485
Moonlight spilled down, and the pitch-black mausoleum seemed to be slowly bleeding.
Edward sat on the piano bench, unscrewed his thermos, took a sip of hot water, and spoke to the air.
"No, I quite like this feeling. Quietly listening to the footsteps of an era slowly approaching its destruction-so pleasing, so beautiful."
"I am not the destination. I am merely the process."
Several black and white keys on the piano before him sank on their own, drawing out piercing, discordant notes that made one inexplicably irritable.
"It's not time yet," Edward said. "I can feel intense loathing, accompanied by a very clear malicious purpose."
The Devil took another sip of hot water and tapped a white key.
"Roselle's loathing tells me that he wants to pull out every bone in my body and smash it, burn me alive, or leave me alive after making me suffer every possible agony. He also wants to use the ancient punishments of his homeland on me: dismemberment by chariots, or death by a thousand cuts-that's a punishment where three thousand slices of flesh are cut away, one blade stroke at a time. Or he wants me to experience the pain of having my child killed too. Haha, I feel like the child would suffer more than me."
"Sad news: all his attachment to the world has now turned into hatred for me. He's gone mad, but he hasn't lost control yet."
"But, hmm, I don't dislike it."
"I'd be disappointed if there were no malice. There's never much point provoking good-tempered people. After all, the darkness in human hearts is the soil Devils depend on for survival."
He turned his palm over and drew a long, wavy chestnut hair from his cuff. Winding it around his finger, he closed his eyes and