Deception
Once again, Yurin lied to Mina with the same words she always used while Mina tended to Hyuntae.
And she felt sorry for it.
The reason Yurin felt sorry toward Mina was different from everything that had come before. The guilt of hiding Seona. And the knowledge that she could never give him back — those thoughts weighed on her, and her remorse grew in proportion to them. Everything she was about to do filled her with nothing but apology.
Mina wanted to keep watch at Hyuntae's deathbed and then go rescue Seona, which was why she had joined the second expedition. Yurin herself was assigned to the first.
Yurin already had a plan. She would depart for the Demon Realm with the first expedition, and once the second expedition set out some time later, she would slip back to Earth. No one would ever dream that she, who had suddenly vanished, had returned to Earth. The members of the expedition who crossed into the Demon Realm would assume she was dead. And when she arrived back on Earth, people would simply think she had lucked out and made it home once again.
Besides, the entire expedition was a gamble built on the strong premise that it would fail. Yurin didn't know about the others, but the truth was that this project had been created out of Yura's guilt toward Mina. It was tragic, but every member of the expedition would meet a lonely end in the Demon Realm. Including Seona's mother, Mina. They would be forgotten the same way the countless people who once tried to land on the moon had been forgotten.
Crossing freely between the Demon Realm and Earth was nearly impossible — but Yurin had a way.
Miel.
A demon who could pass between Earth and the Demon Realm at will. The very one who had kidnapped her and Seona made the method possible. Cross into the Demon Realm with the first expedition, then use Miel's power to return to Earth.
Of course, Miel might abandon her in the Demon Realm and run — but Miel had no choice but to cooperate. Miel needed money to survive in the human world. Could a succubus like Miel earn a living in human society? Forget a part-time job — hunters would come after her on the spot, calling her a monster and trying to kill her. And Seona, with all his memories sealed, couldn't support Miel either. Seona could barely manage everyday life; he had no capacity for something like that.
No matter how she looked at it, Yurin was the only one who could keep the two of them fed. Returning to the Demon Realm with Seona was also impossible for Miel. Yurin had heard the reason from Miel's own mouth on the day the two of them were kidnapped. If Miel went back, her mother — the Succubus Lord — might unleash her demons to hunt them down and kill them. That was why Miel had no desire to take Seona back to the Demon Realm.
And for both Miel and Yurin, the most inconvenient obstacles standing between them and Seona were Seona's parents. Miel had peered into Seona's memories before and knew one particular fact.
The existence of Seona's mother, Mina.
A slaughterer who had killed countless monsters, a high-ranking Awakened on the verge of S-rank among hunters. Seona's mother, Mina, was currently an A-rank hunter. And she sat at the very top of that tier — it wouldn't have been strange for her to be promoted to S-rank at any moment. Yurin's own mother, Yura, was also A-rank, but there was a vast difference between a mother whose growth as a hunter had stalled for years and Mina, who was still climbing.
In any case, Yurin herself had nearly died at the hands of Mina, a high-rank hunter close to S-rank. And Miel was a monster to begin with — it wouldn't have been strange at all if Mina had simply killed her on the spot without any reason. She would almost certainly have died before she could even demonstrate what kind of phenomenon the Yin Crest produced in Seona. And then Seona would have died with her.
"Mother... I should get going now."
"All right... Go carefully, Yurin."
The relationship between the two of them had changed a great deal since that first day Yurin returned from the Demon Realm. It wasn't as though all resentment had vanished. But watching Yurin throw everything she had into trying to save her son must have shifted something over the past year — Mina's attitude had softened.
Miel found this version of Mina just as awkward to deal with, so she had no option other than helping Yurin. The human world was nothing like the Demon Realm; everything about surviving as a monster was different here.
After finishing the hospital visit she made every Monday, Yurin came home. Her heart was full of the resolve to make Seona as happy as she possibly could, in place of Mina and Hyuntae. She told herself it was the only choice she had.
After Yurin left, Seona was in agony. Especially once he learned how that woman treated Miel — his chest went tight and hollow.
What did Miel and I ever do wrong, for her to kidnap us and lock us up like this?
After the woman who had taken them left, Seona had talked with Miel through the bathroom door. When he mentioned that she'd given him steak that morning, Miel had flown into a rage. According to her, she'd been given dog food in a dog bowl. And when she got thirsty, the woman had pointed at the shower and told her she was free to gulp it down. It was painfully clear that she was treating Seona extraordinarily well on purpose while deliberately making Miel suffer.
Just what kind of relationship does she have with me, to act like this?
Seona thought it over carefully. He had no parents. He had grown up in an orphanage.
Wait.
