All Born of the Same Mist
After all, we all came from the same fog. Chapter 30. After all, we all came from the same fog.
After suddenly uttering those incomprehensible words, the one who erased the sex between my legs that had been firmly lodged against my lower abdomen, then released the shackles from my body and led me to the bathroom, quietly washed my body until both of us had calmed down. Until the warmth of the bath had melted away all our fatigue, she continued washing me without properly meeting my eyes, and only after returning quietly to the room and confirming everything was in order did she slip back onto the bed with me, sinking down in silence. Once more, she simply sat there, quietly savoring the stillness that had settled over the place.
We were supposed to talk. “···”
I sat beside the Demon King in a daze, watching her with wary eyes, about to ask why she was sitting there so quietly when she had said we would talk. But since she was the Demon King after all, I decided to exercise a little patience and observe what she wanted a bit longer.
“··· It has been a long time since I found silence this pleasant.”
The Demon King began to speak in a low voice, breaking the silence herself. I glanced at her and replied,
“What wind blew through you all of a sudden?”
As I leaned back against the pillow, she slid closer and murmured,
“It seems the time has come for me to make a decision as well.”
At last she was accepting something resembling a conversation. I nearly let my face show the surge of emotion and gratitude, but I forced myself to keep a poker face.
“I have been thinking as well.”
When the Demon King spoke, I listened. She finished her preamble and posed the question that led to her main point.
“Do you···· truly believe peace between our two races is possible?”
It was the very ideal I had shouted about for so long—the same ideal she had personally shattered only days before. I nearly clenched my fist, wondering if she was trying to pick a fight, but for some reason the Demon King looked genuinely curious. I wondered if this too was some absurd magic and deliberately stayed silent.
Then she continued in a much smaller voice, laced with worry and concern for the outcome.
“The world is not a stage that moves at the whim of one tiny change called you······ Even a coward like me does not easily stir at your small voice, so what will you do····”
Why did her voice sound as though the future she truly desired lay right there? I stared at her for a moment, trying to understand the intent behind the question. What answer was she hoping for when she asked this? Until a few days ago we had been trying to kill each other, reduced to a relationship where we could not kill so we fucked instead. At least, that was what I had thought. What answer was the Demon King looking for from me?
I held my reply again and simply stared at her. But in that instant—
“Belberman——”
Her voice reached me. She placed her soft hand lightly on my shoulder from behind and quietly called my name. When I flinched, she spoke.
“This is the moment you have been longing for, is it not?”
She appeared at an unknowable time and uttered words I could not understand, now meddling in my every action even though she no longer existed beside me.
“The moment you so desperately wanted—the Demon King taking interest in your ideals···· I believe that moment is now.”
I did not think the voice belonged to Eustitia. It was merely something from my own weak mind clouding my judgment. Yes, like the reflection of myself that had appeared in the mirror during that moment of emotional outburst I could not control. Like another personality of mine. I told myself it was only a voice trying to shake the firm resolve I had built.
But the voice that had sounded like Eustitia no longer felt like Eustitia.
“You blockhead, where are you looking———”
It changed into Karman’s voice.
“Belberman, open your eyes and look ahead——”
Then Jeren’s voice followed.
“Belberman.”
“Belberman, you idiot.”
“Belberman——”
After that, as if by a lie, everyone’s voices overlapped, and at the very end—
“Belberman hyung, when exactly is peace going to come?”
Yuda asked from behind me.
I could not understand it. Just because the Demon King suddenly changed her mind and spoke like that, everyone had come to push me forward. I had already decided never to forgive or trust the Demon King again. After that day, rather than lose anyone else, I had resolved to either kill the Demon King somehow or be killed by her—those were the only two choices I had wanted. So why? Why were they doing this? Did they really think the Demon King you all know could be reformed? The Demon King was nothing more than a pathetic coward who had given up on moving forward. She was the pinnacle of vermin who clung to what she had with obsessive possessiveness and believed the only answer was to destroy everything else. No matter how thoughtful or sorrowful an expression she wore, that fact would not change.
I had tried every method to bring her down. I had not been trying to have another hopeless conversation. And yet—
“·····”
Why? As I thought that, something began to rise little by little from the depths of my mind. It felt as though, while struggling in pitch-black depths, something brushed against my fingertips. As though a small, fragile ray of light had begun to seep into a corner of a vision that had been nothing but darkness. The answer to the Demon King’s question that had seemed to have no answer. The answer to Yuda’s question that day.
