A week had passed since Xion last met Reinhild.
In that time, Reinhild’s body had recovered considerably, and the pain he felt when breathing had subsided a lot.
His heart still pricked whenever he tried to use magic, but it was bearable.
More than that, he was bothered by the fact that there had been no word from Xion for an entire week.
Lying in bed, Reinhild lifted his head and looked out the window. The demonic-energy forest damaged by the holy fire had still not been restored.
By now, enough demonic energy should have pooled for it to return to normal. As expected, the hero’s power was different from ordinary holy power.
That was something you couldn’t do unless you’d set it off with the intention of destroying the Demon King’s castle and killing Reinhild.
Something Xion had deliberately done. Perhaps he had been plotting all of this from the moment he cozied up to Reinhild.
‘Still… it could have been a misunderstanding…’
Even after what he’d gone through, did he still have a little trust left in Xion?
The thought kept surfacing that maybe all of this was a misunderstanding.
What if Xion’s companion had come here not by Xion’s orders?
What if Xion hadn’t even known the forest was on fire?
‘He wouldn’t have come to attack me.’
He had thought he’d been attacked because pain flared when he and Xion touched.
But no matter how he turned it over, the way Xion had left without a word afterwards weighed on his mind.
At first he’d simply assumed Xion had something up his sleeve.
He spent nights on edge, heart in his throat, worrying the hero and his party might suddenly appear in the middle of the night and swing their swords at him.
But in the past week, no one had come here.
And then the expression Xion wore the last time they met kept coming back to him.
A face that looked deeply hurt. A sorrowful look, as if tears might spill at any moment, unsettled Reinhild.
Perhaps the pain he’d felt then wasn’t induced by Xion after all. Reinhild reached that conclusion.
If so, then the fire in the Demon King’s castle and the attack by Xion’s companion were all schemes someone else had set in motion.
Right. Xion had done nothing wrong.
Because Xion and I are…
‘What are we, exactly?’
Reinhild fell into another line of worry.
Friends? A Demon King and a hero being friends… how absurd.
Demons do not keep friends. There are only relationships of mutual use born of necessity.
Even if he tried to judge by human standards since Xion was human, “friend” still felt off. Friends, after all, are possible only between equals. There was no way to claim demons and paltry humans stood on equal footing.
Friends, certainly not.
It had started as a contract, but once Xion began showing up as he pleased, the contract had lost its meaning.
Then what were they?
Reinhild carefully recalled, one by one, the times he’d spent with Xion.
‘He always cooks delicious food and brings it.’
A chef… definitely not. If he were someone who prepared what Reinhild needed at the right time for Reinhild’s sake, then he was closer to a butler.
Yes. If he had to categorize it, his relationship with Xion was such that he could appoint Xion as the next butler when the castle’s current butler retired.
The problem was whether Xion would still be alive by then.
‘I’m hungry.’
Thinking of the food Xion had made whetted his appetite.
Reinhild called for the butler and had a meal prepared. Dishes from the demon realm, brimming with demonic energy and looking appetizing, were laid out in abundance.
He began eating in good spirits, but set down his spoon after eating not even a quarter of what he usually ate.
‘This isn’t it.’
He wanted the food Xion made.
Xion had already been driven away. He wouldn’t come back a second time with delicious dishes. It would be shameless to wish for Xion to come after telling him to leave with his own mouth.
But a Demon King has no such thing as a conscience to begin with, so maybe wishing for that much was fine?
“Haa.”
What was the use of any of it.
Xion wasn’t going to come.
‘I want to see him.’
Pouting his lips, Reinhild looked out the window again.
Since the forest burned, the owlbears had moved their habitat to the far side of the castle, and he could no longer see them when he looked out the window.
Xion and even the owlbears. He had lost all the little joys of life.
Thinking that made him feel Xion’s existence was closer to the owlbears than to the butler.
‘Is he really not coming?’
Back then he’d just been too startled.
It had been so sudden that he had pushed him away for the briefest moment.
He didn’t dislike Xion… it just hurt so much that he shoved him away.
If it were now, he thought he could bear the pain a little.
‘Is he really not coming?’
A moment ago, Reinhild had been feeling sorry for treating Xion so coldly, but now he was starting to resent him for turning away and leaving without so much as a word.
