Chapter: 181
“Ah…!”
Lian screamed like a ghost being exorcised, but the Demon King didn’t care much. With such an adorable voice, it felt more like a playful tease. The Demon King lay comfortably on an opulent sofa, his slime form cradled securely in his arms.
His jet-black hair splayed like a painting on the velvet-covered luxury sofa. The Demon King poked Lian’s body with his finger, wearing a smile on his face.
“Are you not going to tell me why you’re rolling around?”
About a month had passed since Lian returned after saving Iris and Noah. With so much time spent closely together, at some point, the Demon King started speaking informally. Since they began casually chatting, his physical affection had become even more unrestrained.
It was like a human permitted to approach a wild animal, suddenly breaking down the distance. Rather than looking gloomy and harming himself, Lian lay there obediently, whether the Demon King poked or pressed.
They say habits need to be corrected early on…
While the Demon King toyed with the line carefully, his eyes sparkled as he held Lian tight and didn’t let go. At first, thoughts like “I’m someone who has a master!” crossed his mind, but soon, he couldn’t help but go limp.
Even if he had confessed to Noah, it wasn’t a proper confession, nor did he hear Noah’s response. He might think that since he dreamt of marrying her, that counted as an acceptance, but…
Noah had clearly called him a “fake” the first time she saw him. That statement meant she considered their lovey-dovey married life to be “fake.”
It wasn’t weird saying it was fake because it was a dream. However, it felt like it undermined his married life, so Lian couldn’t readily conclude that Noah liked him.
Honestly, at this point, it was strange if he didn’t know, but Lian was a pure human with the patent on a unicorn(?). He might survive in the gag world, but when it came to romance, his level was close to zero, akin to eating three yams without any water—an absolute failure.
For that reason, Lian couldn’t easily push the Demon King away.
This wasn’t the only reason. As the Demon King’s mental state stabilized, his obsession with Lian intensified. It was enough to say he was addicted to Lian.
He didn’t want to leave Lian’s side for even a moment, and if they were a certain distance apart, he wouldn’t let go, holding Lian tightly like this. After a month, he had grown used to being cradled, but…
“Omnomnom…”
“Yah!”
Just like pet owners who sniff their dog’s paws or bury their faces in their cat’s belly, the Demon King buried his face in Lian’s shapeless body and nibbled playfully.
He didn’t gnaw on Lian’s squishy form like jelly, but rather nibbled playfully, like a child teasing.
“Stop, stop! I’m a fully grown man on the inside, you know?!”
Unable to withstand the caressing-nibbles any longer, Lian declared that his insides were a fully grown man long ago.
Despite his harmless appearance and cute voice, if one were to say there was a mysterious dark man inside… normally, one would think! Typically, you’d get averse to that!
“Sure, even if I transform back to my original body, I’ll still do this.”
“That’s not the problem! …Gah!”
The Demon King didn’t love Lian simply because he was slime; he continued to mark his territory on Lian’s soft slime body. Given its squishy nature, it was simply covered in the Demon King’s precious saliva, which led him to pout in dissatisfaction.
After being relentlessly tormented by the Demon King yet again, Lian appeared utterly pale, as if he had endured a fierce battle.
“I… I endured it…”
At first, he nearly lost his physical form from the slime fluid that filled his body, spewing it out like a nosebleed. Having the majority of his soul slip away and then return was not an enjoyable experience at all.
“Of course I did gain incredible information from that experience… ugh…”
From the experience of exiting and returning to his slime body, Lian learned about “possessing.” Now, he could steal another body, even without being a slime.
Which raised the question of why he remained in slime form instead of returning to his original body. The answer was simple.
After traveling long distances to assist Iris and Noah, the thread connecting him to his body had stretched extensively. It was nearly as long as the distance between the Empire and the Demon King’s territory, or perhaps even longer, so no matter how far he went, he couldn’t summon his original body beside him anymore.
Because of that, he realized it too late.
“I never thought they’d take me to war.”
At some point, the body connected to him had disappeared from the Demon King’s Castle due to mysterious “treatment.” After slipping into various places in this squishy form, he eventually located his own body.
He had been dragged to the battlefield known as the Empire’s borders, where the Empire and Demon King’s Army clashed violently. When he first learned this fact, he panicked and tried to abandon his slime body to fly to the battlefield at once.
Just as he was about to do so, a fortune teller, appearing as if she had been waiting for this moment, quietly approached Lian from the shadows.
