Chapter 1: Enter the Princess!

If you were to be reincarnated into another world… what ability would be the most useful?
Well, it’s definitely not cooking.
Why am I so sure?

“Hey, Teo! Stop your f*cking mumbling and hurry up and move this pile of mana stones!”

Because in my past life, my major was cooking before I was reincarnated into this isekai.

(TL Note: Isekai means “Different World” in Japanese.)

If you were to be reincarnated into another world… what ability would be the most useful?
Well, it’s definitely not cooking.
Why am I so sure?

“Hey, Teo! Stop your f*cking mumbling and hurry up and move this pile of mana stones!”

Because in my past life, my major was cooking before I was reincarnated into this isekai.

When I first fell into this world, I’ll admit I was a little excited.
But…
Status Window!
Menu!
Skill List!
Abilities!
System!
Status!
(Jōtai mado!)

(TL Note: Jōtai mado means  “Status Window” in Japanese.)

I tried every damn word I could think of, in Korean, English, and even Japanese, but nothing appeared.
And since the original owner of this body was a complete f*cking loser who had accomplished nothing, I had no special abilities to speak of.
That’s why I’m now slaving away in this goddamn mine… Fck…

“Ugh… I’m… I’m really going to die…”
“Foreman!! Are you sure I’m supposed to haul all of this by myself?”

“Don’t you know everyone’s flocking to the new tunnel, so there’s no one left to haul mana stones?”
“Besides, you should be grateful we’re even using a dirty mixed-blood of unknown origin, so why are you complaining?”

The black horns, characteristic of a demon.
And a completely bald head.
The ugly-as-sin foreman was throwing a fit at me for some reason… but there was nothing I could do.
Come to think of it, I now understand the original owner of this body, a total loser who achieved nothing.
In this Magocratic Kingdom… no, in this world, I… no, this body is…
A ‘mixed-blood’ of human and demon descent, scorned by all races, including humans and demons… the lowest of the low in this world’s hierarchy.
No, I’m what they call an untouchable.

‘F*ck… F*ck..! That f*cking bald bastard…’
‘He must have gotten chewed out by his wife after coming home drunk yesterday… and now he’s taking it out on me.’

While I cried tears internally and shed beads of sweat externally, hauling the mountain-like pile of mana stones, today was still a good day.
It was the day of the weekly mine inspection by Pariya, the youngest daughter of Viscount Pasun, a High Demon and the Minister of Rites of the Magocratic Kingdom, who owned this massive mana stone mine!
She was the sole hope of my shitty isekai life!
My light, my salt, my salvation!
And my untouchable, forbidden philia.

“Haa… Just looking at her is healing… No, since I’m half-demon, should I say it’s dealing damage…?”
“Ah, f*ck it, whatever… Just seeing her from afar like this makes all my troubles disappear…”

Watching Pariya, surrounded by people who were clearly of high status, inspecting the mine here and there, made me feel a bit creepy… but what could I do?
To endure this hard labor, I had no choice.

“Hmm… The mana stone production has slightly decreased this month… I know manpower and resources were split because of the new tunnel excavation, but… I believe I provided enough compensation for that?”

Ah… ahh!! That noble voice, berating the mine managers who I always found so f*cking annoying…
Pariya… you’re truly the only source of dopamine in this shitty isekai life… for real.

Of course they should be ashamed!
They embezzle materials and secretly drink on the job… how could production possibly be maintained?

“This is unacceptable. As soon as this inspection is over, prepare the workers’ wage statements, the material logs, and the receipts to compare directly with the material suppliers.”
“You have 12 hours.”

Nice!!!
The managers’ faces turned into a mask of pure disgust!
I love you, Pariya!

“Niiice…!”

Oops!
I should have kept it down…
The managers getting chewed out by Pariya was just too satisfying, and my voice got louder without me realizing… Huh?

Stare!

My unreachable philia, Pariya, graced me with a look from her beautiful eyes… huh?
Huh?? Why is she coming closer…

SLAP!

“Uh… huh?”

I was just blankly watching my philia, Pariya, approach me… when suddenly my head snapped to the side.
My body went limp, and I collapsed onto the pile of mana stones I had been hauling.

“Manager!!!!”

My… my philia Pariya’s voice rang out, sharp and clearly displeased about something…

“This filthy mixed-blood… he was staring at me with disgusting eyes and defiled my ears with his revolting voice…”
“How are you going to take responsibility for this?”

