Chapter 27 : Chapter 27
Chapter 27. That Was the One Who Bullied Me! Beat Him to Death!
The moment she was pulled into Asmodeus’s arms, Lilith felt a powerful, majestic presence wash over her, instantly driving away all fear and cold.
But he was holding her far too tightly!
That hand was clamped firmly around her waist, the rough pads of his fingers pressing deep into her soft, tender flesh.
Even through her clothes, that force still brought a faint sting of pain—as though he were confirming that she was safe, and at the same time declaring his ownership, announcing to the world that this woman belonged to him alone.
Because of the difference in their height, Lilith’s legs could only dangle in midair.
Having lost any footing, she could only wrap both arms tightly around Asmodeus’s neck like a child.
「So... so embarrassing!」
Lilith buried her face in the Demon King’s neck, blushing as red as a ripe tomato.
「This posture... it looks exactly like I’m asking to be held... Why do I have to do something this weird again?! Damn it!」
Although Lilith was protesting wildly in her heart, the moment she thought of that critical scene just now—when she had nearly been violated by the Collector—and of Asmodeus descending from the sky like a god to save her...
the corners of her mouth involuntarily twitched, and a conflicted emotion rose inside her.
「Hmph, I will admit it—you came just in time...」
「This once, I’ll reluctantly allow you to hold me! Of course, I definitely do not want this. I’m only allowing it reluctantly!」
“It is all right now.”
Asmodeus’s deep voice sounded by her ear.
Then he freed one hand and gently patted Lilith on the back, the gesture unexpectedly soft, as though soothing a startled kitten.
“Awuu...”
Lilith let out a soft, delicate cry, then completely melted against the Demon King’s chest.
In the next second—
when Asmodeus lifted his head and looked at the bandaged creature re-forming across from him, all warmth vanished from his eyes in an instant, replaced by a murderous intent so chilling it seemed capable of freezing souls.
“Heh... hehehe...”
The Pure White Collector crawled up from a heap of ruins.
Its body was tattered and broken, yet it was still laughing—laughing with arrogance and confidence.
“Asmodeus... Asmodeus... you have finally come!”
“But even you cannot kill me either—I am one with the sealing formation that imprisons you! As long as this layer of the labyrinth remains, I am immortal!”
“Heeheeheeheehee!”
As it spoke, the Collector let out another eerie shriek of laughter, while Asmodeus merely narrowed his eyes and studied the monster before him in thought.
A moment later, as though he had recognized something, he suddenly said coldly,
“So that is it... you are Duke Augustine?”
“Hm?”
The Collector froze for a moment, while Asmodeus continued,
“Back then, I beat you to the brink of death. I had not expected that after several hundred years, in order to stay alive, you would turn yourself into one of the undead... Though then again, this disgusting appearance suits your tastes from those days quite well.”
「Huh? They know each other?」
Hearing their exchange, Lilith poked her little head out from the Demon King’s arms and blinked curiously.
On the other side, the moment the name “Augustine” was spoken, the Collector’s body trembled slightly, as though some old wound had been stabbed.
Its clouded single eye gradually filled with blood vessels, radiating a hatred that seemed carved into its very bones!
Then the Collector let out a hysterical growl:
“Asmodeus... you damned Demon King...”
“You... how dare you still speak my name! It is because of a fool like you—because of your hateful tyranny—that I ended up reduced to this neither-human-nor-ghost state!”
“I will skin you alive and tear you apart! I will turn you into the lowliest footstool! Even carving you into a thousand pieces would not ease the hatred in my heart, Asmodeus!”
“Uh...”
Watching the Collector gradually lose control, Lilith finally failed to suppress her curiosity. She weakly raised one hand and timidly interrupted:
“Um... are you two somehow acquaintances?”
“...Mm.”
Asmodeus curled his lip and answered with obvious disdain, seemingly unwilling to dig up those old, stale matters.
Instead, the Collector ground its teeth and rushed to answer in furious rage:
“So that is it? You do not know? No wonder you were willing to become his servant!”
Swish—
As it spoke, the Collector raised its right arm and pointed sharply at Asmodeus.
“This Demon King! This former Demon King! Do you have any idea what monstrous things he did? And yet you still willingly became his servant! You are a disgrace to demonkind!”
“What did he do? Tell me everything!”
Lilith’s gossip-loving soul burst into flames. Since her transmigration, this was the first time she had ever been this excited.