To check truly for the last time whether Xion was coming, Reinhild turned his head toward the window.
It was chaotic outside. He thought he heard odd sounds, but lying in bed, he couldn’t see anything.
In the end, Reinhild sluggishly rose and went closer to the window.
Pressing his nose flat against the glass, he looked out and spotted a familiar shape in the distance.
The expression that had been drooping as if he’d lost interest in everything suddenly brightened.
“Xion!”
It was Xion. Xion had come!
He’d thought he was hurt and wouldn’t come again. He had come back before Reinhild’s neck grew long from waiting.
Thank goodness. There was no need to go outside the castle to look for Xion.
It wasn’t hard to go looking for Xion, but since he’d collapsed the last time he stepped outside the castle, he’d grown a bit afraid of going out.
So Xion having come first made him twice as glad.
Beaming, Reinhild widened his eyes to see Xion more clearly.
“You’re not alone, are you?”
There was another human stuck to Xion’s side.
That human was certainly one of Xion’s companions.
He’d had no interest in Xion’s companions and had never paid them any mind, but he remembered that mage clearly.
He kept looking, thinking perhaps the other companions had come too, but saw no other humans.
‘Are the others dead?’
Maybe there was a reason he had brought only the mage.
Reinhild pondered.
A reason to go so far as to bring a mage, who possessed a tremendous amount of mana if not as much as the Demon King, to the Demon King’s castle.
No matter how he thought about it, there was only one.
‘To treat me?’
Yes, that had to be it.
Humans sought clerics when they needed healing, but Reinhild was the Demon King. Unable to bring a cleric for the purpose of treatment, Xion had agonized and finally brought a mage.
To determine whether there was a problem with Reinhild’s mana circuits.
It was unlikely the mage could accurately assess and treat Reinhild’s condition, but Reinhild was simply pleased that Xion had worried and made an effort for his sake.
He wanted to rush out and take Xion’s hand right away, even if it hurt a bit.
Curling the corners of his lips, Reinhild flew outside.
When he used magic, his heart throbbed. Even so, Reinhild was far too eager to run down this tall castle on foot.
He wanted to see Xion again quickly.
“Xion!”
As he neared with a bright smile, Reinhild sensed something different from usual.
Thump, thump, thump.
His pounding heart sounded loud in his ears.
It wasn’t the warm heartbeat he’d felt whenever his eyes met Xion’s.
Reinhild laid a hand over his chest, anticipating the pain about to begin there.
He couldn’t understand why the pain was this strong when he hadn’t even touched Xion yet.
Could his condition be worsening as time passed? Had he simply not known because he hadn’t seen Xion?
What if… it got even worse from here on?
‘Then I won’t be able to see Xion.’
He didn’t want that.
He had to find the cause. The real cause of the pain.
It couldn’t be that just getting close to Xion made him feel this pain.
There had to be another reason.
‘Ah, the hero’s sword!’
Something suddenly came to mind.
These incidents had begun after Reinhild was stabbed by the hero’s sword, and the pain had flared when he made contact while Hero Xion was holding the sword.
Perhaps this phenomenon was because of the hero’s sword?
He didn’t know the exact cause, but maybe, having been stabbed by the hero’s sword once, his heart was jolting in fright every time it saw the blade.
He didn’t know whether bodies worked that way in general, but Reinhild was quite ignorant when it came to anything non-magical.
‘Then I’ll just tell him to leave the sword behind.’
Having roughly shifted all the blame onto the hero’s sword, Reinhild smiled in relief at having found a way to resolve the pain.
He would surely have brought the hero’s sword today as well, so to avoid the pain, it seemed better to tell him to leave the sword and come back again.
‘I don’t like that.’
He didn’t want to send Xion away after he’d come all this way.
Couldn’t he endure at least this much?
A moment ago, he’d thought he wanted to see him even if it hurt, and he didn’t want to turn back, un-Demon-King-like, frightened by mere pain.
Steeling himself, Reinhild took another step toward Xion.
“Xio—”
Something was wrong.
Xion’s expression was a little different from what he always saw.
The gentle smile he knew so well was nowhere to be found, and a chill surrounded Xion.
He could sense a faint killing intent.
Xion was looking at Reinhild with the eyes one uses on an enemy.
As if he had come as a hero to face a true Demon King.
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