A chilling feeling traced down my spine.
It was clearly a board I’d set up, yet Jeffrey was the one calmly walking into it as if he’d been prepared for a long time.
He drew his finger through the air without a moment’s hesitation.
Blue mana rippled from his fingertips, carving letters of light in the air.
A contract written not with pen or paper, but with mana.
Only then did I truly realize I was in a fantasy world.
The writing was completed in an instant.
Each other’s names were inscribed, and as the final character was completed like a whirlwind beneath the conditions each of us had offered, blue light burst from mine and Jeffrey’s pinky fingers before disappearing.
Jeffrey pushed the Gold he’d placed on the table back toward me with a satisfied smile.
“This is fine. Let’s call it a down payment.”
“Ah…. Then….”
There’s no way I’d refuse.
I gathered up the Gold.
Now I could really leave, but instead of stepping outside, Jeffrey added more words.
“I promised to tell you about myself as well, so I’ll tell you one thing.”
“Yes?”
“I mentioned my ancestor’s story before, didn’t I?”
Ancestor—the first five heroes who created the Boundary Line?
As I carefully nodded, Jeffrey laughed lowly. That smile was strangely deep and secretive.
“According to documents passed down, a Saint from another world requested a contract relationship with our progenitor. Interestingly, it’s recorded that the contract was ultimately completed with marriage.”
“…….”
……What?
What kind of romance did they film there? Did they film a contract marriage story or something?
But Jeffrey left without continuing his words as if he’d never hesitated, leaving me bewildered.
***
After he left, I soon collapsed on the bed exhausted.
Really, I’d conversed with someone who had a centuries-old serpent sitting inside them, so my energy was completely drained.
The moment my head touched the pillow, my eyelids heavily descended. With a sensation of my body slowly sinking somewhere between dream and reality, I fell into a deep sleep just like that.
How much time had passed?
Something slender was tickling my face, so I unconsciously scratched my cheek.
“Hey, stop it…….”
At first I thought Happy was playing a prank again and waved my arm while muttering, but a chilling thought flashed through like lightning.
Happy can’t be here.
I definitely broke the seal with my own hands and sent him back.
As that fact revived in my mind, a cold sensation traced along my spine.
…Then who’s in front of me right now?
My heart pounded thump, thump— anxious beats rising up to the nape of my neck as if my heart was attached below my ear. Moreover, now even unfamiliar breathing was tickling my face, so I couldn’t ignore it.
In the end, after brief hesitation, I gulped.
Right. Better to die knowing than not knowing.
After agonizing, I forcibly lifted my eyelids, and in the darkness, the shape of something gradually revealed its outline.
Dark red hair.
Eyes burning blood-red.
And a single horn distinctly protruding above the forehead.
A stranger… no, an existence too unfamiliar to call human, too beautiful to call a monster, was looking down at me from right above.
At a distance close enough for breath to touch my cheek, our eyes collided.
“…….”
“…….”
……So. What are you now?
That demon beasts are wicked is merely a human definition; they were originally products of instinct.
That doesn’t mean they’re no different from simple beasts. However, if one had to make a comparison, that statement wasn’t completely wrong either.
Just as beasts follow hunger, demon beasts followed instinct. They fought to survive, and being strong, they killed the weak. In that their actions contained no malice, ironically they were purer than humans.
Humans speak of good while being cruel, but demon beasts remain faithful only to instinct even while spilling blood.
Their hierarchy was determined solely by strength.
After all, isn’t deception the weapon of the weak, and being fooled by sweet words always the lot of foolish humans?
For demon beasts, fangs over trickery, strength over schemes held superiority. So the fact that demon beasts don’t speak falsehoods was an unwritten law of this world and a truth continued over long years.
Their succession to the throne also differed from humans—it wasn’t inherited by blood but determined solely by strength for the next generation. Moreover, even a king would naturally be dethroned along with defeat if weak, so the history of Demon Kings was always short.
Then who is the current king?
Dark red hair rippled like flames, and beneath it, red eyes looked down on the world both cruelly and coldly. A single horn rising above the forehead shone majestically like a crown, so anyone living couldn’t help but instinctively feel it.
