The Demon King's Socks and the Accidental Marriage
My white knee-high socks were starting to turn red. I knew I was hurt, and with tears in my eyes I was about to ask Sorcia—who's really good at healing magic—to treat me. That's when I ran into Haru.
“Haru… this is…”
I almost snapped at him like usual—what are you looking at!—but then I remembered the message I'd just read and quickly corrected myself.
“So, the reason I'm here is because I accidentally wandered into Haru's room—”
The door had been open, but the excuse sounded completely unnatural even to me. Haru quickly set the grocery basket he'd bought for making dinner on the desk and looked at my foot.
“Daisy, are you okay?”
“Ah… ang?”
As he spoke, he touched my foot.
“Wait, a lady's foot—”
I tried to protest, but Haru wasn't listening.
“The blood is spreading more and more. Daisy, aren't you seriously injured?!”
With a worried expression, he grabbed my knee-high socks.
“Wait, Haru, stop right now!!”
Before I could finish, Haru pulled my white knee-high socks down without hesitation. When he saw blood seeping from between my broken toenails, his pupils shook.
This looks like a really big problem… Can Hunya use healing magic? Or is there a hospital for your race that can treat this?
That's what I thought. Suddenly my mind went blank, and then droplets of water fell from both eyes. And then…
“Uwaaaaaaaaang!”
The tears just burst out.
“…Huh? Daisy, why are you suddenly like this? Does it hurt?”
Watching him say that only made me cry harder.
“Oh my.”
Sorcia, startled by my crying, looked at us and said,
“At this rate, you might even kiss the top of her foot.”
“Is that what you do for royalty?”
Haru, in his panic, took Sorcia's joke completely seriously. He pressed his lips to the top of my foot.
“K-k-kiss! He did it!! Uwaaaaaaaaang!”
“Oh my~”
“Noisy demon princess, shut up!”
Hunya came out after saying that, looked at us, and added,
“Noisy single-digit IQ idiot demon princess, shut up!”
At the same time, my adoptive little sister Yu Daye chimed in with her usual dramatic flair.
“Ohhh~ So this caught Oppa’s eye as his new preference! In that case, I believe it’s a little sister’s duty to live up to those expectations!”
As always, complete nonsense. Sorcia, instead of comforting the crying me, explained the most important ‘regulation’ for female members of the demon royal family.
Removing a demon royal woman’s knee-high socks and touching her bare foot means she belongs to you. Kissing that bare foot means the man and woman are connected by their souls.
In other words—
“It means you have promised to be with her for life as her partner. In other words, you have proposed marriage.”
“Hic…”
I stared at Daisy, whose eyes had turned red from crying, and looked at her apologetically.
“Daisy… I only did it because your foot was injured and I was worried…”
“You removed my knee-high socks, touched my foot, and even kissed it. You have cleared every single condition for marriage in the demon royal family. Congratulations, Haru-nim, on taking Daisy as your wife. All that remains now is the ceremony.”
“So showing a girl your feet and letting a guy touch them means he owns her! In that case, since I show my feet to Oppa every day, it’s already an established fact that I belong to him! Oppa, please call me your exclusive girl, Yu Daye, from now on!”
“I… I’m… going to be the wife of this… this monster… uwaaaaaang!”
“Daisy keeps crying, so Sorcia, Daye, stop saying things like that in front of her!”
When I looked at Daisy after saying that, she spoke in a voice like a crying child.
“I became an adult… and never showed them to anyone…”
“Haru-nim, since you have taken Daisy’s first time like that, you must treasure her from now on.”
“W-wife… I’m going to be the wife of this stupid, ugly, hideous monster who’s weird and a pervert… ugh… ugh…”
“Daisy, please stop crying… And why is your evaluation of me so bad?!”
“Hic… hic… ugh…”
“Alright, it’s my fault. I’m sorry. But this was an accident, right?”
“Even if it was an accident, following the rules is extremely important for the demon royal family.”
“No… deciding your entire life over just one rule? That’s weird, isn’t it?”
“The reason the unruly and self-indulgent demon race can be united as one is because of their rules and etiquette. Knowing that, the demon royal family has strictly upheld these three principles to serve as a model for their race.”
“…..Hic…”
“I told you to stop interfering from the side! Sorcia, just leave.”
“Understood. Haru-nim, do you know why the demon race takes a woman as a wife by touching her feet?”
“How would I know that?! I didn’t even know about this in the first place!”
“Hehehe… Exactly.”
“Oppa, I think I know!”
“What?”
“When you touch the foot and look up, there’s the strike zone right there! That means—”
Sorcia covered Yu Daye’s mouth.
“Then, Haru-nim, please spend some quality time with Daisy-nim.”
After saying that, Sorcia started to leave but then seemed to remember something. She whispered in my ear.
“By the way, Haru-nim, about Daisy…”
Sorcia emphasized it strongly.
