The Ideal
Ideal. 11. Ideal. And so, human life goes on. Whether through the smallest of triggers or perhaps truly grave problems, each person's convictions may twist and transform. Yet always, deep within the heart, even if not intensely, they burn steadily. And that radiant, small light of hope, courage, and will that once shone brilliantly becomes the very pillar supporting those convictions once more, guiding each person toward the ideal they desire. That is why humans can call themselves human, rising again and again even after despair, emitting that small, brilliant light once more. Therefore, I am human. I have lived this long yet short life like a dog, fighting despair head-on to achieve my ideal of happiness. But the despair that was far more overwhelmingly powerful than I was ultimately broke me. Crushed beneath the heavy weight of despair where I could barely breathe, I collapsed completely. Yet the ideal called hope did not give up; it passed a spark to my fading small light. Thanks to that, I finally received the spark, kindled it anew, and shone once more, rising again. Though I may never again fight despair with a strong body, I still have the courage to speak. That does not mean I have given up fighting, either. Though I was cruelly broken and ruined, the single resolve to chase the ideal of happiness remained in my heart, and the new ideal called hope gave me a new path toward happiness. I will walk that new path and fight the Demon King, Tia Belberman. I will stand against Tia Belberman and protect humanity. No matter how happy I may become now, my true happiness has always been with them, in the place where I was with them. Those moments still remain as one with me. Though I can never meet or protect my comrades again, I will protect the countless memories and recollections I shared with them. I will protect that homeland. Ending the war. That is my new ideal.
“……”
To those who followed me into battle with nothing, your courage still burns in this heart. To those who fell on the battlefield with nothing and achieved legendary feats, your spirit still shines in this heart. To those who finally completed that grand feat and returned home, I have not forgotten you; I still remember. I will become your final feat, your final ideal. So, just as you always have, trust my back. Push my back forward. Just like in those brilliant days.
“Demon King, I’m going to kill you.”
“You still haven’t come to your senses even after getting scolded like that.”
And so, Tia and I were having breakfast together in the same dining hall, facing each other. It had already been several weeks of living like this. I always declared that I would kill Tia, but she, now accustomed to it, paid no mind and simply enjoyed the time spent with me. Every day in this manner, I received Tia’s intensely overwhelming love to the point of feeling burdened, and as the days passed, the time we spent together only increased. That was how we spent our time.
“Hop hop. Master Karia, Demon King. Your morning schedule is ready.”
Meanwhile, Jemma continued her duties as a maid diligently between us and was getting along well, but she seemed to have separate tasks these days. Though I had not yet heard the details, I had been told it was something that would help Jemma, so lately I had been cheering her on wholeheartedly.
“……Good work.”
Besides that, Tia also spoke to Jemma, who had prepared the morning schedule, in a warm voice. From that alone, it was clear how much Tia had changed recently. According to Jemma, before meeting me, Tia had not expressed much even toward the kin, servants, and executives she cherished, making her presence feel extremely cold and dry. But after that night, her words had become much gentler and her expressions more varied, and Jemma said she now liked the person she had already respected even more. And to the same extent, toward me as well……
Slide——
“Ah, what are you doing…… I haven’t finished eating yet——”
She approached very proactively. Though I had not yet finished my meal, Tia immediately grabbed my wrist, made me stand, and led me somewhere with a bright smile. “For a moment, let’s go for a walk.” She pulled me along and took me there. The place the Demon King liked most. The Demon Realm. In the Demon Realm’s year, only one day in the middle of winter. Only on that single day, countless stars and meteors poured down in that place.
Perhaps it was thanks to yesterday’s conversation sinking in well.
“……I thought I wasn’t supposed to come out so carelessly.”
“What does it matter when your master is here.”
Thus Tia took me there again and embraced me tightly with a much more relaxed face. When I looked up at her with an expression that was both pleased and somewhat uncomfortable, wondering what she was thinking, she said softly with a smile, “How does it feel to come out here on a bright day?” Tia gently released the hand she had been holding so I could walk comfortably, and as I carefully followed her across the vast plain’s fine sand, she continued, “The sky is quite high, isn’t it?”
