38

"I know what happened to the bandits." Isabella raises an eyebrow.

"Yea? and what happened to them?"

"I killed them all." well Dodo and Athena did most of the work but this is fine.

"So you killed them all?" she seems a little surprised but doesn't react in any drastic way, I mean it's not like they were her people anyway.

"Yep they're all dead, and now the miners are working again and the trade route is opened up." she doesn't immediately respond she seemingly just takes in the information and is planning how to respond.

"You do know that by doing so you will draw attention from the capital right? Obsidian will never allow Shea to regain control over the economy and would rather the dark moon degrade than succeed in any capacity."

"Yea but I don't care about Obsidian, he can't use the artifact and he has to pay huge amounts each year for the other empires to not invade. he might have saved the empire after the fall of lord midnight sun but he is still letting the empire bleed to death and that's not good for my plans." she tenses a bit but still doesn't react anyway physically but she does look a bit curious.

"Your plans huh, and what would those be?"

"A united demon world, I need to have everyone playing nice for a few reasons and need to do it pretty fast as well." she losses her curiosity and just looks at me incredulously.

"And you plan to unite the demon world, do you know just how many people have tried and failed to do that over the years?" she shakes her head and looks at me with a bit of disdain.

"I can and I will because I must."

"So how does a human plan to unite the demon world anyway? I am quite curious, I thought you were an intelligent person or at least somewhat skilled but so far I am unimpressed, it might have been luck that got you this far." she relaxes in her seat once more and crosses one leg over the other but I can tell she is ready to make a move still.

"Well I never actually said I was a human now did I?" this catches her off-guard a little as her eyes widen a bit before she schools her expression.

"Alright I will bite what are you? from what I can tell you seem to be a human around the peak of higher demon but if I had to guess it should be demon king at least."

"I am a Devil." I let my wings slide out and she seems genuinely surprised and even uses a bit of spirit power to try and dispel the ' illusion ' only for nothing to happen.

"And what exactly is a devil? I have been around awhile and never seen someone with wings like that, they're nothing like the royal family wings." she studies my wings for a bit before she looks back meeting my eyes and her gaze is a bit different than before, a hint of something I haven't seen before in our short meeting.

"A devil is my species and we are pretty similar to your royal family demons, I come from a place you have never heard of and will likely never hear of anywhere else." I fold in my wings again so there not taking up space if I have to run.

"And why are you being so forthcoming with this information? a new species is cool and all but it's not like people will just bow to your whims if anything they will actively try to get rid of you as a threat. I am not even sure if that is what I should do yet or not, for all I know you could be after my life. I don't imagine you are planning to allow me to just know this for free so you want something from me specifically. maybe I was right in my initial assessment and you are intelligent, for all I know you wanted to meet like this, and I played right into your scheme" Isabella is now actively using her spirit power to scan the room looking for traps. not seeing them only seems to spike her worry even more, and now time to sell it, oh boy do I hope this works I don't want to have to do this the hard way.

"Well the reason I told you is because I have an offer for you that I felt you would benefit from massively. there's no need to panic I genuinely have no desire to do you harm and just want you to hear me out before making your judgment." she locks eyes with me and doesn't give off any emotion as she tries to judge my true motive before giving up and sighs.

"Whatever, I can hear you out but I have no intention of trusting you just so you know." I smile and buy a set of black potions and a normal queen piece. it stings the wallet but nothing ventured nothing gained. only pulling out an eternal speed potion I hold it up for her to see and once she looks at it and reads the label her eyes widen and she seems to want to hold it but I store it before she can even reach for it.

"That is a part of what I want to offer you, first I will tell you what I offer and then I will let you know what it is I want from you." she nods and is genuinely interested now but still on guard. " I am offering to strengthen you with both a full set of eternal potions and also an evil piece. an evil piece will reincarnate you into a devil and give you all the benefits of my species while maintaining the benefits of your old one." I pause to let her think about it and ask any questions she may have.

"Ok humor me what are the benefits and side effects." damn right to the side effects I was hoping to rope her in more before talking about the contract that comes with it but that was wishful thinking. this is a perfect time to mention her light curse though, I can say I sensed it from my innate ability and make it sound unimportant instead of bringing it up later.

