Volume 8, Chapter 54 – The Demon Lord and the Divine Key

“A-are these really edible?!”

Sitting on the right side of the long table with a white napkin tied around her chest, Tina leaned forward with a knife and fork, her eyes wide with anticipation as she looked at Yisi.

After Yisi had brought Tina down from the roof, she had immediately sent her for a bath. Although the largest bathroom was occupied by her companions, in order to prevent them from discovering Tina—her horns and whip-like, oxtail-shaped tail were too obvious, and her demon identity was clear at a glance, and Laxy, who believed that demons were enemies, would cause unnecessary, even irreconcilable, conflicts—Yisi chose to take Tina to the single bathtub in her own room. This also made it easier to keep an eye on her, to prevent her from sneaking away when she wasn’t paying attention.

Of course, although she said she was keeping an eye on her, Yisi didn’t actually stand in the bathroom and watch Tina bathe. Instead, she asked Mary, who was the first to come out of the large bath, to watch Tina for her. There were a few small incidents along the way. Tina, who was used to being served by fallen angels, didn’t know how to bathe alone, and Mary had to teach her step by step.

As for the now-sumptuous dinner, it was a meal that Yisi had purchased from Antonio City and the Margaret headquarters by teleporting there alone while Tina was still bathing. Since she had decided to adopt a gentle approach to deal with Tina, she naturally had to capture her stomach first. Although Mary’s cooking was surely better than the tavern’s, her companions, who had been playing all day, were already very tired, so Yisi had arranged for them to go back to their rooms to sleep early.

Faced with Tina, who was holding a knife and fork, not knowing which dish to choose, Yisi, sitting opposite her, couldn’t help but smile.

“Of course you can. These were originally prepared for you.”

“So this is human food.”

A starlight-like glint appeared in her wide eyes. Tina let out a low “ooh-ooh-ooh” of admiration, constantly swallowing her saliva. What was strange to Yisi was that an ordinary person’s next move should be to start eating immediately, but Tina waited for a long time without moving. At first, Yisi thought that Tina might be mindful of the ‘a guest shouldn’t start before the host’ etiquette, but not only was Tina a demon, but also a demon lord among them. It was impossible for her to have such a custom. Yisi couldn’t help but ask.

“You’re not eating? I didn’t poison it, you know?”

Tina, wearing a white napkin on her chest and a cherry-colored dress, was very cute. To hide her horns, Yisi had even put a hat on her that matched the dress. The size, which almost covered her entire being, made her delicate body seem even smaller in comparison.

“It’s not a matter of not eating…” The silvery knife and fork hovered for a moment over the golden-brown roasted chicken, its skin glistening with oil, and then over the thick-cut steak, which was glistening with sauce and sprinkled with black pepper. Tina murmured anxiously, “There are too many things. I don’t know which one to eat… Wow, wow, they all look so delicious.”

“Then how about you start with the meat paste over here? It has a little bit of wheat pickle in it. It’s very suitable as an appetizer spread on bread.”

Wheat pickle was what this world called ‘vinegar.’ The vinegar of this other world, rather than its fragrance, focused more on its stimulating sour taste. Mixed with the minced raw meat, from which the gamey smell had been removed, and sprinkled with some small wild vegetables with thin stalks and no fragrance of their own, it was very suitable as a starter. At first, Yisi couldn’t accept it because it was minced raw meat, but later she found that this was a common way of eating in this other world, so she gradually adapted to it.

“Is that so?”

Blinking, Tina tried to spread the meat paste on a slice of bread and then took a bite.

Her eyes, which had been so curious a moment ago, now turned into a ‘>_<‘ shape.

It was probably because her mouth had been tasteless for a long time, and then she had suddenly eaten something sour. That stimulating sensation would indeed make one unable to recover for a moment. Yisi handed the milk to Tina.

“How is it? Compared to demon cuisine.”

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“A little… too stimulating,” her mouth even turned into a wave shape from the sourness, Tina said with difficulty. But the stimulated expression only lasted for a few seconds. As the fragrance of the meat and wheat pickle spread on her taste buds, Tina unconsciously turned her gaze back to the bread. As if the bread were her enemy, she took a big, fierce bite with a “nom,” leaving a cute crescent shape on it.

