Time slid upward along the full, happy track of their days, smooth and quiet. Before long, several days had passed, and Li Wei had also gone through several days of being slowly, finely ground down by life.

Even though the turn in his life had been abrupt and massive, Li Wei found that he still adapted quickly to this retired life, one that was slightly different from what he'd imagined.

Every day, he no longer had to worry about Dawn's operations. He didn't have to deal with piles of official documents. He didn't need to study all kinds of intelligence and work out a strategy for raiding the Demon King Citadel, or exhaust himself tailoring training plans for everyone else.

The only things he needed to worry about now were what kind of food to make for his daughter each day, how to improve his relationship with her little by little without making it obvious, and how to outwit the Demon Lord so she wouldn't drain him too badly every night.

—Only, Li Wei still hadn't managed that last part.

At first, he'd thought that after discovering a new way to train again, and with his physical strength and stamina steadily improving, he'd gradually be able to handle things with ease.

But when it came to actually putting it into practice, Li Wei discovered with a headache that...

During those first few times,

he had never once made Tsukika go all out.

He'd assumed that after a few intense rounds, Tsukika would fall into a deep sleep like before. Who would've thought that at the point where he thought it was over, she showed no sign of fatigue at all and still left him unable to pull himself away.

And on top of that, she looked at him with amusement and mockery.

"The past few days, I worked really hard to put on a show so I wouldn't hurt Chosen Hero-sama's confidence and let Chosen Hero-sama think I'd been completely satisfied~"

"Now that Chosen Hero-sama has finally gotten a little stronger, it's only fair you make it up to me too, right~"

Once she'd said something like that, how could Li Wei possibly just give up?

Not to mention Tsukika had all kinds of tricks.

That made Li Wei realize even more clearly that, at least for now, there was still a huge gap between his physical toughness and Tsukika's.

And because of that, both Li Wei and Tsukika had started waking up later and later every day, becoming a pair of lazy bugs their daughter looked down on.

Still, compared to the gradually stabilizing life in Li Wei's home, things outside had started getting a little turbulent.

The few demonized corpses Li Wei had Tsukika bring back, then deliberately scatter around the city while avoiding the Legion's watchers, caused quite a stir. Groups and factions big and small across this area all got the news.

Before the Legion could act, those factions had already collected some evidence from the corpses. And before the Legion could fully react and try to recover the bodies to suppress the news, the message that demonization experiments had resurfaced spread under the open and hidden push of various forces, bursting outward with unrestrained force like something squeezed out of a diarrhea patient's gut.

That kind of news spread so fast that even if the Legion threw everything into damage control, they couldn't cover it up. They could only respond quickly and declare at once that they were determined to investigate thoroughly.

—Clearly, the Legion had also realized what it meant for demonized corpses to appear in territory under their control, while just so happening to avoid all of the Legion's patrol routes.

Someone was deliberately steering the investigation toward them!

The public weren't idiots. And besides, the person who dumped those demonized corpses had practically made it obvious that the returning demonization research might be connected to the Legion.

Even if none of their people had actually been involved, once those corpses were thrown out there, it was basically mud smeared on their crotch. Even if it wasn't shit, it looked like shit.

And was it really true that no one in the Legion had taken part?

Even they probably didn't believe that much themselves.

After all, the Legion was the true ruler of this region, and demonization research wasn't the kind of experiment that could erase every trace completely. It also required a large number of human test materials. For the Legion to have caught no news or rumors at all for so long was the most abnormal thing of all.

To the outside world, they began releasing claims that the Legion had actually picked up clues related to the demonization experiments long ago, and had only been letting the line out to catch a bigger fish, all to reassure the upper ranks of the other factions. But internally, they had already begun a purge.

The Legion's upper ranks who hadn't participated in this were genuinely panicking.

Before anything happened, of course the people above had all comfortably enjoyed the benefits passed up from below. They didn't care too much where those benefits came from either. After all, everyone ate the same way. "If everyone's doing it, no one gets punished."

But demonization experiments just happened to be the one thing where everyone could get punished. It was a taboo recognized by the entire human world.

Now that the fire was licking at their asses, there was no way they could stay seated.

If it turned out in the end that you'd gotten a share of the profits from demonization research... then you'd be in for some real suffering.

With all sides pushing things along, it probably wouldn't be long before investigators from the Holy City arrived.

Being found out by outsiders and being found out by an internal investigation were two completely different matters.

The former meant an extra layer of guilt. The latter might still leave a faint chance to atone through merit.

But all that chaos and mess had nothing to do with Li Wei anymore. He had already done what a helpful citizen should do. Breaking the Legion's monopoly on information and letting other factions supervise the investigation was already the best possible outcome.

It couldn't be that all these people were as useless as the cops in a detective anime world, right? Did someone really have to chew the food up and feed it into their mouths before they'd eat?

