Three Wishes and a Pillow to the Face
It seemed my so-called “studies” were still lacking. “The vanguard of the Demon King’s army, huh….” The question was whether I could stand at the forefront of destroying the world I had protected. It was an incredibly difficult one. Countless scenes flashed before my eyes—my former comrades, the places where we had eaten, slept, and spent our days together, and all the events we had experienced. No matter how the world had abandoned me, it was still the world I had fought to protect. But…….
“Just kidding.”
Ilena covered her mouth with one hand and giggled. Having been on the verge of answering in earnest, I felt utterly deflated.
“If it were the old me, maybe. But the me of now would never make such a demand. Especially not toward you.”
Her voice carried genuine sincerity. I nodded, my own heart now firmly set.
“All right. I believe in you. So I’ll make a vow. No matter what, I will grant you three wishes whenever you ask.”
“Really? But a promise made only with words feels a little hard to trust.”
“That hurts. I always keep the words I speak.”
“Then how about this?”
When Ilena lightly snapped her fingers, a thread of soft, glowing light stretched from her fingertip and touched my chest.
"By the ancient pact of magic,"
"I bind this oath with threads of light."
⟨ Magical Contract ⟩
“If you break the promise, a terrible price will follow.”
Her eyes sparkled with excitement.
“Fine. I accept.”
“What? No!”
The moment I thrust my chest out without hesitation, Ilena hurriedly pulled the thread back.
“Why? You said you couldn’t trust just words.”
“Even so, isn’t this too reckless? You don’t even know what I might ask of you!”
“Anything is fine with me.”
“No. Besides, from the start……”
Ilena shook her head with a displeased expression.
“Contracts that force such compulsion aren’t good. They turn even intimate relationships cold and mechanical.”
“Oh……”
When I let out an admiring sound, Ilena’s face flushed faintly again.
“Y-you! Why are you so surprised?”
“Did you study that too?”
“No, that wasn’t written in any book. It came naturally from my own experience. I realized it while managing my subordinates.”
“Now that you mention it, your subordinates back then were all willing to burn even their souls for you.”
“……Yes.”
The look on Ilena’s face as she nodded seemed somehow bitter.
“All of them. Even though I was driving them to their deaths.”
“It wasn’t out of fear of the punishment they’d receive for retreating. The fact that they truly fought for you was what interested me.”
Though the Demon King Ilenater had been a mad conqueror consumed by insanity, it seemed she had still possessed a warm heart that cared for her subordinates. That same warmth was probably what had allowed her to change like this.
“By the way, I keep hearing familiar names.”
Ilena, who had already guessed what I was about to say, nodded.
“Gebura, Hesed, Tiphereth, Malkuth……”
The common point among these four was that they were the closest aides to the Demon King Ilenater—powerful demons who each commanded their own legion. They were known as the Legion Commanders. A single legion under their command possessed enough strength to wage war against four or five human kingdoms at once.
“Is it true that Hesed lives right nearby?”
“It is.”
Hesed, the King of Death. A demon who wielded countless varieties of poison and specialized in raising the dead. During the war, he had resurrected not only fallen enemy soldiers but even his own dead allies, turning them into his troops. Among the four, he held the most horrific reputation.
“Mother said she bought meat from Hesed……”
“Hesed runs a small butcher shop in the village.”
I doubted my own ears.
“W-what?”
“He also owns a rather large farm a short distance from the village.”
What on earth was she saying? The master of poison and necromancy was running a farm and working as a butcher? While I stood speechless, trying to process it in my head, Ilena added casually,
“He works together with Tiphereth.”
“Tiphereth with Hesed?”
Tiphereth was the King of Souls and Spirits. She commanded an army of ghosts immune to blades and rained down every kind of elemental magic through her spirits, boasting the greatest firepower of them all. Yet she was famously on bad terms with Hesed, who had no qualms about desecrating corpses.
“Hesed monitors the livestock’s health, and Tiphereth makes sure they’re always happy. Oh, and Hesed works as a veterinarian while Tiphereth serves as both a doctor and a mage.”
I gave up thinking entirely. It was better to simply accept it.
“What about Gebura and Malkuth?”
“Gebura works as a hunter and guard. Malkuth is the village engineer. They’re also the president and vice president of the Youth Association, respectively.”
“So that’s why I saw so many unfamiliar things when I first returned to the village……”
Though their numbers were small, the quality of their manpower was on an entirely different level. The word “different” didn’t suffice; “overwhelming” was far more accurate.
“Then… what about you?”
“Me?”
