Chapter 217: The Secrets she hides
In a warm, wooden room, two figures sat on a large sofa facing the fireplace. The fire blazed while wood crackled, sending cinders of ash fluttering in the air.
The male with long black hair and ocean blue eyes, his chest exposed, with strange markings and perfect muscles. While the female wore a beautiful black and red dress covered in silk frills and ribbons.
Her atmosphere was cold yet regal, and with eyes that seemed to see through all lies, her long black hair tied into a ponytail resting over her shoulder.
The woman's eyes were a marvel, sometimes ocean blue and other times crimson red, like two colours constantly dancing in a slow swirl.
"Lady Alice, are you sure that you wish to continue this path? You may not return to Grigor for a long time." Asmodeus spoke, his voice low, yet the husky vibrations became like a seductive song travelling through the room.
"Don't be stupid, Lord Asmodeus. I know you are a kind man, but the contract and promise we made that day I shall never go back on it. You and I are partners and bound until the end. Isn't that what it means to sell your soul to the Demon King, Fufu?"
Ten days had passed since Anne's transformation into Vinea, a mysterious and magical event that changed the women around Asmodeus drastically. Several letters from Akari found them, bearing news that the knights would be arriving to join them in the next two weeks.
Asmodeus, always one step ahead, made Alan give all letters of Akari's name and handwriting. All to protect the Grigor royal family from any of the church's investigations, his plans shrouded in secrecy. Don't miss out on m-vl-em-pyr
"I just wanted you to know that option was still open. Because the terms in our contract involved things you might not desire."
"You mean like becoming your woman, marrying you or dying for you?" Alice didn't beat around the bushes. She was a strong woman and although unable to use magic well, she was one of the strongest warriors in physical power, alone in the entire kingdom of Grigor.
"Also, don't I benefit from becoming yours? I will be saved from this curse and will gain the ability to use magic, right? If the curse is gone, then I won't have to suffer that pain..."
"Pain?" Asmodeus cut in, his piercing eyes gazing towards the woman over ten years older than him. Her mature and beautiful face gazed up at him, amazed by the alluring twinkling in his eyes.
'This boy, how many women would he destroy and make unable to live without him if he doesn't have someone to control this natural charm?'
Despite her age and being older than him, Alice experienced no positive feelings towards men or physical intimacy.
Because, like her lovely niece, should anyone touch her, their skin would rot, and within five seconds of touching her, they would be dead. Rather than dead, they became a pool of bubbling black ooze and couldn't be called human anymore.
Normally, she wore a specially made skin suit, like a pair of tights that would cover her entire body, from neck to her toes, to avoid this.
However, on her eighteenth birthday, the curse began to even seep through that.
'Yet this damn curse only affects males. Is it some kind of super chastity guard?!'
That wasn't the main issue, though—for Alice, if she DIDN'T touch a male within a week. Then, her body would begin to suffer from intense pain, and her skin would begin to form small welts and blisters that caused immense agony before they passed.
Thankfully, her brother could touch her for a short time because of his blessing. However, her father... had never touched her once since her tenth birthday.
"You already know about my curse, right? Well, there is more..."
"So it wasn't just something that stopped men from touching you? I wonder why I can just fine, though." Asmodeus muttered while touching her bare cheek. Her soft, silky skin was like a youthful maiden as her body trembled from his touch, her lovely pupils then dilating as she looked at him in shock.
"If I don't touch a male, then I will suffer immense pain, and my body will become disgusting, full of blisters and filthy wounds."
Asmodeus could feel her self-hatred, the way she spoke and focused on the words disgusting and filthy with a louder, deeper voice filled with resentment. He even noticed her eyes became sharp, narrowing into thin slits while her face tightened. "Does it count if I touch you like this?"
"D-Don't it's ticklish..."
He didn't stop, both his hands teasing her cheeks, pulling and squishing them with his thumbs. At first, she tried to resist or force him away because the black aura that caused everyone who touched her to die started to flow into his fingers and hand...
