I Saved a Demon, and Now He’s After Me - Chapter 28

“Um, Eden. I don’t know if it’s okay to ask this…”

“Whatever it is, it’s fine. Go ahead.”

She quickly answered before he could even finish speaking. She was originally a woman so simple she could be called ignorant, but being drunk made that personality stand out even more. Bezel carefully grasped her hand covered in black spots.

“This curse. I was curious about how you came to have it.”

“I thought you were going to say something else.”

It seemed like it wasn’t a sensitive question as he had thought. Eden chewed on a squid leg that came as a complimentary side dish while wiggling the hand he was holding.

“Demon mischief. That’s a racial trait of those bastards, you know. They think of humans as toys.”

“Mm…”

Unable to deny it, Bezel gave an ambiguous smile that to Eden might have looked like pity.

“Seven years ago, I lost my entire family to a demon. I don’t know if I should call it lucky, but as you can see, I survived. Along with this curse.”

When working as a Hunter, she inevitably met all kinds of people. They were all curious about the curse Eden had received.

Since it was already well-known anyway, Eden had no real reason to hide her past and would tell her painful story over and over each time. So what started as a story she told while holding back tears had now gotten to the point where she could talk about it calmly as if it were someone else’s business.

After getting to this point in the story, most people ask this:

‘Why did that demon spare only Eden?’

Well. How could Eden, a human, know that evil creature’s intentions? She could only guess.

“I think he probably thought I’d die soon since I was cursed. He wanted me to slowly die in agony, suffering from the pain of my body rotting away. They enjoy that sort of thing, after all.”

But there was one thing that bastard overlooked: Eden was a freak of nature who had the strength of a grown knight since childhood.

She stubbornly survived with her strong body, enduring the curse. The only problem was that as the years piled up, the curse also gradually got worse. Just when her worries were about to grow, whether heaven helped her or not, she met this man in front of her.

Bezel treated the curse with divine power. If he just stayed by her side, not only could she get rid of the momentary pain, but she could also slow the disease’s progress far better than what the high priests had done before.

“…I don’t think so.”

It was right then that she heard something out of the blue.

“Huh?”

“I mean the curse. I don’t think it was placed on you thinking you’d die soon.”

“Oh, come on. Then what, did he do that because he wanted me to live?”

“Hard to believe, but yes. That’s what I think.”

Bezel’s voice was strangely confident. He seemed way too sure of himself, probably because he was drunk. Eden narrowed her eyes and looked at him suspiciously, but asked again as if only out of courtesy.

“What do you mean?”

“That demon also recognized Eden’s potential. Ah, this human won’t die and will survive for quite a long time. She’ll burn with resentment toward me and steadily build up her desire for revenge.”

The thumb that had been rubbing the back of her hand moved down along her fingers. Bezel grabbed the tip of her finger and pulled it toward his mouth.

“Eden became a Hunter to get revenge on that demon, right?”

“How did you…”

Human thoughts were obvious. A woman who lost her family and sought revenge on a demon. It was such a cliché subject that it would be embarrassing to write as a novel.

“The demon was probably going for that. There’s no more delicious prey than a human consumed by the desire for revenge against them.”

If he were to guess one more thing, this woman was the key that would open Marbas’s path back to Hell. A kind of guarantor to ease his mind about returning while staying in the human realm.

True to being god’s creation made most in his likeness, the human heart had tremendous power that even demons couldn’t mess with easily.

Things like parents who lost their children suddenly getting superhuman strength to strangle a demon to death with bare hands, or like this woman who beat a body-rotting curse through sheer determination to avenge her parents. Ironically, Eden herself didn’t seem to know that her being alive was also a miracle god gave to his child.

When used positively, that heart brought about miracles like those mentioned earlier, but when used negatively, it became disaster. Grief, fear, resentment, rage…. These emotions summoned malice. When such energy gathered and gathered, it would eventually open a gate to Hell.