"What I mean is very simple, Ms. Morvana…"

I took a small but deliberate pause, just long enough to make her blink. "Make me your son-in-law."

My smile deepened as I spoke the words aloud.

Naturally, she didn't take kindly to it.

An unbelievable surge of aura erupted from her body as the furniture blasted backward.

Well, I expected this much.

I mean, if you ask any woman for her most cherished daughter's hand, this was the natural reaction.

…At least in this world, anyway.

Demons were weirdly conservative about marriage, yeah, their great Demon King, the magnificent Ashavar himself, had over a hundred wives, but that was just him going through a midlife crisis on loop.

See, long before that, demons actually treated marriage as something sacred. They were loyal, committed and painfully traditional until Ashavar, in this particular life, decided to break that tradition.

Why?

Because, naturally, he had gone insane.

He wanted to birth a "worthy heir"… someone strong enough to kill him. So, he… spread his royal seed to every strong woman he found, fathering more children than I could count.

Most of them were failures or as Ashavar himself put it, in that oh-so-casual tone a few volumes later, "disappointments."

He called his own children that.

Every one of those so-called heirs was born, trained and discarded the moment they couldn't meet his impossible standard… the standard of being strong enough to kill him.

Honestly, if that's not peak daddy issues, I don't know what is.

But oh well, unlike him, the rest of demonkind still treated marriage as something sacred, a one-time, soul-bound deal.

And by that standard, I had basically just asked Morvana to hand over her daughter to me — a handsome, glorious but cosmically screwed and mana-depleted weakling — for a lifetime.

Yeah.

Even I had to admit… It sounded pretty bad when I said it out loud.

But honestly, I couldn't have said it any more politely than I already did.

I mean, come on, the unfiltered one would have probably started a second Great War.

And if anything, she should be grateful that someone like me was even offering to marry her emotionally-numb, scythe-swinging nutcase of a daughter.

Not that I had any real interest in marrying her.

Or, you know… marriage in general.

Sure, Arza was beautiful but she just wasn't my type.

I was twenty in my last life, okay, maybe not ancient but old enough to know better and Arza didn't exactly spark that poetic, world-stopping love all those philosophers lose their minds over.

Besides, it's not like I'm planning to actually marry her. I just want to get engaged. You know, like all the noble bastards do, purely for business and convenience.

"What do you mean?" Morvana finally spoke, her voice calm like a being storm was incoming if I said anything stupid.

"What I mean is simple, Ms. Morvana… I want to be of use to Arza." I said it with all the fake sincerity I could muster, yeah, total bullshit.

My expression twisted into that of a tragic Romeo mourning his Juliet, my voice thick with emotion and my smile fading for the first time.

All that useless bravado I had been flexing till now… melting away like mist.

"What are you talking about?"

Morvana's composure cracked, confusion flickering in her eyes. Honestly, her face would've been a sight to see, if I wasn't so damn busy nailing my performance.

I have to say though, the boost my evolution gave me in acting was off the charts. I could never pull off genuine emotions on my face but fake ones? Oh, there were no limits.

With just a thought, I could control every tiny twitch of my eye and every little movement of my mouth. Every one of my expressions looked perfectly human… and perfectly believable.

Honestly, I would say this was one of the best things to come out of my evolution. Unlike the other skills and powers that scaled with my strength, this one worked at full capacity even while I was weak.

Still, I raised my head and looked at Morvana straight into her eyes… What I was about to say next was going to be painfully cringe and embarrassing but oh well.

Survival demands sacrifices and if that sacrifice is my dignity, then so be it.

"I love Arza very, very much, ma'am. She is the one I can't imagine my life without. She is the light of my world and if I can be of even the slightest use to her… I'll gladly lay down my life."

Yeah. That line.

That painfully cheesy dialogue came straight from one of the most fanatical players in the game. I still remember his username —

ChocolateDemoness.

Even the name was for Arza.

That guy was obsessed with Arza and called her his wife, wrote fanfics about her, hell, he even donated enough to fund half the damn server.

And one day, that lunatic posted this very line on the forums, it blew up with millions of likes and comments.

I laughed about it for days… then I cursed myself.

Apparently, getting that many likes and comments was commendable and great community engagement, or at least that's what my PR team said.

That said, I had to give that guy a reward and worse, I had to say that same damn line with him in front of hundreds of cameras.

That cursed memory still haunts me to this day.

So why was I quoting it now?

Simple, really.

Most people in love cringe. They say cheesy and over-the-top nonsense like it's poetry from the heavens.

And to blend in and appear as someone truly drowned in poison of love, I had to say something cheesy too.

Naturally, I'm not the cringe guy, please, my taste is immaculate, so I just borrowed that line from him.

Not that he was here to mind… He was probably out there somewhere, still simping over his imaginary Arza, if that world was even real.

Morvana frowned, her violet eyes narrowing with suspicion. Well, fair. I mean, who wouldn't doubt someone claiming they're "in love" with a girl they met, what, a few days ago?

So, to erase that doubt with something deeper, something that would hit harder than the tired "love at first sight" cliché, I let my face twist into what I imagined pain looked like.

Then I said it, slow and deliberate.

"I saw the future… and she is the one I loved there."

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