Previously
Ariella and Philly uncover a pattern of financial corruption involving repeated, overpriced bridge repairs using rotten wood. Ariella presents her findings to Ludvic, identifying the embezzlement as a threat to the realm's survival.
‘I have to run!’
He had no idea what that human woman had heard or where she had learned it, but what she was doing now was sheer madness.
Either way, if things continued like this, the consequences would be catastrophic.
‘I need to fix this right now!’
First, he had to feign total ignorance before that lunatic, then promise her he would settle the issue with whoever supplied the timber.
And if he somehow managed to fool her, he would flee to another territory and never look back!
Rustle, rustle—!
Just then, a man emerged from the tall grass behind them.
“Gasp!”
A sharp breath caught in the supervisor’s throat.
“W-what is that?”
Even the other laborers froze in shock.
Hair as black as a moonless night. Skin reminiscent of biting frost, paired with a gaze as sharp as a blade. Deep crimson eyes that held an uncanny, hypnotic brilliance.
And facial features chiseled with decisive, razor-sharp strokes.
The man’s face was unmistakable.
“T-the Demon King!”
“How did His Majesty end up all the way out here?”
Ludvic had been with Ariella from the very beginning. He had deliberately kept himself hidden the entire time, showing himself only now.
Had word gotten out that the Demon King was heading toward the construction site alongside Ariella, the supervisor might have taken precautions to hide or swap the timber beforehand.
That little ruse had been Ariella’s doing as well.
“H-hik!”
The supervisor’s entire body began to tremble violently.
At first glance, the expression on Ludvic’s face appeared completely detached. His eyes and lips did not twitch so much as a fraction of an inch, nor did his brow furrow or his fangs bare.
Yet every single person present understood the truth. The Demon King was currently incensed.
Furious to an extent that far exceeded their wildest imaginations.
“Y-Your Majesty, I…!”
The moment the supervisor tried to stammer out a defense, his voice seized in his throat.
The Demon King, who had claimed the throne only a year ago, was an object of utter dread to the domain’s inhabitants.
Very few had ever actually heard his voice in the first place, as he maintained complete silence whenever he inspected his territory, never uttering a word to anyone.
According to the rumors, however, this mysterious sovereign showed zero mercy to his adversaries. On the battlefield, they said, he fought like an unhinged madman.
Naturally, the people of the realm had coined a nickname for their new ruler.
A savage warrior consumed solely by violence. A man whose very capacity to feel human emotion was in doubt.
And right now, those eyes were burning with an infernal glare.
Under the crushing weight of that pressure, the Kobold could no longer control his own limbs. The suffocating magic surging from the Demon King swallowed the clearing whole.
‘H-how is this possible!’
It felt as though an invisible hammer was hammering down onto his skull, even though the Demon King had not laid a single finger on him. All the man was doing was staring.
Yet merely beneath that gaze, the surrounding air felt like heavy iron chains coiling around his flesh, binding him tight.
The aura was so ferocious his skin felt as if it were ripping apart, his bones threatening to shatter beneath the sheer agony.
“K-kghhh…!”
A wretched groan slipped through the Kobold’s lips, his trembling eyes glazed with pure terror.
Thud—!
Unable to endure any longer, he collapsed to his knees on the spot.
Bivar the vampire was utterly displeased with the current state of affairs. In fact, he felt distinctly threatened.
“That woman… is truly getting on my nerves.”
The culprit behind his worsening chronic insomnia, robbing him of what little rest he could manage, was none other than Ariella.
The contractor whom the Demon King had suddenly dragged in from the human world.
“I was certain the Demon King couldn’t care less about matters like contracts.”
Ludvic, on the throne for less than a year, had always been an easy mark for Bivar. An inexperienced brat who knew nothing other than swinging a weapon.
Bivar had maneuvered him however he pleased. The boy had readily abandoned internal management to him, marching out in person to defend the borders instead.
Until now, the scheme had run like clockwork, with Ludvic remaining oblivious to Bivar’s dealings.
