Chapter 43
“Bunny, no take-backs on getting married, okay?”
“Mmm.”
Roel beamed radiantly as he scooped Bunny up and pulled her straight into his arms.
It looked a bit burdensome somehow, a nine-year-old hugging a four-year-old like that.
“Mmm. Bunny no say two words… excellent…”
Bunny swallowed hard.
“…human. Big boss, Bunny’s.”
Having successfully lied that she was human, Bunny rubbed under her nose.
“Yeah, you’re Bunny’s. And I’m Roel. From now on, call me Roel.”
“Noel.”
“No. Ro. El.”
“Mmm. No. El.”
“Hmm, not used to the pronunciation yet? It’ll get better as you hear it.”
The demon tongue-like language he’d heard back then had sounded quite clear.
‘Bunny really must be a demon, huh?’
Her speech was strangely slurred, the grammar off, the word order wrong.
And above all, those unique words he’d heard then.
Still, it was a little strange that she didn’t have any demon traits.
There was something else odd.
Summoning a divine beast meant she had holy power, but how was that possible?
Black hair and red eyes.
All demons bore those ominous colors. And they were infinitely vulnerable to holy power.
Yet she was staying at the Yudia Ducal Family, surrounded by barriers of holy power, which meant that holy power had no effect on her whatsoever.
‘Doesn’t matter.’
He was going to become hers anyway.
He had wished dozens, hundreds, thousands of times.
If someone would just free him from that hellish agony, he’d do anything.
That day, Bunny’s appearance had been salvation itself.
Whether demon or not didn’t matter. What mattered was only the fact that Bunny had saved him.
He had been saved.
In that cold, chilly, eerie abyss somewhere unknown, he had simply wandered endlessly without even realizing his legs hurt.
Sleep brought that hell, and waking brought another hell in reality.
Cursed, he had lost the golden hair and golden eyes symbolic of the imperial family, and people shunned and avoided him.
As if he carried a contagious disease, they dodged him, recoiled from him, stared at him with cold eyes.
He knew. Everyone thought of him as a dying man on borrowed time.
He knew. His father the Emperor had already brought his cousin into the Imperial Palace as a replacement.
His father was the Emperor.
An Emperor who could not simply be one man’s parent.
He knew it was the appropriate measure. Even so… it felt like everyone was treating him like he was already dead when he wasn’t, and his insides twisted over it time and again.
He knew.
He knew everything.
Even Roel himself had been living only waiting for death.
But… the moment a small hand touched him, warm with gentle heat, all the pain he’d endured seemed to vanish like a dream.
More precisely, it felt like it was being sucked into somewhere.
At the end of that hellish abyss, Roel saw.
In the center of the pitch-black void that seemed to hold solitude, despair, and the cold of hell, standing tall and shining vividly—a certain woman.
Jet-black hair.
Twisted grotesquely upward from her head in dark-red horns.
Enormous wings spread behind her back.
And sparkling deep pink eyes.
Would the Demon King from the rumors look just like that?
In the midst of the darkness, her singular shining beauty stole Roel’s gaze before he knew it.
‘Who is she?’
The moment he thought that, the woman’s gaze met his.
She reached out a hand, and Roel felt the sensation of the ground beneath him bursting open as he plummeted downward.
As he fell into that deep pit, Roel saw.
“I just… I just wanted to be happy too. I wanted to be loved too. You said you’d protect me… Why me… why, why, why me……”
A girl who looked about thirteen standing tall in some ruined place, her face expressionless as tears dripped from dead eyes.
Her water-blue hair half-stained black, her pink eyes half-dyed red and flickering.
That hollow gaze looked just like the woman he’d met above…
‘I don’t want to see her cry…’
The thought struck him suddenly.
Whether dream or unconscious, or perhaps a future glimpse, he didn’t know.
The Rotis Empire had been founded in ancient times by the golden dragon, and legend said its imperial blood still flowed in the royals.
Thus, occasionally, some among the imperial family were born with time-sight.
Through dreams, sometimes seeing events yet to happen, or peeking at things already past.
He didn’t know if that time-sight had manifested in him. It could just be a dream born from extreme exhaustion.
Even so, Roel wanted to go to that woman’s side in that empty place.
He wanted to comfort the crying girl up close, watch over the girl stomping her feet with a bright smile. So…
If what he’d seen was a future that would come someday… Roel wanted to be by her side.
Even if this little child was a demon, what of it?
The pain and agony that no amount of pleading or wailing into the void had made anyone acknowledge—this child alone had acknowledged it.
His cries, ignored even when he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in—Bunny alone had listened.
“Now all better.”
She had granted his unfulfilled wish.
Without Bunny, he surely would have died. Without a miracle, it definitely would have happened.
“Bunny.”
“Mmm?”
“Thank you.”
At Roel’s words, Bunny blinked her clear eyes a couple times and broke into a wide smile. Her chubby cheeks stood out in that adorable grin.
“Daddy!”
“Bunny, time to go. It’s getting too late.”
Kiriel entered the room with a tired face and said. Something hadn’t gone well; his expression was dark. His neatly combed hair was a total mess.
“Daddy not shiny.”
After scanning Kiriel’s disheveled appearance, Bunny’s assessment made him pause and chuckle.
His daughter really had a talent for making him laugh. The mood that had plummeted to rock bottom lifted right back up the moment he held this soft, baby-scented bundle in his arms.
‘Is this why people raise kids?’
Thinking that, he patted her back a couple times.
“Daddy. Bunny marry you.”
At his daughter’s bolt-from-the-blue declaration, Kiriel’s face stiffened completely.
“…Marry? With who?”
“With human big boss.”
As Bunny pointed at the Crown Prince with her finger, Roel, who had been talking with the Emperor who’d arrived with Kiriel, grinned widely.
“Human big boss say Bunny’s.”
“…Our daughter’s got quite the sense of humor.”
“Huh?”
Kiriel glanced at Roel and the Emperor.
The Emperor, already having heard the story, wore a pleased smile tugging at his lips.
“Enough joking around. Let’s go now.”
Pretending he hadn’t heard a thing, Kiriel turned away.
“Ah, little Duchess. I forgot to mention. As thanks for saving Roel’s life, I’d like to give you something you want. Anything at all.”
At the Emperor’s words, Bunny’s eyes went wide.
‘The human realm!’
Bunny was going to become the great Demon King who conquered the human realm, so it’d be good to stock up in advance.
“Bunny want hu…!”
Wait.
Wouldn’t it be dangerous to say human realm right now?
They might figure out she was the great aspiring Demon King and the human big boss might turn her to dust.
Bunny clamped her mouth shut and put strength into her eyes again.
“Hu?”
The Emperor tilted his head.
Bunny rolled her eyes around, then met Kiriel’s gaze and froze.
‘Bunny, be filial.’
Heh heh.
Bunny grinned.
“A pretty mommy just like big brother hu…!”
Bunny thrust her thumb up toward Kiriel and shouted.
Crack.
The air froze solid in an instant.
