Chapter 33: ’Pet Pest’
"Esther-sama, the Demon King is requesting the presence of everyone immediately in the throne room," the maid says as I read a paper, a paper that my spy collected when Evelyn went out.
She bought dresses, was attacked by some random assassin, and that’s it, there was nothing extraordinary really, while even that maid was studied by other maids who serve me.
Summarizing, Evelyn’s maid is just a nobody, the only one worthy of note is Eve, who came out of nowhere, but has a strength to be considered, and if she gets stronger, she may come to cause problems.
’The last report indicates that that maid was shocked by Eve’s presence...so she didn’t know,’ It seems Evelyn has her secrets very well hidden.
"What a greedy hamster," I murmur as the maid looks at me in confusion.
"Esther-sama?" She questions, saying only my name without understanding.
"Forget about it," I say, getting up and throwing the papers on the table as I think about why my Father would call everyone, there can only be a few reasons.
And one of them is that human who came here to try to make peace between the species, this honestly doesn’t matter to me, and I don’t expect anything from humans, they are a greedy, lying, and lascivious race.
Of course, demons are not so different in any way, I slightly adjust my dress and go to the door of the room.
"Clean my room, and burn all the papers on the table," I tell the maid as I leave, closing the door, but I don’t immediately leave, I wait patiently in front of the door, holding the doorknob until about 1 minute has passed.
"...5...4...3...2...1..." I open the door and ashes fall near me, but without touching my dress, while my room is empty, I go back in, going to the table and picking up an artifact that was stuck under the table.
"Next time you try to collect information from me, try to be smarter and not leave it so obvious," I say to the ashes on the floor as I leave the room and close the door.
"Fool," I murmur, calling Marie a fool, if she thinks a mere maid is enough to steal from me, then she really has no idea who she’s dealing with.
’So...predictable’ Any traitor, liar, or deceiver who tries to take something from me has the most obvious fate of all death, it’s not that easy to deceive me when the universe is always favoring me.
"..." I start walking through the corridors, going to the throne room, but as soon as I turn the corner, someone bumps into me, falling to the ground.
"Ow!! Why don’t you watch where you’re going, can’t you see my huge beauty from a distance and...oh-h...s-sister..." As soon as Evelyn realizes who she’s talking to, she seems extremely nervous.
’Again, this reaction...’ At the banquet announcing the competition for the throne, Evelyn also looked more at me than at the others, and every time we bump into each other, her reaction is like this.
It’s not just fear, it’s more of a suspicious nervousness, as if she knows something terrible about me and is afraid I’ll kill her for knowing too much, which makes me curious.
"S-Sorry, I should have paid more attention, it was my fault," She speaks the complete opposite of before, before she accused me of being the one at fault, but now she changes everything.
"You should pay more attention to where you’re going...but I’ve already told you that before, and you made the same mistake...how...amusing don’t you think?" I say without any expression of amusement or real excitement.
The silence that follows my irony makes it clear that she understood that this is not funny at all, it’s just inconvenient for us to keep bumping into each other like this.
’How strange...why does she bump into me?’ This doesn’t make sense, the universe favors me even in such things, normally if Evelyn bumped into me, she shouldn’t hit me, at most she would trip over my foot.
However, this is the second time she’s hit me head-on, it’s not like my power isn’t working, the fact that she’s always the one who gets knocked down proves that my power is working.
But it’s also as if the universe is forcing her to hit me by surprise in this way, but it’s not my fault, so it’s her fault.
’Is this a pattern?’ I stare at Evelyn being lifted by that girl named Eve who is identical to Evelyn, ironically the data my spies collected indicates that Evelyn gets involved in many "minor accidents".
Whether it’s tripping in places, bumping into people out of nowhere when turning corners, getting lost, and even other minor things, nothing that’s too exaggerated or notable, but that undoubtedly occurs.
"You...have a lot of bad luck," I say, looking her straight in the eyes, her eyes tremble as she averts her gaze to the ground.
’Blessing and Curse...a power that comes with an equivalent price’ I deduce that this is Evelyn’s curse, and she seems to have noticed that I’ve realized it, it’s actually quite simple to notice this.
Just look at how often it happens in a way that is no longer a coincidence and combine it with the fact that she is a candidate for the throne, these two things practically scream that her curse is something related to misfortune.
And of course, most of us try to hide curses because they are weaknesses and if they know about them, they can have advantages.
"W-Well sister, I have to go see our father, you know how it is, right? He called..." She speaks in a way that tries to be casual, but is obviously rigid.
