Chapter 3
“Who’s talking about me? Why is my ear itching so much?”
Descartes scratched his ear and looked at the stage in front of him. On the stage, today’s offering was shaking in the iron cage, trapped inside.
He had invested ten years for this day. Ten years studying demon summoning methods, searching the country for comrades to share in the glorious moment of serving Him. Years spent buying slaves, gathering money to purchase the mansion where they would host Him. Finally, the day of reckoning had arrived.
“High Priest. Should I bring out the sacrifice?”
“Yes. Be careful not to disturb the symbols.”
On the stage was a summoning circle drawn in goat’s blood. The follower walked cautiously, avoiding the blood stains, and went to the cage to retrieve the sacrifice.
Even after being pulled out of the cage, the sacrifice couldn’t run away and collapsed on the floor. Starved for days, it seemed they lacked the strength to flee nor the strength to cry for help.
“Today marks the sixth and final sacrifice.”
With a proud expression, Descartes walked onto the stage holding a dagger. The dagger was already stained with the blood of humans sacrificed before.
He had killed five humans over the last five days, one each day. After today’s final sacrifice, the long summoning ritual would be complete. At last, the Demon of Gluttony, Beelzebub, would descend.
“Curse me all you want. The more you suffer and scream, the more pleased Beelzebub will be!”
Descartes raised the dagger.
Thk.
With the now-familiar sensation, the dagger sliced through the sacrifice’s stomach.
“Guh…!”
With a sharp scream, the sacrifice vomited blood. The blood spilled from their stomach and mouth, scattering across the summoning circle.
“O Demon of Gluttony! Deliver these foolish humans from their sins!”
The priest tossed the lifeless body to the floor and descended from the stage to prostrate himself. Following him, the rest of the congregation also prostrated themselves on the floor, bowing their heads.
“Beelzebub!”
“Beelzebub!”
“Beelzebub!”
They shouted his name three times.
The air around the stage suddenly grew cold, then a thick silence descended where not even breathing could be heard.
“Who dares summon me from Hell?”
At the sound of the sweet voice, a chill ran down the priest’s spine. The priest shakily raised his head.
A naked man stood on the stage. With radiant golden hair and purple eyes glowing with a mysterious light. He was a beautiful man, like something carefully crafted by the God of Hell.
“Ah… Beelzebub, my lord…!”
Beelzebub waved his hand toward the priest. Overcome with emotion at being summoned, the priest crawled onto the stage on all fours.
Beelzebub bent down, grabbed the priest’s chin, and lifted it. The middle-aged man with hair streaked with gray, looked up with a face mixed with fear and awe.
“So this insignificant human dared to summon me.”
He had been enjoying a banquet celebrating Lucifer’s birthday along with hundreds of succubi. He was sucking on a naked incubus’s b****t and teasing her below when he was forcibly summoned to the human realm.
The boundary between Hell and the human realm was clear. Using this mansion as an example, it could be said to be like different rooms separated by walls. Between them existed a door connecting the two spaces. Normally it remained tightly closed, but intense negative energy such as human resentment or extreme despair could crack it open. Mischievous demons would sometimes slip through and torment humans.
But that was only for demons with nothing better to do. A demon like Beelzebub was busy enough just ruling Hell.
What good would eating a few humans do? At that time, it was better to merge with a few incubi who had absorbed human essence and gain strength that way.
“So, how do I get back to Hell right now?”
“…What?”
Descartes had the blank expression of someone who had heard something they shouldn’t. He did his best to deny what he had heard.
“What did you just say…?”
“I said send me back. Now.”
He tried asking again, but the answer was still the same.
This… this isn’t right… Descartes was engulfed in despair, beads of cold sweat dripping down his face.
After centuries of research, demon worshippers had finally figured out how to summon demons artificially. They drew a magic circle and made sacrifices in the proper order.
However, there was one limitation. The door they opened could only act as an entrance. It could not be used to send demons back.
Well, setting aside these tedious circumstances, Descartes had absolutely no intention of sending the demon back, not even the slightest bit, not even as much as dirt under his fingernails or toenails.
“B-Beelzebub, my lord! We spent ten full years preparing to summon you! And now you suddenly want to leave the moment you arrive?!”
“I should be the one saying ‘suddenly.’ You should be grateful I’m not cutting your throats.”
“Then please, take our lives instead! If it’s for Lord Beelzebub, we’ll gladly sacrifice them!”
Descartes shot to his feet and pulled the dagger from the sacrifice’s belly. Just as martyrs did not spare their lives to spread the name of God, he too was prepared to die if it meant spreading the greatness of demons to the world.
Beelzebub looked at Descartes with an expression of pure annoyance. The way he mumbled emotionally to himself, saying things that meant nothing to Beelzebub, was as irritating as a fly buzzing around his ears.
‘Should I just eat him?’
But the human before him was too pathetic for that. His spine was bent awkwardly as if he might fall back to the floor at any moment, his aged fingers clutched the dagger shakily, and his eyes and voice, all of it, reeked of pitiful desperation. Even if he was the Demon of Gluttony, he had preferences and taste. Swallowing something like that would only ruin his mood and appetite.
Just then, hurried footsteps echoed from the stairway leading upstairs.
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