They say the 31st Demon King was more obsessed with lust than any Demon King before him. At 103 years old, he was entering old age for the Demon King race, but the fact that he was still extorting concubines from the demon nobility was proof of that.
And the one who would become this lustful Demon King’s concubine this time was a child of the Ravencoat household. To be precise, it was Beni Ravencoat, a bastard child born when Count Ravencoat, unable to control his sexual urges, had raped a rabbit beastkin he’d captured.
As soon as Beni turned 20 this year, the Count—no, every demon in the Ravencoat household—hoped Beni would leave this mansion as the Demon King’s concubine. Not only would the disgusting bastard who was an eyesore and only wasted food disappear, but households that sent concubines to the Demon King received enormous amounts of gold and treasure.
Beni was being sold off as a concubine to an old man a full 83 years older, but felt no complaints or sadness. The Count, his father, had told him this was the only way he could repay the Count’s household for raising him.
……
Actually, he was a little scared and frightened. Even to him, confined to the mansion, he’d heard enough to know this Demon King was extremely cruel and cold-blooded in temperament. They said he viewed even his own mate merely as a tool for producing offspring and had not a shred of familial love.
“Can’t you straighten your back?”
The moment Beni unconsciously got lost in thought, the Count’s roar reached him. Beni’s large, bright yellow eyes widened as he put strength into his back and thrust his chest out so his shoulders wouldn’t curl forward. Even so, the Count’s eyes were full of dissatisfaction.
He approached Beni sitting in the chair and rolled up his stiff shirt sleeves. This revealed arms that were nothing but bone, so pale they were almost white, with all the veins visible.
“Ah, fuck. You ate all your meals without missing one, so why are you so skinny?”
Though he called it “without missing one,” they’d only given him one meal a day—cold soup and hard bread—but there was no one in this mansion who dared contradict the Count’s words. Only Trellou, his younger brother who was 2 years younger than Beni, chuckled while watching him from inside the room.
“What would a rabbit gain from eating? All they do is graze on grass like beasts.”
Beni looked at Trellou, but there was absolutely no way he could say, “That’s wrong, Trellou. I’m a half-blood of rabbit beastkin and demon, so I actually prefer meat.” He simply averted his eyes when Trellou tilted his head with a crooked frown.
The Count snorted irritably and roughly grabbed Beni’s chin. Beni swallowed a groan internally at the brutal grip strength.
“Still, that face takes after his mother completely, so it’s worth looking at.”
The Count’s green eyes as he looked over Beni were full of greed and unwholesome desire.
Though pale, his skin was smooth, and his nearly white hair with its fine texture flowed softly down across his forehead. The forehead it revealed was properly rounded and neat, and the eyes beneath were large and round like they’d been modeled after a doll that babies would love.
His nose bridge was just cute enough not to be burdensome. The nostrils reached after forming a curve had round tips that made Beni look innocent no matter what expression he wore. Though he generally lacked vitality, his lips were plump and tinged red even without anything applied to them.
It wasn’t for nothing that the Count had set his eyes on that lowly beastkin, this one’s mother. If only she hadn’t gotten pregnant, he could have kept playing with her longer—what a waste.
Smacking his lips, the Count roughly released Beni’s chin. Though the pale skin flushed red, Beni didn’t even blink.
“Beni.”
Lowly thing, filthy thing, dirty thing, rabbit brat. Unlike the epithets Beni heard most often in this place, he raised his head to look up at the Count at hearing his name for the first time in a while.
“There’s only one reason I kept you alive. It’s to use that pretty face of yours to satisfy the Demon King and get us even more money on top of what we’re already getting.”
Beni knew the Count got angry if he didn’t answer right away, but fear kept him from opening his mouth.
When Beni couldn’t answer easily, anger seeped into the wrinkles that creased the Count’s scrunched-up face.
“Answer me quickly! How many times do I have to tell you not to be so frustratingly slow before you understand!”
You stupid thing! The Count raised one hand high, and Trellou, who had been watching quietly, approached and grabbed his father’s arm. The Count’s eyes, bulging so much the blood vessels in his eyeballs looked ready to burst, turned toward Trellou. That appearance resembled the demons that humans described. Well, he was a demon, so it was only natural.
“Father, he’s leaving tomorrow—would the Demon King be pleased if someone with a busted face showed up? Hold back. This one doesn’t heal well anyway.”
Beni cautiously opened his tightly shut eyes. The Count seemed to agree with Trellou’s words and reluctantly lowered his hand.
“Anyway, when we send this one off tomorrow, make him wear several layers of clothes!”
Stupid, frustratingly slow thing—the Count shouted at Beni and left the room. The servants followed him out, leaving only Beni and Trellou in the cramped room. The Count was scary, but Trellou was more uncomfortable than scary.
