It’s tempting, but I can’t.
She grabbed her heart once again, biting the soft flesh on the inside of her lips.
I can’t, never.
Both Lisianthus and Caladium were Adelaide’s friends, colleagues, and new family members. From now on, she will have to live with and face them every day. She does not want to consume the energy of the precious people that will be her hands and feet.
Working with Caladium was very exceptional, and now he was a demon that belonged to her family, so the situation was different from that time.
And above all…
‘It can’t be like that time.’
Adelaide closed her eyes and bit her lip. The afterimage of the past bloomed faintly over her black vision.
An old log cabin, a smiling Adelaide perched on a creaky bed, and a smiling blonde child next to her.
The happy appearance quickly disappeared, and soon the blood-drenched house materialized. She stood crouching among the fragments of a human corpse lying on the floor. Her bright red hands were caught in her shaky vision as if she was drunk.
A hand with sticky blood stuck between its long fingernails. It was her own.
Kwajik. Adelaide’s teeth pierced the soft flesh on the inside of her lips. The dizzy afterimage disappeared with the fishy taste of blood.
Instead, she saw the faces of the two demons who cared for her.
“Phew, I’m okay now.”
Adelaide pretended to be calm. She straightened her brow as best as she could, relaxed her face, and stretched her curled toes.
The pain, still burning her skin, was terrible. But it was more bearable than before. Since she suffered from an empty stomach for a long time 30 years ago, she could say that she had some immunity.
If there was a prize given to the person who has endured the most hunger among succubi, she would most definitely be the winner.
“Master, are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah! I must have been anemic.”
Adelaide replied with a smile. It’s not a bad performance, she herself even thinks so.
Lisianthus looked at Adelaide with still worried eyes. He looked really good, except for a slight stiffening of his facial muscles.
“F*ck, you little thing scared this devil… That’s why you should have eaten well on a regular basis! Eat some meat!”
“I couldn’t eat because I didn’t have money, meat…”
“… I’ll buy it for you now, so eat well!”
Caladium roared with embarrassment and then turned his head quickly.
She mentioned earlier that her grandfather passed away, and this time she’s pointing out a difficult financial situation. Now he felt terrible for being tactless. He didn’t intend to do it, but these embarrassing things kept happening.
As a physical demon, he couldn’t even guess what situation Adelaide was going through.
“But why did you fall? What if you fell and hit your head?”
“Of course, that wouldn’t happen because this Caladium would’ve caught you before then.” Caladium added arrogantly. Then he threw an annoyed look at Lisianthus once.
‘Unlucky bastard.’
He didn’t like him.
He obviously moved as soon as he saw Adelaide collapse, but Lisianthus caught her sooner than him. In the blink of an eye.
Of course, it was possible because Lisianthus was much closer to Adelaide, but the devil’s pride was hurt for being defeated by someone, who was at best, a mid to high level demon.
However, Lisianthus did not like him as well. Lisianthus looked at Caladium’s hand holding Adelaide’s arm with a displeased expression and responded to Caladium’s gaze with a cool gaze. Don’t blink, persist.
Meanwhile, Adelaide pondered on the answer without paying any attention to the fierce snowball fight between the two men between her.
‘If I don’t want to get caught having an ‘empty stomach’…’
She needed another reason to tell them to stay away. She decided to take advantage of what she had used recently .
“Oh that’s because Caladi stinks!”
However, the victim’s feelings were not taken into consideration.
Caladium’s face turned bright red in an instant. He raised his voice as high as he could to hide his embarrassment.
“What b*llsh*t! As soon as I was released, I used bath magic!”
“Ugh, well. You haven’t washed your body for 100 years, so maybe one magic spell couldn’t solve it?”
“Come to think of it, it does smell. You’re dirty, so stay away from the Master.”
Lisianthus quickly went along with Adelaide’s clever lie. He didn’t really smell, but he wasn’t going to miss a precious opportunity to f*ck Caladium over. Caladium’s face was now dyed red to the tip of his ears.
“F*ck, So unlucky! I’m going!”
He vanished with harsh footsteps.
He spit swear words in front of Adelaide out of pride, but it was a secret known only to Caladium that he used bath magic several times as soon as he arrived in his room.
“What, what’s wrong with the devil?”
“The devil stinks.”
