DKFTI 119

“You came to find me. Should I call it an honor?”

She descended from the sky. She really descended from the sky. Sibel suddenly wondered why Lilianthes always appeared from the sky with her clothes fluttering. But he couldn’t deny that the sight was beautiful.

‘Next time I appear somewhere, I’ll have to do that too.’

“Hmm. I’m not used to this.”

Even though there was a door, Lilianthes came into the room through the terrace. She floated in midair. It looked like there was an invisible chair under her as she sat with her legs crossed. Lilianthes rested her chin on her hand and looked at Sibel.

“Yes?”

Sibel answered brightly, just as he always did.

“How are you still the same? It’s like nothing ever happened.”

Lilianthes showed a strange smile. She didn’t bother to say aloud that she knew Sibel had regained the memories of his previous life, but Sibel noticed that she was aware of his condition.

“Lady Lilianthes, it’s an honor to meet you!”

When Shanti and Ruru greeted her politely, Lilianthes waved in return.

“Still the same.”

She looked somewhat satisfied. Then Lilianthes smiled playfully and reached out her hand. Her hand touched Sibel’s soft cheek.

Stretch, stretch. His cheeks were pulled out.

“Ah, yes, this is it. I have to do it like before!”

Lilianthes laughed heartily. She was looking at Sibel with the same warm eyes as when they first met.

“So, what’s the reason you called me?”

“Euhhh…”

Because Lilianthes was still kneading his cheeks, Sibel’s pronunciation was incoherent. Seeing that, Lilianthes reluctantly took her hand away.

“The truth is…”

In the end, Sibel told Lilianthes the whole story of what had happened so far. The focus of the story was Aizen.

How he escaped death and went beyond human limits, and what worries that brought with it. When he started talking, Sibel thought there wouldn’t be much information to convey, but once he began, the couldn’t stop.

“…So now he has magic power, but can that really mean he became a demon? And they say his lifespan seems to have increased, but who knows if an artificially sealed heart can stay stable for long, and the curse! That curse is the real problem!”

He thought that in the past, he would have discussed such things with Leviathan.

The Demon King he relied on most, the one closest to him in his previous life, now didn’t belong anywhere. It felt strange.

After taking in Sibel’s story slowly, Lilianthes nodded.

“It’s not like a human turning into a demon never happens… It’s an unusual case, but for now he looks fine.”

Her eyes turned to Aizen, who had suddenly dropped down onto the terrace. Compared to before, when he possessed holy power, his presence wasn’t radiant, but the changed aura around him still felt quite peculiar.

“How strange. Whether he’s human or demon, he always stands out.”

Sibel was startled to see Aizen appear right as they were talking about him.

Did he install some listening device in the room?

When Sibel looked around, Aizen laughed.

“He seems more relaxed than before.”

Lilianthes thought Aizen looked completely different from before. The human who used to bristle whenever she stood before him was nowhere to be found. His energy had changed, but he looked more stable now.

“What are you plotting again?”

“Plotting? I’m just talking about you.”

“Me?”

When Aizen walked across the room toward her, Lilianthes finally placed her feet on the ground. The glossy heels of her shoes clicked as she stepped forward.

“Let’s see.”

Her hand suddenly went to Aizen’s chest. Her sharp nails brushed over his clothes, and he furrowed his brows.

“I’m not going to eat you, no need to be that nervous. Hoho.”

Her playful tone only made the air more strained. Aizen stayed quiet and watched her to see what she was trying to do. In that moment, he felt a cold current slip into his body and sweep through him.

“It’s crude. It lacks purity.”

She was talking about his heart, and Aizen frowned.

“It’s unstable because it’s not innate. But your adaptation is faster than I thought… If I opened your chest and examined it, I could be sure.”

Lilianthes’s red tongue slid over her lips. Aizen grabbed her wrist and moved her sharp nails away from his chest.

“Hoho, I am kidding, I am kidding.”

Even as she said it was a joke, her eyes gleamed with a strange greed. A shiver ran down his spine, but Aizen remained calm and walked past her.

