I Think Lord Demon is Bad

The interior of the white Art Gallery.

"Woah."

Pastel's mouth hung wide open.

Duke Nastasha draws so well!

A huge painting of a Sky Whale completely covered one side of the wall reaching up to the second floor. A coral reef colony grew on the whale's back, and Sky Fish swam along that ecosystem.

Oing.

"The Sky Whale I saw had trees growing on it and chirpy friends living there, but this painting is completely different! Isn't this an anachronism error?"

It seems to be an anachronism error!

Since Duke Nastasha mostly stays in the Imperial Capital, she can't help but lack experience compared to the Explorer Pastel!

Woah-Woah, I'm so smart.

"It is not an error."

Lord Demon appreciated it with his hands behind his back.

"The value of this painting lies in expressing a marine ecosystem against the backdrop of the sky. It breaks down the boundary between sky and sea, and does not distinguish between the living domain of humans and the living domain of nature."

Pastel stopped smiling. She glared at Lord Demon with a subtly calm expression.

"I didn't ask Lord Demon."

I don't know why he's arguing with someone else's thoughts when he wasn't even asked.

Absurd~.

"No."

Lord Demon was equally dumbfounded. His hand gesture pointed around them. In the white art hall, there was no one else but a pink-haired girl and a man in a suit.

"I am the only person here with you right now, so who else could you have asked?"

Pastel thought for a moment because she hadn't considered it.

Then she spotted an Ant Friend walking along the corner of the white wall below the painting. Her finger pointed right at the Ant Friend.

"This guy!"

"Huh?"

Lord Demon looked down at the Ant Friend in disbelief.

Pastel confidently spoke to it.

"Hello Ant Friend! As the Explorer Pastel, I think there's an anachronism error in this painting! What do you think?"

Her voice reached the ant. The ant just kept walking along the corner of the wall.

Silence flowed.

It must be a question that requires thought.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over the ant. It was a shadow in the shape of a dress shoe. The black shoe stepped firmly on the ant.

Step.

"Heuaaa!"

Ant Friend!

Pastel screamed.

"I really don't understand."

The wicked demon who stepped on and killed the ant sighed.

"I don't understand either!"

Pastel lunged at the wicked demon.

"Give me back my Ant Friend!"

She grabbed the chest of his suit and shook him vigorously.

"The sworn enemy who killed my friend! A demon with no conscience, no morals, and no dating experience!"

Lord Demon swayed helplessly and got a headache.

"I didn't kill it. Look again."

She lowered her head and looked at the corner of the wall. The Ant Friend, who she thought had been squashed flat, walked out from under the shoe and went on its way.

Oing.

Come to think of it, it was the corner of the wall.

Because of the angle, it's hard to kill it instantly just by stepping on it slightly!

"Phew."

Pastel wiped away her cold sweat needlessly.

"The Ant Friend's Evasion is max level, so it dodged the wicked demon's attack! As expected of the Ant Friend!"

Woah.

Lord Demon straightened his heavily rumpled suit.

"I really just don't understand..."

A sigh was heard.

The bout of commotion passed.

Footsteps approached from the corridor. A neatly dressed employee came over and pointed to a door on one side.

"Many of the general visitors have left. I believe it is fine for you to attend now."

"Ah, thank you."

Even though it was a duke's solo exhibition, anyone with money could view it regardless of status, true to the United Kingdom. It wasn't a bad thing, but letting people openly chatter about Governor Pastel's coming into contact with the Leader of the Republican Faction wasn't a very good thing, so she was waiting until mostly VIPs remained.

Pastel received a veil from the employee to cover her head, put it on, and entered through the staff door.

Seats with their lights turned off came into view. The seated people were packed tightly, but it seemed only the seat lights had been turned off to make the coral painting artwork hanging on the podium stand out.

In the only brightly lit spot, a brown-haired girl wearing paint-stained work clothes pointed at the painting with a brush.

"Finally 10,000 gold! What took so long! From now on, the bidding unit will be 1,000 gold! There aren't any cowards here who can't even spend this much, right? 11,000 gold, 12,000 gold!"

A lively voice rang out.

Duke Nastasha was personally auctioning off her own painting.

Duke, what are you doing so undignified?!

She called it a solo art exhibition, but she was holding a real-time auction. To be exact, Pastel had entered right when the Duke's solo exhibition time was roughly over and the art auction was taking place.

But even though it was an auction, she hadn't expected the Duke to leave a perfectly good host alone and do the sales pitch himself.

Looking closely, the host was standing awkwardly in the corner of the podium. It seemed Duke Nastasha had just barged in as she pleased.

The host approached the highly energetic Duke and whispered.

"Huh? You want me to call it out in platinum coins since the amount is high? But then the numbers get smaller. It's fun when the numbers are big! This guy has no sense."

Gasp, she has the power to ignore the auction organizers and do whatever she wants.

I'm jealous.

