Barmas came to the bedroom when deep night had nearly turned to dawn.

After bathing and having dinner, Romei had wrapped herself in the cloak and lay in bed trying to sleep when she noticed a strange commotion outside.

She got up and moved closer to the door, pressing her ear against it. Faint voices filtered through from the other side. It sounded like Rajie and Barmas were having some kind of dispute.

“Are you alright, Lord Barmas? If you’re unwell, I could help you to the bedroom…”

“Enough. Why are you treating me like a patient? I’ll enter on my own two feet.”

“…”

After a brief silence, footsteps approached where Romei was standing. She hastily backed away from the door. Just then, the door swung open with a loud bang.

In that moment, Romei’s eyes met Barmas’s directly. His face glowed red, suggesting he’d been drinking. Perhaps because of this, his expression looked much more languid and softer than usual.

When Romei stared at him, Barmas glared back with unfocused eyes and picked a fight for no reason.

“What are you looking at?”

“You. You seem drunk.”

“…Hmph.”

Seeing Romei respond calmly with an unfazed expression, Barmas snorted and stepped into the bedroom. The servant who had been standing guard outside carefully closed the door.

She hadn’t noticed it just from his face, but his gait clearly revealed his intoxication. His steps wobbled strangely.

Feeling Romei’s gaze, Barmas asked, “Is this your first time seeing a devil walk? Why are you staring like that?”

“You seem more drunk than I expected. I was just wondering why you drank so much.”

“…”

“I thought you would come to the bedroom earlier. I also have something to tell you.”

Barmas, who had been moving toward the bed while unbuttoning his shirt, suddenly stopped. He stared blankly at Romei, who was standing awkwardly in the middle of the bedroom.

Though she could feel Barmas’s gaze upon her, since he remained silent, Romei said what she needed to say. It seemed best to talk to him now that he had come to the bedroom.

“I’m sorry about what happened this afternoon. I suddenly started crying and made you uncomfortable, which caused the bet to take a strange turn. I shouldn’t have received clothes…”

“…”

“I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again. Like I said then, I lost this bet. I accept the outcome. Sincerely.”

Barmas listened silently to what Romei was saying, then asked a question completely unrelated to what she had just said.

“…Why did you cry?”

“…”

“Why did you cry then?”

Barmas asked in a clear voice, seemingly sobered up. His languid gaze, which had been watching Romei, turned sharp and cold like it had been earlier that day.

Feeling the pressure again, Romei felt her body tense with nervousness. His eyes looked ready to devour her whole if she didn’t answer properly.

Though she couldn’t understand why he was asking such a thing, Romei tightened the front of her cloak and answered calmly.

“I’m not entirely sure myself. When I came to my senses, I was already crying…”

“…You think that’s an answer?”

“It’s true. I was momentarily frustrated about losing the bet. I felt everything go dark before my eyes, and that emotion overwhelmed me in an instant.”

Romei’s voice rose slightly under Barmas’s interrogation. She felt wronged that he doubted her when she was telling the absolute truth.

Barmas listened quietly to Romei’s explanation, then asked, seemingly confirming what she had said.

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“You cried just because you were frustrated about losing the bet?”

“It sounds ridiculous, but that’s how it was then.”

“…Huh.”

At Romei’s continued response, Barmas let out a short, hollow laugh. He swept his disheveled black hair back, seemingly feeling hot-headed. He appeared thoroughly bewildered.

Understanding why Barmas reacted this way, Romei made a few suggestions related to the bet.

“If you want, I can return the cloak you gave me. Or I can finish what we were about to do earlier.”

“What were we about to do?”

“You were going to grant me the honor of serving you.”

“…You have quite a good memory. You still remember that?”

“I remembered it because I thought that’s what you wanted from me.”

“…”

Barmas was left speechless by Romei’s straightforward answer.

It was true that he had brought the woman here for such purposes, but hearing it directly from her lips made him feel extremely uncomfortable.

The image of her crying face lingered in his mind, preventing him from taking her properly and making him ponder the reason for her tears. Additionally, despite the stress from the holy knights searching for the missing woman, he had no desire to torment her and had chosen to drink instead.

While he had corrupted both his body and mind, she seemed completely unfazed, which irritated Barmas.

