Chapter 98: My World Will Be Uninteresting

TL: FoodieMonster007

The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon's eyes smiled brightly through the eyeholes of his mask.

Who could have imagined he would demand I remove my mask in exchange for releasing his restriction?

He was both furious and delighted. I was likely the first person to ever make him feel two such contradictory emotions at once.

He had probably never met anyone who would act so recklessly toward him. After all, not even my father treated the Demon Supremes so carelessly.

I knew it. I knew how much the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon savored moments like this.

His blood must be pumping, his heart racing like mad.

I considered it a kind of sickness.

"What will you do if I promise to take off the mask but then don't keep my promise later?"

"I'd have to charge in and rip it off by force."

"Well, why don't you practice right now?"

The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon's gaze instantly turned cold. Ready to fight, he was a completely different person from moments before.

I waved my hands dismissively and pushed my chair back.

"If I did that, I might get the skin of my own face peeled off."

The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon relaxed his aura and asked casually, "So, if you can't take it off by force, what will you do now?"

I stared at him for a moment before answering calmly.

"I won't do anything."

The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon flinched. I had just spoken the correct answer, one that even he did not know.

Do nothing.

For a contrarian like the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon, this was the right answer. He looked at me with a confused expression.

"Does that mean you'll trust me?"

"Honestly, I don't. The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon, that's not exactly a name that inspires trust, is it?"

I laughed as if it were a joke, but he did not.

"Now, let's get up. The Smiling Demon needs to go have a meal too."

I did not explain my reasoning. Sometimes, saying nothing has the greatest effect. This is especially true when there is no particular reason, like now.

Sometimes, the other person will inflate something insignificant and create a plausible reason for it on their own.

I stood up from my seat first, and the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon followed.

We left the Alluring Inn and headed back the way we came.

After walking beside me for a moment, he stopped.

"Please wait a moment."

He went to a street vendor selling masks. He then bought a white mask from the stall and gave it to me.

"A gift to commemorate today."

I accepted the mask.

"I proposed the condition that you take off your mask, yet you're putting one on my face instead."

I put on the mask without protest.

"It's suffocating. I guarantee that if you fought without a mask, the Smiling Demon would fight twice as well. How long do you have to wear this thing for it to become comfortable?"

"It doesn't take as long as you might think."

"If that's the case, the reverse must also be true. I'm talking about the time it takes to feel comfortable without a mask."

The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon stared at me silently through the eyeholes of my mask.

So this is how you've been seeing me.

Now he too could only observe me through the eyeholes in my mask. Perhaps that put me at a greater disadvantage. After all, the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon had lived for a very long time among countless subordinates who wore masks.

I pushed the mask up onto my head like a hat.

"Wear it like this. Isn't this much more comfortable and convenient? Wear it when you want, take it off when you want. Just like this."

I tapped the mask, which now looked up at the sky from the top of my head.

"This fellow will probably feel good too. Looking up at the sky like this."

At that, the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon looked up at the sky.

"Wouldn't this work? Then we'd both be looking at the sky."

After staring at the sky for a long while with an empty gaze, the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon turned his eyes to me. He had already made his decision.

"Very well. I accept the condition the Second Young Lord has proposed. If you have my restriction released, I will take off my mask when we are alone."

I did not believe he would keep his promise.

Even before my regression, I had only seen his face once, right before he died. He would not remove his mask easily.

However, the fact that he made the promise was meaningful. Would I truly get to see his face from his younger days?

"Thank you, the Smiling Demon."

The vertical line on the line drawn in my heart moved a little further to the right. It was still a long way to go. It would have to pass the halfway mark before he would even begin to consider whether or not to kill me.

"With a condition like this, I should be able to stand up to my father, right?"

We looked at each other and smiled. Neither of us put any real feeling into it, but we grinned broadly as if this smile was the token of our new promise.

The next day, Head Strategist Sama Myeong was also in the Heavenly Demon Hall when I entered.

After greeting my father, I bantered with Sama Myeong.

"I've been cornered lately because of the Strategist."

"What do you mean?"

"Father has caught up to within a two-stone difference."

Only then did Sama Myeong realize I was talking about Go, and he laughed.

"That's because you were swindled by a Strategist who can't play Go."

"So you've already heard."

This time, it was my turn to laugh. Father was so stoic I thought he would not share our jokes with anyone, yet he told Sama Myeong everything. It was a measure of how close they were.

After the lighthearted greeting, I revealed the purpose of my visit to my father.

"Father, I've come to ask a favor."

"Speak."

"Please release the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon's restriction."

Father was not surprised. He had probably received reports that I had been meeting with the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon recently.

As my father looked down at me in silence, Sama Myeong stepped forward.

"May I ask the reason?"

"The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon came and asked me to."

"Then couldn't you have just refused?"

"What if he threatened me, saying, 'If you refuse, I'll kill your family!'? Ah, then I would become the Heavenly Demon. Should I have accepted?"

Sama Myeong did not laugh at my joke.

"This is not a matter for jokes. Do you know why the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon was placed under restriction?"

"I do. He massacred martial artists of the Evil Alliance."

"The Smiling Demon is a man who cannot control his anger."

"The longer he is kept bound, the greater his anger will be when it finally explodes."

Even Sama Myeong could not refute that.

