Ch.76The Demon King and Lilith (2)

# The Demon Lord and Lilith (2)

The Manmata clan is a rare demon race that possesses a sense of kinship with their own kind.

Though weaker than other high-ranking demon clans, it could be considered the Manmata clan’s unique strength.

However, the fact that they are demons remains unchanged.

Yes, which means:

“Hey! That bastard over there hit our kid! Are we just going to stand by and watch?”

“You’re dead! You bastard!”

“I’ll skin you alive!”

They do rush over in a mob when they hear that one of their own has been attacked, but…

“K-kids? Could you help me up first? Hello? Everyone’s gone? I’m still here?!”

The point is that they focus solely on punishing the perpetrator rather than tending to the victim.

In that sense, they could be considered even more demon-like than other demon races.

Strictly speaking, they prioritize racial pride rather than genuine concern for others.

So what about Lilith, who was raised in such a Manmata clan?

“The 3rd platoon of the 6th Legion was annihilated? Then use the nearby 5th and 1st platoons to block their escape route. They couldn’t have fled far.”

“What about the surviving soldiers…?”

“If we open a path, won’t they escape on their own? I think this much fulfills our obligation of loyalty.”

“Yes! I’ll relay your orders.”

She understands kinship but knows nothing of altruism—the selfless concern for others.

Her strategies are high-risk, high-return. She always repays what she receives, but rarely looks after the defeated or failed.

It’s because she formulates strategies based on logic rather than emotion that she can excel in the strategic planning division.

“Hmm? A book from the human realm.”

Someone like her could hardly understand what it means to save others. After skimming through a book someone had left behind, Lilith snorted with contempt and muttered:

“Huh, a prince on a white horse? What a pathetically weak concept. In the end, the only one who can save you is yourself.”

***

‘Kyaaaaa?! D-did he just s-save me? Really?!’

Lilith didn’t know.

She didn’t know how it felt to have someone protect her.

If it had been another Manmata clan member, they would have attacked Millia who had deployed tentacle magic, but no one would have caught Lilith as she fell.

‘Oh my! What should I do! He’s so cool!’

The way he magnificently caught her after she was freed from the tentacles looked like a scene from the fairy tales she had dismissed.

It was an unexpected ambush against Lilith, who thought she had anticipated and prepared for everything.

The moment she was ensnared by tentacles, her mind went blank at the unexpected situation while simultaneously being gripped by fear at the grotesquely bizarre tentacles.

The sensation of floating, then falling.

But what awaited her at the end was not pain, but strength.

‘H-he’s surprisingly sturdy. Broad shoulders… and unexpectedly well-defined muscles…’

Love at first sight.

Lilith couldn’t control her pounding heart at this unfamiliar experience she was having for the first time.

‘And above all, he’s handsome…’

First love always comes suddenly and boldly, but for Lilith, it was even more fairy-tale-like.

If Lilith had had the chance to see Lug’s usual behavior beforehand, she wouldn’t have fallen for him like this, but unfortunately, her first impression of Lug was nearly perfect.

“Are you alright?”

“Ah…”

Sweetness.

To make matters worse, Lug seemed considerably more sane than usual, causing Lilith to fall in love in an instant.

Dreamy background music automatically played in Lilith’s mind, and all she could see was Lug’s confident expression.

“Stop it right now!”

As the hero Esmeralda struck Millia’s head with the flat side of her holy sword.

“Everyone, please remain calm. The demons’ scheme, which was carried out by brainwashing Lady Millia, has been admirably suppressed by our hero, so please rest assured.”

As the saintess Eirene stirred up the crowd while raising her own public recognition.

“Ahem! Ahem! Hmm, hmm.”

As Tina discreetly picked up Lilith’s wallet that she had dropped when caught by the tentacles.

“Ah, he’s so cool.”

Despite all this, Lilith’s thick rose-colored glasses remained firmly in place.

The relationship between the hero’s party and the Demon Lord’s army was descending into chaos.

***

After finally coming to her senses, Lilith invited Lug and the hero’s party to her mansion.

Of course, it wasn’t her actual residence. Just as Lug had fabricated a village, Lilith had merely purchased this mansion.

Yes. Unlike Lug who had paid with his body, she had wealth.

Not only had she bought the mansion, but she had also received cooperation fees from the lower nobility who had lived here. She was now officially a member of the Rust baronial family.

“I apologize for the late introduction, my saviors. Hello, I am Lilith Rust. As you can see, I’m also the youngest daughter of the Rust family.”

Lilith welcomed the group with excellent noble etiquette.

“I thought I might have died that day, but to meet again like this. This must surely be fate. Hehe.”

Her lips curled with joy even as she held back tears.

It was an incredible acting performance.

And for good reason.

Half of Lilith’s performance contained genuine feelings.

Her sense of fate was real. Even now, she was recalling the fairy tale about a prince on a white horse that she had once ridiculed and discarded.