Without feeling the slightest unease over the turmoil outside, Li Wei was currently in the small training room at home, focused on struggling against Tsukika in her black stockings.

Why mention the black stockings specifically? Because this Demon Lord had taken off her shoes, was leisurely swinging her little feet, and kept intentionally or unintentionally stepping her black-stockinged feet onto his legs.

Her pink, playful toes traced alluring lines beneath the thin black fabric, impossible not to notice.

Was this really how you tempted an official?

What official could withstand this kind of temptation?

Wary of Tsukika's foot sliding any further, Li Wei silently pushed away the little foot she had casually rested on his leg once again. He ignored the deliberately exposed sole, where thin black fabric and glossy skin tones met, and shot her an annoyed look.

Before the two could settle their flirtatious eye battle, the ahoge on Yue Lin's head suddenly sprang upright.

As if it were some kind of signal, Tsukika took her foot back from under the table on her own. Li Wei also straightened his clothes. Then both of them turned their eyes at the same time toward their daughter, who had turned around.

"What are you doing?"

Yue Lin looked at the two of them suspiciously. She had no proof, but she always felt like the two people by her side were hiding some little move from her.

But for some reason, every time she looked up, she couldn't catch a single flaw. She'd launched surprise attacks more than once already.

That left Yue Lin, in her white stockings, utterly unable to figure it out.

The parents looked at the ahoge on their daughter's head, standing straight up like an exclamation mark, then said one after the other,

"Nothing."

—Had they really built up this kind of tacit understanding in just a few short days?

She pouted a little, feeling like she ought to be happy about it. After all, this was the kind of relationship between her parents she'd wanted to see.

But the tacit understanding these two had built seemed to be for dealing with her.

Yue Lin held a stiff little face, feeling like something was off.

"How's your learning going, Yue Lin?"

Li Wei had no idea what his daughter was thinking, but he definitely didn't want her discovering what the two of them had been doing under the table just now. He cleared his throat and changed the subject.

As he spoke, Li Wei casually reached for the teacup on the table and took a sip.

Maybe it was because there were too many people in the room and it was a little warm. He felt somewhat thirsty.

Tsukika watched Li Wei with a teasing expression as he drank from a teacup he'd already emptied several times over.

Yue Lin puffed her lips out a little. She still seemed somewhat unaccustomed to such an intimate form of address from an unreliable male, but the way her ahoge swayed around clearly showed she was in a good mood.

After these past few days together, the little girl's young heart was slowly being healed by the wholeness of a complete family.

She still hadn't corrected the way she addressed men, but the emptiness in her heart was gradually being filled by this man.

Still, she felt that the happiness and joy she had sensed couldn't compare to her mother's.

In the past, the only expressions she could see on her mother's face were coldness and indifference. Her eyes seemed filled only with killing intent, as if that was the only thing that could cover up the exhaustion beneath. But after meeting Dad again, Mom wore a smile far more often.

Like a few days ago, when she had shaken off that idiot man who woke up first and gone to find Mom. Faced with the blissful smile on her mother's face, she'd asked curiously, and Mom had dazedly said that while only the emptiness in Yue Lin's heart had been filled, Mom had been compensated in both body and soul.

But why had Mom gained an extra body too?

Was it because that annoying man slept with her every day?

Yue Lin, who had never been coaxed to sleep by Dad, felt a little envious.

But she also felt that she was growing up, and that she needed to shoulder some responsibility too.

Then let's just count it as giving Mom a little extra compensation!

Looking at the Demon Lord and Chosen Hero, who didn't seem to clash swords the moment they met like in the stories, the little girl quietly let out a sigh of relief in her heart. Then she lifted her little face with a hint of pride.

"I've already learned it."

Over these past few days, her training under Li Wei had also begun to get on track.

Whether it was because she wasn't influenced by any preconceived notions brought by a status panel, or because Yue Lin herself was simply talented, she had grasped the basics of willpower faster than Li Wei had expected.

Vivian, whose thoughts were too many and whose resolve wasn't firm enough, had spent more than half a year without even touching the threshold of it. Yue Lin had fully entered the door in just a few short days.

Though the process had been difficult, under his guidance, Yue Lin could already drive a faint bit of willpower and, in harmony with natural rhythms, actively absorb the scattered source essence.

As for stripping from source essence the universal magic power used in this world, Li Wei had already achieved that on the second day after completing his training method.

Once he had magic power, he had the foundation for "casting without a panel."

Then, by analyzing the essence of some basic skill scrolls, Li Wei no longer needed to rely on the panel's "automatic casting" and could actively shape all kinds of basic spells himself.

As for some melee-type skills, they mostly relied on another kind of power stripped from source essence.

But biting off too much at once would only leave you unable to chew.

For now, what he planned to teach his daughter was still magic-related skills.