"Well, first you would drink the eternal potions and then get reincarnated for the max effect. the piece will first begin by converting all your spiritual power into the devil's power, in doing so it will also cure you of the light curse I sensed and will make you immortal so long as you don't get killed you will live forever." she grips the armrests of the chair she is sitting on and gives me a furious look but she closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths.

"You know about my curse?" her voice completely losing all emotion and robotic sounding, she is likely going to ignore everything I said up to this point. I ready myself to flee and spring the trap as I look for even a twitch from her.

"I can sense light and it is very abundant in light, it seems to be slowly killing you and by reincarnating it will be consumed and used as fuel for the rebirth." at least I hope so if not I have to go to the human world for a dang flower to cure her. "and if it doesn't and I overestimated the evil piece the piece will still grant you a devils immortality and you won't have to worry about dying in the near future and we can work on curing you if that was to happen." the arm rests snap in her grip.

"And what I am supposed to just believe that if your plan fails you will help me after the fact? you will likely just throw me away or sell me off the moment my usefulness to you is gone." she seems to be tunnel vision on the part where she has to put her faith in me and ignoring everything else, this all stems from her trauma at the hand of the human he cursed her.

"You don't have to believe me at all for a matter of fact. I never finished explaining the piece in full and one of the ' side effects ' is it comes with a contract that will bind us together in an equal contract, once that is established you're stuck with me and I am stuck with you. in that case it makes sense that I would help you if not for you but for me, right?" she releases the broken armrests and folds her hands under her chest as she narrows her eyes at me.

"So what, I could kill myself killing both of us if that was the case and you could hold that over me to force me to do things I don't want to." I shake my head and begin to clear up the misunderstanding but am super glad that she seems to be really thinking about it.

"Not that kind of equals contract, there are three types of contracts I can do with the pieces. slave which I would use on someone I don't care for or am sending to their death. servant someone I don't trust yet but plan to keep around for a long time. and finally, equal which is someone I plan to work with for the remaining time I am alive." she scrunches her nose up when I finish.

"So marriage?" I cough not expecting her to see it that way but it honestly is pretty similar.

"Not marriage but very similar." she narrows her eyes but it doesn't have any of the earlier hatred.

"Finish explaining, I am not agreeing to anything like this until I know everything about it in full. plus I still am in doubt about this all being a trap and this thing could just kill me, for all I know it's impossible to reincarnate someone as a devil-like yourself." inwardly jumping for joy but outwardly a stone wall I begin to explain all the functions and benefits.

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"I can also summon one of the people I have already reincarnated and then send them away after proving that it does work." she is slowly going over everything I just went over with her and all the questions I answered.

"I would like to see someone who you have reincarnated that is from the demon world." I hold out my hand and a summoning circle appears a blue slime falls onto my palm and swiftly looks around, Dodo confused about what's going on makes some eyes, and looks at me with a question mark formed over his head out of the slime.

"Show your wings and let a little demonic energy out and I will then send you back." he nods and then lets out his wings and radiates his power which has promoted him to the peak of demon king since he started training. you would be surprised how talented the lazy glutton is when he wants to put in the effort for good food. Isabella's eyes go wide at the sight of the demon world's weakest species having power way over what it should. the strongest a slime has ever gotten is to the peak of intermediate and here is one almost at great demon king the tier directly below her. this works out in my favor if she believes it's the results of the evil piece and not a mutant slime who ate eighty-plus devil fruits and a whole dragon corpse. I send Dodo back after he stops and she stands up and begins to pace back and forth, I almost booked it when she stood but a man needs nerves of steel if he ever hopes to make it in this world so I hold on.

"Alright, so I am leaning toward the idea you're not lying about the reincarnation and the possibility of being cured, but you need to explain to me in detail what it is you want from me. there are things I need to get done and people I need to kill and you are providing me a viable option of power and buying more time to get my revenge, but I won't be some errand bitch for the rest of my life." I smile and pull out the queen piece setting it on the table as she looks at it glow with an ominous red.

"Well the devil is in the details as they say, so let's hash this out."