The Lustful Villain: Every Milfs and Gilfs are Mine!

Mordecai began to speak.

Rex kept his arms crossed, not because it was comfortable, but because it was better than moving. Moving right now would mean doing something that would stop the flow of information before it was finished.

He needed the whole thing, not just the parts that Mordecai thought were important to share. The full version came out over the next twenty minutes, and it was worse than the version Rex had put together from the bits of information he already had.

Mordecai explained that the northern shaft had been known to the Underlayer’s senior council for about six generations. This was not a secret kept hidden like dangerous information; rather, it was treated as background knowledge that had simply become inconvenient over time.

"Six generations," Rex stated, not phrasing it as a question.

The number hung in the air between them.

Mordecai nodded.

"Say it out loud!" Rex shouted.

"Ahh! S-Six generations, uh, which means..." Mordecai said. "...for like, probably, about one hundred and forty years."

"That’s a fucking significant amount of time..." Rex thought before speaking. "Keep going."

The shaft connected the Underlayer’s northern monitoring sector to the island’s deep geological substrate, and the connection had been catalogued, noted, and then filed in a place where no one had looked at it seriously for about a hundred and forty years.

"You’re telling me that..." Rex said, "It’s been sitting there."

"Correct... it functions as a passive connection," Mordecai said. "It wasn’t weaponizable on our side because the threshold geometry doesn’t support directed transit."

"You can move through it, but it takes four to six hours to get through the internal passage, and you can’t push forces through it at operational speed."

"That means it was never a strategic asset," Rex said.

"Yeah... meaning we didn’t treat it as one," Mordecai said. "The difference between those two things was the kind of gap that put them in the situation they were in right now."

Rex looked at him for a moment. "You understand what you just said."

Mordecai opened his mouth.

"That wasn’t a question," Rex stated. "You grasp what you just articulated, yet you voiced it anyway because you believe that explaining the logic somehow diminishes the outcome."

"You know what...? It doesn’t."

Mordecai closed his mouth.

"Speak more."

Mordecai then explained about the monitoring constructs. These were not sophisticated instruments.

They were the Underlayer equivalent of a tripwire, simple detection arrays installed at shaft junctions during the last large-scale review of the pathway system, which had been approximately sixty years ago.

"Sixty years," Rex said.

"Yes."

"The last time anyone seriously looked at the pathway system."

"Y-yes..."

Rex’s voice didn’t rise. It stayed exactly where it was, which was somehow worse.

"And in those sixty years, how many times did anyone actually sit down and think, maybe we should revisit this issue?"

Mordecai said nothing.

"What the fuck...? You’re the Demon Lord of this world, and you didn’t know?!" Rex raised his voice’s tone.

"Well... I..."

"That’s not a rhetorical question," Rex said. "I want a number."

"I don’t know the exact number of internal reviews."

"Give me a rough one."

"Two. Possibly three."

"Two or three reviews in sixty years," Rex said, "of the only shaft system that connects your territory to the canyon network under the northeastern part of this island."

"The constructs were functional," Mordecai said. "They were logging."

"Logging," Rex repeated. "They were writing things down and no one was reading them."

Mordecai didn’t answer.

"That’s not a security system," Rex said. "That’s a record of everything that went wrong."

The constructs tracked movement patterns and sent the information to the northern monitoring sector’s records, where it gathered in a way that Mordecai’s current staff knew about but hadn’t focused on.

"Why not?" Rex asked.

Mordecai stared at the floor. "Managing the northern sector’s administrative record is Pavellia’s job."

"She joined my council through my gacha summon fourteen months ago, and she’s finally here again when I told her to..."

"Pavellia...?" Rex then looked at the woman who has the peacock features, and he now knows the name for her.

Rex turned to Pavellia and then back to Mordecai. The specific quality of what Mordecai had just said settled into the room like a stone settling into deep water.

Rex asked, "Are you telling me that someone who joined your council fourteen months ago was responsible for the monitoring record of the only shaft system connecting the Underlayer to the canyon network beneath the northeastern part of the island, and no one has discussed what that record revealed during those fourteen months?"

"There were early reviews," Mordecai said.

"Did people talk?"

The answer was pause.

"Hello, I’m asking you here, and don’t make me look like a fool!"