“That……”
The Skeletons, who joined belatedly, murmured as they saw him disappear.
Adelaide burst into laughter at the simple and clear resolution. Thanks to Caladium’s noble sacrifice, the situation went well. The pain gradually diminished to a level where she could laugh.
[T/N: I feel bad for Caladium. Adelaide what happened to your promises. TT]
But in Adelaide’s experience, this was only temporary. The pain will come back at regular intervals, and the need for regularity will increase to an unbearable extent. Over time, Adelaide’s patience will diminish, and in the worst case scenario, she may lose her sense of reason.
Adelaide slowly lowered her gaze and looked at her hands. White and clean hands. For a moment, the red hands in the memories overlapped then disappeared.
‘I’ve been fine for a while.’
It was a memory she had forgotten more and more after she quit her job and started living the life of the weak.
To be precise, her memory of that day was the reason why she made that choice.
‘I can’t help it if I want to develop the dungeon.’
She wanted to avoid it forever, but now she can’t. She had to do it in order to not harm her colleagues. It was something she had tried to escape from for a long time. She was so busy running away because she was afraid that someone would force her.
She meant ‘work’.
**********
The conditions for upgrading the dungeon to E-4 Class are as follows.
[Registered Demons: 3 or more (currently 2)]
[Demon Combat Strength: 10,000 or more (currently 70,001,500)]
[Portal Count: 2 or more (currently 1)]
[Adventurer Kill Count: 100 or more (currently 0)]
Adelaide, who had been concentrating reading the dungeon pad with her lips pouting, groaned without realizing it. It was because of the ridiculous number written on it.
“S-Seventy million―?!”
A passing Caladium glanced at the dungeon pad and opened his mouth. Yesterday, she made fun of him for smelling, and after sulking silently for about half a day, he seemed to be feeling a little better now.
“Well. I’ve been chained to the angel handcuffs for too long. It will take a while for all my strength to come back.”
“It’s supposed to be over 100 million.”, Caladium grumbled.
Adelaide, who heard the grumbling, had a long blank look on her face. She knew that Caladium was a devil, but it felt different when she saw the figures herself.
With that cheap tone and playful personality, he had a fighting power of 100 million. She felt a sense of separation from reality.
When she came to her senses, she recounted the contents of the pad again.
‘We only need to increase the number of registered demons.’
It would be nice to count all four Skeletons, but they were treated as a group so their numbers were insufficient.
Well, there are still rooms left, and there was no problem in that part because they had to find more affiliates to receive monthly rent anyway.
‘What fighting power? I don’t even need to look at that anymore.’
Although they were an E-Class dungeon, they had enough to meet the standards of an A-Class one. Thanks to Caladium, who was trembling beside her right now.
Adelaide pressed the ‘Close’ button next to the combat power to hide the item. It was to neatly see what she only needed.
‘The problem is down here.’
Adelaide grunted and stared intently at the items at the bottom.
The number of external portals and adventurer kills.
Adelaide turned her head to Lisianthus.
“Lisian. How much does it cost to install an external portal?”
“It depends on the region, but if you want to install it in the Mediar region as I mentioned before… I think it will cost 5 Almas because it will be a long-distance portal.”
Mediar. It was located in eastern Dathanos, not far from East Belial where Adelaide lived, which she often visited in the past.
It was also the area closest to the human world and the only area where non-adventurers can stay because of their weak magic. For this reason, Mediar was divided into human and demon areas, and in the human area, various convenient facilities were provided for the adventurers leaving for subjugation.
Most of the adventurers go through Mediar when entering the Demon Realm. It’s also difficult to go directly to a dark place, so it’s the best place to get a party.
And the dungeon masters who knew this, installed portals in Mediar. As long as they are confident that they will not be conquered, it is the most efficient way to attract adventurers and earn money.
Adelaide intended to do that. One problem was that the cost of installing the portal was quite high because the distance from here to that place was quite far.
5 Almas. More than expected, Adelaide frowned.
1 out of the 10 Almas they received at the dungeon upgrade reward was already used to pay off interest. She wanted to pay back the principal quickly, but Lisianthus dissuaded her.
Repaying several Almas out of the large 666 Almas will not make much of a difference in interest. He said that it would be more effective to invest the remaining money in the dungeon to achieve faster growth. It sounded reasonable.
