The Reunion Wasn't Very Good

The reunion wasn't very good. At least, not for me.

The system kept whispering temptations, claiming that with three meals a day ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and all necessities of life guaranteed, I wouldn't need to earn money or anything. I could spend the rest of my life being pampered by a beauty. Proceeding straight into the imprisonment route like this wouldn't be so bad, it said. It even scoffed as if talking about someone else entirely, asking if being locked up by the woman I liked and living together forever wouldn't be true happiness. I stared at the endlessly whispering system with ice-cold eyes.

It seemed this system had never learned the concept of knowing when to quit. It had thrown a complete tantrum when I was possessed in the previous game, and nothing appeared to have changed this time either. I wondered if the system itself knew how badly I wanted to beat the crap out of it every single time. Probably not. If it did, it wouldn't act like this. Or maybe it behaved this way precisely because it knew I couldn't actually hit it. After all, I wasn't even sure if this entity had a physical body to strike in the first place.

I'd been curious about it for a while. Just who was the mastermind behind the system that had kidnapped me from Earth twice without ever revealing its appearance? There was no way such a sophisticated system had simply sprung into existence on its own.

I glared at the quest window blinking before my eyes like I wanted to kill it, then looked away. That wasn't what mattered right now. A staring contest with the system that accomplished nothing was only a waste of time.

I turned my gaze to Leticia, whose eyes were gleaming with dangerous intensity. The way she looked up at me, head tilted as if demanding an answer immediately, was beautiful enough to captivate even another woman. Yes, she was beautiful. If only her eyes weren't burning with madness and obsession.

Facing those eyes directly, it was true that I felt genuine fear about revealing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the truth. My hands were clammy with sweat. Call it instinctive terror.

In terms of pure specs alone, the body I currently inhabited—Charlotte—shouldn't lose to Leticia. If we fought now, I'd definitely lose, but I wouldn't be crushed so overwhelmingly that I couldn't even put up a fight. I could probably hold out for a little while.

My stats might be garbage, but I'd spent a full three years struggling inside that game. Over those three years—neither particularly long nor short—while rolling across battlefields, I'd learned all sorts of tricks from people called geniuses. Tricks that had nothing to do with stats. I'd stolen the techniques they'd accumulated.

Yet seeing her unusual aura and the vast amount of mana rising from her entire body, fear flooded in before any competitive spirit could. It felt like I'd be crushed by her presence alone.

She's gotten a lot stronger than when she was in the hero party.

There was no way I could win. Challenging her would mean death.

Leticia might not say it in words, but her actions made it perfectly clear. Don't try any clever tricks. I don't know how strong you are, but if you challenge me, you'd better be prepared to die.

Of course, that was the correct approach. Among those who responded to summoning magic, it was common for them to kill the summoner if they judged the master weaker than themselves. Even with binding magic in place, if the summoner ranked lower than the summoned being, it was useless. The majority of such people ended up murdered by their own summons.

That's why establishing dominance from the very beginning wasn't necessarily a bad thing. To use a bad example, there were many cases where foolish humans who summoned demons hoping to form contracts tried to dominate them, only to be killed instead by the prideful demons.

Half-bloods. I frowned with one eyebrow as I thought of them. There had even been an incident where some insane noble in the heart of the imperial capital summoned a demon, causing people to drop dead like mayflies and throwing the entire place into chaos.

To that extent, the game I'd been possessed in before had been an apocalyptic world on the brink of destruction. The sequel, however, was an academy love comedy featuring the younger sister of the previous game's heroine as the new protagonist. No—since it was a 19+ dark romance tragedy, how could my blood pressure not rise?

Whether or not such a sequel existed, even if I missed seeing Leticia or the other hero party members, I wouldn't have played it.

"Hmm? You're not going to answer?"

Leticia fearlessly drew closer until she was openly stroking my chin with her hand. The action left me utterly speechless. Was this game trying to make me truly feel the position of the summoned party?

Actually having to bend my knees like a pet and comply wasn't exactly pleasant.

It really feels like a master affectionately taming a ferocious beast.

Feeling the genre shift once again, I let out a low groan.

What was I supposed to do? Telling the truth would lock in the imprisonment route. Gloss over it without saying anything, and it felt like she'd catch onto some pretext and interrogate me anyway. On the other hand, if I claimed I was a mixed-blood with human blood in my veins, I could already see the ending where I'd be dissected alive on the spot, wish or no wish. That was far more horrifying than imprisonment. At least imprisonment meant I'd stay alive. Dissection could easily result in death if things went wrong.

"…By the way, the more I look at you, the more fascinating you become. Is it because you're a demon from legend? Hmm? Answer me."

I'm dying of curiosity.

Leticia smiled, eyes curving in a way that would stir anyone's heart, while poking the fangs peeking between her lips with her finger as she pressed for an answer.

What exactly was so fascinating? While I wore an expression that said I had no idea what she meant, she stared intently at my face with the attitude of a scholarly mage and added,

"If you can't grant the wish, it'd be nice if you could at least let me dissect you later."

Correction. No matter who I am, I don't want to meet my end by being dissected by the person I love.

As Leticia rambled on about theories that I was neither fully human nor pure-blooded demon, staring at me like some rare creature, I momentarily looked utterly disgusted.

"Out of everyone I've met while living until now, you're the first human who's said they wanted to dissect me."

"What kind of outdated confession line is that? Did you fall for me because I'm your first? Too bad. Sorry, but I already have someone I love."

"That's the same for me. I already belong to someone."

"Oh. I'd like to ask who that is… but we don't have time. So the conversation got sidetracked, but if I make a wish to you, can you summon living beings from other worlds too?"

Even if it's just the soul, that's fine. I can create an artificial body and put it inside.

