Chapter 76
“I’ll make you super rich, Daddy!!! When Bunny grows up big time!!!”
At the child’s innocent words, spoken with sparkling eyes and a wide smile, a faint curve graced Kiriel’s lips.
“That sounds promising. And let’s make one more promise with Daddy.”
“Yesh!”
“No more keeping secrets from Daddy from now on.”
At Kiriel’s words, Bunny’s eyes went wide.
Gasp.
Bunny, who had clapped her hand over her mouth, fidgeted her fingers a little before opening her mouth in the tiniest voice.
“That Bunny is actually a child demon who dreams of being the Demon King instead of a great mage…?”
Kiriel’s steps halted abruptly at her whisper, her lips pressed close to his ear as if sharing a grave secret.
“Demon King?”
“Yesh…”
Kiriel blinked once at Bunny’s out-of-nowhere declaration, then furrowed his brow.
‘Is it like how human children want to be heroes when they’re young?’
Seeing a child demon wasn’t an everyday occurrence for Kiriel either. For that matter, ‘child demons’ themselves were rare.
He’d heard it was because they were a race that didn’t know love and surrendered to pleasure, so properly raising a born child wasn’t common.
“…As your father, I’m not so sure about the Demon King bit. And you can’t tell this to anyone but me.”
“Yesh.”
Kiriel let out a sigh as he held Bunny in his arms.
“Clean up.”
At his command to the empty air, people wearing pure white masks and black robes appeared without a sound.
“Wooow…”
Daddy really is super cool.
Bunny kicked her legs excitedly and giggled, then began eagerly recounting everything the bad uncles had done.
“Alright, Daddy will punish them.”
After he nodded along and responded, she soon fell asleep in his arms.
[A familiar presence.]
The moment the child’s head lolled as she drifted off, a voice suddenly pierced his mind, and Kiriel slowly raised his head.
A massive azure dragon with a body floating in the air was languidly circling him, following along leisurely.
The divine beast, Azure Dragon.
Covered head to tail in blue scales, it was a being that commanded water. And as one of the highest divine beasts, it could even communicate telepathically.
“A familiar presence?”
[Yes, one I felt a very, very long time ago. I never thought I’d encounter such a being again…]
“Are you talking about a demon?”
At Kiriel’s question, the azure dragon gazed at him with an inscrutable look in its eyes.
As the silence stretched, Kiriel’s eyes narrowed.
[I see. So your kind doesn’t know of such existences. Time has truly passed.]
The azure dragon’s voice echoed softly in his mind.
[It’s true demons are hard to come by, but this is far rarer. You might learn of it if you trace back your ducal family’s origins.]
Kiriel’s eyes narrowed further at the azure dragon’s words, which were so profound they bordered on incomprehensible.
The azure dragon suddenly thrust its face forward and gently rubbed the tip of its nose against the back of Bunny’s head.
Whether sniffing her scent or savoring her warmth, it acted like a spoiled beast for a long while before finally pulling back.
Even Kiriel froze at the bizarre reaction from the azure dragon, which always carried itself with such lofty dignity as if to proclaim its greatness.
“What are you doing?”
[A phoenix has been born. It returns once more. The era of gold and verdant green.]
Murmuring those cryptic words, the azure dragon soon vanished.
Kiriel, brow furrowed, gazed down at Bunny’s face as she breathed softly like an unsoiled child.
After a long silence, he finally left the dank underground.
Not long after, the next day’s newspaper blared headlines about a massive fire in the vicinity.
“Tch, what an annoyance.”
The red-haired man licked his lower lip as he stared at Bunny, carried away in Kiriel’s arms.
“It’s a problem if you keep being this lenient.”
He didn’t know what Luriel had seen in Bunny or what she was scheming to arrange…
It was too soft.
Excessively soft.
If she stayed under the protection of this Yudia Ducal Family of humans like this, she would never become a proper Demon King.
The seed was undoubtedly excellent. But if he watched any longer, it would absorb useless influences.
“This won’t do.”
The Demon King was the heart of the Demon Realm.
The source of the demon race’s power.
Only by completing her awakening as the Demon King could the demons regain their original strength and exact revenge by sowing chaos and disorder once more in this tiresome human world.
The Demon Realm was the night sky, and the Demon King was the moon.
And they were the beings that filled and orbited that night sky densely.
‘If only I could put her in an even more extreme situation…’
A situation she couldn’t endure without rampaging.
What the Demon King needed were dark, profound emotions.
Resentment, hatred, pain, rage.
Such emotions would make their king strong. And the king forged that way would become the great king of the Demon Realm.
Belial licked his lower lip languidly, his eyes curving as he smiled in utter ecstasy.
“Luriel, you’re wrong. Growing up among humans won’t bring the king happiness.”
If left like this, she’d only pick up pointless emotions and suffer when she became the Demon King.
The Demon King had no need for such trivial feelings.
But he would mold that young seed into an exemplary Demon King.
A Demon King stronger and more powerful than any other.
“She has the potential.”
He’d realized it in that moment when she’d warned him before.
She possessed the qualities of a king. That was why the previous Demon King had gone to such lengths to save her.
Luriel’s desperate protection must have been due to that uniqueness too.
If that seed bloomed splendidly, overthrowing the human world and claiming it for them wouldn’t be hard.
A world where only the strong survived.
A world of the law of the jungle.
A world where flowing blood and pleasure were the most beautiful things.
“Ahh, just imagining it drives me mad.”
His back prickled, and pleasure coursed along his spine, making his body tremble finely as he smiled in rapture.
“You must become a perfect king who will never fall again.”
Not like the previous Demon King… who foolishly fell for a human.
Not like their beautiful yet idiotic previous Demon King, who was so enamored with a human hero that she could no longer swing her sword at humans, plunging the demon race into such misery.
“No, letting her be a bit happier for now isn’t bad either.”
Despair would cut deepest when she was at her happiest.
She was too young anyway. Despite her exceptional qualities, it would be better after she matured a little more than in her current immature state.
When that time came…
Heh.
Belial’s eyes rolled back in ecstasy, his lips splitting into a grotesque grin.
That would be the time to harvest the perfectly ripened fruit.
“Hey, Barian. What’re you doing up there? The captain’s calling.”
“Aah~! Sorryyy~!!! I was just so, so, so worried about the young miss.”
At the sudden voice from below, Barian flashed a bright smile as if nothing had happened, waved his hand like he was missing a screw, hopped down, and rejoined the knights.
For now, it was time to hold his breath completely.
