Chapter 76
“Just because.”
“What?”
“This is my job. Do you really need some grand reason to do something like this?”
It was the kind of answer only a demon would give. And it was the truth.
There was no grand reason. He only needed a gift to give you.
“…P-Please stop! The rabbit is suffering. It’s badly hurt… At this rate, it’ll die soon. Please, let it go.”
“Why should I?”
At that time, I think I found you so adorable, straining your neck and sputtering with anger, that I wanted to see more of it. So I gave you that teasing reply.
“Everything that breathes dies anyway. Especially things as weak as this. They’re meant to be trampled.”
“……”
You had no answer to that. I thought that was the end of it. But Prina, you gave me a response I never imagined.
“Still… No one is born just to die.”
You insisted that with care, it could live, that it didn’t deserve to suffer. You begged me, desperately, to release the poor rabbit. Your pale face grew even paler, your whole body trembling without you even realizing it. A pitiful sight. That you would give your heart to something so weak. If I were to become weak, I wondered, would you show me the same mercy?
You were so adorable in your struggle, so precious, that I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Your name.”
Prina. Perhaps, at that moment, I wanted to hear it from your own lips—your small voice, your beautiful mouth. I wanted you to tell me yourself.
“Say it. If you say it, I’ll give this to you!”
Say I am Prina. Say I am yours.
For that one phrase, I shook the familiar as though I were being generous. To a demon, a familiar is a disposable thing, but made in this shape, even humans found it pitiable.
“…Prina.”
At last, with a frail, trembling voice.
“My name is Prina.”
You gave me your name.
Prina. Prina. Prina…
No matter how many times I repeated it, it tickled me, it pleased me.
To the girl with the beautiful name, I handed the familiar as though giving her a stuffed toy rabbit. The familiar would follow her, becoming my eyes and ears.
“Well? Do you like it?”
Prina gave no answer, only trembling eyes.
“Hmm? Prina.”
Clutching the rabbit tightly in her arms, Prina ran with all her might without even looking back.
After that, you gave my familiar the name ‘Lucky’, meaning fortune.
Because that pitiful creature became the fortune that tied you and me together, I liked it.
* * *
A demon’s contract must always be fulfilled.
For the vengeance of Prina’s birth mother, Bianca de White.
And for my perfect union with Prina.
I had already put several devices in place. I let slip to the king that Prina had grown into a great beauty, and tampered with the stepmother’s enchanted mirror so that she withered day by day.
At last, Bianca de White’s wish was granted. True to his nature, the king extended his vile hands toward Prina, and her stepmother, realizing it, tried to snatch Prina away and kill her.
I simply watched that farce unfold, and in the end, I was able to take Prina easily.
Of course, because of that wretched little ant of a knight, there was almost an unfortunate incident. But I shot him down in time, and carried the unconscious Prina to the mansion I had prepared.
Burning with fever, you asked me.
‘…Could he be a hunter?’
Such a ridiculous question.
‘I… I’m sorry for misunderstanding. Mr. Hunter!’
It wasn’t a misunderstanding. Yet you, too kind, apologized of your own accord. You could barely hold up your head, swaying, and it was laughable.
I drew a bath with warm water and washed you, soaked from the rain, as I held you.
Your black hair clung heavy with rain.
Perhaps even on a clear day, you would feel as though it were cloudy and raining. From the moment you were born to come to me, your life was destined to be so.
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