Greed

The man couldn't help but inwardly flinch when he heard her speak. It was more than a little unexpected to be honest.

Turning his head slightly to look at the succubus who was standing a few steps behind, he couldn't help but notice the polite but, for some unknown reason, confident smile on her face. She wasn't looking at him, but at his wife with her eyes gleaming in expectance for a good show.

After inwardly grumbling for a few seconds a smile instantly formed on his face as he turned to face his wife who was not looking at him, but at the succubus behind him with a blank face. He had to talk quickly before conclusions were reached.

"Loria, how have you guys been doing the past while?" he sounded like a loving husband who just got home from a long journey concerned about the state of his family during his absence and just couldn't wait to be wait to be with them again.

"Good," problem was, the loving husband had brought her a succubus after dissappearing with said succubus for almost two weeks. His words were pointless since he knew perfectly well how they'd been since they had spent an hour or two each night talking to each other. And if she remembered correctly, she felt as if he was drunk every now and then. Which brought her back to the most important matter.

THE SUCCUBUS!!

Seems like he was too slow. He knew that face well. Blank, as if untouched by the world.

If only.

It was an affront to even glance at what belonged to her, and a certain lust demon had dissappeared with her husband for over ten days. Greed demons don't share, the demonkin were only a bit better.

And that 'bit', was the only reason the succubus was still alive. Sure, she was sweating by the bucket load, some blood was trickling out of the corner of her lips, her bones felt this close to breaking apart, the air around her was a violent myriad of colors and her mana and spiritual energy were going haywire.

But alive was still alive.

The man stood silently by the side wondering how to appease his wife. He was sure that Loria wouldn't kill the succubus so he let her go ahead with, let's say getting the message across. The message would get harsher if he got in her way, so he focused on more important things. Namely, what to do with his wife once she was done with the succubus.

The sight of a figure walking out the carriage pulled him out of his thoughts and rescued the succubus from the tough spot she was in. The various non-physical but physically painful attacks disappeared in an instant as Loria calmly walked over to her husband's side and looked toward the twelve or so year old boy who was standing just outside the door.

"Hey dad," he issued a simple greeting at his father before he turned his head to look at the panting demon standing a few meters away from his parents. 'Dad really shouldn't have brought a female along with him, a pretty one too. But she seems a bit too young so it shouldn't be too bad'

"Hey bud, what were you doing in there?" he appreciated the chance to talk to his son for a bit before dealing with more troublesome matters.

"Just cultivating to pass the time," he said with shrug without moving his eyes from the succubus.

"Torri, me and your father are going over there to discuss few things, we'll be back in a bit," she didn't exactly point out where over there is but it should be within 15 kilometers.

'Right, it'll most likely be a while,' he thought while giving them a light wave after which they disappeared from sight.

"You're okay?" he didn't actually care that much but since they would be traveling with each other for a while, that is if his mother didn't change her mind, they might as well get along.

"Yeah, just need to sit down for a while," she said as she walked over to the carriage and leaned against one of the wheels. Her mana was still a bit haywire so she had to spend some time bringing it under control before she could activate the healing spell and take care of her injuries.

Torri just stood there for a moment before he decided to go to the roof and watch the clouds since his spiritual energy was close to being dangerously low after the hours spent cultivating. The headache and lethargy that came with low spiritual energy levels discouraged him from practicing magic or reading a book. He had already checked his collection earlier today so it'd be fine as long as no one goes into the carriage before him, so he basically had nothing better to do than wait for his spiritual energy to recover and for his parents to come back. Both of those would take a while.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he suddenly felt the ether gathering somewhere near. Peering down the edge of the roof, he saw the succubus cultivating just beside the carriage. The density of the gathered ether was around his level, but the rate at which it gathered and the rate at which the succubus absorbed the ether was a bit too fast, dangerously so for a mid-level Commoner.

Torri jumped down from the roof and, using as little mana as possible, landed on the ground quietly. He sat down several meters from the succubus and quietly observed. In his mind he was trying to calculate the likelihood of whether she'll die from ether poisoning or ether scourge, worst case scenario of course. Ether scourge tended to be extremely violent thus the distance. He didn't try to stop her since disturbing someone when they're working with massive amounts of volatile ether was no different from asking them to die sooner. He found no point in rushing the inevitable.

Sadly, all his calculations were proved wrong as time slowly trudged forward and after about 11 or so minutes the ether stopped gathering and whatever had already gathered dispersed. In only eleven minutes, the succubus had absorbed more ether than he usually did in hours of cultivation. And she was supposed to be a minor stage lower than him.

Done with her healing and cultivation, the succubus now had to put something in her stomach. But before that she had to deal with her audience.

"Want something, kid?" the demonkin in front of her looked pretty human if you were to ignore the red-rimmed purple eyes. He didn't even have any horns which most likely meant his demonic bloodline should be thin.

"Don't call me 'kid' when you're barely a few years older than me," Torri spoke calmly as he observed her, trying to figure out how she's still alive.

The demon looked at the demon in front of her and thought that maybe his race grew slow, "How old are you?" just to be sure.

"12 soon," more never hurt anyone.

The demon's face couldn't help but darken when she heard that number, "Oi kid, do I look like a teenager to you?"

"Yup," Torri answered calmly as he stood up from his spot, "But from your reaction, I guess you are a bit older than that."

"What part of me looks like a kid?"

"Your face and your height. First time seeing a succubus but you look a lot like the teenage girls I've met before and according to books, succubi grow at the same rate as humans for the first two or three decades. As for height, you barely have three centimeters on me even though you're supposedly around a decade older."

With his piece said, he walked to the carriage. He had an array of demonology books in his collection and it seemed as if he had to revisit them.