Noah waited patiently for Moryvr’s answer.

The elf’s eyes were narrowed slightly as he was considering his wording one final time. He had already learned the consequences of being careless with that.

"For the second thing..."

"I want to know about you." There was a slight pitch in his voice, an eagerness that made it obvious how pleased he was with himself.

After spending the better part of their last exchange being forced to carefully navigate the devil’s wording, Morvyr had finally found a way to return the favor.

It was a weird feeling. He was almost more focused on the process rather than the result.

Somewhere along the way, his questioning had stopped feeling entirely like an interrogation. There was an odd satisfaction that came from trying to find just how much he could learn without overstepping the rules Noah established.

It was like a game, a game that was enlightening, as if playing would help him become just as devious in his own wordplay that would be fitting as a demon.

Anything pertaining to the devil should therefore remain within the same topic. At least, that was the argument Morvyr was already preparing to make if Noah tried telling him otherwise.

And as he watched Noah, he almost exposed his smile. Morvyr felt he could practically see the devil considering the implications of what he had just allowed.

"...That’s fine." Noah paused for a moment. He couldn’t help but find the elf’s sudden enthusiasm somewhat amusing considering what happened just moments ago.

Unfortunately for Morvyr, there was one thing he seemed to have forgotten.

Noah had never been trying to trick him in the first place.

"You can ask any question when you’re ready. However, the same rules still apply. I’ll be as transparent with you as you were with me. If there’s something I believe you have no business knowing, I’m not going to answer it."

Morvyr’s entire expression crashed. For several seconds, his mind seemed to do the same.

How did I forget that?

He genuinely couldn’t understand how he had overlooked something so obvious.

Noah had never promised to answer everything, yet somehow, Morvyr had stopped thinking about that entirely.

Morvyr thought back through every question he had asked about Bolas, and the realization only became more humiliating.

Not once had Noah refused to answer him.

Every time he asked something that remained within the topic, Noah answered him.

Whenever he strayed too far, Noah merely reminded him that continuing would move him onto his second choice.

That was it.

Noah never threatened to withhold anything.

Morvyr had become so engrossed in discovering what questions he was allowed to ask that he had completely forgotten to consider whether Noah was obligated to answer them in the first place.

His breathing became slightly disturbed.

It was brilliant.

Noah had kept him focused entirely upon the rules without ever allowing him to notice that the rules themselves offered no guarantee of success.

Every time Morvyr encountered another boundary, his first thought had been how to word the next question more carefully.

Every answer encouraged another question. Every question made him more invested.

Until eventually, Morvyr had become so convinced that finding the correct question would reward him with the information he wanted that he had stopped considering anything else.

This was manipulation!

Not the crude manipulation of threatening someone until they complied.

Nor the political maneuvering Morvyr had grown accustomed to among demons.

Noah hadn’t forced him to do anything, nor did he make him feel that he was being manipulated.

He had simply created the path that was no different than the one Morvyr himself had laid out before and allowed Morvyr to happily walk down it.

A strange excitement gradually replaced the embarrassment on the elf’s face.

This... This was how a devil should be.

No. Morvyr immediately corrected himself.

This was how a demon should be.

Power was important, but power was only the foundation.

Elegance mattered just as much. A demon who possessed overwhelming strength yet carried themselves like a mindless beast had no right to deserve such power.

But even strength and elegance could be found elsewhere.

Humans possessed both, albeit barely. And even then there were only a small few of them.

Elves were an obsession; naturally, Morvyr believed elves possessed both.

Even the beastkin had produced individuals Morvyr begrudgingly admitted possessed both.

What separated demons should be their ability to make others willingly act against their own interests without realizing it until everything was already over.

Battles didn’t always need to be won through strength. Some could be won entirely through words.

Beings could be conquered through charisma alone.

And someone truly worthy of standing above others should be capable of shaking the world with nothing more than a sentence spoken at the right moment.

Morvyr stared at Noah with an entirely different intensity than before.

