God-Tier Enhancement: My Upgrades Never Fail-Chapter 257: Episode _A Born Swindler (7)

11.

The chat froze for a moment.

It was a different kind of silence from earlier, when everyone had been too absorbed in the stream to type.

—Um. Yeah.

—Is this... okay?

It was awkward.

The stream had a 19+ tag, but there was still an instinctive sense of unease.

No, “unease” wasn’t quite it.

It just felt like they should be careful, like maybe they ought to close the stream.

“...She’s a loli.”

“A loli.”

Specialist and Simin, standing right there, felt the exact same way.

Before they could even process the ruined atmosphere, all the tension drained out of them.

Yet when they looked at Grokile, who was still prostrated with his head pressed to the floor, and Aria, who was scowling fiercely on extreme alert, it seemed the girl standing loftily above them really was the Demon King.

Which tone were they supposed to adopt?

Instinct told them to follow the NPCs’ lead and act serious if they wanted the scene—and their lives—to survive, but they just couldn’t focus.

“How is a Demon King allowed to be that cute?” Yeseul wondered aloud.

“I wanna take her home and raise her.”

She was definitely short. Her face looked young.

But she didn’t look like a child.

“At least she doesn’t have those ridiculous boobs, too,” Yeseul added with a sigh of relief.

Compared to the absurdly voluptuous NPCs they had seen so far, Epia was on the modest side. Still, she looked like someone whose growth was mostly complete—if you were generous, you could peg her as a high schooler.

That was what made it so ambiguous.

So, before he could stop himself, Simin blurted out a question.

“Um, how old are you, exactly?”

“......”

“......”

She was the Demon King.

The Demon King who possessed enough power to toy with and kill a high-ranking demon like Grokile—who laughed like a brute while fighting millions of soldiers alone—as if he were a child.

But what was he supposed to do?

“Sorry,” he added. “I was just curious.”

He’d rather die than leave his curiosity unsatisfied.

At his brazen question, Epia burst into a peal of laughter.

“Just as I thought. The children told me you were an amusing human. Let me see. My age... I was around eighty when the previous Demon King invaded the continent, so...”

“Ah. That’s enough. That’s all I needed to know.”

’So she’s not a loli, after all.’

With that light exchange, the heavy atmosphere eased a little, though Grokile remained prostrated and Aria stayed tense with her weapon raised.

She seemed like someone you could actually talk to.

Abandoning the terrified Celestial and demon, Simin confidently took the lead in the conversation.

’Strike while the iron is hot.’ Since she wasn’t killing them on sight, he decided to press his advantage and test the waters.

“I’ll get straight to the point. I’m here to make a deal.”

“A deal?”

“Yeah. The warlocks are making a total mess of things on the continent and still haven’t managed to open the Demon World Gate. I’ll help with that.”

“And in return?”

“Figure out a way for me to get back to the continent.”

“Mmm.”

He stood tall and spoke boldly.

After all, the other party looked like a kid. He had nothing to bow his head over.

The phrase “mutual benefit” hadn’t been invented for nothing. He would help her, she would help him. A win-win for both sides.

There was no reason to refuse.

But Simin had overlooked one thing.

“And why would I do that?” 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

“...Huh?”

She also had no reason to agree.

“From the looks of it, the warlocks tried to open a Demon World Gate, something went wrong, and you all got sucked in here instead. Why should I help a human? What reason have you given me to trust you?”

“...You have a point.”

“Tell me what you can offer. Anything. Even something intangible is fine. As long as it entertains me, I will at least consider it.”

With that leisurely tone, Epia began to descend the stairs one step at a time. With each step, a storm of dark magic swept through the hall.

Her power was so overwhelming that even the Specialist players and Simin, who had been unable to take the bizarre scene seriously, felt their expressions harden.

The closer she came, the more crushing the pressure grew.

She wasn’t doing anything special.

[You are exposed to Dark Magic.]

[Your movement speed is reduced.]

[Your HP regeneration is reduced.]

This was simply the energy naturally spilling from her body, an amount of dark magic so vast she didn’t even bother to contain it.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t control it.

It was that she didn’t need to.

The reason she had laughed and answered Simin’s rude question became clear in just a few seconds.

“You are interesting, but I do not care for arrogance.”

Her small, delicate hand reached toward the air.

In that tiny hand, a long sword formed.

Then another. Twin swords.

The slender blades might have looked weak, but no one present dared to judge them as such.

The combat power of the succubus who had single-handedly defeated the previous Demon King.

Who would ever want to experience that firsthand?

Unless you had more than one life—no, even Simin, who did, swallowed hard.

’Shit. I could actually die.’

Simin lived more recklessly than anyone, but at the same time, he clung to life more desperately than anyone. He would sell his conscience, his liver, and his gallbladder for money, but when it came to survival, nothing mattered more than reading the room.

And his instincts were screaming at him now.

Behind that smiling face lay pure cruelty and coldness.

This was not someone you could just grin and banter with.

Once he finished that assessment, Simin’s shift in attitude was faster than anyone’s.

“Oh, great Demon King, please spare me! If you let me live, I’ll do whatever you say!”

“......”

“......”

It was so craven that you had to wonder if this was really the same man who had been shouting that if he died, he would just respawn on the continent and come out ahead.

