Chapter 123: Dignity

Dawn Castle

While the city of Dawn remained busy with activity due to the ongoing expo, the royal bedroom chamber of King Luxius of Ravendawn was also… busy.

Luxius and Megan were tangled together on the bed, the world outside temporarily forgotten. Kisses were exchanged. Breaths grew heavier. The mood shifted steadily from affectionate to unmistakably steamy.

At what Luxius decided was the appropriate time to put his hand on inappropriate places, Megan stiffened.

“L-Luxius…” she murmured between kisses.

“Don’t you think it’s time?” Luxius asked gently.

For once, it was the human king seducing the succubus.

And then—

BZZZT. BZZZT. BZZZT.

Megan’s phone vibrated violently on the bedside table.

She froze for exactly half a second before lunging for it like a drowning woman spotting driftwood.

“Yes! Megan speaking!” she answered far too quickly.

Luxius groaned and let himself fall back onto the bed.

“Yes,” Megan said into the phone, already standing up. “I’m heading there now.”

She ended the call, slipped out of Luxius’s grasp, and hastily began fixing her half-unbuttoned shirt.

“I-I’m sorry, Luxius,” she said, fumbling with the buttons. “We’ll continue this next time. Something urgent came up.”

She walked briskly toward the door.

“You can’t always use work as an excuse, you know,” Luxius said with a tired sigh.

Megan stopped with her hand on the doorknob.

“T-this one is really urgent,” she said quickly. “For real. Next time, we’ll really do it.”

Then she fled the room.

Luxius remained sprawled on the bed, staring at the ornate ceiling.

---

Dawn City, Dungeon Donuts

Dungeon Donuts in Dawn City was already awake long before the sun bothered climbing over the walls.

Warm light spilled from its windows into the gray morning streets, mixing with the smell of burnt coffee, sugar, and something faintly sulfuric that no Ravendawn health inspector had ever managed to identify—nor survive long enough to report. A line had already formed outside: demons, humans, city guards still wearing half-buttoned uniforms, all standing patiently beneath a cheerful sign that read The Dungeon Never Sleep.

Inside, overworked human staff moved with practiced efficiency, sliding trays of glossy donuts across the counter while shouting order numbers like battlefield coordinates.

Nobody questioned why a dungeon-themed donut shop existed in the capital.

“I’m just asking if you want to have breakfast together,” Janet said, her face twisted in half-disgust, “and you use it as an emergency?”

“……” Megan said nothing, her face flattened against the table like a defeated pancake.

“Kukuku,” Young Mo, seated beside Janet, chuckled into his coffee. “And thus, our cute virgin demon successfully defended her territory once again from Prince Charming’s assault.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Megan snapped, lifting her head just long enough to glare at him—before face-planting back onto the table.

“As a succubus, you were being seduced by Luxius,” Janet continued, shaking her head. “As an intelligence officer, you’re being blackmailed by that Ivy brat. And as a demon, you’re losing ground to humans on both fronts.”

“I know…” Megan replied, her voice muffled by the tabletop. “I have no dignity… But next time I’m definitely going to do it.”

“Didn’t you say the same thing months ago?” Young Mo asked calmly, sipping his coffee.

“This time for real!” Megan shot up, slamming her hands on the table. “Do you think it’s easy to think about sex while surveilling this many people in Dawn City?!”

She froze.

Public space. Crowded shop. Several nearby tables.

Luckily, before Megan could finish her sentence, Young Mo had already smiled and cast a soundproof spell around their table.

Megan exhaled sharply.

“Phew, that was close,” Janet muttered, glancing around. No one seemed to have noticed anything.

“Thank you… I guess,” Megan said reluctantly to Young Mo.

“No worries, please continue, hahaha,” Young Mo replied cheerfully.

“But yeah,” Janet sighed, “you’re not wrong. Creating blackmail material for all those foreign delegates is honestly more exhausting than fighting a war.”

“See?!” Megan said, pointing aggressively. “All the teams under me are complaining about how many old foreign diplomats and merchants they’ve had to sleep with just to get usable photos.”

“I think you can learn a thing or two from your team,” Young Mo smirked.

Megan glared at him.

“Just tell them it’ll all be over soon,” Young Mo continued pleasantly. “They only need to say ‘What happens in Dawn, stays in Dawn’ a few more times.”

And indeed, while the surface of Dawn City bustled with foreign visitors arriving for the expo, the BICH had no intention of wasting such an opportunity.

After all, prey rarely traveled this far on their own—

—and lined up so neatly to walk straight into the spider’s web.

---

World Expo—3rd Day

By the third day, the crowds were still crowding.

The expo venue remained packed from morning until evening, filled with people returning to stalls they hadn’t finished arguing with yesterday. Merchants dragged themselves back with hopeful smiles, convinced that today would be the day the other side finally cracked and lowered their prices. After all, negotiations left unfinished always felt like opportunities waiting to be bullied into submission.

However, the true main attraction of the third day wasn’t trade.

It was the Radiant Concordat’s presentation.

Celeste and Elvandar—somehow—had decided to present themselves as a single alliance instead of two separate nations. After witnessing the displays from Ravendawn, Dwargonia, and Murica, the foreign delegates now waited with keen interest to see what the long-standing magical powers of the world could demonstrate in comparison.

Especially since… nothing about the Radiant Concordat pavilion stood out.

The pavilion itself was painfully ordinary.

It was built like yet another Church of Celes. Clean. Proper. Respectable. Not shabby, not ugly—but also not special in any way. Certainly not something one would expect to represent an alliance on the world stage. For a World Expo, it was aggressively unremarkable.