That this existence belonged not to the category of prey but to the axis of calamity.
Demon beasts whispered about him. That someday the era of demon beasts would come again, and he would surely stand at its center.
The one born wearing a blood-red crown. The monarch standing at the pinnacle of demon beasts.
His name was called Damian.
***
His father was a weak one. When Damian’s sickly mother passed away after giving birth to him, he soon fell into despair and eventually ended his life slowly extinguishing like that.
What he left behind before death was merely a few survival laws.
Because he died of illness, the throne became vacant, and soon another strong one took that position. Young Damian had to survive amidst endless threats targeting him.
Sharp fangs aimed for his neck every moment, and a single moment of carelessness meant immediate death. After countless blood battles, only upon becoming an adult did he finally reclaim the throne.
If looking only at bloodline, it could be called legitimate succession.
But the reality was different.
In his bloodline, blood he detested was terribly entangled.
“Still terrible as ever.”
Damian frowned the moment he stepped into the shabby cabin. The air was full of a stench mixing rotten meat, mold, sweat, and blood. Because he possessed more sensitive senses than anyone, that smell pierced his nose even more sharply.
“Grrrr…….”
Inside the cabin was a man. His lower jaw protruded excessively, swallowing his pronunciation, and below his cheekbones was sunken deeply like a skeleton. His body was twisted and bent like a hunchback.
A deformed appearance, but definitely human. No, given he was in the middle of the demon beast forest, he wasn’t a simple human.
Damian looked down at the man coldly and muttered.
“How tiresome.”
His father’s last request before death was “Take care of them.”
He didn’t say to kill them or abandon them. To Damian, it was an absurd and humiliating command. Nevertheless, he couldn’t disobey because his weak father had loved him so much.
Of course, the stronger a demon beast, the more unfamiliar emotions like love are. From a position of having to protect the throne with strength, emotions are weaknesses.
But his father was different. Though weak, he was equally strong, and even before death, he gently stroked the head of his son who would remain alone before slowly breathing his last.
Isn’t that too human for a Demon King? When the one with mixed human blood should be his child.
“Grrk, krrk…. Kr, kang…!”
Looking down at the man drooling and barking like a dog, Damian’s eyes hardened even more coldly.
How many years had passed since his father’s request? No, perhaps it might be decades. The few humans who lived gathered in the cabin relied on each other and continued generations. At the end of that, now only this one remained.
A distorted and deformedly ruined body. However, that bloodline was the last remnant connected to Damian.
“Now this too is ending.”
Damian knew this man’s end was not far off.
Even when he left meals each time, now he couldn’t swallow properly. Broth flowed down from his mouth, trickling down his chin and dripping. In that sight, Damian saw the shadow of death.
Then suddenly a thought crossed his mind. Were humans originally a species that couldn’t speak like that? But it was a fleeting thought. Since humans are originally weak creatures, they’re quickly weeded out once separated from society.
Creak—
When Damian sat on the chair, the rotted chair cried out like a scream. At that sound, the man raised his head and looked at Damian. Those murky eyes meeting red ones were gradually losing their light.
Damian glanced at the clock. Soon when death came to the man, he planned to bury him together beside the graves of those whose blood was mixed with his. That was the minimum loyalty to keeping his father’s last request.
That’s when it happened.
Water droplets flowed from the man’s cloudy eyes. And soon, he began barking toward him again.
“Kang, kang, kang…. Kiiing, kang!”
It was clearly barking directed at Damian, and it wasn’t anger or resistance uttered at this current situation. It was a cry as if calling for something.
Damian’s brow furrowed as he slowly moved his steps and approached before the man. The rotted wooden floor creaked and cried ominously, and Damian ignored it as usual.
Though the man’s waist was bent so his eye level was low, his gaze alone held onto him completely.
“Why do you call?”
“…….”
There was no answer. Only the man’s gaze remained for a long time like a dying ember.
It was the moment Damian took one more step forward.
“……!”
Stab— Along with the sound of flesh being cut, burning pain spread along his side. The man had thrust a knife in with trembling hands.
