Priority Perks: The One-Time Blessing
I too knew about mana.
The divine power reserved exclusively for those chosen by the gods.
Though greatly diminished compared to true divine might, it was still said to hold infinite potential.
‘It’s something that shows up all the time in fantasy stories—similar to mana.’
Only a select few demons received the Demon God’s blessing during their Coming-of-Age Ceremony, granting them the ability to wield mana.
“That blue flame just now was proof that the blessing had descended on you. But truly astonishing…”
He paused his explanation, which he had been continuing from a separate position, and glanced toward me.
“I never expected blessings to be bestowed in succession.”
“Ehehe. You’re right.”
Casher, standing beside me, grinned broadly and chimed in.
The reason she was present was simple.
After I, Casher also awakened her mana by igniting a blue flame during the ceremony.
Being blessed by the Demon God side by side with her childhood friend—Casher’s childhood friend, that is—surprised even the old priest.
“To continue the story… those who have awakened mana receive a special opportunity.”
“A chance?”
“You’ve all probably heard of the Cradle.”
I and Casher nodded in unison.
Its official name was Cradle of Darkan, the educational institution founded by the current Demon King Darkan, who had ruled the Demon Realm for five hundred years.
If asked about the future of the Demon Realm, the response was always to look toward the Cradle, a premier institution that had produced the elite who steered the current demon society.
“Anyone who has awakened mana qualifies to apply to the Cradle. The decision is yours to make, but it’s better to go even if only to check it out.”
The Cradle offered a six-year program, a long one indeed, but the benefits upon graduation were substantial.
The most coveted was a massive bonus point for applying as an officer in the Demon King’s Army, the profession every young demon male most desired.
‘I’m not particularly interested in that path…’
Even without it, the Cradle taught practical mana manipulation, and upon graduation one gained sticky ties of mentor-protégé relations with the leaders of society.
Honestly, to miss such an opportunity would be foolish.
A six-year program?
Demon lifespans averaged over two hundred years—barely more than a blink.
“…….”
Casher too stared at me in silence and nodded.
She was surely thinking the same thing.
Since she was joining me, what else was there to hesitate over?
I turned to the old priest.
“What is the procedure for enrolling in the Cradle?”
“If you wish to enroll, I will handle everything for you.”
“Could there be any cost…”
“Living expenses are all managed there, so simply bring your body.”
After listening to further explanations, we left the temple.
The sun was dipping low, yet the streets still teemed with demons.
“Amazing that both of us received the blessing… it feels like pure fate.”
Unable to contain her excitement, Casher chattered nonstop as we walked home.
I understood that feeling perfectly.
The stairs leading toward the mainstream cartel, famous for its history and tradition, unfolded before us.
It would have been strange not to feel a stir.
‘My ceiling has cracked wide open!’
While Casher and I chatted about her rose-colored future, we arrived at her home.
“I’ll go in first, Dorn. Thank you for seeing me off.”
“Yeah. See you next time.”
We could have had dinner together.
Casher would need to talk about today’s events with her family, so we agreed to try again later.
Thus, I walked the familiar path home alone.
“Hey.”
A familiar face suddenly popped out from the dark shadow in the alley, blocking my path.
It was someone.
The ugly guy who had proven beyond any doubt that ugliness had no limits, Jugo, approached with a lecherous grin.
I never expected him to be waiting here.
“Fancy meeting you again, Jugo. You said you were heading to the party— what’s the deal?”
“Bullshit. Stop pretending to be friendly, you bastard.”
Jugo growled with a fierce expression.
He was indeed prickly.
The memory of him getting beaten by the guards and having his eyes teared open still lingered.
His reason for coming was obvious.
He couldn’t exact revenge on the soldier who had beaten him, so he had come to vent on the easy target that was me.
“You’re ready, right?”
Jugo raised his massive fist as if to prove it.
A brute.
Where was a small, weak demon like me supposed to get hit?
‘Well, at least it turned out okay. I was hoping to test it.’
The reincarnation service that had sent me here had promised a one-time special perk: the ability Thought Encroachment.
Indeed. Recalling my previous-life memories, I naturally understood the skill as well.
‘If I have to compare it, it’s similar to hypnosis, isn’t it?’
According to the acquired knowledge, Thought Encroachment was an incredibly useful ability, yet I had never used it once.
To activate it required a special power whose nature and acquisition method remained unknown to me.
I could drive and drive, but lacking fuel I could not run.
Thus I had been sulking over getting scammed in the previous life, until today, after receiving the blessing, the realization dawned.
‘Mana was the fuel.’
I focused my mind for a moment.
Among the knowledge of Thought Encroachment was how to manipulate mana.
I willed the thing writhing near my heart to move.
Just as blood flowed through the veins, mana followed its predetermined path.
To use the ability, I had to draw the mana toward my head, but it was the first time and I could not move it as quickly as I hoped.
“Hey, you bastard…”
While I struggled to move the mana, Jugo closed in, pounding his fist.
