Chapter 6: Zero Corps Commander Deon Hart (4)

The tone was light, as if asking about lunch menu.
I was carelessly about to answer, but quickly closed my mouth and stepped back. 

His expression was strange, but now was not the time to pay attention to that.

Every word I spoke carried someone’s life.
I have never been able to comfortably speak since entering the kingdom of the demons, but now more than ever I must be careful. 

I’m telling you…

“Haa… I’m going crazy.”

“What?”

“I said it was already over.”

It seemed like I heard something strange, but the Demon King focused on the last words.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“That plant is not to be grown.”

“It’s too weak.”

“What?”

Displeasure appeared on the Demon King’s face.

“You were attacked.
That’s not just a simple problem that ends there.
You are a treasured talent, you should not be seen as weak by anyone.
I hope that won’t happen, but if you let your guard down and get hurt, then the level of evaluation you have received so far will drop.
You can’t let that happen.
You can’t easily let go of your pride, even if I respect you, this is not acceptable.
At least a limb should be cut off.”

I don’t know where to start pointing out the problems.
To cut off the limbs of the gardener, or saying that you respect me are both issues.

I feel like my blood pressure is going up after hearing such absurd words.

…Seeing the blood from my nose, I don’t think it’s because of my mood.

“Demon?!”

The panicked Demon King threw Hien aside and approached me.

Hien, who suddenly fell to the floor…

“Sir Demon!”

Why are you just lying down.

As if he was going to come to me, he stood up and ran towards me, even showing off his acrobatic skills.

I felt the ground shake… Come to think of it, I was hung upside down by the damn plant earlier.
No wonder blood rushed to my head.

I grabbed my broken arm, which was in agony, with my other hand to try and keep my balance, as my body was collapsing.

My weak skin was burning, and my eyes, which faced the fire, were aching.
My vision blurred, and my ankle, which was grabbed by the plant’s stem, was sore.

This damn body of mine, really…

’

“Demon!”

“Demon… can you… hear… my… voice?”

I guess this is a new kind of record.
F**k.

In the midst of the faint voice, I closed my eyes slowly, resenting my weak body.

It seemed as if I heard Ben’s voice behind me before closing my eyes, but I didn’t have the time to confirm whether it was real or not as darkness consumed me.

Yeah, it must have been an illusion.
His room is far from here, how could he have known where I was? Even if someone called him, it’d be impossible for him to get here in such a short time

***

As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw a very familiar ceiling.
As I looked at the walls more closely, I saw that large framed-puzzles were hung on the walls.
It was definitely my room.

I tried to get up without thinking, but I let out a short groan as a faint pain spread throughout my body.

Then, a familiar voice came from the room where I thought no one was.

“It will feel quite uncomfortable to move it for a while.”

“Ben?”

“Yes, Sir Demon.”

Ben, who was preparing medicine on the table in the middle of the room, pushed his chair back and stood up.

He approached me and checked my eyes, then, with a faint sigh, picked up my arm and lifted it up.
My arm was wrapped in a white bandage that extended all the way to my fingertips.

“As you can see.
You’ve suffered some burns all over your body, although they are minor.”

“….”

“Your eyes were also exposed to the fire for too long, so they are a bit irritated.
Fortunately, it’ll self-regenerate, but it could have been permanently damaged if you weren’t careful.”

“…Uh, okay.”

“Why did you light a fire when just 20 minutes of exposure to sunlight causes your skin to turn red? If you were angry, couldn’t you have just killed the person responsible?”

He was always so aggressive? No, he wasn’t.
He was usually quite gentle. 

But right now, the atmosphere isn’t right for a conversation.
His eyes, they are more ablaze with flame than the one I saw in the garden.
Even the emotions in those eyes are… rage?

It’s a bit unfair, but it’d be best to move away from this topic quickly.
I reluctantly shook my head, trying to shake off the unpleasant memories.

At that time, I seemed to have heard Ben’s voice.

“Ben.
Did you come to the garden when I was bleeding from my nose?”

“Yes?  Why are you asking me again? You even talked to me.”

“…Huh?”

’

After talking with Ben, I was able to roughly understand the situation.
In a nutshell, I had lost my mind. 

I faced the Demon King while half out of my mind, and as a result, Hein survived with al lintact. 

According to Ben, I had spoken to the Demon King confidently.

If he respected me, couldn’t he respect me just this once more.

“To be exact, I said ‘Do you respect me?’ and the Demon King affirmed, the I said, ‘If so, could you please respect me once more?'”

The Demon King asked, ‘What?’, then I pointed my finger at Hien, along with the arrogant words “What for, indeed.”‘

Ah, the expression ‘arrogant’ here is something I put in on my own.
There’s no way Ben would’ve said such things.

In any case, the fact that I dared to speak and act like that in front of the Demon King does not change.

I couldn’t openly get frustrated, so I barely spoke to Ben, who looked at me with a curious expression on his face.

“…You have a good memory.”

“Thank you.
In fact, none of the people who were there at the time will forget the scene.
No matter how much time goes by.”

It means that it was just that intense.
Oh, I want to be alone.
Everything is going wrong.

I silently buried my face in the pillow.

It’s difficult to believe I did something so extreme.
If I could, I’d deny it ever happened.
If I remembered what happened at the time, I would have done anything to forget about it.
So it’s not that I don’t understand why I have no memory of that time.

I don’t want to think about it anymore.
I just don’t want to remember what happened at that time. 

