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Chapter 02
To the familiar question, the hero’s wife smiled faintly and gave an unfamiliar answer.
“…I have come.”
“Where is it?”
“The hu… humans took it.”
“Why?”
“…Because they k… know it is the Demon King’s child.”
The Demon King could not understand the meaning of those words.
Crossing his legs in mid-air and tilting his head, he thought that humans truly were an incomprehensible species.
At that moment, breathing shallowly and with eyes barely open, the hero’s wife spoke to him again.
“…Demon King, I… cannot make a contract with you. My life… has already reached its end, and my soul has… received the call of the gods.”
“Do you want revenge?”
When he repeated the question she had once rejected, the hero’s wife smiled with a meaning he still couldn’t grasp and said:
“No, I want to make a… different contract…”
“However, you have nothing left to pay me with.”
“…I will give you… the child.”
“That thing that came out of your belly?”
“Yes… the brave child who kicked you, Demon King.”
“Hmph.”
The Demon King deliberated for a brief moment.
The hero’s wife and the child were connected by blood, and a life that had just seen the light of the world was certainly sufficient payment compared to a worn-out, jaded adult human.
“And your wish?”
Simultaneously, a red crest appeared on the back of his hand as the token of the contract.
To the Demon King, the fact that the hero’s wife—reeking of death—kept a smile on her face until the end, and the child who had kicked boldly from inside her belly, were nothing more than a momentary flicker of interest.
The Demon King thought that this was just as intriguing as before. His heart was pounding just enough for him to feel a sense of amusement.
As if she had expected the Demon King to accept the contract, the hero’s wife slowly closed and opened her eyes before speaking.
“Protect the child.”
“That is already paid for by your price.”
“But… my wish… was that from the beginning.”
Along with those words, the hero’s wife stopped breathing.
She died without even closing her eyes, a meaningful smile still lingering on her face.
The Demon King twitched a brow and slowly stood up.
Since the hero’s wife was already dead, he couldn’t ask for a different wish, and the contract had already been established.
Thinking that he had made a rather ambiguous contract, the Demon King first turned his thoughts to the child he had received as both payment and wish.
Although it was a haphazard contract driven by a whim of interest, he decided to go and find the child that had just emerged from the belly.
“Is this really the Demon King’s kid?”
“No doubt about it! I saw that wench with the Demon King, didn’t I?!”
“Fitting for the wife of a guy who lied about being a hero! Besides, is this even right? Playing around with the filthy Demon King even though she calls herself the hero’s wife!”
“How should I know? Let’s just hurry.”
The Demon King found the child relatively quickly.
The aura of the small life wrapped in a blood-stained blanket was identical to what he had sensed inside the hero’s wife’s belly.
With a casual flick of his finger, the Demon King blew up and killed the humans who had been blabbering away.
Simultaneously, he snatched the bundle of blankets as it was about to drop with a thud.
“Hmph, let’s see the face of the brat who dared to kick this body.”
When he unwrapped the blanket, a child full of wrinkled folds emerged. Unlike the flushed, red skin, the pitch-black hair was a bit unusual.
After all, black was the symbol of the demon race.
Before he could feel any fascination toward the strange appearance, the shallow, gasping breaths of the infant made it look like it was about to die any second.
If left like this, the child would undoubtedly die.
Recalling the wish the hero’s wife had requested before she died, the Demon King suspended the child in mid-air as if tossing it, and gently infused a tiny fraction of his own aura into it.
“Open your eyes, you impudent child.”
At that, the infant—who had barely been drawing breath—made its chest heave heavily and soon burst into a vigorous cry.
It was a frail human infant who would turn to dust and die if even a wisp of killing intent were blown its way.
Seeing such a child cry with all its might, the Demon King felt a strange sensation.
It was an interest slightly different from amusement, and a concern slightly different from attention.
The Demon King didn’t quite know what that emotion was yet.
He only hoped that in this vast expanse of time, it would serve as a new source of entertainment.
After all, this was a child mixed with the blood of a hero chosen by the gods and the blood of a woman who had amused him quite a bit for nearly a year.
“It won’t be boring.”
Tucking the blanket-wrapped, wailing child under his arm like a piece of luggage, the Demon King strode away.
Even then, feeling like applying any pressure would crush it, he had to be as extremely careful as when he used to touch the hero wife’s belly.
Humans required far too many things to look out for.
Thinking that he might need a basket suitable for carrying the child around, the Demon King slowly moved his steps.
With every step he took, the sky split and the earth trembled.
And thus, the Demon King’s brief dalliance in the human realm came to an end.
Blinking, I recalled the contents of the storybook that had fallen from the sky.
It felt as though the dream I had just been having was a live-action version of the very storybook I had read.
It had been so vivid and realistic that I initially thought it wasn’t a dream at all.
However, the moment I saw the Demon King’s back disappearing through the fissure in the cracked sky, a massive wave of shock had washed over me.
Simultaneously, I felt dizzy and nauseous, and my eyes snapped wide open.
And just like that, I was forced to confront the face of the Demon King—the very one whose cool retreating back I had seen through the split sky just moments ago.
His crimson eyes were peering down at me from right in front of my nose, so brilliantly red that my heart almost stopped on the spot.
No lie, it genuinely almost did.
Familiar with the saying that one gets too scared to even scream, I tried to part my lips to say something, but it wasn’t easy.
