DUFE - SIDE STORY 4

For scholars who had never been to, and would never go to, certain places, those locations were a kind of subject that aroused infinite academic zeal and imagination. Especially for theologians, the world of evil that tempted them was such a place.

The Demon Realm.

One theologian had the experience of unraveling the yearning of curiosity for that unreachable place through his own imagination.

Because the black magic handled by demons was destructive and intense, what came to mind was a fiery sea of crimson. A blood-red so vivid it would paralyze the sight. That became the overall backdrop. Fire pillars, rising jaggedly between the scorching flames, became their dwelling places, and it was speculated that they could live without being burned by the demonic language surrounding the pillars.

The so-called Demon Realm-related book that the theologian had conceived based on his imagination sold quite briskly. Of course, the temple officially stated that it was a book without any proven basis, but human interest tends to be drawn to stimulating imagination rather than pure truth.

Renie had also read that book when she was the Pope. She remembered that just reading line by line made her breathless, so she had closed it halfway through. But thinking about it now, there was no reason for her to be so deeply absorbed.

Because the actual Demon Realm was completely different from what that theologian had imagined.

________________________________________

Sitting on the bed, Renie stared blankly out the window.

Window bars with vine-like embossed patterns. Beyond them, only the darkness she was now used to was visible.

A familiar gloom emanated from the sky where not a single ray of dawn could be found. When she looked up at the pitch-black sky where neither sun nor clouds, moon nor stars could be seen, Renie felt a dizzying sensation as if she would faint into it.

After fully accepting Hereb, she would occasionally look out at the outside scenery that she used to dread. It was a kind of measure to hold onto her weakened sanity. ‘If I weaken even a little, Hereb and I might be swallowed whole by that darkness. So I have to stay alert.’ It was no different from such a resolve.

Soon, her slowly moving eyes reached a large mirror in one corner of the bedroom.

“…….”

Renie stared at the unfamiliar woman reflected in it for a long time before realizing it was herself.

Her eyes, corroded as if they had been bumped and broken, the area around her cheekbones that looked sunken and emaciated due to weight loss. Her lips, always chapped and rough. She was the spitting image of a withered leaf that had met the beginning of winter.

Moreover, her complexion was pallid white, while the gown she wore was as black as pitch, making her pale appearance even more prominent. Renie slowly rubbed her eyes and looked away from the mirror.

It was then.

Knock, knock. A small knocking sound was heard at the door.

Her complexion, which had been languishing in the gloom like a wilting flower that had never received sunlight, brightened in an instant.

“Mother!”

Although permission hadn’t been given, as if it wasn’t needed in the first place, the door burst open and someone rushed in. Renie reached out her arms towards the small figure running towards her. Hereb, who had already become too heavy for her thin arms to lift easily, hugged her tightly.

Renie cherished her son as if holding the most precious thing in the world. Kissing his soft cheeks like pliable dough, she noticed the child’s faint panting and asked,

“Why did you run so fast, you might have fallen and gotten hurt.”

“I just wanted to see Mother a little faster.”

“I’ll come without running next time.”

Hereb was only about two years old since being born into the world.

It felt like only yesterday that he couldn’t express himself except by crying, but the child had already mastered perfect sentence structure and was clearly conveying his intentions.

It was partly due to the influence of Renie often talking to him when he was a baby, but even considering that, the child’s growth was so rapid it seemed abnormal. Renie repeatedly ignored the unease she felt from it. She knew that looking into that point in detail would only bring her trouble.

As she stroked his tousled hair, the child giggled, pleased by his mother’s touch. Seeing him smile with his light green eyes, which resembled hers, crinkling, warmth seemed to flood into her empty insides like a tide.

She had endured countless years by looking only at this clear and beautiful smile. And at the same time, she was still enduring.

The child had become the center of her wretched and fallen life. Now, Renie couldn’t imagine her life without Hereb. The child was growing up as she had hoped. He had never once shown the wicked desires or wrongdoings that deviated from the human realm.