Therefore, out of the remaining 9 Almas, 5 Almas must be used on the portal. Although she hesitated, Adelaide opened her mouth with conviction.
“Great. Let’s install the portal!”
Adelaide smirked and exclaimed.
“Should I purchase the portal installation magic stone right away?”
Lisianthus asked happily. He seemed very proud of Adelaide’s determination.
‘Whenever you act like that, you really look like a grandfather.’ Adelaide thought and continued.
“Huh. Oh no. I have something to do before that.”
“What?”
Caladium, who was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, asked. It looked very arrogant to see him leaning crookedly and supporting his head with one hand.
Adelaide, who had already become accustomed to his pompous appearance, replied casually.
“It is, renaming the dungeon!”
Ta-da! Adelaide smiled brightly and pulled out two magic stones. It was the magic stones from the Boraca dungeon.
“For now, use the expansion magic stone immediately.”
The dungeon was already wide enough thanks to rising five levels at once, but the more rooms they had, the better. As they would want to sign contracts with more demons and deal with the adventurers.
When Adelaide used the magic stone, a bright light lit up and the dungeon became wider in an instant. One large room was added inside the inner portal, and another was added outside.
This brings the total number of rooms to eleven. It seemed that the inside of the portal could be used as a living space, and the outside as a space to deal with the adventurers.
She suggested that the Skeletons, who took a room outside the residential area, move to a new room, but the Skeletons refused, saying dark places were more comfortable. The artificial sun was amazing, but they didn’t want to get too close.
“And this is the last one! It’s a name correction stone!”
It was information that Lisianthus found out last night.
Lisianthus regretted that it was a useless magic stone, but Adelaide was more than happy to get any kind of magic stone. It was a natural response because she has always been ashamed of the name Greenville.
“So, I’m going to change the name. What would be good? I’ll take recommendations!”
Adelaide said with her eyes sparkling. She looked very excited.
“Then.”
“Raise your hand and say it!”
When Caladium opened his mouth, Adelaide quickly cut off his words. He furrowed his eyebrows for a moment, raising his hand with an expression that showed he disliked it, but nonetheless decided to conform.
It’s tempting, but I can’t.
She grabbed her heart once again, biting the soft flesh on the inside of her lips.
I can’t, never.
Both Lisianthus and Caladium were Adelaide’s friends, colleagues, and new family members. From now on, she will have to live with and face them every day. She does not want to consume the energy of the precious people that will be her hands and feet.
Working with Caladium was very exceptional, and now he was a demon that belonged to her family, so the situation was different from that time.
And above all…
‘It can’t be like that time.’
Adelaide closed her eyes and bit her lip. The afterimage of the past bloomed faintly over her black vision.
An old log cabin, a smiling Adelaide perched on a creaky bed, and a smiling blonde child next to her.
The happy appearance quickly disappeared, and soon the blood-drenched house materialized. She stood crouching among the fragments of a human corpse lying on the floor. Her bright red hands were caught in her shaky vision as if she was drunk.
A hand with sticky blood stuck between its long fingernails. It was her own.
Kwajik. Adelaide’s teeth pierced the soft flesh on the inside of her lips. The dizzy afterimage disappeared with the fishy taste of blood.
Instead, she saw the faces of the two demons who cared for her.
“Phew, I’m okay now.”
Adelaide pretended to be calm. She straightened her brow as best as she could, relaxed her face, and stretched her curled toes.
The pain, still burning her skin, was terrible. But it was more bearable than before. Since she suffered from an empty stomach for a long time 30 years ago, she could say that she had some immunity.
If there was a prize given to the person who has endured the most hunger among succubi, she would most definitely be the winner.
“Master, are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah! I must have been anemic.”
Adelaide replied with a smile. It’s not a bad performance, she herself even thinks so.
Lisianthus looked at Adelaide with still worried eyes. He looked really good, except for a slight stiffening of his facial muscles.
“F*ck, you little thing scared this devil… That’s why you should have eaten well on a regular basis! Eat some meat!”
“I couldn’t eat because I didn’t have money, meat…”
“… I’ll buy it for you now, so eat well!”
Caladium roared with embarrassment and then turned his head quickly.
