As I had just woken up, I could not describe my consciousness with any word other than ‘foggy’—it took me a few seconds to even remember Lady Entropy’s outrageous request, the night before.

I looked to my side.

Lady Entropy, with her eyes closed, her mouth slightly opened, leaking small, peaceful sleeping breaths, and her delicate hands gripping my sleeves, was even cuter than usual.

This impression was only strengthened by the fact that, as loose as it was, her dress had managed to cover all but her fingertips.

Absent-minded, likely still half-asleep and without putting too much thought into it, I reached over and started playing with her hair.

After a while, this brought my attention to her ears, and I took one of them between two fingers.

It twitched.

I did not stop for several minutes, and my mental state made very little progress towards a higher level of consciousness.

“... Astaroth?”

With just the one word, I was fully awake. Yet, unwilling to give up my pride, I could not simply retract my hand and apologise, so I found myself forced to come up with something.

“You know, Lady Entropy,” I said after several seconds of thought, moving my hand back to her hair, “it would be best if you were more careful with your requests in the future.”

“Nn?”

The curious sound she let out was almost cute enough to cause me to lose my train of thought.

Almost.

“This time, I was able to control myself, so fortunately, nothing happened,” I said, moving my hand to cup her cheek. “But… As expected, even I…” I paused for a moment, searching for the right words and pointedly ignoring the blush I could feel rise on my face. “Even I cannot make any guarantees when you make requests like that.”

She moved as if to turn around and turn her back to me, but she did not end up finishing that motion, and just stared at me, instead.

“That’s… I wouldn’t really, uh… That is, well…”

She stammered for a few seconds more, and then seemed to give up on words entirely, closed her eyes and pursed her lips.

There was obviously no way I would not realise the meaning of that gesture.

Gently, I brought my face closer to hers—

Someone knocked on the door.

Before I realised what I was even doing, I was sitting straight up in the bed, and Lady Entropy sat next to me.

“... Enter,” I said after a few moments, hoping that the person on the other side of the door would be a regular Ghost Maid, or at the very least, an underling with some tact.

Of course, that hope was in vain. The maid was blue.

I only noticed after she opened the door that in my surprise, I had forgotten to close the bed’s curtains the night before.

“Oh my, oh my~?”

Her tone and smile were somewhere between ‘interested’ and ‘teasing’.

Without so much as a warning or justification, she approached us and looked at us from every angle she could manage. I scowled at her with half-lidded eyes and waved her away whenever she got too close.

She looked a little disappointed when she realised that neither Lady Entropy nor I was nude, but it was not enough to hide or even diminish her glee.

The moment she moved to leave, I waved my hand to close the door.

Given she was a ghost, this did not prove very effective, and she was half through the wall when I made to leave the bed. I did not have to finish the motion, given the poor, poor maid was soon wrapped in tight, rather painful-looking black, thorny chains.

I looked over to the side—it seemed that the chains, indeed, were Lady Entropy’s work. She had raised her hand.

I decided to pointedly ignore the fact that the chains seemed to be wrapped more tightly around the maid than they had been around Saniel as Lady Entropy pulled the maid back this way.

“Not a word of this,” I said as I climbed out of bed.

“But~,” she protested, not a grain of reflection in her expression. The only emotion I read was mild disappointment.

I spent a few seconds contemplating how to fit my next sentence into ten words. Then, I activated [Overlord’s Authority].

“In addition,” I hissed, “spend the day alone in your quarters.”

“Eh?!”

Her teasing half-disappointed expression soon faded, making way for actual dismay. She must have been imagining spending an entire day, all on her own, with nothing to do.

“Reflect on your actions,” I said, shaking my head as I took a step towards my closet.

“But~ I couldn’t help it, could I? It’s not like I chose to walk in on you two doing lewd things…”

Although she appeared to be trying to appeal her punishment, her expression was hardly convincing. If anything, she was convincing me to be harsher.

“I am not sure what you are imagining, but we probably did not do it. And I am not punishing you for that. I am punishing you for your reaction.” I self-righteously raised a finger as I lectured the maid without even looking at her.

“... Then what were you two doing?” she asked, tilting her head. She did not seem suspicious, or like she doubted me, merely curious.

“... Nothing,” Lady Entropy and I lied simultaneously.

Since it seemed the maid was running short on suspension of disbelief, I decided to change the subject before she was pulverised by Lady Entropy tugging on the chains too hard.

“If you are here, that means breakfast is ready, yes?”

“Ah, right, I did come here to say that~,” the maid said, winking. It did not seem like she was faking anything.

I had to restrain myself to prevent myself from making her a guinea pig for my new [Lustrate] skill.

“... Right, then. Dismissed. Go reflect on your actions.”

The chains disintegrated. The maid floated away, her slump speaking volumes of her dejection.

“Perhaps I should consider having this room ghost-proofed…”

Breakfast was as usual. Asami, Nexu and Alpine, of course, ate with us.

“You lot,” I spoke up after wiping my mouth and putting away my handkerchief, “at Lady Entropy’s behest, we are going to Ethalia, up north.”

Lilith opened her mouth to speak, but I silenced her by raising my hand.

“You are exempt, Lilith. Go visit your family in Gehenna.”

“Uh… Thanks, Master,” she said, an uncharacteristic amount of humility on her face.

