He was smiling warmly at the sight of a life he had raised since infancy finally growing up, and Gerard, his face flushed with shyness, buried his head against Ranok’s chest.
But that moment of ease didn’t last long. The time Gerard could stay awake was only ever very brief.
And the more this intermediate stage was minimized, the greater the power he would absorb when the coming-of-age ceremony finally arrived.
“You really must sleep now.”
“Mm, just a little longer.”
Ranok couldn’t win against Gerard’s wheedling.
“You were out of the castle, I heard.”
“Yes, I had something to take care of.”
“What did you do?”
At Gerard’s question, Ranok found, for some reason, that his mouth wouldn’t open.
He had understood it instinctively. That Gerard would not like hearing about Casioth.
“I took care of what needed to be taken care of.”
Ranok succeeded in persuading Gerard by telling him he’d share everything when he woke up, and that getting to sleep quickly would be better for absorbing his power.
“Ranok.”
“Yes.”
“When I wake up, there’s something I really want to say to you.”
“What is it you want to say?”
When has he ever held back something he wanted to say — at Ranok’s question, Gerard smiled bashfully and said it was a secret, that he’d tell him when he woke up, keeping it to himself.
What could he possibly be working up to with all this buildup. But when it came to something Gerard wanted to do, Ranok would go along with his pace for the most part — and so this time too, he nodded.
“Wait for me.”
Gerard looked reluctant, as if he didn’t want to be parted from Ranok, but he was the Demon King, and he also had to receive farewells from other members of the Demon Clan who wanted to bid him goodnight before he slept — so he had no choice but to let Ranok go for the time being.
“Ranok.”
Having left Gerard’s room, Ranok turned his head at the sound of someone calling his name.
A familiar face was looking at him.
“……”
Ranok’s eyes narrowed. It was someone he wasn’t particularly glad to see.
The one who had called out to him was Beltas — Gerard’s father.
He rarely emerged from his own quarters under normal circumstances, but with his son Gerard about to be away for several years, he had made an appearance.
Beltas, looking somehow anxious, kept glancing around repeatedly. Like someone afraid of being seen approaching Ranok.
“Ranok.”
It wasn’t a crime for one member of the Demon Clan to speak to another. Though Beltas’s standing was low, he was still Gerard’s father.
But the problem was that he had spoken to Ranok, of all people.
And not even “Ranok” with any proper address — just Ranok, plain.
— The nerve.
Mas was furious at what would have been a shocking breach of conduct to any other demon who witnessed it, but Ranok smiled pleasantly and greeted Beltas without any sign of minding.
“Beltas, it’s been a while.”
The reason he extended even a minimum of courtesy to someone of Beltas’s low standing was simple. Because he was Gerard’s father.
Beltas glanced around at his surroundings and quickly moved closer to Ranok. As if he had something to say to him.
Oh, it wasn’t Gerard he was after — it was me? Only now realizing he himself was the target, Ranok felt at a loss — and then Beltas, having drawn near, quickly opened his mouth.
“I hear you’ve been keeping a human these days?”
That Ranok had been spending time among humans wasn’t so great a secret. Enough so that even someone like Beltas could find it out.
Keeping? Ranok tilted his head slightly. He wasn’t keeping Casioth.
He simply had him nearby, and found him mildly entertaining.
“I heard you’re quite fond of him.”
Naturally, he wasn’t fond of him either. Fond — of someone he hadn’t even grown attached to — the notion was so absurd it wasn’t even worth a scoff.
“What is it you want to say?”
Out of consideration for Gerard he didn’t dismiss him outright, but finding it a waste of time to deal with him, Ranok cut straight to the point.
Even if he had more time than he knew what to do with and was passing it among humans, it was too precious to waste on Beltas. Especially on talk that wasn’t the point.
“The demons are very displeased with that behavior of yours. That you’ve gone so far as to keep a human by your side now.”
“And?”
It wasn’t as if their dislike of Ranok was anything new.
“There’s even talk going around — that you run wild and do as you please, and that one day you might suddenly decide to make yourself Demon King and do away with Gerard.”
Ranok, who had remained unmoved no matter what Beltas said up until now, faltered. Beltas didn’t miss a single flicker of that reaction.
Of course, it wasn’t because Beltas’s words had struck a nerve.
The idea of Ranok doing away with Gerard and becoming Demon King — anyone who knew him would have collapsed laughing at the absurdity.
But in reality, no one would be able to laugh.
Because everyone knew how great a problem Ranok’s existence — a demon stronger than the Demon King — posed.
