Ch.77The Correlation Between the Demon Lord and the Hero – 4

“I’m sorry. Young master, no, Master… *sniff*.”

Nika, who had been scolded for quite some time for being disrespectful to her master, apologized while sniffling.

It ended at this point because Beatrice had intervened midway; otherwise, the scolding would have gone on much longer. Her expression while scolding made that clear.

“…Ahem, ahem. Me having that kind of relationship with the young master? As a maid, that’s absolutely impossible.”

The reason for Nika’s reaction was that she thought I had an intimate relationship with Beatrice. She believed we were staging this act to enjoy secret meetings away from others’ eyes.

Beatrice cares for me beyond just being her master, and I trust her beyond just being my maid. Enough to tell her Nika’s true identity.

Our position at that moment certainly lent itself to such misunderstandings. She said she had found our behavior suspicious from the start, with my excessive confidence seeming strange, and now she was convinced.

She was completely wrong.

It’s true that we have an exceptionally close relationship, but that’s partly because Beatrice has also served as something of a mother figure to me.

Having spent nearly half of my childhood with Beatrice, it’s natural that we’d be much closer than a typical master and maid. It would be stranger if we weren’t.

“Just now, the young master was merely scolding this inadequate and lacking maid. Do you understand?”

“But your face was very red—”

“HOW DARE YOU CONTRADICT MY WORDS!!!!!!”

“Eek! I’m sorry! Please forgive me!”

Nika tried to argue that her assumption wasn’t wrong, only to immediately prostrate herself again. Beatrice turned her face away from me, fanning herself repeatedly.

“Nika Yustera.”

“Yes, yes! Head Maid!”

“Escort the young master back to the mansion properly.”

“Yes! Understood!”

Her eyes briefly glanced toward me, though she still avoided direct eye contact.

“I will go ahead, young master. Your friends might be waiting, so please return promptly.”

“Oh, yes. Sure.”

Beatrice gave me a quick bow without even glancing at Nika, who was still flat on the ground, then hurried back into the mansion. Nika let out a sigh of relief at having survived.

She got up, glanced at me nervously several times, then carefully opened her mouth.

“Um… young master. I mean, Master?”

“What?”

“That friend of yours with purple hair who was in the room… is she who I think she is?”

Judging by that question, she must have trembled so much earlier because she had realized it was the Demon Lord. There was no particular reason to deny it, so I nodded.

“That’s right. She’s the Demon Lord.”

“…If I may ask, why is the Demon Lord here?”

I pondered my answer for a moment. Explaining that I was a transmigrator was completely out of the question, but I couldn’t think of any other suitable answer.

“Would it really benefit you to know?”

So I decided not to answer. Our master-servant relationship was clear anyway.

“No! I don’t want to know! Nika knows nothing!”

Nika shook her head vigorously.

—Pop!

Her chest bounced energetically, causing a button at the bottom to tear off. Through the torn button, I could see pale skin, the underside of her large breasts, and the deep valley between them.

“……”

Suddenly finding her chest exposed, Nika froze in place momentarily, then, as if having made some decision, met my gaze.

Using her right index finger and thumb, she spread the exposed cleavage wide open. The warm air trapped between released, carrying Nika’s unique scent.

“Y-you can use it……”

“…I don’t need it, just explain why you did that.”

According to her explanation, that action was something like a succubus’s instinct. Like how humans salivate when thinking about delicious food.

“Since I made a contract of obedience with you, Master, I can’t help it…”

Nika awkwardly made excuses.

Normally she should be able to control herself, but because of the obedience magic limiting her potential targets to just me, she had developed something like a state of sexual frustration, causing her body to react involuntarily.

“And since I heard rumors about being your nighttime maid, my body is actually changing to match that role…”

“Nighttime maid? What are you talking about?”

Apparently, there had been rumors about Nika before. Rumors that I had hired her as a maid for “that kind of purpose.”

While all the other maids had been hired through strict verification and testing, Nika had become a maid with just one word from me, which might have seemed unfair to those who had passed difficult tests.

On top of that, being a succubus, her figure was not just good but almost violently so, which led to malicious speculation spreading as if it were truth.

“Why didn’t you tell Beatrice?”

“What? Should I have told the Head Maid when someone compliments me? I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was supposed to…”

“Compliments?”

“Being told I’m good at seducing men with my body is a compliment, isn’t it?”

“……”

“…Isn’t it?”

