Chapter 34: Human and Laplace’s Trauma
"..." I approach Esther until we reach the room where our Father is, I wanted some time to prepare but Esther just opens the door and walks in without further ado.
"Eve, please wait over there," I say, pointing for Eve to go to a corner with the servants, she quickly nods her head and goes while I approach the table, seeing that everyone has already arrived, it seems I spent too much time talking to Esther.
Although I still have no idea what she meant by "hamster," she is brilliant and difficult to decipher.
"..." I sit in the remaining chair, there is the exact number of chairs and I see all my siblings looking at each other with suspicion.
"I have summoned you all here because I have an important announcement, as you all must know, the situation with other races is... unpleasant," Lysaon speaks, as the Demon King, his voice is somewhat intimidating, if I didn’t know he’s not that bad, I’d be afraid.
"I won’t lie, our relationship with the angels is the worst of all, with the beastmen it’s on the verge of collapse, and with the humans, we lack serious diplomacy... and since the humans are the most ’acceptable’ at the moment, I’ve decided to accept a peace attempt," Lysaon speaks seriously.
It is made clear to everyone that this is a matter of utmost importance and should not be taken lightly.
"The humans have decided the following, a human has been sent by them, she is a human who has been Honored with the title of Heroine, and she is the representative of humanity."
"She will live here on our continent for the next few years, and it is through her that peace will be achieved, she must show the human culture, their cultural values, what humanity can add to the demons, and finally... this human will prove whether demons and humans can coexist in harmony."
"You, as the future of the demons, will have to live with her, and that’s why you are prohibited from exercising violence against her without real reasons."
Lysaon leaves obvious loopholes that allow anyone here to attack and even kill Grace if necessary, he is undoubtedly a rather gloomy king when he needs to be.
"The Heroine is a human named Grace D’Aragon, and as the representative of humans, everything she does will be seen as a direct action of the humans themselves."
"In other words, if she commits a serious crime, is insulting towards important things, damages religiously important things, or steals something of real value to the demons, a war will begin."
"So keep an eye on the human, but respect her, I will be very... lenient towards this human because peace is important, so if any of you are the cause of a problem and try to blame her, you can be sure that I will punish you," he speaks in a way that sends shivers down everyone’s spines.
"The human will live in this castle in her own room and has already been instructed on her duties, her limitations, and the rules she must follow, so don’t worry that she won’t interfere with the competition for the throne," Lysaon says as Laplace raises his hand asking for permission to speak.
"Go ahead," Lysaon allows, and he gives a smile.
"If this human will stay here observing the competition, does that mean she has permission to collect information about us? And if so, why should we accept peace against the humans?" Laplace, who is calculating, manipulative, and very treacherous, asks.
"Yes, she will collect information about us demons, nothing too important, of course, but she can do it, and the reason to accept this peace is because a great war against the angels may happen."
"And having allies from another continent is important if a great war happens," Lysaon makes it clear that he doesn’t want any more questions, while I remember why Laplace is that perverse and why he wants to be the Demon King.
Laplace is someone who could easily rape a beautiful girl, but this all started in his past, his androgynous appearance with succubus traits made him witness something terrible.
He directly saw in a place outside the castle how the succubi are profane and morally disturbed beings.
In early adolescence, he asked to leave the castle and be taken to the succubi out of curiosity, but the Demon King did not allow it, but he still escaped to see the succubi and managed to see only the superficial side of the succubi in the city, but disobeying the Demon King has consequences.
And as soon as he returned to the castle, the Demon King ordered that Laplace be sent to the "battlefield" to see what a succubus was really like, and it was there that the image of the succubi was shown to him and his "duty" as citizens of the kingdom.
Succubi are a race that does not have much utility in combat, being better at seduction, hypnosis, illusion, and partial mind control.
As such, their function in battle is low, since they are better against single targets that are already asleep, and with the weakness of needing vitality, they are a weak race that constantly needs food.
And their food is obtained only through sexual relations, and the best place for them to get vitality is on the battlefield, taking the vitality of severely wounded soldiers.
Allowing them to depart for the afterlife with pleasure instead of pain, but of course this is not a noble act of sacrificing a soldier who is suffering.
