3 years had passed since Lizel talked with Barbatos.

Right after that, she did something that was basically unprecedented in the history of noble devil families: she began living with human families.

But it's not as if she just popped into random houses and began living there. She chose people that either worked for her family or had close relations with someone like that. And she also lived with all kinds of families: a couple with no kids, someone that lived alone, siblings that lived together, a single-parent home. In summary, all kinds.

It couldn't be said that those years were in vain. After all, Lizel did learn to value human lives more. She now valued humans as much as she did devils. That's to say humans were promoted from less than dirt to pebbles in Lizel's eyes.

But that wouldn't help her win in the Devil King War. In these 3 years, Lizel didn't feel like she'd learned any way to draw Lovers' power. Lizel was really considering just giving up and letting fate take its course, but she decided to make a last attempt.

She would now live with yet another human family, a couple with a child about a year younger than Lizel herself. There was really nothing special about this family except that it was a type that she hadn't lived with in the past 3 years.

"Well, I'm not expecting anything. But it'll be nice if something does come out of it."

After she was left in front of her new home for the foreseeable future, Lizel pressed the doorbell button. It wasn't long before a woman opened the door for her.

"Nice to meet you, I am Lizel Himekami. I'll be living in this house for a while."

"O-oh, you're Lizel-cha- I mean miss Lizel, right? Please, come in."

The woman was clearly nervous as she let Lizel into her home. A man was observing them from inside, it was the woman's husband.

Of course, they both knew Lizel would be coming here today. They had not only been informed of it, but even received monetary compensation for any additional costs they'd have by housing Lizel. But in reality, that money was so much more than she would spend, and even many times what the couple usually made, so they ended up not even knowing what to do with it.

"W-we thank you for choosing our humble home. We swear to do our best to make your stay as comfortable as possible!"

The man put his knees on the ground and bowed his head. He was even more nervous than his wife. But that wasn't anything too exaggerated.

This little girl, only old enough to be their daughter, could easily destroy their whole lives for no good reason with just a few words. Anyone would be nervous with a person like her around at all times.

"Oh, let me call Yuu-kun. Yuu-kun!"

"Coming!"

The wife called a boy's name, Lizel figured that that was probably their child. The boy that was a year younger than Lizel, Yuuto Morioka.

He came out of his room and into the living room, where everyone else was. Save for his height, his appearance wasn't much different from what it would be a few years down the line.

His brown hair was cut short, and his reddish-brown eyes were probably his most distinguishing feature. He seemed to be observing Lizel quite intently.

"Hey, I'm Yuuto."

"Lizel. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Yuuto's parents almost had a heart attack when he introduced himself like that. Unlike them, Yuuto figured that, if the noble that was coming was going to complain anyway, he might as well not even try to please them.

Right after the introductions finished, Lizel told Yuuto's parents to be at ease, to treat her as if she was just a friend coming over. Her objective was to learn from humans, so there'd be little point in it if they were on edge at all times.

That did help ease the nerves a bit, but not completely. Well, it had been like this all the previous times as well, so Lizel knew she just had to wait until they got used to her.

Though Yuuto was an exception to that rule. If anything, he was a bit too comfortable with her around. It was a curious sight for Lizel.

The hours passed. The four of them ate dinner together, though Yuuto's father seemed to have trouble swallowing. Yuuto's mother was getting more used to her presence, though she still seemed nervous.

Then it was time for a bath. Needless to say, the baths usually found in human homes were nothing compared to what Lizel was used to, but she had grown accustomed to it over the years.

"Hmm~ hmm~"

Lizel was relaxing in the bath when…

*click*

The door unlocked. It wasn't a malfunction or anything. But it hadn't been Lizel who unlocked it, she hadn't even noticed it at the time.

It had been unlocked by magic. And who had done it? None other than Yuuto.

As a child, Yuuto had grown disillusioned with magic when he learned the truth of the world. That, no matter how much he struggled, he'd never measure up to devils simply because he was a human. So he basically gave up on magic.

