About a month later, having only left behind the smell of bad bread and ran off as he pleased, Xion showed up again as he pleased, without notice.
Reinhild, who had just changed clothes and was getting ready to sleep, stared in puzzlement at Xion’s face poking out of the secret passage.
‘I didn’t even send a signal. Why did he come?’
Today he hadn’t sent so much as a single monster, let alone any demonfolk.
What on earth had he mistaken to come here?
Reinhild quietly waited for an explanation, but Xion didn’t say a word.
‘Is he still mad because I didn’t eat the bread?’
Truly a narrow-minded hero.
But contrary to Reinhild’s guess, Xion wasn’t choosing not to speak—he couldn’t.
Reinhild always timed things for when Xion would come and waited wearing splendid, trailing clothes befitting the Demon King’s dignity. Even though he never took a single step outside the room, he had his body tightly wrapped up in thick garments.
With Reinhild standing there wearing nothing but a single thin scrap of cloth, Xion couldn’t pull himself together.
In the end, Reinhild decided to interpret Xion’s silence however he pleased.
“A duel at this hour? How diligent of you.”
He yawned as he recited a line he felt sounded suitably dignified.
To come at bedtime… This generation’s hero was not only frail but even lacked a sense of time.
“Rein, what is that outfit…?”
“If you come at bedtime, of course I’m going to be in sleepwear.”
“At this hour?”
As if to confirm the time, Xion pulled open the tightly drawn curtains. Blazing sunlight poured through the gap.
Reinhild squinted and backed away, as if he might melt away upon touching the light.
“I apologize for disturbing your sleep, but could you spare me a moment, Rein?”
Sleep or Xion…
If he had to choose one, of course it was sleep.
If you don’t sleep, even a Demon King grows tired and exhausted. Conversely, if Xion isn’t around, nothing goes wrong with his body.
But sleep, which he could enjoy every day, versus Xion, whom he could see once every three months…
Thinking of it that way made the choice a little harder.
After seriously mulling it over, Reinhild made up his mind.
“Fine, if it’s just a moment.”
Let’s at least hear what he has to say.
Since at the last meeting he’d left without even a proper goodbye, he could spare at least this much time.
“I’ve brought lunch prepared for you, Rein.”
“Did you make it yourself?”
“Yes.”
Ah, he wanted to tell him to go home.
Should he just send him back and go to sleep?
While he was debating whether it would be faster to kick Xion out or to run away himself, lunch was already set.
Xion placed the dishes he’d brought on the table and arranged the food neatly on them.
It was his ambitiously prepared secret weapon.
Turned away after offering a tasting, Xion had gone straight back and spent the entire month preparing for this day. He even returned to the ducal castle, where he hadn’t sent so much as a letter since becoming the hero, in order to properly learn to cook.
The Duke of West flew into a rage upon hearing that the hero who should be locked in fierce battle with the Demon King was in the kitchen trimming ingredients, but Xion, as always, ignored him.
Compared to the training into which he had poured himself such as physical conditioning, swordsmanship, mana control, and practical combat, Xion devoted himself to cooking with such single-mindedness that those efforts looked like nothing.
And on the very day he finally produced a result he could be satisfied with, Xion forgot the promise to visit only once every three months and headed to the Demon King’s castle with the carefully prepared food.
“It’s ready, Rein.”
“…”
Thick chicken breast, deboned and deeply scored, with thin-sliced squash, tomato, bell pepper, and onion tucked into the cuts, covered with a thin layer of cheese and baked in the oven.
Xion had brought this as the main dish.
First of all, the fact that it was a “healthy dish” only pretending to be meat was quite displeasing.
Was he really telling the Demon King to eat this now?
Even if his lifespan dropped from seven hundred years to around six hundred fifty, Reinhild wanted to eat foods that destroyed his health.
‘I don’t want to eat this.’
If he refused again, Xion would probably leave again, right? Maybe because he was still young, Xion got sulky over small things.
With the solemn expression of a demonfolk sprinkled with holy water, Reinhild put the chicken in his mouth.
“Huh, it’s good?”
How could this be? What on earth had happened to Xion in the short span of a month?
How could he make a dish that looked so unappetizing actually taste good?
Eyes shining, Reinhild looked at Xion. As if he’d been waiting for it, Xion held out bread.
It had been carried in a basket under a temperature-preservation enchantment, warm as if freshly made.
“It’ll taste even better together.”
Just as Xion said.
“Did you make this too?”
“Yes. How is it, Rein?”
“It’s good.”
“How does it compare to the chicken skewers or steamed buns they sell at the market?”
“Obviously the skewers and steamed buns are better. Next time, could you bring those instead?”
Xion clenched his fist tight.
It’s fine. He’d expected as much.
He’d already figured out Reinhild’s palate. At first, he’d planned to prepare a grease-bomb pork dish, and toast slathered in butter and sugar enough to melt your arteries, to suit Reinhild’s tastes.