It was a scene that would have made her subordinate, who had been mocked by her that day, weep tears of blood if he had seen it.

Because her performance contained such genuine feelings, no one doubted it.

Except.

‘So this woman is that…’

‘Damn bug woman.’

‘If I kill this demon, would Lug give up on returning?’

‘F-fiancée to this bastard? No, no, no. Absolutely not. Only someone like me would accept such a pervert.’

The hero’s party was the exception.

Of course, Tina’s suspicions were in a different direction since she still didn’t know Lug was a demon.

And the same went for Lilith.

Lilith noticed that Tina wasn’t hiding her suspicious gaze and thought.

She seemed to be the only one who was suspicious of her, despite her supposedly good intuition.

‘Well, it seems there’s more to it than that.’

Lilith could tell that jealousy was mixed into Tina’s gaze.

She wasn’t part of the Demon Lord’s army’s strategic planning division for nothing.

She could discern a lot just from subtle changes in expression.

In that sense, Esmeralda appeared flustered.

Millia was openly displaying hostility, and Tina was showing suspicion and jealousy.

And Eirene…

‘She doesn’t even blink.’

Lilith couldn’t read her.

However, it was hard to deny that all three women were jealous of Lilith to some extent.

And for good reason.

“Haha, you seem nervous.”

“I-I’m fine…”

Eirene’s gaze wouldn’t leave Lug’s hand, which was holding Lilith’s hand.

Even though it was an act, Lilith was also surprised by Lug holding her hand like this, but soon realized it was part of the plan.

‘He knew I couldn’t read the saintess’s expression changes. So he’s testing her like this.’

Lug had simply held Lilith’s hand because he wanted to, but she couldn’t know that.

She had fallen in love, after all.

‘Well, someone of Captain Lug’s caliber would diligently carry out his mission even with a hastily made excuse. Truly a model soldier. When we return, I should speak to personnel about promoting him.’

Lilith began to defend Lug’s reckless actions in her own way.

In her mind, Lug had already become the perfect soldier.

“Fiancée, huh… But you never mentioned this before.”

As Lilith tensed up, waiting for the hero party’s reaction.

Finally, Tina, unable to bear the situation, muttered grumpily.

“You said your village was massacred and you were the only survivor. Now suddenly you have a fiancée? You said nothing was left back then. Isn’t that strange?”

Tina, with her unique intuition and grasp of the situation, made a sharp observation.

Since Lilith had originally planned to push the setting of siblings separated in childhood, she couldn’t immediately respond to Tina’s pointed question.

“I had intended to bury it in my heart that day. There was indeed such a gap between us, so I thought it would be fine if she forgot about me and moved on.”

“…”

“But now I’ve been exposed. So there’s no need to hide it or bury it in my heart anymore.”

Smooth as flowing water.

Esmeralda doubted her own eyes at the excuse that flowed without hesitation, unlike the usual Lug.

Moreover, what he said made sense and sounded good.

A noble fiancée and a commoner like himself. Now, with his village destroyed and nothing left, his determination not to cling to his fiancée.

It’s quite a heartstring-tugging setup.

In fact, Tina seemed overwhelmed by his resolve and closed her mouth.

“Eep.”

Lilith reacted with a shy, startled expression as Lug tightly grasped her hand while speaking.

She knew this was part of the strategy, but it was still sudden.

The current Lug was convincing enough to make her feel it was fate in an instant.

“I, I…!”

As if irritated by the sight, Tina stammered with her words blocked, and Millia’s killing intent deepened.

And even at this moment, Eirene’s composure remained unbroken.

“I see.”

No, in a sense, no one was as cold as her.

She was simply maintaining her composure while plotting to bury Lilith.

Eirene was sharpening her dagger to bury Lilith.

“Ah, may I ask one thing, Lady Fiancée?”

“Yes? Oh, yes…”

“Do you love Lug?”

“Of course I do.”

Eirene tapped her lips with her index finger like a child’s habit.

The mask she usually wears.

Using it for the essence of her verbal attack.

“Then why were you so certain of Lug’s death? Shouldn’t you have searched for him first, considering he might have survived?”

“That’s…”

“Oh, perhaps you tried to search but couldn’t find him?”

“Y-yes, that’s right.”

She stabs with her dagger while pretending to be innocent.

“My goodness! We’re quite famous… If you really tried to search, you would have heard rumors about Lug. It’s such a coincidence. Someone must have concealed the information.”

It’s nonsense.

Rumors about the hero’s party spread even in rural marketplaces.

Eirene, more than anyone else, knows that it’s impossible not to have heard information about him in a major city like this.

“Still, it’s such a shame. If it were me, I would have searched day and night out of worry… Then I would have surely found out about us!”

Eirene tore apart Lilith’s background setting full of holes with a dagger coated in the poison of innocence.