Something was wrong. His memories were tangled together, and he couldn't think straight. There was a version of himself as a young man in his twenties, looking completely different from how he looked now — and a moment when he'd closed his eyes and opened them again to find everything looking smaller. He had a memory of something absurd, as if he had died and been born again.
Something about his condition was wrong.
With nearly all of his memories locked away, Seona was caught in the dissonance and confusion between the memories of his past life and those of his present one. His head throbbed; he couldn't get a single word out. He heard Miel calling for him, but he couldn't stop thinking.
A long while later, the sound of the front door opening told him that the person who had kidnapped them had returned. And then the owner of the house — their kidnapper — walked into the master bedroom.
Yurin asked Seona with apology in her voice.
"Seona, how are you feeling? Is there anything you need?"
"I'm fine. But if there's something I need... would letting Miel out count?"
A sharp light flashed in Yurin's eyes. It had been a long time since she'd seen Seona speak up so boldly. It almost reminded her of the way he'd acted when he was little — those girlish mannerisms of his.
"That one's off the table. But I'll grant you something else. Want to tell me what?"
"Then take this collar off. I want to go see Miel."
What he'd said earlier hadn't been a coincidence. Something about Seona had changed ever since his memories had been pieced back together. Wanting to understand what that dissonance was, Yurin undid the collar the way he wanted and went with him to the bathroom.
"Miel!"
"Seona!"
They had heard each other's voices plenty of times, but seeing each other again after so long must have been a relief — the two of them threw their arms around each other.
Miel knew Seona's original timid personality, but she didn't think anything was particularly wrong. She figured that seeing her again after so long had put him at ease and made him more forward. Watching that, irritation surged up in Yurin, and she snapped.
"Hey. Miel. You're the one who did this to him, aren't you?"
"Did what?"
"The personality I trained into him has completely changed. It's like looking at him when he was little. There's no way this happens unless you messed with his memories."
Seona's current state was a jumble of values from both his past life and his present one, but neither of them knew he had been reincarnated, so they simply assumed his old personality had resurfaced. Miel could read Seona's memories, but she had no way of reading anything from before he was two years old. She simply wasn't skilled enough to reach memories sunk at the very bottom of the subconscious.
Even so, Miel couldn't help but notice the wrongness radiating from Seona. He was clinging to her body, breathing hard and fast. Something like feminine lust flickered in his eyes.
Something was off.
The thought crossed her mind that something might be wrong with Seona — but checking again would take more mana than she had. She had arrived on Earth with a decent reserve, but she had burned through all of it yesterday performing large-scale memory manipulation on Seona. If this were the Demon Realm, she could have recovered everything overnight just by breathing. But this was Earth. Even her physical abilities were only slightly stronger than a human's, and her mana wouldn't regenerate at all.
Right now, there was only one way for Miel to restore her mana.
Sexual intercourse with her partner — drawing mana from his essence.
She didn't know whether Yurin would allow it, but Yurin had already noticed something was wrong with Seona's memories. She would ask Miel what was going on in his mind. And since Miel needed to periodically check and care for Seona's mental state anyway, she needed mana.
Miel had to persuade her.
"Yurin, listen carefully. My mana is completely drained right now."
"And?"
Yurin answered flatly, her expression saying, So what do you want me to do about it?
"I need mana to check Seona's memories, and right now I don't even have the bare minimum."
"Can't you just chew on a mana crystal or something?"
After a moment's thought, Yurin recalled the mana crystals found in gates — ores etched with the source of the power monsters used.
"Demons can pour mana into a mana crystal. We can't pull it back out."
"So what is it you want?"
The way she was dragging this out made it feel like she was hiding something, and Yurin started to get uneasy.
"Let me have sex with Seona... It's the only way I can recharge my mana."
"You fucking bitch. Playing games again."
Sure enough — she was saying she wanted to get physical with Seona.
"It's not a game, it's real... This place isn't like the Demon Realm. I can't recover at all here... Succubi can generate mana from their partner's semen. That's how it works."
She knew full well how angry this would make her, and she was still saying it — which made it feel genuine.
"If something goes wrong with Seona, this is the only way I'll have the power to do anything about it."
"Ha... Fuck.... Fine. But only where I can see you."
There truly was no other option, so Yurin had no choice but to give in. And decisively, the line about not being able to take responsibility if something went wrong with Seona finally forced her hand into agreeing.
Then, so Seona wouldn't overhear, Yurin leaned in close to Miel's ear.
"In exchange, there's something I'll need your help with — so I can have my turn every now and then too."
Yurin's lips curled upward with pleasure as she spoke. A situation where she could secure Miel's cooperation had finally arrived.