Chapter 98 - My World Will Be Dull

Behind the eyeholes, the Wicked Laughing Demon's eyes were smiling broadly.

Could he ever have imagined that I would demand he remove his mask in exchange for lifting his restriction?

He was angry, but he was enjoying himself at the same time. I was probably the first person to make those two opposing emotions coexist within him.

He had probably never encountered anyone who challenged him so brazenly in his entire life, either. Even Father did not treat the Demon Supremes with such disregard.

I knew how much the Wicked Laughing Demon relished moments like this. His blood would be racing, his heart pounding like mad. I considered this a kind of sickness, too.

"What will you do if I promise to remove my mask, then fail to keep that promise?"

"I'll have to jump you and pull it off by force."

"Go on, then. Let's have a practice run now."

In an instant, the light in his eyes subsided. Ready to fight, he had become an entirely different person from the man he had been a moment earlier.

I waved my hands in refusal and pushed my chair back.

"Try that, and I might end up having the skin peeled off my own face."

Relaxing his qi presence, the Wicked Laughing Demon asked casually, "Well, if you can't force it off, what will you do now?"

I gazed at him for a moment before answering calmly.

"Nothing."

The Wicked Laughing Demon flinched. I had just given the correct answer—one even he himself did not know.

Do nothing.

That was the answer when dealing with someone as contrary as him. Looking perplexed, he asked me:

"Do you mean you'll trust me?"

"Honestly, I don't. Wicked Laughing Demon isn't exactly a name that inspires trust, is it?"

I smiled as though I were joking, but he did not smile.

"Come on, let's get going. You need to go have your own meal, Laughing Demon."

I did not explain my reason to him. Sometimes saying nothing worked best, particularly when, as in this case, there was no special reason.

Occasionally, the other person would inflate that trifling nothing into some plausible explanation for me.

I rose first, and the Wicked Laughing Demon followed.

We left Merry Life Tavern and retraced our steps. After walking beside me for a while, he stopped.

"Please wait a moment."

He went over to the mask vendor, bought a white mask, and handed it to me.

"A gift to commemorate today."

Taking the mask, I said, "I made removing your mask my condition, yet here you are putting one on my face instead."

I obediently put it on.

"This feels stifling. I guarantee you'd fight twice as well without your mask, Laughing Demon. Just how long do you have to wear this before it becomes comfortable?"

"Not as long as you might think."

"If that's true, the reverse should hold as well. I mean the time it takes to feel comfortable without a mask."

Through the mask's eyeholes, I could see the Wicked Laughing Demon gazing silently at me.

So this was how he had been seeing me.

Now he, too, could read me only through the eyes visible in those holes. Perhaps that put me at a greater disadvantage. He had spent a great many years among countless masked subordinates, after all.

I pulled the mask up onto my head like a hat.

"Wear it this way. Isn't it wonderfully comfortable? Put it on when you want to, take it off when you want to. Just like this."

As I spoke, I patted the mask on top of my head, its face turned toward the sky.

"This fellow will enjoy it, too. Looking up at the sky like this."

The Wicked Laughing Demon looked up at the sky.

"Wouldn't this do? Then both of us can see the sky."

He gazed skyward for a long time with empty eyes. By the time he turned his gaze back to me, he had already made his decision.

"Very well. I accept your condition, Second Young Master. If you have my restriction lifted, I will remove my mask when we are alone together."

I did not believe he would keep his promise.

Before my regression, I had seen his face only once, before he died. He would not take off his mask easily.

Still, the promise itself meant something. Would I really get to see his younger face?

"Thank you, Laughing Demon."

The vertical mark on the line drawn in my heart moved a little farther to the right. There was still a long way to go. Only after it passed the halfway point would he even begin debating whether or not to kill me.

"I'll need at least a condition like this if I'm going to take on Father, won't I?"

We smiled at each other. Neither of us put any of our true feelings into it, but we smiled broadly, as though those smiles were the token of our agreement.

* * *

The following day, when I entered Heavenly Demon Hall, Chief Strategist Sima Myeong was there as well.

After paying my respects to Father, I bantered with him.

"You've put me in quite a predicament lately, Strategist."

"What do you mean?"

"Father has closed the gap to just two points."

Only then did Sima Myeong realize I was talking about go, and he smiled.

"That's what happens when you let yourself be swindled by a strategist who can't play go."

"So you've already heard."

This time, I smiled. Father was so taciturn that I would never have expected him to repeat our jokes to anyone, yet he told Sima Myeong everything like this. That must have been a measure of their closeness.

After those lighthearted greetings, I told Father why I had come.

"Father, I've come to ask a favor."

"Speak."

"Please lift the Wicked Laughing Demon's restriction."

Father was not surprised. He had probably received reports that I had been spending time with the Wicked Laughing Demon lately.

While he looked down at me in silence, Sima Myeong spoke in his stead.

"May I ask why?"

"The Wicked Laughing Demon came to me and asked."

"Couldn't you simply refuse?"

"What if I refused and he threatened to kill my family? Ah, then I'd become the Heavenly Demon. Should I have let him?"

Sima Myeong did not smile at my joke.

"This is no joking matter. Do you know why the Wicked Laughing Demon was placed under restriction?"

"I do. He massacred martial artists from the Unorthodox Alliance."

"The Laughing Demon cannot control his anger."

"The longer you keep him confined, the greater the anger that will erupt."

Sima Myeong could not refute that, either.