I was newly reminded that Nika was a succubus. I suppose such words might feel like compliments to a succubus.

I had wondered why Beatrice had left those rumor-spreaders alone, but it was because she hadn’t been told. Of course she wouldn’t have known. Those people wouldn’t have gossiped in front of the Head Maid.

I decided I would need to clear up the misunderstanding later and returned to the mansion. Beatrice let out a very deep sigh when she saw the torn button on Nika’s maid uniform.

“May I have a moment.”

In the early hours of Friday turning into Saturday, Elysier came to visit.

Appearing through a dimensional gate, Elysier flinched upon seeing Priscilla sleeping soundly next to me, wearing only a shirt and underwear. I spoke first.

“It’s not what you think. She says she can only sleep comfortably with me beside her. The clothes are like that because the original Priscilla was in the habit of sleeping that way.”

“I understand completely. For a woman who has repeated countless more regressions than I have, it’s a miracle she maintains any sense of self at all.”

Elysier leaned against the windowsill with a bitter smile, seemingly recalling Priscilla’s constant craving for my “warmth.” While stroking Priscilla’s cheek, I asked:

“Why are you here? Need more cake?”

I remembered how she had only been satisfied after devouring three whole cakes during dinner. Elysier cleared her throat.

“I came to talk. About the maid and the hero. That maid who called herself Nika Yustera, if my eyes did not deceive me, was surely a succubus. Were my eyes accurate?”

“You saw correctly. Yes, she’s a succubus.”

I briefly explained what had happened with Nika.

I told her how I had saved Nika’s life by placing an obedience spell on her since she was a succubus who had never killed a human. Elysier nodded to herself.

“I think I understand why.”

“What reason?”

“The reason she has never performed energy absorption. Do you know that the current Succubus Queen is a very ancient being?”

“No. This is the first I’m hearing of it.”

Information about demon races was very limited. Even what Priscilla and Rosaria could tell me was extremely limited to what they had personally seen or heard.

“Originally, the Succubus Queen undergoes a process called ‘succession’ approximately every three hundred years. The previous Queen transfers all her abilities to the next Queen, amplifying the Queen’s power and abilities. In this process, the previous Queen dies as her lifespan ends.”

“And?”

“However, the current Succubus Queen, Astaroth, has maintained her position for over a thousand years. At least, that’s what I discovered when I was transmigrated.”

“…How?”

“Until now, Astaroth herself claimed it was because her power was exceptionally strong, and I believed that… but seeing that maid, I now know. Astaroth’s words were lies.”

Elysier’s eyes gleamed.

“For a succubus with the Queen’s bloodline to exist, yet succession not taking place—isn’t that a direct denial of succubus customs?”

“Nika? She has the Queen’s bloodline?”

I asked in surprise. Without realizing it, I must have pressed too hard on the cheek I was stroking, as Priscilla’s face scrunched up slightly and she stirred with a soft “mmm.”

I gently massaged her cheek to calm her and asked:

“So you’re saying Nika should have become the Queen?”

“That is likely the case. You said she has never performed energy absorption? Surely that Astaroth deliberately interfered to prevent it. To prevent the Queen’s bloodline from awakening. Succubi are a race that awakens through energy absorption. The fact that she has maintained the Queen’s position for over a thousand years must be because she did the same to other candidates who appeared. Yet she claims it’s because of her own strength? Ridiculous.”

The puzzle pieces clicked together in my mind.

The headmaster’s comment about a succubus not experiencing energy absorption likely being due to her mother dying early, and Elysier’s statement about the current Queen maintaining her position for over a thousand years.

It all made sense if Nika was a candidate for the next Queen and was being suppressed because of it.

The mystery was solved. There was a reason why a succubus who had never performed energy absorption was assigned to the operation to bring me to the Queen.

If successful, good; if not, someone who could threaten the headmaster’s position would die.

However, not all questions were answered.

“…But if, as you say, she wanted to suppress the next Queen candidate, why keep her alive until now instead of killing her outright? Wouldn’t it be much cleaner to just kill her rather than keep her alive and neglected?”

“That is beyond my knowledge. I will help you with all my might, so when you capture her later, ask her directly. And keep this information from Nika herself. Nothing good will come of her knowing.”

“Understood. So what about the hero you mentioned?”

After a slight pause, Elysier spoke in a somewhat subdued voice.

“Can you find a way to break the demon sword?”