Succubi kill at least 35% of allied troops in war, stealing the vitality of those who are too weakened by wounds, this forces demons in war to be more skilled, strong and strategic to not die at the hands of the succubi who can easily force a wounded man to have relations until they die.
A cruel but functional vision, since if you survive this, the basic recovery properties of the succubi will heal many of your wounds.
This creates a cycle, there is war, they steal the vitality of men to stay alive, men avoid getting too weak to be a target, those who are targets and survive are healed, and those who die may have their rest.
Even though they cause so many deaths, they serve as motivation, motivation to avoid getting injured, and in case of emergency they can "release them" on the battlefield to even "attack" wounded enemies like a swarm of bees, a horrible sight to witness, but it happens frequently.
In the end, the succubus race, being "weak," can only survive by living as parasites who steal vitality, and those who need food the most go to the battlefields to obtain sustenance and motivate soldiers.
This made Laplace, who has succubus characteristics but not the weakness, awaken to horrible feelings, he who had to watch the barbarism of war for two months became as disgusting and barbaric as the succubi on the battlefield.
Not all succubi are like this, many are more peaceful and have calmer jobs, but those who are "greedy," insatiable, or who like more radical things prefer to go to battle just for the thrill.
Laplace, after such an event, decided he wanted to be the Demon King to "try" to reduce this, to clean up the image of a race whose traits he shares, even though in the end he has become as perverse and profane as the beings he judges as profane and perverse.
’He had a good goal... but he corrupted it too soon.’ Wanting to clean up the image of a race whose traits he shares is a good thing, but he corrupted that good thing into something terrible, becoming similar to those succubi.
This world is really scary, and this race is also scary, doing this to people who are already almost dying is bizarre in every possible way, but unfortunately it is a cultural thing, they are demons and not humans, and this is normal in their culture.
I can’t even believe I share racial traits with this, after all, in theory, all demons are "relatives," it’s like humans, regardless of color, where they come from, etc., they are all human.
So demons, no matter how different they are, are still demons, I’m lucky I’m not a succubus, needing vitality as food would be terrible.
"Now that you all understand this, I will introduce the human, but I’m busy, so I’ll let the human enter the room and you’ll stay here, I ask that you don’t leave until at least 30 minutes have passed with her," Lysaon says, getting up from the table.
I also get up from the table, which makes everyone look at me with some surprise, and the Demon King also looks at me.
"I’m going to take my leave," I say as I look at Eve, feeling the dangerous aura of the Demon King.
"And what do you think gives you the right to leave?" He questions, while I already know the answer that would satisfy him, in fact, I don’t want to stay here because there’s a 70% chance of a mess happening and me getting screwed.
"Grace D’Aragon, weighs 60kg, is 18 years old, has her birthday on November 12th, and is 170 centimeters tall, not to mention that she also has a blessing like us, so the title of Heroine is something she can certainly maintain and not just a mere ornament."
"With this, I believe I know well about her, and I have already met her on the streets of the city, I see no more reason to stay here since I already know who she is and have even spoken to her," I say as I start walking towards the door, everything I said will indicate that I have a strong source of information.
This will leave the majority surprised, things like age, weight, and height are easy to obtain, now knowing that Grace has a blessing is something that only I and the Demon King knew.
So I am the first among all the candidates to discover that Grace has a blessing, and this is something that even the Demon King has to recognize as well done, although I only know it because I already have knowledge of the game.
[Lysaon’s Favorability +4 (Total = +6/100)]
’My God, the looks!! The looks seem to pierce my head!! EVE, LET’S GO!!’ I think urgently, the Demon King doesn’t say anything, showing that he accepted it, and I know he liked the attitude.
However, the servants and even my siblings don’t seem to have liked it so much, and I don’t want to have to deal with anything else, quickly Eve comes to me as I open the door and we both pass through.
’Whew... I thought I was going to suffocate in there.’ There’s that saying about seeing the elephant in the room and ignoring it, but at this point instead of an elephant, it seemed like the whole ocean was covering me.
’At least I did well!!! I even managed to gain positive favorability with the Demon King!! If I can evolve to friendship, I can get a lot of good things!!’ I think about the future, almost drooling at the thought of how much money I can get from him.