“····”
The stories that seemed to represent all the time we had spent together were painting my mind white. Even though my life had felt like it kept returning to the starting point, what I had done until now was no different from before. No different from my very beginning. I had always gambled everything on places where hope could not be grasped.
“···· I am not someone who cowers before probabilities.”
I finally squeezed my eyes shut, clutched my burning head, and answered.
“At the end of this war with no promise, what are the odds that we will ever reclaim our happiness···?”
“I—we—are the kind of people who have always bet everything on fights we were destined to lose and won anyway.”
In the end I was answering the questions that had been circling in my head.
“Haa···· While we are at it, since you are asking such nonsense, I suppose I have no choice but to think about it.”
I lifted myself from the pillow I had been leaning against and looked the Demon King straight in the eye.
“Although I lost to you, I have still been fighting you all this time, trying to shape the ending.”
I did not want to answer her question with “I probably cannot do anything,” so instead I answered the questions my comrades had thrown at me. Or rather, the question Yuda had asked me.
“In the end, you too will lose to me.”
I spoke while keeping my hardened resolve to devour the Demon King intact.
“Of course, if I ultimately fail to kill you, then even so I will never give up—I will make you stand on my side someday.”
After giving what I thought was a satisfactory answer, the Demon King, who had been staring at me, blinked for a moment before letting out a small, hollow laugh.
“You really are stubborn.”
“As expected, you are a human who does not change no matter what situation arises···”
And then she told me the reason she had wanted to talk.
“To tell this story, I must speak of her—the one I have always wanted to tell you about.”
She was finally revealing the true reason she had wanted to have a real conversation with me. The story she had deliberately kept hidden from me all this time.
“The one who resembled you so much—the executive who looked so much like you.”
The reason she had always silenced me whenever I spoke of coexistence. The reason she had only hesitated without properly stopping my rampage or holding a conversation.
“Her name was Heize. She was always spouting absurd fantasies and useless idealism.”
It was the name the Demon King had muttered after I lost consciousness from her kiss.
“Besides, she was just like you—never listened to a word anyone said. There was even a day I beat her half to death. That day, she said something to me.”
As I listened in slight confusion, she continued.
“‘Humans are always foolish and dull beings who stake everything on impossible fights, Your Majesty. But can we truly conclude that we demons are far superior to them? We ourselves have yet to even define what ideal evolution means····’”
I turned my gaze away from the Demon King for a moment, mulling over those words. She paused while watching my profile, then spoke again.
“····· Even back then, I thought she was simply saying something foolish.”
She began to paint a fuller picture of what had happened after.
“But one day, when she said she would leave the castle for research, a very long time later she returned with a human friend·····”
Before long she was completely immersed in memories of that time.
“The more I watched, the more inseparable they became.”
She told me everything vividly, her voice filled with shock at how bold Heize had been—lying to the Demon King and playing in the human world.
“I shouted at her, asking what on earth she thought she was doing. But she told me about her ideals again, as if I were the narrow-minded one.”
It was as if her way of thinking was no different from mine.
“Humans are not beings incapable of communication or devoid of intelligence.”
She resembled me so much it made me wonder if she might have been my past life.
“No matter when or where, if you talk to them they will accept you···· If you lay down your weapons, they will listen.”
She spoke of the executive who had thought exactly like me. As I blinked and looked down at the floor, the Demon King went on.
“It was only then that I realized she was not merely indulging in pretty fantasies.”
Even while the Demon King enjoyed peaceful moments in her cozy palace after finishing her work, Heize had always wandered the human world alone after her duties, experiencing far more than the Demon King who had remained peaceful by herself. Using the human Heize had brought as proof, the Demon King had finally acknowledged her and declared she would believe her words once.
“From that moment I understood she was gradually drawing closer to her ideals···· I could empathize with her pure, unadorned heart that wished for everyone to have freedom and happiness without sorrow.”
Yet the Demon King’s expression as she spoke was unbearably sorrowful.
“In the end we grew closer than any other demons. Compared to the pathetic me, she possessed a perfect ideal. Together with me, who could fill in her lacking military strength, it felt as though we could uncover every hidden truth in this world.”
From her face alone, anyone could tell how precious Heize had been to the Demon King. Truly, unbearably so.
“Jemma was also someone she brought····”
She looked utterly desolate.
“···· In the end we made a plan. We decided to open a grand stage for dialogue. We wanted to cross into the human world with a few subordinates, unarmed, and try to understand each other.”
Anyone could guess how the story that was about to unfold would end.
“Chasing ideals with her, it felt as though we could end this long war and the day would come when we could truly understand each other with honest hearts. In fact, even the humans had responded to our request for talks.”
