“Before the Acting Demon King presents today's agenda, the Vampire Court has an urgent motion...”
The air in the conference hall froze.
A rare trace of worry and confusion flickered in Tia's eyes, while Louis cast a dark, somber gaze toward Rafina.
But Rafina didn't even notice the expressions on their faces.
The corners of her mouth curled upward.
It was an unsettling curve—one that made Louis feel a strange, creeping sense of dread just looking at it.
She was smiling.
At a time like this, in a situation so heavily stacked against her, she was actually smiling.
Louis silently averted his gaze.
No one knew that at this very moment, Rafina's heart was leaping with joy.
That proposal—she had hidden it right beneath 《Slime Adventures》.
Only one person had ever entered her room.
Only one person had waited there for four hours while she was away.
Eliza continued speaking.
She even quoted the exact words from the proposal.
Word for word.
Sitting in the seat of honor, Rafina covered her mouth, pretending to listen with deep anxiety as Eliza read out those exact words.
But beneath her fingers, her lips were still curled upward—even wider than before, so much so that her knuckles could feel the tension of her cheek muscles pulling back.
She could only hang her head lower, letting her cascading silver hair veil her expression. She then forced her tail to hang limply beside her chair, keeping it perfectly still.
The meeting concluded four hours later. Eliza's urgent motion had secured joint sponsorship from the Shadow Demon Court and the Lich Court, demanding that the Acting Demon King disclose all power adjustment plans concerning each court and submit them to a joint review by the Ten Courts.
Rafina did not object. She didn't even offer any real defense before adjourning the meeting.
This caught several of the Court Heads completely off guard.
They had prepared themselves for a fierce, head-on clash with the Acting Demon King, only for her to casually take a step back.
And yet, she was still smiling, as if trying to suppress an overwhelming inner joy.
After the meeting adjourned, the Court Heads departed one after another.
Before leaving, Tia and Louis both turned back to cast worried glances at Rafina.
Eliza did not leave immediately.
She walked over to Rafina's seat of honor.
“Someone who cannot even guard their own secrets has no right to sit in this seat.”
Her voice was very quiet, audible only to the two of them.
“A monarch's first lesson—never hand your weakness to anyone outside your family.”
Rafina paid her no mind, though Eliza had no idea why she was being ignored.
Eliza left.
“Lady Eliza, you must really love your little sister as well.”
As she thought this, Rafina's smile actually grew a fraction warmer.
“Rafina... are you alright? Your smile is a bit terrifying...”
Gloom had appeared behind her at some point.
Rafina did not reply to him.
Without a word, she left her seat.
She pushed open the doors, stepped into the long corridor, and began to run.
She ran with light, graceful steps, like someone rushing to a long-awaited tryst.
The portraits of past Demon Kings hanging on both sides of the corridor swept past her in a blur. Those majestic or gloomy faces flashed across her crimson eyes without leaving the slightest impression.
She didn't care who they were, what they had done, or if they had once been Demon Kings like her, harboring such heavy feelings for a single person.
She only cared about one thing.
The girl she had always loved was finally going to belong to her forever.
...
Lonia heard footsteps from inside her guest room.
They were rapid, sounding almost like someone running.
“...Fina is back?”
As expected, it had to be Fina coming to find her.
But if it were Fina, she would usually come at a light jog.
She was always like that—the mere thought of seeing Lonia would make her subconsciously quicken her pace.
But this was different.
This girl seemed to be sprinting...
The footsteps stopped right outside the door.
The person didn't knock, simply standing there.
Heavy breathing drifted in from outside. Though the voice was familiar, at this moment, it felt incredibly foreign to Lonia.
Lonia rose from the bed and hesitantly pulled the door open.
She saw Rafina.
Rafina was staring at her.
Lonia had never seen such a look in those eyes before.
It was an uncomfortable gaze, like someone looking at a possession that was about to be theirs forever.
But that look was quickly replaced by another.
