I Was Reborn in Another World, But I Awoke Inside a Corpse

Chapter 138: The Retreat of Greed 

The golden light of his escape hadn't yet faded when Mammon began calculating.

He didn't roar. He didn't cry out. He didn't curse the heavens or vow revenge.

He counted.

"Seven seconds," he muttered, pacing across the glittering bridge between realms. "That's how long it took… from message appearance to internal collapse."

His eyes narrowed, irises glinting like cut emeralds laced with blood.

"Had I swung, had I pressed… I'd have been exposed."

He entered his vault-realm in silence—a dimension entirely of his own design.

Gold lined every surface. Statues of weeping angels encased in crystal wept eternally above vaults of divine artifacts. Souls floated inside rings of molten currency, wailing softly—his favorite music. Scrolls of ancient law, forbidden truths, and stolen divine contracts flickered between massive ironbound ledgers.

It was paradise.

His paradise.

But he didn't relax.

He reinforced the gates. Not once. Not twice. Thirteen times.

Then he snapped his fingers, and a hundred golden eyes opened across the chamber—wards of perception. Anything that moved, breathed, or existed in his domain would be seen.

Only then did he sit.

Only then did he breathe.

And only then did he smile.

"Beelzebub is dead."

The words tasted like rust and profit.

He conjured a golden projection of his fellow Sin—bloated, arrogant, slow-witted Beelzebub—and watched it flicker, shudder, and then shatter in a silent echo of the system's final verdict.

[Beelzebub – Great Demon of Gluttony – has been slain.][Slain by: Isaac]

Mammon tapped his finger against the arm of his throne. "And you fell… because you underestimated risk."

A swirl of calculations unfolded around him. Isaac's name. Freya's aura. The fluctuating leyline energy of the Abyss before and after the death. Timing. Mana flow. Root interference. The recovery of Yggdrasil.

He processed it all.

He cross-referenced a thousand timelines.

He compared it to three extinct anomalies.

And then—

He laughed.

"Ahh. So he's real."

He leaned forward, eyes glowing.

"Not divine. Not demonic. Not coded. Not predicted."

His grin widened, twisted but delighted.

"A perfect variable."

Others would call it cowardice.

To flee mid-victory. To abandon a wounded goddess at the final moment. To run when he could have won.

But Mammon knew better.

He stroked the jaw of a golden lion-statue beside him.

"I could have stayed," he murmured. "I could have killed her. And then what?"

He snapped his fingers.

A new projection shimmered to life—Isaac—standing in silence at the foot of Beelzebub's ruined corpse.

Mammon's gaze lingered on him.

"The Devourer might have appeared. He might have teleported. He might have sensed me."

A long silence.

Then, with calm clarity:

"And I would have died."

He stood from his throne, his steps leaving ripples in the molten gold floor.

He gestured sharply, and the chamber shifted—walls rotating, escape routes unlocking, phasing paths forming.

Servants—slender, semi-spectral creatures sculpted from coin, gem, and ink—emerged from the vault shadows. They bowed without speaking, their forms clinking like rain on glass.

Mammon waved a lazy hand toward them.

"Mobilize scavenger legions. Beelzebub's domain is unclaimed. I want every artifact, every infernal contract, every soul-vessel and hoarded mass of biomass stripped clean before the others realize he's gone."

His voice sharpened slightly, businesslike.

"Artifacts can be reforged. Contracts rewritten in my favor. Soul-vessels can be sold, studied—or consumed. As for the biomass? Burn it for fuel. Feed it to my forges. It's all value. All mine."

The treasure-servants bowed and vanished, phasing into golden ley-gates across the chamber.

Mammon smiled wider.

"He may have been an idiot—but even an idiot's corpse is worth a fortune."

He stood in the center of his treasure hoard, spinning a coin between his fingers. One side bore his sigil—a snake coiled around a chest. The other side?

A blank mirror.

He peered into it.

"Let the others die trying to tame him.""Let Satan puff up with pride. Let Lucifer burn with fury.""I'll survive. I always survive."

He flicked the coin. It spun once. Twice.

Then he caught it—and grinned.

"Cowardice?" he said softly. "Please."

He kissed the coin.

"It's called profit."

And in the silence of his shining vault, where no blade could reach and no fool could tempt him into glory, Mammon of Greed sat back down—

—and smiled like a man who had just won.