Tia Belberman walked ahead with wide, leisurely strides, then stopped for a moment. Flap—— She took out her wings and spread them wide. Naturally, it was my first time seeing the Demon King’s wings, so I was startled by their sudden appearance. “……You look like you’re in a good mood, Tia.” “It might be the best day I’ve had in a long while.” Seeing Tia smile as she spread her wings and looked back at me, I unconsciously wanted to respond happily and reached out to gently touch her cheek. “……The black feathers suit you quite well.” As I softly stroked her joyful smile, I thought once again that Tia’s eye smile was quite pretty, just as I had thought before. At the same time, I felt a bit puzzled that her wings were not the bat-like wings one might normally imagine, but rather resembled an angel’s wings covered in countless feathers. Tia then spoke.
“These are Gematria’s wings.”
“……”
It was a somewhat startling story.
“They belonged to her, my most loyal and greatest subordinate…… a magnificent demon.”
When I looked at Tia’s wings with considerable surprise, Tia lightly flapped them, making them sway, then brought the tip of a wing to her hand and stroked it while continuing, “After she died by your hand, I worried every day about how to mourn her. But it felt like the only way I could commemorate and remember her was by keeping something of hers with me.”
“Last dawn, I received word from my perfect subordinate Cartoria that she had successfully obtained them from her corpse.”
Tia soon embraced the wings preciously. “The memory of being unable to do anything for her…… was too painful as her lord.”
At that, I hesitated slightly, avoiding her gaze, and carefully spoke. “……I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to make such a guilt-ridden face.” Tia smiled again as she spoke, reaching out once more and showing a bright expression that contrasted with the black wings. “Gematria simply devoted herself for us, and in the end, didn’t I take revenge for her?”
“Ah…… Is that so?” Meaning she had avenged her by defeating me, who had killed Gematria.
“Of course!”
Walking across the plain with the Demon King who laughed so meaninglessly, thanks to Tia who so casually and cheerfully resolved the sad story, I felt my view gradually widen. I began to realize just how high and refreshing the sky truly was. When I had first been brought out, I had not looked properly because it felt wrong, but as I kept walking like this, my heart grew a little lighter.
“So you’ve been…… thinking about Gematria all this time.”
Then, suddenly remembering someone in the corner of the room whom I had not met in a while, I casually asked Tia, “Of course.” Tia answered while looking at the footprints we had left while walking across the plain. “I remember all my precious subordinates who died for me.” A look of longing gradually appeared on Tia’s face. “Because of my incompetence, for which there is no answer, those children were needlessly sacrificed and mercilessly crushed…… I still see their faces in my dreams.”
“……”
However, hearing that, I wondered why Kibotos had not wanted to meet Tia, and grew puzzled. “Did you want to ask about Kibotos?” “Ah, yeah……” Tia wrapped her thin, slender tail—different from the one I had seen during the war—around my wrist and pulled me closer as she spoke. “I did many things wrong to that child, so it must be because of that.”
“Wrong……?”
As I was quietly led by Tia, wrapped in one of her wings, I began listening to her story. With a somewhat pitying look in her eyes, Tia recounted that day’s events. “That day, I almost killed Kibotos as well.”
“……Kibotos?”
Touching her right eye, she continued, “That child’s eye was special. To increase the chances of saving Gematria, Kibotos’s help was desperately needed……” She closed her eyes as if recalling the memory of that day. “Kibotos, already traumatized by the deaths of many disciples, closed her eyes, so I had no choice but to gouge out one of her eyes and replace it with my own.”
At that, I quietly gasped in shock, feeling goosebumps all over, and looked at Tia’s eye with wide eyes, reaching out toward it. But Tia caught my hand and nuzzled it against her cheek, closing her right eye while keeping only the left one open, meeting my gaze. “In the end, because of that, the child suffered a severe wound. At the same time, realizing Gematria had been killed, I silently left that place and went to the corridor to meet you all.” She even told me the hidden story of that day. “In the end, I annihilated you all using Kibotos’s eye, and as soon as I fell for you, I brought you here.”
From Tia’s words, I realized what had happened to Kibotos and showed a clearly sympathetic expression, but Tia’s story was not over yet. “After that, Kibotos fortunately received treatment and survived…… But because I took her eye yet failed to save Gematria, I had no face to meet Kibotos, so I couldn’t see her.” After bringing me here, Tia had wanted to apologize to Kibotos, but true to her self-introduction as a coward who hated being scolded, while she was puffing herself up, Kibotos had apparently come to her with a sword after finding out about my existence with her remaining eye. “Kibotos found you with her one remaining eye, read your true nature with the Clairvoyance trait, realized you had killed Gematria, and immediately came to me with a weapon.”