With a gentle and untroubled nature, he had never once worried his mother. Moreover, even after leaving the cradle and taking his first steps, he had started using a different bedroom, but he would come to see her here without fail.

Renie didn’t want to let the child out of this bedroom as much as possible. She always wanted to keep him within her sight where she could care for him. But the embarrassing acts she had to perform with Kahn every day were the problem. When he was a newborn, he wouldn’t have known anything, but she was afraid that the child, who was starting to grow older, might witness those explicit and destructive acts. Reluctantly, after moving the child’s bedroom, she tried to stay close to him at other times.

She noticed that the child’s clothes in her arms were quite disheveled. So she put the child down on the floor and changed him into the clothes that the attendant had prepared beforehand. Although the attendants existed to do such troublesome things, Renie always tried to take care of everything for Hereb herself.

As Renie lifted the discarded clothes, she suddenly paused at a mark that invaded her vision. Inside the collar, there was something black like ink. For a moment, Renie, startled and thinking it was blood, froze, but she came to her senses at the child’s action of rubbing his face against her knee.

She closed her eyes deeply and opened them. Even after repeating that several times, the blackness didn’t turn into blood-red. It didn’t seem like blood…… thankfully. Nevertheless, Renie couldn’t help but ask, feeling a coldness settle inside her chest.

“Hereb, what did you play today?”

“I played with a new friend.”

“A friend……?”

Hereb, who had crawled back onto his mother’s lap after she put him down, replied brightly.

“A pitch-black friend.”

“…….”

Renie’s pupils, filled with Hereb, trembled.

She had resolved to raise the child as a human in this world full of darkness. For him, she would often talk about the emotions and relationships that a human should learn and understand. Things like joy, happiness, and sadness. And the relationship between parents and children, between friends…… Every time, Hereb would listen intently to his mother’s voice, his eyes shining like fortresses.

It was good that the child had fully accepted her intentions and boldly made that being his friend. But this was the world of demons. In this place where darkness overwhelmingly controlled everything, would the friend Hereb had made truly have a good influence on him?

She was certain that it wouldn’t be the case. Nevertheless, the reason she couldn’t readily tell him not to…… was because the altruism that would arise in Hereb through making friends was important.

A heart that cares for others. A heart that knows not to harm anyone carelessly. A heart that cherishes others.

Hadn’t she been trying so hard to teach him that, which ran completely counter to evil?

“Mother, hug me.”

Renie, unable to decide which way to turn her heart in the end, tightly hugged the child with her lips pressed shut.

“I wish Mother could leave this place with me.”

Ever since he was very young, Hereb would stroke Renie’s face whenever he was held in her arms. Just like now. That touch was so careful, as if touching something precious, that she felt a lump in her throat every time.

Renie often thought that it was better when Hereb was a newborn. Since he couldn’t move on his own and would only be held in her arms, she wouldn’t have to send him anywhere.

“Can’t you talk to Father?”

Hereb asked with innocent eyes that didn’t understand his mother’s heart at all. Renie felt a bitterness at the tip of her tongue and gave a sorrowful smile.

About two years since the baby was born. That meant that a similar amount of time had passed since her strange cohabitation with Kahn. Of course, they had shared a bedroom since the moment she was dragged here by him, but Renie in those days had felt like she wasn’t truly living, so there was no need to even count.

Human and demon.

The relationship between the two beings was subtle, as if there was change and yet no change.

After exploiting her to steal the words “I love you,” Kahn demanded it repeatedly every night. The sight of him indulging in a love game alone, saying that even if it was a lie, even if it was an empty shell, aroused unbearable disgust and hatred.

The only reason she had to endure those things, suppressing the rising nausea, was to protect Hereb. Like a wooden puppet hanging from a puppeteer’s strings, Renie could still meet Hereb without any restrictions as a result of carrying out his instructions.

If she hadn’t endured those things despite the torment, Hereb might have already been awakening his evil nature under another demon by now.

“Mother, don’t you want to leave this place?”

Hereb asked, lowering his head. Renie could easily notice that the child was looking at the shackle on her ankle.