“When someone speaks, you should answer something, right?”
When he drew near, my mana reached the target.
“……!!”
Instantly, accompanied by a clear sensation in my head, I caught a single blue thread fluttering in my vision.
‘It worked!’
I realized the ability had properly activated.
The thread extended from my forehead and, when I concentrated, I could control it at will.
‘Move… move…’
The target was Jugo’s head.
Since only I could see it, he had no idea the thread was connected to his own forehead.
That was all the preparation needed.
Thought Encroachment worked by planting suggestions of the desired content into the target’s unconscious through the medium of the connected thread.
The true use of the ability was to stimulate the implanted suggestion with suitable words and actions, thereby guiding the target’s thought patterns and behavior toward what I desired.
I quickly crafted the perfect suggestion.
In my mind, the mana responded, was processed into something unknown, and was sent through the thread to the other party.
“Ugh…”
Was it the aftereffect of using the ability? I felt a slight dizziness, but I could sense the suggestion had taken root in Jugo’s mind.
Only then did I finally open my mouth, which I had kept tightly shut.
“Jugo, calm down for a second and listen to what I have to say.”
“You want me to leave a final message? Fine, I’ll hear you out and give you a good kick.”
Whether he laughed or not, I spoke calmly.
“You know yourself that beating me here won’t do much for your fallen status.”
“……The crazy bastard wants to leave a final message? What, he’s barking?”
Jugo flared up.
I had not spoken carelessly.
Thought Encroachment was not a Hitomi-style hypnosis that forced submission, but a skill close to brainwashing through suggestion and reinforcement.
If the implanted suggestion or my stimulating words clashed too severely with the target’s beliefs, values, or knowledge, the effect would drop sharply.
‘The key is to have persuasive power.’
Noting this fact, I planted the suggestion in Jugo: “I feel a deep sense of unease about my position after suffering a humiliating defeat in front of everyone.”
From now on, I would use conversation to constantly reinforce that suggestion until I elicited the desired response.
I posed the perfect question for him.
“Agon was there at the ceremony too.”
“Wha…?”
Jugo’s face froze.
The lizardman Agon was the top fighter in Broccolin’s back alleys, and their relationship was poor.
“After seeing what happened to you, those guys who came along with me laughed their asses off for ages while mocking you.”
It was no lie—Agon had laughed loudly, drawing everyone’s attention, and kept taunting Jugo for a long time.
“That bastard Agon…!”
Jugo, who had been beaten by soldiers and kicked to the back of the line, turned red as his face swelled with the realization.
I smiled inwardly.
‘Caught.’
Jugo was already engaged in a fierce rivalry with Agon over the abandoned Broccolin back alleys.
With my added suggestion that his position was now in danger, his head must be spinning.
‘He knows that ignoring it as a thug will only make him look like an idiot.’
Jugo fell silent for a while, then spoke again.
“So, what you’re saying is… that instead of beating me here, I should find Agon and beat him up?”
“…….”
“Hah—”
When I answered with silence, Jugo let out a laugh of disbelief.
*Thwack!*
“Guh—?!”
My body bent into an L-shape.
An orc’s full-power punch landed squarely in my lower abdomen.
At first I thought it had failed.
“Son of a bitch, your tongue is surprisingly smooth.”
Jugo looked down at me with burning eyes.
The rage in them was not directed at me but at someone else.
“Be lucky.”
Jugo turned his back and stomped out of the alley.
He was probably heading to find Agon somewhere in the city.
Alone, I let out a long sigh.
Normally I would have been beaten flat as a piece of pork cutlet, but it ended with one punch, so I should count myself lucky.
“…Lucky? What’s so lucky about it?”
How dare a regular demon lay a hand on my noble body blessed by the Demon God?
‘You’ll pay for this later, ugly orc.’
One day, when I returned in glory from the Cradle, would be the day of that ugly orc’s funeral.
***
One month after the Coming-of-Age Ceremony.
Dudu dudu—
“Look, Dorn! Tomeron!”
Casher shouted in her chirpy voice from the carriage we had borrowed from the temple.
Following her gaze out the window, the sight of a vast city surrounded by nature filled my eyes.
Tomeron, the city where the Cradle was located.
After a three-day journey, it was incomparably larger than a backwater like Broccolin.
“Stop, stop.”
There was a checkpoint in front of the city gates.
I and Casher showed the Cradle enrollment permit to the guards.
“New students this time? Welcome. Please enter.”
“Thank you.”
Entry was granted without issue.
The carriage we had arrived in turned its horse toward Broccolin, and we walked into the city.
“The Cradle is in the northern part of the city, right?”
“Yeah. Let’s find a place to stay and look around!”
The streets were bustling with demons from all over the Demon Realm, drawn by the upcoming Cradle entrance ceremony.
We wove through the crowd of demons and found a suitable inn.
“Do you have rooms?”
I approached the demon man who appeared to be the owner and asked. He looked up slowly and answered.