At that, I was a little surprised, thinking Kibotos had tried to kill me, Karia, but then another fact was revealed that surprised me even more. “Just like you now, she said she would kill me.”
“When my disciples died, I did nothing. When Gematria was killed, that idiot I had relied on now brings the enemy here and makes them a slave…… Is it right to bring Gematria’s enemy here?”
Meanwhile, remembering how Kibotos had tormented me thinking I would become a threat, I wanted to ask why she had been left alive, but I quietly held back, reading the mood, and waited for Tia’s words. “But in the end, that child stood before me in that state, couldn’t even swing her sword properly, collapsed, and finally broke down in tears, falling to her knees.” Tia revealed Kibotos’s final moments. “Only then did I realize why I hadn’t felt she was a threat from the moment she came with a sword.” After that, Kibotos’s heart was completely broken, to the point she couldn’t even walk. “She had already been worn down to the limit in that long war. Both body and mind.”
As I swallowed dryly and recalled Kibotos’s appearance from that day once more, Tia wrapped my body, standing beside her, once again in her soft wing. “In the end, I had no choice but to give Kibotos an indefinite vacation. I had no desire, even in death, to make that child suffer any more on the battlefield. But after that, she truly…… truly refused to talk to me again.” As if finishing her words, she took a deep breath and let out a rough sigh, then opened her closed right eye and looked at me once more. “You met that child then, didn’t you?” “Ah, yeah.” Tia made a request to me. “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to face that child again in the future…… But if it’s you, you might meet her once more. If it’s alright, could you deliver this to her someday?”
“This is……”
She handed over a single faded crystal. “It’s Gematria’s heart, her Soul Stone.”
“……Soul Stone.”
Tia called it a Soul Stone, then carefully stroked my head. “It’s like an important organ for demons who have gained intelligence, containing Gematria’s soul…… It also appears in the bodies of humans who use magic. I really wanted to deliver it to that child.”
When I looked up at Tia while holding it, wondering if it was right for me to handle such an important matter and if Tia should do it instead even if she got scolded, she said, “I’m…… entrusting it to you because I trust you.” Tia spoke with a strangely very embarrassed face. “Just…… because that’s how it is.”
“……I understand.”
After a moment of thought, I accepted the request. As soon as I did, Tia smiled in relief. “I was planning to tell you this story someday, but I ended up bringing it up already.” As we slowly began returning to the castle following our footprints, Tia quietly spoke. “Actually, there were many more things I wanted to say…… but if we stay here any longer, the upcoming meeting will probably get noisier.” Tia, who had treated me so harshly when I had first arrived here, was now completely different. “From now on, I’ll introduce you to the executives here as well. They may dislike humans, but they’re all much kinder than I am, and they’re kids who can’t live alone at all.” The sight of the Demon King, who had once had such a strong possessive desire to monopolize me, now treating me like a truly human Tia Belberman…… I felt something. How should I put it……
“……”
It reminded me of when I was human, even before I met my comrades. When I was very young. Really. It felt like this was what family was supposed to be. “……Yeah.” Looking at Tia Belberman’s profile, I answered in a small voice, as if shy.
Step, step——
Thus, worried that time would grow later, we began returning to the castle. Of course, I did not stop talking there and suddenly wondered if Tia also had more memories from her human days, so I asked. “You don’t have any more memories from when you were human?” “Human? Memories from when I was human…… Unfortunately, it seems I suffered something terrible from a man, but I only remember the nuance of it; nothing else.” Tia spoke coolly and indifferently while putting her wings back into her clothes, into her body. As we approached the Demon King’s castle, Tia asked me in return, “But why do you ask so suddenly?” “Just……” As we passed through the castle gates together again, I said, “Suddenly, old memories came to mind.” When was it? A very long time ago. “……Is that so.” It was the time when I was raised by those called family. If possible, it was not a memory I wanted to recall again. But for some reason, while listening to the story of the Demon King’s castle, living in a world that felt more like family than the family I had experienced, it suddenly came to mind. Back then, too, I think I was passing through such a huge gate. “……Hite Wilhelmman.” It was when I was six years old. “Hite Wilhelmman!!” “Y-Yes?!” It was the time when I had to kill a person with my own hands.