Chapter 31
A deep, ancient room lay under a heavy darkness. A single thread of heat seeped into my skin.
“Hah... ngh.”
Quiet tears slipped from my closed eyes. I swallowed the familiar, distant feeling in silence.
“Don’t cry.”
A neutral, cold voice rang out. Was he telling me to shut up because I was being noisy? I really was crying quietly, and he still said that. Rude.
“I’m crying for you while I’m receiving your power. You know, as a courtesy.”
“You were the one who said you would.”
“And you were the one who allowed it, Your Majesty.”
The icy hand clasped around mine trembled faintly for a moment.
After a short silence, the voice came again. “You’ve changed.”
“How?”
“Your personality. Your attitude. Your way of speaking.”
“...”
“Did you split your sense of self again while I wasn’t looking?”
This time, my own hand flinched. The tremor traveled through our joined hands and seemed to confirm his suspicion.
“So that’s why you came here tonight.”
“...”
“You’ve always been like that. When you’re confused or empty, you don’t face your emotions. You try to avoid them by borrowing someone else’s and leaning on them instead.”
“That’s not exactly a bad thing.”
“It isn’t good, either.”
When I muttered back, he answered in a small but firm voice, like he was scolding a child. I pouted and turned my head away in a fit of pointless defiance.
“You like it too, don’t you, Your Majesty.”
“...I have never done that.”
“Thanks to me, you’ve even been able to sleep lately. You’re really not honest.”
Huh?
All at once, I felt my body go light, then warmth swept over me. Soft. Warm.
“Your Majesty?”
“You dare provoke me. You really have changed.”
Before I knew it, I had been laid out on the bed. Our hands were still clasped.
Along with the weight pressing down on me, a cold breath tickled the bridge of my nose.
“How much did you divide off this time?”
“Uh... this is heavy.”
“Tell me.”
The distant feeling seeping in through my nose stirred violently. Was he worried about me? I was about to say I was fine, but my lips only parted and shut again.
It wasn’t really strange for the Demon King to act like this. One of the few shamanists on his side had become this fragile, after all.
With the war escalating, if even one shamanist went wrong, the loss of strength would be enormous. And not long ago, an Angel had actually descended, too.
That had left my master in recovery, so from the Demon King’s perspective, the one leading the army, it made sense that he’d take it seriously.
Still, this was better than when I’d peeled away desire or fear before. The Demon King really did worry more than he let on.
“Cynthia.”
I’d drifted into thought for too long, and my answer came late without my noticing. At his quiet call, I hurried to respond.
“O-one thing. I split off ‘cowardice.’”
“Why did you do that?”
“I’m a coward, after all. I hated that.”
I was a vampire who hated blood. If I wanted to use curse magic properly, I had to blow my own head apart over and over and drive my mind right up against its limits.
I kept doing it because I didn’t have the courage to face a battlefield soaked in slaughter. I’d act like a lunatic until my mind recovered.
I couldn’t even tell friend from foe, so aside from the familiars who had received my self, I was basically useless in actual combat beside the Demon King’s army.
Because of that, the Eighth Legion was still only me and my familiar. I was stupid and scared, and I never used all the power I had. I only caused trouble.
I hated that so much. I wanted to repay the debt I owed.
So I divided it away.
My inner coward.
In the thick darkness, cold fingertips touched my cheek. Then he gently wiped away the tears still flowing down.
“I still don’t understand you.”
“What a coincidence. Neither do I.”
Just as the Demon King said, I had spent too long ignoring my own feelings and taking in everyone else’s. After living like that for decades, I couldn’t even remember what shape the thing called me had once taken.
Really—
“A mess.”
“I know.”
Did the Demon King see through everything? He wasn’t even meeting my eyes through the window of the heart, and yet it felt like he could sometimes read my thoughts.
“Still, it’s not bad.”
“That so? I didn’t know you could joke, Your Majesty.”
The Demon King’s lips, drawn within my field of magic, closed again.
In the silence that followed, the grip around my hand tightened a little.
Just as I was looking puzzled, his voice came down over me. “From now on, don’t do that.”
“Huh?”
“I mean stop splitting off your sense of self.”
“Why?”
“Stay as yourself. That is what I want.”
Huh? Was that... a request?
I felt like his tone was a little different from usual. Or was that just my imagination?
While I was still uncertain, the weight pressing on me vanished.
His hand let go of mine, too.
Confused, I pushed myself up, and then I heard the Demon King’s voice as he turned away.
“That makes five now.”
Five?
“Don’t use the life I’ve allowed you so carelessly.”
“Ah. Yes. Sorryyyy.”
It sounded like I was being scolded, so I bowed my head obediently. Not just anyone got the Demon King’s power bestowed on them.
In my case, maybe he was just giving an especially rare shamanist a few spare lives. Honestly, it wasn’t exactly something to be happy about.
I could barely make peace with the one life I had; now there were five of them. Even if I had no choice but to accept them in wartime, I still didn’t like it.
If the war would only end. If I had already repaid my debt. Then I wanted what was left to be one single life.
My familiar, still growing stronger by the day, would be the one to kill me anyway. That had been the contract.
