Chapter 38
Chapter 38
Sylvanas approached me with a soft smile, as if he had expected all this to happen.
“Are you hurt anywhere? Are you hungry?”
His questions and the gentle look in his eyes as he examined me were kind.
Was he someone familiar with situations like this? He looked so gentle, maybe he truly went around doing good.
Regnator’s words about short-lived humans came to mind.
I licked my lips, parched with thirst, as I studied his oddly familiar face.
“You must be thirsty.”
“…”
“Here, drink this. It’s clean water, you’ll be fine.”
I didn’t hesitate. I drank the water Sylvanas handed me. It tasted different from the water I used to drink in the Demon Realm, but it was cool enough to wet my dry throat. I brought the remaining water to Derion’s lips, his body burning with fever and unconscious.
He didn’t move, didn’t even have the strength to drink.
Feeling the boiling heat of his skin, I desperately wanted to help him drink something. I tried to pry his mouth open, but with this child’s body, I wasn’t strong enough.
“Is the puppy hurt?”
Sylvanas asked quietly as he noticed my struggle.
“May I take a look?”
Despite the tight space inside the straw pile, Silvanus sat nearby, unfazed, and began to examine Derion for me. When he tried to lift Derion’s eyelids, I hurriedly pulled him close and hugged him tightly.
“No! Don’ttt!”
“…His body temperature is very high. Did he eat something bad, maybe?”
I shook my head firmly in response. Even though I obviously avoided his touch, Sylvanas didn’t press the matter or seem upset.
‘He’s definitely going to die young, just like Regnator said.’
If Derion’s eyelids were lifted, the red of his eyes would reveal the truth, he was a beast, a magical beast. In the Demon Realm, black hair and red eyes were the traits of a demon.
There were many different races in the human world, each with their own traits, so humans here could identify others just by appearance. Demonic beings always had red eyes.
I hadn’t really noticed it before, being surrounded by red-eyed demons, but now, faced with Sylvanas and Laurence, I understood it clearly. Watching me struggle to answer, Sylvanas offered a comforting smile.
“I don’t have any medicine for puppy, but… I do have some fever reducers. Would you like to try this?”
“…”
Sylvanas rummaged through a small pouch on his belt and pulled out a bottle of pills. They were fever reducers meant for humans.
‘But Derion’s not just a dog… He’s a beast. Would this even be okay?’
I hesitated. If I knew the cause of the fever, I could try something more appropriate.
But without knowing anything, I couldn’t make a clear decision. Was it the poison from Lukevart? Or the mysterious spring water?
Or maybe it was because Derion, a mutated beast, had crossed into the human world.
‘The human world has much weaker magic concentration than the Demon Realm. That might be it.’
I gently pressed my ear to Derion’s chest, confirming again that his heart was still beating. But even that faint beat felt like it could stop at any moment. That fear made the decision easier.
As I accepted the medicine, Sylvanas said kindly:
“Let me help you.”
Seeing I couldn’t even get water into Derion’s mouth, Sylvanas offered to assist. He gently opened Derion’s mouth and poured in the fever reducer.
Then, holding his mouth shut, we heard a soft gulp. Whether it would be medicine or poison, I didn’t know. But doing something felt better than nothing.
‘It won’t be poison. I’ve never heard that human medicine harms demons.’
It was nothing major, but after resolving it, the tension in my shoulders finally released.
“Little one, what’s your name?”
“…Bellra.”
“Bellra?”
“Nooo… Bellaaa!”
“Bella?”
“Mmhm.”
Sylvanas smiled warmly, “All right, Bella. For now… shall we get out of here?”
He suggested we leave the straw pile. Honestly, it was hot and stuffy, so I nodded. Still cradling the unconscious Derion, I crawled out of the narrow space.
Sylvanas watched me with curiosity and asked in a puzzled tone,
“By the way, I swear I’ve seen you somewhere before. Do you know your parents’ names?”
Once we got into the open, the view brightened. As I dusted off my clothes, I hesitated at his question.
My parents’ names…
Should I say Lucifer? Or give the name of the mother I’d only seen in dreams?
Honestly, I only knew my mother’s name. My father was always just ‘the Hero.’