Barmas moved from the bed to the middle of the bedroom where Romei was standing. Unlike his earlier drunken steps, this time his movements clearly revealed his irritation.

Romei stared at his feet before raising her head. Her eyes met his crimson ones.

Barmas asked, “So? What do you want, returning the cloak you stole with tears and even accepting the honor of serving me?”

“…”

“Did you think I would soften up and let you escape from here, or something like that?”

“I never expected that from the beginning.”

Romei calmly responded to Barmas’s mocking and insulting words.

“As you said, I’m nothing but a meaningless existence, and at best, all I can do is provide you with entertainment.”

“You understand well. If you understand so well, why make such proposals? You could have just kept your mouth shut.”

“That’s true. But then you might not agree to another bet. I don’t think you would agree to bets where the results get overturned like this.”

“…”

“And I just made that proposal because I want you to agree to more bets. You won’t give me clothes or anything else I need. But I need those things.”

Having said everything she wanted to say, Romei quietly waited for his response. She thought she had provided sufficient explanation for his questions.

Barmas remained silent for a long time. He simply looked down at Romei with tightly closed lips. And he thought:

‘How stupid.’

She had no idea that approaching him so rigidly actually made it harder for her to get what she wanted.

Among the bets Barmas would propose, there would be none that the woman could win. Her body, trained by the shadow’s conditioning after falling into the trap, was too vulnerable to pleasure.

It would have been more efficient to cry again, stir his emotions, and then get what she wanted. Just as she had obtained the cloak, she could easily get other things too.

Barmas found the woman’s excessively firm and naive personality foolish, but at the same time, he felt a competitive spirit rising.

He wanted to corrupt and defile her, to make her need only him instead of stupid things like clothes.

‘If I could just make that happen, it would be quite…’

“Thrilling.”

Barmas murmured this while caressing around the woman’s eyes, which reminded him of a clear, large lake.

Romei, having no idea what Barmas was thinking, couldn’t understand what he found thrilling.

Meanwhile, Barmas withdrew his hand from Romei and said:

“Fine. I’ll overlook the irregularity in this bet. But remember, next time there will be no mercy.”

“…Thank you. Should I return the cloak?”

“No need. Keep it. I rarely wear it anyway since it’s old. Consider it charity to a beggar.”

“…”

Suddenly being treated like a beggar upset Romei a little, but at the same time, she felt relieved that the cloak wasn’t taken away.

The thought of walking around without a single thread covering her body was, no matter how she looked at it, an unbearable kind of shame.

While Romei was inwardly sighing with deep relief, Barmas said:

“Let’s both pretend what happened today never occurred. From tomorrow, I’ll torment you as if nothing happened.”

“…Understood.”

Romei nodded.

It was a good proposal for Romei too. Rather than having today’s events constantly brought up and making her already disadvantageous position even worse, it was better to forget everything and start anew.

Just when the conversation seemed to be concluding, Barmas added:

“And from now on, don’t cry in front of me.”

Surprised by this sudden condition, Romei looked up at him with puzzled eyes. The words seemed too warm coming from a devil.

Barmas must have felt this too, as he irritably added an explanation, making it clear that his words didn’t have the touching meaning she might be thinking.

“It’s fine if you cry from pleasure, but don’t cry for any other reason. It was incredibly awkward seeing a human cry during a bet for the first time in my life.”

“Ah…”

“This time I’ll accept your apology and move on, but if something like today happens again, it’ll be troublesome for both of us. So try to prevent it from happening again. That is, if you want to continue making bets with me.”

At his words, Romei blushed and nodded. She felt somewhat embarrassed for misinterpreting Barmas’s words, and also ashamed for having made him flustered with her tears, which had led her to gain an unfair advantage.

“I understand. I won’t cry in front of you.”

“…”

“At least not for the same reason as today.”

When Romei added this, Barmas let out a big sigh and replied:

“Sigh, good. Then let’s consider our deal settled, and since I’m tired, let’s go to bed now.”

With that, he took off the clothes he was wearing, put on a robe, and lay down on the bed.

Romei stared blankly at him.

—

T/N: Barmas is strangely…cute? And hilarious? LMAO