Luge had already risen to leave.
Beside him, the Abyssal teacher cast him a pleading look.
He recalled her saying that she had been trapped in that room, unable to leave—which meant her appearance here today was only thanks to him. But the moment he had approached earlier, he had noticed her stricken expression. That proved that even if she had never set foot here before, her understanding of the castle had been enough to deduce what sort of dishes would be served.
"I have some questions I'd like to ask the teacher,"
Luge tried saying after walking a short distance.
"I will bring her to see you shortly. Please return to your room and rest," the old butler said.
Luge glanced back, signaling with his eyes that he had done what he could.
Then he followed the old butler back to the room.
The instant the door closed, he began reexamining the chamber. Since this castle might still hold some valuable remnants, he couldn't help paying closer attention, hoping to conduct a little search of his own.
In truth, he also wanted to see if there were any portraits or depictions of that legendary young master, curious about what the fellow actually looked like.
He searched all around the room, starting with the inconspicuous corners.
Some objects crumbled the moment he touched them, giving him the distinct impression that it was not merely due to the passage of time, weathering, or ordinary aging.
With his unorthodox strategy of digging through corners a failure, he shifted his search back on track and walked over to the cabinet near the head of the bed.
*Knock, knock, knock!*
"Young master, I have brought your Abyssal teacher," the old butler's voice sounded from outside the door.
Luge walked over and pulled the door open himself.
The two outside wore very different expressions upon seeing him. The old butler remained deferential, bowing before turning to leave. His revered Abyssal teacher, on the other hand, began vomiting the moment the old butler was out of sight.
"I thought you would get rid of whatever was on your plate while he was escorting me out..." Luge said by the doorway.
"You think I didn't?"
Wiping the corners of her mouth, the Abyssal teacher flicked the hand bearing the ring, and a clump of rotten sludge fell nearby.
The two stepped into the room, and only after the door clicked shut did she seem to finally relax.
"Could you tell me a bit about yourself?" Luge took the initiative to ask.
She looked left and right before taking a seat in a chair, seeming truly fed up with standing.
"My name? Does that matter? Anyone who knew my name probably doesn't exist anymore, and I've almost forgotten it myself," she said, crossing her legs. "I'm just an ordinary succubus scholar, invited by the City Lord to come here and teach the young master Abyssal."
Luge was taken aback, once again bewildered by the ways of the Abyss. A succubus was undeniably a genuine demon, yet they actually had scholars?
However, he didn't dwell on that for long, because something else intrigued him even more.
"A demon needs to hire someone to teach Abyssal?" He was utterly perplexed.
He had even wondered if the young master wasn't actually a demon, but that would only raise more questions. Besides, the lady had explicitly stated she was a succubus, and a scholar at that. Of course, that was bizarre enough on its own—scholars emerging among the demons of the Abyss.
The beautiful yet subtly cracked succubus scholar broke into laughter that lasted quite a while. Perhaps because she hadn't fully recovered, her chuckles occasionally sounded a bit raspy.
"It seems you truly aren't from the same place as me."
The succubus scholar's eyes arched slightly, one corner of her lips curving up as she uttered the cryptic remark.
"Demons don't exist only in the Abyss. At any given time, there are always demons who yearn to completely break free from it. They'll try every conceivable method—though I don't know the exact details, since my ancestors were already not from the Abyss." Smiling, she pointed downward. "The castle beneath your feet doesn't belong to the Abyss either.
"Everything in this castle, aside from you, came from a planar world that never saw the sky. It wasn't even as vast as a single layer of the Abyss. There were demons, humans, and plenty of furry creatures there, none of them unpleasant. But it was destined to be a place without a future. All the demons there spoke Demonic, a language derived from Abyssal, to avoid stirring up the power of the Abyss."
The lovely succubus scholar kept smiling as she spoke.
"So you can think of this castle as just a little lifeboat. When our planar world was headed toward destruction, we fled here, into the Abyss."
Luge scratched his head, feeling as though his horizons had broadened once again.
"Then this boat is certainly big enough..."
"No, it's very small," the succubus chuckled. "The planar world was our big ship. Our ancestors came from a colossal prime world. When the prime world was dying, they created the planar world to take refuge in. Of course, most people in the planar world had no idea. That's why I'm a scholar, while those fools thought that was just how the world was, believing our ancestors had lived in that tiny place for generations.
"That's why I always wanted to come here and see what the sky of the Abyss looks like. The books say the Abyssal sky isn't beautiful either..."
As she spoke, she looked toward him, as if seeking confirmation with her eyes.
Luge could only scratch his head again.
"So where is that young master? How can I help you get outside to see the sights of the Abyss..."
Luge decided to steer the conversation back to business rather than scenery.
"I came to this castle after noticing anomalies in the planar world and wanting to take refuge through the City Lord's power. But during the two years before we left that planar world, I never once gave an official lesson—in fact, I never even caught a glimpse of the young master. He seemed very unusual, unable to even withstand general language comprehension spells like Tongues, meaning Abyssal would have to be taught starting from the very basics. As a scholar, I had even fretted over that."
The beautiful succubus scholar kept her smile throughout. Whether she spoke of the history of that vanished world or mentioned the people and lore of a place that no longer existed, her smile never wavered.
If what she said was true, then in their homeland—in their entire world—she and the old butler might be the only two people left alive.
Luge's hand barely left his head. Every word felt like an invisible hand playfully tugging at the stray hairs at the back of his scalp.
Things like the death of worlds and the destruction of planes felt thoroughly unreal to him. It seemed beyond his imagination—a scenario an ignorant fellow like him, who knew only a few zero-ring spells, had never even dared contemplate.
"At one point, I even thought that young master didn't truly exist, though seeing this room dispels some of that speculation," she said. "Since old Izel has gone mad, perhaps we can play along with his performance. I've thought about that for a long time, but I've always lacked a lead actor..."
Hearing this, Luge blinked, feeling that this scholar wasn't particularly reliable.
*In this castle that crashed somewhere in the depths of the Abyss, playing house with two old fogies hundreds of years old?* he thought.
Chapter 55