Watching Leticia say such gruesome things so casually, I looked at her with a completely fed-up expression. Was she thinking of creating a homunculus like the ones in novels or movies and inserting my soul into it?

The power to take or give life was considered a divine authority by the people of this era. If wielded arbitrarily, the church wouldn't stand by quietly. It was a taboo realm that could even threaten her own life if mishandled.

She must know that. Yet she hasn't been caught yet. Impressive.

If she had been caught earlier, even with the saintess Claire claiming her as a friend and intervening, there would be limits. She wouldn't be able to remain here. In practice, it was the archbishop, not the saintess, who truly ruled the church.

I remembered that person hated humans who violated taboos with a passion. When he mobilized the entire paladin order and, working with the emperor, made an example of a count family known to have contracted with demons by wiping them out entirely, it had sent a slight chill down my spine. Not that it actually scared me.

Even if paladins swarmed in, Leticia would win. Besides, she was the eldest daughter of the Lisianthes family, known as the kings of the north. She was also the next heir. I didn't know the current succession situation, but if nothing had gone wrong, the probability that she was still the heir—or had already become the family head—was high.

If that's the case, I should have read the game settings thoroughly before coming. The moment that regret crossed my mind, another selection window appeared before my eyes.

I waved my hand through the air as if selecting one and clicked. The words came out automatically.

"I'm not even a demon that grants wishes, just a half-baked one. In the first place, I can't summon living beings from other worlds. Even if it's only their souls."

Even after saying it out loud, I waited nervously, wondering what reaction I'd receive. But Leticia's response was lukewarm.

Like someone who hadn't expected much to begin with, Leticia—whose eyes had been sparkling earlier—now wore vacant pupils as she spoke.

"How boring."

A single phrase. I'd thought she'd at least shoot me a disappointed look, but Leticia spoke as if it were no big deal.

"This is why you shouldn't get your hopes up about people."

So it was a half-pint instead of a demon. Leticia's gaze settled on me.

"If it's a half-pint, does that mean a hybrid between human and demon?"

"…Your senses are annoyingly sharp… Yes, just as you guessed. I'm a hybrid of demon and human."

"So you're a child born from a forbidden love between a human and a demon. Hybrids are rare, but even if you're not a demon from legend, you're fascinating in your own way."

Instead of a demon from the summoning, it was a hybrid. Moreover, a half-demon who had appeared with an unfamiliar mana-circulating tattoo on her face. From Leticia's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠perspective, it was a race that couldn't help but spark interest in multiple ways.

"As expected, this is fun."

Leticia raised the corners of her mouth in an intrigued expression.

"Your appearance is human, but your magic power is closer to that of a demon. From what I see, it looks like you inherited more pure demon blood than human blood. At least you wouldn't have faced discrimination in the demon world."

Correct. Since Charlotte had inherited a thicker bloodline from her demon mother than her human father, she had been able to live without facing discrimination in the demon realm. There seemed to have been some who talked behind her back, but checking the memories revealed that Charlotte had personally turned those guys into minced meat.

Contrary to what I'd seen in the prologue, Charlotte had quite the temper as a demon. How ironic. The one betrayed by his mother had been saved by that same mother's power. Thinking that he'd begged to be killed by his mother's hand even if it meant death in the end, I felt a slight sense of sympathy.

Just a slight one, though.

After briefly recalling the real Charlotte and making a pitying face, I returned to my original blank expression. Then I asked,

"So what do you plan to do now? I understand that a human summoning a demon is a taboo in itself."

Since it was summoning a demon that humans worshipped as a god, there was nothing more to say. If discovered, it would mean execution. At the very least, imprisonment in a tower.

But Leticia's reaction was quite different.

"If we don't get caught, it's fine. I haven't fallen, and this is the first time I've summoned a demon like you."

"That may be…"

It was true. But the fact that discovery meant execution remained unchanged, didn't it?

Leticia looked at me as I closed my mouth for a moment, then continued with a smile.

"But you really don't know anything about the ways of the world, do you?"

"…What?"

"The newly enthroned Demon King wants a truce with humans. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, an unprecedented peace will come."

Looking at me with my mouth hanging open, Leticia spoke with a casual expression before turning away.

"There are opposing factions, of course. But that's none of your concern. And since you've been summoned by me anyway, you have nowhere else to go, right?"

Leticia smiled with a meaningful look. I didn't know what she meant. I didn't know, so why did I feel so uneasy?

As Leticia said, I had nowhere to return to, so I obediently followed her instructions.

"…That's true, but."

"A summoned being who communicates well is always welcome. Since your appearance looks human, I can just say you're a maid I brought from the north to attend me."

"Who's whose maid? Do you really have a death wish—"

"…You want to go to the goddess's embrace after dying?"

You should have said so earlier. Leticia's mouth smiled as she spoke of purifying me and sending me off, but her eyes weren't smiling at all. Showing me her fist as if telling me to go quietly, I had no choice but to nod silently in agreement.

Scary. So scary.

Was it a characteristic of heroines with gray hair that they all had quite the temperament? With these stats, there was no way I could defeat Leticia, who seemed to have all stats maxed out. It would be better to obediently follow rather than get beaten and dragged along.

"Good girl. Follow me quietly, understood?"

She was treating me completely like a pet. I sighed inwardly.

Even if rotten, I was a hybrid with demon blood. Treating a half-demon who had inherited the blood of a pure-blooded vampire and was insanely strong like a pet—I wasn't sure if this was right. Thinking that I'd gotten involved with completely the wrong person, I followed behind Leticia, my steps clicking in time with the sound of her shoes.

As I walked, I decided to check my status window and skill window.

And so my turbulent life as Leticia's slave… or rather, maid, began.

I skimmed over the briefly written quest window once, frowned, and looked away.