Chapter 1
On the day I quit my job and was heading home, an old book suddenly fell from the sky – right in front of me. It almost hit me on the head. At first, I wondered if it was one of those once-trendy black notebooks where you write someone’s name and they die. But upon closer inspection, it turned out to be just a children’s fairy tale book.
Still, I couldn’t just ignore it. My curiosity was too strong.
I mean, who wouldn’t be curious if a fairy tale book suddenly fell from the sky? It felt like something truly special was about to happen. A tiny tremor of excitement fluttered in my chest. I headed straight back to my one-room apartment, didn’t even bother changing clothes, and flopped down on my mattress to open the book.
Despite its childish and clumsy illustrations, like something drawn in an elementary school diary, the story was incredibly gruesome.
“Is this one of those grimm fairy tales for adults or something?” I wondered.
I kept reading, caught up in the strange tale, until I reached the end that has no meaning at all.
It was absurd, really. The kind of story that left you thinking, ‘What on earth did I just read?’
And as I mumbled a short comment to myself, something unexpected happened. A glowing, mystical pattern appeared on the not-so-spacious floor. It looked exactly like the symbol on the book’s cover.
“Wow…”
I blinked, dumbfounded, and let out an involuntary gasp of amazement. I even thought, Isn’t this exactly like a magic circle from a fairy tale? And just as that thought occurred to me, the circle began to expand – slowly enveloping me in its bright light.
As my body shimmered and turned into sparkling white dust, disappearing into thin air, I realized something.
“What the… what the hell is this…?”
Something had gone terribly wrong.
***
Once upon a time, long, long ago….
The sky split open with a deafening crack, and from it descended a Demon King, cloaked in darkness from head to toe.
“Hhm… So this is the human world?”
The sudden appearance of the Demon King, like a natural disaster, struck fear into humanity. People trembled and cried out to the gods.
Please, protect us from this evil!
Please, save us from the cruel hands of the Demon King!
A whole day passed since the Demon King descended upon the human realm. Oddly, he hadn’t done anything dangerous yet. Still, perhaps moved by humanity’s desperate prayers, the gods sent forth a Hero, and a Resistance was formed to defeat the Demon King.
“How dull.”
But the so-called Hero and his band were easily defeated by a lazy yawn and a mere snap of the Demon King’s fingers. Of course they would be obviously defeated since the Demon King was overwhelmingly powerful.
Again and again, heroes and warriors rose against him, but all their efforts ended in failure. Every plan they made crumbled to dust.
“This place is boring too.”
The Demon King was disappointed. He had come to the human world expecting something entertaining, but the humans were just like the demons in the underworld but they were too scared to even meet his gaze.
Losing interest, the Demon King wandered the continent.
But every place was the same.
Even the supposedly fearsome beasts and monsters turned out to be rejects from the demon world.
No one could alleviate his boredom.
By the time he had wandered through three human springs, he realized that this world wasn’t any different from the demon realm. That’s when he saw her.
She was the wife of the Hero who had been defeated over and over by the Demon King’s mere snap. The Demon King recalled that the Hero was the only one who had brought him even a sliver of amusement.
“Where’s that Hero?”
The Hero’s wife answered, “My husband was killed by human hands. They said a chosen Hero couldn’t possibly lose to the Demon King, so he must’ve been a fraud. They claimed he fabricated the divine prophecy and would suffer divine punishment. But he… he was truly chosen by the gods. Tell me, was my husband… a fake Hero?”
“No. He was real.”
“Then why did he lose to you?”
“Because I’m stronger.”
The Demon King answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. And he wasn’t wrong. There was no sneer in his voice, rather just sheer, unapologetic arrogance.
The Hero’s wife laughed.
The Demon King found it curious. No human had ever laughed in front of him before.
“You’re right. You were stronger. So of course he could’ve lost…”
“Losing was only natural.”
“You let him live, didn’t you?”
“I heard humans grow stronger. I thought if I let him go, he’d come back even stronger.”
“Maybe he would have… But he was stoned to death by humans before that could happen.”
The Demon King stared at the Hero’s wife. He sensed something in her calm presence, as she gently held her belly, something far stronger than the collective fear of thousands of humans.
Negative emotion: the Demon King’s source of power.
Which was rage.
“Do you want revenge against the ones who killed the Hero?”
“Would you do it for me?”
“I find myself… amused by it.”
“I thought you had no interest in killing humans?”
“But I do find human contracts interesting.”
