DKFTI 84

“How long has it been since I saw your face? At least three thousand years?”

Karhan chuckled and mashed his own flesh. The tissue writhed to regenerate every time a wound opened on his skin.

“Looks like you find my state amusing.”

Karhan spoke while Leviathan observed him in silence.

“Why did you do that?”

Leviathan opened his mouth. His calm voice echoed in the chamber, and Karhan shivered.

“So the day has come when I can make you speak.”

Leviathan’s face showed no clear emotion, but Karhan knew he was furious.

“Why didn’t you step in to stop it? You could have stopped me from owning one day out of his every three hundred years.”

Leviathan lowered his eyes and stayed silent while Karhan spoke in an amused voice.

“Should I guess?”

A peculiar gleam sparkling in Karhan’s eyes. This situation seemed entertaining to him.

“You are scared.”

“……”

“Like a little beast, not knowing what to do for fear of its master’s hatred.”

Even though Karhan stabbed and twisted at him with words, Leviathan gave no real reaction. He only sat in silence, lost in thought.

Leviathan’s hand suddenly moved. Karhan’s body, which had been lying on the bed, rose into the air.

“Keuk, ugh.”

Karhan clutched his neck and kicked his legs. His face reddened, his breath rasped. Even while choking, his chest swelled with laughter.

“Puhaha, uh. Are you… trying to kill me?”

The crushing force on his neck felt like it would snap his bones any moment. But Karhan kept laughing.

“Do you really think you can?”

Karhan’s eyes fixed on Leviathan. Suddenly the grip around his throat loosened.

“Ahh, that fledgling and I… made a contract involving time. One day out of three hundred years.”

The moment he finished, his body dropped heavily onto the bed.

“Ugh.”

A red mark, print of strangling fingers, burned on his neck. Coughs wracked him as he rubbed at it.

“Cough!”

His blood-red eyes curved, and the corners of his mouth rose.

“Khehehe. That’s right. You know well. Even a small change can bring a great fracture.”

Leviathan still looked down at him without expression, with the same indifference and disgust of one watching an insect crawl on the floor.

“I should have killed you long ago.”

“But now you can’t. How do you think I managed to survive this long? Instinct tells me where my path to life is.”

Karhan laughed like a madman. It was less triumph at extending his life than mockery of the situation.

“Don’t act disgusting. Having to look at that face again is nauseating enough for me too.”

Karhan spat the saliva pooled in his mouth onto the floor.

“I can read your mind. ‘Why do they live on with immortality only to get in the way? Should I have just killed them all myself?’ Something like that?”

Excitement filled his voice and would not fade. Karhan thought that perhaps the reason he had survived for thousands, tens of thousands of years was for a moment like this.

“Why? Wouldn’t it be fine to just do it? You’ve always been good at ruining things with your own hands.”

Karhan’s jeering made Leviathan’s eyes grow cold. The air turned cold, as if he could freeze everything around him.

“You tremble over one day out of three hundred, yet back then, how did you….”

“Sometimes you forget what death really means when you live a long life.”

Leviathan stretched out his hand. His fingers grabbed Karhan’s hair.

“For some, the repeating emptiness is harder to bear than death. Those are difficult to handle.”

“……”

Karhan’s head tilted back, and their gazes met.

“Maybe that’s why your failure to cast off the habits of an animal even after so long is memorable.”

“Even after all those revolting years, you’re still self-serving. Do you think everything will go the way you want?”

Leviathan’s cold lips curved into a smile.

“For me, this is something I have no need to step back from.”

“You’re revolting.”

Leviathan’s hand slid from Karhan’s head. Karhan cracked his misaligned neck back into place.

“Stop with the overprotection. Otherwise, everyone will notice because of it.”

“……”

“Ah. Is this what they call… a heart you can’t hide?”

A low laugh echoed through the room.

Leviathan’s body slowly dissolved into darkness. Once he disappeared completely, Karhan rubbed his aching neck and sneered into the still dark.