If the Legion Commanders were doing such work, then what could the Demon King herself possibly……?
“Just an ordinary villager.”
Ilena answered with a bright laugh.
“That’s it?”
“Of course. I assigned each of those four tasks suited to their talents, but I don’t really have any particular skills. Everything I’ve done has been to have you completely. And……”
Ilena looked down at my sleeping mother, who was snoring softly, and added,
“In this plan, your mother is the most important. So it’s enough for me to serve her.”
The Ilena before me might have taken human form, but her true identity was the Demon King. And yet…… for some reason, she looked far more mature and sacred than Eris, the Saintess known throughout the world. Was that just my imagination?
“I’d like to add one more.”
“Add what?”
“One of the wishes I promised to grant you.”
“No, no. It’s fine!”
Ilena waved her hands in refusal, then……
“Wait, just a moment.”
She suddenly made a strange face and asked me,
“You’ll really add one more?”
“I wasn’t joking. I meant it.”
“Really? Then I’ll use that extra wish right now.”
“Right now?”
It was sudden, but I had already resolved to grant her any wish.
“Tell me. I’ll grant it.”
“Then wait there for a second!”
Ilena scampered into the room and soon returned, huffing and puffing as she carried something stacked higher than her own height.
“That’s……”
It was bedding. Ilena set it down on the floor and skillfully laid out the mattress, blanket, and pillow in order. Only then did I slowly begin to understand the situation.
“Wait. You can’t mean……”
“You said you’d grant me anything, right?”
Ilena’s eyes gleamed as she looked at me.
“You. Lie down here right now.”
“Hold on! Even so, that kind of thing needs some mental preparation……!”
“Are you going to break your oath right away? Hurry up and lie down.”
“At least for something like that, I’d prefer to do it somewhere my mother isn’t!”
When I shouted in panic, Ilena blinked.
“Something like that?”
In that instant, I realized I had completely misunderstood. I quickly turned my head so she couldn’t see my face, but Ilena began pondering with a surprisingly serious expression.
“I’m sorry. Even though I’ve studied a lot, there are still many things whose meaning I can’t guess.”
With that, she strode right up to me.
“So excuse me for a moment.”
“Excuse you? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to look inside your head.”
“N-no!”
When Ilena reached toward my head, I hastily pulled back.
“Why not?”
“If I say no, then no! In this world, there are things that are better left unknown!”
“Uuu……!”
Ilena puffed her cheeks in displeasure.
“I don’t like it. I want to know! Besides, they’re your thoughts, aren’t they? I told you—I want to have you. So I want to have everything about you completely!”
Having made that declaration, the hem of Ilena’s clothes began to flutter. It was proof she was about to use her magic in earnest.
“You’re going to use force?”
“The fastest way is for you to give up before I do. I’ll use one more wish. Show me every single thought in your head without filtering!”
“Ugh……”
I let all the tension drain from my body.
“Fine. I give up.”
It was over. There was no way out, so I decided to stop resisting.
“Wise choice. Making me use two whole wishes over something so trivial. You can be quite troublesome, you know.”
Ilena approached triumphantly and placed her hand on my head. Before long, I felt a gentle magical power seeping into my mind.
“I’m so curious. I wonder what this ‘something like that’ you mentioned really is!”
Ilena gently closed her sparkling eyes and began carefully peering into my thoughts. And then…….
As time passed, two changes began to appear in Ilena’s body. One was that the hand resting on my head started trembling. The other was that her face rapidly turned bright red.
“Kyaaaaah!”
In the end, Ilena let out a sharp scream and yanked her hand away. She even put a great distance between us, then crouched in a corner of the house, covering her face with both hands as her whole body shook. She seemed to have received a proper shock. Wait—hadn’t she said she studied a lot? Did that mean she had absolutely no knowledge of that kind of thing?
“What do I do? Even when I cover my eyes, I keep seeing it!”
“S-seeing what?”
“The things you were imagining in your head!”
At that moment, the commotion woke Mother, who sat up groggily and asked,
“What’s all this noise?”
“M-Mother……”
Mother blinked, then spotted Ilena in the corner, curled up and groaning. Next, she noticed me standing there awkwardly in panic. After slowly looking back and forth between us several times, Mother’s eyes suddenly widened. She stared at me and gripped the pillow she had been using with all her strength.
“You worthless brat……!”
What would happen next was already set in stone.
“Get out right now!!”
The pillow Mother hurled flew straight into my face. From its powerful impact, I could tell just how healthy she had become now, and that made me truly glad.