Didn’t she want to leave……? Her feelings couldn’t be expressed in such simple terms. She had wanted to be freed from this place, from his side, so much that she had even considered choosing death.

Suddenly, she remembered the time when the child had just started to speak. Beyond the level of babbling, Hereb, who had been repeating clumsy pronunciations that leaked here and there, had boldly asked that question for the first time.

<What’s this?>

The identity of the object she was pinching while wearing a smile as radiant as a fully bloomed flower was none other than the shackle.

Renie was so suffocated for a moment that she couldn’t even explain properly and hugged the child tightly. In that state, holding her breath, she cried so many hot tears. Outwardly they were tears, but inwardly she felt like she was crying tears of blood.

From that day on, she tried to wear gowns that covered her ankles as much as possible. Even so, she couldn’t completely hide the chains connected to the bedpost, but she wanted to hide them from Hereb’s sight somehow.

Perhaps sensing his mother’s sadness, Hereb never brought up the story of the shackles again after that day. He was quite young to be considerate of others’ feelings and read their moods. So it might have just been her imagination. But somehow, she had a strong intuition that her hunch was right.

That was probably when she first truly felt the unusual intelligence of a child who didn’t seem to be his age.

“Mommy doesn’t want to leave either…….”

In a life where even the freedom to die had been deprived, the desire to do anything was a luxury. As if proving that, there was not a bit of energy in her trailing words.

Hereb looked blankly at his mother. Whenever his eyes, which resembled hers, looked at her, Renie seemed to gain comfort. Of course, proving that he hadn’t inherited only her blood, the child’s hair was as black as obsidian, but Renie’s gaze always lingered exclusively on his peridot-like green eyes.

“Then let’s leave together.”

“Huh?”

She expressed her bewilderment at Hereb’s words as he stroked her cheek.

It was that moment.

She felt a strange breeze near her ankle, and then a clanking sound. When she lowered her head following the unfamiliar noise, Renie couldn’t help but be dumbfounded.

“……What…….”

The chains of the shackle that Kahn had put on her to confine her here had snapped. The accursed chains that had bound her for nearly three years.

At the sight that made her doubt even her clear vision, Renie remained frozen for a long time. Then, the child’s voice from earlier, asking her like a lark, came to mind, and she suddenly raised her head.

Hereb was still smiling brightly.

“Now we can leave.”

“Hereb, you, this, uh, how…….”

Realizing that the child had used magic without even moving a finger, Renie felt a chill lick up her spine.

But that wasn’t the important thing now. Only the chains had been broken, so the shackle was still on her ankle. But she was no longer restricted in her movement as before.

In other words, Renie was now able to leave this place.

Before she could make any rational judgment, her body moved on its own. If it had been before, before giving birth, she would have thrown herself out the window without hesitation, trying to escape this life somehow.

But now she couldn’t do that. This small life in her arms. Ever since Hereb, who had become more precious than anything else in the world, had appeared to her like hope, the option of ending her life had long been pushed to the back.

Instead of ending her life……

Renie hugged Hereb and hurriedly got out of bed. She quickly headed for the door and grabbed the doorknob, turning it.

Creak.

The feel of the doorknob, which she had never touched with her own hands before, was unfamiliar. The sudden reality pierced the back of her neck at that very moment.

<Don’t even think about running away.>

<…….>

<If you run away, I’ll kill everyone here.>

What made her hesitate at the escape that was right in front of her was the voice that suddenly tore through her mind.

With her slowly crawling into the swamp of despair, trembling before his eyes, the cruel words the merciless demon had spoken were once again grabbing her ankle. As if to say that even though the chains were broken, the shackles couldn’t be undone, their heavy weight pressed down on her nerves.

Renie looked down at Hereb in her arms with trembling eyes. What if she acted recklessly here and put Hereb in danger? Again, if the baby were to be harmed by her own mistake, which couldn’t foresee even an inch ahead……

Kahn didn’t seem to have much attachment to his child. So much so that she couldn’t understand why he had been so happy when he found out about the pregnancy. The only thing he was always obsessed with was her. That’s why she couldn’t act rashly even more. She would never allow the consequences of her actions to fall on the child, no matter what.