And not long after, I realized.
So, I was the hero’s child, who had barely managed to cling to life and survive thanks to the Demon King’s whimsical little contract.
So what on earth is going on here?!
Should I call this a hero’s tragedy, or the Demon King’s sweet and bloody summer vacation to the human realm?
Whatever it was, the hero’s child had fallen right into the hands of the Demon King, who could be considered humanity’s ultimate natural enemy.
And that’s me!
It was a bolt out of the blue. No, the situation was far worse than that.
Why? I was just an ordinary person ground down by South Korea’s absurd corporate work culture. After thinking and thinking about it, I had finally just resigned and taken exactly one day off.
I was just a lazy homebody who happened to hate going outside!
I wanted to protest to the heavens, but all that escaped my lips was a lusty, robust wail.
“Wuaaaah!”
At a cry loud enough to make even a future general proud, a biting, sharp gaze pierced into my body.
A chill threatened to run down my spine, but thankfully, my body was that of a newborn baby!
Such physiological responses were absent.
Instead, there was a completely different kind of physiological response.
This warm sensation spreading across my lower body… this is… could it be…
In stark contrast to my endlessly anxious mind, a wave of comfort and relief followed naturally.
My body even shuddered. Realizing all too easily what had caused this, I was left speechless.
The dignity of a thirty-year-old human was crumbling.
If I could, I would want to crawl into a mouse hole anywhere. If I couldn’t get in, at least my face!
Please! Please, tell me I didn’t just pee myself.
A man with striking red hair observed me, then stated with a very calm voice precisely what I was desperately and silently denying.
“Lucifel-sama, the human child seems to have had an accident.”
I squeezed my eyes shut in mortification. To think I’d wet myself out of sheer terror at this age!
“Hmph.”
At that, the Demon King’s eyes—which had also been observing me—slowly drifted down from my face.
The name of this terrifyingly handsome Demon King seemed to be ‘Lucifel.’
Due to his overwhelming presence, my body automatically felt heavy, as if I had stepped into a gravity chamber ten times stronger than normal.
Ugh, I’m gonna die!
I finally understood why frail humans trembled and cowered in fear just from the Demon King’s mere presence.
He probably hadn’t intended it, but humans simply couldn’t handle such intense power. How on earth I was feeling, understanding, and enduring it was a mystery, but anyway, that was how it was!
Lucifel looked at the damp blanket, tilted his head, and said:
“Can’t human children even control their own pee and poop?”
Don’t! Please don’t use the words pee and poop!
The crying stopped instantly out of sheer humiliation. However, the sticky, damp feeling between my legs forced me to cry all over again.
If I just stayed still, it didn’t look like they were going to change this wet blanket for me. It was genuinely too uncomfortable to bear.
I finally understood why babies cried so hard to have their diapers changed.
How wonderful it would be if I could just speak.
Peeking my eyes open—though they could barely open properly—I looked up at Lucifel.
He was still staring intently at me.
As vividly as in my dream, his pitch-black hair, which looked like melted darkness, and his red eyes—as striking as two drops of fresh blood falling on white snow—came into sharp focus.
His porcelain skin was so starkly white it wasn’t much different from a snowy field, making those features stand out even more.
Damn, he’s ridiculously handsome.
Well, that’s why he gets to be the Demon King.
Of course, they probably don’t pick the Demon King based on looks, but the demon race was a species that valued strength alongside beauty.
Of course, I had no idea how I even knew this either.
Strangely enough, it just popped into my head naturally, like common sense.
And so I knew. The Demon King, Lucifel, wasn’t just strong in the trivial way casually written about in storybooks.
He must be overwhelmingly strong. Even in the book, he solved everything with just a flick of his finger.
It felt like they should rename him “Strongest Finger” instead of Demon King.
Of course, I hadn’t actually seen him fight. It was just that the final scene of the book I had read featured the Demon King crushing the human who kidnapped the child as easily as stepping on an ant.
So, I had wondered what on earth that ridiculously strong Demon King intended to do by dragging me to the Demon Realm, but for three whole days now, he had simply been observing me in silence.
I didn’t know when exactly I had become a child, but judging from what the red-haired man had blabbered, I had apparently spent the first few days in the Demon Realm fast asleep, which must have been when my soul entered the baby’s body.
Anyway, thanks to that, I had time to calmly organize my thoughts regarding the current situation.
“Is crying every day really the only thing it knows how to do?”
“It seems the child hasn’t acquired language yet. Judging by the accident, it appears to be a silent demand to change its clothes.”
“As if kicking me wasn’t enough, now it’s giving me orders?”
“Shall I kill it?”
“Hmph.“
No, no, absolutely not.
Orders? Red Hair! I didn’t expect this from you!
Are you really going to go this far just because a frail human infant peed its pants?
Besides, those aren’t even pants. To kill me just because I had a little accident on this rough, scratchy blanket!
Wailing even louder out of sheer grievance, the Demon King Lucifel twitched his brow and whipped his body around.
“Never mind. You may leave.”
“Yes.”
Whether this was another of his whims was anyone’s guess, but he didn’t seem to have any intention of killing me just yet.
I survived.
To think I almost died the moment I entered this body, just because of one little pee.
As I sniveled and let the tears stream down in self-pity, Lucifel tilted his head and muttered:
“To think that a breathing, living creature knows how to do nothing in this world except breathe and cry.”
