Chapter 14
Chapter 14
If she could, she would’ve cleaned out his ears. No, maybe it wasn’t that he couldn’t understand her words but that he literally couldn’t see the situation, so perhaps she needed to wash out his eyes instead.
Quivering with fury, she stole another glance at the ‘baby food’ that Regnator had brought.
“Dear god…”
She hadn’t seen it wrong. The baby food was horrifying. No, calling it baby food felt like an insult to the concept of food. She had absolutely no desire to know what the hell it even was.
The slimy pink substance, half-solid and half-liquid, squirmed unsettlingly, making her squeeze her eyes shut again.
‘Dear gods, please let it be a hallucination.’
She found herself desperately missing Lucifer, who always stepped away around this time claiming he had ‘duties’ to attend to.
‘Lady Bella, here you go.’
Regnator even placed a spoon which was about the size of her hand into her grip. She was perfectly capable of holding a spoon at this point, but to clearly show her rejection, she deliberately let it fall onto the table.
Unfortunately, it just looked like she had no strength and accidentally dropped it.
“Do you not even have the strength to hold a spoon?”
“…”
“It’s because you’ve only been drinking human milk. If you keep that up, you’ll never have the strength to lift a spoon. I’ve prepared something nutritious, please try it. After eating this, you’ll be able to lift a spoon with just one finger!”
She had absolutely zero desire to lift a spoon the size of her hand with one finger.
It looked terrible, but given how earnestly he wanted her to eat it, maybe it was a well-known nutritional food in the Demon Realm.
‘Do demons seriously eat… stuff like that?’
If that was considered baby food, what kind of grotesque things did they eat as staples? She’d never seen Lucifer or Regnator eat anything, so she really had no idea.
Regnator, tireless as ever, once again tried to place the spoon in her hand.
Clink—
This time, she outright tossed it back on the table. Regnator’s usual bright smile froze.
His previously soft and silly eyes now turned cold and terrifying, giving her chills.
“A-awuu…”
She made baby noises to express that she wouldn’t eat, though obviously, Regnator couldn’t understand her. He always had a smiling face when looking at her, so this sudden stern expression was frankly frightening.
“Lady Bella.”
“……”
His quiet voice made her flinch, “Could it be… you don’t want to eat it?”
His voice, unusually low, made her already tiny courage shrink even further. Honestly, she was scared. Today, he wasn’t acting silly and was even dressed normally for once.
Maybe that’s why he looked even colder.
His red hair and eyes seemed especially blood-like. Surely it was just her fear exaggerating things, but still. Then, it suddenly hit her that Regnator was a demon capable of handling corpses.
She was so tense, her throat was dry. It felt like she might become a corpse in his hands at this rate.
“What’s going on now?”
If Lucifel hadn’t shown up just then like a savior, she might’ve passed out with her eyes rolled back.
‘I was so scared I almost died!’
She could feel cold sweat dripping down her back. Her palms were soaked with sweat from clenching them too tightly. She quietly exhaled a sigh of relief.
Even after Lucifer arrived, Regnator didn’t relax his expression.
Lucifel, who never gave a damn about Regnator’s mood, raised an eyebrow at the sight of the thing placed in front of Bella.
“What’s this supposed to be?”
“It’s baby food. I thought it was time for Lady Bella to start eating solids.”
“She doesn’t even have a single tooth.”
“If you mash it well enough, she won’t need to chew.”
“Hmm. And this…?”
“I found something similar.”
At Regnator’s overly enthusiastic explanation, Lucifer crossed his arms and tilted his head.
“Are you trying to feed her a Hirpus tongue?”
‘… Excuse me? What?!’
Upon hearing what that wiggly substance actually was, Bella’s vision went white. Horrified, she stared at Regnator. He answered with a straight face, as if it were no big deal.
“Yes. It’s soft enough that it doesn’t need to be mashed. It’s fine, she won’t need to chew. It had to be from a naturally deceased Hirpus, so it was difficult to obtain but it’s said to significantly increase magical power and improve health.”
She remembered him saying earlier that if she ate it, she could lift a spoon with one finger. After feeding her Hirpus blood disguised as milk, now he was trying to feed her this as baby food?
What baby eats roasted intestines?! What do you mean, tongue?! Unbelievable!
Did he really think this was baby food? I
t might be a demon thing, but did he forget I am a human?
“You actually believed that ridiculous rumor?”
“Was it not true?”
“Just a baseless myth.”
“That’s a shame… I went through a lot to get it.”
Regnator shrugged his shoulders as if genuinely disappointed.
“More importantly, would you eat that?”
