Chapter 2
The Demon King asked his usual question, and the Hero’s wife gave a faint smile but this time, her answer was different.
“… It’s born.”
“Where is it?”
“The hu… humans… took it.”
“Why?”
“Because… they think it’s… your child, Demon King.”
The Demon King didn’t understand what she meant. Floating cross-legged in midair, he tilted his head, thinking once again that humans were an incomprehensible species.
Just then, the Hero’s wife, struggling to breathe and barely able to open her eyes, spoke again.
“…Demon King… I cannot… make a contract with you. My life… is already gone. The gods… have called my soul.”
“Do you want revenge?”
It was the same question he had once asked before and been refused. Now, she gave a different answer, with a smile the Demon King still couldn’t read.
“No… I want to make… a different kind of contract…”
“But you have nothing left to offer me.”
“…I’ll give you… the child.”
“The one that just came out of your belly?”
“Yes… the brave child… who kicked you from the inside.”
“Hm.”
The Demon King hesitated for a moment. The Hero’s wife and the child shared blood, and the newborn life had more value than a worn-out adult human.
So he asked,
“What is your wish?”
At that moment, a red symbol appeared on the back of her hand, the sign of the contract. The Hero’s wife still smiled faintly, even with the scent of death clinging to her. The unborn child that had once kicked the Demon King in the belly… All of it sparked a small flicker of interest in him.
It had been a while since he felt this spark just enough to make his heart beat slightly with excitement.
As if she knew the Demon King would accept, the Hero’s wife slowly opened her eyes and spoke:
“Please protect the child.”
“That’s the price you already paid.”
“But… that was my wish… from the start.”
With those words, the Hero’s wife stopped breathing. She didn’t even close her eyes, she died with that same mysterious smile on her face. The Demon King slowly rose to his feet, furrowing his brow. The Hero’s wife was already dead, so no new wishes could be made and the contract had been sealed.
With a sigh of mild annoyance at the vague deal, the Demon King focused on the child that was both the payment and the wish. It had been a spontaneous, whimsical contract. Still, he decided to find the child that had come from the womb.
***
“Is that really the Demon King’s child?”
“No doubt! I saw that woman with him!”
“My word, just like the wife of that fake Hero! Still, can you believe it? Sleeping with that disgusting Demon King?”
“Who knows? Let’s just move fast.”
The Demon King quickly found the baby. The baby was wrapped in a bloodstained cloth, the tiny life gave off the same presence he had felt in the womb. The humans nearby were rambling on, but he simply flicked his finger—pop!—and they burst into nothingness.
At the same time, he snatched the falling bundle from midair.
“Let’s see the face of the brat who dared to kick me.”
Peeling away the cloth, he found a wrinkly newborn with crimson skin and unusual pitch-black hair. It was black, an uncommon color among humans – a mark of demon blood. Before he could even be intrigued by the odd appearance, he noticed the child was barely breathing. The child was on the brink of death.
If left like this, the baby would surely die. Remembering the wish of the Hero’s wife, the Demon King lifted the child into the air and gently breathed a sliver of his power into it.
“Open your eyes, you arrogant little thing.”
The baby, who had been barely alive, suddenly took a huge breath and burst into loud wails. A fragile human infant, one that might’ve crumbled into dust from just a hint of his killing intent.
Yet it cried with all its strength and that stirred something in the Demon King. It wasn’t quite joy. Not exactly curious either. The Demon King didn’t yet understand what this feeling was.
He only hoped that, in this endless passage of time, this child would bring him a new kind of amusement. After all, it carried the blood of a god-chosen Hero and of a woman who had entertained him for over a year.
“I won’t be bored, at least.”
The Demon King tucked the crying child under his arm like a bundle, wrapped in its blanket. Even that had to be done gently like when he had touched the Hero’s wife’s belly.
Humans required far too much care, really.
He thought he’d need a basket to carry the baby around. And with that, he slowly began to walk. Each step he took made the heavens split and the earth tremble. And just like that, the Demon King’s short-lived amusement in the human world came to an end.
***
I blinked, recalling the contents of the fairy tale book that had fallen from the sky. The dream I just had… felt like a live-action version of the story I’d just read. It was so vivid, so real, that at first, I didn’t even think it was a dream.
But when I saw the Demon King’s back disappearing into the sky’s rift, a blinding shock hit me.
My head spun, my stomach turned and then I woke up with a jolt. Right in front of me, I saw the face of the Demon King; the very same one who had shown me that dramatic exit into the heavens.
His vivid red eyes stared directly into mine, so close I thought my heart might really stop.
No joke.
For real.
I finally understood what people meant by being so shocked they couldn’t even scream. My lips twitched as I tried to say something, anything but I couldn’t.