*

The power dynamic was set.

Crossing her legs with languid grace, the Demon King asked her question. Even though she was short and looked like a pretty high school girl at best, the authority radiating from her was pure charisma.

“Very well. What are you good at? Most demons boasted that they would kill me in bed. None of them are still alive, of course. How about you, human? Care to try?”

“No, thank you. I still have too much to live for to throw my life away like that.”

“Then?”

Charm aside, from the perspective of someone who had been completely cornered, this was hell.

’What am I supposed to do? What can I offer?’

If he could, he would gladly give her whatever she wanted. But how was he supposed to satisfy the Queen of Succubi when even demons who did nothing but fight all day had failed?

It wasn’t that he lacked confidence, but this was a different issue entirely.

Besides, Simin’s specialty lay elsewhere.

’I’ll handle this with my specialty. I’ve come this far; I might as well loot the Demon King’s castle before I go.’

—You’re thinking about that in this situation? Unreal.

He sent a quick message to his guild and racked his brain.

—So how are you going to scam her? Anything we can do to help?

’Why is my specialty automatically scamming to you people?’ he thought, annoyed.

Ignoring the comments, he organized his thoughts and spoke up.

“The truth is, I’m a descendant of a Tamer. One of the Five Heroes from the continent the previous Demon King invaded.”

“Oh?”

He pulled out a topic that would both provoke her and pique her curiosity, then pressed the attack.

“If you could just sign here, I’ll give you a private showing, hidden-camera style, of me taming your subordinates. How about it? Sounds fun, right?”

He held out a contract.

At a glance, it looked like a simple agreement to ensure she wouldn’t retaliate when he tamed her underlings. The timing, the mood—everything fit. Above all, he was bowing and scraping like a true slave, so it didn’t look like he was about to pull a con.

Grokile shuddered.

He should have just kept his head down. His ears had been open, and a very familiar scene had just popped into his mind.

’So that’s how it happens. That devil of a man.’

The Demon King, for her part, casually took the contract. Apparently pleased with being waited on, a smile never left her lips as she flipped straight to the last page.

She looked ready to sign at any moment.

But—

“Amusing, human.”

She tore it up right in front of him.

Simin’s face stiffened.

’Damn. Didn’t work.’

He had gone in with an “if it works, great; if not, oh well” mindset, but seeing one of his few remaining demon contracts ripped to shreds still hurt.

“Unfortunately, this kind of sweet talk is our specialty,” she said with a dismissive wave. “My apologies.”

The twin swords in Epia’s hands spun lightly, almost as if dancing, as they brushed past Han Simin’s neck.

She clearly had no intention of killing him; it was just a casual, warning swipe. Yet the path the blades traced left a faint line across his throat.

A wound without a single drop of blood.

It was a testament to her insanely precise control.

At the same time, it was a clear warning: ’Don’t get cocky.’

[You have taken a critical hit.]

The neck was a vital point.

A strike to a vital point meant death.

For Han Simin, who was clinging to the stubborn resolve of ’I’m going to loot the Demon King’s castle at least once before I leave, no matter what’, it meant the annihilation of his Coin.

He shot to his feet.

“Damn it. Fine, I get it. Seriously. I really wasn’t planning on pulling this out, but you’re being ridiculously strict.”

Epia looked at him, puzzled.

“Hand me the weapon. I’ll make it strong enough for you to go toe-to-toe with the gods and still win.”

It was a trump card he truly didn’t want to use.

His last line of defense, his ultimate cheat key.

And precisely because of that, he could speak with absolute confidence.

’Live or die, whatever.’

If he couldn’t close this deal even with his final card, then there was truly no way out.

As Epia frowned in suspicion, Han Simin held out his hammer and armor.

“Don’t tell me... you’re that man’s descendant?”

“If the ‘that man’ you’re thinking of is the same one I’m thinking of, then yeah, probably. So you can trust me and leave it to—”

He lifted his chin slightly, clinging to the hope that his identity, at least, would no longer be in doubt.

But Epia just grabbed him by the collar and yanked him up.

His vision went black.

*

The instant everything went dark, a cutscene unfolded before his eyes.

Whenever the game’s realism became so overwhelming that he almost forgot it ’was’ a game, a scene like this would pop up and remind the user of their place. It was a very effective reality check.

Even now, Han Simin, who had just been desperately pleading for his life, took a deep breath and focused on the video.

He shelved the question of why it had to appear ’now’ of all times.

He would understand once he watched it.

The video was in first-person.

And the figure that appeared in his field of view was a very familiar one—Epia, the same woman who had been standing right in front of him barely ten seconds ago.

The moment he saw her, he understood.

’These are the memories of the previous Enhancer. Memories from the invasion of the continent.’

So there ’was’ some kind of connection between them.

Judging from the way she had grabbed him by the collar, it was probably more of a fraught history than a fond one.

Even so, he allowed himself a sliver of hope.

One way or another, these were the memories of the Enhancer, so they had to be related to Enhancement—and that was his specialty.

He decided to concentrate and watch the video to the very end.

He would memorize every last detail and earn his seat at the negotiating table with the Demon King.

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Let’s be together forever.”

However, what came out of Han Simin’s mouth—or rather, out of the previous Enhancer’s mouth—was something completely unexpected, given how grimly focused he had just been.