Episode 44: Would You Not Want to Dissolve Our Contract?
“I am scum… I won’t rebel again… I’m sorry… I was wrong…”
A sermon lasting a full five hours, “all for your own good,” had finally come to an end.
The sky outside the window had already begun to brighten with dawn, and the Demon King was sitting on her knees on the bed, nodding off repeatedly while murmuring those words over and over.
She looked almost brainwashed. I nodded, satisfied.
“Hey, Demon King.”
“Ah?”
At my call, the Demon King snapped awake and turned her head. With a drowsy expression, she tilted her head in confusion.
I stared at her quietly for a moment before awkwardly turning my head.
“… At least put this on first.”
“Eh?”
I threw the Demon King one of my shirts that had been lying around the room.
Now that I thought about it, she had been half-naked this whole time. Although I hadn’t noticed due to the heat rising in my head, I had been pretty thoughtless.
“Umm… well, I’ll wear it since you’re telling me to…”
The Demon King glared unhappily at the shirt draped over her and began buttoning it up slowly.
She stared quietly at her own body wrapped in the white shirt for a while.
“This is so constricting… Hero.”
“… Just bear with it and wear it. I’ll bring you a proper outfit later.”
“It’s uncomfortable with my wings too. Can’t I take it off?”
“I said I’ll bring you the proper outfit later. Just put up with it for now.”
“Ugh… Fine.”
The Demon King, discontentedly nodding, caught my attention briefly.
Her striking figure clad only in the thin shirt was on full display. Her snow-white legs stretched out beneath the shirt, and her tail poking out from between them swayed lightly, catching my eye especially.
“What are you staring at like that?”
“Uh! Huhuhuhem!!”
Shit. Now that my head had cooled down, I was starting to notice things I shouldn’t.
With the awkwardness of meeting her gaze head-on, I slumped down beside her without further ado. And I opened my mouth.
“… Hey, you’re currently in a contract with me, right?”
I switched topics to take my mind off things.
The Demon King glanced at me suspiciously but sighed and gave a slight nod.
“That’s correct. As for how I, the Great I… No, I became bound in a protection contract with scum like you, I have no idea. But as it stands, a protector contract between you and me is currently in effect.”
“Hmm.”
“Consider yourself honored. The number of times a human has become my protector throughout my life can be counted on one hand—it’s a truly rare occasion.”
“You’re full of yourself, huh.”
I silently opened and closed my fists before turning my gaze back to the Demon King.
“What were the humans who were my protectors like before?”
“Hmm…”
At my question, Lucy (루시) fell into deep thought for a moment, then opened her round eyes wide and spoke.
“I don’t remember.”
“…”
“Why, why are you looking at me like that? There’s nothing I can do about it. If my protector contract is canceled due to my death, I lose all memories of my protector.”
“Hmm… Is that so?”
“Yes.”
So that’s how it is. I nodded.
In fact, I don’t really care about that. The part I’m truly interested in begins from here.
“If I die… time rewinds, right?”
“Yes. It is my exclusive power, denied even to those celestial beings, the Three Fates. Hahaha. Are you impressed?”
“… Yeah, sure. Impressive… But then, if you die, does time rewind for you too?”
Surprisingly nodding at the truth, I moved straight to the main subject.
The Demon King, with an air of self-satisfaction, raised an eyebrow.
“The spatiotemporal regression is merely an insurance policy for the protector. Why would I bother with such a tedious task?”
“What? So what happens if you die?”
“Didn’t you protect me thus far, Hero?! I reincarnate.”
“Ah.”
The reincarnation of the immortal Demon King. The alpha and omega of my life in this alternative world.
Ah, right. Thinking about it now, the Demon King was found by the lesser deities after dying and becoming an egg, which is how she ended up with me.
I finally let out a gasp of realization.
“… Is that so?”
“That’s right. While having a protector speeds up resurrection, if both protector and protectee die together, resurrection takes much longer. Like this last resurrection, which took thirty years.”
She confidently stated, scratching her cascading silver hair. It didn’t seem like she was lying.
This makes it clearer. The immortal Demon King herself does not perform spatiotemporal regression.
If so, my one plan that I’ve been considering has a significant obstacle.
“Then… If something goes wrong, even killing you instead of me won’t bring about the spatiotemporal regression, right?”
“Wha—Are you out of your mind?! D-damn human…! So you were having such an outrageous thought?!”
The Demon King grew furious and started hitting me.
Though it was like being poked with a cotton ball and didn’t hurt at all, she looked exhausted afterward, busy fixing her tousled shirt.
“Dammit, why is this outfit so uncomfortable!”
Having evidently had enough of how constricting the shirt was, she began unbuttoning it from the top.
… Shit. My gaze keeps getting drawn to her. I hurriedly continued the conversation.
“Hey, then… Can you at least set the regression point at will?”
“Hmm? Well… Um…”
The Demon King noticeably floundered at my question.
She paused mid-unbuttoning, fidgeting awkwardly, then eventually lowered her head and closed her mouth.
My face immediately turned stormy.
“Can’t you?”
“T-the setting of regression points requires considerable magic power too. But given my current condition… ”
“…”
“… If there’s a significant threat to me in the near future, the regression point will be automatically updated by instinct. Other than that, it can’t be done.”