But things are slightly different now. Yuuto, like any boy his age, was getting interested in girls. Of course, in a sexual way. The internet might make any porn available to Yuuto with but a few clicks, but Yuuto also remembered magic. Surely there was some spell out there that would help him in his "ambitions" and if not maybe he could craft one himself. That's the reason why Yuuto picked up magic again, though he'd never tell it to anyone.

"Heeh, so that's what she was wearing. And these are the next ones."

Yuuto gulped. There was only one thing this perverted young boy came to do, and that was to see the underwear Lizel was wearing. He'd used magic to manipulate objects from afar to unlock the door just for that.

While it was a Basic Magic, it's also a spell that even devils have trouble using without looking at what they're trying to "touch" but this little pervert had already used this spell a number of times to spy on girls, even at school, so unlocking a lock in his own home was easy.

Yuuto looked in Lizel's direction. As much as he wanted to spy on her, even he didn't have that kind of courage. He'd satisfy himself with what he had for now and leave that for another opportunity.

"Huh?"

Lizel thought she saw someone at the other side of the door, but there didn't seem to be anyone there. Yuuto had already left.

She convinced herself it was just her imagination. There's no way anyone would have the courage to spy on her. At most, maybe she'd forgotten something and Yuuto's mother came to deliver it. That's the conclusion Lizel reached.

But another strange event happened at night. Lizel was pretty deep asleep, so she didn't really notice anything. But, when she woke up in the morning, her lamp was turned off.

Lizel would never admit it to anyone, but she was afraid of the dark, so she never slept with her lamp turned off. It being off in the morning meant someone had come into her room and turned it off.

Could Yuuto's parents have come into her room and turned it off? That seemed to be the most logical conclusion, but Lizel felt it was wrong. They don't seem comfortable enough around her for that.

And Lizel's intuition was pointing towards Yuuto.

"Let's wait and see."

Lizel said to herself. For the next week, the same general events kept repeating themselves. Lizel was convinced that it was Yuuto who was coming into her room at night. She also felt he had been spying on her as she changed or took a bath.

Of course, Lizel had a very good idea of what his objectives were. She was also in puberty and she would be lying if she said she had no sexual interest, and she also understood she was an unparalleled beauty, so a simple human boy like Yuuto wouldn't be able to resist her.

So she decided to settle this in the most peaceful way possible. Once Yuuto came into her room at night, she'd confront him about what he'd been doing. She couldn't help it if he wanted to use her in his dirty fantasies, but there's a limit to what she can tolerate.

The night fell and Lizel pretended to sleep. Just as she expected, Yuuto came into her room.

"Let's see, tonight, I should do…"

But Yuuto didn't do anything perverted like Lizel expected. Instead, he went straight for her bag and got her textbooks. He seemed to be studying, or at least trying to.

Lizel studied at Ginsei Academy, though not on the high school part yet. Even she had to admit the textbooks and teaching material were good.

So what Yuuto wanted was to study? This was probably something like a lifetime opportunity for him. Lizel felt bad for thinking he was just some kind of pervert. If all he wanted was to study, she could confront him about it tomorrow and maybe even give him some of her old stuff.

Thinking that, Lizel decided to go to sleep. And it wasn't long until Yuuto was done as well.

"That's enough of that for tonight. Now, onto the real business."

Lizel hadn't fallen asleep yet, so she heard Yuuto's words. She wondered what more he wanted to do. Opening her eyes slightly, she saw he was really close to her.

"Hmm, can't really tell if they've gotten bigger. More sensitive, that's for sure. Look at these nipples."

Then he started groping her chest. Lizel wanted to be reimbursed for thinking Yuuto was just a pure soul until now.

"So you are already just a pervert?!"

"Huh?!"

Yuuto was surprised when Lizel suddenly opened her eyes. Instinctively, he tried covering her mouth, since it would be bad if she screamed right now.