“Do you want to go to where Mother used to live?”

As she retreated stealthily without even daring to take a step due to instinctive fear, Hereb suddenly whispered softly.

“……What?”

Since that question was something she hadn’t even dreamed of, Renie couldn’t help but be stunned.

“I can send you.”

The baby still spoke with a gentle curve to his lips. The face of the mother-adoring child, consistent since he was young, was secretly revealed in that smile. Renie unknowingly swallowed her dry saliva.

“Hereb. You…….”

Since when did you start using magic?

The question formed like dew on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to utter it. She hadn’t noticed any such signs at all. The child had truly just clung to her, sleeping, playing, or chatting with her like an ordinary human.

Following the abnormal growth rate, the child’s use of magic tightened her breath. But before long, that fact rather drove Renie into a rush.

This wasn’t the place after all. It was too much for her to raise him as a human in this place, solely through her own efforts. Only by learning how to coexist among humans, not in the cracks between demons, could he grow into a complete human.

“……Really? Can you send Mommy away?”

If this child could truly use magic, it wasn’t a suggestion to be dismissed as absurd. As if proving it, Hereb nodded his head with a smile on his lips.

“Then…… do you want to go with Mommy?”

“Where to?”

“To the world where Mommy used to live.”

Not this place where a suffocating darkness prevailed, but that colorful place where the sky changed color with the appearance of the sun and moon.

Hereb nodded again without hesitation. Renie bit her lower lip tightly. She peered out the crack in the door to observe the outside. It was a scene no different from the bedroom. Her hesitation was momentary. She finally took a step out the door she had been conflicted about all along.

Just one step.

That advancement, which might seem insignificant to someone else, held immense meaning for Renie. The fact that she was freeing herself from a prison she thought she would never escape made her heart feel like it was being held and shaken violently. It was something that required so much courage for her.

The desolate corridors of the castle were as barren as she had glimpsed through the gaps. There were windows installed at regular intervals, but since the whole world was dark like inside a cave anyway, there was no need to look around. She almost ran into attendants here and there, but she avoided the crises by hiding behind pillars or various decorations.

At first, she hesitated, but soon she was running.

‘Why is it so……’

Easy?

Renie couldn’t shake off the strange feeling even as she quickly moved her feet. It was so easy, unbelievably easy. Was it always this deserted? Except for a few attendants she had secretly hid from and left behind, not even an ant was visible.

It was a question she had no way of knowing. Today was the first time she had left the bedroom since being dragged here.

‘Where on earth is the entrance……!’

Since she had been confined to the top floor bedroom all along, she had no idea of the layout. So even though there was no one blocking her, she wandered and wandered. From the moment she left the bedroom, Renie’s heart had been pounding violently. The blood vessels connected to that heart had gone cold as if paralyzed by the anxiety of being caught at any moment.

She climbed and climbed the stairs, so steep she feared she might misstep, and moved busily, hiding occasionally, for a long time.

She seemed to have finally reached the first floor, which was level with the ground. At the end of that corridor, in a corner, she found a small side door. Renie adjusted her hold on Hereb and carefully tried to open the door. Her heart fluttered wildly, like her trembling fingertips.

“Ah……!”

A desolate wind brushed her face. A wind half-drunk with darkness blew as if to cut her fragile skin. Renie took a precarious step forward with a resolute expression. The bleak scenery that tormented her eyes was no different inside the castle than outside. Rather, the outside had nothing to shield her, so the evil energy seemed to reach her even more intensely.

Renie, who had walked out step by step, had no choice but to stop.

‘Where should I go?’

Darkness surrounded her from all sides, and she lost her sense of direction. She felt like a wanderer lost and roaming in the backwoods. But she couldn’t just stand still.

Renie hugged Hereb’s head in her arms and looked up at the castle she had just escaped. As she took in the sight of the place emitting a chilling aura, disgust welled up involuntarily.