And then… Pariya’s blue eyes, filled with a level of contempt and disgust I had never seen before…

“Yes!! My lady!! I’m so sorry…”
“You son of a b*tch!!!”

-CRACK!!!-

It hurts…
But it’s not the punch to my jaw from the manager, who was now smiling as if he’d been saved after looking so constipated just a moment ago… that doesn’t hurt.
It’s not my eyes, which reflect the smirking faces of the other demons who seem to think I got what I deserved, that hurt either…
It’s just… my philia… my light, my salt, my salvation, and the only dopamine in my isekai life…
My ears hurt from hearing the beautiful voice of Pariya, spitting out her words in disgust…

“Keok… Ugh…”

I think I lost a few molars…
That’s a relief, I guess.
The only good thing about this damn body is its good regeneration.
That’s the only thing.

“Tsk… That’s all for today’s inspection.”
“I need to wash my eyes from the sight of that disgusting mixed-blood and my ears from hearing his revolting voice. Bring me water, quickly.”

“Y-Yes! Right away, my lady… I shall escort you.”
“Hey! Get this insect-like mixed-blood out of here, now!”

My ears hurt again…
My jaw throbbed from the manager’s punch.
The loose molars inside my mouth grated on my nerves.
But more than my ass, which was being dragged like a sack of garbage and scraping against the floor…
My ears, which heard the beautiful voice of Pariya filled with hatred, hurt so much.

‘Clink…’

“Hey, Teo. Drag your disgusting body and get the hell out. Ptooey!”

A sticky glob of spit, served like a garnish on my day’s wages which were covered in dirt and dust…

“Haa… Should I be glad I at least got paid for today’s work…”

I started to spin my happy-go-lucky mental circuits while dazedly being dragged to the mine entrance by the other workers, thrown out, and picking up my scattered pay from the ground.
If I didn’t, I felt like I would… I would really die…

“Ugh… Haa… What do I do now…? This mine job was really my last resort…”

Never mind.
No matter how much I spin my happy thoughts, this situation is hopeless…
I decided to just walk for now.

“First… let’s just walk… Maybe I’ll think of something if I walk… Ah… my jaw… it’s fine. This damn body.”
“Haa… So Pariya was a mixed-blood-hating demon just like all the others… How bitter…”

I dragged my uselessly healthy body, wondering how I was going to survive in this sh*tty world.
Thinking about Pariya, who had shown me her unabashed hatred, I walked until I reached a beach.
There was nowhere else to walk… and the sight of the sun setting over the beach reminded me of home, so I found a decent-looking rock and plopped down.

“Sniff… Haa… Do I really have to sell my body…? I don’t want to do that, it would hurt… What am I going to eat today… Sigh…”
“I just want to quit everything and go home… Huh?”

“Giggle!”

As I was lamenting my fate, rubbing my eyes that had turned as red as the sun sinking below the ocean, the figure of a child splashing and playing on the shore caught my eye.

“…? W-What? Why is a kid here? I don’t see anyone who looks like a parent…”

Even though I’d been through all sorts of dirty and miserable things in this world, I still held onto one motto: children are the future!
Worried, I approached the giggling child who was playing alone in the water.

“Hey, little one? What are you doing here all by yourself?”

Did she recognize my handsome face?
The child’s beautiful, ruby-like eyes sparkled as she smiled brightly, showing me a clam held tightly in her small hand.

“Cwams! I was picking cwams to cook for Daddy!! Daddy works so much he can’t eat properly!”

What a good kid.
The child’s tear-jerking reason for gathering clams for her tired, working father made me think of my own parents far away, beyond the cosmic background radiation.
I rolled up the sleeves of my uncomfortable shirt and started scouring the beach with her.

“Let oppa help you! Oppa doesn’t have much money either, so I have to catch my own ingredients.”
(TL Note: Oppa is what a younger female calls an older male she is close to.)

Killing two birds with one stone, I could fill my own stomach without spending money.

“Okay! Let’s cook together, Mister! It’s gonna be fun!!”

Great!
Since I have to cook for myself anyway… it’s better if I do it!
And I can’t trust the cooking skills of the people in this world…
Seriously, f*ck. How did they only manage to research such bizarre cooking methods with such fresh, good ingredients…?