"You know we’re not siblings, right? That’s...just a term, we have no connection to each other," I say to see her reaction.
"Y-Yes...I understand E-Esther..."
"Repeat it," I interrupt her.
"I-I said I understand E-Esther," She speaks nervously.
"...I don’t like the sound of that, don’t call me Esther, I prefer you call me sister for now," I end up letting this pass, even though we have no bond that makes us sisters, it’s better than her calling me by name.
"S-Sure..." She seems uncomfortable while quickly trying to move forward, but since we’re going to the same place, all that’s left is for me to follow her, and out of courtesy she ends up having to slow down, causing us to walk together.
"W-Wanna play a game?" She speaks nervously as I stare at her coldly for a moment.
’Well...if it’s to pass the time, it shouldn’t matter, I’ll win anyway’ The universe wouldn’t let me lose after all, this is my blessing.
"It can be," I confirm for her to start it soon.
"O-Okay, how about rock-paper-scissors?" She speaks as I think about this game, it’s simple, fast, but nothing interesting.
"Okay," I say as I prepare my hand, at least I can play while we walk, so I don’t have to stop, soon she starts talking, she’s so slow, it’s obvious I’m going to win.
"..." I look at the results, she played scissors and I played paper.
’...I...lost...no...I never lost a simple game like this...’ I look at my hand and then at hers.
"Again," I order her to play again, she nervously plays again, she plays rock and I play scissors, resulting in her winning.
"...Again," I say, soon she plays paper and I play rock, resulting in her winning again, I tighten my fist.
’I lost...once is a coincidence, twice is luck...three times...’ It doesn’t make sense, the universe has always favored me, a simple game like this would never result in me being the loser.
"..." I look at Eve behind Evelyn and then at Evelyn, both too weak to cheat without me noticing, in fact Evelyn is so slow that I was sure she would play something and even so it was different.
"Another game," I say as Evelyn seems to think.
"How about the forbidden word game?" She speaks as I just nod, this is obvious that I will win and that there is no way she can cheat in any way since she can’t read my mind.
"Luckily I have paper with me, I was doing something before being called and didn’t have time to leave it there, so I brought it with me," She says, taking a paper and writing something with her nail.
It’s not perfect, but anyone who wants to see will notice what is written, she shows me the poorly made but understandable engraving, it’s written ’sister’, so I nod.
"You can choose the first word," I say as she thinks of something and puts it on the sheet.
"Okay sister, go ahead," She speaks with a confident smile.
"Void," I say the word and she shows the paper, clearly engraved [Void], which makes me widen my eyes, I never thought she would choose a name like that.
"..." I lost at the first try, the first word I spoke caused my instant defeat, not only in rock-paper-scissors, but even in the forbidden word game I was defeated.
"I-Is something wrong?" She asks as my expression hardens into a completely cold one.
"No, I just don’t want to play anymore..." Defeats in two different games, games where she couldn’t cheat because she was extremely weaker than me.
’So this...is the feeling of losing...’ I must say I don’t like it, I’ve never been defeated before, so having her, who was considered the failure of the family, defeat me even in a silly game is shocking.
It’s not like I underestimated, I was watching the movement of her hand, it was slow, predictable, and nothing special, but for some reason I just didn’t win even though the universe should have made me win.
"...This...is new..." I murmur, looking at Evelyn, who is completely focused on the path ahead.
’Probably a skill...’ That’s the only thing that could explain it, a skill that doesn’t depend on magic, this puts a smile on my face.
"A greedy hamster can end up getting the short end of the stick in the end, Evelyn," I say to Evelyn, who looks confused, she was quite bold in using a skill to cheat against me.
And...I like that, I’ve always used my ability in things that are not obvious or are simple, keeping my ability hidden, so having others use their abilities in silly things like this is fun.
...
...
...
"A greedy hamster can end up getting the short end of the stick in the end, Evelyn," Esther says to me out of nowhere, and I’m confused.
’Hamster? The animal? What is she talking about!!’ I just want to disappear, Esther is someone I didn’t expect to meet on the way, and we’d even play childish games.
Fortunately, I was able to test that silly ability of always being the winner in any childish game, if I beat Esther, it shows that the ability is "good" enough.
[Esther’s Favorability +10 (Total = 1/100)]
’W-WHAT!!?’ Out of nowhere, I gained +10 favorability, making the negative favorability of -9 that I had become 1, I don’t even know why, but this gives me a small smile.
’What luck!’ Not bad coming from me, 10 points in a single conversation, maybe I have talent in the end.