Her feet, which had stopped for a moment, were already moving again.

The entrance to the Black Castle, which had a strong feeling of being sharp and pointed rather than large and magnificent, consisted of only one path. It was a path made of sheer cliffs. On either side of a single, flat, isolated path, rocks were sharply cut and jutted out in various directions. It was a perilous scene where one wrong step could lead to instant death.

Standing at the beginning of it, Renie paused to catch her breath. The moment she realized Hereb in her arms was clutching her hair, she mustered her courage and took a firm step forward.

“Huh, huh…….”

Perhaps because she hadn’t moved vigorously for a while, she was already out of breath even though she hadn’t run far. Her breath hitched at her throat, and her arms and legs were already trembling. Her exhausted heart pounded wildly like being struck with a club.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t stop. Instinct told her. She had to run away. Even a little further away from that castle, no, from that demon.

“Eek!”

Suddenly, a strong wind seemed to blow, and something fluttering quickly brushed past her face. Renie involuntarily took a step back from her running and suddenly raised her head. A swarm of bats, fitting for this desolate and arid landscape, was already floating thickly in the sky.

In the Bible, bats were no different from an ominous sign.

Screech……

Scree……

As if proving it, a strange noise that grated on her ears began to be heard from over her shoulder. When she turned her head back from looking up at the sky, Renie discovered creatures crawling up from below the cliff path she had been walking on.

No, could she even call them creatures? Skeletons stained with the color of mold, with eyes, noses, and other facial features hollowed out. Bizarre beings that could never be seen in places where people lived together. Seeing their existence, Renie once again realized that this was truly the world of evil.

Fortunately or unfortunately, their speed was too slow. Still, thanks to running without stopping, she had already reached the very edge of the precarious path. Renie squeezed out her last bit of strength and ran without looking back.

“Haa, haa.”

Soon, when she left the path along the cliff and reached flat ground, her legs gave out and she collapsed.

“Mother, are you tired?”

Hereb, whose feet had somehow reached the ground, asked as he stroked Renie’s cheek. Feeling the inside of her throat burn painfully as if on fire, she shook her head.

“No, I’m okay.”

She forced her legs, which felt weak and didn’t have much strength left, to stand up.

The more alien things she discovered in this place, the more anxious she became. She had to get Hereb out of this world as soon as possible. This place was full of things that would corrupt him. Rather, as she faced one by one the things she hadn’t known while inside the bedroom with her own eyes, that urgency grew even more immense.

“Are we going to Mother’s world now?”

“Yes, as soon as possible…….”

As Renie hugged Hereb, who was asking quietly, again, she suddenly choked on her words.

“……He, Hereb.”

She barely regained her composure with a deep breath, but her heart began to beat with a strange rhythm again. That was because a clear red light was overflowing in his green eyes, which always cast a fresh glow towards her.

Black hair and red eyes.

The fear coming from that terribly sickening color scheme stained Renie’s spine with a chilling cold. The child’s touch stroking her cheek, however, was still warm and soft, as if nothing was wrong.

“Mother’s world is so different from here. Everywhere you look, it sparkles beautifully.”

“…….”

“So I’m curious.”

The child’s eyes were looking at her steadily as always. But the changed color, and the intense light beyond what was normal in them, created a different feeling than usual. Hereb’s chilling red eyes were too deep and distant to simply be looking at the other person.

It was as if he was staring not at her eyes, but at something beyond them……

“I wonder what it would be like if that place also changed like here.”

Strange. Why does it sound so ominous? As if he wanted to stain Renie’s ordinary world completely dark like this place.

It must be a misunderstanding. Her gentle and dull child couldn’t possibly harbor such destructive thoughts.

A misunderstanding?

A misunderstanding…… or not?

The moment she realized it, her legs had no choice but to give out again. The running had stopped long ago, so why was her heart pounding like this again? Ah, the goosebumps that made the back of her neck tingle were doing it.

She hurriedly put Hereb, whom she had been holding, down on the ground. And quickly grabbing the child’s hand, she spoke with a parched and impatient look.