The first time I ate this world’s food… I spent three days and nights with nothing going into either of my body’s two mouths, only things coming out…
At first, I had the pure, naive thought that maybe the people of this world just had different tastes.

But it wasn’t that.
They were just purely… no, this was pure evil level of cluelessness about how to use ingredients and recipes…
Was it because they were demons?
I thought that, but the skill level of other races was even more severe.
The demons’ cooking skills were considered top-tier in this world, the level of a cooking-specialized race.

Sigh… At least the alcohol is the same as in my world, that’s a relief… though… it was so expensive I only tried it once!

“Alright! But… let’s eat together! Oppa is so sick of eating alone… How about it?”

“Wow!! Okay, okay!! Mister, me, and Daddy! Let’s eat together!”

“Ugh… I’m not a mister…”

Having decided to eat together, the two of us started picking up the clams scattered on the beach again…
After we had gathered enough?
No, after we had a net overflowing with enough clams, crabs, and other seafood to make three people’s stomachs burst, the child seemed satisfied.
She smiled brightly, dusted off her hands, and grabbed my sleeve, pulling me towards a certain place.

“Heehee! It’s so~ much fun catching things with you, Mister! This is the first time I’ve had so much fun with someone else!”
“Okay! As a special treat, I’ll show you my secret base! Let’s go together!”

“I’m not a mis… sigh… alright, alright. Let’s go.”

Thinking it was just some simple secret base, I matched the child’s pace and arrived at a cabin in the woods by the coast… Oh… sht… what is this? It’s fcking nice…?

“Um… little one…? Is… is this really a… secret base…?”

No… isn’t this too much?
What kind of secret base is a two-story cabin with a yard??
If a cabin of this quality is a child’s secret base…

Are the birds flying in the sky over there drones made with anti-gravity devices, and is the earthworm passing under my feet a tunnel-boring drill?
It was always like this… but today was a day I particularly missed Marx and Engels, those other famous Germans hidden behind a mustache.

“Yep! It’s a secret base my Daddy built so the servants wouldn’t know!”

Ah… I’m f*cked…
The word “servants” coming out of the child’s mouth means… she’s at least a High Demon…
No wonder… the sheen of her horns was different from the start… Hmmm… where should I cut to be forgiven…?
Since I was with a child, should I cut off my pinky finger to make it rhyme…?
Or should I go bigger and cut off my wrist…?

“Hmph!! Mister, what are you spacing out for? Let’s go inside the base quickly!”

“R-r-right… Let’s… go inside.”

Screw it, I don’t know anymore!
It’s not like I kidnapped her…
No, if you think about it, I was invited as a guest by the child, so they wouldn’t kill me… right?
At worst, they’d just chop off a few fingers and that would be it…
After accepting the result of furiously spinning this hopeful circuit in my brain, I felt uneasy but pushed open the cabin door with a sense of feigned confidence and walked in, only to be greeted by a magnificent portrait.

“…………”

“W-wow… sh… sh… sh*t…”

“Heehee! Mister, what do you think? Isn’t my Daddy cool?”

…I take it back… I’m so f*cked.

“I’m f*cked…”
“D-De… Devil…”

“Huh?? Mister, you know my Daddy’s name too?”
“Other people don’t call Daddy by his name, so I thought only I knew it!”

This… this child talking to me with an innocent smile…

“L-little one… then… could it be… your… your name is…”

“Huh? Mister, you know my name?”

Of course, I do… If there’s anyone who doesn’t know, they’re not a citizen of the Magocratic Kingdom.
No… even if they weren’t a citizen, every royal family in the entire world would know this child’s name.
Her father was just that much of a doting parent…

“Me too, me too! No one calls me by my name except Daddy! Mister! Call my name!”

Of course, no one can call you by your name!!
If any normal person… no, even a High Demon other than Devil, were to call this child by her name…
Every demon in the Magocratic Kingdom would rip out that person’s tongue and grind it into powder… no, since it’s a tongue, they’d make it into ‘powdered beef tongue’…

“B-Be… Bel… ze… Belze…”

“Beelzebub.”

The pinnacle of the Magocratic Kingdom.
The one and only daughter of the Demon King Devil.
First in line for the throne.
The daughter of the supreme ruler.
Beelzebub was right in front of my eyes.