Corps Commander Deon Hart (4)
The Demon King's tone was as light as if he were asking about today's lunch menu.
It was so casual and nonchalant that I almost answered without thinking — but I quickly shut my mouth and took a step back.
The Demon King raised an eyebrow, as if finding my reaction odd, but this was no time to worry about that.
Every word I said could decide someone's life.
Not that I'd ever been able to speak freely since stepping foot into the Demon King's castle, but right now, more than ever, I needed to be cautious.
Seriously...
"I'm gonna lose it."
"Hm?"
"It's already been settled," I said.
The Demon King muttered something like he'd just heard something strange, but then quickly latched onto the last part.
"So, what did you decide to do?"
"We decided not to keep the plant."
"That's too lenient."
"Sorry?"
The Demon King's face twisted in dissatisfaction.
"It attacked you.
That's not something you can just brush off.
You're an important asset.
You can't afford to let anyone think lightly of you.
What if you let your guard down and actually got hurt?
Then your reputation — the one you've built up so far — would plummet.
Instead of being someone no one could ever beat, you'd start looking like someone they might be able to defeat if they tried hard enough.
And you just want to let it go?
I respect you a lot, but this? No.
At the very least, you should've chopped off its limbs."
Where do I even start?
Cutting off the gardener Hien's limbs?
Respecting me?
The words were so absurd, I could feel my blood pressure rising.
...Judging by the nosebleed dripping down, it wasn't just a feeling.
"Deamon?!"
The Demon King, flustered, tossed Hien aside and rushed toward me.
Meanwhile, Hien, who had been thrown to the ground...
"Deamon-nim!"
Why…?
Why can't you just stay down?
Determined to reach me no matter what, he rolled once on the ground like a circus performer, sprang to his feet, and started running toward me.
The ground seemed to quake under his heavy steps.
...Come to think of it, I had been dangling upside down earlier because of that damned plant.
No wonder all the blood rushed to my head.
Covering my probably disheveled lower face with a hand, I stumbled, barely managing to stay upright.
My already fragile body was burning with pain.
My eyes, scorched by fire, stung fiercely.
My vision wobbled and blurred.
And my ankle, the one that had been grabbed by the plant's vines, started throbbing belatedly.
God, this pathetic body...
"Stay... awake!"
"Deamon-nim… can you hear my voice...?"
Great.
Another kind of record broken today.
Damn it.
Through the fading sounds, I cursed my frail body and slowly let my eyes fall shut.
Just before everything went dark, I thought I heard Ben's voice from behind me.
But I didn't have time to confirm if it was real or not before everything went black.
Well, it was probably just my imagination.
Ben's quarters were a long way from here.
Even if someone had called him through a communicator, there's no way he could've made it in time.
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a very familiar ceiling.
Rolling my gaze a little, I saw the walls — giant, carefully fitted puzzle pieces framed and hung neatly.
Yup.
One hundred percent my room.
I tried to sit up without thinking but immediately curled up, letting out a short groan as a dull, aching pain surged through my entire body.
And then, from what I thought was an empty room, a familiar voice spoke.
"You'll have a hard time moving around for a while."
"...Ben?"
"Yes, Deamon-nim."
Ben, who had been sitting at a table in the middle of the room mixing medicine, pushed back his chair with a scrape and stood up.
He approached and checked my eyes, letting out a faint sigh before demonstratively lifting my arm.
My arm was wrapped thoroughly in white bandages, all the way down to the fingertips.
"Can you see this?
You've suffered minor but widespread burns across your body."
"..."
"Your eyes were also damaged a little from looking at the fire for too long. Fortunately, it's an area that can heal on its own. Otherwise, you could have suffered permanent damage."
"…Uh, hmm."
"Someone whose skin turns red after just twenty minutes of sun exposure — why in the world would you set something on fire?
If you were angry, you should have just killed the person responsible."
...Was he always this aggressive?
Wasn't he supposed to be, like, the calm and gentle type?
