It was already noon by the time they left the Association.
Gray had been enthusiastically planning to invite his captain to lunch, but just as he was about to speak, Lily stopped him with a red emergency request.
“Sorry, Gray, but this request specifically calls for A-rank Power. Your old teammates are reportedly busy, and you’re the only available A-rank Power in the city right now. I have to trouble you with this.”
After speaking, Lily cast an apologetic glance toward Katy.
“Sorry, little Katy, I’m borrowing your member for a while. I’ll definitely return him to you before dinner.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine! Official business comes first!”
Katy accepted readily, then put on an expression of pure admiration to cheer Gray up after he had been conscripted.
“Good luck, Mr. Gray! Miss Lily and I both believe you can do it!”
The girl’s sincere encouragement caused an instant emotional reversal for Gray, who had been feeling a bit sentimental because of how decisively she had let him go.
He threw out a bold declaration that he would complete the request at maximum speed and then charged off like the wind.
***
Returning to their temporary lodgings, Katy threw together a quick lunch.
When she was alone, she always ate simply, as long as it filled her stomach.
Although the scene she caused this morning was cathartic, it had indeed consumed a lot of physical energy, so she had to gnaw on several loaves of bread to make up for the deficit.
After the meal, the girl collapsed onto the bed like a lazy cat, looking as if she were about to melt into the soft bedding.
“So tired, meow. Time for a nap, meow.”
Using a strange verbal tic she had picked up from who-knows-where, she comfortably closed her eyes.
After sleeping for an unknown amount of time, a familiar and heart-pounding fluctuation of mana suddenly radiated from her bedside without warning.
“—Hm!?”
Katy snapped her eyes open to see the crystal ball bestowed by the Demon King flashing with a dim purple light.
“No way, another mission?”
Katy climbed out of bed reluctantly, wiped the crystal ball, and knelt on one knee.
“Your Majesty… Hello? Is any demon there?”
To her surprise, the graceful figure of the Demon King sitting on her throne did not appear in the crystal ball.
Instead, a blurred first-person perspective appeared.
The image shook violently, as if the owner of the perspective was crawling on the ground with great difficulty.
Then, a blood-stained arm appeared at the bottom of the field of vision, crawling forward desperately as if trying to escape something.
Katy recognized it—that was her own hand.
The girl’s sky-blue pupils suddenly constricted.
She stared fixedly at the crystal ball, subconsciously holding her breath.
In front of the perspective, two figures—a man and a woman—were steadily approaching.
Standing in the back was a woman with long pink hair, an enchanting smile on her face, and eyes the same color as her hair glowing with an eerie light.
Lobelia.
And the man standing in front of her held a long blade.
With black hair, black clothes, and his entire body wrapped in violent lightning… there was no doubt, it was Gray.
But he was very wrong right now.
The usual clarity in his iron-gray eyes was gone, replaced by two eerie pink whirlpools.
“Kill her.”
The woman’s smiling command came from the vision.
In the next second, Gray in the crystal ball raised his blade high.
The lightning exploded instantly, and the crystal ball’s vision was immediately covered in a sheet of blood-red before falling into total darkness.
Silence returned to the room.
Katy felt as if someone had just held a blade to her throat; she broke into a cold sweat instantly, soaking even the pajamas she had recently changed into.
For a moment, she had established a sense of empathy with the “self” in the crystal ball, and that final moment of death was too real—so real that she felt the lingering chill of a blade against her neck.
“…Your Majesty, is this you peeling back the veil of the future for me?”
No one answered Katy’s question; only the cicadas outside the window continued their noisy chirping.
The current Demon King was famous among the Demon Race as “The All-Knowing.”
Legend said she knew all causes and effects of the past and future.
She was also the Demon King who had ruled the longest since the First Demon King fell three hundred years ago under the iron fists of a Hero from the Otherworld.
To Katy, if the Demon King wanted to harm her, she would have done so long ago; there was no need for such a prank.
Therefore, what the crystal ball displayed was likely the established future on the Threads of Fate.
If she did nothing, she would die by Gray’s blade in the near future.
Katy frowned deeply.
In the vision, Gray’s eyes were filled with an eerie pink glow and his expression was stiff, while Lobelia behind him smiled wildly, her pupils shining with an enchanting pink light.
“The eyes… hypnosis? Or Mind-type Magic?”
The girl muttered to herself, then slowly shuddered.
She had indeed sensed a strange mana from that boy named Timmy this morning, but she had never thought toward the direction of mind control.
She had assumed it was just because he possessed Dual-attribute Mana; after all, it was normal for a twelve or thirteen-year-old boy to be infatuated with a beautiful older sister.
But looking at it now, that woman Lobelia likely possessed extremely dangerous Mind-type Magic, capable of even controlling Gray, who was an A-rank.
“Then, to survive, what should I do?”
Katy looked at the crystal ball again, hoping to get some strategy tips from the Demon King.
However, facing the girl’s expectant gaze, the crystal ball went completely dark, playing dead like an ordinary glass marble.
“…Your Majesty, you can’t play me like this!”
She knocked on the crystal ball, wanting to cry but having no tears.
Only showing the Bad End without showing the walkthrough?
Is this the perverse sense of humor of The All-Knowing!
But Katy was never the type of person to sit and wait for death.
Since she knew that Lobelia would control Gray to kill her in the future, she would strike first!
Before that guy Gray was completely controlled, she would strip that woman’s… no, expose her secrets completely!
***
As night fell, the streets of Knox City gradually grew quiet.
While Katy changed into black clothes she had dug out of the wardrobe, she couldn’t help but complain:
“That idiot Gray, didn’t he say he’d definitely be back before dinner? Could it be that he went to perform some dangerous mission… tsk, with that guy’s cockroach-like vitality, he shouldn’t be able to die, right?”
The mission process must have been too complicated, preventing that guy Gray from getting away tonight.
Yes, that must be it.
She pulled on a veil to cover her unforgettable face, and the girl lightly flipped out of the window frame, merging silently into the night.
***
Half an hour later, in the wealthy district on the east side of the city, outside a third-floor window of the luxurious mansion where Lobelia was temporarily staying.
Katy was hanging upside down from the eaves like a silent gecko, peeking inside through a gap in the curtains.
Originally, she had only wanted to gather some intelligence, but the scene that met her eyes caused even Katy, who considered herself well-traveled, to gasp.
A man only cries eighteen times in his life, and his dreams are shattered… no, no.
A man will definitely cry once in his life—for example, when he sees that his Goddess is actually a professional player.
“Holy crap, see no evil, see no evil—”
Katy covered her eyes, but her fingers were spread wide.
In the spacious and luxurious living room, Lobelia was wearing a translucent nightgown made of very little fabric, lounging lazily on the sofa.
And around her were four—no, five—well-built and handsome young men.
They were serving her like soulless dolls, competing to massage her, feed her fruit, and even act as her footstools.
Watching this vivid and sensual scene from outside the window, the girl couldn’t help but marvel.
Gray’s former teammate certainly played hard in private!
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.