It was evening.
Sarah and Asmodeus were lounging at a sleek wooden table in the garden behind the mansion.
She clipped his nails and painted them black, all the while relaying everything the house staff talked about behind his back.
Even though it was related to him, Asmodeus didn't seem the least bit interested. He was busy reading the ledgers of his gambling houses.
Regardless, Sarah continued, searching for even the slightest reaction.
It wasn't like Asmodeus wasn't aware of what she was doing. He knew very well how hard she tried to earn his interest every second of every day. But it didn't seem like she was aware of it herself. It was more of an instinctive behavior.
Asmodeus did not confront her; he let her be.
There was nothing for him to be concerned about. If anything, such a servile attitude was beneficial to him.
She had shown her eagerness through a multitude of scenes. She peeled his fruits, brewed his tea, and kept him company at night.
She had done everything she could to keep Asmodeus pleased. It showed her growing dependence on him and her almost off-putting need for his approval.
Ellie Arnold did a wonderful job of showing the complexities of Sarah's character. Every glance of her contained concern, anxiety, and cunning. She was like a rescued dog.
"Should we go in?" Sarah asked, observing the setting sun.
Before Asmodeus could answer, they were interrupted by one of the maids. She had come to inform him of a guest's arrival.
As the girl hurriedly whispered in his ear, Asmodeus frowned.
"Are you certain it is Satan?" he asked.
The girl nodded. "Very certain, sir."
Without a moment's notice, Asmodeus picked up the fruit basket decorated on the table and threw it in the nearby bushes. Only then did he instruct the maid to guide his brother to him.
His jaw was set, and his eyes were fierce.
Meanwhile, Beelzebub and Belphegor were visiting a graveyard, the one where their father was buried. But they weren't there to see him.
The headstone they stood in front of was far older than their father's. It did not belong to anyone named Binsfeld.
The name on the weathered headstone was difficult to make out. Only a single line was legible.
'...mother to Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Belphegor.'
The year on the stone suggested that it was her 19th death anniversary.
Even though they were in front of their mother's grave, the two opted to talk about someone entirely different.
"Who was she, anyway?"
Beelzebub frowned. "Who?"
"Asmodeus's mother."
The gluttonous man paused, a half-eaten pork sandwich lingering near his mouth. "Why do you ask?"
Belphegor shrugged. "We talk about everyone else but never her."
He plucked a petal from the rose in his hand. In the calm wind, it mournfully fell over his mother's grave.
"I—I read somewhere that the behavior of children is affected by the environment they grow up in."
Being the youngest of the seven, he had never seen or heard a mention of Asmodeus's mother.
"I was wondering if that was the case with Asmodeus."
Beelzebub chuckled, finding it funny. "What kind of pansy talk is that?"
Taking a bite out of his sandwich, he exaggeratedly imitated his brother. "Oh no, Asmodeus is messed up—gee, I wonder if it's because of his mother."
He laughed, slapping his thigh.
Belphegor looked at him with a tired, pained smile. "Funny."
"Relax, I'm just joking, you wimp." He punched his brother in the shoulder. "Grow up, will you?"
A quiet moment passed.
Absentmindedly, Beelzebub stared at the petals Belphegor had plucked. They had created a beautiful pattern on the grave.
"Asmodeus's mother, was it?" he whispered to himself.
For a split second, he had the illusion that the red of the petals was bleeding into the white gravestone.
"She was a prostitute." He felt like the pressure in the atmosphere had suddenly doubled. "A classy, foreign one."
It felt like someone invisible was squeezing him. His left arm, holding the sandwich, seemed to throb a little.
Beelzebub dropped the sandwich, suspecting something was wrong with it.
Belphegor found it weird that his voracious brother would throw away food. But then again, old memories often stole his appetite.
After taking a seat on the nearby bench, Beelzebub began recounting the story about Asmodeus and his mother.
She was a young, high-class escort who had a brief encounter with their father while he was visiting Italy.
"Of all the prostitutes in that room that night, it was only her who got pregnant."
