Wrinkles lined his face. He looked well over fifty. The man avoided answering and operated his lift.
"Hmm. It's a bit awkward to talk here. Will you follow me?"
We followed him up to the second floor. We had signed a contract stating he wouldn't harm us, and seeing him in a wheelchair made me think we could easily subdue him if necessary. Still, I didn't let my guard down. We passed the landing and entered a room.
"Oh my god."
Charles let out a soft gasp. Bookshelves filled the second floor endlessly, packed with books. Computers. It looked like a study by any definition. The wheelchair headed toward a table in the center of the room. We sat around it. Park Sangyeon clapped his hands and shouted.
"Kettle. Could you pour us some tea?"
The kettle walked over. I rubbed my eyes at the surreal sight, but the kettle was still walking. A cup with eight legs and a kettle with eight legs approached with a clicking sound like a spider. As the cup folded its legs and sat down obediently, the kettle filled it with tea.
...I had absolutely no intention of drinking that. The fact that he could show us such a sight meant this guy was, perhaps—a wizard?
Charles asked cautiously. "Are you... by any chance, a wizard?"
"That I am." Park Sangyeon nodded.
Aren't wizards and the Church usually enemies? Charles relaxed a little and asked, "...Why did you call us all the way here?"
"Important matters should be discussed face-to-face. It's not quite right to discuss the Cathedral Knights over Pornhub messages, is it?"
That was true. The wizard before us sipped his tea and muttered, "First off, you two. You're operating far too conspicuously. Do you have some kind of backing? Charles, are you perhaps a Succubus Lord?"
Charles was startled and shook her head. "No. I'm just... an ordinary succubus who crossed the gate from the Demon Realm..."
"Hmm. Is that so? At this rate, it's only a matter of time before the Cathedral Knights come looking for you."
The Cathedral Knights were coming? I asked in surprise. "The Cathedral Knights? Do they actually exist?"
At my question, Park Sangyeon gave a bitter smile. Then, he took off the white gloves he was wearing.
"Good heavens."
A groan escaped me involuntarily. On the back of both of the man's hands were massive iron cross tattoos. Chains were intertwined around his fingers, and shackles were bound to his elbows.
"Would you like to see?"
He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. The tattoos on the backs of his hands glowed red and began to heat up. Steam rose from them. Veins bulged on his face, and he looked to be in immense pain.
"Are you okay? Why are you suddenly—"
Park Sangyeon sweated profusely before suddenly letting his body go limp. The tattoos on his hands lost their glow and returned to normal. Breathing heavily, Park Sangyeon muttered in a hollow voice.
"All proper magic has been forbidden. It's a punishment I received from the Cathedral Knights. I'm left with nothing but magic capable of handling porcelain familiars."
With that, he made the kettle walk off the desk. Charles, fearing that the Cathedral Knights were still around, asked, "You were punished by the Cathedral Knights? What on earth did you do? Is that why your legs are like that, too?"
But the wizard shook his head. "It's not a short story. Do you want to hear it?"
We both nodded. Park Sangyeon slowly began his tale of the past.
"The beginning of this can be attributed to my wife. Her name was Seong Jihyun. She was a wizard, too. We first met at a back-alley auction house. She kept bidding on my evening primrose, so I got pissed off and bought every single piece of consecrated pyrite she was trying to buy. She walked right up to me and punched me—it stung like hell. In the end, we decided to split the items we'd won. We became close rapidly after that. I still remember the smell of her workshop. It smelled strongly of grapes. And the way her fingers brushed my lips there. Her body. Everything is vivid."
The wizard sipped his tea and glanced at me. "Kim Kangmin, was it? Have you ever been in true love?"
True love. I didn't really know, so I sat there bewildered, and Park Sangyeon chuckled.
"If you had seen how this succubus looks at you, you'd know."
What was he talking about? Seeing me looking confused, Park Sangyeon continued his story.