The Demon King found himself oddly delighted by this woman who didn’t avert her eyes. It was the first joy he’d felt since coming to the human world and it didn’t come from bloodshed. But he quickly sensed a hesitation buried within her quiet rage, and that made him lose interest again.
That’s when he noticed that unlike the others, she was cradling her belly.
“What are you hiding in there?”
“.. .A child.”
“I see. Humans carry their children inside them?” The Demon King was curious.
Demons were born from the Demon Tree in the underworld thus they had no concept of pregnancy, more less to have knowledge about pregnancy humans go through. He had never seen birth like this just opened his eyes one day and was standing before the Demon Tree.
“Is that why you hesitate?” He tilted his head as he asked.
“Yes. Because of the child.”
“Is the child more important than revenge?”
“It’s our child; mine and his.”
“What difference does that make?”
“It’s my only remaining connection to him. And… if I make a contract with you for revenge, won’t I die?”
The Demon King nodded. “Yes. Humans are weak. They can only pay the price with their lives.”
“If I die… the child will be left alone.”
After saying that, the Hero’s wife never mentioned revenge again. The Demon King didn’t understand why being alone was such a problem. Demons were born alone so the thought of ‘parents’ was never in their dictionary.
Still, he was intrigued. The child had restrained a rage more potent than tens of thousands of terrified humans.
“When will it come out?”
“It’ll be a little while longer. It’s not fully grown yet.”
“Will your belly get bigger?”
“Probably.”
The Hero’s wife gently stroked her still-slim belly and smiled softly. It was such a contrast from the quiet fury she had shown earlier that the Demon King found himself intrigued again.
He thought,
Being with this woman is actually kind of fun.
From that day on, the Demon King waited for the child to be born. Every day, he visited the hut hidden deep in the forest where the Hero’s wife was hiding.
“Has it come out yet?”
“It’s still far away.”
Then suddenly a question occurred to him. The warrior’s wife was human, but she lived away from humans. The Demon King couldn’t understand why she was living like that. They were both humans.
But he didn’t ask her. He just assumed that it was probably because of the warrior who died from being hit by a rock. More than that, the Demon King was more curious about the child.
That’s why he brought her food that humans could eat whenever he visited the hut so that she wouldn’t starve to death. He didn’t want the unfortunate event of the wife dying and not being able to see the child.
The wife sometimes looked at the Demon King’s kindness with indescribable eyes, but she didn’t refuse the food the Demon King brought her. Every day, the Demon King waited for the child to come out.
“Has it come out?”
“Not yet… But I think it’ll come out soon. She moves around a lot these days and kicks her feet a lot.”
“Kicking her feet? Inside your belly?”
“Yes… would you like to touch it?”
Looking at the bulging belly that seemed to suffocate the woman if she lay down, the Demon King placed his hand on the soft belly as the Hero’s Wife told him to. The soft human flesh that seemed like it would burst with a pop if he put strength into his fingers felt a little strange.
The Demon King had to be very careful not to burst it.
“It moved.”
“It kicked.”
“The thing inside kicked me?”
“Is that possible? If so… this child will be the first human child to kick the Demon King.”
The Hero’s Wife smiled gently and stroked the bulging belly as if she was proud of the child. The Demon King still felt a little bad about that behavior, but he felt a little bad about it. It was clear that just a few months ago, that smile had been quite enjoyable.
That’s why he didn’t visit the cabin for about a week.
From the moment he met the hero’s wife, he visited the cabin every day, so it was the first time he had been away for a week. Because he had been away, the Demon King realized one thing.
Sometimes it’s better to see her face even when he’s in a bad mood. When he didn’t see her, he got even more irritated, and he almost wiped out the entire neighboring kingdom. Without further delay, the Demon King went back to the cabin in the forest where the hero’s wife was staying.
However, the cabin, which was usually filled with the warm smell of sunlight, had become cold. On top of that, the pungent smell of blood that was so unpleasantly stung his nose made him frown.
The hero’s wife, who was struggling to get up while supporting her bulging belly and saying, “Are you home?” was nowhere to be seen.
He had told her that it was okay to skip the special greeting because she was walking unsteadily, but he felt bad for hearing nothing from that woman. The Demon King tilted his head, knowing that his heart was beating strangely, and went out to find the hero’s wife.
Soon, he found the warrior’s wife lying not far away. Her belly, which had been swollen to the point of bursting, had become as thin as when he first saw her.
The Demon King approached the warrior’s wife, who was covered in blood, and asked her the same question he had been asking for months.
“Is that little human out?”
