Chapter 50: Curiosity Regarding the Demons
"Evelyn, what are you doing?! Stay in your seat!" Marie yells at me, irritated, as she sees me getting up from the chair and trying to leave the room.
"Big sis, I’m bored. We’ve been here for 20 hours, I haven’t eaten anything, I haven’t been to the bathroom, I haven’t talked to Eve, and worst of all, I can’t take care of my looks! Look at my hair, it’s a mess!" I say seriously.
"Who cares about that?" When she says that, something inside me snaps.
"I CARE!" I yell, annoyed. My hair is a mess, and even though my skin is fine since I’m a living doll, my hair got all tangled and rebellious from the positions and movements.
Besides the sweat, since my doll body perfectly simulates a normal body, it ends up having many basic functions, getting rid only of the most useless ones, which means it also sweats, and so I’m sticky from the sweat that came from running around carrying balls to other rooms.
"Look at my hair, it’s so disheveled! It’s going to ruin its natural look!" I say, trying to contain the irritation. I know this can be easily fixed since I’m a living doll, but my mind isn’t thinking straight.
"If it gets bad, you just need to buy some magic products to fix it and..."
"I don’t have any," I interrupt her.
"Huh?"
"I don’t have any magic products, I don’t have any relics, I don’t even have money to buy something of quality. My shampoo is the cheapest kind, and I take care of my hair with my hands and a wooden brush I made," I say, surprising her.
It’s obvious that Marie doesn’t know, but I literally have nothing, and what I do have is of the lowest quality possible, so the fact that I maintain my current beauty is due to extreme care.
"I need to take care of my hair, or restoring it will be a nightmare." My hands are shaking, some kind of strange feeling that I have to be perfect covers all my rationality.
Anyway, in 20 hours, Esther has destroyed 78% of the balls, which means she has 4 hours to destroy the rest, but I don’t have time to worry about that when a beauty emergency is happening.
"If you’re going to be so paranoid, come here. I’ll take care of it before you do something stupid and ruin the perfect plans we have," Marie says, surprising me by offering to take care of my hair.
"Really? You’d do that for me?" I ask seriously. Normally, at this point, I’d either be fixing my hair myself or Eve would be doing it for me.
"Yeah, yeah, anyway, I’m bored. At least this will distract me," she says as she puts a chair in front of her, and I quickly go and sit on the chair.
"..." Marie uses her blessing to create a hairbrush and then starts brushing my hair, and as soon as she touches and starts doing it, I calm down.
’Damn, what was that reaction?’ Normally, I wouldn’t get so explosive, but whenever something involves my appearance, I get strange.
"Your hair... it’s really good, you really maintained this quality... without anything?" she asks, and I nod slightly. The original Evelyn undoubtedly performed miracles in maintaining her beauty despite the bad conditions.
[Marie’s Favorability +9 (Total = 5/100)]
Marie’s favorability increases by 9 points at once, and considering all the time we’ve spent together in this room, it makes sense, so I give a slight smile.
She combs my hair very carefully, which reminds me that she used to like combing her friend’s hair, before accidentally killing her because of her curse.
"Thank you... sorry, big sis, for yelling. I just... got frustrated," I apologize. I shouldn’t have yelled before, but it just happened. It was an overly explosive reaction that I should have controlled better.
"It’s okay, it’s natural to get angry when something you care about is deteriorating and others don’t understand..." She speaks in a still arrogant tone, but softer, as she smoothes my hair.
"Your hair is quite soft too, it doesn’t even look like it was cared for with nothing valuable," she says, which kind of discourages me by reminding me of the sad reality of this body’s past.
"Yeah..." I just say a dry "yeah" as I remain silent. It’s good to pass the time, so we just continue this strange sisterly dynamic for at least 30 minutes.
We’re not close, it was just a brief moment of a mix of boredom and feelings, so I know she’ll soon lose interest in me, but I want to make the most of it.