The Collector, meanwhile, continued its deranged denunciation:
“Asmodeus is a disgrace to the demons! After taking the throne by relying on his overwhelming strength, he began pushing policies that insulted our ancestors!”
“First of all—he imposed a six-hour workday!”
“He actually changed the human and elven slaves in the territories ruled by demonkind from a sixteen-hour workday to only six hours a day! He even paid wages to those lowly races! He even fed them grain! The very thought of it makes me sick!”
「Huh?」
The Collector was cursing with utmost seriousness, but a bead of sweat slid down Lilith’s forehead.
“Then he established schools among demonkind! He forced universal education on everyone!”
“He made demon children study the pathetic sciences and histories of those foreign races! And even made them learn things like ‘all lives are equal’! What a joke! To think he would make noble demons study human knowledge!”
「Huh???」
The more frenzied the Collector’s accusations became, the more bewildered Lilith’s expression grew.
“And finally—the most unforgivable thing of all!”
The Collector was so agitated that the bandages over its entire body quivered wildly.
“He even... even abolished the privileges of the demon nobility!”
“He suppressed nobles like us who possessed refined tastes! He confiscated all the collections I had painstakingly gathered in the past! Burned them! Buried them! Took everything from me and destroyed all that I owned! Tell me, does he not deserve to die?!”
“Um, may I ask something...”
At this point, Lilith raised one hand and asked the Collector cautiously,
“Your collection... what exactly was it?”
“Heh.”
At that question, the Collector’s lips curled upward into a smug, perverse smile.
“They were all works of exquisite art! You have already seen them, have you not?”
“These specimens made from living creatures, of course! Before I became one of the undead, I preferred using preservatives... especially elven children—they made such tender, such pure material! To freeze their expressions of despair in the instant before death—how exhilarating that was, heeheeheeheehee!”
“............”
After hearing all of that, Lilith fell completely silent.
「Holy shit...」
She finally understood something.
She understood why Asmodeus had been betrayed by his own kind, and why all the races had joined hands to seal him away...
「Because the demons are all lunatics! And this Collector is a full-blown murderous psycho!」
「And Asmodeus, on the other hand... he’s practically a model citizen with progressive ideals. He’s like a clear stream in another world!」
「Cracking down on lunatics, freeing slaves, spreading education... and for that, he ended up sealed away by all the perverted noble classes working together? Why am I suddenly starting to think Asmodeus is actually a great person? Is this an illusion?!」
At that thought, Lilith blinked in utter confusion, while the Collector was still rambling on and on:
“Asmodeus is not a normal demon at all. Normal demons enjoy slaughter, bullying, and torment! That is our nature!”
“And yet he believed that every humanoid race across the continent were brothers and sisters! He even believed there should be no hierarchy between races! It is absurd!”
“A creature like that is unworthy of ruling the Demon Realm! That is why the current Demon King sealed him here!”
“So now you understand, little kitty!”
At this point, the Collector pressed a hand to its chest, steadied its emotions, and arranged its face into an expression of someone benevolently thinking of her welfare.
“Your master is a defective outlier with something wrong in his head. There is no future in following him!”
“It is not too late to turn back! Join me!”
“For someone with your potential, I am willing not to turn you into a specimen! So long as you are willing to join hands with me and oppose this tyrant together, I will promise to send you out of the labyrinth! Well? What do you say?”
After saying all that, the Collector confidently extended that bandage-wrapped hand toward Lilith.
In its eyes, any normal demon, upon hearing of Asmodeus’s “heretical” behavior, would naturally abandon darkness and turn toward the light.
However—
the response it received was obvious enough.
What greeted it was a face with its lips twisted in disgust, brimming with contempt and revulsion to the utmost extreme!
Lilith looked at the Collector the way one would look at a heap of garbage, and even shrank farther into Asmodeus’s arms, as though afraid of getting tainted by filth.
“Idiot...”
“Hah?”
The Collector looked utterly baffled at being cursed, while Lilith ground her teeth and spat out her words viciously:
“I already told you—you’re a sick freak! A freak is a freak! And you do not even realize it yourself!”
“Who would ever join forces with a degenerate like you? Someone like you deserves to die!”
After saying that, Lilith turned her head, clutched tightly onto Asmodeus’s arm, and looked up at the Demon King with those watery eyes. Her voice turned syrupy and aggrieved, just like a child running to complain to a parent:
“Demon King!!!”
“He was bullying me just now! He even tried to touch my legs! He was absolutely disgusting!”
“Help me teach him a lesson! Beat him to death!”