So that’s how it is.
In other words, when the regression point updates, you should take it as a sign that “From here on out, you’ll likely meet a bad end.”
Understood. Everything is clear now.
I nodded brightly and immediately asked the Demon King.
“Can our contract be terminated?”
“Terminate… Are you saying you want to break the contract?”
“Not right now, just… I’m curious if it’s possible or not.”
“Strictly speaking… If I wanted, I could dissolve it.”
“Ah? Then let’s dissolve it right now.”
Extreme mood swings reminiscent of a certain artist’s comics followed.
As soon as my words were finished, the Demon King’s eyebrows twitched violently. Her dazed gaze turned towards me.
“… What?”
“I said to dissolve the contract. You dislike me, don’t you? Consider it as temporary suffering, and go your own way.”
“B-but… even though that’s true, breaking the contract requires a fair amount of magic power.”
“…”
“Currently, my magic power hasn’t fully returned, so I can’t dissolve the contract…”
The deflated Demon King, fiddling with her fingers, said this.
Frankly, I was even more deflated than her.
“Wh-what’s this? You should have said that first. I’m fine now.”
“S-sorry… How can you say that? It’s not like that!!”
The Demon King suddenly got close to my face.
Her expression was one of disbelief at the words coming out of my mouth.
“You, how dare you talk about breaking the contract after relying on my benevolence to survive until now?! How can you utter such nonsense…!”
“Benevolence? Want to hear more of the words of benevolence in the Chamber of Truth?”
“Keh…”
When I made a face of genuine disgust, the Demon King flinched.
It seemed she disliked the words of benevolence even more since she was pouring sweat profusely. Her haughty attitude from a moment ago vanished, replaced by meekness.
“Ah, why. Isn’t it true, though? Seeing that my body is full of sinister magic… Hero. From the looks of it, I died a lot before my resurrection.”
The Demon King fidgeted her hands as before, grumbling.
At the appearance of a new term, I raised an eyebrow.
“Sinister magic? What is that?”
“It’s the special maleficent energy (evil aura) that accumulates in my body each time you experience death.”
“Does anything happen if it accumulates?”
“Since death and time are inseparable. If your repeated deaths happen at the same point in time, it weakens the structure of the time axis that I’ve fixed. Eventually, it collapses.”
I pondered deeply on what the Demon King said.
But no matter how much I thought, I didn’t understand what she was talking about.
I grabbed the Demon King’s soft, white cheeks.
“I’ll give you 10 seconds. Quit the nonsense and explain it in a way I can understand.”
“Owah! Owah! Let go of me! It hurts!”
The Demon King desperately flailed her arms to get my hand off. Only after seeing the tears well up in her eyes did I finally let go.
Wiping her tear-streaked cheeks, she glared at me.
“To put it simply! The regression point will be destroyed! You won’t be able to resurrect at that point anymore!”
“…”
“Ah.”
Then it clicked.
Upon realization, I was shocked by how serious the matter was. It means that my spatiotemporal regression isn’t infinite.
I stared blankly at the Demon King and asked again.
“… How many times roughly until the sinister magic reaches its limit?”
“That depends on your mental state. Since it also accumulates in you.”
“In me too?”
“Indeed. What’s important is not me, but your sanity.”
The Demon King smirked and poked my temple. Her unique crimson eyes shone strangely.
Her bloodless lips slowly parted.
“The sinister magic eats away at the protector’s sanity. The more you experience death, the more you’ll become desensitized to it. To your own death, and to the deaths of others.”
“Desensitized to death…”
I involuntarily swallowed dryly.
It wasn’t because I could foresee the future. Rather, it was because the past came to mind.
Take this mission, for instance.
I’m scared of dying. I really hate dying with all my might.
And yet, despite that fear, there have been moments where I readily risked my life to achieve my goals.
I already know. That feeling of growing accustomed to death.
A chill ran through a corner of my chest as the Demon King continued.
“And eventually, you become a raving lunatic. A dangerous madman who doesn’t value life. When that happens, it means the sinister magic has stacked up to its full extent. At that point, I’ll have to make a choice.”
“Choice?”
“Either dissolve the contract and abandon the protector. Or destroy a specific regression point, erasing the sinister magic along with the past time.”
“…”
“At least… The two past humans who were my protectors made that choice.”
The chilling warning from the Demon King met my gaze, which had turned serious.
In response, I grabbed her cheeks again without a word.
“Ow! Ow! Let go! It hurts!”
“Fix that haughty tone of yours. It’s so nauseating. Are you trying to act too cool?”
“H-huh? What’s that? Anyway, I won’t! Let go! It hurts!”
Only after hearing her confirmation did I finally let go of the Demon King’s cheeks.
By now, the Demon King was not just sulking, but sniffling and crying.
“Keh… Ugh… I’m, this indignity… Someday, I will certainly repay this…!”
Did I squeeze her cheeks that hard? No. Surely not.
It was barely even pinching, more like gently pressing.
‘Hmph, this Demon King has quite a weak tear point, doesn’t she?’
Is her lack of magic power affecting that too? I hope so.
The Supreme, Most Frightening, and Strongest Demon King, wiping her tears with the hem of her shirt while her head was turned away. I sighed quietly.