But now wasn't the time to comment on it.
Just look at his eyes.
They're burning even fiercer than the flames I saw in the garden.
And the emotion behind them is... anger?!
It felt a little unfair, but still — it was definitely smarter to steer the conversation away from this topic quickly.
Racking my brain desperately, I brought up a memory that had been bothering me.
That time, when I thought I heard Ben's voice.
"Ben. Back when I was having that nosebleed... Did you come to the garden?"
"Huh? Why are you suddenly asking? We even talked, didn't we?"
"…We did?"
Only after talking to Ben did I manage to piece the situation together.
In short — I had completely lost my mind.
I had been half out of it while facing the Demon King, and as a result, Hien managed to survive with all his limbs intact.
According to Ben, I had spoken boldly in front of the Demon King.
I'd said: If you respect me, could you please respect me just once more this time.
"To be exact, you first said, 'Did you say you respected me?' and when the Demon King affirmed it, you followed up with, 'Then could you please respect me just once more.'"
Then, when the Demon King asked, "Respect you how?",
I had, apparently, pointed at Hien and said, "What do you think?" — in a tone that could only be described as insolent.
(Well, the word "insolent" is something I added myself.
Ben would never have used such a rude term.)
Regardless, the fact remains: I had dared to act and speak like that in front of the Demon King.
I couldn't bring myself to openly collapse into despair.
Instead, I twitched my facial muscles into something resembling a smile and managed to squeeze out a response to Ben, who was watching me with a puzzled expression.
"…You have a good memory."
"Thank you.
But honestly, I don't think anyone present at that scene will ever forget it.
No matter how much time passes."
...Meaning it had that much impact.
Ah, I just want to be alone.
I want the world to disappear.
I quietly buried my face in the pillow.
I can't believe I pulled something so outrageous.
If I could, I would totally deny reality itself.
If I had remembered what I did, I probably would've tried everything possible to forget it.
So it's not surprising my memory cut off there.
God, I don't want to think about it anymore.
I hate even the act of remembering it.
The only small mercy was that there were very few people in the Demon King's castle who ever talked to me.
As long as I kept my mouth shut, no one would bring it up again.
…Or so I had thought.
"Mmm."
Sitting on my bed, clutching my pillow tightly, I furrowed my brow as hard as I could.
If someone saw me like this and still didn't realize I was in a foul mood, they probably didn't have the slightest bit of social awareness.
Right now, I was extremely irritated.
If anyone dared speak to me, I would glare at them with all the murderous energy I could muster — demon or not.
And why was I feeling this way?
Because those few limited people who did talk to me — every last one of them — kept bringing up what happened in the garden.
Every. Single. One.
["As you requested, I've decided to respect you and spare him."]
Even the thick-skinned Demon King who came to visit me while I was still sick.
["Deamon-nim, I'm truly grateful... and sorry for what happened back there. If it weren't for me..."]
Even Hien, the gardener who had never had an ounce of tact in the first place.
Even Ben, who came by daily to check my wounds, would slip in references to that event whenever he could.
["I'm sure many were deeply moved.
To think, you stood against the Demon King himself just to save a mere gardener."]
Did you all plan this?!
How could you all be so tactless?
Is this just a demon trait?!
"Mmmmgh."
"…Are you feeling unwell?"
"No, I'm fine."
Today again, Ben was quietly changing my bandages at my side.
Maybe it's best to just stop thinking about it.
At least lately, it seemed a little less overwhelming.
Every time I furrowed my brow, Ben's fingers would flinch slightly.
Where had all that fierce energy gone — the way he had scolded me so harshly right after I woke up from the accident?
By the way, I thought they were exaggerating when they said "full-body burns," but I really did get mild burns over my entire body.
I didn't even jump into the fire — I was just exposed to the heat for a short while, and still ended up burned.
How shameful.
If only I could forget this memory too.
No — forgetting because of the injury isn't possible, but maybe if my memory got warped and I remembered it as actually being engulfed in flames, that would be better.