She mentioned earlier that her grandfather passed away, and this time she’s pointing out a difficult financial situation. Now he felt terrible for being tactless. He didn’t intend to do it, but these embarrassing things kept happening.
As a physical demon, he couldn’t even guess what situation Adelaide was going through.
“But why did you fall? What if you fell and hit your head?”
“Of course, that wouldn’t happen because this Caladium would’ve caught you before then.” Caladium added arrogantly. Then he threw an annoyed look at Lisianthus once.
‘Unlucky bastard.’
He didn’t like him.
He obviously moved as soon as he saw Adelaide collapse, but Lisianthus caught her sooner than him. In the blink of an eye.
Of course, it was possible because Lisianthus was much closer to Adelaide, but the devil’s pride was hurt for being defeated by someone, who was at best, a mid to high level demon.
However, Lisianthus did not like him as well. Lisianthus looked at Caladium’s hand holding Adelaide’s arm with a displeased expression and responded to Caladium’s gaze with a cool gaze. Don’t blink, persist.
Meanwhile, Adelaide pondered on the answer without paying any attention to the fierce snowball fight between the two men between her.
‘If I don’t want to get caught having an ‘empty stomach’…’
She needed another reason to tell them to stay away. She decided to take advantage of what she had used recently .
“Oh that’s because Caladi stinks!”
However, the victim’s feelings were not taken into consideration.
Caladium’s face turned bright red in an instant. He raised his voice as high as he could to hide his embarrassment.
“What b*llsh*t! As soon as I was released, I used bath magic!”
“Ugh, well. You haven’t washed your body for 100 years, so maybe one magic spell couldn’t solve it?”
“Come to think of it, it does smell. You’re dirty, so stay away from the Master.”
Lisianthus quickly went along with Adelaide’s clever lie. He didn’t really smell, but he wasn’t going to miss a precious opportunity to f*ck Caladium over. Caladium’s face was now dyed red to the tip of his ears.
“F*ck, So unlucky! I’m going!”
He vanished with harsh footsteps.
He spit swear words in front of Adelaide out of pride, but it was a secret known only to Caladium that he used bath magic several times as soon as he arrived in his room.
“What, what’s wrong with the devil?”
“The devil stinks.”
“That……”
The Skeletons, who joined belatedly, murmured as they saw him disappear.
Adelaide burst into laughter at the simple and clear resolution. Thanks to Caladium’s noble sacrifice, the situation went well. The pain gradually diminished to a level where she could laugh.
[T/N: I feel bad for Caladium. Adelaide what happened to your promises. TT]
But in Adelaide’s experience, this was only temporary. The pain will come back at regular intervals, and the need for regularity will increase to an unbearable extent. Over time, Adelaide’s patience will diminish, and in the worst case scenario, she may lose her sense of reason.
Adelaide slowly lowered her gaze and looked at her hands. White and clean hands. For a moment, the red hands in the memories overlapped then disappeared.
‘I’ve been fine for a while.’
It was a memory she had forgotten more and more after she quit her job and started living the life of the weak.
To be precise, her memory of that day was the reason why she made that choice.
‘I can’t help it if I want to develop the dungeon.’
She wanted to avoid it forever, but now she can’t. She had to do it in order to not harm her colleagues. It was something she had tried to escape from for a long time. She was so busy running away because she was afraid that someone would force her.
She meant ‘work’.
**********
The conditions for upgrading the dungeon to E-4 Class are as follows.
[Registered Demons: 3 or more (currently 2)]
[Demon Combat Strength: 10,000 or more (currently 70,001,500)]
[Portal Count: 2 or more (currently 1)]
[Adventurer Kill Count: 100 or more (currently 0)]
Adelaide, who had been concentrating reading the dungeon pad with her lips pouting, groaned without realizing it. It was because of the ridiculous number written on it.
“S-Seventy million―?!”
A passing Caladium glanced at the dungeon pad and opened his mouth. Yesterday, she made fun of him for smelling, and after sulking silently for about half a day, he seemed to be feeling a little better now.
“Well. I’ve been chained to the angel handcuffs for too long. It will take a while for all my strength to come back.”
“It’s supposed to be over 100 million.”, Caladium grumbled.
Adelaide, who heard the grumbling, had a long blank look on her face. She knew that Caladium was a devil, but it felt different when she saw the figures herself.