Especially those green eyes, identical to the Count’s as they looked at him, were somehow chilling.
“Hey.”
Trellou bent down to meet eyes with Beni, who sat like a doll.
“…Yeah.”
When Beni answered while avoiding those eyes, Trellou grinned, pulling up both corners of his mouth deeply.
“You heard Father well, right? Even if the Demon King is a 103-year-old geezer, they say his dick is fucking vigorous.”
Beni’s cheeks flushed bright red at the vulgar word. Having rarely conversed with anyone while living in the mansion, he was even less immune to such topics. As Beni pressed his lips tightly shut in shame, Trellou tapped his cheek with an index finger.
“They say rabbits are in heat year-round. Your mother too, in heat like that…”
Beni’s yellow gaze, which had been unable to meet Trellou’s eyes, suddenly looked directly at him. Though his downturned, gentle-looking eyes should have been docile, the glare was quite fierce. At that impudent look, Trellou inhaled sharply as if flabbergasted, then clenched his fist.
He wanted to beat him up, but this one was leaving for the Demon King’s Castle tomorrow. Everything sent to the Demon King must have no scars or blemishes whatsoever. Even fruit was thrown out if it got bruised along the way, they said.
“It’d be better if you never came back to this mansion, rabbit.”
Though he said this, Trellou was actually hoping Beni would return to the mansion.
The Demon King with his strong sexual appetite was promiscuous enough to get bored easily, having already cast out dozens of concubines. Among the concubines coming up from all across the Demon Realm, there would be many beauties surpassing Beni, so Beni, who had nothing to offer besides his face, would surely be kicked out soon. And as a used rag, at that.
Just imagining that sight made Trellou tingle to his fingertips. Whether Beni knew Trellou’s inner thoughts or not, he continued to glare at him with a thoroughly indignant face. Trellou smiled pleasantly and straightened his back.
“If you want to live long, spread your legs well for the Demon King and stick close to him.”
Trellou patted Beni’s thin shoulder and left the room. Finally, Beni let out the breath he’d been holding. He was definitely angry at Trellou’s words, but he couldn’t deny them.
If he really wanted to live long… sticking to the Demon King’s Castle was the only way.
* * *
The day before Beni’s departure, the Ravencoat household’s dinner was a more lavish feast than ever. The Countess, in a good mood, had told the kitchen to prepare an extremely generous spread.
The knife cutting through the juicy veal steak was smoother than usual. Her lips painted red were curled up at both ends.
The Countess had been smiling constantly since yesterday, so the atmosphere in the Count’s household these days was better than usual.
“It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”
The Countess, having chewed and swallowed her steak, looked at the Count while holding her wine glass. Knowing what she was asking, the Count also replied with a smile.
“It’s tomorrow. He’ll be leaving by carriage tomorrow morning.”
At that answer, the Countess twisted her face wickedly before bursting into loud laughter.
“Finally, that lowly thing is leaving this mansion. Ah, I feel like I can finally breathe.”
The Countess ecstatically blinked her eyes slowly and savored a sip of red wine. Because of Beni’s existence, the Count had also been living while reading his wife’s mood all this time, so it was the moment when he was opening his mouth with a relieved face.
Her dark purple eyes froze coldly.
“Even now, when I see that thing’s face, I’m reminded of that bitch and I feel like I’m going crazy. How dare a beast carry Ravencoat blood? Do you know what it was like for me to spend each day every time that bitch’s belly swelled, dear?”
The Count swallowed dryly. When the Countess went on a rampage, there was no one to stop her. The only one who could calm her down was the eldest son the Countess cherished and loved most, but he was currently away in the capital on business.
“You had a very hard time, of course…”
“If you knew, you wouldn’t have done such things. Every day I wanted to slice open that belly and tear you apart and kill you too.”
“Hup.”
The Countess pointed the tip of her knife toward the Count’s throat. When that thing mixed with beast blood finally came into the world and she saw it walking around this mansion, her blood boiled in reverse.
She had thought she would kill it someday, kill it with her own hands, but the Count had persuaded her that if he raised it just a little more and sent it as the Demon King’s concubine or sold it somewhere as a slave, they’d make a lot of money, so she’d barely endured.
Though she hadn’t known it would take 20 years.
With eyes that seemed condensed with rage, the Countess stared intently at the husband she wanted to kill.
“If this kind of thing happens again in the future, that’ll be the end. I hate beasts too much.”
When the Count nodded his head vigorously, the Countess finally withdrew the knife and resumed her meal.
Throughout the meal, the Countess couldn’t properly contain her laughter. She rather hoped Beni would just die at the Demon King’s Castle. Thinking that since he was weak and lowly, wouldn’t he die easily, she kept laughing.