How it had ended—anyone could see it clearly. That was how immeasurable a sorrow now filled her face.
“However, the humans had been lying the entire time.”
The Demon King’s eyes brimmed with tears as she looked back on the past, as if they would spill over at any moment.
“Instead of believing what they saw with their own eyes, they were consumed by fear of the unknown. They faced us with anxiety and suspicion···· And finally, on the day we stepped into the human world unarmed for a truly pure dialogue—”
Her right hand trembled violently as though that day were still vivid.
“They stabbed Heize in the back while she was completely unguarded, and slaughtered our subordinates without allowing any resistance····”
That day. The day when she had been powerless to do anything.
“Perhaps thinking even I could not be killed, they bound me with several layers of restraints——”
While recalling the day she had been forced to watch helplessly.
“They killed Heize.”
She finished speaking. I reached out toward the Demon King for a moment, but before my hand could touch her she shook her head and spoke again.
“Humans were ignorant and foolish without exception.”
Her trembling right hand clenched into a fist so tightly that her nails drew blood.
“Heize had blended so deeply into human society, enjoying popularity as if she were no different from them. The moment it was revealed she was a demon, they pointed their weapons at her as though they had discovered a traitor····”
She told me of the blood-red memory of that day.
“Even though they had been laughing and talking with her just yesterday, from that moment they became obsessed with killing her.”
Heize’s final moments—never harming anyone even in war, always trying to save the wounded.
“But in truth····· Heize could have stopped them.”
Her last moments.
“It would have been difficult for the subordinates, but she could have protected herself. However····· Heize chose not to.”
She willingly accepted death at the hands of those humans—her final moments.
“Instead, she smiled as their weapons pierced her, speaking as though she understood the humans who had stabbed her····”
I quietly listened to the words she had left behind.
“I am not your enemy, everyone···· The Demon King is not your enemy either.”
The words Heize had smiled and left even as she died.
“We can become friends at any time····?”
The words she had wanted to leave with her death.
“After all, in this vast universe, we who possess intelligence···· are nothing more than insignificant specks of dust·····.”
Hearing those words, I felt my heart tremble violently. Perhaps the Demon King felt something similar as well. She struck her chest once and continued the unfinished story.
“Seeing Heize speak like that even as she died, I thought she had truly gone mad.”
The Demon King clutched her chest as though it were suffocating.
“I felt like I was going mad. The time I spent with her···· those memories···· felt as though they had turned to foam in a single moment and risen beyond reach into the sky······”
She shouted, exhaling roughly as though finally releasing a blocked breath.
“Even compared to the other executives she was truly strong, yet the sight of her dying without a single act of resistance···· I could never forget it··· The subordinate I had trusted so deeply was gone.”
Her voice became heartbreakingly sorrowful.
“The one who had been so close to me···· even though she no longer existed····· I could do nothing until the moment she died.”
The Demon King finally began to shed tears.
“The end of someone who had thrown everything away for peace and tried to sacrifice herself···· was such a futile, meaningless death.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, tears dripping down as her body intermittently curled in on itself.
“The moment she died like that, it felt as though a huge hole had been torn open in my chest.”
I slowly placed my palm on the Demon King’s back.
“Even though I did not die, it felt as though I had···· My heart, my chest felt that way·······”
When I slightly raised my body and gently stroked her back, the Demon King slowly began to stop crying. Step by step, she walked out of that memory.
“····· Heize was that precious to me—an aide, an executive of this castle.”
She met my eyes as I had risen to touch her back.
“She was a friend, a comrade, a fellow soldier, and family.”
She finished speaking.
“Just as you thought of that human···· I too had someone like that.”
I felt a moment of confusion and asked why she had killed Yuda.
“So that was why you wanted to do that to me?”
For some reason, the way the Demon King concluded the story left a bitter taste. But she shook her head before I even finished speaking and desperately denied it.
“No. I never wanted you to feel that kind of emotion either. Absolutely not.”
Then she opened her right palm, where blood was seeping from where her nails had pierced the skin, and looked at it.
“However···· betrayal always follows trust, does it not?”
She spoke words that ultimately contrasted with the situation that day, yet when I thought about it again, they made sense.
“That is why, from the moment you appeared, I deliberately had Cartoria not kill you. I only asked her to buy time····”
In the end, the Demon King explained in detail why she had not stopped me that day—why she had waited, even as I confirmed Yuda’s condition and began to struggle.
“I simply wanted to hear your story to the end. I wanted to see whether you truly had the courage to grasp your ideals.”
The Demon King had always been listening to Heize’s voice through my own.