Inside, the activities were equally modest. Free healing. Free confession. Priests standing patiently, offering blessings and listening to sins they had already heard a thousand times before breakfast.

The only visually striking feature was a three-meter-tall statue of the goddess installed at the front of the pavilion.

Ironically, that statue attracted a very unintended audience.

Ever since day one, the majority of visitors to the Concordat pavilion had been Muricans.

Demons—many of whom had never seen a church before, let alone a statue of a goddess—lined up eagerly to take turns posing in front of it, snapping pictures for their painstagram feeds. Some struck dramatic poses. Some tried reverent ones. Some smiled far too brightly.

The priests assigned to the pavilion had very mixed feelings about this.

Unfortunately for them, the expo rules clearly stated that participants were not allowed to reject visitors based on race or nationality. And in their more optimistic moments, the priests consoled themselves with the thought that perhaps other delegations would interpret this as proof that even demons yearned to bask in the goddess’s beauty and wisdom.

They were, of course, completely unaware that #baptizeddemon had become the number one trending joke hashtag on Murica’s painstagram.

Naturally, a few demons pushed the trend too far.

Several incidents occurred when curious demons decided to try the free healing services offered by the priests—lacking the basic, universal wisdom that every RPG player on Earth instinctively knew about how holy spells interacted with demons.

The demons learned painfully.

Still, none of this explained the strange absence of activity among the main Concordat delegation.

While the pavilion itself remained calm and modest, the combined crews from Celeste and Elvandar were clearly not focused on it at all. Instead, they were busy behind the church structure, constructing something massive—something hidden behind layers of white cloth.

Whenever questioned, they gave the same answer.

“It’s for the presentation.”

Today was the day.

At last, all questions surrounding the Radiant Concordat would finally be answered.

---

Main Stage

Inside the production booth, Levi, Monny, and Bub watched the main stage as the crowds continued to gather. The energy outside was dense, expectant, the kind that only formed when people were certain they were about to witness something important—even if they had no idea what that something was.

Then the booth door slid open.

“Oh?” Levi turned his chair slightly toward the newcomer. “You just came back from Dawn Base?”

“Yeah,” Stan replied, stepping inside. “There’s practically nothing left for me to do there after yesterday’s presentation.” He crossed his arms, eyes already drifting toward the stage. “Besides, I wanted to see with my own eyes what those churchgoers are going to show.”

Before anyone could respond—

“HELLO! HELLO! ARE YOU ALL READY FOR THE THIRD DAY PRESENTATION?!”

Phoebe’s voice detonated across the venue as she appeared on stage, her enthusiasm amplified through Murican-grade speakers.

“YEEEEAAAHHH!” the crowd roared back.

“Now, I know most of you are curious!” Phoebe continued brightly. “What will the Concordat be showing us today? Will it be something holy?! Will it be magic?! Or will it—”

VOVOOOOOOOOMMM.

A deep, thunderous horn blast erupted from behind the crowd, brutally cutting Phoebe off mid-sentence.

The audience turned as one.

Floating a few meters above the ground was something massive, entirely covered in white cloth. Beneath it marched a perfectly aligned formation: Holy Knights, Celes priests, and Elvandar elf mages, all dressed in uniforms so immaculate they looked less worn and more assigned.

The formation advanced.

The crowd instinctively parted, creating a path as the procession moved forward—confidently, gracefully, and with unmistakable arrogance. The covered object remained suspended at the center of the march, held aloft solely by telekinesis from the surrounding elf mages.

“Eh? Uh…” Phoebe blinked, then quickly recovered, lifting the mic. “I guess the Radiant Concordat is ready! Please give a round of applause for the Radiant Concordat!”

The clapping that followed was hesitant and uneven, hands meeting out of social obligation rather than excitement.

As the procession reached the stage, they did not turn toward the side steps.

Instead, the elf mages raised their staffs and cast a spell. A smooth slope of glowing light formed from the ground to the stage platform, allowing the entire formation to continue marching upward without breaking stride.

Stage protocol was completely ignored.

Once atop the stage, every member moved into position with flawless precision. The covered object was lowered effortlessly into the center, facing the audience.

Then, absolute stillness.

Only two figures stepped forward: Celeste Foreign Minister Ignacio Falkoran and Elvandar Grand Magus Paerith Elkhazel.

Phoebe hurried toward them, microphone in hand.

Before she could get close, Ignacio raised his palm.

“Demon woman,” he said coldly, “keep your distance from me. I already requested that no lowly demon without sufficient official title be allowed near my person.”

“Ah… b-but the microphone…” Phoebe looked down at the device in her hand. Her shoulders slumped slightly.

“No need,” Paerith added, his tone no warmer.

He lifted his hand and cast a spell. Layered circles of light materialized in front of both his and Ignacio’s mouths—a sound amplification enchantment.

“People of Talvaris,” Paerith declared. “I am Elvandar Grand Magus, Paerith Elkhazel.”

His voice carried effortlessly across the venue, rivaling the Murican speaker system in volume and clarity.

“And I am Celeste Foreign Minister, Ignacio Falkoran,” Ignacio followed.

A murmur rippled through the crowd. The presence of the two officials was heavy—authoritative, distant, and cold.

“I believe there is no need for idle talk,” Ignacio continued. “We will now bestow upon you the true magic and holy wisdom, materialized through the Radiant Concordat alliance.”

He raised his hand toward the covered object.

The white cloth fell away.

Revealing what had been hidden from every eye until now.

Inside the production booth, Bub shot up from his chair.

“That’s—”