"STOP! You'll die!" Her voice begged him, while he noticed her eyes were different. Asmodeus had never seen her look at him with such desperation and sorrow before.
'He's going to die... like all the others! I've killed the man who could save my nation and my sisters! What have I done... what have I done?!'
Because she felt relaxed after drinking together each night, the other women seemed to have enjoyed pairing off, giving Asmodeus more time before returning to his bedroom. Of course, the lonely Alice, who resembled his mother, drew the demon lord to her.
How could he leave her alone?
The eternal mother-con, meeting a woman that triggered that feeling despite having no blood relation.
"It's okay, and everything will be fine. I won't die or suffer. You are not cursed. This is just your gift trying to be born into this world."
Asmodeus learned more recently after he finished sleeping with Erika and Yumiko while teasing Ciela. He would reach the world of Serena in his dreams, learning about the world, magic and the truth of the curses that the women of Grigor suffered.
'In reality, these curses are because someone twisted your blessings... I don't think it was Lumina because Serena said it couldn't be her as she was a goddess of light and couldn't curse.'
This is where Asmodeus became confused and started to think more about himself. He no longer believed everything to be one person's plan. If Lumina couldn't curse them, then doesn't that mean someone helped her?
'Or she was their puppet like a fool who just obsessed over something like my dad felt towards my mother.'
Thanks to being able to see his past during his time with Serena, Asmodeus really learned the truth about how much his father loved his mother. Those strange actions and weird habits were ALL for his mother to make her smile or get angry and beat him.
'I guess my dad was just a masochist, haha.'
"How do you know?!" Alice pulled back, her eyes trembling and darting around while gazing at his face because she couldn't see anything happening. Her heart was in turmoil. How did he survive? Why did Asmodeus speak like he knew all about her curse?
To Alice, it was both exhilarating and terrifying, fear that she would grow hopes and then have them shatter because it might just take longer for demons to die!
"Because~ I am the strongest, haha!"
"Don't play around! Do you know how many have died?! Just brushing against me when serving my meals... picking up my fallen handkerchief, and then a light touch, and then that person is gone? A pile of black goo, and I've killed another!"
Alice felt confused and irritated.
Normally, she remained calm all the time. Yet because they began to drink every night, she slowly lowered her guard and became comfortable in this inn and situation before finally.
She got drunk tonight. She wasn't fully sober and lowered her guard far too much.
"Hahah~ okay then, but if I don't die and still live tomorrow morning, then you owe me a kiss."
"Stop laughing, it's not funny!"
Before Asmodeus could react, Alice stepped off the sofa and took a beautiful posture that caused him to gasp. Then her fist snapped out—like a hydraulic press. Her fist broke through his guard, almost ignored his demonic eyes and collided with his lower ribcage.
He looked at her with a stunned face as he flew across the room and rolled on the wooden floorboards. Asmodeus gazed at Alice, who stood up in a stance that made him shiver.
However, his face wasn't shocked because of her attack hurting him, but the actual attack she performed.
'How is she using mother's martial arts so perfectly?!'
"You..." He spoke out, breathing a little strange because of the pain from the blow. Yet it seemed Alice misunderstood as tears began to trickle from her eyes as she muttered something into the wind and rushed off to her room.
"See... it's started." Were her words, Alice believed he was dying because of her curse.
Yet... the reality was she broke his ribs, and he struggled to breathe properly for a few moments because they penetrated his lungs.
"W-Wait, Alice!"
However, she neither turned around nor answered his call as the poor demon lord struggled to crack his ribs into the right place and endured the intense pain of his wounds, healing slowly.
'I hate internal wounds... Ugh...'
He was even tempted to stab himself because when the wounds were purely internal. He couldn't use his magic on them, and instead. It relied on his sanguine berserker self-healing trait, which was quite poor when he wasn't in combat.
"I need to find out... how does she know that stance? Her attack was the one mother used when I misbehaved or teased her about her age."
'Because Yumiko cannot perform the stance to that level of perfection, even after three months...'