Clap, clap, clap—the sound of applause echoed alone in the space, and the demon who had woken up belatedly realized he was the only one clapping. With everyone’s piercing gazes directed at him, the demon hurriedly stopped his hands and bowed his head deeply.
The High Priest smacked his lips at the taste of blood spreading in his mouth, then carefully turned around.
“Your Majesty the Demon King, is there a problem?”
The High Priest asked politely, but in reality his tongue was numb so his pronunciation was all garbled. From one side, someone exaggeratedly mimicked the High Priest’s speech saying “Yor Mashesty ish der a probwem?” while giggling.
Ruan waved his hand toward the High Priest.
“Never mind, continue.”
“…Understood, Your Majesty.”
The High Priest inwardly hoped to stop this speech. He had bitten his tongue so severely it hurt and tingled, making it difficult to speak. However, one could not disobey the command of the Demon King, descendant of the Evil God, so the High Priest began his speech with slurred pronunciation, doing his best.
Unaware of the High Priest’s such efforts, Ruan whispered to Marcel as if angry.
“Try spouting that concubine bullshit one more time.”
“…Then why did you tell me to keep that spirit?”
Marcel couldn’t gauge what Ruan was really thinking, not this time. Though he occasionally did strange things, when it came to relationships with others, Ruan was terribly cold-blooded and rational, making it all the more difficult to understand.
“I already said. That I have someone I’ve decided on as my mate.”
“…You weren’t just saying that?”
He’d thought it was a statement to prevent troublesome matters, but Ruan looked at Marcel with strange eyes instead.
“Why would I just say something like that. A mate is very precious and must not be used for me under any circumstances, Marcel.”
You don’t even know that—being scolded by Ruan made Marcel feel absurd instead.
“Earlier you said you had no interest in fucking.”
“I said I had no interest in fucking, did I say I had no interest in love?”
Isn’t this guy a complete pervert—Ruan looked at Marcel again with disgusted eyes.
“Then what, you’re just going to keep that spirit by your side?”
This time Ruan couldn’t answer at all. Whatever he was thinking, the tips of his pointed ears turned slightly red. Marcel realized. That his lord was falling hard for that rabbit.
They say you can’t see even an inch ahead… Marcel had watched Ruan by his side for 20 years. He who had only been interested in building his own power, even when any demon or dragon came… Marcel suddenly felt a headache coming on. No, wait—had he known that spirit from before, so he had no interest in other demons?
When Marcel looked suspiciously, Ruan coughed unnecessarily and waved his hand as if telling him to look away.
“Anyway, relay the message well so Beni won’t be startled.”
“…Were you already acquainted?”
“No way. I saw him for the first time yesterday.”
“…But you’re going to make him your mate? Seriously, are you… out of your mind?”
He hadn’t known Ruan would go off the rails in this particular direction. But… compared to before when he’d been so uninterested in breeding activities that they worried whether he could leave descendants, perhaps this side was better. Though the partner was a half-blood with beastkin, who had beast blood.
“Then after the coronation ceremony, I’ll prepare for the wedding ceremony…”
“No, don’t do it.”
Ah, what do you want me to do then. If only the two of them were here, Marcel wouldn’t have been able to contain his irritation. Marcel, with strength trembling in his grip, bit down hard on his molars instead of throwing the first punch at the Demon King and asked.
“Then what would you have me do, Your Majesty?”
“…First, just tell him not to leave the castle. I’ll handle the rest myself.”
Ruan’s eyes tenaciously captured Beni. For some reason, he was bowing his head deeply. Ruan looked at Beni like that before asking Marcel.
“Do I look handsome today?”
“Ugh.”
“What?”
“…You look very handsome.”
Only then did Ruan smile satisfactorily while muttering.
“Must be shy.”
Marcel, looking at Ruan like that, deliberately didn’t tell him “Anyone can see he looks terrified and scared stiff.” He didn’t want to.
* * *
“Haa… Haa…”
Lying on the bed, Beni covered his mouth with both hands and exhaled hot breath. Even that was lukewarm and couldn’t warm his ice-cold frozen hands.