‘What possessed him to break character so abruptly? How did he stumble across such a bothersome wench?’
The declaration that the accounting ledgers would be audited was the very thing that had sent Bivar into a fury.
Beneath that swelling wrath, however, lurked a deep, prickling sense of dread.
“If that insolent human truly possesses the skill to decipher those ledgers… she must be stopped, whatever the cost.”
Bivar’s embezzlement of the domain’s coffers was hardly a recent development.
Internal administration of the Demon King’s castle? The former king had paid no mind to it, and the current one was utterly ignorant. Thanks to their apathy, Bivar had lined his pockets and indulged his greed to his heart’s content.
Even as the territory deteriorated and its population dwindled, it mattered nothing to him.
When the realm finally crumbled, it was the Demon King who would perish, not the servants.
‘I have no time to spare. I must take care of those library records immediately.’
Those shelves held decades’ worth of damning evidence chronicling Bivar’s corruption.
He had never bothered to properly conceal them in the first place, confident that no one in this territory possessed the intellect to decipher the figures.
Yet should someone capable of unraveling them come along, everything would be laid bare. Mortals could lie, but numbers never did.
‘Damn it all, why did they have to turn the library upside down under the pretext of repairs at this precise moment?!’
Bivar had tried dispatching his subordinates to retrieve the documents—quite literally to destroy the evidence.
Yet Groib, the head butler, had beaten them to the punch.
The moment the recruitment notice went up, laborers swarmed the premises with startling speed. The deserted library abruptly turned into a chaotic hive of activity, rendering Bivar entirely unable to recover the paperwork.
And the instant the renovations concluded, Ariella took possession of the documents to review them, sealing off any hope of smuggling them out.
It had been a swift, merciless maneuver that left him zero room to counterattack.
“Lord Bivar!”
The frantic voice of one of his subordinates came through the door.
“What is it?”
Frayed with nerves, his voice snapped sharply.
“‘That Kobold’ was just captured!”
He could scarcely believe his ears. Was this really the time to fret over a worthless Kobold?
He was about to roar at the subordinate to get out of his sight, but his face suddenly froze.
“Wait! Who did you say?”
He had just registered the name of the captured Kobold.
“Why on earth would that bastard surface now?”
Under normal circumstances, Bivar never bothered remembering the names of Kobolds, but this particular name he knew intimately.
“Captured?”
“Yes, they say the Demon King went to the site in person and apprehended him on the spot!”
The further the subordinate went into his explanation, the darker Bivar’s countenance grew. The Kobold who had been seized was nothing more than a front Bivar had personally established.
The actual transactions were carried out under his direct orders, yielding him immense illicit profits.
Could the Demon King have truly uncovered the scheme?
“He is currently being interrogated down in the dungeon!”
“…Understood.”
Once the subordinate withdrew, Bivar sank into deep contemplation.
‘She bit hard, that wretched human.’
There was no way that thick-headed Demon King could have orchestrated this on his own; the human had to be the mastermind pulling the strings.
Danger was breathing down his neck, and the moment had come to decide his next move.
Should he abandon everything and vanish?
Now that the Kobold was in custody, uncovering the rest of the paper trail was merely a matter of time.
‘No, that is out of the question. I have invested far too much effort into this place.’
There was still so much left to bleed dry from this domain. Ludvic was a rare, defenseless quarry the likes of which could not be found anywhere else.
At last, Bivar made up his mind.
‘This is all because of that contractor.’
If that woman disappeared, everything would return to the way it was.
He did not know what fairy tales she had fed the Demon King thus far, but he was confident he could smooth it over with his silver tongue.
After all, that fool of a king was still dancing in the palm of his hand.
‘I must get rid of that woman.’
What he failed to realize was that Ariella’s death would spell Ludvic’s end as well. No sane creature would forge such an idiotic contract, and even a simpleton Demon King would surely have possessed enough wit to avoid doing so.
Having settled his thoughts, Bivar called out toward the door.
He summoned his subordinates—those who shared his very blood.
“Come inside. There is work to be done.”
END