‘I only heard her name once… when Lucifer said it out loud.’
The storybooks I’d read, the dreams I’d seen, they were never very helpful. Should I name the mother who gave birth to me, or the one raising me now?
But before I could answer, Sylvanas’s loud exclamation blew away my thoughts.
“Bella! Your eyes!”
He suddenly dashed toward me, and I froze. His voice, so calm until now, suddenly filled with excitement. Even Lawrence, who had been lazily chewing something against a wall, flinched at the volume.
He looked at me and showed the same shocked expression as Sylvanas.
‘Wh-What’s wrong with my eyes?!’
The dull senses I had ignored all this time suddenly sharpened with panic. Did Lucifer’s dormant power awaken and change the color of my eyes to red?!
“They’re blue!”
Oh.
It wasn’t that. Wow, my imagination is really something. Haha. I really need to stop thinking nonsense. Still, I tilted my head. Why were they surprised by blue?
Wasn’t blue a common eye color?
Regnator once said that in the human world, blue eyes were fairly common.
“What, is that why the kid was abandoned?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen blue eyes this clear… The last time was… Brother Arthur.”
Sylvanus looked at me with distant, emotional eyes then furrowed his brows. His serious expression tugged at something inside me. Especially when he smiled earlier, he reminded me of someone.
There were only a few faces I’d seen often enough to feel familiar with.
So why did he seem so familiar?
As I narrowed my eyes in thought, I suddenly realized.
Oh no.
“…So that’s why your face looked familiar.”
“…”
Gulp. My throat went dry.
Could it really be him? Now that I thought about it, the conversation began… it really connected to me.
“You look a lot like Brother Arthur.”
“What? So this brat is the Hero’s kid?”
“…”
“She looks at least three years old. That means the kid was born four years ago, right? That was when we were deep in the war against the Demon King, wasn’t it?”
“…But his sister, back then…”
Sylvanas looked completely shaken as he held his head.
“So what? Maybe he had another lover or something.”
“Arthur would never do that!”
Disgusted by even the suggestion, Sylvanas scowled fiercely. Lawrence, amused, smirked at the juicy drama.
“Then what’s with this kid? She looks a lot like the Hero to me, too.”
Thump.
My heart dropped into my stomach and beat wildly. I rolled my eyes and read the mood. This was bad, really bad. They were about to realize that I was the Hero’s daughter.
Sylvanas, this man who looked so much like my mother. He had to be her younger brother which makes him my uncle. They looked so similar, like someone copy-pasted the same face!
And I didn’t even recognize him at first. What an idiot I am.
To meet my uncle in a place like this…
Suddenly, all those words about fate and connection he mumbled earlier started to sound real.
‘Stay calm. Pretend you know nothing.’
Meeting my uncle now was the worst timing. If I got dragged away now, it would be a disaster. Sylvanas, clearly a priest of the temple, would definitely clash with Lucifer when he eventually came for me.
And honestly, I had no intention of going with him.
Yes, I wanted to live in the human world but that was with my family, the ones I’d been with until now. Not some uncle I met today.
I blinked innocently and tilted my head.
“Wh,whaat?”
Putting on my best ‘I don’t know anything~’ face, I shrank back like I was scared of their reactions. My acting must’ve been so good that even Sylvanas calmed down a little, though his face remained troubled.
“If she really is Arthur’s daughter… then that hair color… it’s impossible.”
“Right, that color means she’s from Inpethera.”
“Yeah. Anyone born in the cursed land of Inpetera, or affected by its corruption, ended up with black hair.”
Sylvanas stared at the black hair peeking out from under my bonnet and shook his head.
“My sister had a baby just a year ago. If that’s true, she should only be one year old now. No way she could grow this fast.”
“Maybe she cheated. Heroes are still human, right?”
“Arthur would never do that. I know him better than anyone, he would never betray my sister.”
At Sylvanas’s firm rebuttal, Laurence shrugged.
His body language and smirking face said: ‘People are unpredictable. Maybe it was just a moment of weakness.’
==
TN: What Lawrence said was right, a moment of weakness could lead to a greatest regret. What do you think guys?