And among the spells he'd taught over the past few days, there had only been one: the most classic spell in any fantasy world—Fireball.

With that thought, Li Wei spread his willpower over his daughter, and a line of information instantly appeared in his mind.

[Name: Yue Lin

Human, Lv7

Talent: None

Miracle: None

Skill: Fireball Lv1]

This was the "panel" he had given Yue Lin, originating from a high-grade item: the [Disguise Crystal].

It was a special item obtained in the past from subjugating the Demon King Citadel, used to disguise panel information.

Normally, it was used by big shots pretending to be weak, or for infiltration. In the past, Li Wei had carried the title of the strongest. As long as someone knew him, they would instinctively see him as "invincible" without even needing to check his panel.

So this thing had been completely useless to Li Wei before. He had so many stored away in his storage item that he'd almost forgotten about them. Now, though, they had finally become useful.

The three members of their family now all happened to need the disguise of the [Disguise Crystal].

Tsukika's identity as the Demon Lord was sensitive enough already, and Yue Lin, like him, also had no panel.

If he had no panel but could still cast spells, that was easier to smooth over. After all, with the kind of foundation he had in the past, under normal circumstances other people would automatically assume it was some trump card he'd left himself, or the effect of some item.

But if Yue Lin showed too many abnormalities, it would be far too easy to attract attention.

In truth, from the very beginning of digging into the potential of willpower, Li Wei had known exactly what he was doing—

He was opening up a brand-new path of cultivation, one that stepped beyond the limits of the panel.

The opening of this brand-new path might not become some great achievement that changed the structure of human civilization. More likely, it would become a taboo power in the eyes of others.

Because to the humans of this world, the panel was power granted by the gods, and the gods were also humanity's protectors.

According to ancient records, before the gods fell, they gathered all their power to seal the demon race. That was what restricted the activities of those Demon Lords to several Demon King Citadels, leaving the humans outside a chance to breathe. Only then did humanity gain enough strength to protect itself before the demon race could break through the seals on a large scale and expand the Demon King Citadels.

And so, in this world where the gods had fallen, gaining power through the panel was one of only two ways for humanity to look up to divine grace and preserve faith in the gods.

Another path was to launch a campaign against the Demon King Citadel and activate the God-Forbidden Domain left behind inside it, from when the gods had sealed it in ages past.

Li Wei, who had already walked this road, knew very well how much faith, gods, and the system panel weighed in the hearts of humanity in this world.

Knowing how low some people could sink, Li Wei had no doubt about it. The moment he exposed a new cultivation system, before he gained enough supporters, he'd most likely be branded a heretic in the name of defending the gods.

So even after completing his own power, Li Wei had no intention of revealing even the slightest bit of it. Besides, he'd already seen enough cases of good intentions being repaid with malice.

Yue Lin didn't know just how taboo the things she was learning were. She only listened obediently to her parents' instructions.

She looked at the smile on Li Wei's face, then thought of the new spell she had just learned. Unable to resist showing off a little, she looked at Li Wei and asked,

"You... how long did it take you to learn this before?"

Li Wei hadn't expected his daughter to ask that. He froze for a moment, then answered hesitantly, "...Quite a long time, I guess."

"How long is 'quite a long time'?"

"I don't really remember anymore."

Even though he'd only crammed and learned it on the spot a few days ago before teaching his daughter, it was true that he couldn't really remember how long he'd "studied" it...

"Hmph, and you can't even remember that." Yue Lin pouted a little, but the ahoge on her head stood up with a hint of pride. Then she turned her expectant gaze to her mother.

"What about you, Mom? How long does it usually take to learn magic like this?"

"Longer than Yue Lin."

Tsukika glanced at the man and said it without the slightest burden.

A fireball.

Did that really need to be learned?

But how could she bear to crush her daughter's enthusiasm?

"Then am I a genius?" Yue Lin asked, a little excited and hopeful.

Li Wei and Tsukika looked at each other.

"You are."

"That's right. Yue Lin is definitely a genius."

Yue Lin was a little happy, but she didn't want to look that childish. So she could only keep her little face tense and try not to show it too much.

"Then can I protect Mom now?"

As she said that, she deliberately shot Li Wei a glance and hugged her mother's arm.

Before Tsukika could speak, Li Wei spoke first.

"Not yet, probably. She's way too strong. You've only just started learning, Yue Lin. It'll still be a long while before you can catch up to Mom."

Then, before his daughter could show any disappointment, Li Wei revealed his true goal and said with a smile,

"But you can protect me first. I'm still very weak right now."

"I don't want to protect you."

Yue Lin rolled her eyes at him.

Over the past few days, that unreliable man had ordered her around plenty.

"Then can I hire Yue Lin to protect me when the time comes?"

"Hmph. If it's a transaction, then I guess it's not impossible."

Yue Lin glanced at her mother before finally nodding with a stern little face.