After a quick bath, Valen wandered aimlessly through the corridors of the Demon King’s Castle. He peered into every nook and cranny, like someone searching for something.
A bad feeling was creeping over him. Aside from Argen being nowhere to be seen, the castle felt unnaturally quiet today. Normally, there would be at least one or two of those guys trailing after him, chatting away.
BOOM-!
A tremendous explosion sounded nearby. Rough like cannon fire, its bone-shaking vibration swept through the area.
Where? As Valen turned toward the sound, another explosion erupted. This time, it didn’t end with just sound. Wind surged in, and shrapnel rained down. Glass fragments whipped through the air, grazing Valen’s cheek and the back of his neck. A cold, damp wind swept through the corridors of the Demon King’s Castle.
The eastern gate? Valen leaped over the broken window and sprinted through the garden. Even before he reached it, he could see demonic beings gathering in the distance.
Day or night, ten or twelve knights guarded the gate, but now twice that number of demons were clustered together.
As Valen approached the trouble spot, one demon stepped forward to block him. “You’d be wise not to go any closer.”
Valen’s eyebrow shot up. Something must have happened. He had sensed the unusual atmosphere long before. Weren’t these the chatterboxes who loved to blab like magpies? Plenty of them would launch into lengthy explanations about unasked matters the moment they encountered Valen.
But now, unusually subdued, they all stared fixedly at one spot. Valen pushed past the demon in front and walked toward the focal point.
“Guhk, ugh…”
Between two crossed spears, a black-haired demon was bound. Kneeling, he kept spitting blood from his mouth. It was a face Valen had encountered several times before.
‘…My vacation starts in three days, my first in twenty years. I’m planning to go far away, so I’ll have to skip this year’s fireworks festival. What a pity.’
The once obliviously cheerful expression was gone, replaced by eyes dark and lifeless. This was the kind of demon Valen knew. Then, the creature slowly shifted its gaze, locking eyes with Valen. An unpleasant wind swept in from the front, enveloping his entire body.
“Brother…”
His heart sank.
‘…Leto?’
It was a voice that should never have been heard here. A crimson beam of light poured into Valen’s dilated pupils. The surroundings turned red, then were completely erased. Even the sound of wind brushing past his ears ceased entirely, creating the illusion of being plunged into the depths of the ocean.
And then-.
“Brother… I hurt…” Leto gasped in agony, desperately calling out to Valen.
The figure vomiting blood on the floor looked not like a demon, but like his own suffering younger brother.
Why was Leto in the Demon King’s Castle? His brother should have been receiving treatment from the physician sent from the royal palace by now. Moreover, he looked thinner than when Valen had last seen him before departure. His eyes were sunken and hollow, the contours of his cheekbones painfully exposed. A hand, skin stretched taut over bone, reached out toward Valen like a lifeline.
He knew it made no sense, but a foggy veil seemed to cloud his mind, making deep thought impossible. Only anxiety and fear froze his blood vessels cold.
“Brother… I hurt. I feel like I’m dying. What are you doing over there? Weren’t you supposed to protect me?”
“Leto.”
“You’re not the brother I knew… Look around. It’s swarming with the bastards who killed our parents. This isn’t the time for flirting and laughing! We need to kill every last one of them! Look at what I’ve been through while you were distracted by some woman, losing your mind! Just look at me!” Leto’s entire body shook violently, and finally, tears poured out. Leto shouted at Valen in an angry voice. His bloodshot eyes, as if they might pop out, fixed Valen with a piercing, claw-like glare.
“No. I didn’t forget you…”
“Liar.” Thick tears mingled with the blood soaking his lips. Thud. He stared blankly as they fell beneath his chin.
Valen dragged his feet, scraping the dirt as he approached Leto. A responsibility he’d momentarily forgotten weighed on his shoulders like iron. The pressure was immense, as if his bones and insides would burst.
“You haven’t thought about anything but that woman all day.”
“…That’s not true.”
“You’re the same. In the end, I’m just a nuisance to you. You’re disgusted and disillusioned by me, born a cripple who can’t even hold a sword properly. If only the money spent on my treatment weren’t there… No, if only I weren’t here, you wouldn’t have had to start this mercenary business. You wouldn’t have to endure all the scandals and taunts, or be pointed at. Right? Right?! This misery only ends when I die.”
Valen shook his head, his face looking like it might collapse any second. He’d occasionally wondered why life was so harsh, but he’d never been consumed by it. And he’d certainly never thought his misfortune was his brother’s fault.
“Be honest. Haven’t you felt a sense of relief being here?”
Really?
He needed to give his brother certainty as he asked with bloodshot eyes. But Valen’s lips froze stupidly. As if someone had grabbed his throat, words wouldn’t come out for a moment.
“Brother!!” Leto bellowed, as if vomiting everything out.
From somewhere deep inside, it had been bubbling and boiling, then exploded and collapsed with a crash. Sticky blood clung to Valen’s long, dark lashes. Valen absorbed his brother’s erupting emotions completely. His mind turned pitch black, unable to think any further.
When he came to his senses, Valen was snatching the sword from the demon standing beside him.
“No. 38, snap out of it! You mustn’t be possessed by the demonic energy!” He heard someone shouting, but the meaning of the words didn’t register. Then, an icy-cold hand seized Valen’s wrist.
“……!”
Just as he tried to violently shake it off, red eyes revealed through hair as radiant as moonlight captured his gaze. Those eyes, staring straight at him, pierced his mind. The impurities clouding his thoughts cleared, and his focus returned.
Thud.
Valen dropped the sword he had been holding. He felt cold sweat rising all over his body.“It’s fine. It was just a hallucination caused by the magic. Go back and get some sleep, and you’ll be fine.”
Argen was gripping Valen’s wrist tightly. So tightly her fingertips had turned white. The emotions that had been wildly fluctuating with anxiety were slowly settling back into place, but the words Leto had spoken in the hallucination still echoed in his mind.The one he had thought of as his brother had transformed back into a demon. He glared at Valen with eyes wide and menacing. Then the demon’s jaw snapped open, and a thick tongue shot out like a tentacle. Just as he instinctively tried to shield Argen, a dull thud echoed.
Before Valen lay the torn-off tongue, sprawled as if ripped out. Flesh, entrails, hair, and brain matter were scattered in a gruesome mess. A crushed skull and a limp, lifeless body. Tears streamed from the lifeless eyes, trickling down the nose and plopping onto the floor.
The demon stared blankly at Valen with its shattered body. It was the hollow gaze of the dead.
It was a gruesome sight.
It was commonplace on the battlefield for a comrade who had filled his belly with cold barley rice that morning to die within an hour.
Though he’d witnessed it dozens, hundreds of times, Valen strangely couldn’t tear his eyes away from this demon. A hot lump filled his chest, leaving him unable to think of anything else.
Zephyr took Argen from Valen’s arms. Argen’s face was twisted as if she were holding something back. Crimson handprints marred his wrists. She must have gripped it tightly without realising it.
“Did you kill it?” Valen asked softly, and Zephyr removed his coat to cover the demon’s severed head.
“The rampage had been going on for quite some time. It was beyond the point of intervention. Ending it instantly meant it probably didn’t feel any pain. Probably.”
“Rampage?”
“Demons possess vessels to contain their magic power. A shortage is manageable, but the moment it overflows, reason is devoured. From a certain day onward, instances began occurring where the magic power far exceeded its limit. Reason is completely annihilated, leaving only appetite, lust, the urge to kill… only beastly instincts remain.”