“Of course not. Just looking at it makes me nauseous. A Hirpus tongue… what kind of demon even thinks of something like that?”
“You bastard—!”
“Lady Bella didn’t seem to want it either, so I was just wondering how to dispose of it.”
So in the end, he didn’t even want to eat it himself, yet he brought it for her? She’d thought he was mad at her for refusing it but what a misunderstanding.
Even if that hadn’t been a misunderstanding, she wasn’t afraid of Regnator anymore. She was now furious.
He didn’t even want to eat it himself but kept forcing the spoon into her hand?
Trash. Actual trash.
‘One day… I swear I’ll smack him in the back of the head. No—twice!’
While she trembled from a vague sense of betrayal, Regnator once again misinterpreted it for something else and calmly retrieved the horrific bowl from the cute little table.
Even he seemed to find the appearance unappetizing and furrowed his brow.
“I’ve heard from Mors that some demons actually enjoy this…”
Lucifel scoffed openly.
“You believe him? Out of all people?”
She’d never met this demon ‘Mors,’ but from Lucifer’s tone alone, she could tell exactly what kind of person he was.
Regnator continued to frown at the bowl with clear dissatisfaction.
He must’ve been frustrated that his efforts had gone to waste.
‘Tch. Like I’m going to forgive you just because of that.’
She felt no gratitude at all for Regnator’s trouble in obtaining something supposedly rare. She turned her head away in disdain.
“Then should I bring some Hirpus tendons next? There’s a fresh corpse in storage.”
“……”
“You liked the blood, so maybe you’d enjoy the liver or–”
“Aaawwu!”
She slammed her tiny palms on the table to shut him up. His words were rotting her ears. What kind of creature was this Hirpus that demons could eat its entire body, blood to bones?
‘Is it like… a pig? Or maybe a cow?’
Thinking about it that way, it didn’t seem entirely impossible.
In any case, she offered silent condolences to the poor creature sacrificed to Regnator’s culinary delusions.
And then, she lifted her arms toward Lucifel.
“Abuu! Abuu!”
She had no idea what she was saying, but Lucifer raised an eyebrow, uncrossed his arms, and picked her up.
“Are you whining because you’re hungry?”
Regnator jumped in, eyes shining.
“Oh? Would you like some more baby food? Shall I bring some?”
‘Dear gods, someone please get rid of this guy…’
* * *
Since that day, Regnator kept bringing bowls filled with all kinds of grotesque monstrosities, calling them ‘baby food.’
It was an invisible war.
Some of them looked halfway decent, but the trauma from day one was too strong so she didn’t eat a single bite. It became an endless back-and-forth battle of nerves.
Usually, it ended with Regnator kneeling before her, begging while she completely ignored the food.
Eventually, Lucifer couldn’t stand the sight anymore, picked up the spoon himself, and fed her directly.
And so, the war on baby food came to a close. It had been a hard-fought campaign.
She’d overturned and thrown the bowl multiple times.
Every time, Regnator’s face would harden though she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, the cold sweat down her back was real.
‘You bastard…’
Now, though, it all felt like distant history. Despite having done nothing but eat, sleep, and poop, time had flown by.
She was now six months old.
‘Yeah… I’ve made it this far.’
She felt proud of herself for surviving without breaking a bone or facing death. Lately, she’d been focused on learning how to walk.
Was this even the right age to start walking? She wasn’t sure. But since nothing around her was remotely normal, what was the point of clinging to a ‘normal’ timeline?
She had learned to compromise with reality.
Or rather, she’d had to. There was a fundamental fear that if she didn’t grow and develop quickly, she might die.
It wasn’t that she was afraid of being killed by Lucifer or Regnator.
It was their absurd, bizarre ideas of ‘human parenting’ that terrified her. Since she couldn’t talk yet and correct them, she had no choice but to grow fast and endure.
“You can do it, Lady Bella! You’ve got this!”
As she focused all her strength into her trembling legs to balance, Regnator cheered loudly from the side. Clenching his fists in support, he hadn’t acted silly once since that baby food fiasco.
He said something about how she’d finally ‘opened her eyes,’ though she still had no clue what that meant. Turning her gaze back to the floor, she tensed her wobbly legs again.
Lucifer sat silently on the sofa, brow furrowed as if trying to burn the moment into his brain. Apparently, he had heard somewhere that human babies’ first steps had to be witnessed by their parents.
Ever since she began practicing walking, Lucifer hadn’t left her side.
His determination to witness her first step was intense.
‘That expectant look is a bit much… but…’
Oddly enough, she didn’t hate it. Encouraged by the affection in their gazes, she reignited her resolve.
Pouring all her strength into her shaking legs…
She finally took her first step.