“She has never even held a man’s hand before.”
“Hey… why are you emphasizing that so much…”
Before I could finish, Sorcia laughed with a “Hehehe~” and left. Yu Daye followed, shouting nonsense.
“Oppa, fighting! One-shot crystal strike!”
Once the two of them were gone, I told Daisy,
“Daisy, only the four of us saw this. If we all keep our mouths shut, no one will ever know.”
“I’ve never shown them to anyone in my entire life… not even to my maid… yet you saw my feet… you saw them. And you even touched them.”
“I’m really sorry about that… but you were bleeding so much that I thought you were badly hurt and acted without thinking.”
“……”
“None of the three of them are the type to tell anyone, right? So if we just talk it out properly, nothing will happen. We can just go back to being the same normal friends as before, okay?”
“Pervert… bastard… really… right? Isn’t that so?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll handle the talking.”
Daisy stared at me with eyes swollen red from crying, then slowly nodded.
“Fine. And Daisy, you look much prettier when you smile proudly than when you cry. So don’t cry over something like this. No matter how hard things get, you should push forward with strength! That’s better, right?”
“Idiot…”
“I’m just saying.”
“Give them back…”
When Daisy said that while looking at my hand, I realized I was still holding the knee-high socks she had been wearing.
“Sorry…”
I apologized, checked to make sure Sorcia had properly healed her before putting them back on her legs. She stared at me intently and then spoke.
“For a demon woman… putting her knee-high socks back on… means ‘I will cherish you.’”
“Sorry…”
Why does the demon royal family have so many weird customs?
“Idiot… You don’t know anything about our culture. You’re uglier than a stupid sea cucumber, anemone, or slime.”
“…I’m sorry…”
I had done something incredibly serious to a demon—moreover, a member of the royal family. Even if I had a hundred mouths, I wouldn’t have any excuse.
“…”
She stared at me as I kept apologizing, then said,
“How… did my feet feel?”
“They were soft and incredibly pretty!”
Daisy’s face turned bright red. ‘Ah…’ The moment I realized I had made a verbal slip, the image of Daisy’s feet that I had thought were cute just moments ago filled my vision. It was too late to take it back. At the same time, that foot kicked me and sent me flying.
Rubbing the spot where Daisy had kicked me, I returned to my room. The computer that had been randomly turning on and off lately—and had been completely dead recently—was now on.
“I thought it was broken because it wouldn’t turn on.”
Muttering to myself, I looked at the computer and saw a file containing the old settings I had written for Primrose and Cineurius when I was young. In one setting they were lovers. In another, Primrose was Cineurius’s little sister. In yet another, they were family. Cineurius was a hero from the past resurrected by Primrose’s magic, and so on.
“There are over a hundred files just about how to set up their relationship.”
In the end, I couldn’t decide on anything and just moved on.
“It would be bad if someone saw these weird things and got strange ideas, so I should delete them before anyone sees.”
Thinking that, I deleted all the files. While I was at it, I deleted all the old novels I had written in the past as well. My foolish past was now completely erased. Just as I was about to head to the kitchen to make dinner for everyone, Yu Daye came over as if she had been waiting and thrust her foot toward me, shouting in a cheerful voice.
“I borrowed these from Daisy! These are amazing socks made by the demon race! That’s why they don’t slip down and feel incredibly smooth! Look! They’re perfect for Oppa to take off! Come on, Oppa, take them off! This way you can clearly declare that you are my owner! Also, instead of kissing my feet, you can put on socks that symbolize Oppa’s manhood to show everyone how ruthless and golden-sun-like you are! It’s totally fine!”
She had already started using the demon culture she just learned.
The fact that Primrose was finally going to treat an Infected that the Serena Union had been trying to heal created a huge stir. And it wasn’t just on the level of simply purifying contamination. She was the being who could prevent recontamination of the land and create the core material for treating the Infected—the ‘Contaminated Crystal.’
They needed Cineurius, but since they couldn’t summon him recklessly, they tried to ask Primrose for the exact method. However, Primrose said she couldn’t. When they asked if there was any way, she replied that for some reason the Serena Union had sent an official letter expressing ‘regret’ because they kept making unreasonable demands on their precious minority race.
How would an ordinary person like me know about this? It was because an officer who got my contact information from my brother was telling me all this. Why are they contacting an ordinary person like me?! The answer was that they wanted me to tell Primrose.
“I’m just an ordinary female high school student… Plus, Rose hasn’t come to school since that day.”
How on earth did I end up in this situation? I should have never gone with them back then. As I regretted it belatedly, my brother’s smartphone buzzed with a text saying the officers were going crazy asking for Primrose’s contact information. I deleted it while thinking, You damn idiot, you’re the cause of all this and you send me this kind of text?!
I was worrying about how to deliver the message when Hyerim, who had been friends with me since elementary school, came over and said,