“Disgusting bastard.”

Moments later, he started laughing, and continued for a long time. Whether one day out of three hundred would be his fortune or the end of him, it was funny to think he and Leviathan seemed to be in the same boat.

***

With Ruru back, the Demon King’s castle regained its life.

“Demon Kiiiiiing!”

“What is that fool so excited about, wagging his tail every day?”

Shanti clicked his tongue and made a loud noise.

But even as he said it… he had also been sincere about saving Ruru. What a real tsundere.

The Demon King’s castle had been quite empty without Ruru. People say you don’t notice when someone arrives, but you notice when they leave. Ruru was the kind of being whose presence or absence could not go unnoticed.

“Demon King! Did you see this?”

Ruru wagged his tail while showing the Gaji Market screen again.

“I think I’ve developed a trauma about Gaji Market.”

“Ooh. I told you to check the manner score before making a deal.”

That had nothing to do with it….

It seemed Ruru had already forgotten the whole incident. Carefree as ever.

“I’ll go buy a super high-performance amp right away!”

“What are you going to use that for?”

“Ah, of course for a party! A party!”

At Ruru’s absurd declaration, Shanti, who was nearby, frowned and spoke.

“What party?”

“Ruru’s return party!”

Was it high self-esteem? Or just shamelessness…. The way he demanded it so boldly made it feel like the Demon King was at fault for not already throwing him a welcome-back party. Strange. Very strange.

“I’m off!”

“Oh, yeah.”

Sibel watched Ruru’s short legs pumping as he ran away, and he felt a strange déjà vu.

“When he shows his back and runs off all excited like that, something always happens. That’s a dangerous back.”

“We need to establish discipline!”

“Who is going to discipline who…?”

As if Ruru was easy to control! That guy had stolen away centuries worth of their magic without a care. Saying it out loud would hurt his pride, so he held it back, but the truth was Ruru was not the type to be stopped by anyone.

“Just let him do it. He must be happy now that he’s free.”

Sibel thought of Ruru’s kin he had seen in the fox village. Ruru had chosen the Demon King’s castle over his people even though he was now free.

Sibel felt grateful for that, but at the same time his heart ached. Maybe Ruru no longer thought of that place as home after being away for so long.

If so, then the Demon King’s castle had to serve as his home properly. A place that would take him in no matter how he acted. He hoped the castle would mean that much to Ruru.

“Shanti, where’s your home?”

“The Abyss.”

“Ugh. That’s so cringeworthy. Totally cringeworthy.”

Shanti’s answer made Sibel squirm and roll around.

“It’s like watching some corny dragon.”

“…Why do you only say things like that to me?”

Shanti covered his own mouth with his short arms while Sibel cackled.

“Hm?”

“You always pamper Ruru no matter what he does!”

Then he pointed with those same short arms.

“Why are you sulking over that….”

“And when that Hero brat sprawls out everywhere, you just let him!”

“You sprawl your legs out too….”

He had countered with logic, but that only fueled the fire.

“Then I’ll leave home too! You leave me no choice but to leave!”

“I think I’m getting dizzy. But if you’re going, at least write down where you’re heading….”

“So you’re saying you won’t even bother looking for me?”

“These days I feel like you’re becoming more like Ruru. Is this what family means?”

“I hate it all!”

Shanti, who had been talking just fine, suddenly stormed out of the room. Sibel had always wondered something.

Why do they never close the door behind them…?

Why do I always end up watching them stomp off into the distance…?

Soon he saw Shanti walking properly, checking around the castle. Why had he made such a fuss when he was going to calm down so quickly anyway?

“They really are strange kids….”

After those strange friends poured out like the tide, Sibel took out a book he had brought from the library.

“Mm, it’s a peaceful day.”

Reading is food for the mind. With that thought, Sibel started flipping through the book with the red ribbon he had fetched from the secret library.