DKFTI 7

“I understand. You’ll be honest with your emotions for a while and find it hard to restrain impulses.”

Leviathan soothed him calmly. He even handed Sibel a handkerchief from who knows where, for his sniffling nose.

After watching Sibel wipe his tears for a while, Leviathan smiled lightly and offered him a cookie from the table. In the center of the round cookie was sweet strawberry jam.

Sibel accepted it without thinking and put it in his mouth. As the sweetness filled him, peace settled over his heart. Thanks to that, he gathered himself and continued speaking.

“Thank you… But how did you know I was having trouble?”

He wondered if Leviathan had some ability like telepathy. But Leviathan took a crystal communicator from his robes, shook it, and squinted his eyes.

“Community.”

At this point they might as well just make it real-name based. Protected by anonymity? What a joke. Everyone knew. The whole world knew.

In the end, that was the cause of the trouble. Sibel lowered his head in shame.

“Has someone tried to harm you?”

“That’s… not exactly.”

It was true no one had attacked him to kill. Just sighed heavily and looked down on him.

“I thought with Shanti here there would be no problem.”

“You know Shanti?”

At Sibel’s question, Leviathan answered only with a smile. It seemed to mean yes.

Leviathan rose from his chair. Wondering why he was suddenly moving, Sibel looked up at him, and Leviathan’s hand brushed away the cookie crumbs clinging to Sibel’s lips.

It was a touch like tending to a child.

“I-I’ll do it myself.”

How could he dare soil the great senior’s hand! Flustered, Sibel brushed at his mouth with both hands. Leviathan’s hand, which had paused in midair, quietly returned to its place.

Perhaps worried he had been rude, Sibel glanced at Leviathan’s expression and spoke.

“I was an adult of twenty one before I became a Demon King, so this much is…”

“I suppose so.”

Leviathan sat back down as if in understanding.

“Um, i-if it isn’t impolite to ask… Lord Leviathan, how old are you?”

Unable to suppress his sudden curiosity, Sibel asked. Leviathan made a thoughtful sound, rubbing his chin with his hand. His smooth skin stood out.

“My age… three…”

“Three? Thirty? No, it can’t be… three hundred?”

“I stopped counting after three thousand years.”

“Hic.”

Seeing such a youthful face in his twenties with such an unfathomable age made Sibel instinctively shrink back. Leviathan let out a small laugh.

“Um, Lord Leviathan…”

“Yes. Speak.”

“You too were once born, weren’t you. Do you happen to remember your previous life?”

“Most Demon Kings do remember their past lives.”

“Ah.”

“The previous Demon King here, as soon as he became Demon King, turned the village that killed him into a sea of fire.”

He recounted it softly as if it were an amusing memory, but from a human’s perspective, it was a horrifying tale.

Seeing Leviathan listen to him so well, Sibel felt old knots in his chest begin to rise.

“Well… I don’t know what you’ll think hearing this, but, in truth, I saw this world in a book in my past life.”

“Is that so.”

He did not seem surprised at all. No, he looked like the kind of person who would never be surprised by anything. Maybe it was the dignity of a three thousand years old? Sibel admired Leviathan’s composure.

“But then, by chance, I was born here! And as the Demon King, no less. I was curious if I was the only one having such a strange experience.”

“Chance.”

He softly laughed. Lowering his gaze for a moment, Leviathan repeated the word again.

“Chance…”

His voice mixed with a languid breath. After a pause, he met Sibel’s eyes and continued.

“There is a word, causality.”

What was that?

Sibel blinked blankly, he didn’t understanding. His reaction made Leviathan’s lips curl up. Leviathan tilted his cup with amusement.

“The word chance is a of trap. Most things in this world have causality.”

“Uhmm…”

Sibel nodded even though he didn’t understand a word.

“Look deeply into yourself. You’ll begin to see more and more.”

It sounded like he was saying something very philosophical, but Sibel simply nodded again. There was no way a being of three thousand years could be wrong.

Having confided in Leviathan the secret he had never told anyone else, Sibel felt relieved.

“I look forward to the passing of your time.”

“Eh?”

“Watching someone come to know and learn about the world is an enjoyable thing.”