Father, who had been listening, suddenly asked, "Can you take responsibility?"

"Why should I take responsibility? The person who causes the trouble should be held responsible."

"If a dog bites someone after being let off its leash, how can the dog alone be responsible? The person who unleashed it must bear responsibility, too."

"Well, that's true, but..."

"If you accept the condition that you will take responsibility, I will lift the restriction."

"I can't spend forever looking after him, can I? Once his restriction is lifted, he'll leave the Cult grounds right away. I'll take responsibility only for what happens on that outing."

"Agreed!"

Unlike Father, who readily granted permission, Sima Myeong still looked uneasy and reiterated his warning.

"The Wicked Laughing Demon must have accumulated considerable resentment during these past two years of confinement within the Cult. Once he enters the Central Plains, he may embark on a slaughter."

"I'll bear that in mind and keep a careful watch on him."

Finally, I thanked Father.

"Thank you for granting permission, Father."

Of course, he did not simply accept my thanks.

"Is this truly something to be grateful for?"

From Heavenly Demon Hall's perspective, keeping the Wicked Laughing Demon under restriction forever was not an option. Under those circumstances, my request would have given Father ample reason to lift it. In the end, this, too, had become a kind of test for his successor.

Sorry, Father, but I would have the advantage this time. I already knew what the Wicked Laughing Demon intended to do once he left the Cult grounds.

* * *

Upon leaving Heavenly Demon Hall, I went straight to Villains' Valley to see the Wicked Laughing Demon.

"Did you really obtain permission?"

Apparently, he had not expected me to secure Father's permission in a single day.

"Yes. Your restriction will be lifted tomorrow. The official document should arrive from Heaven-Reaching Pavilion sometime tomorrow."

Admiration flashed through his eyes.

"I didn't know you could manage it so quickly."

"Now you understand why you should support me instead of my brother, don't you?"

"I'll have to give that serious consideration. But did the cult leader simply grant permission?"

"Of course not. Father imposed a condition."

"What condition?"

After letting out a somewhat exaggerated sigh, I told him, "If you cause any trouble, I've agreed to take full responsibility for it."

"Oh! You've staked your claim to the succession for my sake."

"More or less."

He made no effort to conceal his surprise.

"Is this worth that much?"

"Seeing your face? I think it's more than worth it."

"You've staked far too much just to flatter me like this, Second Young Master."

"Since you've already caught me flattering you, let me add one more thing. Becoming friends with the Wicked Laughing Demon is something no one else will ever experience in their lifetime. That's well worth the wager."

He stared intently at me. He probably wanted to discover what I was plotting, but he would not be able to understand me merely from my expression and the look in my eyes. Not in the past, not now, and not in the future.

"In other words, I can cause as much trouble as I please. You'll be taking responsibility, after all."

"It's enough to drive me mad, really."

"Why didn't you conceal it? You could simply have refrained from telling me you'd promised to take responsibility. It gives me a weakness to exploit."

"I had to tell you. Don't most of our problems arise because we fail to speak when we should?"

The Wicked Laughing Demon gave an odd laugh, different from his habitual laughter.

"I have no desire to underestimate you. Nor do I think hiding something will prevent what is going to happen."

"Whenever I heard rumors about you, Second Young Master, I thought they were exaggerated. Now I see they were considerably understated."

"Perhaps that's because of who you are, Laughing Demon."

"What do you mean?"

"Even the same report can sound different depending on the emotion behind it. But your subordinates can't help stiffening in your presence. You would receive only dry reports stripped of as much personal opinion and emotion as possible. They wouldn't have properly conveyed what kind of person I am."

"That makes a great deal of sense."

His laughter sounded different again. That was how the Laughing Demon laughed when he had a lot on his mind.

"In return, there's one thing you must promise me."

"What is it?"

"Whenever you leave the Cult grounds, you must go with me. Break that promise, and your restriction will be reinstated. You'll probably have to serve the entire term again from the beginning."

"No need to put it off. Let's leave tomorrow."

This was the Wicked Laughing Demon: a man who made decisions on impulse. That was what made him so difficult to deal with.

I answered without hesitation myself.

"I'm looking forward to traveling with you."

I had deliberately described our departure as a trip.

"We aren't going on a trip."

"If you go with a friend, isn't it a trip wherever you go?"

I did not intend to approach this journey in a state of anxiety, telling myself I had to stop him from causing trouble at all costs.

I would go with the genuine intention of enjoying a brief outing with the Wicked Laughing Demon. If my friend got into a fight, I would stop him; if he fell into danger, I would save him. Nothing more than that.

"Well, I'll take my leave now."

"I'll see you tomorrow morning, Second Young Master."

As I opened the door to leave, the Wicked Laughing Demon asked from behind me, "Is there anywhere you'd like to go?"

I turned back to him.

"Plenty of places. But on this outing, I want to see your world. Show me around."

"My world will be dull. Perhaps even duller than Demon Family Village."

"You feel that way because it's your own world. Someone else might see it differently."

He laughed, and I laughed along with him.

I found myself laughing often when I met the Laughing Demon. Whether the laughter was forced, concealed a dagger, or carried genuine feeling, I laughed all the same. They said frequent laughter made you live longer. There was this benefit, too.

As I opened the door again to leave, I added one last thing.

"By the way, Demon Family Village isn't all that dull. Its people make a living selling masks to the Wicked Laughing Demon, don't they?"