novelraw Chapter 63 : Chapter 63
Chapter 63 : Chapter 63
Chapter 63. The Seven Archdemons (4)
“After the Goddess created this world, the biggest nuisance was the demons. And yet, you want to join hands with them?”
Isabel was outraged, saying she could never tolerate it.
The tips of her fingers, clutching the holy scripture, trembled slightly.
A reaction befitting the leader of a group that serves the Goddess.
I wore a puzzled expression and slowly opened my mouth.
“In the Saintess's opinion, who is a greater threat to us, Primus or the demons?”
“Th-That is!”
“Primus was the Goddess's first child. But now, he is trying to kill the Goddess. On the other hand, the demons have not the slightest intention of killing the Goddess.”
“They are dangerous in a different way than Primus is!”
“But we must always make a choice. To avoid the worst, there are times when we have no choice but to join hands with the lesser evil.”
Isabel's eyes trembled violently.
I needed to drive the point home here.
“What will you do if the demons join hands with Primus? Will we be able to withstand them?”
“That will not happen! Primus is everyone's enemy.”
“That's exactly it. The enemy of my enemy is a friend. Wouldn't it be better for everyone to join forces and focus on dealing with Primus for now? Dealing with the demons can come after that. It won't be too late.”
Isabel kept her mouth firmly shut, not making a single sound.
She seemed to be contemplating how to accept this.
After a long silence.
She spoke with difficulty.
“I can see that temporarily joining hands to stop Primus is unavoidable, but it's uncertain whether they will genuinely cooperate with us.”
“I have something in mind. A contract is absolute to demons, so you need not worry too much.”
“A contract, you say?”
“Yes. It's not well known to the public, but demons are vulnerable to contracts made in writing. In some ways, they adhere to contracts more faithfully than humans do.”
“How do you know such a fact?”
I smiled brightly and said.
“There isn't much information in this world that I don't know. After all, I am someone who has explored more ancient ruins than anyone else.”
The ancient ruins were a trump card, indeed.
A treasure trove where all sorts of lost ancient knowledge was passed down.
The contents discovered within were revolutionary and groundbreaking enough to change the world overnight.
‘How could she argue with something I claimed to have seen there.’
Thus, there was no more perfect excuse than the ancient ruins.
In the end, Isabel had no choice but to nod.
“Whether you truly saw that in an ancient ruin or are just saying it to persuade me, I don't know, but since you are the one saying it, I will choose to believe you for now.”
“A wise decision.”
“But keep this in mind. The fact that the demons are just as dangerous as Primus.”
I gave a light nod.
Siding with the demons any further here would only be to my detriment.
It wasn't as if I wanted to join hands with the demons either.
‘But this is the only way to defeat Primus.’
With the power inflation having reached its peak, the more allies we had, the better.
I once again reassured Isabel and was about to leave.
Right at that moment.
Isabel suddenly grabbed my hand and her lips trembled.
“Um…”
“Is there something you wish to say?”
“If… all of this comes to an end. At that time, you and I, just the two of us…”
Isabel's words trailed off there.
Her expression was that of someone who had much to say but was forcing herself to hold back.
I could roughly guess the rest of her words, but I didn't have the luxury to think about such things right now.
‘This is not the time to be leisurely talking about romance.’
I bowed politely and left her room without another word.
My main purpose for coming here was to take Mammon and return to my domain.
***
After Frank left.
Isabel muttered with a dejected face.
“What on earth did I want to say to him….”
She herself did not know her own heart.
She still loved Frank, but was it right to hold onto him when the next Saintess hadn't even been chosen?
That would only bring disappointment to Frank.
And to the people of the Goddess Cult who had believed in her.
“Life is certainly not easy.”
Be that as it may, Frank's plan to join hands with the demons was dangerous.
The holy scriptures emphasized keeping one's distance from demons.
It said that demons were the root cause of evil, deceiving humans into committing all sorts of sins.
Moreover, the ones Frank mentioned were not just any demons, but Archdemons called the Seven Demons.
Was it really okay to join hands with such beings?
Frank said there would be no problem since he had drawn up a contract, but…
‘It was the first time I'd ever heard such a thing, he never told me that in my past life either. A Hero who commands demons, it doesn't make any sense!’
No matter how much it was for the sake of fighting Primus, this was crossing the line, and by a lot.
Isabel pleaded with the Goddess that Frank would not fall into hell after his death.
‘O merciful Goddess. Please, save Frank's soul.’
Isabel clasped her hands tightly and added one more sentence.
‘If you are to cast Frank into hell, then please send me there with him. I do not mind if that is my final destination.’
That was how much Isabel wanted to be with Frank.
Why couldn't Frank understand this heart of hers?
Isabel desperately wanted Frank, yet she resented him.
***
“Well, well, look who it is. The ancient dragon whose life motto is to give the disease and then the cure?”
Mammon glanced at Anonymous behind me and began to tease her.
“You’re strangely quiet today. Why so silent? Hey, can't you see me?”
“……”
Mammon flailed his large hands around as if to say, ‘look at me’.
Anonymous only clenched her fists tightly.
She didn't even budge from her spot.
I told him to cut it out and got straight to the point.
“I heard you introduced the other demons to me?”
“Because you are someone I can trust.”
I didn't know how this guy had come to favor me so much, but for my part, it was a welcome development with open arms.
I told him what happened after Lucifer and the other brothers came to our house.
After hearing my whole story, the guy clutched his stomach and started laughing.
“Kekekeke. That’s just like Lucifer. Among us Seven Demons, he's the most cunning one. He handles his given tasks so well without lifting a single finger. It's amazing.”