’A family... is my family okay?’ I’d like to know, are they doing well? I’d like to know even if it’s impossible, I don’t even know if they’re alive, and the thought sometimes pops up out of nowhere.
After all, I don’t know how different the time is here compared to the world I came from. I really wish they were doing well.
’Maybe I can build a real family here over time...’ If I can get my siblings to reduce their hostility, maybe we can have a brotherly relationship, even if we’re not blood-related.
"There, is it better now? Then stay quiet in that damn chair," she says, moving away and reverting to her natural grumpy and arrogant personality. I take my hair and see how well it was brushed, which completely calms me down.
"Yes, it’s perfect," I say, gently caressing a lock. There are 4 hours left until all this is over. Marie is planning to damage Esther and Lucien’s projects when there are only 30 minutes left, so that they can’t fix them.
I sit in the chair in silence. I’ll wait for her to do what she wants. Anyway, Esther must have already messed up Laplace and Lucien’s project, so it’s just a matter of damaging Esther and Augustus’s globe.
...
...
...
"Hey, why can’t I go over there?" I ask the maid who is preventing me from going to an area. For some reason, the whole place is sealed with a strong magic, so I’m curious.
"Miss Grace, I’m sorry, but that area is sealed for testing. The 6 candidates for the throne are in a ’Test,’ so you can’t go in, since they shouldn’t have contact with anyone until the end," the maid says seriously, standing in front of me.
"Really?" I ask curiously. With someone telling me not to go, I have an even greater urge to invade, but this could be a serious violation, so I won’t do such a crazy thing.
"Yes, it’s completely serious. There’s a maid at every exit or entrance, no one will let you or anyone else pass, because it’s something important that only concerns the candidates for the throne."
"I kindly ask that you step back or wait here."
"Okay, I’ll stay," I say, and she looks surprised.
"You’ll... stay?"
"Yes, I’ll stay obviously. I want to talk to the candidates for the throne when they come out. It’s quite curious, and as far as I know, I can talk to them as much as I want if they want to talk," I say with a smile.
"...Okay," she simply says "okay" and starts ignoring me. I sit on the floor and will wait calmly to see.
’How curious, what are they really doing in there?’ I’m quite interested in demon culture, and seeing how the Demon King treats his children interests me a lot.
Besides, I need to know what each one does if I want to try to befriend them. I’ve heard that demons tend to treat their children in a somewhat "utilitarian" way. They see them as something to be used to succeed them.
And it’s a pretty rigid way of treating children. It’s not that there’s no love, but it seems that it’s part of their culture to make their children have a "perfect" future, or they’ll be treated badly.
’This makes me think... Evelyn is weak, does she suffer?’ I should go research more about each one. Just waiting doesn’t serve if I don’t know how to deal with the others.
Evelyn has a dangerous mentality, but nothing prevents her from having suffered. Each candidate for the throne I’ve seen was very strong, but Evelyn is the only extremely weak one.
’Evelyn, ironically, seems like a normal human in terms of power... That’s kind of sad...’ Considering that she is a demon, being weak is practically a "sin" for them.
"Hey, maid, after you’re done with this, could you let me know that I need money?" I say to the maid innocently. She bites her lip and nods.
"Understood, Miss Grace. According to the rules, the Demon King will give you a monthly allowance for personal expenses... You can receive it by going directly to the head maid or... through a notice," she says, and I nod as if I don’t care.
"I understand that, I already knew. It’s in the rules, after all. I’ll let you notify them. I want the money before nightfall!" I want to buy things, not just for myself, but to try to please the others.
’Although the demonic nobility seems to dislike me...’ The title of heroine is almost a shield, but it doesn’t mean it prevents them from feeling discomfort or anger towards me.
I’ve heard rumors and know that the demonic nobles have a clear disdain for me and everything I do. To them, "peace" is not profitable, while with war they can make money from many sources.
’That’s so bad... seeing war as a game to make money.’ Nobles are really a pain, whether they’re demons or humans, they’re always greedy.