Father, who had been listening, suddenly asked, "Can you take responsibility for him?"

"Why should I take responsibility? The one who causes the trouble should be the one to take responsibility for it."

"If a dog off its leash bites someone, how can the dog alone be held responsible? The one who unleashed it must also share the blame."

"Well, that's true, but."

"If you accept the condition of taking responsibility, I will release the restriction."

"I can't just clean up after him forever, can I? Once the restriction is lifted, he will leave the cult immediately. I will take responsibility only for what happens during that departure."

"Fine!"

Unlike my father, who agreed readily, Sama Myeong wore an anxious expression as he emphasized again, "The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon has spent the last two years confined within our Cult. He must have a lot of pent-up frustration. If he goes out into the Central Plains, he might commit a massacre."

"I will keep that in mind and watch him carefully."

Finally, I expressed my gratitude to my father.

"Father, thank you for your permission."

Of course, my father did not accept my thanks so easily.

"Is it truly something to be thankful for?"

From the Heavenly Demon Hall's perspective, they could not keep the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon under restriction forever. My request had given my father a perfect excuse to lift it. In the end, this too had become a kind of test for the successor.

Father. I'm sorry, but I'll have the upper hand in this matter. Because I already know what the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon plans to do once he leaves the cult.

After leaving the Heavenly Demon Hall, I went straight to the Valley of Evil to find the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon.

"Did you really get his permission?"

The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon seemed not to have expected that I could get my father's approval in a single day.

"Yes. The restriction will be lifted tomorrow. An official document will arrive from the All-Knowing Hall sometime tomorrow."

A flicker of admiration crossed the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon's eyes.

"I didn't think you could do it so quickly."

"Now you see why you should support me instead of my brother, don't you?"

"I'll have to think about it seriously, but did the Cult Leader just grant permission without any strings attached?"

"How could he? Father attached a condition."

"What kind of condition?"

I let out a somewhat exaggerated sigh before telling him.

"If the Smiling Demon causes any trouble, I am to take full responsibility for it."

"Oho! So you wagered your position as successor for my sake."

"That's about the size of it."

The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon did not hide his surprise.

"Is this really worth all that?"

"Seeing the Smiling Demon's face? I think it's worth it."

"For such blatant flattery, the Second Young Lord has risked far too much."

"Well, since my flattery has been exposed, I'll add one more. Becoming friends with the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon is something no one else will ever experience in their lifetime. That's a condition worth betting on."

The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon stared at me intently. He probably wanted to figure out my true intentions, but he would not be able to know me just from my gaze and expression. Not in the past, not now, and not ever.

"In other words, I can cause as much trouble as I want. Since the Second Young Lord will take responsibility."

"It's truly maddening, isn't it?"

"Why didn't you hide it? You could have just not told me that you promised to take responsibility, right? It's a weakness for the Second Young Lord."

"I had to tell you. Aren't most of the problems we face caused by not saying what needs to be said?"

The Extremely Evil Smiling Demon smiled strangely. It was a different smile from his usual one.

"I have no intention of underestimating the Smiling Demon. Nor do I think that hiding something will prevent it from happening."

"Whenever I heard rumors about the Second Young Lord, I always thought they were exaggerated, but now I see they were greatly downplayed."

"That might be because it's the Smiling Demon."

"What do you mean?"

"The same report can sound different depending on the emotions involved, but in front of the Smiling Demon, your subordinates can't help but be tense. They would only give you dry reports, with as much of their personal opinions or feelings excluded as possible. They wouldn't have been able to convey who I really am."

"That is a very valid point."

His laughter sounded different again. The Smiling Demon laughed like that when he was deep in thought.

"In return, you must promise me one thing."

"What is it?"

"If you intend to leave the cult, you must go with me. If you break this promise, the restriction will be put back in place, and you'll probably have to start the term all over again from the beginning."

"Let's not wait for later. Let's leave tomorrow."

This was the kind of person the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon was, one who made such impulsive decisions. That was what made dealing with him so difficult.

I answered without hesitation.

"I look forward to our trip, Smiling Demon."

I deliberately used the word 'trip' to describe our departure from the cult.

"We are not going on a trip."

"When you go with a friend, isn't anywhere you go a trip?"

This time, I resolved not to approach this with the anxious mindset of having to stop him from causing trouble.

I would go out with the genuine feeling of just hanging out with the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon for a while. If my friend fights, I will stop him. If my friend is in danger, I will save him. Just that much.

"Then I will take my leave."

"I will see you tomorrow morning, Second Young Lord."

As I was about to open the door and leave, the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon asked from behind me, "Is there any place you'd like to go?"

I turned back to him.

"Many, but on this trip, I want to see the Smiling Demon's world. Please show it to me."

"My world will be uninteresting. Perhaps even more so than the Demon Village."

"It only feels that way because it's your own world. It will look different to others."

He smiled, and I smiled back.

One thing about meeting the Smiling Demon was that I ended up smiling a lot. Whether it was a forced smile, a smile with a throwing knife hidden within, or a sincere one. In any case, I smiled. They say if you smile often, you live longer. So there was that benefit, too.

As I was about to open the door again to leave, I added one more thing.

"Oh, and the Demon Village is not such an uninteresting place. They're people who make a living selling masks to the Extremely Evil Smiling Demon, aren't they?"