Then her expression turned into a ‘>_<‘ shape again.

A girl with a rich variety of expressions was always interesting. In Tina’s case, the feeling of being lovable was even stronger.

Yisi rested her head on her hand and watched Tina’s expression change with interest. Just an hour ago, she had been saying that she would never submit, cursing her as a silver-haired demon. But now, she had even forgotten her deliberately mature self-address of ‘we’ and was only thinking about the food. This change had occurred after she had changed her into the dress—Tina seemed to not like wearing provocative lingerie.

With the first dish in her mouth, Tina began to eat heartily without any restraint. Although Yisi had guessed that a demon lord’s appetite might be larger than an ordinary person’s and had bought a lot of extra food, she had still underestimated Tina’s appetite. Take the roasted chicken, for example. Yisi couldn’t finish it even after several meals, but Tina finished it all in less than five minutes. The only thing that was strange to Yisi was Tina’s expression. That look of satisfaction and gratitude, as if she had never eaten such a delicious meal before, as if every bite was a gift from God.

“What do you usually eat at home, Tina?”

Although she knew it was impolite to ask questions while someone was eating, Yisi still couldn’t help it. The current Tina, though not to the extent that one would mistake her for a slave who hadn’t eaten in a long time, would still make one associate her with a malnourished child.

“Mea’ (Meat),” because her mouth was full of food, Tina’s words were not very clear.

So it’s not that she has nothing to eat.

Could it be that demon cooking is terrible?

After she voiced her question, Tina’s answer made Yisi’s mouth drop open, not knowing what to say.

Demons didn’t have the concept of “cooking” at all, and were even still at the stage of eating unprocessed, bloody raw meat.

Of course, with their demon constitution, eating unprocessed raw meat would neither give them an upset stomach nor make them sick. Raw meat was considered ‘edible’ food in their eyes, but edible and delicious were two different things. What Yisi didn’t know was that the last time Tina had eaten such a well-seasoned, cooked meat dish was when Ouranos was still alive. At that time, in order to improve Tina’s diet, Ouranos had personally made her dishes from the human world.

As for why Tina didn’t have her subordinates make it for her, it was due to the constraints of demon aesthetics. In the demon world, raw meat with traces of blood was considered ‘delicious food.’ In order to maintain the dignity of the Demon Lord, she could only give up on cooked meat. Of course, unlike Andrea, who had been forbidden from making sweets by Boris, Tina had given it up voluntarily, not by force.

In addition, Yisi found that Tina only used her knife and fork on meat dishes. She didn’t eat vegetables or fruits at all. Even if a piece of meat was just slightly stained with a vegetable leaf, Tina would definitely find a way to remove it. At first, Yisi thought that Tina, like most children, didn’t like to eat vegetables. But after asking, she found out a shocking fact.

It wasn’t that Tina hated vegetables, but that she had been instilled with the evil idea that vegetables and fruits were poisonous.

According to Tina, a long, long time ago, before the demons had multiplied, a demon had, after eating a vegetable, not only fallen into a hallucination, thinking that he was being pursued and constantly attacking other demons in the demon lord’s castle, but even a month after the vegetable’s poison had passed, he was still unable to use any magic. Although many demons who didn’t believe in this had tried it afterward, the result was all the same. All the demons who had tried that vegetable had lost the ability to use magic. So since then, the demon lord had issued an order prohibiting the consumption of vegetables and fruits.

Putting aside the truth of the matter, even if it were true, in Yisi’s view, the course of events should be that the demons at that time did not have a complete diet, and did not know which vegetables were edible and which were not. And the poisoned demon had happened to eat an ‘inedible’ vegetable. So the demon lord at that time, in order to prevent similar situations from happening again, had issued an order prohibiting the consumption of vegetables. After all, compared to the wide variety of poisonous plants, the variety of naturally poisonous meat was pitifully small.

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After Yisi had explained this possibility to Tina and had eaten a piece of fruit on the spot, Tina also tried it once. As Yisi had imagined, Tina’s expression turned into a ‘>_<‘ shape upon tasting fruit for the first time.

She seemed to really like the sweetness of the fruit. After confirming that the fruit was edible, Tina tossed aside the meat dishes she had previously regarded as delicacies and enjoyed the fruit plate bite after bite. What made Yisi smile was that although Tina had also confirmed that the vegetables were not poisonous, she still tossed them aside. It seemed that not liking to eat vegetables was a natural trait of all children.