I was tired of chewing over memories of home. I muttered them to myself every day out of habit, but too much time had passed to cling to any hope of going back now.
My attachment to Earth had already been abandoned long ago. I just hoped this state of mind would still be the same far down the road.
If it changed, I wanted there to be a proper reason.
Otherwise it’d be too embarrassing.
Chuckling at my useless thoughts, I slipped out of bed.
I’d received the power I came for, and the Demon King needed sleep now, so I should head out.
“Where are you going?”
“Huh?”
But just as I moved to leave, the Demon King stopped me. Was he curious about where I was headed next?
“I was going to see my master.”
“To Anagi?”
“Yes. I need to visit her, too.”
After a brief pause, I went on. “Since I’ve already split off my sense of self, I thought I might as well hand my master some of it, too.”
She could be a little eccentric, but my master was always proud and brave. She’d laughed while fighting even that overwhelming Angel.
I wanted to be like that. If I understood my master, maybe I could be.
“Stop.”
“Your Majesty?”
“Don’t go.”
He seemed startled by something. He came closer and suddenly took my hand.
I’d already received the power, so why was he acting like this?
“Just stay here.”
I tilted my head. “Ah. Do you need me to keep you company while you sleep?”
“...”
“No, no, don’t misunderstand me. It’s not that I dislike you, Your Majesty. I just happen to prefer women. I don’t really have any experience, either.”
The force around my wrist tightened. On top of that, the gaze pouring down on me was terrifying.
Huh, was that not it?
Thinking it over in every direction, I suddenly remembered the moment I had entered this room. He had definitely been lying down, trying to sleep, hadn’t he?
Oh. So I woke him up, and now he wanted me to take responsibility for it?
Having found the answer, I sat back down on the bed and patted the blanket.
“Come here.”
“...What are you doing?”
“I’ll stay beside you until you fall asleep.”
If I poured out his emotions for him like I had before, he’d probably fall asleep easier.
It wasn’t as if seeing my master was urgent enough to worry about this moment, so I could spare the time.
“Oh. Should I sing you a lullaby too?”
“...Haa.”
Letting out a long sigh, the Demon King covered his face with a hand. What was that about? Strange.
- Year XX of drifting through another world. In the Demon King’s chambers. On a day when, for some reason, I’d gotten thoroughly scolded-
Lee Seo-ah felt strangely off. What should she call this feeling now? Refreshing? Light?
It was as if everything she had been forcefully stuffing down inside her had been washed away without a trace.
“Goreuk. Here’s some cold water. Drink it.”
“O-okay.”
Taking the cup Gobra handed her, Cynthia drank greedily. Maybe because she’d cried so much at once, she looked worn out.
“Tsk. Why did you do that again? His Majesty told you not to keep doing it.”
“Shut up. It wasn’t an order, so I can do what I want.”
After sniffing, Cynthia received the tissue Gobra handed back and blew her nose hard. The red haze in her eyes slowly faded.
Your Majesty?
Watching them, Lee Seo-ah tilted her head at the unfamiliar term. Then, looking at Cynthia now that she had settled down, she asked, “Unnie, did something happen?”
At the call, Cynthia looked back. Soon enough, the pretty face still marked with tear tracks broke into a small smile.
“No.”
Then she reached out and pulled Lee Seo-ah in.
Startled, Lee Seo-ah, held in that embrace too easily, widened her eyes like a rabbit caught off guard.
“Nothing happened.”
No, that didn’t sound right.
Something had definitely happened. Something involving her, too.
A strange instinct was whispering exactly that, but Lee Seo-ah soon closed her eyes.
The warmth that had felt a little overwhelming somehow felt wonderfully comfortable now. So comforting that she let her body surrender to it all on its own.
Her head grew hazier and hazier.
Just a little more. She wanted to stay like this just a little longer.
A little while later, Lee Seo-ah quietly fell into sleep, wearing a smile she had never shown before.
That night, another accident broke out in the city center, which had already suffered a major ordeal from the villain’s attack.
After receiving the report and judging the situation severe, Kim Su-hyun came directly to the scene. He adjusted his glasses and frowned faintly.
What on earth happened here?
Before his eyes, a vast sea of flame writhed viciously, licking at the air. It had already turned an entire school into a field of ashes and was still blazing furiously.
Specialized crews had rushed in to suppress the sudden massive fire, but it was far from easy. This was not a normal blaze.
The traces of dense magic drifting through the area proved that much.
This won’t do.
He still carried injuries from the Alliance’s attack, but if he didn’t act now, that inferno would spread elsewhere. “Director!”
“What is it?”
Kim Su-hyun, just about to raise his magic, turned toward a management bureau employee running up fast. The employee reported with an anxious face.
“A second fire has broken out in a place similar to this one!”
“Another one?”
They had to extinguish the school fire first, so reserves needed to be sent. “Where?”
“Yes. It’s an orphanage a short distance from here.”
“Understood. Then send Team B and Team C there...”
Wait. What did he just say...?
“An orphanage?”
Muttering blankly, Kim Su-hyun froze and turned his eyes back toward the burning school. It was a regular middle school that had been closed for the semester.
His eyes behind the lenses began to shake violently.