As soon as the Demon King’s coronation ceremony ended, Beni had fled into his room and shut himself in. For the next three days, he had to think carefully about what to do. If he was kicked out of the Demon King’s Castle without any plan like this, the Count would come to catch him.
Because rumors that the Demon King had emptied Niar Palace would surely spread that far.
Then… what about hiding well and leaving for a very distant place instead? But the Demon Realm itself wasn’t very wide. More precisely, there weren’t many places where he could live properly.
Most of the Demon Realm had terrain difficult even for demons to live in. Giant sulfuric acid seas, hot bubbling lava zones, highlands where ice like awls irregularly poured down daily—places difficult to settle. Even if he somehow established himself there, survival was impossible.
To the monsters that had survived and evolved in those extreme environments, he with his tender skin and whose only special skill was the high jump would be high-protein prey. Being a rabbit meant being at the bottom of the food chain anywhere, so the Count had told him to stay quietly hidden in the mansion.
In his heart, Beni wanted to cross over to the human realm where his mother had come from, but Beni possessed neither the magical knowledge nor the magic power to do so. Perhaps because he was a half-blood of demon and beastkin, Beni didn’t have mana that all other demons possessed. Because mana couldn’t accumulate in his body and always leaked out.
His terribly cold hands and feet were also because of that. Beni stopped blowing breath and curled up. Perhaps because the current situation was so stressful for Beni, his body temperature seemed to be dropping faster than usual.
If he stayed like this, his whole body would freeze solid, so after agonizing, Beni glanced around the empty room for no reason before burrowing into the blanket. Then the bulging volume of the blanket gradually decreased, and soon became small enough to fit about two palms.
Wriggle wriggle—the blanket stirred, and what popped out from it was white cotton candy. More precisely, a rabbit that looked like white cotton candy. It was Beni’s hidden ability that no one knew.
It was known that beastkin half-bloods usually couldn’t achieve perfect animal transformation. However, it wasn’t completely impossible, so occasionally there were cases like Beni where animal transformation was possible even as a demon-beastkin half-blood.
Animal transformation was advantageous for escaping, so it was an ability beastkin also used freely, but that was only when not in the Demon Realm.
In the Demon Realm, beastkin with forms similar to monsters were treated as lowly. Moreover, the very reason Beni’s mother had been dragged to this Demon Realm in the first place was extremely cruel. Among rabbits, Angora rabbit fur was exceptionally soft and pretty, so she’d been kidnapped to obtain that pelt.
Bringing beastkin instead of ordinary beasts was because beastkin were better at fur care than beasts. However, this was the surface reason—in reality, it was more for doing things so vulgar they were disgusting.
So for Beni to survive, he absolutely had to hide the fact that he too could become an Angora rabbit.
Marcel, the Count—everyone thought Beni could only bring out his ears and tail.
If they’d found out… Beni probably couldn’t have even come to the Demon King’s Castle. He would have died having his fur plucked while alive, or been locked in a breeding pen and treated as a stud for reproduction. Just thinking about it was horrifying.
Very fine-textured white fur fluttered gently in the faint breeze entering through the windowsill. A pink nose buried in the fur twitched. Though the wind was cold, he liked the fresh air carried on the wind. When he lived at the mansion, he’d always been with stale dusty smells.
The long, abundant fur covering his entire body, disproportionate to his body size, began to warm him. The white, cotton-ball-like rabbit’s body gradually stretched out inside the blanket. When he truly transformed into a rabbit, sleep came especially quickly.
It wasn’t like he was being told to leave tomorrow morning right away—wouldn’t it be better to just sleep soundly tonight at least? The rabbit’s jewel-like yellow eyes slowly closed. The servants here didn’t fling open doors but always had to receive permission to open them.
So there would be no chance of being discovered as a rabbit even if he slept like this until morning. Thinking so, Beni wanted to rest so badly. From yesterday to today, too many things had happened and all those things were overwhelming to handle.
His spine prickled at the Demon King’s evil smile that surfaced again. First, let’s try not to leave the room as much as possible for three days and think carefully about what to do. Separate from the rabbit’s anxiety, just as he was instantly falling asleep and his ears were drooping down—
Knock knock.
Flash—the rabbit’s eyes flew open.