Fortunately, the number of people who talk to me from Demon King’s castle is extremely limited.
So if I keep my mouth shut, no one will probably bring it up anymore.

…That’s what I used to think.

“Ugh.”

I laid in bed, hugged my pillow, and narrowed my forehead as hard as I could.

If someone can’t even tell that I am feeling uncomfortable just by looking at me, then they are someone who doesn’t have any sense of perception.

Right now, I am very uncomfortable.
If someone were to talk to me, I’d glare at them with all my might.

The reason why I am feeling this way is because of the people who come to talk to me about the incident that happened in the garden.
All of them, without exception, bring up that incident.

All of them! Every single one of them!

[I decided to spare you because I respect you.]

Even the insensible Demon King who came to visit me on my sickbed.

[Sir Demon, I’m really grateful for what happened before.
And I’m sorry.
Just because of me…]

Even the originally tactless gardener, Hien, who was always too clumsy to even eat his meal properly.

’

Even Ben, the doctor who visits every day to tend to my wound, mentions the incident in the garden whenever he had the chance.

[A lot of people were probably impressed.
You stopped the Demon King to save a gardener.]

Did you all plan this? How can you all be so tactless? Is that a characteristic of demons?

“Mmm.”

“…Are you feeling uncomfortable?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Ben was changing the bandage on my side today as well.

Well, I’ll stop thinking about it now.
But I don’t think it’s as frequent these days.

Ben’s fingertips flinch whenever I narrow my brows, and I wonder where the spirit he used to scold me when I had just woken up after what happened in the garden had gone.

By the way, I thought it was full body burn in words, but I had really suffered from minor burns all over my body.
I didn’t jump into the fire, I was only exposed to the heat for a while, it’s embarrassing that I was burned just from that.

I wish I could also forget this memory.
No, because of the wound, it’d be hard to forget, so I’d rather distort the memory and remember it as if I had directly touched the fire.
Then it would be less embarrassing.

Unfortunately, a miracle like that did not happen.

While desperately trying to think of something else to distract myself from that embarrassment, a question that I had before suddenly came to mind.

“…But, Ben.”

“Yes?”

“Isn’t your room quite far from the western garden?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Then how did you get to where I was in such a short time?”

It’s weird if I think about it.

After the day I submitted my resignation letter to the Demon King, whenever I felt strange or hurt, like a ghost, Ben would sense it and immediately rush over to me.

I thought it was an illusion at the time, but given that he had appeared in the garden, I no longer think it was.

I looked at Ben with open suspicion.
Ben, who blinked a few times as if my gaze was burdensome, smiled as if it was nothing and took off the necklace hanging around his neck.

“Thanks to this.”

It was a necklace with a coin-sized stone that emitted an odd glow.

At first glance, it looked like a simple necklace ornament, but there was something oddly captivating about it.
Where have I seen something like this before? It’s a very familiar image.
Oh.

“A Magic Stone?”

“Yes, it contains a few drops of Sir Demon’s blood as well as some of the Demon King’s magic.
If the quality, speed, or flow of blood in your body appears abnormal, a signal will be sent immediately.
We’ve made numerous efforts to ensure that the same thing does not happen again.”

’

If it’s the same thing as last time, it must be when I vomited blood in front of the Demon King.
It really doesn’t have to be that way…

It even gives you the location.
I pretended not to care, but I could see that he was proud, so I couldn’t bear to say anything out loud, so I muttered inside.

‘You crazy b*****d.
When did you take my blood?’

As I was keeping my mouth shut, the room naturally fell silent.
The atmosphere that could have been very awkward was soon changed by Ben, who smoothly started a conversation

“Are you planning to eat in your room today as well?”

“What… it’s been…”

“I never asked Sir Demon to stay in bed all the time.”

That’s right.
It’s been three days since I locked myself in my room and haven’t left.

Originally, this was how most of the daily life in the castle went, but Ben doesn’t seem to like it.
He diligently finished the end of the bandage, and determinedly said.

“I saw the corps commander’s cafeteria menu today, and it wasn’t bad.”

“I am a patient…”

“It was minor burns to begin with.
Besides, since I asked the Demon King directly and used the best medicine, it should have been nearly all cured.
Your eyes must’ve recovered as well, and your ankles, which were chafed by the stems, won’t hurt even if you run.”

“…”

I have nothing to say because everything he said was correct.

Only then did I realize Ben’s switch.
The switch, that causes the normally calm man to open his mouth and spit vicious words without hesitation.

Health.

It’s almost impossible to have such a strong work ethic.
He gets angry just at the thought of my health deteriorating.

Of course, it’s not that I’m happy or worried, he’s just faithfully following the Demon King’s orders, but I’m still impressed.

Apart from that, it is quite annoying.

I smacked my lips and got up from my seat.

“I’m going to change my clothes so please step out.”

“Thank you for listening to my presumptuous request.”

He left with courtesy until the end.

I can’t hate him if he does that.
I’m sure he knows that and does it intentionally.
I opened the closet, grumbling inside.

Clothes hanging on hangers come into view at a glance.
All of them were put there by the Demon King and the Second Corps Commander.

The Demon King was expected, by why does the Second Corps Commander want to dress me so much?

I only buy clothes that fit well, I don’t intend to wear them casually.
If I wear them once, I’m sure I’ll keep it for a long time before deciding on a new outfit.

Shivering in anger, I shoved away the clothes the Second Corps Commander bought for me and took out the clothes the Demon King had given me.