Pastel looked for an empty seat and quietly sat down when she found two empty seats in an inconspicuous back corner.

―For the Duke to go that far, it must be because of the Emperor, huh?

The human gentleman and lady whispering to each other in the next seats flinched. They stared at Pastel, whose face was roughly covered by the veil, and then whispered again.

―Could the lady sitting next to us right now be...?

A glancing gaze came her way.

―I think it is her. It would be best to pretend we didn't see her, right?

―Let's do that. But why is she here?

―We're pretending not to see her, right?

―Ahem.

Pastel, who had pricked up her ears and watched their reaction, felt relieved. VIPs weren't VIPs for nothing. Eyewitness accounts would spread anyway, but it was much better than being openly chattered about.

After that, the gentleman and lady didn't participate in the auction and earnestly discussed something while looking at the Duke.

The popular person Pastel absolutely did not have a hobby of eavesdropping, but Governor-General Pastel did have a hobby of eavesdropping, so she quietly eavesdropped.

―Seeing as the Duke visited the Demon Realm right now of all times, the rumor that the Emperor is planning to dispatch officials to all art auctions seems to be true.

―Is the Duke really outsourcing the art auctions she was doing perfectly fine in the Empire to the Demon Realm because of that?

―There's no reason she couldn't. She can just make the transactions within the Empire and hold the auctions formally in the Demon Realm.

The lady sighed.

―Because the Emperor is conducting an Art World inspection, the initiative in art culture is about to pass over to the Demon Realm. It's deeply unpleasant that he suspects tax evasion instead of using that money to promote art culture.

―You can say that again. The Imperial Family only thinks about its own future and doesn't seem to think about the future of the Empire at all.

"Is this all you've got? I heard the United Kingdom was so wealthy. Did I have too high expectations?"

On the podium, Duke Nastasha pointed at the coral painting.

"If you just buy this, you can confidently say you have no money when the Emperor, no, the Royal Family tells you to hand over your money. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to safely store your assets as a painting! But are there only commoners here who don't need to worry about such things? I'm disappointed!"

The Demonkind, their pride scratched, enthusiastically raised their bid paddles. The price of the painting skyrocketed. To anyone's eyes, it didn't look like an amount reflecting only the pure value of the painting.

A brief silence flowed from the next seats. The gentleman and lady looked elsewhere and said nothing.

Then they clapped lightly.

―As expected, the Duke's paintings are magnificent whenever I see them. I think I know why everyone is trying to buy them for such big money.

―You can say that again. He is a great blessing to our Empire.

Harmonious laughter rang out.

As Pastel confidently eavesdropped, a question arose.

Why did Duke Nastasha come to the Demon Realm now?

To scold a certain pink-haired person who made an accusation to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor that the Republican Faction was the Traitor of Prophecy!

She had trembled in fear at that thought for a moment, but when she thought about it objectively, the timing didn't match.

It wasn't like the Duke was coming to the Demon Realm like a stroll in front of her house; she had to organize all sorts of work and schedules in the Imperial Capital before visiting the Demon Realm, and for someone on the level of the Leader of the Republican Faction, that was absolutely not something that could be done in a short period of time.

While the airship carrying the telegram saying 'The Republican Faction is the traitor!' was heading to the Empire, the Duke had already decided to visit the Demon Realm and had boarded an airship.

The Duke probably hadn't even heard the news about the traitor because their airships crossed paths.

Why did she come?

The gentleman and lady in the next seats guessed that she came to find a breakthrough to avoid the Imperial Family's auction inspection, but it was hard to completely agree.

Since the people next to her worked in the art world, they probably felt that the art world was everything in the world, so they might judge that the purpose of a free auction culture alone was enough reason for the Duke to come.

But there was no way the Leader of the Republican Faction would come on a business trip to the Demon Realm for just that reason; it wasn't a joke.

No, to be exact, there probably was that reason too. But it was more accurate to see it as a nominal external reason and a public justification for forming an alibi. There must be a real hidden motive that only the Duke knew.

Pastel groaned and racked her brain during the free time while the auction was going on.

From the position of someone who had only briefly tasted the central political circles and ended up in a Fuse Click-Click and Adultery Meow-Meow state, she couldn't help but be on guard.

Oing.

The Adultery Cat cried.

Meow-Meow~.

It wasn't meow-meow, it was Meow-Meow because she had to pretend to be cute.

Gasp.

It probably isn't.

It absolutely isn't.

A very realistic reason came to mind that seducing a married former classmate who rejected her in their school days was a very humiliating act, so she had to move, equipped with a proper public justification like a free auction, but it absolutely wasn't that...!

The Leader of the Republican Faction shouldn't do that!

Pastel denied it with a cool head.

That is, until Duke Nastasha, whom she met after the auction ended, casually mentioned her Dad as if it were nothing and let slip this remark.

"I heard there were eyewitness accounts of seeing him in the Demon Realm..."

Heuaaa!

Please don't do this!