I quickly stepped into the room and closed the door.
Lilith was sitting on my bed, as beautiful as ever, but I made sure not to look at her gorgeous body and instead stared into her eyes. Taking in the contours of her bodacious curves was a fast track to being seduced.
"Demon princess, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" I said, lowering my head slightly.
A small smile played on her lips as she chuckled slightly.
"You're a curious one, aren't you?" she asked.
"Curious one?" I asked, feigning ignorance.
"I mean to say you're an unusual demon, and before you blatantly lie, I'll let you know that I've been watching your every move."
She was? This could prove to be trouble.
"Relax, I'm interested in you. From what I've seen, you're more reliable than most demons," she said. "At least, I'm certain you have a brain."
"Princess, you're overestimating me. I may share the same skill as Abaddon, and I may be his vessel, but I am not him. I think you're overestimating me."
"Am I? I just saw you manipulate events as if you're playing on a chess board, and now you want to say I'm mistaken."
I shrugged as if I didn't know what she was talking about. Saying anything would likely land me in more danger.
Lilith noticed this and continued speaking as usual.
"Let us start with your sister. Did you know she was the one who took out the camera so you wouldn't get caught? Of course, she wouldn't have known how to do so if you didn't tell her all she needed to know. You relayed that information to her on the second day of school. That was almost a month ago before yesterday's events happened," Lilith said.
I shrugged as I casually walked over to her and rested my schoolbag at my bedside.
"You're suggesting that I set this up a month in advance. I'm not nearly as capable," I said.
That was a lie.
I did manipulate Sophia.
"You were the one who called her to the rooftop in the first place." She countered.
Sophia was a hard weapon to wield, but she was a weapon nonetheless. Lilith was right; I did give her information on how to deal with the cameras. I did this knowing her skills and abilities were perfect for the job, and then when I needed her, I summoned her to the rooftop.
I didn't need to say a word to manipulate her. I knew her personality. If someone she cared about was in danger, then she would do whatever it took to protect them. All I needed to do was let her witness her brother killing someone, and her protective instincts would naturally arise.
Even if it wasn't the morally just thing to do, Sophia would protect the people she loved no matter the cost.
And in my humble opinion, there was no better tool to use.
"The other issue is Roku. You set a trap for him by switching the watches. You were wearing his watch when you killed Kai so when the school check the location of the students nearby during Kai's death, they found Roku."
She was correct again. Luna was also there but they would never suspect her, given who her father was and even if she did do it, there was nothing the school could do about it.
"And you were even the one who planted the curse on Kai that caused him to spiral in the first place." She continued.
Lilith was partially correct there, but she didn't see the full scope of my plan. I didn't only plan Kai's breakdown but also Roku's too.
To understand this, you had to understand Roku's weakness. As I said before, every demon is driven by one of the seven sins. Sometimes it acts as the reason for their existence, and other times, it's like a curse.
Roku's sin was gluttony.
He had an uncontrollable need to eat raw flesh, whether it be human or monster.
In such an environment as this school, it was nearly impossible for him to survive like this.
I mean, if he went around killing and eating students, then he would've undoubtedly been found out.
Still, there was a way out of this predicament. The answer was eating the monsters inside the dungeons. That was the only way he could ease his hunger. Back when I first entered the dungeon, he was the scaly beast that was eating the goblins.
Roku was ranked 100, which meant he received 6010 zencoins. With this small income, entering a dungeon every day would only be sustainable if he entered the cheapest dungeon at the school, which happens to be the D-ranked goblin dungeon.
But what if every day after school, someone else enters the D-ranked dungeon and clears all or even most of the monsters inside?
How would he ease his hunger then? The answer was simple: he would have to purchase a higher-ranked, more expensive dungeon.
And that was exactly what happened. Since I always purchased the D-ranked goblin dungeon and killed most of the goblins, he no longer had a food source. Roku was forced to purchase a higher-ranked dungeon, which cost more money.
Over time, this naturally created a strain on his pocket. Whenever he took a bite of raw flesh, he would instantly lose his mind and go berserk, which caused all the monsters he killed to have their cores destroyed, so he couldn't sell the cores for money either.
This led to only one option: he had to extort the students at the academy who were weaker than him.
That meant he had to extort me.
Yes, I was the one who drove him to the point where he needed to extort me in the first place.
With this, I created a situation where I could swap watches with him.
"Do you happen to play chess by chance?" Lilith asked, looking at me more curiously.
"No, I was never too interested in the game," I responded with a shrug.
"Hmm… That's a shame. My father and Abaddon used to play all the time. The two of them loved the game. Abaddon was especially good at chess. I would say he was a master. My fiancé was hailed as the genius of the demon race." Lilith smiled fondly at the memory of her darling being showered with praise.
"He was the brilliant strategist of the demon race and led us to victory in battle countless times. He was always ten steps ahead of any opponent. To do that, he would always made sure that everything was set perfectly, and then the dominoes would knock heads with each other until they all fell just the way he planned. I fell in love with him watching him do this time and time again.
I would say you are far different from him, yet you share a few similarities. What makes you different is that you rushed into things. You didn't plan out every detail of your plan; instead, you made them up as you went along and fit the pieces together. My darling Abaddon would've predicted the entire game from the start.
My Abaddon would've made sure everything was set up perfectly before he acted. That is why my Abaddon was hailed as the perfect being. You're not him, but maybe part of you was influenced by him," Lilith pondered.
I highly doubted that I was influenced by the previous Abaddon. Abaddon didn't sound like me at all.
Perfectionism was the perfect trap; I would never fall for it.
I discovered something in my previous life while I was battling cancer all on my own without anyone's support. I discovered that I had a love for storytelling. Maybe if I had the chance, I would've become a game writer.
In my mind, I wasn't playing chess. I was simply crafting a story, one where the best outcome happened.
Chess has a set number of moving pieces and outcomes. It follows a flow of logic that can't be tampered with. For example, your king could never hop over pieces like the knight. Nor could your king move six spaces in one move to capture a pawn.
Everything that happens in the game of chess is governed by rules.
While a story, on the other hand, doesn't have those rules. For example, in a story, someone from another world could be reincarnated as a demon and tamper with the outcome of everything that was previously set into motion.
Because of this, crafting a story is much more intricate.
A butterfly flaps its wings, and it leads to a tornado on the other side of the world.
Even the smallest of events could have catastrophic impact in the future. A story has an infinite number of moving pieces that come together to create one outcome.
In chess, there is a set number of moving pieces and outcomes. Either your king gets captured, you captured your opponent's king, or there is a stalemate. If the pieces get knocked over by accident, then it would simply be picked back up, and the game would resume as usual with no consequence.
In a story, there could be an infinite number of endings.
I crafted a story where Kai became a victim of a demon. Roku is blamed for his death, and Luna is saved by a mysterious boy, just like she was in her childhood.
Perfectionism was the perfect trap; I would never fall for it.
How could something be perfect, in a world of infinite variables that affect the outcome of a situation?
The answer is that it couldn't. Nothing is perfect, which is why it's a trap to ever strive for it.
Life wasn't chess, it is story and you win by adapting to the narrative.