Chapter 1

1. Calves Trembling Like a Lamb

"Love is like a dog."

I don't remember when, but my eldest sister said that to me.

The elegant curse was just funny to me back then.

"Don't just laugh, little one. It could be your story too."

My second sister stroked my hair and whispered elegantly.

The seven sisters were close, but I always fought with my second sister. Maybe it was because my second sister's tone was so rude.

"Especially don't fall in love with human men. They'll use their charming faces and cunning tongues to try to take everything from you. Before you know it, you'll have given them all your money, your body, and your dreams. And you'll still be smiling like an idiot."

My third sister gave the longest and most serious advice.

Of course, I just brushed it off.

There was no real reason.

At the time, I was still young, and there were more fun things in the world than men.

And above all… my sisters' failures were not my failures.

'Ah, if only I had known… I should have listened.'

Was that a flashback?

I spat out a lump of black blood and blinked laboriously. Then, the blurry vision cleared for a moment.

But I knew very well that this was just a brief phenomenon that came just before death.

The candle that is about to go out burns the brightest as it consumes the wick.

I looked down at the sword that had mercilessly pierced my chest and pierced through the wall of some house.

Sliding my gaze from the solemn murder weapon wrapped in sacred radiance, I saw a hand so beautiful and neat that it was hard to believe it belonged to a man.

It was his… the one I had held hands with as we entered the wedding hall just this morning.

My husband's hand.

In an instant, thick veins popped out on the back of the hand holding the hilt.

As if displeased with the dying wife's gaze, he soon twisted the blade.

"Keuh…!"

Crack. Even though the surroundings were noisy with the screams of dying people, the sound of my spine breaking was loud within me.

It was the very moment my sisters had warned me about.

The moment of bitter betrayal.

Black blood gushed out again. At the end of extreme pain, I couldn't feel anything anymore.

"...Why did you come all the way down here, dear?"

The detestable man knelt on one knee on the floor stained with my blood.

As if he still loved the one who had become his wife, even after making her look so miserable, tears of blood with a strong fishy smell streamed down his cheeks. It was a ridiculous sight.

"I told you… to wait at home. If you had, I… wouldn't have had to kill you."

Ha!

I wanted to laugh sharply, but I was frustrated that I couldn't. My body temperature was rapidly dropping. There was no way to revive my body.

'How could I not have known? How!'

That you were the leader of the Crusade!

A buzzing sound rang in my ears. It was as if someone was cutting off my head and rolling it in a rotten wine barrel.

I loved him madly.

I still remember the wheat ripening into gold and the slightly chilly, cool air. The tall, clear autumn sky. The shepherd standing blankly, staring at the white daytime moon.

He was flustered, unable to control the flock of sheep with a staff as tall as himself.

"Um, thank you."

When I, unable to watch any longer, caught the lamb that had run away under the ditch and gave it to him, he smiled shyly and bowed his head.

Then his straw hat fell off his head… revealing hair of platinum that was as brilliant as the waves of swaying grain.

That was the moment.

The youngest of the seven Monarchs of the Demon Realm, the cruel King Astaroth who ruled the lowest level of hell, fell in love from which she could not escape.

I took the clumsy shepherd to heart. Through him, I learned the preciousness of human beings and the value of life. I also learned to cherish the weak without despising them.

It was an act that was not suitable for a demon, but I didn't care.

If I could make the man, who lived a life as short as a flash compared to my life, happy, I could do anything.

My sisters warned me that I was losing myself. They advised me that a proper demon would not settle down, that it was right to have many lovers and reign over them, but I did not listen.

Rather, I got very angry and even cut off contact, telling them not to interfere.

Then finally… I wanted to live like a human!

Foolishly, I wanted to get married, have children, and raise them. I wanted to leave his traces in the name of children.

But ordinariness was just an illusion for a demon, and his love was stinking garbage.

Foolish hope blinded my eyes and blocked my ears. It made me see only what I wanted to see and hear only what I wanted to hear.

This death now was the price of a clichéd love.

"Enrique!"

It was then.

A human woman with a sorrowful beauty ran from somewhere and hugged his back tightly.