With that cheap tone and playful personality, he had a fighting power of 100 million. She felt a sense of separation from reality.
When she came to her senses, she recounted the contents of the pad again.
‘We only need to increase the number of registered demons.’
It would be nice to count all four Skeletons, but they were treated as a group so their numbers were insufficient.
Well, there are still rooms left, and there was no problem in that part because they had to find more affiliates to receive monthly rent anyway.
‘What fighting power? I don’t even need to look at that anymore.’
Although they were an E-Class dungeon, they had enough to meet the standards of an A-Class one. Thanks to Caladium, who was trembling beside her right now.
Adelaide pressed the ‘Close’ button next to the combat power to hide the item. It was to neatly see what she only needed.
‘The problem is down here.’
Adelaide grunted and stared intently at the items at the bottom.
The number of external portals and adventurer kills.
Adelaide turned her head to Lisianthus.
“Lisian. How much does it cost to install an external portal?”
“It depends on the region, but if you want to install it in the Mediar region as I mentioned before… I think it will cost 5 Almas because it will be a long-distance portal.”
Mediar. It was located in eastern Dathanos, not far from East Belial where Adelaide lived, which she often visited in the past.
It was also the area closest to the human world and the only area where non-adventurers can stay because of their weak magic. For this reason, Mediar was divided into human and demon areas, and in the human area, various convenient facilities were provided for the adventurers leaving for subjugation.
Most of the adventurers go through Mediar when entering the Demon Realm. It’s also difficult to go directly to a dark place, so it’s the best place to get a party.
And the dungeon masters who knew this, installed portals in Mediar. As long as they are confident that they will not be conquered, it is the most efficient way to attract adventurers and earn money.
Adelaide intended to do that. One problem was that the cost of installing the portal was quite high because the distance from here to that place was quite far.
5 Almas. More than expected, Adelaide frowned.
1 out of the 10 Almas they received at the dungeon upgrade reward was already used to pay off interest. She wanted to pay back the principal quickly, but Lisianthus dissuaded her.
Repaying several Almas out of the large 666 Almas will not make much of a difference in interest. He said that it would be more effective to invest the remaining money in the dungeon to achieve faster growth. It sounded reasonable.
Therefore, out of the remaining 9 Almas, 5 Almas must be used on the portal. Although she hesitated, Adelaide opened her mouth with conviction.
“Great. Let’s install the portal!”
Adelaide smirked and exclaimed.
“Should I purchase the portal installation magic stone right away?”
Lisianthus asked happily. He seemed very proud of Adelaide’s determination.
‘Whenever you act like that, you really look like a grandfather.’ Adelaide thought and continued.
“Huh. Oh no. I have something to do before that.”
“What?”
Caladium, who was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, asked. It looked very arrogant to see him leaning crookedly and supporting his head with one hand.
Adelaide, who had already become accustomed to his pompous appearance, replied casually.
“It is, renaming the dungeon!”
Ta-da! Adelaide smiled brightly and pulled out two magic stones. It was the magic stones from the Boraca dungeon.
“For now, use the expansion magic stone immediately.”
The dungeon was already wide enough thanks to rising five levels at once, but the more rooms they had, the better. As they would want to sign contracts with more demons and deal with the adventurers.
When Adelaide used the magic stone, a bright light lit up and the dungeon became wider in an instant. One large room was added inside the inner portal, and another was added outside.
This brings the total number of rooms to eleven. It seemed that the inside of the portal could be used as a living space, and the outside as a space to deal with the adventurers.
She suggested that the Skeletons, who took a room outside the residential area, move to a new room, but the Skeletons refused, saying dark places were more comfortable. The artificial sun was amazing, but they didn’t want to get too close.
“And this is the last one! It’s a name correction stone!”
It was information that Lisianthus found out last night.
Lisianthus regretted that it was a useless magic stone, but Adelaide was more than happy to get any kind of magic stone. It was a natural response because she has always been ashamed of the name Greenville.
“So, I’m going to change the name. What would be good? I’ll take recommendations!”
Adelaide said with her eyes sparkling. She looked very excited.
“Then.”
“Raise your hand and say it!”
When Caladium opened his mouth, Adelaide quickly cut off his words. He furrowed his eyebrows for a moment, raising his hand with an expression that showed he disliked it, but nonetheless decided to conform.