“Hereb, no. You mustn’t think like that.”

“Why?”

Hereb’s eyes shone innocently like clear glass beads. However, the blood-red color painted on their surface could never be a good change. The curiosity the child was expressing now was clearly close to evil.

She had known all along that the evil that had been in the child since birth was inherent within him. Half of his blood might be human, but the other half was demonic. Renie knew very well that it was her role to manage it so that it wouldn’t leak out.

“Because you’re not a demon. You came from Mommy’s womb, an undeniable human no matter what anyone says.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Huh……?”

The child’s innocent question sounded like a thunderclap tearing her ears. Perhaps it was because it pierced her very deep inside like a dagger. Hereb pulled his hand, which was tightly held by his mother, away and stroked Renie’s cheek again.

“You tried to kill me, didn’t you?”

“…….”

“You tried to stab me with a sword, and you took medicine to get rid of me.”

“…….”

“You said I was the child of a demon, that I was terrible.”

Renie couldn’t even close her eyes and stared at Hereb. Her pale, ashen complexion, as if pushed over a cliff, spoke for her feelings.

It wasn’t hard to guess when Hereb was pointing to.

Not long after she knew she was pregnant, when Kahn found out about his existence, when she finally tried to get away from him and harm the life before her…… in any way possible.

“Were those things you did really because you thought I was the same kind of being as Mother?”

Hereb’s hand was still running across Renie’s cheek. She now properly realized the true nature of that act, which she had thought was just a habit of fondly caressing his mother.

“You…….”

The diverse world of humans, so different from this place. The actions she had taken to try and kill him while he was in her womb. There was only one reason why a child could know such things that he should never know.

Hereb was reading Renie’s memories through touch.

“What…… on earth are you…….”

What are you looking at?

How far are you seeing?

No…… while looking at that, what are you thinking?

When the thoughts that kept deepening reached that point, Renie recalled a conversation from a long, long time ago, so old and faded.

<Your Holiness. This is Gail.>

It was what Gail, who had even disguised himself as a merchant to meet her, had said after handing over the holy water.

<If, by any chance, Gail... if the being in that womb is born without being erased in the end.>

<…….>

<At the very least, we must prevent it from coming to this world. Absolutely, without fail.>

His attitude, emphasizing again and again, was as desperate as Renie’s was now.

<We are undertaking this task keeping in mind that we could very well fail. Because in the war against demons, the victory of humans is a distant prospect.>

<A distant prospect…….>

<Look. We thought Kahn’s seal had been successfully completed, but in the end, we only bought some time, and it ended in failure. That demon has broken free from the seal and is now striding through the world, spreading evil.>

<…….>

<The war against evil is just an endless defense. Blocking, blocking, and blocking again…… We have no choice but to prevent even a little bit of evil from seeping out.>

Did Gail know something back then? Was that why he placed this burden on her again? He must have predicted that he would be by the side of Kahn’s successor if it was born. So, Renie being dragged to the Demon Realm like this, living like a walking corpse……

He was right. There was no victory in the war against evil.

She knew better than anyone that demonic blood flowed within Hereb. The abnormal growth rate, different from other humans, was clear evidence that he couldn’t be an ordinary person.

Yet, she pretended not to know and stubbornly insisted that she could raise him fully as a human.

It was because Renie wanted to live. If the child grew up only on her side, she might be able to escape from here. She wanted to escape this place and return to the embrace of people like her.

Kahn, that being who was the child’s father, was disgusting and nauseating.

But that was impossible from the start.

The evil that resided within the child was not something a human like her could stop. As if proving it, Hereb defined his identity without hesitation. He was the disaster and evil that Gail had spoken of, the being that his own mother had tried to kill without fail. With the red eyes of a demon, the very thing she desperately wanted to escape……

The memory of Evreux Cathedral being swallowed whole by red flames flickered across her retina.

Without Hereb, there was no way for her to return to her world. But with Hereb…… she would end up losing even the place she could return to forever. Both that place and this place were ultimately just destruction.