But, despite being a girl, Lizel was a devil. She was much stronger than Yuuto and was able to easily push him away.

"I'll kill you!"

Lizel seemed to fully mean it as she prepared a spell. Long gone was the idea of a peaceful solution. In an ironic twist, this would be Yuuto's first life-or-death battle.

There was no way he could beat Lizel, and he knew it. So his only hope at coming out alive was to not even let her cast her spell. And how to stop her? Yuuto had the answer in his hands only a little bit ago.

Before Lizel could fire off her spell, Yuuto grabbed her pajamas' shirt and pulled with all his strength, ripping the buttons right off. Of course, that meant Lizel's chest was reflected in Yuuto's eyes. Thanks to her lamp still being on, the scene was nicely illuminated and Yuuto was able to get a good look at everything.

"W-what?!"

Lizel moved her hands to cover her chest instinctively. But Yuuto didn't know what she was going to do after, so he held her arms in place with all his strength. Though Lizel could still easily rip her arms from his hold with just a little bit of effort.

"Wait, just wait a second. Let's talk."

"At least look at my face and not my chest!"

It's true that Yuuto's gaze was glued to Lizel's chest. It was the closest he'd been to a girl's breasts at the moment.

He tried to tear his gaze from it, but all he was able to do was keep looking up to Lizel's face then down to her chest and then back up.

"Listen, I admit I've been coming here every night, but it's just to study, alright? And that from before… well, I'm a boy. It's like a good luck charm."

"So you're saying it wasn't you who was spying on me in the bath?"

"Ah, no, that's me. I have no excuse for that."

"I'll kill you!"

As angry as she seemed, Lizel wasn't serious. If she was, Yuuto would be long dead.

Realizing that, Yuuto let go of Lizel's arms and put his own arms up, signaling his surrender. Rather than killing him, Lizel took this chance to cover up.

"Now, what are your last words?"

No, it really seemed like this was the end for Yuuto. He racked his brain in order to find a way out of this situation.

"A deal, let's make a deal. How about a test in magic? If you win, you can do whatever you want. If I win, you teach me what you know about magic… and also let me touch you!"

"What kind of deal is that?"

Yuuto silently cursed himself. He didn't mean to say that last part. Maybe because of what had happened just before, the blood had rushed a little too much to the other head.

What he planned to do was just get an opportunity to show his talents in magic to Lizel. Even if he lost, she probably wouldn't kill him since she'd see him as a potential valuable asset. At least, that's what he figured was his best shot. But he ended up letting his perverted desires out.

"… Alright then. Read this magic formula and tell me what it does. Since you're just a human, you don't have to actually cast it."

Lizel opened her textbook and showed Yuuto a magic formula. But not just any magic formula, it was Advanced Magic.

Even devils had trouble reading Advanced Magic formulas, and, as far as Lizel knew, humans could at most read Basic Magic formulas, since they had no formal education on the matter unless a devil gave it to them, which clearly wasn't Yuuto's case.

Lizel gave that challenge to Yuuto fully expecting him to fail. Right now, she was thinking what kind of punishment would be fit for Yuuto. Killing him was a bit much, but she wouldn't let him go unpunished.

"This is the formula for the Advanced Magic, Destrucshear. It basically blows stuff up."

"Eh?"

Lizel was surprised. Yuuto's answer was right.

But that was impossible. Maybe Yuuto somehow knew, or maybe he'd seen the formula before and remembered it. Lizel couldn't accept this.

"Then this one."

"Fidezenon."

"T-this!"

Lizel had tried another formula, but Yuuto still got it. She decided to no longer rely on the textbook, since he could have somehow already remembered all of it, and draw a formula herself.

The formula she drew was for Cupid, her Bloodline Magic. There's no way Yuuto could know this without actually reading the formula, so his luck was done for.

"Is this called Cupid? And it makes a bow and arrows out of mana? Is this right?"

"Y-yes."

Lizel couldn't deny it anymore. Yuuto could read all these formulas. If nothing else, aside from being a pervert, Lizel had to recognize Yuuto's talent for magic.

