Survival Guide After Accidentally Kissing a Demon - Chapter 43

After a brief sensation of weightlessness.

Beili was picked up by Ashera.

“You…” Her expression changed, and she said stiffly, “Put me down, I can walk on my own…”

“Don’t worry, Little Butterfly, I won’t let you fall to the ground.”

Ashera interrupted her, lowering his head with a slight tug at the corner of his lips. “As a Magic Mentor for a day, safely escorting a weary student home is effortless for me.”

With that, his pale toes lightly touched the ground, and Ashera carried her swiftly away in the direction they had come.

Beili struggled for a while in the cold embrace before giving up.

This guy, even with his heart gouged out, was still far stronger than ordinary people.

His bent arms and clasped hands were like iron clamps, holding her tightly and making it extremely difficult to move.

Maybe… should she try out the power of the Death Mana she had just absorbed?

The thought had barely surfaced when Beili quietly raised her hand. A Morpho Butterfly with blue-green wings, shrouded in a faint black mist, appeared silently at her fingertip.

Before she could take any further action, her peripheral vision caught sight again of that strange hollow in the black robe.

…Forget it.

She pursed her lips lightly and decided not to waste her Mana here.

When the day of the Hunt Banquet came, there would be plenty of opportunities to use it.

Thus, the Morpho Butterfly resting on Beili’s fingertip slowly folded its blue-green wings and, in the blink of an eye, turned into scattered points of light and vanished.

A low, ambiguous chuckle sounded above her head.

She lifted her red eyes and met the man’s face-clouded with gloom, yet the curve of his lips deepened, forming a bizarre and frightening expression.

Feeling as if she’d been caught, Beili reached out and lightly touched the tip of her nose.

Watching the cemetery recede into the distance behind them,

Beili had no choice but to find a topic and asked, “So, why are you unwilling to absorb that Death Mana?”

Although this question was meant to ease the current awkwardness, it was also something she had always been curious about.

The Demon who had his heart gouged out would rather become a harmless little lamb, staying by Susanna’s side to be treated with Healing Magic, than absorb Death Mana with her.

Could it be… there were some terrible side effects?

The more Beili thought about it, the more uneasy she felt. That was why she kept inviting Ashera to absorb Mana with her, but Ashera kept refusing.

At this moment, the man with twisted ram horns on his head had already returned to his usual expression.

After hearing her question, he paused slightly in his stride, curled his lips, and then said lazily, “Because it’s not tasty.”

“Huh?”

Beili instinctively touched her ear, thinking she had misheard.

“Yes, that’s right. Dear Little Butterfly, didn’t you taste it?”

Ashera’s lips curled up, his tone gentle and unhurried, yet faintly carrying the arrogance and disdain of someone in a superior position, as he said:

“Death Mana carries a rotten stench of corpses, making it hard to swallow.”

“For me, not only is this level of Mana’s healing effect extremely weak, but absorbing it also takes a lot of time. After absorbing it, I even lose my sense of taste for a long time…”

“Hmm… It’s simply not worthy of being called the candy of Mana.”

“If all Mana were likened to a roast lamb, then Death Mana would be the lamb’s toes. Spending a lot of time absorbing it is like spending a lot of time chewing on the lamb’s toes…”

“…That’s enough, stop talking.”

Beili couldn’t help but reach out to cover his mouth, rolling her eyes dramatically in the process.

A person with a bloody hole in their chest, yet still so picky with their mouth…

Seeing those hollow golden eyes smiling at the corners, and his brows raised, it was obvious he was teasing her on purpose.

With a soft sigh in her heart, Beili let go and asked again, “Then, for you, what kind of Mana is actually useful… um… I mean, delicious?”
“You want to know?”

Ashera let out a low laugh. “That’s a good question.”

He said, “Dear Little Butterfly, as your Magic Mentor, even if only for a day, I think it’s necessary for you to know this.”

“The most delicious and rewarding Mana in this world…”

His words paused slightly.

The curve of his lips deepened, his Adam’s apple bobbed, and when he spoke again, his voice had grown a little hoarse. “Of course, it’s those tainted with sin. Their hearts are the most delicious.”

“Aside from that, the only thing that could compare to the heart of a sinner would be…”

As if something suddenly occurred to him, the smile frozen on his lips, his lazy tone and the nonchalant expression on his face came to an abrupt halt.

His floating figure stopped moving forward.

Beili looked at Ashera in confusion.

She saw him lower his hollow golden eyes, thinking quickly, his thick lashes like black feathers trembling lightly, his bent arms and clenched fingers unconsciously tightening just a bit.

“The only what?”

Beili asked in confusion, interrupting his thoughts.

“Hmm… only…”

Hearing her words, Ashera snapped back to himself, the frozen corners of his lips relaxing slightly, a hint of a smile returning.

Speaking softly and slowly, he said, “I’ve thought it over carefully. Still, the heart of a sinner is the most delicious. Nothing else can compare.”

…

Liar.

This guy was definitely plotting something just now!

But since he wouldn’t say, no one would know-until the day they fell into his trap.

Beili blinked her red eyes and picked an irrelevant question to ask: “So, is your recipe only hearts?”

He tilted his head, drawing out the last syllable in thought, and said, “Eyeballs work too.”

Beili: “…”

“If you’re interested, I can share my recipe with you,” Ashera said, half-smiling.

“No, no need…”

Beili replied sullenly, “I’m just curious-since you’ve become so weak and yet are so picky about the Mana you absorb, how do you even survive?”

Ashera chuckled softly, but didn’t answer.

By the time she asked this question, the two of them had already left the graveyard behind the island, passed through the spacious plaza and several magic classrooms of Holy Island Academy, and returned to the attic room at the Holy Church Academy Dormitory.

Their figures drew close, and the door to the attic creaked open automatically.

“You’re already very tired, Little Butterfly. Today’s lesson ends here.”

Ashera placed her on the soft bed, then began to hum a lullaby softly, as if coaxing her to sleep.

Beili was silent for a while before finally asking, “What is that?”

“What?” Ashera looked at her.

“The song you’re humming, what is it?” Beili asked quietly.

His cold fingertips gently brushed her gradually dazed cheek.

“A Requiem,” he said.

Her half-lidded red eyes grew heavy with sleep. She turned her head and saw the dawn light filtering through the window and gauzy curtains, falling on the man’s twisted black horns and long, silver hair.

“Ashera… Thorn Game… why…”

The Young Woman seemed half-awake, half-dreaming, murmuring in confusion.

Unconsciously, the man’s lips curled up.

“Why not look at it from another angle…”

He leaned down, whispering intimately in her ear as a lover would-

“If I hadn’t twisted your neck back then, would you, walking out of the game with me, still be able to appear here as the heir of the Constance Family?”

“It seems you don’t know much about the Butterfly Family’s regenerative abilities.”

He left a cold kiss on her forehead.

“Sleep, Little Butterfly.”