He had spent so much time searching for proof that Noah possessed the power expected of a devil.

But what power was he looking for when they didn’t have true records that accounted for what powers a devil had?

Perhaps he had been looking for the wrong proof.

Noah watched the elf seemingly undergo an entire crisis without saying a word.

Ailetta’s amusement brushed against him through their connection, but Noah managed to keep his own expression relatively neutral.

Although that didn’t stop him from reaching a rather simple conclusion.

There was definitely something wrong with this elf.

Morvyr, meanwhile, was already replaying the entire exchange in his head for what was probably the third time.

No.

The fourth.

He silently vowed to remember every word of this conversation once he returned home.

Even if nothing else came from today’s meeting, the lesson Noah had just taught him was already worth far more than his bruised pride.

It took him considerably longer than before to organize his thoughts.

Eventually, the elf let out a drawn-out breath.

"I admit that when it comes to the battle of wordplay, you are the strongest opponent I have ever faced."

A faint smile finally appeared on Morvyr’s face.

Meanwhile, Noah was now even more confused. He only did the same thing that the elf had done. As that thought crossed his mind, his eyes drifted toward the side before suddenly stopping.

Bolas was standing there with his massive head slowly bobbing up and down in complete agreement.

Noah stared at the drake for a moment.

He wondered why Morvyr gave him a feeling of Déjà vu. He understood now.

Yet at this very moment, he was beginning to think the elf might actually be even stranger than Bolas.

Morvyr remained completely oblivious to Noah’s thoughts. He had finally accepted the position he was in.

The moment he agreed to Noah’s terms, he had already lost the game he thought they were playing.

Continuing to search for loopholes would only waste the opportunity he had been given.

Instead, he simply needed to ask the questions that mattered most and hope the devil decided they were worth answering.

"This time I won’t be asking questions to outdo you but to honestly understand you."

Morvyr’s voice had lost the excitement from earlier.

"So my first question has to be... are you really a devil?"

Noah had already expected that this would be one of the elf’s questions.

The question itself wasn’t particularly dangerous. The difficulty came from deciding how much of an answer Morvyr would be capable of understanding, and then how much he would accept as the truth.

"That’s a question that I also asked myself countless times before." Noah replied, but his reply instantly made Morvyr feel a strong sense of dissatisfaction.

Even after he admitted defeat, was the devil unwilling to show him the slightest respect?

"Don’t misunderstand. The answer itself isn’t simple. To me and those here, I’m not a devil. But that title had been given to me by others so many times that the label stuck."

"And then... there were those who made it impossible for me to deny it."

Morvyr immediately caught the subtle shift in Noah’s wording.

"...Who?"

Noah didn’t immediately answer. His thoughts wandered back to one of the battles where he had to stack everything. And it was also where he finally tore away the human part of himself.

"Angels."

The single word left Noah’s mouth almost casually.

Morvyr, however, felt as though the world had suddenly stopped around him.

Throughout history, humanity had only been capable of calling upon an angel through the greatest of their champions. Even then, what descended was never the angel itself.

An angel’s existence was far too great for a mortal world to bear.

Instead, they temporarily manifested through a suitable vessel, allowing only a fragment of themselves to enter the battlefield.

Yet despite that overwhelming limitation, those fragments had repeatedly become the deciding factor in wars against demonkind.

Countless generals had fallen because humanity managed to call upon one at the right moment.

Even the Demon King himself treated their appearance with the utmost seriousness.

Morvyr had never personally faced one.

He sincerely hoped he never would. He knew his limits; if he could face an angel, then he would be a general.

Yet Noah spoke of them with such indifference that, for a brief moment, Morvyr wondered whether he had misunderstood.

"...You encountered an angel?"

Even his own voice sounded strange to him.

Noah merely nodded.

"Yupp. And I killed them too."

The words were spoken with no more emotion than if he had been recalling a hunt.

"Actually..." Noah thought back to everything that had happened afterward before giving a faint shrug.

"At this point, I’m fairly certain the angels and I are lifelong enemies."