Mordecai looked up.

"Did anyone sit down with her and explain what the record is, what she should be looking for, and what it means if she sees something unusual?"

"There is an onboarding process for council members."

"That’s not what I fucking asked."

"The onboarding covers general administrative responsibilities."

"And the northern shaft monitoring record is a general administrative responsibility."

Mordecai said, "It was listed under her portfolio."

"Listed," Rex said. "It was listed. Someone wrote it down on a document, handed it to her, and said, ’This is yours now.’"

"There was a briefing."

"One briefing."

Mordecai hesitated. "One formal briefing, yes."

"You’re starting to talk full of bullshit, you know that?!"

Rex stepped forward.

At first, he didn’t use his telekinesis. He simply took a step forward, but in the tense atmosphere of the room, that was enough to create a noticeable shift.

Two of the guard demons positioned outside instinctively moved to block the way. This reaction was a reflex, a trained response to any perceived threat approaching their lord.

"H-hey! Stop right where you are!"

"What you just did violated the rules for a guest wishing to see the demon lord."

Rex looked at them and used telekinesis to reach out. "Shut the fuck up."

He did it as effortlessly as someone adjusts the volume on a device without drawing attention. With a single motion, he lifted all seven guards from their positions and suspended them against the ceiling, applying just enough force to convey "removed from the equation" without implying "injured."

They dangled there in a precise arrangement, like figures whose ability to function had been abruptly halted. Those who attempted to resist the hold found that it provided no flexibility.

The hall became hushed.

"I’m doing this for the future of Underlayer, and it seems like when I start to discuss it... your lord is talking complete bullshit!"

Mordecai had backed up until his legs hit the armrest of his throne, stopping abruptly. It felt as though he had run out of room. His expression shifted from surprise to something deeper, a state in which he struggled to discern the difference between his perceptions and the reality unfolding before him.

Rex approached Mordecai, who found it difficult to avoid meeting his gaze.

"Your arrogance being the demon lord blinds you, Mordecai," Rex said, his voice steady and unyielding. "But I assure you, the truth will find its way to the surface, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not."

"Fourteen months..." Rex said. "For fourteen months, no one with the authority to take action has been reviewing that monitoring record."

"During that same period, someone with a primordial-class system was exploiting an unsecured interface point in your northern monitoring sector to conduct intelligence intercepts on your own network."

Mordecai’s mouth opened.

"Don’t explain," Rex said. "Not yet. Just continue."

Mordecai’s throat moved.

He swallowed. "The second-stratum movement data..."

"I heard you," Rex said. "Keep going."

Mordecai continued, his face slick with sweat as he felt intimidated by Rex, unable to see any expression behind that terrifying mask.

He pointed out that the second-stratum movement data was the next part of the explanation. This was the first time Rex felt a chilling realization since entering Castle Nocturna. It wasn’t a chill born of fear, but rather the unsettling awareness that the situation was much larger than it initially appeared.

Mordecai discussed the pressure signatures at the second-stratum threshold. He mentioned that they had been logged for approximately three months and that Pavellia had flagged the logging data as unusual. He also noted that the council had reviewed the flagged data about two months ago.

"She flagged it," Rex stated.

"Yes."

"Pavellia flagged it. The person who had one briefing and no follow-up for fourteen months flagged the data as unusual."

Mordecai nodded.

"And your council examined the flag."

"I... believe so..."

"All of them?"

"Well..." Mordecai replied, "It’s only the relevant members."

"How many is that?"

"Four. Including myself."

"Four individuals examined data regarding pressure signatures at your second-stratum threshold," Rex stated. "And the council’s stance."

Mordecai said, "The signatures were consistent with natural geological adjustment."

Rex said again, "Natural geological adjustment."

"The threshold of the second stratum is a pressure boundary." Mordecai said, "It changes..."

"There are records of signature readings that look like intentional movement but are really caused by natural substrate compression."

"I know what substrate compression looks like," Rex stated. "Did any of the four individuals in that room have experience recognizing it?"

Mordecai replied, "We consulted the existing records."

"You read old files," Rex countered.

"We compared the signature patterns to historical data," Mordecai maintained.

"Did anyone in that room have direct experience reading second-stratum threshold data?"

The silence served as its own answer.