But the chef watching stopped Xion, saying if he ate that, his lifespan would be cut in half.
He knew the Demon King lived far longer than a human could even compare. Even so, Xion could not tolerate the moments Reinhild existed in this world being shortened by even a single second.
So he researched and prepared to make food that was both healthy and delicious.
He might dislike it for now, but Xion would keep at it until Reinhild’s tastes changed.
One day, he would surely make it so that the dish Reinhild loved most was the one Xion made.
Resolved, Xion piled this and that onto Reinhild’s plate.
In the end, Reinhild finished such a hearty meal that he was too full to sleep and flopped onto the bed.
“If you could do this, why did you bring that holy-water-sprinkled bread last time?”
“Back then… I wasn’t in good shape.”
Wanting to erase the past where he’d thrust bread at Reinhild with insufficient skill, Xion glossed it over.
“You were sick? Is that why you just left?”
“Back then, I didn’t even properly say go—”
Xion fully intended to apologize for leaving without even a proper greeting.
But he couldn’t finish, because Reinhild suddenly stepped up to him and placed a hand on his head.
“You’ve got a fever.”
Once again Xion couldn’t protest. His brain went into overdrive and couldn’t get the command to speak as far as his mouth.
Watching this, Reinhild arbitrarily concluded Xion was still ill.
To Reinhild, whose body temperature was cool, a human’s skin would always feel hot to the touch, but never having laid a finger on a human, he didn’t know that.
The fact that Xion’s face flushed at the thought that this was his first physical contact with Reinhild, making him feel even hotter than usual, also played a part.
‘If he’s this hot, isn’t that dangerous?’
He’d heard many humans died of fever. If Xion died, it would be a serious problem.
Growing anxious, Reinhild sent mana into Xion’s body to find the cause of the illness.
As mana saturated with demonic energy invaded his body, there was a pain like something squeezing his heart.
Xion took that, too, as the pounding of his heart for Reinhild.
‘I can’t make any sense of this.’
Was it because demonfolk and humans were different? No matter how he closed his eyes and focused, he couldn’t get a feel for it.
At times like this, there was one fastest way to check.
“Re… in…?”
Reinhild suddenly grabbed Xion by both cheeks and pulled him in. Then, without asking, he pressed his lips to Xion’s and drew off mana.
Reinhild had done it without much thought, but in that moment Xion felt as if the world exploded and was recreated.
Having a portion of his mana taken by the Demon King which was a somewhat shameful experience for a hero, remained as the sweet memory of a first kiss for Xion.
“Wh-what… is th—”
“You said you were in pain.”
“Do demonfolk kiss when they’re sick?”
“I just took a bit to assess the state of your mana. Even if you found it unpleasant, I won’t apologize. A Demon King doesn’t apologize to a hero.”
Thank goodness. He had nearly killed every demonfolk before any of them could earn the honor of receiving Reinhild’s kiss.
“Please don’t ever do this… mana absorption to anyone else.”
“I won’t. If I absorbed such shabby mana, it would only put me in a bad mood.”
“How about my mana?”
The hero’s mana, huh.
Reinhild gave his candid impression as if it were nothing.
“It feels filthy.”
Xion looked greatly disappointed, but wasn’t it only natural that the Demon King Reinhild would find the hero’s mana unpleasant?
Xion, being the hero, would likely feel the same if he absorbed Reinhild’s mana.
Reinhild explained that to Xion just as it was.
“In that case, may I try as well?”
“Mana absorption? Can a human do that?”
“I’ll try.”
Could he do by effort what only chosen demonfolk could do?
But he was the hero. Perhaps it was possible.
“Fine.”
Once he had permission, Xion gently cupped Reinhild’s cheeks.
His hands were trembling.
He must have been straining to attempt mana absorption he couldn’t even perform.
Reinhild, eyes wide, watched Xion’s face draw closer and closer.
The sensation of their lips meeting felt oddly different from a moment ago.
How to describe it… like he’d fallen for some strange trick?
But no matter how he thought about it, there couldn’t be any trap in mana absorption.
Besides, he wasn’t managing to absorb any mana at all.
“As expected, you can’t.”
Reinhild must have meant the mana absorption, but Xion felt needlessly stung.
“When I’m in pain, would you do this each time?”
“The mana absorption?”
“Yes. With the wish that I won’t be hurt.”
Reinhild explained that mana absorption had no healing function, but Xion was adamant.
In the end, Reinhild accepted Xion’s preposterous proposal. It wasn’t as if he was losing anything, though it did leave him with a troublesome feeling.
And from that day on, whenever Xion came to see Reinhild, he would always show up with some injury or other.
What a feeble hero.
No matter how he thought about it, something seemed wrong with this generation’s hero.
By the time Reinhild realized this was what humans did to signal the beginning of their reproductive behavior, much time had already passed.
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