An expression of having witnessed something absolutely impossible.
The transition was so swift that Lonia wondered if the previous look had just been an illusion.
Even Rafina's tail, which had been wagging uncontrollably, dropped with a soft thud in that instant.
Because Nia knew. She knew her tail would betray her mood. It was precisely because she knew her so well that she fell for it.
“Fina?”
Lonia took a step forward, stepping out of the room. She reached out, trying to take Rafina's hand and ask her what was wrong.
Rafina took a step back.
“You told her...?”
Lonia's voice caught in her throat.
“...What?”
“The document. The proposal. You read it all. And then you told Eliza...?”
Her voice, matching her expression, spoke every word deliberately, laying bare her innermost thoughts.
“I didn't...”
“She read the exact text during the meeting. Word for word...”
Rafina's voice was trembling.
“Only you have been inside my room. Only you.”
Lonia froze, speaking in a slight panic.
“No, it's not like that, Fina, listen to me...”
“You know what I wrote at the very end, don't you?”
Lonia's mouth went dry, and she stopped.
She knew.
“Only for you, I thought to myself that I could absolutely never compromise. Only you.”
The world was turning white.
Just like that afternoon when she had almost lost her, everything began turning white, radiating outward from Rafina.
The grayish-white patterns on the stone walls faded, the blue aura of the phosphorus fires vanished, and even the tips of her own hair and the hem of her skirt lost their color, turning into an immaculate, pure white.
Color was stripped away, revealing the essence of a void, as if trying to erase everything until only the two of them remained.
“I put everyone on the reduction list. The Flame Demon Court, the Nightmare Court, the Succubus Court... I made plans for every core figure related to the Royal Court, and even Tia and Fema were no exception. But I excluded you...”
Her voice grew lower and heavier, like the prelude to a girl on the brink of collapse bursting into tears.
“And then you took that and went to tell your sister...?”
“I didn't tell her!”
Lonia explained hurriedly, her voice louder than she had intended. It bounced off the corridor walls, buzzing in the space between them.
“I didn't say anything... I read it! But I didn't say a word! After I came back last night, not a single word...”
“But... then how did she know...”
Within those words lay a heartbreak-like agony.
Rafina's breathing was shallow and rapid, her chest heaving violently as her dark gray robe rose and fell with each breath. Her tail lay limp on the floor behind her, completely motionless.
“I... I don't know...”
Lonia said in a small voice.
Her fingers trembled slightly at her sides, completely at a loss for what to do.
Rafina had never cried in front of her.
“I really didn't tell my sister... Maybe, maybe she found out through some other way...”
“No... Nia...”
Rafina whispered.
“I am here, and Teacher is here as well. This room is protected by two kings of the demons. Aside from you, there is no way anyone could have obtained the information inside.”
“I... but...”
“Nia.”
Rafina's voice rose slightly.
“I know that Nia would absolutely never betray me.”
Lonia's eyes widened.
“Because I am Nia's best friend, after all.”
Rafina gently took Lonia's hand and pressed it against her own cheek.
“Nia's sister is very clever and very powerful, but none of that matters. None of those things can compare to me in Nia's eyes, right? Even if she is Nia's sister, to Nia, I am still the most important person, right? That's true, isn't it?”
Lonia swallowed hard.
She felt something inside her mind ringing an alarm, but the sound was too faint, drowned out by the warmth radiating from Rafina's palm.
She only knew that Rafina was sad, and she didn't want her to be sad. It had always been this way, ever since they were children.
“Yes...”
The moment those words left her lips, the smile on Rafina's face was no longer held back.
Lonia had never seen such a smile on Rafina's face before.
It was like a child receiving their dream candy, like a seeker of the Dao realizing a lifelong truth, like someone who had nothing suddenly gaining everything.
“So, Nia definitely wouldn't want to see me sad, right? And you wouldn't want to see me get hurt either, right?”
“That's right...”