Then, his expression suddenly turned serious as he said this.
“It would be best not to trust him too much. If he doesn't like something, he has a knack for backstabbing anyone, be it his brother or anyone else.”
“Thanks for the advice. So, on that note, how about you help me out?”
“Me?”
“Yes. You must be bored being cooped up here all the time. I've prepared a place for you, so it would be great if you could move there to live with your brothers and, at the same time, let me know if it seems like they're going to betray me.”
Mammon's eyes narrowed.
“Are you telling me to act as a spy right now?”
“Of course, I'm not asking you to do it for free.”
“Then?”
“I'll give you one hundred gold coins every month.”
“One hundred gold coins?!”
His eyes sparkled with greed.
As expected of the demon of greed, he completely loses his mind at the mere mention of gold coins.
“You're not taking anything, just giving me one hundred gold coins?”
“If you do a good job, I can give you an even larger amount. How about it?”
Mammon stroked his chin with a contemplative expression.
“One hundred gold coins, huh. That's one thousand two hundred gold coins a year. Not a small amount.”
“In human society, that's called an annual salary. There's probably no one who receives one thousand two hundred gold coins.”
“Snooping on my brothers, huh. Well, it does sound like it could be fun.”
With a wicked smile, he strode towards me and extended a huge hand.
“What's this for?”
“A handshake. Don't humans do this when they cooperate?”
I chuckled and extended my right hand.
This feeling of clasping hands with a giant demon.
Someone who hasn't done it would never know.
***
After convincing Mammon.
I sent Anonymous back first.
It was because Anonymous was sighing endlessly.
“Haaah, a hand of Master's that even I haven't held properly, held by a strange man. Haaah! The heavens are so cruel.”
If I left her here, I didn't know what she might do, so I told her to go first.
At those words, she glared at me so fiercely that cold sweat trickled down my back.
‘Anyone watching would think she's my wife.’
Once Anonymous left the ruin, Mammon transformed into a humanoid form like the other demons.
Even so, he was over 2 meters tall, with huge horns on his forehead and wings on his back, so only his size had shrunk.
Anyone could see he was 100 percent a demon.
“Keke. You're having a hard time because of your slave.”
As if to comfort me, he even put his arm around my shoulders and whispered in a low voice.
“Women are such troublesome creatures. You said you're single, right? Just live alone your whole life. This is advice from a senior who has lived a long time, so don't just let it go in one ear and out the other.”
If Isabel had heard that, she would have brought this place down immediately.
Anonymous would have been the same.
I shook off his hand and took out a pouch of gold coins from my pocket and handed it to him.
“Huh? These are gold coins? Is this about a hundred? Is this an advance payment?”
“No. There is something I need.”
Mammon's expression darkened.
“There's probably nothing you can get from me with a mere hundred gold coins.”
“You're wrong. Don't you have Gold Slime's excrement?”
“Eek! You want that?”
He looked at me with a disgusted face.
Gold Slime's excrement.
Also known as golden poop.
It was an ingredient that turned any liquid it touched into a solid, and, ‘There's no other place to acquire it besides from Mammon.’
Why, you ask?
Because the Gold Slime was a mythical creature that went extinct over 2,000 years ago.
But Mammon, who collected all sorts of things, also had its poop, and this was precisely the item I wanted to get from him.
‘If I have the Gold Slime's excrement, I'll be perfectly prepared for where I'm going next.’
The ability to turn any liquid into a solid upon contact might seem useless at first glance.
But to me, a veteran player who knew all sorts of information, it didn't look like excrement, but like gold.
He willingly gave it to me, as if thinking I wanted all sorts of strange things.
“You have a peculiar taste. What are you going to use this for?”
“You don't need to know that. By any chance, do you have any more?”
“Unfortunately, that's the last one I have. It was the only one left.”
“Can't be helped. Shall we get going then?”
He asked me to wait a moment and then suddenly spread his arms.
A black vortex swirled in the air, and treasures began to be sucked in one by one.
The treasures sparkled like golden leaves caught in the wind.
“Kyahaha! This is the stuff!”
He patted his bulging belly with a satisfied expression.
“Hoo. That feels reassuring.”
“What did you do?”
“Can't you tell by looking? I moved them into my stomach.”
“Moved them?”
“Keke. It seems you don't know why I'm called the demon of greed. I can store treasures inside my body. When I'm inside the ruin, I take them out for display, but when moving to another place like now, there's no better storage than my own body.”
He looked at the Gold Slime's excrement in my hand with a strange expression.
“I'm glad I didn't have to swallow that again. Thanks, friend.”
Hmm. If I had known this, I would have tried to haggle the price down a bit more.
***
Meanwhile, at that moment.
Nox was burning with anxiety.
Not only had he failed to meet Lucifer, but he had also received no report from Dekal.
‘What's going on? There's no way he'd be this late.’
He had no choice but to first contact Dekal's side using the magic crystal ball.
But there was no reaction from the crystal ball.
Then, suddenly, someone's figure appeared.
Dekal was scowling deeply as he shouted.
“Why was your contact so late!”
“Are you speaking to me right now?”
Huh? That wasn't Dekal's voice.
Nox then examined the other party's face closely.
“S-Sir Primus!”
“It seems your liver has popped out of your belly.”
“N-No, sir. That's not it…”
“Fine. Go on, report what great results you have achieved. Depending on the circumstances, I shall take them into consideration.”
Primus's red eyes burned even hotter.
It felt like his entire body was going to melt.
Unable to do anything, Nox agonized over what he should say.
‘Should I just die on the spot.’
Such thoughts even crossed Nox's mind.