The Incubus Archduke Dreams of a Pet Human - Chapter 36

When Asmod pulled the reins again, the Nightmare gave a long cry and landed softly on the ground.

At the sight of the grass she had not seen in so long, Theticia hurriedly climbed down from the saddle and crouched. She did not care that dark stains from the grass spread across her knees.

Its task complete, the Nightmare soon vanished into the darkness.

“Wow… Lord Asmod, look at this. There are so many buds. Are these Night Trumpets? They must be, since they’re glowing.”

Eagerly, Theticia pulled out her bestiary and flipped to the marked page. Her pale blue eyes, glimmering with light, darted between the illustration and the flowers.

Standing on the grass, Asmod gave a light wave of his hand, and a picnic mat appeared.

He pulled Theticia, still curled up like a little field mouse and absorbed in her observations, and set her down on the mat.

“Sit here. Your knees are getting dirty.”

“Oh, yes! Thank you, Lord Asmod!”

She was so absorbed that her thanks came almost absently.

With a quiet snort, Asmod reclined leisurely on the mat, propping himself on one arm.

He, too, had spent the past few days infusing mana into the Blue Moon under Leshif’s command and was in need of rest.

“They really are Night Trumpets.”

Theticia’s cheerful voice rang out. Just as she said, the plateau was covered in them.

From the buds about to bloom seeped a faint blue glow, softly illuminating her innocent face.

Asmod swallowed a quiet laugh as he watched Theticia’s profile, bent over and carefully touching the bud.

‘…Does she have the memory of a fish? Or does that condition come with irresistible compulsions as well?’

Told not to touch monsters carelessly, yet she touched them anyway. The contract she made with him, and the ordeal she suffered after falling for Cellis’s trickery, all of it showed she was not particularly sharp.

There was no trace of wear or fading on Theticia’s fair face. The faint blush on her cheeks, unable to hold all her excitement, had spread to the milky nape showing between strands of gleaming hair.

“Do you like flowers that much?”

“This is all for research. It’s fascinating how they grow tangled together like vines without any support, but the direction their stems twist is different from the morning glories on the surface. It’s probably because they grow underground.”

Her voice, unusually lively and firm, answered without hesitation. When she spoke about what she liked, her words always came faster and gained a clear, steady tone.

“If I had known the Demon Realm had this many plants, even if you told me not to live here, Lord Asmod, I would have followed anyway.”

At her casual remark, Asmod’s brow lifted in mild displeasure.

“And how do you plan to cure your condition by observing plants?”

“In mythology, the first world was one, wasn’t it? When the surface and the underworld split, animals and plants changed according to their environments. That’s the accepted theory.”

“That’s true. What does that have to do with it?”

Even at his curt question, Theticia’s gaze stayed fixed on the flowers.

“You know, in the north, most rabbits have short ears and long legs. Short ears keep out the cold, and long legs keep them from sinking into the snow. In the south, where the shrubs are low, rabbits have short legs and don’t need to jump much. Only the ones adapted to their environment survive.”

In Theticia’s eyes as she spoke was a pure persistence, something close to the fervor of a mad magus or a scholar shut away in a study.

“This is a kind of case study. Animals, plants, insects, they’re all influenced by their environment. Everything is shaped the way it is for a reason.”

Her voice trailed off, tinged with faint wistfulness. As her white fingertips brushed the bud, something unfamiliar flickered in Asmod’s gaze.

“If my inability to recognize faces, and others avoiding me, were both part of adapting to survive…”

All her life she had thought being different was her fault. Perhaps it wasn’t that people looked like monsters, perhaps she was the monster.

She had fled into the forest to escape the monsters whose faces she couldn’t recognize. Among the blooming flowers and the animals, she found a fragile thread of hope.

“Maybe there’s a reason for this condition too.”

Feeling foolish the moment she said it, Theticia gave an embarrassed smile.

“…Anyway, if I can uncover that reason, it might help me find a cure.”

Light like tiny stars caught suddenly in the curve of her pale blue eyes.

“Oh, they’re blooming.”

Bathed in the Blue Moon’s light and heavy with mana, the Night Trumpets unfurled their skirt-like petals. The light blooming here and there soon brightened the plateau, whitening it like a city at night.

The mana drifting through the cool air stirred Theticia’s hair. In that glow, she shone brightly.

Incubi by nature do not dream, yet Asmod felt as if he had dreamed.