Sibel nodded as if entranced. The two of them fell quiet, each sipping tea and nibbling at cookies. The warm breeze flowing in through the window eased the tension.

“You’ve grown horns.”

Leviathan said it casually, but Sibel’s heart sank to his stomach.

“Because of this, today, I was so startled… shock and fear… humiliation…”

He shuddere as the day’s events flashed through his memory like a panorama.

“They won’t grow strangely, will they? Like, grow huge? Shanti and Ruru just keep saying it’s fine…”

Sibel touched his horns with his hand, he looked like he was on the verge of tears.

Watching quietly, Leviathan stood and walked to him. As he came closer, a sweet and deep fragrance spread.

Leviathan leaned slightly, examining Sibel’s horns. One hand lightly supported the back of Sibel’s neck, while the other tapped gently at his horns. Sibel’s body stiffened at the touch.

“Ah…”

Strangely, whenever someone touched his horns, heat rushed to his face. And Leviathan’s veiny hand holding his nape, was bound to feel sensitive. The hand touching his skin was cold, despite Leviathan’s warm presence.

When Sibel let out an embarrassed moan, Leviathan’s gaze dropped to the trembling eyelashes around his eyes.

“There seems to be no problem. Do they itch or hurt?”

“Ah, n-no!”

Sibel answered, inching his own hands up to cover the horns. As expected, leaving them exposed felt as shameful as being naked.

“They don’t look like they’ll grow as large as you fear.”

Sibel let out a sigh of relief at Leviathan’s diagnosis. The hand on his nape slipped away.

Leviathan’s hand then gently brushed the top of Sibel’s head. His hair swayed and rustled beneath his palm.

“I’m so glad to see you again, Lord Leviathan.”

Sibel let slip his genuine joy. At that, the hand stroking his head paused.

He thought it was the moment for a reply, but silence lingered instead.

When Sibel tilted his head to look up, he saw Leviathan wearing a strange expression. He was always smiling before him, now his face was calm… but carried a trace of loneliness.

It was a small, subtle change, but it somehow caught Sibel’s attention.

Feeling Sibel’s gaze on him, Leviathan quickly smiled again, and with he spoke.

“I wanted to see you too.”

Leviathan’s pleasant voice resounded above Sibel’s head.

“You can come often from now on!”

The forum had only been a short while ago, so hearing Leviathan say he wanted to see him made him happy. It seemed his behavior that day hadn’t been so bad after all.

Being a newcomer favored by senior Demon Kings was an excellent sign.

Sibel smiled in satisfaction, and Leviathan resumed stroking his head.

“Indeed.”

His voice carried a faint trace of laughter.

“Let us do so.”

For some reason, Sibel could not bring himself to stop Leviathan’s hand. So he simply let his head rest in the touch for a while.

Much of Sibel’s frustration eased after Leviathan left. Was it because he learned he was not the only strange existence in this world? Just knowing that someone understood him was a great comfort.

Regaining his energy, he began the long-delayed task of tidying the Demon King’s castle.

“Offerings aren’t coming in.”

Sibel, Shanti, and Ruru stood in front of the offering altar tucked away in one corner of the castle, speaking seriously.

“Then we’re beggars?”

“Not beggars, but, how should I put it, our dignity suffers?”

“After the previous Demon King disappeared, humans stopped caring about this place.”

After finishing cleaning the inside of the castle, the three of them were scrubbing the old bloodstains stuck to the altar. Several white rags had already been dirtied.

“Why not take this chance to announce that a new Demon King has arrived?”

“Kya, good, good! Let’s blow away a village in one strike!”

Shanti and Ruru thought it best to spread word of the new Demon King’s enthronement. Traditionally, when a new Demon King appeared, he would reduce the surroundings to a sea of fire to build up a fearsome reputation.

“Blow away…?”

“Fire is good, or freezing them is good, or since it’s a new start, you could use your specialty and summon a monster to wreak havoc!”

They spoke of killing humans and building notoriety as if it were only natural, but to Sibel, listening to them felt like sitting on a bed of thorns.

“Humans are far too at ease! They didn’t even send offerings to the Demon King’s castle! This is unacceptable!”

Ruru threw down his rag as he shouted.

But Sibel calmly picked up the rag, pressed it back into Ruru’s hand, and answered.