THE REBORN LADY IS LOVED BY HER FOSTER BROTHER: THE SCARIEST VILLAIN

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Chapter 178 : The Sensibilities of a Demon God

The figure who had appeared before them was, by any measure, unmistakably the Lucien Ortansia knew so well.

It was as though none of it had ever happened, not the space between dimensions, not the trap he had laid for her and Gérard, not the way it had all come crashing back down upon him. He stood there with that same expression of curious amusement, watching them as though they had simply rounded a corner in the corridor of the Vérité ducal mansion and happened upon one another by chance.

"Is it really you, Lucien…?"

She asked it cautiously, barely above a whisper. Lucien responded with a low, quiet laugh.

"My, my — have you forgotten my face already, my dear? Well then, allow me to remind you in exquisite detail—"

"Don't come any closer."

Lucien had taken a single step forward, that sly smile still playing on his lips, and Gérard's voice stopped him cold. There was a killing intent in Gérard's voice so sharp and absolute that even Ortansia, standing safely behind him, felt herself flinch.

Lucien, to his credit, read the room immediately. He understood this was no empty threat. He came to a halt, and raised both hands in a gesture of easy surrender.

"Oh, my apologies. I'd rather not press my luck, if it's all the same to you. Last time you cut me clean in two — I'd rather not find out what comes next. Thirds, perhaps?"

Last time… he was referring to the moment Gérard had struck him down. Which meant the figure before them was, without question, truly Lucien.

Ortansia's confusion must have been written plainly across her face, because Lucien smiled at her then, soft and warm, the way he used to smile during their lessons together.

"You're wondering how I'm still alive, aren't you, my dear? I'm afraid we demon gods are rather tenacious creatures. We don't simply vanish at the first inconvenience. That, you see, is precisely why the gods chose to seal us away rather than destroy us outright."

"I… I see…"

It was a peculiar feeling that settled over Ortansia then.

The demon god who had sought to ensnare both her and Gérard, he still existed. That thought alone ought to have terrified her. And yet the Lucien standing before her now was… exactly as she remembered him. The Lucien who had served in the Vérité household. Familiar in every way that mattered. So familiar, in fact, that what rose inside her wasn't fear at all, it was something closer to longing.

"…You seem considerably weakened."

Gérard had been studying him in silence all this while. The observation fell from his lips quietly, almost to himself.

He wasn't wrong. There was nothing left of the overwhelming, suffocating pressure that had radiated from Lucien when they'd last faced him as a demon god. Not a shred of it.

"Well, I was rather thoroughly thrashed by Gérard himself, wasn't I? Drained of power, left with wounds I haven't yet recovered from, and cast adrift in a place like this…" Lucien tilted his head with a rueful sort of ease. "What you see before you now is little more than the dregs of a demon god, I'm afraid."

"The dregs…"

The metaphor was so peculiar that Ortansia couldn't help pulling a face. Lucien caught her expression and laughed softly.

"You're exactly the same as ever, my dear — and I find that oddly comforting. Gérard's face gives absolutely nothing away, but yours…" He sighed with something that sounded almost like contentment. "Every little feeling shows so clearly. It's rather soothing, truly."

The words were barely out of his mouth before Gérard stepped smoothly in front of Ortansia, placing himself squarely between her and Lucien's gaze.

"Stop staring at her. It's unsavoury."

"Goodness, Gérard, still as protective as ever. You'll make things terribly complicated for the young lady when she eventually finds herself a suitor, you know."

"…It sounds rather like you're asking to be cut apart again." Gérard's hand shifted to his sword. "This time I'll make sure the pieces are small enough that recovery takes considerably longer."

Lucien took a hurried step backwards.

"Ah — my apologies, my apologies. It's quite reassuring to see the two of you are as unchanged as ever."

There was no hostility in him. None at all. Even after everything — after all of that, Ortansia couldn't feel so much as a flicker of ill will coming from him.

"…Don't you resent us?"

She leaned out slightly from behind Gérard's back to ask it.

After everything Lucien had done — the time he had invested, the careful, meticulous way he had cornered them both — it would have been perfectly reasonable for him to be sitting with vengeance smouldering quietly behind that smile of his. All those plans, undone. All that effort, for nothing.

And yet.

Lucien blinked at her. For a moment he looked genuinely, thoroughly puzzled — as though the question had caught him completely off guard.

And then he began to laugh.

"Ha — hahaha! Oh, my dear, the things you say!"

"I don't think it's funny at all, personally…"

Ortansia stared at him, a little taken aback by the sudden outburst. Lucien wiped what appeared to be actual tears from the corner of his eye.

"Forgive me, forgive me. It's just — human thinking is such a remarkable thing. I'd quite forgotten, having gone so long without a proper conversation. "

‘I will never truly understand how a demon god's mind works…’

That elusive, ungraspable quality — it was so very Lucien. Ortansia felt it with a strange, bittersweet pang of recognition.

"Now then, as for whether I bear any resentment toward the two of you…"

Lucien's eyes glittered as his gaze moved between Gérard and Ortansia.

Gérard's focus sharpened at once. Ortansia could feel him brace.

But Lucien didn't move to attack. He simply grinned, bright and entirely untroubled.

"Good heavens, no! After all the fun you gave me? Why on earth would I resent you for that?!"

"……Pardon?"

It was so completely the opposite of what she had been bracing herself for that Ortansia could only stare at him, utterly speechless.

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