By the time Tina had finished her dinner, it was almost dawn. The huge dining room was filled with only the sound of Tina’s satisfaction. The daffodil-yellow light shone on the white tablecloth, and the reflected pure white luster made the silence in the dining room even more profound. Looking down at the city through the glass window, the dark night sky was without a single candlelight. At this moment, all the residents had fallen asleep.

“Alright, I am satisfied.”

Wiping her mouth with the napkin tied around her chest, Tina prepared to get up from her seat. But probably because she was too full and it would be uncomfortable to stand up, Tina sat back down again and said in a proud and arrogant tone.

“Mmm, seeing as you have served me so diligently, I shall reluctantly grant your wish and tell you the way to restore your lover’s freedom.”

“The way? Can’t you just use magic to restore it directly? By the way, Evelyn is not my lover. What on earth is going on in that little head of yours?”

“Ohoho, are you shy? You must be shy, right? Oh my, there’s no need to be so shy in front of me. I lo~~ve watching you humans worry about love—Gah!”

Because Tina had leaned forward, and her gossip-mongering expression with her ω-shaped mouth half-covered was too punchable, Yisi couldn’t help but knock her on the head with her fist. As a result, Tina bit her tongue, and her eyes instantly turned into a ´×ω×` shape.

“Say any more of that and I’ll hang you back on the cross.”

“Uu… demon,” she cursed tearfully. Tina aggrievedly brought the topic back on track. “That human has absorbed a Divine Key. Even I can’t directly restore her freedom. Well, it’s not a problem to separate the Divine Key from her body, but then she’ll have to start from level 1 and level up all over again.”

“A Divine Key? What’s that?”

Thinking of some possibilities, Yisi became alert.

Leaning back brashly in her chair, Tina looked up at the ceiling in a very unladylike posture.

“Ah, you don’t know yet. The so-called Divine Keys are the chess pieces left behind by the gods, a kind of materialized divine power. When I was bathing just now, I found that the half-elf had a Divine Key hanging around her neck. That’s a good thing. Don’t lose it.”

“A good thing? Didn’t you say that the Divine Key was restricting Evelyn?”

“That’s true, but that’s because the Divine Key has entered her body, so it became a restriction. Normally, a Divine Key would only appear in the shape of a chess piece. Ah, let me put it another way. You can think of the Tower of Ymir as a Divine Key. When Evelyn was born, she absorbed a part of the power of the Divine Key within the Tower. As a result, her magic power purity is much higher than an ordinary person’s, and her hair is also completely silver. But as a price, because the Divine Key is the source of her magic power, as soon as she leaves the range of the Tower of Ymir, the power bestowed upon her by the Divine Key will become ineffective due to the distance from the parent body. The result is that as soon as she leaves the Tower of Ymir, she will lose her magic power.”

In other words, Evelyn’s power comes from the parent body, the Tower of Ymir. So as long as she leaves the Tower, the power of the Divine Key in her body will become ineffective, and she will lose her magic power.

But isn’t this an unsolvable problem?

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Yisi frowned slightly.

To separate the power of the Divine Key from Evelyn, Evelyn would lose all her magic power and have to start from scratch. Although the newly gained levels would no longer disappear when she left the Tower of Ymir, Evelyn would probably not agree to give up her level 25 power and start from scratch.

After telling Tina this result, Tina nodded as a matter of course.

“Of course it’s like that. I wouldn’t agree either. The growth of a human is accompanied by trials of life and death. An ordinary person can never reach level 25 in their lifetime. How easy is it to give up everything you’ve worked for? That’s why I only told you the method and let you do it yourselves.”

At this, Tina sat up straight. While playing with her hair, letting the gray ends wrap around her fingertips, she swung her small legs back and forth under the chair—no matter how one looked at her, she was a child.

“As for the method… you just need to find another Divine Key in the shape of a chess piece. Have Evelyn carry it with her. That way, when she leaves the range of the Tower of Ymir, the power of the Divine Key from the Tower in her body will enter the chess piece she is carrying. As long as she learns how to activate the chess piece Divine Key, not only will she not lose her level, but she will also be able to exert even greater strength than before.”

