Chapter 67: A Momentary Panic

A momentary panic.

Lamia wore a wicked grin, their faces mere inches apart. That is, if one only considered their faces.

As for their bodies, enveloped within the same garment, they were pressed completely together. The only pity was that Lamia still wore her own clothes.

Lamia’s long purple hair, gathered inside Wade’s clothes, was naturally free of fabric. The strands, devoid of warmth and even slightly cool against her skin, felt like a deliberate provocation and a test.

As they slid down from his waist to his chest, they created a ticklish sensation, a stark contrast to the hot, heavy mass of Lamia’s body pressed tightly against him.

Unable to endure Lamia’s hair any longer, Wade, under her subtle movements, painstakingly extended a hand. Due to the restricted space, he could only stretch out his fingers, measuring the width of her gathered hair at the nape of her neck, before swiftly pulling all of it out.

Crack!

Perhaps it was due to the long drought and the terribly dry weather. Even as the intimate contact caused them to sweat profusely, a few crackling sounds of static electricity still erupted, a noise both oddly stress-relieving and amusing.

‘Hmph… I knew it, he can’t take this, can he? Lilith said that if you want to declare dominance, you should press directly onto him—not just close, but forcefully, preferably skin-to-skin. Just press your body onto his; a man like the White Knight won’t be able to stand it, right? Let him know who the master here is!’

‘A man like me—?’

‘Am I someone easily bullied?’

‘I… I am the esteemed White Knight…!’

Despite these thoughts, Wade truly did nothing. He simply pursed his lips, remaining silent since his initial gasp of surprise.

The embrace was already tight, but tucked directly inside his clothes, the contracting fabric pressed them even closer together.

Every breath, every heartbeat, even the rise and fall of their abdomens, was felt with startling clarity.

He probably had to thank Lamia for still wearing clothes. At least it wasn’t as explicit as a bare embrace—no, no, wearing clothes was normal, wasn’t it?

“How is it?”

A wicked smile played on Lamia’s lips. The contours of her figure, usually not something he paid much attention to, were now fully displayed before Wade’s eyes, accentuated by the compression of her undergarments.

“H-how is what?”

“I mean—you’ve seen how formidable I am, haven’t you?”

“No… to be precise, I’ve seen how formidable *my clothes* are,” he countered. “The elasticity is truly impressive—*hiss!*”

His compliment about the clothes was genuine; he truly hadn’t imagined a single garment could hold two people. The subsequent annoyed hiss was also real—Lamia had pinched him, twisting a small patch of skin between her two fingernails.

“What about now?”

“Still nothing…”

‘Pressing down with your body, gaining the upper hand in this position, grants you control of the household? How could such a strange thing be possible? Even if you demons have such bizarre rules, we humans certainly don’t—and besides, you’ve been completely misled by that Arch-Succubus, haven’t you?’

…

He didn’t yield, and the effect wasn’t very potent, causing Lamia’s face to fall. However, truth be told, Lamia’s face was simply too beautiful, especially with their current, overly intimate position. Her cheek, still pressed against Wade’s body and slightly distorted by the pressure, held no intimidation whatsoever; it even looked endearingly spoiled.

‘The Demon King burrowing into his clothes and acting spoiled? That was truly unheard of.’

‘And they said a man like the White Knight couldn’t resist this sort of thing—they said such men would eventually concede, “Alright, alright, anything you want is yours!”‘

‘That’s why you shouldn’t learn from succubi.’

A defiant grumble escaped her, like a cat, a cat about to hiss.

“Wade.”

Lamia mumbled, the flesh on her cheek twitching twice.

“Hm?”

Though their posture was delicate and the atmosphere of their confrontation subtle, Wade still instinctively responded when Lamia called. It was perhaps a basic moral quality of knights; they never ignored a lady’s requests… though where exactly was she a lady?

“Praise me.”

“What?”

The second round began with this peculiar demand.

“Praise me.”

She repeated it a second time, and seeing Lamia’s slightly puffed cheeks, Wade realized she was serious.

“…Why?”

“Naturally, I want you to see my virtues!”

“Huh?”

Wade was somewhat bewildered. However, Lamia’s inner thoughts often provided the answer at such moments.

‘Alright… I’ll just have to use *that*—praise! Right, if I start praising, I’ll always find virtues. Finding virtues equals approval, approval equals gaining recognition, which means securing the throne!’

“Strange logic…” Wade mused. “You ask if it makes sense, and it kind of does, but if you say it makes sense, well… it’s certainly strange.”

“Praise me.”

Perhaps Lamia’s current appearance truly optimized this logic, optimized it with her looks, yes, because right now, to Wade… she seemed a little cute?

Wade vehemently denied any internal thoughts like ‘the White Knight definitely can’t stand being pressed upon’ or ‘making a man say yes, yes, anything for you’. Yet, it had to be said, Lamia’s intimate contact truly dulled Wade’s reasoning. His mind, captivated by Lamia’s appearance and actions, filled the gaps of logical disagreement and absence in his thoughts.

“…Uh-huh…”

Moreover, Wade was genuinely thinking.

Though he thought, ‘What childish ideas are these?’, he was truly pondering: what aspects of Lamia should he praise?

‘Orlan said this before: as long as I can gain the praise of the populace and the admiration of my soldiers, I can secure the throne and become an excellent Demon King—it’s always been this way, so it must always be effective! This is wisdom I’ve accumulated over centuries!’

…

Lamia’s inner thoughts echoed once more. Perhaps it was the mention of Orlan, but Wade instinctively furrowed his brows.

He detested Orlan, a visceral hatred. A single glance was enough for him to know that the most loathed person of his life was about to usurp ‘Demon King Kares Lux’.

Moreover, he particularly hated Lamia recalling Orlan. This wasn’t jealousy or anything of the sort, but a simple… feeling that Lamia had been deceived and suffered for years, even centuries, under Orlan’s influence.

Such diligent work, decades of uninterrupted labor, work without a single break—’My Demon King, you did all that just for a few words of praise?’

In a daze, Wade suddenly wondered if Lamia was like a ‘child’, who, from birth, had been lured by Orlan’s ‘candy’ and deceived until now. They exploited Lamia’s ‘purity’, packaging her as the Demon King—was that black armor also part of it? Because she was the Demon King, she had to wear black armor; because she was the Demon King, she had to be taciturn, hiding behind that layer of black. Because she was the Demon King, she had to heed the experience of ‘old-timers’, suppressing herself to become the king in others’ hearts?

Wade was human, a knight, a superhero, the antithesis of demons. Yet, in this very moment, he still… felt a pang of pity. Pity for his long-standing enemy, his current… wife.