“Hoho… Could you wait for a moment?”
“…! Perfect timing! Send me back to the Empire like before!”
If he went directly, it would take days to reach the battlefield, and he could easily get lost. Besides, there were more than ten thousand demonic beings, monsters, and corrupted humans involved in the battle. Finding his own body among them was like searching for a needle in a haystack.
That’s why the suddenly appearing fortune teller seemed like a savior.
“Unfortunately, that will be difficult. There aren’t enough materials for the ritual… and there’s no way to acquire them immediately.”
Though Lian, who had something like a four-dimensional pocket, claimed he could pull anything out, the old woman slightly bowed her head and replied.
“The biggest issue is that even if you fly near your body, it won’t be preventable. My spell hinges on the soul returning to its original place; even if the body is taken away, it will eventually return here. There are methods for flying directly, but… the likelihood of being devoured by a demonic beast along the way is high, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“That can’t be…”
“But don’t worry.”
The old woman chuckled again and lightly tapped the ground with what appeared to be a 1.2-meter-long wizard’s staff.
“I can handle the urgent fire, so trust me.”
In her gentle tone, the old woman conjured a spell, brightening the atmosphere. The sacred light, out of place in the Demon King’s Castle, pierced through the ceiling and quickly vanished. The old woman looked at the slightly firming slime with a bewildered expression and explained in a calm voice.
“I’ve placed a blessing on Lian’s body, which is on the battlefield. It’s the blessing of a noble knight who can punish only sinners.”
Lian asked, half in disbelief, whether those who had sinned due to harsh surroundings would also be included. The old woman shook her head and replied.
“Sinners do not feel shame for their crimes or guilt. They delight in the wounds of others, and their souls are so tarnished that they emit a foul stench. So you don’t need to worry.”
At that, Lian felt a deep sense of relief.
If someone with a fragile mentality thought, “Sinners? But I killed people with my own hands…” they’d be caught in a pit of despair. But Lian, coming from a gag world where he could lose his head and just pick it back up before heading home, felt no shock at all.
He held nothing but gratitude toward the old woman who helped him protect his precious people.
Afterwards, rumors spread around saying Lian’s body was rampaging on the battlefield and sparing some humans, indicating he indeed had a taste for the grotesque.
“But all I did was let the innocent go!”
Thanks to the blessing, innocent people wouldn’t be attacked by “Lian’s body.” The problem lay in the fact that this world was a “dark fantasy.”
Human trafficking was an ordinary affair, and some corrupt nobles enjoyed human flesh as a delicacy. There were villages that treated slaves as consumables and used them as fuel, and farms that raised humans like livestock, harvesting their lives once they turned ten years old.
Seeing the dark fantasy world without a humor filter was pure evil. The strong committed sins far too easily, and even the weak committed sins without hesitation, as if they had no choice but to lash out.
Truly good people often met their end at a young age in such a cruel reality. Because of that, it was nearly impossible to find a sinner among the humans populating the battlefield. The only place where the ratio of sinners was low was at the frontline.
Since that was where the most people died, the proportion of sinners who only valued their own lives was remarkably low. Naïve youths held hostage by their precious ones desperately charged out to protect the world, while Lian’s body simply sliced through the ones grinning in the back, mowing them down like crops.
“Lian’s body,” which exclusively sought out and slaughtered sinners, was a true knight in essence, but… no one expressed gratitude to Lian.
This is because there was no one in the lands of the Demon King or the Imperial Army who could see the disgrace of sin.
Both the Demon King’s Army and the Imperial Army interpreted it as, “I don’t want to fight sissies,” or “Weaklings should be let go casually, and it’s more entertaining to kill them one by one. If you don’t want to die like those in the back, entertain me!”
Whichever interpretation it was, all were exceedingly cruel.
“Fortunately, my face is hidden by this helmet, so it doesn’t seem like I’ve been discovered… but that’s just a matter of time. Not just the Duke, but even Noah has come to the battlefield.”
Lian squirmed his squishy body as he steeled his resolve.
“I need to find a body that matches my soul as quickly as possible and get out of here!”
As he slightly hardened his squishy body and ignited his ambition, he suddenly noticed a presence approaching and bit down hard on him.
“Yah?!”
“What were you thinking, leaving me by your side?”
The Demon King narrowed his eyes and gazed down at Lian. Feeling like his escape plan had been uncovered, Lian’s body trembled slightly.
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