I Saved a Demon, and Now He’s After Me - Chapter 66

“You should at least finish your food before you go.”

“I’m late!”

“Since when is there a set time for working out….”

Eden turned away, pretending not to notice Bezel’s puzzled expression. Entering her bedroom to change into workout clothes, she slammed the door shut with a bang and leaned against the wall, sliding down to the floor. It wasn’t just her face that was burning, but her lower abdomen was throbbing too. She didn’t even need to take her clothes off to know.

“S**t….”

She was wet. Just like when he had gone down on her in the dream, fluid was leaking out from down below.

‘You must have had a good dream.’

Those lips that had curled so smoothly as he said it. The red tongue that peeked out every time those lips moved.

“I must be losing it, seriously.”

This was all because of seven years of forced celibacy. Her desires had been suppressed for so long that they were bound to burst out regardless of the target. Of all things, a man with a stunning face and a magnificent c**k just had to move into her house….

‘This is a trial given to me by God.’ Even Eden, who didn’t believe in God, found herself involuntarily invoking his name once the situation turned against her.

At times like this, the best thing to do was work out and shake off the stray thoughts. Eden, burning with motivation to train for the first time in a while, leapt to her feet and threw off her clothes.

* * *

After finishing her morning jog by running ten laps around the nearby park, Eden went to visit the information broker she always did business with. As she wiped the sweat dripping down her chin and opened the door, Pepe, who was leaning against the counter smoking a cigarette, spread both arms wide in welcome.

“Hey.”

Pepe was an information broker who had helped Eden a great deal since she first started working as a Hunter. Back then, Eden had only been in her early twenties. When this rookie, still wet behind the ears, came asking for work, Pepe scoffed at her and tossed only cheap missions her way.

At that time, Eden was the greenest of the green, stupidly strong but with absolutely no technique for dealing with demons. She would barely scrape through even those cheap missions and come back in tatters.

Pepe had thought she would quit being a Hunter before long. She knew about Eden’s circumstances, losing her parents to a demon, but there wasn’t a single person in the Hunter business who didn’t have some painful story like that. Sure, right after losing family, they would naturally burn with a desire for revenge and work hard, but that only lasted three or four months. By around the half-year mark, half of those people would often drop out, worn down and sick of demons.

“You look so frail. I’m giving you exactly three months.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Until you quit, I mean.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Yeah, it will.”

Her pride wounded, Eden made a proposal.

“Then shall we make a bet? If I don’t quit by then, stop looking down on me. And stop giving me these worthless, low-paying commissions that are nothing but hard work.”

Pepe’s eyes narrowed at the words that directly mocked her behavior. She had thought Eden was a clueless rookie, but she had some wits about her.

“Fine. Then if you quit within three months, what will you give me?”

“All the commission fees I’ve saved up so far.”

Pepe snorted so hard that the bull ring piercing in her nose rattled.

‘How much money could that kid possibly have saved up anyway? I’d be better off going out into the alley and robbing a passerby.’ It was right when Pepe was about to refuse, saying she wouldn’t take something like that even if it was given to her.

“And on top of that, take the payout for my life. My parents made sure to set me up with a generous insurance policy since I was young.”

So this young girl was saying that she would lay down her life if she gave up on her revenge. That was more resolve than she expected. Pepe began to take an interest in the girl she had previously only seen as a joke. That was how their deal began, and Eden, as if to show off, had continued her Hunter work to this very day.

“You here to buy a commission? Don’t you have a packed schedule for nearly a week?”

Pepe asked, taking a long drag of her cigarette. Every time she spoke, hazy smoke puffed out from between lips heavy with piercings.

True to someone who sold information in the back alleys, Pepe boasted rugged facial features. Short-cropped purple hair, piercings adorning her eyebrows, nose, lips, and ears all over. The tattoos covering both arms and the skull-patterned clothes as flashy as those tattoos were her trademark.

“Not a commission today, but information. I was wondering if there’s anything I could find out about that bastard enemy of mine.”

Over the course of seven years of doing business together, Eden and Pepe had become comfortable enough to speak casually with each other. Pepe was about five years older, but in these back alleys, it was skill, not age, that determined the pecking order. Going strictly by reputation, Eden was now in a position where Pepe should be calling her the senior.