On the cold stone floor, a man with violet hair had lain cooler than a sheet of ice. His eyes were as parched as the dead, yet within them smoldered something hot and desperate that could not be hidden.
‘My mate is dead.’
As those words brushed past my ears, the puppies before me blurred. The rhythmic wagging of their tails wavered like shadows in water before vanishing. The tiny whimpers of the small creatures nuzzling each other faded into a distant, hollow noise.
Living is such a fragile thing.
Yet, keeping someone’s warmth beside you is such a tender thing.
I clutched the bag of vegetables to my chest to hide my trembling hands. It was a light weight, just ingredients for a single meal, but the weight of the life contained within it felt so heavy that my arms strained.
Then, the shopkeeper, oblivious to my sinking expression, gave a hearty laugh.
“See? With a partner, there’s nothing in the world to fear. That’s what a mate is.”
I couldn’t bring myself to smile back. I simply lowered my head slowly.
“…Yes. Sir, I’ll be going now.”
As I turned to leave, the puppies wagging their tails in the pouring sunlight looked blindingly peaceful. That peace felt like a sin I had committed, tightening a knot in my chest.
When I returned to the inn with heavy steps, Damian, sensing my presence, approached me alertly as if he’d been waiting.
“You’re late.”
Perhaps because I had been looking half-distraught lately, Damian was keeping a close, protective watch on me, like a guardian.
“…Damian.”
Damian suddenly leaned his face in close. After scanning my features slowly, he picked me up effortlessly.
The vegetables I had just bought tumbled to the floor, but he ignored them and sat me down on a kitchen chair. When I kept my mouth shut, Damian didn't rush me, he simply waited in silence.
Blood-red eyes. Yet, looking at those eyes that somehow seemed clear, I spoke on impulse.
“Can I meet Basha’s servant?”
I was horrified by my own words the moment they left my mouth. I had barely escaped with my life, and instead of running away, I was walking back into the tiger's den?
I must have hit my head hard when I was transmigrated, or perhaps I’d finally lost my mind after being hounded by Damian these past few days. It was unthinkable for someone as cowardly and selfish as me to say such a thing.
However, the strange thing was that while my heart was pounding as if it might explode, my voice didn't tremble. My lips were as parched as a drought-stricken field, but the voice I let out was strangely firm.
“Why?”
“That’s….”
When I faced that man in Basha’s cave, I had certainly felt a terror that seeped into my very marrow.
But was that really all?
If that were everything, if I were merely wallowing in the relief of having survived, I would truly be a person unworthy of being called human.
In that moment when death was at my doorstep, a very faint but undeniable emotion had clawed at me through the massive waves of fear.
“I have something to say to him.”
Guilt.
It wasn't a cowardly excuse or shallow sympathy. It was the emotion one should feel after shamelessly surviving while completely destroying another's life.
If I was the reason the original story had twisted and made him miserable, I had to at least face him and see it for myself.
I needed to see how much of a hell my current peace was for him.
***
A few days passed.
The meeting happened sooner than expected.
Damian dragged the man to the inn by the scruff of his neck.
“Dammit, I told you I can't today!”
At the sound of the man's rough voice shouting while dangling in mid-air, memories of the cave flashed back, making me flinch. However, the one mercy was that he was wearing a human skin.
If he had appeared in his centipede form with all those grotesque legs, I might have fainted and foamed at the mouth before the conversation even began.
The man was well-built and tall, but compared to the even more massive Damian, he looked small, his legs flailing in the air.
His brow was deeply furrowed and his lips were tightly set. It was obvious from his expression that he had been brought here without any explanation.
“Bastard!”
By the way.
Didn't he say Damian was the King? And if this guy is a "servant," he should be lower than Basha. Is it really okay for him to speak so informally to the King?
But I quickly brushed the thought aside. Apparently, even if Damian was the King, he couldn't just kill the monsters in the Forest at will.
“Let go, King!”
“Quiet.”
Damian loosened his grip as if it were a chore. Then, he dropped him onto the floor like he was discarding a piece of luggage. In that brief moment, my eyes met the man's.
“…….”
“…….”
The pathetic sight of him flailing in the air vanished instantly. Facing the man's eerie purple irises, the terror I’d experienced in the cave days ago came rushing back.
The cold legs tightening around my wrists, the fear seeping into my bones.
Instinctively, I hid my wrists behind my back.
The man looked down at me with a hardened face. In his gaze was a tangle of anger, cynicism, and an unreadable, stony blankness.
My lips trembled, but I forced the corners of my mouth up. I figured it might be better to at least try to look pitifully friendly.
Of course, it had the opposite effect. The man’s eyes narrowed even further.
Right. Regardless of the intent, if the human who killed your mate is standing there smirking, you're bound to be offended. I would be too. My heart went cold, and I shook my head as if trying to clear my thoughts.
Acting pitiful or faking a smile won't work on this monster.
So, in the end, I decided to do what I do best.
Tapping into my survival instincts to find the best way to navigate a conversation, the servile yet practical greeting engraved into my bones from years of working in service.
“U-um… have you eaten yet?”
The way the man’s face twisted into a bizarre expression was just an added bonus.
***
Seraphion was dumbfounded. Or was it more than that?
He looked down at the small human with the messy hair. (As always, while Shion was of average height, Seraphion exceeded 190 cm, so by his standards, Shion was merely an underdeveloped human.)
The human had clearly been shaking like a leaf in front of him. His face was pale and stiff, and his trembling hands kept fumbling at his own wrists.
This was the human who had supposedly killed his mate, a creature who looked absurdly fragile and was currently the sole object of the King's bizarre affection.
If he were to snap that slender neck right now and erase this existence in an instant… would this unpleasant sensation scraping at his chest and the clumsy voice grating on his ears finally stop?
The impulse flickered through his mind.
However.
“U-um… have you eaten yet?”
At that mundane, ridiculous greeting, the murderous intent that had been surging just moments ago lost its strength, leaking away into the air.
Was this cold fury, or was it a suppressed bloodlust because the King was standing right behind him?
Entangled in a mix of indefinable discomfort and helplessness, the only thing clear was that no matter what label he put on it, he could not understand this human.
The small human soon began fumbling around clumsily. He picked up fallen vegetables and repeated meaningless motions.
Seraphion watched the human moving busily in the silence.
Up close, the human was an even more insignificant existence than he had thought. The wrists peeking out from under the sleeves were gaunt, and perhaps due to tension, the hands trying to grab things kept missing, grasping at thin air.
‘This human really killed my mate?’
A fleeting doubt bubbled up like foam on water, only to be crushed by cold logic. The facts didn't matter.
The certainty was that he had lost his precious mate, and to fill that massive hole of loss, holding someone responsible was the most logical course of action.
Even if this human was a pitiful victim caught in a tragic whirlwind of fate, Seraphion needed a target for his hatred. If he couldn't hold onto what he had lost, he at least needed a target to throw his anger at.
Resentment requires an object. And to the current Seraphion, the most appropriate object was this human.
Hating him was right. Resentment was justified.
“I…! I’ll go get some food!”
Shion soon scurried away after a frantic goodbye.
As the human retreated toward the kitchen, the sounds of clattering dishes and boiling water began to leak out.
That peaceful, mundane noise was somehow so irritating that Seraphion unconsciously pressed his fingernails into his palm.
Then, Damian’s low voice drifted over from the side.
“That human bruises if I so much as lift him up.”
Turning his head, Seraphion saw Damian standing by the window with his arms crossed.
“So, I touch him as gently as I would when assisting a hatching. But even then, he finds it painful.”
“…What?”
Seraphion’s eyes trembled slightly.
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