Chapter 4
She raised her head.
Her gaze traveled up—a long way up—along a robe made of beast hide and gray fur before she realized that cold gray pupils were fixed on her.
She blinked her own blue eyes and thought.
‘I feel like I’ve seen him before… who is it?’
Eyes as beautiful and chill as a wolf’s.
As if spellbound by those eyes, transparent like glass beads, she stared. He slowly detached his gaze first, turned to the boy, and asked.
“What are you doing here?”
A chilling bass tone, like iron scraping against a cave wall.
Already bound by his uncle’s demonic power and suspended slightly in the air, Igor thrashed in irritation and answered.
“Ugh… Uncle, let me down. You’re ruining the Grand Duke’s dignity. There are eyes watching, you know.”
At those words, the gray pupils rolled slowly back toward her.
Having risen to her feet by then and patting the snow off her palms, Eredite watched the situation with keen interest.
‘Uncle? Then this must be the Demon King.’
It seemed that even though her memories had vanished, the unerasable truths of this world—its order, its fundamental theorems—remained intact in her head.
The fact that he had unified all nine demon kingdoms and risen as the supreme power on the continent surfaced instantly in her mind.
Eredite awkwardly clutched the hem of her skirt and offered a greeting to the great emperor.
“Great black-winged Demon King of the Exus Continent—oh! Great Emperor, I behold your radiant and noble visage.”
Having said it, Eredite marveled at herself.
“I’m quite… well-versed in etiquette, it seems…?”
At the words she unconsciously let slip, Igor, still suspended in the air, clutched his stomach and laughed. Yet he didn’t forget to make an excuse on her behalf.
“She used to see him occasionally, that’s why. Right, Uncle? But ‘radiant’—what’s that? Kyak-kya-kya!”
In Roan, ruled by the celestial bloodline, the epithet ‘radiant’ was customarily included in salutations to a sovereign, but not here in the lands of the demons.
Finding this hilarious, Igor couldn’t help himself and cackled, looking back and forth between his uncle and Eredite.
But even while watching Igor repeatedly wink one eye at the Demon King, she couldn’t ponder their collusion too deeply.
Nor could she realize that his earlier warning to hide and avoid his uncle contradicted the fabricated excuse that she ‘used to see him occasionally.’
She was simply glad to have properly greeted a terrifying being.
This was unavoidable—with Eredite’s memories erased, her intellect had dropped a notch as well.
In any case, the Demon King Laegar looked down at her with an expressionless gaze as she stood there clutching her skirt and beaming brightly.
* * *
A moment later.
Glancing at the woman gathering silver leaves in the distance, Laegar raised an eyebrow at his nephew.
Now the time for Igor’s explanation had come.
The boy folded his cunning eyes into a sly curve, shrugged his shoulders, and explained.
“Well… how should I put it…. She’s a different race from us, so it was interesting… and she didn’t seem dead, so I picked her up and saved her.”
Laegar’s brow twitched minutely.
Igor clasped his hands together as if pleading and tried to persuade his uncle.
“Look at that, Uncle. Isn’t it amazing that she survived with your feather stuck in her head?”
At that, Laegar turned his head to look at the woman.
She was hopping around on the snow like a child, gathering all sorts of curious things.
“I had a mage find out! Your feather only sealed parts like Lucy’s ‘spirit’ and ‘discernment’! So her personality’s probably changed a bit. And of course, I neatly erased all her memories of the Kingdom of Roan as a finishing touch! Hehe.”
Having gotten a fun new toy, the little demon Igor scattered a demon’s characteristic screeching laughter into the air.
Laegar quietly gazed at his nephew, a creature who lived solely for pranks.
As someone afflicted with depression himself, he simply could not follow the boy’s emotional wavelength. He wanted to ask why he lived like that, but even parting his lips felt bothersome.
“Ah, anyway, let me down, Uncle. I promised to go hunt baby unicorns with Lucy. I swear I’ll finish today’s studies when I get back in the evening!”
Igor began to thrash in the air, gnashing his teeth. Sharp fangs glinted rebelliously, but the Demon King wasn’t looking.
His gaze had already drifted to the woman running toward him, collected berries perched in her palm.
“Look at this!”
The woman, who had been dashing over innocently, unaware she was in enemy territory, tripped on her skirt and tumbled face-first into the snow.
But she got right up, briskly dusted off her clothes, and approached Laegar without hesitation, proudly showing him what was in her hands.
They said her discernment was sealed—she seemed to have lost her fear as well.
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