“……”
But why was Beltas bringing up that issue right now, of all times? The gaze Ranok turned on Beltas grew a degree colder and more measured.
“You’d do anything for Gerard, wouldn’t you?”
He seemed somehow agitated. Because he knew that once Gerard finished receiving all the Demon Clan’s farewells, he would seek out Ranok last. Time was running short.
What on earth is he planning to say. Ranok gave a nod.
“That’s right.”
“Then — when Gerard is asleep.”
Beltas seemed afraid to say the words, pausing to hold his breath for a moment — but then, as if having made up his mind, he let the rest out.
“You need to die.”
At the out-of-nowhere decree, Ranok’s eyes narrowed.
— This madman!
Mas was even more furious than Ranok. He was about to come rushing over then and there, but Ranok stopped him with a forget it, and quietly studied Beltas.
Death, hm.
Honestly, Ranok wasn’t angry.
If anything, he was curious.
“You waited for me just to say that?”
“It’s not just. You don’t understand how important this is.”
“Important?”
“Once the coming-of-age ceremony is over, it’ll be too late. After that, Gerard must stand alone, without any obstacles, truly alone. As the strongest demon.”
It meant that even after the ceremony was complete and Gerard had grown powerful, Ranok must not remain by his side.
So if he was going to die, it had to be now — while Gerard had not yet become a complete Demon King, while he still lay sleeping.
It was a claim that was nothing short of absurd, and yet Ranok didn’t dismiss Beltas or drive him away.
He simply looked down at him with a quiet gaze.
— Ranok?
Perhaps finding Ranok’s reaction strange, Mas tried to reach him — but Ranok didn’t respond.
Beltas, watching Ranok’s silence with an anxious expression, opened his mouth again.
“That’s why you have to die before then. The moment that your death could make Gerard perfect — that too only exists before the boy wakes.”
The die had already been cast. Perhaps knowing that there was no stopping it now, and that crossing paths like this again would not be easy, Beltas pressed on quickly.
“You know it too, don’t you? What the path that truly serves Gerard looks like.”
“Beltas.”
“As long as you live, Gerard will never be recognized as a proper Demon King.”
“……”
“Do you really think that’s what’s best for Gerard?”
Ranok. Second-in-Command of the Demon Clan.
But in reality, there was no one who didn’t know that he was the strongest among all demons.
The right-hand man who surpassed the Demon King himself.
The pushback had simply not yet risen to the surface, only because the Demon King Gerard was still a young demon who had not yet undergone his coming-of-age ceremony — but Ranok’s existence, which shattered the very identity of what it meant to be Demon King, had long since become established in the eyes of the Demon Clan as the greatest danger Gerard faced.
“……”
Ranok stayed silent.
As if struck somewhere unexpected, Ranok simply stood there, looking down at Beltas.
But that silence seemed to register to Beltas as a refusal. He turned biting.
“Why? Weren’t you so fond of Gerard, so in love with him? Didn’t you say you’d do anything for him? I suppose you can’t manage that one thing? And yet it’s the most important thing for that boy!”
He glared at Ranok with a cold look — then spun around and disappeared.
Because it was obvious Gerard would be furious if he found out he had met with Ranok.
Finding it ridiculous that he had fled with his tail between his legs out of fear of his own son’s anger, Mas was scathing.
— A touching display of fatherly love. From someone who can’t even be acknowledged as a father. If you were lucky enough to sire such an outstanding demon, you should be living quietly in the shadow of that glory.
There wasn’t a shred of respect for Beltas in that mocking tone.
Mas was right. If not for Gerard’s radiance, Beltas would have long since been killed at the hands of the demons who despised him. He wouldn’t have been able to ride the coattails of high-ranking demons’ lives to begin with.
— Ranok, leave Beltas to me. I’ll make sure he never spouts that kind of nonsense again.
Nonsense, hm.
Mas seemed to genuinely mean it, but Ranok smiled bitterly.
Calling it nonsense — when it’s really just something I’ve occasionally imagined myself, and he simply said it aloud.
No matter how powerful a Demon King Gerard became, he would never try to swallow Ranok. Even if such an opportunity came, Gerard would not do it.
That alone, Ranok could be certain of.
Gerard would not attack Ranok to solidify his own position, nor would he cast him aside.
Because he loved Ranok. More than anyone.
When the coming-of-age ceremony ended, Gerard would surely become a powerful demon. But even then, if Gerard were to choose to stand behind Ranok, the dignity of a king would waver.
In their society, which moved by strength alone, that small wavering would soon become a great fracture.
Simply because Ranok lived and breathed at Gerard’s side.
