Although Rastan didn’t even acknowledge him, the man circled around him and unpleasantly poked his arm with his finger.
“Aren’t you happy to see me? I’m so happy I could die. You aren’t avoiding me, are you?”
Only then did Rastan respond, slightly furrowing his brow.
His gaze was still scanning the surroundings busily.
“I’m busy right now. I will entertain you later.”
However, having already perceived that Rastan was mentally unstable, Astaroth’s blood-red eyes gleamed.
“No, this is exactly why I’m picking a fight now. You aren’t in your right mind, are you? Hehehe. From my perspective, this is perfect timing, so why should I wait? Heh heh heh…”
Then, the next moment, a long blade that had suddenly appeared lunged straight toward Rastan’s heart.
Still laughing, Astaroth had summoned a sword out of thin air beside him and launched an attack without any warning.
However, even though he had been looking elsewhere, Rastan swiftly stepped back and avoided the blade.
Only then did he turn his gaze toward him, and Astaroth clicked his tongue in disappointment.
His tongue, split at the tip like a snake’s, slid out from his mouth, licked his alluring red lips, and slipped back in.
“Wow, it has been a while since we fought, but your skill hasn’t dulled. I thought you might have become human after living among humans…… but once a demon, always a demon, right?”
Then he pulled back the arm holding the sword, immediately taking a stance to thrust again.
“Ha…”
In the end, Rastan let out a long sigh and summoned his own sword into the air.
In the spirit realm, souls couldn’t use their special powers and had to fight using only physical means.
Of course, Rastan was also highly skilled in swordsmanship.
However, his main weapon was his vast, immeasurable demonic power.
Fighting using only physical strength while excluding that put him at a relative disadvantage, so even while purging demons, he had avoided battles in the spirit realm whenever possible.
Moreover, now Rastan was consumed with anxiety over Evelyn’s absence, and even with an opponent holding a sword before him, he couldn’t focus on the fight completely.
‘I don’t have time to deal with someone like this… I will end this quickly.’
Having resolved to eliminate Astaroth as swiftly as possible, Rastan’s sword slashed toward him in an instant.
However, Astaroth wasn’t an easy opponent either.
“Whoa~ I almost got taken out in one strike? Hehehe…”
Though he pretended to be surprised, he laughed unpleasantly as if mocking him.
Having fought Rastan many times before, he had already realized that Rastan’s strength wasn’t at its full capacity.
“Good. Today is the day of your funeral.”
Astaroth licked his lips again with his snake-like tongue.
Then he flicked his tongue into the air and made a hissing sound, “Sshi, sshiit—”
The moment Rastan, knowing what he was doing, furrowed his brow, other demons suddenly appeared around them one by one.
In an instant, six high-ranking demons had surrounded Rastan.
‘Damn it. At a time when every second matters…’
Rastan bit his lower lip tightly and adjusted his grip on his sword with both hands.
Even for him, facing six high-ranking demons at once, especially in the spirit realm where he couldn’t use his demonic power, wouldn’t be an easy battle.
“Heh, I guess I startled you quite a bit? Well, what can you do? That’s how traitors always end.”
Astaroth and the other demons’ blood-red eyes gleamed as they all charged at Rastan at once.
***
I shouted at Ifrit with a trembling voice.
“What is this supposed to be? No, what are you?”
“As for me, I’m just an ordinary human.”
The expression on Ifrit’s face as he gave a careless answer and chuckled was completely unfamiliar.
Fear surged through me, but I bit down hard on my teeth, unwilling to let him see it.
“This is something an ordinary human can do?”
“Ah, right now, I’m borrowing the power of a certain great being I made a contract with.”
Among his incomprehensible words, the word contract stood out sharply in my mind.
“…Did you make a contract with a demon?”
Ifrit merely shrugged once. He neither confirmed nor denied it, but the meaning of that gesture was clear.
“You, really…!”
However, before I could finish speaking, he cut me off and said what he wanted.
“Anyway, I’m happy. Now you are finally looking only at me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You had an ability, yet you hid it from me. That was cruel. Even though you knew I was interested in your ability.”
It seemed he believed that I had already been hiding my ability when he proposed to me.
“No, I wasn’t trying to hide it.”
“I proposed to you long ago, but you went to another man right after breaking off your engagement… You are the cruel one. So I had no choice.”
“What do you mean, you had no choice?”
“Bringing you here like this. Now, break off your engagement with that man and say that you will stay by my side for the rest of your life. If we combine our strength, we will become the strongest in the world.”
Become the strongest in the world? What was this sudden nonsense straight out of some old shonen comic?
Even as the back of my head throbbed and my mind reeled in confusion, I felt dumbfounded.
“Combine? Becoming stronger? I have no intention of conquering the world. Let me out!”
“Don’t you realize that I’m giving you an opportunity right now?”
“Are you going to keep talking in riddles? Explain it so I can understand.”
Ifrit shrugged and began to threaten me in a polite tone.
“If you refuse to cooperate with me, I can simply tear your ability out of you. Of course, that would damage the ability somewhat, so I would prefer not to do that.”
“Tear it out…? Using the power of the demon you made a contract with?”
Ifrit wore a faint smile on his angelically beautiful face. His lips were smiling, but his gray-brown eyes were completely devoid of light, filled only with a lifeless color.
“As you know, an ability is deeply and intricately rooted within its owner, like the roots of an old tree. So if it’s torn out, you will be left in tatters.”
Since House Krone had been born with abilities for generations, many things had happened to countless ancestors. I had heard since childhood what happened when an ability was separated from its owner.
‘I know because I am from House Krone, but the fact that he knows this means he really did make a contract with a demon…’
Such deep knowledge wasn’t something people outside the family would know.
He continued explaining kindly.
“In your case, since it is a mental-type ability, you would probably never regain consciousness again and wander forever in an incomplete dream. You would still be breathing, but it would be hard to call you truly alive. Even if your eyes were open, your mind wouldn’t be.”
Even while describing such a horrifying fate that could befall the person before him, his face showed no guilt, no remorse, not even fear or excitement.
The complete absence of emotion made the fear surge even stronger, and I clenched both fists tightly, forcing out my voice.
“Answer me clearly. The one you made a contract with… is it really a demon?”
However, Ifrit only looked indifferent.
“You already noticed from the beginning, so why bother asking?”
At the mention of a demon, Rastan naturally came to mind. However, judging by how much he disliked Ifrit, it didn’t seem like they were bound by a contract.
“What is the name of that demon…?”
I asked, truly hoping against hope.
“I don’t see why you are curious. Do you know some other demon or something?”
Ifrit spoke in a mocking tone, as if it were an obvious joke, but my heart skipped a beat.
However, he seemed not to notice the subtle change in my expression and answered with a faint laugh.
“Sorry, but it’s not a name I can go around carelessly revealing. And I don’t think it’s someone you know. He is certainly not on your side.”
With that, it became clear that the demon he had contracted with was, at the very least, not Rastan.
At that moment, Ifrit seemed to space out briefly, then slowly curled one corner of his lips upward.
“It seems things over there are getting interesting.”
“Where is over there?”
I hurriedly asked, fearing he might be doing something to Ris.
However, his answer was unexpected.
“You would do well to decide quickly. The longer you delay, the more danger Blake—that man—will be in.”