“The demonic power inside your body had strangely settled into place.”

Strangely?

“If even a trace of holy power had remained, it would’ve rejected the demonic power and caused problems, but maybe it’s lucky that the curse burned every bit of it away. The demonic power filled the empty space. Fascinating. I really want to study it.”

Does Lilianthes have the blood of a scholar? Sibel found it stranger that she was curious about such things.

“That divine punishment curse is quite interesting. For something said to be given by a god, it’s too close to darkness.”

What intrigued Lilianthes wasn’t the holy power or the demonic power, but the divine punishment.

“Whenever I see something like this, I start to think that gods are closer to darkness than to light.”

Lilianthes’s gaze turned toward Sibel. Her deep eyes met his.

While she did that, Aizen sat down next to Sibel as if it was his usual place. He quietly sat at the table and plucked one grape from the fruit Shanti brought, then put it in his mouth.

Since it seemed they were talking about him, he planned to listen.

“Are you scared?”

Lilianthes asked Aizen. After thinking for a moment, he shrugged his shoulders.

“My heart could explode at any time.”

“It would be a lie to say I’m not afraid.”

“You look rather calm.”

“But even if I am, what else is there but to die? If someone tries to tear us apart while we’re holding on this hard, then I’ll grab that god or whatever by the collar after I die.”

Aizen was someone who had already gone beyond the fear of death. What he feared was only separation. He was, without a doubt, a human missing something essential.

“I should’ve picked him up myself after all.”

Lilianthes didn’t hate this kind of Aizen. Even now he talked back, his tone curt, but not to the point she cared to correct.

“Don’t use that magic recklessly just because your body’s full of it. You never know what might fill the space if it empties out.”

But she still couldn’t fully relax. There was always the chance that something might enter his heart again and clash with the magic power.

“That’s not hard.”

Aizen chewed his grape, then picked another fresh one and held it before Sibel’s lips. Sibel accepted it without resistance.

“You two get along well.”

Lilianthes looked at them. She could tell the atmosphere between the two had grown closer than before.

How could he reject someone who threw away his life for him? Besides, that face was shining like that. As she looked at Aizen and Sibel, a certain dull being suddenly came to her mind.

She didn’t really want to spoil the pleasant mood, but she also couldn’t stay silent after coming all the way here. In the end, Lilianthes’s red lips parted.

“Honestly, I thought our newcomer called me today to talk about another problem.”

“Another problem?”

Sibel was feeling good because Aizen’s condition was more stable than he expected. What he had sensed turned out to be right.

“Something like the Black Chain of Genzar?”

“Ah…”

At Lilianthes’s words, Sibel unconsciously looked at Aizen. The moment he realized he was checking Aizen’s reaction, he startled himself.

“So you knew everything after all.”

Sibel felt a strange sense of relief knowing that Lilianthes already knew everything. It wasn’t just a secret between the two of them anymore, and the fact there was someone else they could talk to gave him comfort.

Lilianthes scrutinized and Sibel’s face. It was the first time she saw his direct reaction. He looked a little awkward, but he didn’t seem greatly confused either.

“How curious.”

She had thought he would turn into another being right away when he recalled his past memories, but Sibel still seemed closer to a clueless, new Demon King. She hadn’t expected that his essential core leaned this way.

“It was a bit troublesome… and burdensome too.”

“What was? His feelings? The devotion that waited through endless time?”

Lilianthes’s eyes sparkled.

“How did it feel? Did you feel rejection? Or were you glad?”

“Well… hm. Ah. It felt like facing an ancient tree with deep roots. It was awe-inspiring, but something beyond my control, like nature itself.”

At Sibel’s answer, Lilianthes furrowed her brows and rubbed her chin slowly with her fingers as if she couldn’t quite understand.

“So you mean he just feels like part of the background of this world?”

“Something like that.”

“You don’t feel anything for him at all?”

“I feel sad.”

Sibel lowered his eyelashes. Beyond his gaze, memories of the past flickered again.

“Sad, huh…”