"I suppose you don't know. Never mind. Let's return to my wife's story. I loved her more than myself. So when she died, a part of me died with her. It felt like my heart was being torn apart. I couldn't live like that. I spent over ten years chasing her shadow. And in the end, I succeeded. I opened the gate to the Underworld."
"Pardon?"
The gate to the Underworld? Was that even possible? Park Sangyeon chided my feeble imagination.
"Isn't it a common story? Orpheus crossed the River Styx to go to Hades and begged him to save his fiancée. Haven't you read any mythology?"
Charles, her face turning pale, answered for me. "But... Eurydice never returned in the end, did she? Don't myths about bringing back the dead always fail?"
Park Sangyeon smiled bitterly. "It's meant to teach you to learn from the fact that stories about reviving the dead always end in failure. But I was young—and brave. I believed I could succeed."
"So you failed?"
"No. I succeeded back then."
Charles covered her mouth and widened her eyes. "That's impossible."
Park Sangyeon ignored Charles and continued. "My wife emerged from the gate of the Underworld. But the price was horrific."
Park Sangyeon pulled up his trousers. Both of us gasped and held our breath. From the middle of his calves down, the flesh was pitch black and dead.
"My wife said from beyond the gate that she needed many things to enter the human world. I replied that I would sacrifice anything, and the gate took my legs as the price. The gate said, as its final words, that my wife would be able to fix my legs."
Charles denied it. "No... bringing back the dead is impossible. It must be a lie."
Only then did Park Sangyeon sadly drop his head and admit it. "That's right. I made a grave mistake. I hadn't opened the gate to the Underworld. I had opened the gate to the Demon Realm. It took far more mana than I had imagined, and I sacrificed my legs to pull my wife out. If it had been my wife, I wouldn't have felt so wronged. I had ended up pulling out a demon pretending to be my wife."
He pulled out a demon? I stared at Park Sangyeon, my face drained of color. Park Sangyeon looked out the window with a shadowed face. He was afraid. Vroom, vroom-vroom-vroom... A faint sound of a motorcycle approached from outside the window.
"The demon who made me like this, Lillim, is coming."
At the mention of Lillim, Charles asked with disgust. "Lillim? Lillim? The daughters of Lilith?"
"You know your stuff."
I was confused. Who was this Lillim? Did Charles know her? I asked, "Who is it? Lillim? Do you know her?"
"No, I don't know her, but—"
As Charles was speaking, bang, bang. We heard footsteps climbing the stairs. Everyone froze and stared at the door, which then burst open.
She wore a leather motorcycle jacket that hugged her entire body. She was a beauty with an innocent-looking face, but the moment she opened her mouth, we could see the personality within. She looked at Charles and immediately hurled an insult.
"What the hell? I thought I smelled filthy jizz in the house. A succubus has wandered in?"
Charles's face turned beet red with rage. Park Sangyeon also felt offended and tried to stop her. "Lillim, these are my guests. Don't be rude."
But the woman who had entered snorted and glared at Park Sangyeon. "Bullshit. And I told you not to call me Lillim. What's the difference between not calling a pet dog by its name and just calling it a 'son of a bitch'? How many times do I have to say it? I'm Seong Jihyun—"
As she spoke, she strode toward the wheelchair. Sensing something ominous, I quickly stepped in to block her path. "Wait, please calm down—"
"Calm down, my ass!"
She swung her fist at me, but I blocked it. It seemed the light sparring I'd done with Youngsun-nuna had actually helped. When I grabbed her wrist and stopped her, the woman called Lillim's face twisted.
"Damn it, a human male dares to lay a hand on me—"
Zap! Black electricity crackled from Lillim's hand. Behind me, Park Sangyeon let out a roar so loud it cracked the windowpane. "LILLIM----!!!! I TOLD YOU TO STOP---!!"
Lillim bit her lip and shook off my hand. She turned around, strode out of the room, and slammed the door with enough force to break it. Left behind, I asked in bewilderment, "Who is that woman? What on earth is this all about?"
"...I will explain everything. I'm sorry." And Park Sangyeon began to explain everything to us.