“Is that even possible? Evelyn’s power clearly belongs to the Tower of Ymir. According to you, the Tower is a Divine Key, and the chess piece on Mary’s neck is also a Divine Key. Are they the same thing?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not a problem. The Tower of Ymir is just a large-sized chess piece. The essence of both is the same. To return to the topic, as long as you make the chess piece Divine Key resonate with the Tower of Ymir, their powers can be interchanged anytime, anywhere—you don’t have to worry about how to do that. Seeing as you helped me clear up the misunderstanding that ‘fruits are actually poisonous,’ I will reluctantly help you with the resonance.”

“Then do you have a chess piece Divine Key?”

“Huh?” Tina’s eyes widened, a look of seeing an idiot on her face. “I’m a Demon Lord, you know. No matter how weak the power of a Divine Key is, I can’t get close… I hate the power of the gods. I would never collect that kind of thing. Although the chess piece Divine Keys have long since been scattered to the various corners of the continent, there is one place where they must still exist. It’s in the ruins of the Age of the Gods that the Ymir Church talks about. You should be able to find one there.”

Since the appearance of the chess piece Divine Keys is the same as that of chess pieces, with this as a clue, Evelyn should be able to find one easily. Then she just needs to ask Tina for help, and it’s done.

“That being said, it’s not like Evelyn can find a Divine Key so quickly. You’re not going to stay here with me all the time, are you? I’m not confident I can keep you hidden here without anyone finding out. Your horns and tail are too obvious.”

The tail swaying behind Tina had a tempting allure, making one want to reach out and grab it.

“Hmph!” Like a tsundere protagonist from an anime, Tina’s light snort was very deliberate, her tone revealing her dissatisfaction at being disliked. “I have no intention of staying here forever. I’ll have one more breakfast and then go back!”

So she’s still going to have another breakfast before she leaves.

I thought Tina was going to make a very dignified statement.

Unable to help but smile, Yisi sighed with feigned trouble.

“Ah~ ah~ I was just thinking that as long as the Demon Lord helped us repair the barrier, we would find all the delicacies in the kingdom to treat her. But alas, the Demon Lord’s time is too tight. We don’t have the chance to entertain her.”

The moment her words fell, a breeze blew through the dining room. Tina, with a particularly imposing movement, shot up, her hands slapping on the table with a ‘smack,’ her eyes filled with an unshakable resolve.

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“Why didn’t you say so sooner! I… I can stay a little longer. Mmm, no, I should say that I haven’t finished my tour of duty yet. I can’t go back yet!”

“Eh, really? But if you don’t hide your tail and horns properly, if you’re exposed, you’ll have to terminate the plan.”

“Guh… I’ll hide them. I’ll hide them, alright?”

Like a deflated ball, the tail swaying behind Tina drooped down.

“Well, well, don’t be so down,” suddenly thinking of something else, Yisi let out a light “ah.” “Wait, I have a question. As a demon lord, do you need to sleep?”

“Of course. I’m not one of those angels.”

“That’s true. Then where should I have you sleep tonight…”

Tina pointed at Yisi without any politeness.

“In your room!”

“No. Although I don’t mind sleeping in the same bed with you, it would be bad if Laxy were to find out you’re a demon lord. The best-case scenario would be that you’d be evenly divided into several pieces—wait, with Laxy’s doting on children, maybe she surprisingly wouldn’t do anything to you? Want to try and see? Laxy is very tolerant of children, you know?”

As if she had imagined herself being divided into several pieces, Tina’s face turned pale, and her expression gradually stiffened.

“N-no, thank you. I’ll just sleep with that half-elf. She’s easier to talk to.”

Although Tina looked harmless now, would it really be alright to have her sleep with Mary? Tina may have no magic power, but the physical strength of a demon lord was there. Yisi was a little worried.

Seeing her worry, Tina’s mouth turned into a へ-shape unhappily.

“Alright, alright. I’ll just sleep on the roof. Are you happy now?”

No, no, to have an eight-year-old loli like Tina sleep on the roof and freeze, it would be too much for one’s conscience.

After a moment’s thought, Yisi finalized the plan.

—Have Laxy accompany Mary, and Tina would sleep in the same bed with her.