Of course, the door — which had already lost its ability to lock, and now had its hinges broken from the impact just moments ago — slammed shut violently, only to creak back open a crack with a drawn-out squeal.
……That door needs fixing at some point too.
Ranok got to his feet, smoothing out his badly crumpled clothes from having his collar grabbed so roughly.
He had never been manhandled so roughly in his life, so it felt strange — but when the one doing it was Casioth, his heart softened somewhat and grew a little more forgiving.
On top of that, he had stumbled upon a sad secret of his quite unexpectedly — so Ranok decided he would not provoke him any further today.
Had Casioth known about that misunderstanding, he might have flown into an even fiercer rage and smashed every last piece of furniture in the room — but unfortunately, he had no ability to read the inner workings of another person’s mind.
Ranok moved off cheerfully, thinking well, at least he didn’t throw anything today, to go oversee the shadow figures.
Without the faintest inkling of how what he had done today would come back to him later.
Deep in a forest seldom traversed by people, there stands a single enormous castle, dark as though scorched black.
To the eye it appears merely grand and imposing — but those who know its true nature never approach it. The name of that castle was…… surprisingly, known to no one.
And so, those who did know its nature called it this: the Demon King’s Castle.
A man sat alone and still in a room full of cold air, perched atop yet another castle that floated even higher than the topmost spire of the great fortress below, with a commanding view of the entire grounds.
It was a bone-deep chill. The man sitting motionless in that cold, wearing nothing but a thin layer of clothing, had a sturdy build — and yet somehow, rather than giving off a reassuring presence, he gave off a strangely precarious one.
The man, who had been dangling his bare feet in the frigid air as though fidgeting, called out to the man who had slipped quietly into his room.
“Mas.”
“Yes.”
“Did you find him?”
It was a question repeated dozens, hundreds of times over. A question repeated so many times that both the one asking and the one hearing it must have been bone-tired of it — and yet neither the one asking nor the one answering was anything less than completely serious.
Mas shook his head.
“……No, I have not found him yet.”
“Why can’t you find him?”
“I am sorry.”
As always, Mas offered his apology smoothly in the wake of the familiar reproach.
The man turned sharply to look back at Mas, who stood behind him.
He was a beautiful man. His features themselves were closer to handsome than beautiful in the conventional sense — but perhaps owing to his peculiarly bewitching aura, the first thought that struck anyone upon seeing him was that he was extraordinarily beautiful.
A beauty like a sculpture wrought over long years by a master craftsman through blood and sweat.
His pale complexion and flawless skin without so much as a single blemish only lent more weight to that impression — but every time Mas looked at him, he felt more afraid precisely because the man did not seem like a living creature at all.
Mas did not dare meet his eyes, and lowered his head. It was a sight the man had grown tired of seeing.
The man who answered I haven’t found him whenever asked if he had found him. Followed by the apology that always came after.
Tedious.
“If I killed you, would Ranok grieve?”
This too was a familiar question. One he heard once every two or three visits.
Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, this question required no answer. The man already knew the answer himself.
“You are remarkably lucky.”
As always, the man forgave the incompetent one before him. At this level of incompetence, one would have nothing to say even if their head were cut off — and yet, simply because the other person was a subordinate cherished by the one he loved, he let it pass.
Of course, there was not a single member of the Demon Clan who envied that fact.
“……Thank you.”
Mas offered his thanks with practiced ease, then quietly slipped out of the room.
“Hmm.”
The man dangled his bare feet again and looked out the window below.
In the days when someone had tended to it without rest, the interior of the Demon King’s Castle had always been kept beautifully adorned — but now it had been reduced to such complete ruin that those days were impossible even to recall, and even looking down from this room, it no longer felt like it shone the way it once had.
And yet, in spite of that — the man, Gerard, liked sitting in this spot.
Because of the person who had liked having Gerard incorporated into the room he had decorated, like a single piece belonging perfectly in place.
It had become a spot he had grown fond of without realizing it, because of the person who had liked sitting here on this balcony and looking down below at the Demon King’s Castle.
Even when Gerard was bundled up so thickly in layers that he looked puffed up and stout, the man would fuss at the attendants saying “Who on earth dressed him so coldly?” and make Gerard layer on clothes until he looked like a stuffed cotton doll.
But I’m barefoot right now. I’m wearing thin clothes. Lately I haven’t been washing, and I haven’t been drying my hair properly either.
So why isn’t Ranok coming?