“Two hundred rupies a day.”
“Eh? What, is it that expensive?!”
I had been thinking a hundred rupies at most when I asked. The owner explained.
“Every year at this time, the influx of visitors for the Cradle entrance makes prices unavoidable. I’m even giving you a discount.”
Though it sounded like he was lying, neither Casher nor I had much money, so we checked other inns.
After looking at a few, the conclusion was clear.
“Dorn, it seems the old man was telling the truth.”
As Casher had said, every inn charged over two hundred rupies for a day’s stay.
In the end, we returned to the same one we had started with, swallowing our pride.
The owner gave me a look as if to ask if I agreed with his price. I scratched my head and asked him.
“…Are any rooms still available?”
“Rooms? There are.”
“Then two rooms…”
“Wait, Dorn!”
Suddenly Casher stopped me.
“Casher, why?”
“…We don’t have much money either. Who knows what expenses we’ll have from now on—how about just one room?”
“What?”
I stared at her in shock.
What was she saying?
‘Even as childhood friends, a boy and girl of marriageable age sharing one bed…’
When a man and woman are not separated by seven generations!
As a reincarnated person with lingering memories of Earth Confucian values, this was a problem I could not easily overlook.
I said seriously, “One room.”
“…….”
The owner stared at me as if to say ‘of course,’ but I ignored him and handed over the money.
Confucianism was so outdated.
The trend was pragmatism.
“Room 206. You can use the public shower at the end of the corridor.”
I took the key, heart pounding, and headed with Casher to the second-floor room.
There was nothing special about it.
A wooden table, two chairs, and finally a somewhat large bed.
I almost clapped, but I restrained myself and said to Casher.
“The bed is yours. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Eh? No, you don’t have to…”
“It’s fine. Lay a blanket on the floor and it’ll be the same.”
Since tomorrow was the entrance ceremony, sleeping on the floor for one day was no issue.
The Cradle would cover food, clothing, and shelter, so there would probably be dorms anyway.
I said she had no reason to feel burdened and finished unpacking.
“Now, shall we go see the Cradle?”
“Let’s go and have dinner together!”
We left the inn and headed north into the city.
Tomeron bordered the majestic Dragon Bone Mountains.
The northern part of the city was nestled against the Dragon Bone Mountains, which stood like a screen behind it, and right there stood the Cradle.
“There it is!”
Casher pointed to the huge gate in the distance.
Up close, it was even more imposing.
“So this is the entrance?”
The Cradle was surrounded by walls that looked far higher and sturdier than the city’s.
It was said the Cradle had been built first, and the city grew around its gates; that was why the structure was so unusual.
Looking down from above, the overlapping shapes of the Cradle and the city would resemble the intersection of a Venn diagram.
Well, structure didn’t matter.
‘This is the Demon Realm’s S University!’
The Cradle’s entrance was still tightly closed, but the majestic aura flowing from it filled my chest with heroic spirit.
As I looked around, I saw other demons besides Casher and me.
Since this area was residential, there was nothing special to see; they were probably here to visit the Cradle too.
“Is that demon hurt? He has bandages wrapped all the way to his face.”
As Casher said, a demon covered in bandages stood a short distance away.
From his small build, he was probably a female demon, but when our eyes met, she hurriedly left.
“Did I just stare at someone by accident?”
“Must be a shy demon.”
There was nothing more to see. We wandered the city and returned to the inn for dinner.
And night fell.
“Are you really sure it’s okay?”
Casher asked me, who had spread a futon on the floor.
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Even if I say it’s okay to sleep in bed with me?”
“I’m a man who knows how to respect women.”
“…What a great gentleman you are.”
Casher, who had spoken with a shiver, picked up the lamp on the table beside the bed.
“I’ll turn off the light first. Dorn, you lie down first.”
“Yeah.”
I lay down on the blanket.
As I waited for the light to go out, Casher, lying on her stomach, peeked her face out from the edge of the bed and looked down at me.
“Dorn.”
Our eyes met, and she whispered in a sweet voice.
“If it’s uncomfortable, you can come up anytime♡”
She’s at it again.
The moment there was even the slightest gap, she gave me that suggestive look that made demon hearts flutter—big trouble.
“…Fine, just turn off the light.”
“Huhu, okay.”
With a *huff* sound, darkness descended on the room.
“…….”
Even after the light went out, I could not fall asleep for a long time.
It was because Casher’s words had left me lost in an eerie sense that they might not have been a joke.
In the previous life, she was an absolute beauty I could never even speak to.
If there were no romantic attraction, it would have been a lie.
‘If I had just said yes when she first suggested sharing a bed!’
Now that I thought about it, would I really climb into the bed?
As I pondered, time slipped by without meaning, and at some point I fell into deep sleep.
Looking back, it was a wrong judgment born of thin self-confidence and lack of decisiveness that any opportunity would come again.
I had no idea I would regret this day for a long time to come…