As Marcel was busy fantasizing about how his life was going to be from now on after accepting the demon lord’s proposal, walking without looking where he was going after he left the ballroom, he bumped into someone just a few meters away from the front door. 

“Agh! That hurt... Are you okay?” He asked the person he bumped into. That person groaned in pain and after a few moments, the person answered that he was fine. Afterward, Marcel lent him a hand in getting up from the floor.  

Marcel finally got a look at the person he bumped into after helping him up. It was a boy with bright and unusual blue colored hair that Marcel had never seen before. His hair was cut short like his and he wore a black coat. His face wasn’t bad either and Marcel wondered if the demon realm only had good-looking guys. I mean, the demon lord, Claude, Wolfgang, Vladimir and now this. He felt like he was being bombarded on all sides with meeting handsome dudes and the strange thing was that he didn’t mind at all, the little gay boy. 

The guy he met was also about his height and had a similar build to his own. He looked about Marcel’s age but from what he’d learned just a few days ago, people in the demon realm seldom age at all, even before death, so he wasn’t going to be tricked by the 16-year-old face that person carried. He might as well be thousands of years old but look like some 16-year-old young boy. 

“Um... Is something wrong?” The guy asked when he noticed Marcel staring incessantly.  

“Oh, there’s nothing wrong. I was just thinking of how handsome you are.” Marcel told the truth straight to his face and that person seemed a little embarrassed judging from the blush that had started showing on his face. 

“Thank you. Nobody has ever told me that before. But, to tell you the truth, you look way more handsome than I do. I’d honestly think that you’re a hero from how good you look.” Huh, more honesty and blushing. How fun.  

“Huh, but I am a hero.” He pointed at himself and the other person looked at him with admiration in his eyes.  

“Huh, weren’t you in the room when the demon lord introduced me to everyone?” Marcel asked as if it was common knowledge for everyone to know that he was a hero now. 

“No... I was too immersed in my research and forgot the time, leading to me arriving just now. My parents must be furious with me right about now.” He answered scratching his head and let out an awkward laugh, then began panicking afterward. He was panicking so much that Marcel had to desperately think of something to calm him down, fast. 

He changed the topic to ask the guy what it was he was researching that took up his time and from then on, they talked all night long until it was time for the guy to leave and Marcel realized; he’d forgotten to ask the guy his name. He wondered what he’d do now since talking to that guy was fun and he’d like to do it again and soon returned to his chambers, somehow. 

*   *  * 

So, next day come morning and Marcel woke up feeling great and all ready to welcome the new day with an open mind except, he totally had to get revenge on Claude for what he did last night since he’s still bitter about it and he knows how to hold grudges. If he remembered right, he was tricked with an illusion spell, so he casually asked Claude with a smile on his about illusion spells and Claude had a lot to give concerning that particular subject, you know, being so happy that Marcel was willing to learn and all, like a proud teacher. Marcel also had him demonstrate how it’s done and then sent Claude back on his merry way back to his work. 

Come evening and Claude returned to check on Marcel on how he’s doing since he had been and still is way too busy handling requests about wanting to privately meet the demon lord’s supposed wife from multiple VIPs from multiple realms.  

Oh yeah, and speaking about VIPs, someone’s heading the demon lord’s way right about now about what happened yesterday. 

So, Claude came back to check on Marcel and then Marcel enacted his revenge plan. He cast an illusion spell on both himself and the room, distorting even an expect like Claude’s senses. He made Claude see illusions of himself and Claude totally believed and then he realized that he’d been tricked. It took him a while to figure it out and he was highly impressed with Marcel’s excellent use of the illusions, but also quite disturbed about the fact that Marcel managed to trick someone like him in the first place. 

Marcel had mastered the illusions so much that he’d scared Claude with his learning speed. Claude knew that a hero could do it if he tried, but he estimated at least two or three days, but it just took Marcel from morning till sunset to master all of the tricks behind illusions.  

When he was leaving, Marcel managed to trick Claude with the same illusion spell, making him give the demon lord wrong documents and the demon lord wasn’t pleased about Claude’s mistake. Claude realized that Marcel had once again tricked him, just like he did him yesterday and realized that Marcel was sour about it the whole time, so he’d prepared a lesson especially for him. 

Illusions have three levels; the first being where you make someone see something differently. The second is making them both see and perceive the thing as what one wants them to think that it is, like what Claude used on Marcel yesterday and the last world is manipulating both the aura of the object the illusion spell is cast on and also literally blinding everyone else apart or sometimes even the caster from seeing the truth. It’s the highest level of illusions that there is and Marcel has already managed to screw up Claude’s senses, which is fantastic in its rights. 

Claude asked Marcel later on how he managed to learn it so fast and Marcel said that he remembers what Claude told him after the first day they cast magic. He told him that magic is an idea projected into reality, not some systematic thing that’s written in formulae after formulae. That’s what was holding him back from learning magic while in the human world. You also need the mental ability to be able to cast some spells, leading to why some can learn spells faster while others can’t even comprehend it and Marcel’s really good at things like books, so as long as he knows how and what the spell is for, with a little bit of effort, he can learn how to do it.  

Claude wondered what kind of monster he’d been rearing and then the demon lord found Marcel, asking how about how his training was going. Marcel tells him about learning the illusion and the demon lord seemed happy for him. The demon lord then told Marcel to challenge him if whenever Marcel felt certain that he could defeat him, literally handing Marcel the dagger that’ll slit his throat, although he isn’t really worried about that happening yet since he’s already estimated that Marcel going to need about forty years to reach normal heroes standards, why is why he proposed to him with that as a time limit. Marcel nodded and then one of the servants came, requesting the demon lord’s presence since he still has some matters to attend to. There are guests. 

Marcel then went on to gloat pettily over his victory against Claude for that illusion trick he pulled, although, not for long. Claude, upon seeing Marcel’s immense talent for learning magic didn’t give Marcel any breathing room. He asked him about a list of things he’d like to learn and Claude brought lots of materials for him to study. Marcel was finally hit with the realization that he’d gone and dug his own grave, so he might as well rest in it. 

After a few days of learning more and more about magic, thanks to the materials he got although his magic control was a bit on the frizzy side for some reason he’d still not yet noticed, he attained a sort of enlightenment in how spells should be, thus unlocking his innate skill, [Adept Comprehension]. It’s a skill that doesn’t require any cost to use. It’s simply a manifestation of his raw skill when it comes to learning. As long as he’s interested in what he wants to learn, the chances of him learning it increases by a tenfold and the same thing happens when he finds something uninteresting and difficult. 

Thanks to this skill, his already outstanding speed at learning and understanding increased much more than before, reaching new heights and surprising Claude even more. He was right. The demon lord really had called upon an even greater monster than himself. He really might be able to deal with the demon lord in the future if he’s left to grow, but he still doesn’t understand why he chose to keep such a prickly thorn like Marcel as his wife in the first place. There’s also that mysterious vibe he gets from Marcel, like all the things he’d seen so far was but a small fragment of the whole thing, like a disaster just waiting to happen. 

In the end, Marcel was both stoked and depressed about being kept busy for days with the materials he got from Claude and strange enough, he found it fun its way, the demon lord had to explain himself to a certain lady who had to change her plans and Claude was busy lighting candles for the struggles the demon lord would have to face in the future. While these three people were all worried about their problems, the universe just doesn’t plan to leave them alone, sending more problems their way. It looks their future will be one filled with hardships and problems. Maybe Claude had the right idea, lighting those candles and all.