At least then it wouldn't be so humiliating.
Unfortunately, no such miracle happened.
As I desperately tried to push away the shame by thinking about other things, a question I'd had for a while suddenly popped into my mind.
"…By the way, Ben."
"Yes?"
"The room you stay in… it's pretty far from the west garden, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is."
"Then how did you manage to get to where I was so quickly?"
Now that I thought about it, it was strange.
Ever since the day I handed in my resignation to the Demon King, whenever something seemed off with my body — an injury or otherwise — Ben would show up like a ghost, almost instantly.
At the time, I thought maybe I was imagining it.
But after seeing him appear so quickly in the garden... it clearly wasn't just my imagination.
I looked at Ben, my gaze full of obvious suspicion.
Ben blinked a few times, seemingly a little uneasy under my stare, then gave a small, harmless-looking smile and pulled off the necklace hanging around his neck, holding it out to me.
"It's because of this."
It was a necklace with a coin-sized stone threaded onto it, radiating a strange light.
At first glance, it looked like a simple, roughly-made ornament, but there was something about it that drew the eye in an odd way — not something you could easily dismiss as just a gem.
I'd definitely seen it somewhere before.
...Ah.
"A mana stone?"
"Yes. It contains a few drops of your blood, along with a spell from the Demon King.
Whenever the quality, speed, or flow of your blood becomes abnormal, it sends a signal.
We took all sorts of precautions so that something like last time would never happen again."
By "last time," he probably meant the time I coughed up blood in front of the Demon King.
It wasn't necessary, really...
Apparently, it even tells him my exact location.
Ben was trying to act like it wasn't a big deal, but I could clearly see the pride in his face, and I couldn't bring myself to say anything harsh.
Instead, I grumbled to myself in my head:
"You crazy bastard. When did you even get my blood?!"
Since I stayed silent, the room naturally fell into a quiet stillness.
It could have gotten awkward, but Ben smoothly changed the subject, shifting the atmosphere.
"Will you be eating in your room again today?"
"Well… as usual…"
"I never told you to stay lying in bed all day."
He was right.
It had already been three days — three whole days where I hadn't left my room even once.
Honestly, that was how I normally spent my days in the Demon King's castle, but Ben clearly wasn't happy about it.
While busily finishing up the bandages, he spoke in a firm voice that didn't leave much room for argument.
"I checked the menu at the division commanders' dining hall today. It's not bad."
"I'm a patient…"
"The burns were minor to begin with.
Besides, I personally requested the best medicine from the Demon King, made from only the finest ingredients.
You should be almost completely healed by now.
Your eyes have recovered, and the ankle you scraped against the stem — you should be able to run on it without any pain."
"…"
Everything he said was true, so I had no counterargument.
And in that moment, I understood something about Ben — the "switch" that flipped his normally calm demeanor into blunt, relentless lecturing.
Health.
His sense of duty was seriously next-level.
Getting angry not over insults, or pride, but over health problems — honestly, it was a little touching.
Of course, it's not like he's doing this because he likes me or is worried about me — he's just following the Demon King's orders faithfully.
But still, it kind of moved me.
...Even if it was still incredibly annoying.
Pouting, I got up from the bed.
"I'm going to change, so could you please step outside?"
"Thank you for granting my impudent request."
Even at the end, he bowed and maintained perfect manners before leaving.
Seriously, how can you hate someone like that?
And he definitely knows it too.
Grumbling internally, I opened the wardrobe.
A neat row of clothes hung inside.
All of them had been provided by either the Demon King or the Second Division Commander.
It made sense for the Demon King, but why the hell was the Second Division Commander so obsessed with dressing me up?
Admittedly, he always picked clothes that suited me ridiculously well.
But I still had no intention of giving in easily.
The moment I wore them once, he'd latch onto me and insist on picking out even more clothes.
Shuddering at the thought, I shoved aside the clothes the Second Division Commander had picked and pulled out something from the Demon King's selection instead.