I Saved a Demon, and Now He’s After Me - Chapter 48

“Wh-what is this!”

The demon looked at the bullet that had pierced through his body and lodged in the tree behind him. Actually, he didn’t need to ask to know. The only thing that could cause such agony to a demon was a consecrated object.

However, more shocking than this terrible pain was that the one who shot this bullet was none other than a demon like himself. He turned his head sharply with an aggrieved expression.

“Lo…!”

It was the moment he was about to call out his name, Lord Beelzebub!

[Tsk, you can’t get it together. That mouth is hastening your doom.]

Beelzebub gave a small smile as he extended an arm toward him. At the end of his outstretched arm, a muzzle, pitch-black like the color of death, gaped open.

“D-don’t shoot! Please!”

The speed he prided himself on was merely child’s play compared to Beelzebub. No matter where he fled, Beelzebub would strike him at an even faster speed. He could even bind him with shadows to prevent escape entirely.

Eden did not miss the opening when the demon hesitated.

‘He’s very fast, so I need to target his legs first.’

She bent her body, slashed at his front legs, then ran and drove her sword into his back hoof. Even the demon’s thick hide couldn’t deflect the consecrated blade. The sword that pierced through his hoof sank into the ground, firmly fixing the demon’s body in place.

“Eden!”

Johan threw his sword toward her. Eden caught the sword perfectly by the hilt, stepped onto the demon’s long horse-like back, and climbed up.

“Aaagh!“

The demon thrashed, lifting his front legs. The more he struggled, the more the sword piercing his hind leg tore into his flesh, inflicting greater pain. Though he knew in his head that he needed to escape the embedded sword even if his leg was torn off, his leg paralyzed by divine power wouldn’t obey.

The demon turned his head backward with eerie flexibility. As his head turned a full one hundred eighty degrees, his neck bones made a crack, crack, crack sound.

He bared his teeth sharply to bite the human who dared climb on his back. But at the message that followed, he froze, unable to do anything.

[Stop. That woman is my prey.]

Prey was an extremely sensitive matter between demons of different ranks. If he touched that woman, he would meet a miserable death at Beelzebub’s hands.

[Th-then what should I do? I cannot just stand here and take it!]

In that brief moment of their exchange, the woman had raised her sword straight up, holding it high. It was no ordinary blade, but a consecrated sword. If that sword pierced his vital point, even a mid-ranking demon like him had no way to survive.

[Lord Beelzebub! Please help me!]

The desperate demon cried out telepathically. He knew Beelzebub was the one who’d just shot him, but at this moment, there was no one else he could rely on.

Returning his turned neck to its original position to look at him, Beelzebub’s radiant violet eyes curved into a smile. It was an ambiguous smile, impossible to determine whether it meant affirmation or denial.

That was the last sight the demon saw. An unbearable pain slammed down onto the crown of his head, and his vision shattered into white.

This made no sense. A mid-ranking demon like him defeated by just two humans. No, one of them barely even moved, so it was practically being defeated by one person.

The demon collapsed to the ground and stretched his hand forward with difficulty. As if hoping Beelzebub, somewhere ahead, would grasp his hand.

“Ghh…! Hng, hhk.”

But his hand grasped nothing but empty air. Beelzebub turned his back on him to the very end. Though resentful, there was nothing to feel wronged about. Demons were creatures with a strongly individualistic nature. They even devoured their own families, so what more could be said? Forming legions in Hell and fulfilling their respective responsibilities was the result of submission to power. Even loyalty to higher-ranked demons wasn’t out of genuine admiration but merely bowing their heads, pretending to follow out of fear of their power.

‘Even so, to die like this…’

This is all Lord Beelzebub’s fault. Because he’d been too frightened of his presence to make a proper response even once…

The demon let his now completely weakened hand drop to the ground with a thud. Focus rapidly faded from his half-closed, bright red eyes.

“What? Is it over…?”

Eden asked with a dazed expression as she rose from the demon’s body. Bezel nudged the demon’s sprawled leg lightly with the tip of his foot.

“Judging by the lack of response, he seems to be dead.”

“So easily….”

Eden looked at Bezel with a hollow feeling. The mid-ranking demon she’d encountered before had taken over half a day to defeat. It was a victory barely achieved only after two ribs were broken and she nearly lost a finger.

The demon they met today seemed stronger if anything, definitely not weaker. If Eden had been alone, it would have taken a full day to subdue him. Needless to say, she wouldn’t be standing perfectly fine on two legs like now.

This swift victory was entirely thanks to Bezel. They said exorcist priests could slay demons with nothing but prayer, even without weapons, and with divine power being this effective, it was clearly possible.

“What was so unfair that it died without even closing its eyes?”

Eden looked at the red eyes that had lost their light, then raised her sword. The sword’s tip pointed at the demon’s uncharacteristically long and even fingers. Since the upper body had a human form, the fingers looked like those of an ordinary adult man. This was the proof of the commission she would bring to Raymond.