And then… It hit me.
The Hero’s child who survived thanks to a flimsy contract with the Demon King…
That was me.
‘So… what the hell is going on here?’
Was this a tragic Hero’s tale? Or a demon’s delightfully terrifying summer vacation in the human world? Either way, the Hero’s child had ended up in the hands of their natural enemy, the Demon King.
‘And that child is me!’
It was like being struck by lightning.
No, worse.
Why? I was just an ordinary Korean office worker, stuck in the nonsense of corporate life. I’d finally worked up the courage to quit and was taking one day off. All I wanted was to be a lazy homebody who didn’t go outside much!
I screamed at the sky in my mind but all that came out was a powerful baby’s cry.
“Waaaaaaah!”
It was the kind of cry that could lead armies and it drew a sharp, burning gaze. I shivered; a cold sweat ran down my spine. But thankfully, I had the body of a newborn. No embarrassing physical reaction… except for one.
‘This warm, spreading sensation down there… no way…’
My mind was spiraling, but my body felt strangely relieved and comfortable. I trembled.
And realized nso easily what exactly had just happened. My thirty-year-old dignity was in shambles. If I could crawl into a hole and disappear, I would. Even just my face!
Please, someone, please tell me I didn’t just pee myself.
A red-haired man who had been watching me intently finally spoke in an absurdly calm voice:
“Lord Luchifel, it appears the human child has… had an accident.”
I tightly closed my eyes in embarrassment. At this age, I was scared and peed myself!
“Hmm.”
Then, the eyes of the Demon King, who had been observing me in the same way, slowly slid down from my face. The name of that fiercely handsome Demon King must have been ‘Lucifer.’
His terrifying presence made my body feel heavy as if I had entered a space with ten times the gravity.
‘Ugh, this is simply death for me!’
I thought I understood why the weak humans trembled and were afraid just by the presence of the Demon King. He may not have intended it, but humans could not handle such a powerful energy. I couldn’t understand how I could feel, understand, and endure it, but that’s how it was!
Lucifer looked at the damp blanket, tilted his head, and said.
“Can’t a human child even poop or pee on their own?”
Don’t say that! Don’t use the words poop or pee! I couldn’t help but cry because of the awkward feeling between my legs. If I just stayed still, they wouldn’t change my damp blanket. It was just too awkward.
I thought I knew why babies were crying so much for their diapers to be changed.
If only I could talk.
I opened my barely open eyes and looked at Lucifer who was still staring at me. Just like in my dream, I could clearly see his black hair that seemed to melt the darkness and his red eyes that looked like two drops of blood had fallen on the white snow.
His jade-like skin was so similar to the pure white snow that it looked even more like that.
‘He’s so damn handsome.’
That’s why he’s the Demon King. Of course, you wouldn’t choose the Demon King based on his face, but the Demon Clan was a race that pursued beauty along with strength.
Of course, I couldn’t figure out how he knew this. Strangely enough, it came to my mind as if it were common sense, just ‘naturally’.
So I knew. ‘Demon King’ Lucifer wasn’t just that strong, as he was lightly written about in fairy tales.
‘He must be incredibly strong, because in the book, he solved everything by snapping his fingers.’
I thought he should be renamed ‘Finger Strongest’ instead of ‘Demon King.’ Of course, I didn’t actually see him fight. However, the last scene in the book I read was the Demon King killing a human who had kidnapped a child by blowing him up like an ant.
So I wondered what on earth that incredibly strong Demon King would do by bringing me to the Demon World, but he had already been quietly observing me for three days.
I don’t know when I became a child, but judging from what the red-haired man was saying, he had been sleeping for several days straight since coming to the Demon World, so I think I must have entered the body of a child during that time.
Anyway, thanks to that, I was able to have time to calmly organize my thoughts about the current situation.
“Is this all you can do, crying like this every day?”
“I think it’s because you haven’t learned a language yet. It’s probably a silent request to change your clothes since you were rude.”
“You kicked me, and now you’re ordering me around?”
“Should I kill you?”
“Hmm.”
No, no, no.
An order? Redhead! I didn’t see you like that! Are you saying this because this weak human child peed her pants once?
It wasn’t even pants in the first place. You’re killing me for being rude on this rough and scratchy blanket!
As I cried even louder in frustration, the Demon King Lucifer furrowed his eyebrows and turned around.
“That’s enough. Go out.”
“Yes.”
This may have been his whim, but he didn’t seem to have the heart to kill me yet.
I am living.
I almost died the moment I entered this body just because I peed once.
As I sobbed and shed tears in sorrow, Lucifer tilted his head and said.
“A living creature that can’t do anything on its own except breathe and cry.”