It was most impressive. Even in the Himekami family, you could count with just one hand's fingers how many people could read Cupid's formula, and most of them couldn't really read it so much as they just knew what it did. Lizel herself still couldn't fully comprehend it.

"I'll admit it's your win. Fine, I'll do as you asked."

"R-really? No taking it back, okay? I'll see you tomorrow."

Yuuto ran out before Lizel could change her mind. Still perplexed, Lizel put her stuff back in place and got a new shirt to sleep in.

It was only as she was drifting to sleep that she realized what she actually agreed with. Yuuto didn't just talk about Lizel teaching him magic, she also wanted to do perverted things to her. Without remembering that last part, Lizel agreed to do as Yuuto had said.

Teaching him was hardly a problem, depending on how he developed he could even become an asset for Lizel. But she wasn't excited to have him look at her with perverted eyes and touch her all over. She considered calling off that part of the deal, but then she thought again.

All the previous Lovers had been known perverts. They had only gotten enough results for Lovers to be known as the weakest Arcana, but it was something Lizel had yet to explore. If she ought to try it with anyone, it may as well be with a boy near her age like Yuuto.

Thinking about that, Lizel drifted to sleep while she decided to see what would happen.


After being subjected to the Golgothas' experiment, Lost didn't remember anything. By the time he noticed he was… somewhere.

It was completely dark, as in, everything was pure black. Lost couldn't even see his own body.

No, that's not quite accurate enough. It would be more correct to say his body no longer existed. At least, not in the way it used to.

He could still feel something, but not like how he used to. He couldn't really tell his senses apart, so it was more like he'd developed some new senses rather than using his normal 5 ones.

But the worst part was the lack of anything. It was as if Lost was alone in a world all his own.

It was maddening. So much so that Lost desperately wanted to make it out of wherever this was as soon as possible.

'Listen to me and do as I say. I shall teach you to control your power.'

Actually, Lost wasn't quite alone. He could hear this voice, as if it was coming from his own head. Lost would have been scared if he didn't think he had been going crazy.

Time passed, Lost tried getting used to whatever had happened to his body. He couldn't really tell how much time had passed, but he could feel the progress. At some point, he decided to try the things the voice told him.

He eventually was able to hear and see again, as well as feel touches and smell, though he regretted the last one. He didn't have the opportunity to test his sense of taste, but there was no reason to believe it was any different from the others.

Finally, he could tell the shape of his body, and then reshaped it to its usual humanoid shape. Not long after he did that, he heard the sound of clapping. Turning to look in that direction, Lost saw some familiar faces.

"A little over 3 years. That's much longer than any of the other subjects, father."

"Yes, but do remember we noticed some correlation between how long it takes for the subjects to recover and the power they exhibit after. All the others could barely maintain their shape at first, but he seems to have no trouble. This is already quite promising."

Those were Thron and Morus Golgotha. Though Lost quickly noticed Morus was considerably taller than he remembered.

It had been over 3 years since they experimented on Lost. As they mentioned, they had done the same experiments on other subjects, even long before Lost was ever born, but Lost had taken the longest to come back.

For reference, the longest before Lost had taken 6 months. That had been the man who killed the entire Hoshigaoka family.

'Consume them. Absorb them into you and gain their power.'

Lost still heard the voice in his mind, but he just ignored it this time. It had taken him 3 years to come back, so it wasn't strange that he'd gotten a bit crazy.

Thron and Morus approached Lost.

"My name is Thron Gol-"

"I know who you are. What happened to me?"

"… Father! He…!"

"Yes, son, it seems he remembers. This is unheard of."

Lost couldn't have known, but all other subjects of this Darkness experiment, as it was called, lost their memories. That was a rule with no exceptions. That is, until now.

"Then, let me explain what happened. But first, son, bring a mirror please."

Morus did as his father asked and brought a mirror to Lost. That's when he first saw his new form.