“Hngh…….”

Feeling that immense despair in her heart once again, Renie had no choice but to break down.

Why does hope only come to me in this form?

Only in this fleeting form……

<We must prevent it from coming to this world.>

Her sobs grew louder as she repeated the words that crashed over her like a wave of frustration.

Meanwhile.

There was a lingering gaze watching her, who had stubbornly crossed the gray rocky path but now drooped, as if realizing that what lay at the end was yet another hell.

“As you instructed, I gave the order not to hinder her departure from this place in any way. I have also done my best to restrain the movements of the demonic creatures that infest below the cliff so that they cannot act arbitrarily.”

“Yes, now bring him back.”

Kahn, standing before the window, looked at the broken Renie and recalled a past memory. It was the moment on a rainy day when he had whispered his love to her, who was pale and looked as if she would collapse at any moment.

Even then, Renie had that look.

“She must have realized by now.”

“…….”

“How foolish. Did she really think that the efforts of a mere human could stop our true nature?”

Well, as always, that’s what’s lovable about her.

Kahn swallowed the unspoken words that didn’t need to be said and accepted the glass Biron offered.

“Hereb’s humanity must have already been devoured entirely by his evil nature. Still, it was worth hoping for. Even I was thoroughly deceived by how perfectly he fooled his mother.”

The child was clever enough to hide his evil in front of his beloved mother. But no matter how clever he was, he was still at an immature age.

A demon’s desire is fundamentally based on destroying and breaking things. There was no way a young demon could skillfully hide that instinct with prey right in front of him. For example, the instinct to want to destroy Renie’s glittering world and make it as chaotic as this place.

Renie had finally properly witnessed that secretly leaking true nature.

Kahn, running his finger along the rim of the golden glass, slowly repeated the name “Hereb.”

“Biron, do you know this?”

“…….”

“The scriptures commonly used in the human realm, they say their main purpose is to edify humans, so they’re written with nothing but good words and flattery.”

Biron gave no reply, but indicated his attentiveness by meeting his gaze.

“In their books, ‘Hereb’ is presented as a representative figure who succeeded in edification. That’s the really interesting part. Because the Hereb actually tainted by evil didn’t return to the Main God.”

“……You mean he didn’t return.”

“Hereb had two names. A human name and an evil name. His human name is obviously Hereb, and his evil name is…… Lucifer, they say.”

Biron, who had maintained a neutral expression throughout, twitched his eyebrows. He seemed to recognize the identity of the name Kahn had just uttered at once. As if to add certainty to that reaction, Kahn slightly curved the corner of his lips.

“Yes, the name of the first king who first combined with the evil that was merely wandering as a soul and established this Demon Realm.”

To give the name of such a corrupted being to his own child, whom he hoped wouldn’t become evil. Kahn couldn’t stop chuckling as he thought of his innocent and naive bride.

“Hereb has already surpassed my power. He’s a flawless talent as a kingly figure.”

“…….”

“It seems the time has come to seat Renie in the queen’s position.”

“Are you planning to hold the ceremony today?”

Kahn poured a moderate amount of liquor from the dark bottle into his glass and quietly looked down at his hand. Something flickered in the air, and soon a red line was drawn across his flat palm. Flesh split open, and blood seeped out in droplets along with black mist. He squeezed his hand tightly and wrung his fresh blood over the glass.

“Before that.”

“…….”

“I must thoroughly punish her for still harboring audacious thoughts.”

He had thought many times that this situation would arise if Hereb were to use his power for his beloved mother. Even though he had expected it, he felt uncontrollably disgusted.

The fragments of the past where she had fed him holy water with a petty trick and then fled before he could even grab her. That was why it was churning roughly in Kahn’s chest. The unpleasant feeling of Renie trying to escape him, a feeling where he couldn’t tell if his blood was boiling or freezing, was always awful.

As blood filled the glass, the contents turned reddish-black. He instructed Biron to take good care of it and then turned his feet.

His steps, going to meet his bride who had escaped from the cage he had personally locked her in, were quite impatient.