Gerard found that genuinely, truly baffling.
He had done things more than a few times that would have made Ranok furious. Beyond not drying his hair — he had gone and shattered half the world, and had taken the heads of several high-ranking members of the Demon Clan that Ranok used to nag him to treat well, saying they would all become his foundation one day.
And yet even so, Ranok did not appear.
As though it were some terrible joke by someone, as though he had truly vanished from this world.
Of course, that couldn’t be.
Ranok had always come running the moment he called. He was a man who, despite being stronger than anyone, never hesitated to stand at Gerard’s back. He was his devoted right hand, who had sworn to remain by his side forever.
So.
Even after Mas had left the room, he dangled his pale bare feet again and again.
Like a person who believed that if he did so, someone would come running with a scold — “Why are you sitting in such cold like this.”
Several more days passed.
Perhaps because of the rough treatment he had inadvertently received that time, Casioth grew intensely on edge around the time Ranok would come to his room each day — to the point where even the sound of Ranok’s footsteps was enough to make him shout through the door for him to get lost.
Of course, Ranok was steadfast. Once a day, he went to see Casioth.
Of course, since he was turned away at the door the moment he so much as drew close, he hadn’t had a proper look at his face even once since that day.
Time drifted by in that vague, unresolved way — and it was exactly one month since Ranok had come to Mordian Manor.
Which meant that a full month had also passed since Ranok had taken over this body.
From the very beginning it had fit as though it had always been his own, but even so, the inevitable sense of unfamiliarity he had felt with Milano Mortiel’s body had fully synchronized with Ranok’s soul over the course of that month.
Up to this point, it had been a reasonably good passage of time — but it was also not entirely a good one.
Because one month meant that enough time had passed for Casioth Mordian to claim he had dutifully honored the Emperor’s command.
In other words, Casioth could now drive Ranok out at any time. Enough time had passed that he could argue he had done his part as a subject.
Not that anything resembling proper hospitality had ever been extended, of course.
The fact that Casioth had simply allowed Ranok to shelter under his roof was enough to count as having fulfilled his duty — so even if Ranok felt hard done by on that front, it wasn’t something he could say anything about.
“Huu.”
In any case, the manor was so large it had taken a long time — but after a month of diligent sweeping and scrubbing, the majority of the interior, which had been in such a sorry state, had been restored to order.
The dirty areas gleamed, and the broken areas had been neatly repaired.
The ivy on the exterior walls and the jungle of a garden were untouched, of course, and the mountain of laundry — since the shadow figures couldn’t be sent outside, Zak had been handling it all on his own — still seemed a way off, though more than half of that was done too.
The parts that needed to be completely replaced or overhauled would have to be discussed with Casioth slowly at some point — but since Casioth was currently refusing to speak with Ranok…
“Was that really so embarrassing for him.”
— It was mortifying enough.
The Faerie, who had been flying near Ranok that day, chimed in.
The Faerie — who was always near Ranok, then would dart off somewhere else and come back — seemed to know all the goings-on of this manor, large and small.
Not everything, perhaps, but it seemed she had a rough idea of the strange-yet-not-quite-strange incident that had unfolded between Ranok and Casioth that day.
“Where did you go today?”
— None of your business.
The Faerie sniffed dismissively. Ranok, who hadn’t been particularly curious to begin with, didn’t ask further — and it was just as he was calling the shadow figures, no longer needed for a while now that the cleaning was done, back into his keeping.
A harsh coughing sound rang out.
“……?”
Ranok’s head snapped around. Zak would still be in the middle of the laundry — so inside this house, there was only one other person besides Ranok.
As if to prove he hadn’t misheard, the coughing came again in rapid succession from inside the room. And not just any coughing — the kind that sounded like it was being wrenched up from the depths of his lungs.
It was far too loud and prolonged to pass off as a simple cold.
Ranok looked at the Faerie.
“A cold.”
— Him?
“Pollen allergy.”
— He doesn’t even go outside.
“Indigestion.”
— He barely eats anything.
Having heard the Faerie’s cold-blooded rejections, Ranok didn’t hesitate — he rushed straight into Casioth’s room.
“Casioth.”
Casioth, who under normal circumstances would throw a fit and scream at him to get lost the moment Ranok so much as approached the door, was silent.
He had been turned away at the entrance plenty of times — but making it this far inside was only the second time, counting this one.
And both times, Casioth’s condition had looked distinctly worrying.