“Even though you were a strong human, you were weaker than Heize. And ideals require power to be pursued···· yet even in your weakened state you still possessed them.”
Even after being so badly burned by peace in the past, she had been unable to cast away the desire to love it again. And finally—
“That is why I waited until your words were finished before stepping outside····· I sensed that the human fighting Cartoria was in a dangerous state.”
She told me the reason she had resolved to kill Yuda.
“So, half in doubt, I opened my Clairvoyance and looked inside him. Then I discovered····”
The reason she had made her decision.
“Even though his painful wounds were still immense, the inside of the human who had arrived full of hope was already rotten beyond repair.”
Because it was something she had seen directly with Clairvoyance, it was a reason she could not deny.
“No matter how long it had been rotting, every corner of his mind and spirit was covered in festering pus····”
That day. Why she had asked Yuda that question, and why he had given that answer—I came to understand it this way.
“The light of humanity that you were···· to him, you were a savior. Losing you turned him into an ugly traitor who even betrayed love.”
At the mention of Yuda’s love, Jeren’s face flashed through my mind and my lips twitched. But the Demon King met my eyes for a moment and said,
“I had no choice but to take his life.”
Her voice carried more regret than apology. She was speaking to me, who had been about to bring up Jeren. Regardless of her tone, I was at a loss for words.
“If I had let him live according to your will, whether he realized you were alive or not, he would never have stopped there for any reason···· In the end, I had no choice but to end his story right there.”
Now Yuda’s story no longer mattered. Jeren’s story—of being abandoned by Yuda—was far too····
“I intended to tell you the whole truth once the matter was settled, but it was my mistake not to account for the shock you would feel up close.”
It was far too shocking. After all, Yuda had loved Jeren that much. Enough to change everything for her sake. And yet—
“I did not want to bring you that kind of pain, but the moment my suspicion of that human turned into certainty, the sense of betrayal overwhelmed me···· I could not end it gracefully.”
It was unbearably heartbreaking.
“This time too···· yes.”
The Demon King lowered her head as though she were truly sorry. Countless images of Yuda and Jeren rose in my mind.
“This time too, it is undoubtedly my fault····”
Flop———
I let my barely raised body fall away from the Demon King and sank down.
“···· I am sorry.”
The Demon King turned her head away from me. However—
Because I knew that in the end I had lost everything because of the Demon King, the turmoil in my heart gradually subsided. Seeing her pitiful back, I shouted.
“Save that for after you die. Say it directly to everyone you killed.”
I no longer needed the Demon King’s apology. All that remained in me now was···· a sense of loss and emptiness. Nothing but grief. So there was no room for the Demon King’s apology to slip in.
“I will never accept your apology····”
As I curled my body slightly and answered her apology, the Demon King lifted her head slightly. She seemed to think for a moment, then said,
“····· That is why I wanted to talk with you today.”
She slowly turned to look at me.
“That is why I wanted to tell you today. What I truly wanted to say was this.”
Her face was filled with a completely different, firm resolve—unlike the murky will she had shown until now.
“Do you truly believe the ideal you pursue will never change, no matter what?”
Like Heize—who had steadfastly chased only her ideals, died gloriously, and been forgotten by everyone—could I do the same?
“To put it more simply···· No matter what unfortunate situation arises in the future, can you continue pursuing that ideal?”
Unlike Yuda, who had been unable to do so—could I, a human, do it? It was as though the Demon King had finally found the answer to a dilemma she had been struggling with for a very long time. As though she had finished her long deliberation and made a decision.
“····”
At that question filled with certainty, I felt for a moment what her words truly meant. The pessimistic actions the Demon King had shown until now had been because of the painful memory of that day and Heize’s death—because she had given up on pursuing ideals while longing for memories of her. And now, the reason she was asking me with a changed expression was because she wanted to think differently this time after meeting me. It was her regret from back then—that if she had joined Heize in her ideals sooner, the ending might have been better—expressed as it was.
This too was the Demon King’s way of expressing herself, something I had come to understand after spending more than half a year with her. It was the Demon King’s own way of asking me to truly believe in her this time.
“·····”
I···· The Demon King was my enemy. She had killed my family and countless precious people. Yet I discovered something. The Demon King, who had not even opened her Clairvoyance, was staring at me as I gave no answer, genuinely wanting to believe in me. So I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, finished my long deliberation, and followed the Demon King in making my decision.
“I········”
I met the Demon King’s eyes directly.
“I can say it again and again.”
I began to empty my chest, which had been filled with emptiness. Just like Karman. No matter the reason, if the Demon King was changing her mind and asking for my help, I felt I could say it to her again and again.