A completely black humanoid figure, seemingly made out of liquid. No one would be able to recognize Lost like this, even he himself was having trouble.

'Consume them.'

For a second, Lost saw… someone else's face in the mirror. But then he just shook his head and ignored it.

Thron began explaining things to Lost. He gave a brief history of the Darkness with which Lost was experimented on. In summary, long long long ago, after a Divine Disaster, an ancestor of the Golgothas found the Darkness. During his research for a way to contain it, he found that it could be infused into others.

Those ended up being the first "volunteers" for what would become the Darkness experiment, basically a way to harness this mysterious black liquid's power. As time passed, the Golgothas' research advanced, developing things like the compatibility factor, which the highest ever registered was Lost's. Time passed and now Lost was here.

All the people infused with the Darkness enjoyed a variety of benefits, such as a healing factor that made them nigh immortal, the ability to shapeshift, and an enormous growth in power. Of course, there were also many demerits, like the loss of the original form and memories, inability to use magic, and all subjects eventually went mad and needed to be put down, but there was no need to draw focus to those.

After Thron explained all that, he told Lost that they needed to make some final adjustments to his body, so Lost was put to sleep.

"Father, what are you going to do?"

"It's dangerous that he kept his memories. He's being obedient now, but there's no guarantee that that won't change. So, just to be safe, let's plant a little surprise in him if he ever chooses to go against us."

"I see. Better safe than sorry."

Over the many years the Golgothas had been performing the Darkness experiment, they had devised many ways to deal with the less cooperative subjects. What Thron and Morus planted inside Lost looked like a small orb. Inside that small orb was a reddish liquid called Demon Blood.

It was set to activate if Lost ever thought about rebelling against his masters. What that would do was trap him in a small orb filled with Demon Blood that would make his Darkness unstable.

On any devil or human, that liquid had the effect of a slow death by destroying one's magic circuits, but it only made the Darkness unstable. That's how powerful this mysterious black liquid is.

Once they finished with that, Lost woke up. They had him test his newly acquired power. He was able to perform everything they asked with relative ease, and what he couldn't do, the voice taught him how.

Even Lost was surprised with his own power. If he went back to his village now, he'd be able to hunt anything alone without any difficulties.

But Lost didn't want to go back. He looked nothing like himself. He felt that, with some time, he'd be able to shapeshift into himself, so he decided to wait a bit before going back to his village.

"How about the others? The people who came with me."

"Ah, them. … Come with me."

Lost asked about the other mixed-blood devils that came from his village, and Thron guided him to them. Of course, they couldn't recognize Lost at first, but they eventually figured out who he was.

According to Thron, one of them unfortunately didn't survive his proceedings, so there were only 4 left, including Lost. The other mixed-blood devils then guided Lost to where their friend was buried, which was surprisingly inside the Golgotha mansion's garden.

With this, Lost thought that he could trust the Golgothas. Yeah, they seemed a bit wrong in the head, but they allowed a mixed-blood to be buried in their land, and they were taking care of the village like they promised, according to the other mixed-blood devils. So, while definitely crazy, Lost thought they were good hearted people.

"These here are your seniors with the Darkness. They are called Small, Medium 1, Medium 2 and Big. Since you remember your name, you can still use it, since it's inconvenient to have another Small."

"Hum, hey, I'm Lost."

After the little grave visit, Thron guided Lost to where the other people infused with Darkness were. Since they didn't remember their past, they were named according to their size, which held some relation to the power they could exhibit. Lost was an exception to that rule, since he was about the same size as the one called Small, yet his power was greater than the one known as Big.

Incidentally, the one known as Big was the one who killed the Hoshigaokas. The one who killed the devil Reina Koiwai had been put down before Lost arrived, but he was known as Medium at the time.

From then on, Lost's life would consist of learning how to use his new power, even training with his seniors every now and then, and ignoring the voice in his head that kept telling him to eat everyone.

That changed once Lost was sent on a certain mission.