Lovely pink hair, like the spirit of spring, scattered loosely in the air.

With a body so slender that it seemed like it wouldn't even fill a handful, the woman shed tears in torrents.

…I didn't know who she was.

"Oh, my poor Enrique! My love. You've had a hard time, haven't you?"

"…Helene."

"It's okay. You did well. If you take this demon's corpse, His Majesty will surely make you the Crown Prince!"

Information about my husband that I didn't know poured out of the woman's mouth like a newly bloomed flower.

It was shocking that he was a Crusade with the power to kill demons, but a prince? My life was needed to become the Crown Prince.

'I don't know such a man.'

The one I loved was a shepherd.

A clumsy and innocent man who couldn't even take care of a single lamb properly.

'I was deceived. I was completely deceived. It was a planned approach from the beginning.'

Knowing that I often appeared in that area, you…

You thoroughly concealed your Demonic Power and waited.

A sense of futility swept over my body.

As I chuckled in disbelief, the woman who peeked out from behind him widened her eyes.

Seeing that, all I could do was utter a bitter curse.

"I curse you, Enrique! Every moment I loved you is a disgrace to me!"

Ah, my vision is blurring just from shouting a little.

So this is what death is like.

"I curse…"

Rage rose as if my soul had been thrown into a pit of fire, but my dry lips closed before they could even utter the last word.

In an instant, I saw his lips trembling as if he wanted to say something to me. No, I couldn't see. My vision flickered. My life was fading.

"It's your fault. For making me kill you…"

His last words were nothing more than dust.

That's how I died in vain.

Wearing the wedding dress I had dreamed of with excitement, on my first night.

It was the day the sun fell in my world.

* * *

How much time had passed since then?

"The snowstorm stopped yesterday, so the weather is nice today."

When I faintly regained consciousness, the first thing I heard was a low bass voice.

Even before opening my eyes, it was clear that it belonged to a young man.

"Doesn't Your Majesty like the scenery filled with pure white snow? That's right, if you wake up now, I'll make a snowman for you. How about it?"

Rustle.

The sound of the curtain covering the window being drawn followed the kind tone.

Soon, sunlight so intense that it felt pure white rushed at my eyes.

"……!"

I felt nauseous. I gasped and curled up, embracing the pain spreading throughout my body.

'What… what happened? I definitely died…'

Clenching my teeth, I very slowly awakened the senses of my body.

First, from the tips of my cold toes. Then, my calves trembling like a lamb… my thighs.

It didn't take long to grasp every corner of my body, rising to the vicinity of my heart, where blood should be circulating.

"If you open your eyes, I will carry you on my back and take you beyond the back garden. You always asked me to do that, but I was disloyal and never did it."

Ah, it hurts. I felt nauseous and dizzy.

It was because the state of my body was so bad. As if someone would break it as it is if they touch it.

'It's like a glass craft that's already cracked.'

After a long time of gasping for breath, I was finally able to slowly lift my eyelids.

'Who is that? I don't recognize his face.'

A ceiling with magnificent paintings. A crystal chandelier so dazzling it hurt my eyes. And below that… a muscular, tall royal guard.

'Could it be, a Crusade?'

Caution rose sharply along with the undiminished anger.

Forcibly raising my body, I reached out my Demonic Power to grab his neck.

"……."

But nothing happened.

It was the same no matter how many times I waved my hand.

'What's wrong? Why… why isn't Demonic Power being generated?'

As I stiffened in panic, the royal guard made eye contact with me.

"……Empress?"

Short gray hair and gray eyes looked as if he had scooped up a handful of winter and molded it into a person.

His sharp nose gave a fairly sturdy and stubborn impression, but his eyes, distorted as if he would cry at any moment, also showed a submissive side.

The royal guard froze for a moment when he saw me.

Frankly, he looked so surprised that he seemed to be out of breath.

"Are you, are you awake! Empress!"

Soon, the royal guard exclaimed in surprise and came to my bedside, kneeling on one knee.

Thump!

The sight reminded me of my end, and I immediately felt nauseous.

"Ugh…!"

"Doctor! Bring a doctor in immediately! The Empress has regained consciousness!"

Empress?

Who on earth are they talking about?