“Together with my irreplaceable family, I have bet on invisible places countless times and seized victory.”
If the Demon King, just like me, looked at me with eyes full of resolve and decided to change her way of thinking and pursue the same ideal, then I would have no reason to try to kill her. Even though she had been my enemy, I would instead want to help her.
“Although I tripped and fell at the very last moment···· In the end, how hard I fell or how many times I fell does not matter.”
I looked the Demon King straight in the eye and slowly raised my body, which had been curled up from the sense of loss.
“What matters is how many times, how many more times, I can stake everything I have.”
I did not know the details of the Demon King’s life, but that was how I had lived.
“In the end, the way to win in the gambling den called life is determined by how much of what you have you are willing to stake.”
With resolute will, I shouted toward the ideal that seemed to begin shining brilliantly once more.
“Therefore, I am always ready to place everything—including my life—back on the table, Demon King.”
She still did not seem to have complete certainty. I was not certain whether I could accept her again either. But even so, I spoke to the Demon King who seemed to have resolved to change her way of thinking and escape the pain of that day. Even though she had not told me everything, it must have been a decision she had reached after sufficient solitary deliberation.
“Do you want to see the end of this war while giving up on the choice to believe?”
Although my words might have sounded somewhat cold—
“Or do you want to chase after Heize’s footsteps with me once more and uncover the ideal we missed because the possibility was so slim?”
I held out my hand. So the Demon King could take it. So she could grasp the meaning contained in my words.
“Decide. This is your choice—the only existence that can change the era to come···· This is the final chance I, an idealist and a human, am giving to you, the vile butcher trash Demon King.”
Of course, I wondered what right I had to give the Demon King a chance like this. But seeing her still wavering even now, I felt I had to say it. However—perhaps my thought had been correct.
“···· You speak well, but it is a little amusing.”
Slither—— The Demon King carefully closed her eyes and took my hand, then spoke in a trembling voice.
“It is not that you are helping me. I am helping you.”
It sounded somewhat like she was looking down on me. But that was not what the Demon King truly wanted to say.
“The reason I wanted to have this conversation with you is because, even so, I had no intention of abandoning the ideal I have upheld until now.”
She spoke while gently but firmly squeezing the hand she held.
“Therefore, instead of me—the already ruined trash Demon King—seize that ideal for me.”
Her voice was filled with sincerity.
“I am fated to drag this war on forever, but you, who have been entangled in that fate of mine···· can remain unbound by any interference.”
In the end, she was asking.
“If you wish, you can truly reach that ideal.”
Unlike the Demon King who had been just as weak as me and had suffered from the pain of everything she had lost, seeing me suffer like this made her vividly recall Heize’s brilliant figure as well. She spoke while mulling over the new realization she had gained.
“Until now, because of the pain of losing Heize, I tried to suppress and refute your ideals. But look.”
She spoke to me in a voice wet with tears.
“Have I not already become your ally?”
Unlike the first time she had asked in such a small voice whether one small voice could move the world, in the end she showed herself moved by my powerless voice. Finally, I closed my eyes for a moment at the Demon King’s appearance, lowered my head deeply, then raised it again and answered.
“Even so, I will kill you····!”
Those words I had spoken without thinking had ultimately led to this. The fact that the seemingly empty conversations we had shared had piled up one by one and ultimately moved the Demon King made my heart tremble too much. The fact that she had finally, after long deliberation, sided with my ideal made me too happy. That joy and gratitude made my heart tremble as though it would go mad. It felt as though we had finally taken the first step toward peace. Although the words I had spoken were sincere this time as well, I too had changed a little.
“I will···· truly kill you without leaving a single trace·······!”
As thanks to the Demon King—who, for my sake and for Heize’s sacrifice, had endured the pain even after so much time and changed her mind.
“I will kill you and set you free, Tia Belberman······!”
As thanks for reaching out to have a serious conversation with me again for that reason. I promised to kill her.
“···· I will be waiting.”
Then the Demon King smiled sincerely.
“My hero.”
She whispered to me. Therefore, I had to become a hero. Once more. And once more after that, staking everything on an invisible path and beginning to gamble. I had to kill everyone and save everyone. I had to kill all malice and save all goodwill. Even so, I still had not forgiven the Demon King for everything she had done to me. But the Demon King had ultimately sided with my ideal. Therefore, I was a savior. The savior Yuda had sung of so much. I had to be. Because in the end, the great power called the Demon King—Tia Belberman—had stood by my side. From that day onward——— I had to become everyone’s savior. Once again, I became a hero.