Chapter 28: The Theory of the Beautiful Girl Manga Protagonist Maid

"Prince Ota is truly magnificent."

Mino gazed at Ota’s radiant, focused face, feeling an overwhelming sense of pride. He was, after all, his dearest friend.

Before leaving, Mino had watched Ota carefully stow away that manga, tucking it into a locked drawer in the bottom right of his desk. Inside, stacked in layers, was nearly a complete collection. His admiration only deepened. Even with such iron willpower, Ota remained humble, cautiously sealing the manga away. Had he not stumbled upon it by accident that day, he never would have guessed that Prince Ota was carrying such a dangerous burden!

To him, weren’t those highly dangerous manga hidden in the drawer just as perilous as a heart?!!

As the memory became vivid, a spark lit up in Mino’s eyes. Ota could never have imagined that the very thing he had locked away on a whim—the thing he despised most—would end up shielding him from disaster at such a critical moment!

"I remember now." Mino wore a solemn expression as he slowly recounted what he knew: "The girl figurine in the bookcase is merely a mundane collection. What is truly precious to Prince Ota is the set of beautiful girl manga he hides in the bottom right drawer of his desk!!!"

"Man...ga?" Klatina frowned slightly, slowly processing this unfamiliar yet vaguely recognizable term. "Do you mean those picture books invented by the Paper Demons of the frontier? Prince Ota would actually like such things..."

Seeing the look of disbelief plastered across Klatina's face, Mino began to tremble, his voice thick with suppressed anger. "Such things...?"

"How could you use such a casual term to describe picture books more sacred than the Goddess herself?!" Mino bellowed. "Apologize to all the beautiful girl manga in the nation, *kora*!"

"But... I've seen them once or twice," Klatina blinked, looking somewhat puzzled. "What is interesting about picture books that exist solely to provide 'fan service' through scantily clad girls, with plots that are completely detached from reality?"

"Shut up!"

Mino clenched his fists tightly, his eyes brimming with tears as he shouted hoarsely, "What do you know about fan service or moe tropes? You truly don't understand! So-called girl manga are not such shallow things!"

"We know that you can't actually meet a clumsy beauty biting a piece of toast at a corner in the Hero Candidate Camp... we know the seatmate at the royal academy isn't a childhood friend who descended from the heavens after all these years... we know that the so-called 'virtuous' qualities that make the protagonist loved are actually just fake traits invented by the author to mask a lack of personality behind a pretty face! We know all of that!"

"But so what? The concept of 'moe' truly exists!" Mino, like a devout believer, hammered his right fist against his chest. "What is entrusted within those pages is a boy's purest dream!"

He turned his head and looked at Klatina with sincerity. "It is precisely because Prince Ota is a prince of a nation, having seen too much filth and the darkness of human hearts, that he cannot open his heart to anyone."

"Therefore, the world within those manga is his final spiritual sanctuary!" At this moment, Mino sounded like a master psychologist, his enthusiasm peaking as spittle flew from his lips. "The secret hem of a girl’s skirt, the golden ratio of the absolute territory, those shy and pure expressions, the beautiful, accidental glimpses—these are all the things he craves and covets!"

"In short, Prince Ota is just a perverted degenerate obsessed with beautiful girl manga!"

His thunderous voice died away, leaving a long silence in its wake.

Klatina fell silent, not because she was convinced by Mino's description, but because she felt that Ota Kuhl was—simply too outrageous.

"...I understand. I will go and verify all of this." After a long while, Klatina finally accepted Mino’s explanation. She turned around and left the cell, seemingly shaken.

The sound of her footsteps gradually faded.

Mino let out a sigh of relief, then broke into a gloating smile.

She believed it. She actually believed it!

Trust Mino Oscar Lake to pull this off. Relying solely on his own imagination, he had managed a flawless performance... If he didn't know his best friend Ota’s upright and righteous character so well, even he would have believed the ridiculous conclusion that Ota was obsessed with beautiful girl manga!

[Second Phase Mission Completed]
[Reward: One "Healing" Opportunity]
[Reward: An item belonging to the demon "Klatina" - Drawing in progress...]

"It's here, it's finally here!"

Mino’s spirit soared, feeling unprecedented excitement.

A familiar glow appeared in his palm. Mino could already sense that familiar rose fragrance. As the light condensed into form, Mino did not hesitate to take a deep, epic breath of it—

"Eh?" The cool texture made Mino stop abruptly. He looked down, puzzled, at the object that had appeared in his hand.

It was a primitive key made of silver material, shimmering faintly with fluorescence.

"What is this? It's just a key..." Mino’s voice was tinged with disappointment.

Beside him, the blade of the sword Altotai twitched: "As a prisoner, you've received a prize as good as a key, and you're disappointed? What else did you want?"

Mino looked bored, leaning in to examine the key as its information unfolded before his eyes.

[Item: Key to the Demon King's Castle Gate]
[Effect: When carried on one's person, it can open the gate to the Demon King's Castle. Once opened, it leads to any location within the Demon Territory. For non-demon users, it tests their luck.]

Mino was initially invigorated—he had obtained a key to sneak out of the Demon King’s castle! But he soon grew suspicious of the note regarding its effect.

"Tests my luck? What does that mean?"

He read it carefully, only to find a line of inconspicuous black text beneath the effect description.

[Negative Effect (Effective for non-demon creatures): When carried, every space you enter by pushing open a door will become a random room within the Demon King's Castle.]

...

The bottom level of the Demon King's Castle.
The meeting hall.

As the ghost fires of the Demon Council ignited, the flames representing Swill and Migo drifted across from Klatina. Klatina and Fim were present in their true forms, as they had yet to receive responses from the other demons.

"That concludes the new intelligence provided by the Hero, Mino... I believe this is the easiest opportunity we have had thus far." Klatina looked toward Swill.

Swill’s ghost fire drifted gently. "Heh, whether the information provided by the Hero is true or false, as the Librarian Demon, I don't see any reason to refuse a try."

Migo’s scoff echoed from her ghost fire. "To actually like manga about paper-thin characters... Humans are truly hopeless."

"Those low-level demons on the frontier are quite bored to have nothing better to do than create such things."

"Fim, what do you think?" Migo turned to Fim. As the younger Ninth Demon, Migo and Fim were as close as "peers."

Fim sat blankly in her seat, quietly flipping through some manga samples Klatina had brought. After tilting her head and thinking for a long time, she reached a conclusion:

"In every manga, there will, appear, a maid."