A night of sin and debauchery inevitably resulted in Asmodeus's birth.
For a couple of years, the family remained unaware of his existence. He was raised solely by his single mother before she went missing one night.
No one knew why, but as soon as their father found out about him, he brought Asmodeus to Korea to live with them. He provided him with all the luxury and gifted him the family name.
Because of that, despite being a child, he was despised by the two mistresses. And unlike the rest of his brothers, he was raised by maids and prostitutes.
"That explains his obsession with women," Belphegor joked, observing his brother's reaction through the corner of his eye.
He exaggerated an awkward laugh when Beelzebub didn't look amused.
The scene changed.
In the fragrant garden, facing the mesmerizing twilight, Asmodeus sat opposite Satan.
"I will ask again," — Satan pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, staring at the fruit knife Asmodeus was playing with — "will you or will you not join me?"
"I will not," Asmodeus firmly declared. "For your sake, I will turn a blind eye to our conversation today. Let's consider it the musings of a tired mind. What you will do is your business, but do not involve me in your mutiny.'
Underneath the table, out of Asmodeus's sight, Satan wrapped the handkerchief around his knuckles.
"Have you forgotten how much you owe the family?" he growled.
"Our father, whom I owed, is forever in peace." Asmodeus looked him in the eye, his gaze dauntless. "And although you are a part of the family, you are not the family."
"You, son of a whore—"
Asmodeus raised a finger to his lips and shushed the man. "Yours, mine, and Lucifer's—all of our mothers whored themselves to the rich and powerful. Yours remained loyal to one; mine didn't. That is all the difference there is."
To Asmodeus, Satan was nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum, and it was reflected in his gaze.
That sharp look full of contempt was familiar to Satan. He had seen it time and time again.
His father looked at him that way. Eventually, Lucifer—his younger brother—took up the mantle. Now, even Asmodeus had become a part of that legacy.
Satan's hand was itching for something to squeeze and swing. In his anger, he looked around for anything he could grab, but there was nothing on the table. He wasn't even served tea.
He stared at Asmodeus. With the sun shining on his face, he looked so dignified sitting across from him.
Satan yelled obscene profanities before kicking the table and storming away.
Sarah, who had witnessed the whole affair from afar, looked agitated. She quickly rushed to Asmodeus, checking on him before rearranging the table and chairs.
The scene changed.
Satan was sitting with Mammon in one of his fancy bars.
"So, he refused?" Mammon sneered, trying his hardest to hide his grin. "That disgusting rat. Father should never have accepted him into the family."
He banged his glass on the table and shouted, "Another one!"
The outro lightly began playing in the background as the two spent the night silently drinking.
Out of nowhere, Mammon made a suggestion.
"We need to kill him."
Satan looked at him, inebriated and wide-eyed.
"If we don't, that rat will eventually tattle on us," Mammon continued, grimacing heavily. "Before he stands against us—before he allies himself with Lucifer—we should bury him."
Mammon widened his eyes, revealing an ever-consuming madness.
"Unlike the others, he is dangerous," he whispered, leaning closer to Satan. "He is a threat. You must have seen it; he is a threat."
Those words kept spinning in drunk Satan's head.
'You must have seen it; he is a threat.'
It reminded him of those eyes full of contempt. No matter where he tried to hide, they never stopped staring at him. For over three decades, they had mocked him.
"I have seen it," he mused as if he was hypnotized. "Yes, I have seen it."
Closely observing Satan's expression, Mammon showed the most disgusting grin.
"We should kill him."
Even as Satan was lulled to sleep, he kept whispering in his ear the same thing.
"We must kill him."
The outro song intensified as Mammon rejoiced over the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that he had created to take over Asmodeus's brothels and gambling dens.
All the while, Leviathan secretly watched the two from the safety of his car.
His gaze alternated between his drunk brothers across the street and the picture attached to the dashboard of his car.
It was captured secretly.
The redhead in it was none other than Sarah Raguel.
And so, the fourth episode concluded.