“I trust you will be able to get there on your own?”

“Yup, don’t worry. I can just use [Devil Ritualism] to get there, ‘n to come back, too.”

“Excellent. Ah, incidentally, Asami, Nexu, Alpine, you three are coming to Ethalia, too.”

Nexu and Asami tilted their heads in opposite directions, towards each other. Because they were sitting rather close to one another, they ended up bumping heads.

They collapsed and almost fell out of their chairs.

“Me too?” Alpine asked, pointing at itself.

I stood up and roughly pulled Nexu and Asami back into a proper sitting position.

“Nexu, the elves can probably teach you a thing or two about spirits,” I said. It was hard to miss the excitement my words triggered in him, though it was conveyed more by body language, such as his wagging tail, than by his expression.

“Thank you for your consideration,” he said, looking down with a faint blush on his face.

“Alpine, the drakonids have natural claws just like you, so they could probably teach you how to use them better.”

Like usual, it expressed its emotions with its full body, wagging its tail with an expression that could pass for a pleased grin. “Thank you, sir!” it shouted, its volume attracting the attention of several nearby demons.

Notably enough, no one at the table questioned why there would be drakonids in Ethalia—the nation also known as the Elven Forest.

“As for you, Asami… Perhaps you could pick up some tips from the shrine maidens.”

“Thank you, mister demon king!” she said, her body language not dissimilar to Alpine’s even though she lacked the wagging tail.

“M’lord,” Charlotte said, putting down her teacup, “may I inquire as t’ the… purp’se o’ this exc’rsion?” Her eyes glinted with wise, almost mischievous curiosity as a dignified giggle left her mouth.

“I too must admit I’m rather curious,” Tempest said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Of course, I’m thrilled at the prospect of being able to study the races of mankind up close, let alone the world tree, so I’d love to go even without a particular reason…”

The madness of her research was quickly taking over, and her eyes went blank as she started rambling. A quick flick to the forehead brought her back to reality.

«You said there were gonna be drakonids, right? Then I wanna go as quickly as we can! They always give me lots of gifts, and they’re always up for a spar!» Davna ‘said’. I briefly questioned her reasoning, but it seemed fair enough for a child.

“If Master is going, Navillus too~!” she announced, excitedly raising her hands and spreading globs of goo around in the process. I unsuccessfully attempted to dodge one that came my way. She apologised, but her words held little weight.

After cleaning myself off, I opened my mouth.

“How do you lot feel about meeting two more gods?”

Although I chuckled, my tone should have made clear to anyone that I was doing anything but joking.

I decided to pay a short visit to Smile before departure.

“Ah, Lord Astaroth, please do come in,” he said, gesturing around the room filled with torture implements.

There was no space to sit, so I simply took a few steps forward.

I spotted Xhaos in the corner of the room, curled up, almost like a cat. He appeared to be sleeping.

“How long…?” I began, but Smile soon interrupted me.

“Ever since the departure of his new toy. Isn’t he just the cutest little thing?” Smile said, the smile on his mask shifting slightly to one side.

The bed underneath Xhaos, though it looked almost like a dog bed, appeared to be the only thing in the room not intended to cause pain and suffering. In fact, it looked rather soft and comfortable, and if he had been wearing a normal outfit, I might have agreed with Smile.

As it was, his outfit prevented that.

For the record, I had once offered to get him an actual bed, but he had declined.

“I am sure you realise why I am here,” I said, directing my gaze back to Smile.

“You would like answers, yes? Truly, I am honoured.”

The smile on his mask evened out, and the eyes narrowed a little.

“Lord Astaroth, are you aware of the way in which Memory Devils transmit their memories to others?”

“I was not even aware you were a Memory Devil up until just now.”

“Ah, for reference’s sake, Xhaos is not. In any case, if one were to investigate a thousand Memory Devils, they’d find a thousand different appearances, as one might expect. Yet there’s one thing which would remain constant.”

“The mask?” I said. It was not much more than a random guess.

“Indeed, Lord Astaroth!”

He reached one of his white-gloved hands up to his mask, then paused a moment.

“Allow me to request you don’t stare too much, Lord Astaroth. I admit I’m not sure what would happen.”

Before I could respond, he removed the mask from his face, and the eyes and mouth on it vanished. What lay underneath was…

I would hesitate to describe it as a face.

I certainly saw two eyes, a nose and a mouth, but I could not deny that that was not quite what they were. They also seemed to shift between the features of multiple people and yet no one at all, and several times, I thought I recognised the features of someone familiar.

I tore my gaze away.

“Oh, quick thinking, Lord Astaroth,” Smile said, though his voice now sounded like several voices speaking at the same time. “Thinking to look away… You have done better than most.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw him offer me his mask, so I took it. “What would you have done had I been unable to look away, you imbecile?”

“Of course, I would have erased your memories of the whole event and tried again, with more care this time. By all means, please try on the mask.”

“You pull this again and you are fired.”

After appraising the mask to make sure it had no harmful effects, I placed it on my face. I soon found that both my point of view and the surroundings had changed significantly.

“You should now be seeing and hearing the events from my perspective right after you left the dungeon, Lord Astaroth. You may flip through time as if going through the pages of a book. I have placed ‘bookmarks’ at each of the answers. By all means, feel free to use them, or simply watch the torture.”

I used the bookmarks.