“—But, I became sad because of Nia, you know?”
Lonia gripped Rafina's hand tightly.
“I didn't! I didn't tell her anything! I...”
“I know, Nia.”
Rafina's eyes narrowed.
“But Nia's sister still found out, didn't she? This wasn't what Nia wanted, but it happened because of Nia.”
Lonia opened her mouth, but her voice caught in her throat.
“Those things are secrets between the two of us. The stories I write for you, the reduction of the other factions—these are everything I conceived and designed, and everything I was willing to share with Nia. Aren't these our secrets? They were meant to be things only you and I knew.”
Rafina leaned in closer, close enough to feel Lonia's breath.
“Our secrets were made public because of someone else.”
She said with a sigh of regret.
“Because Nia is still interacting with others. That is why our secrets were exposed to the public. And that is why I am sad.”
A rosy flush crept onto Rafina's cheeks.
“Nia, I am the most important person to you, right?”
“Yes...”
“Nia, you want to keep having this kind of relationship with me, right?”
“Yes...”
“Nia, you don't want to make me sad either, right?”
“Yes...”
“Nia, having just me is enough for you, right?”
By the time Lonia snapped out of it, Rafina's face was already inches away.
Those beautiful, crimson eyes, filled with love and dependency, a desire suppressed for years, and unspeakable emotions, completely saturated Lonia's heart at this moment.
She caught the scent she had smelled countless times in bed, coming from Rafina's hair—an ink-like fragrance resembling ancient scrolls.
She saw the girl's full lips and soft skin, the flush on her face, and the faint, watery shimmer in her eyes.
Was having just Fina really enough?
“Yes,”
she murmured, her voice as faint as a whisper in a dream.
But it was still loud enough for the person right in front of her to hear.
And so, Fina closed her eyes, completely erasing the final trace of distance between them.
...
Ten years later, Lonia sat on Rafina's bed, turning the pages of a diary one by one with a calm and peaceful expression.
Beside her, diaries were stacked like mountains.
Over these ten years, she had never trimmed her hair, because Rafina loved the feeling of pinning her down onto the bed and burying her head in Lonia's locks to breathe in her scent.
She also loved the feeling of being leaned on by Rafina.
Her silken hair blanketed most of the bedroom floor, making her look like a Rapunzel in a fairy tale, waiting for her destined partner to arrive and grace her with their presence.
In those very first few days, her sister seemed to have gone berserk.
She had openly broken with Rafina in the council, conspiring with several Court Heads to stage a coup, only to be dealt with by Rafina.
Eliza and Rafina had talked late into the night inside a single room.
In the end, Eliza returned to the Vampire Court to continue serving as its Court Head.
And Lonia rarely ever stepped out of her door again.
In truth, Rafina had not explicitly restricted her personal freedom. In the beginning, Lonia had even requested that Rafina take her out shopping in the Demon Realm.
But as time went on, she almost never brought it up again.
Because Rafina had become her everything.
Whenever Rafina returned from her meetings, no matter how exhausted or weary she was, the moment she saw Lonia, all of that ceased to matter.
She would continue to write stories for Lonia, or simply narrate them to her directly.
At first, Lonia was merely a reader, a listener. But as time went by, she gradually began to record them as well.
She copied down every word Rafina said into her diary, and when Rafina was busy with work, she would take it out to read through.
Eventually, she began to create stories of her own.
When Rafina returned, Lonia would share her ideas, and amidst Rafina's joyful smiles, they would co-create together.
Their stories filled book after book, and their secrets stacked up volume after volume.
Stories known only to them, stories created by them, stories belonging solely to the two of them—these now occupied the entirety of Lonia's life.
She no longer spoke to anyone else, nor did she care to learn about the outside world anymore.
Because there was no need.
As long as she could be with Fina, it was enough.
【And so the slime ate the bat. This way, they would never have to worry about who would leave whom ever again.】
【They would be together forever, until death did them part.】
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