Chapter 19: The Red Devil Returns

A woman and a man dressed in red and blue wedding robes bowed to each other across the wedding table.

The courtyard was packed with people surrounding them in celebration.

His Majesty, draped in a blue robe, stood behind the crowd gathered in the shape of old coins, his hands clasped behind his back.

His gaze upon the commoners, who created something special out of an otherwise ordinary day, was endlessly gentle.

It had not been that long ago, yet that peaceful moment felt distant and heavy, like a faded painting.

Then I looked back at the reality before me.

Seung-gi, overwhelmed with gratitude, and His Majesty, looking satisfied, were familiar sights.

Yes.

I had seen this too.

Only now did I clearly remember the day I had lived through in the dream.

Just as Seung-gi’s wedding had taken place safely, the rebellion too must have been unavoidable.

The more the prophecies from my dream became reality one by one, the more fear crept into my life through scenes that looked so warm and ordinary.

After leaving the noodle shop, we walked until the market came to an end.

Once we left the market, the number of people dwindled.

By the time I was walking alongside His Majesty by the stream, there was no one around except children bathing down by the water.

The road lined with flowering trees was noisy with countless pink petals scattering in the wind.

I widened the distance enough that Seung-gi, walking several steps behind us, could not hear.

Then I moved close behind His Majesty.

“Your Majesty, do you know where General Jeok first appeared?”

Sensing my presence, His Majesty glanced at me over his shoulder.

He played with the falling flower petals, trying to catch them in his hand as he spoke.

“The place where he first appeared?”

“Well, I remember the battlefield where I first met him, but I do not know where he first appeared.”

“I believe I heard that place was also a battlefield.”

Since the Red Devil had gained attention as a mercenary on battlefields, war was an inseparable part of his identity.

His Majesty’s answer gave me little to work with.

Until now, I had not noticed anything strange.

But once I began thinking about it, everything felt strange.

It had been more than ten years since the Devil became a citizen of the Hyeop Empire.

Yet during all that time, no one had ever appeared claiming to know him.

Even if he had been alone and orphaned, he had made a name for himself throughout the empire.

One would think someone would have appeared claiming to be his parents who had lost him as a child, or an old neighbor from his youth.

But there had been no one.

I could accept that much because the Devil was such a terrifying bastard.

If someone falsely claimed a connection to him and got caught, they would likely be cut in half by his sword.

But in the past ten years, not a single woman had appeared claiming to carry the Devil’s child.

For ten years, he had been waving his cock around among the courtesans of the imperial capital.

At least one woman should have shown up pregnant with his child.

Yet even that had never happened.

I had personally confirmed several times that the Devil was not impotent.

I had suffered through squatting in a bath until the water turned cold, scraping out the semen he had spilled inside me like it was trying to crawl deeper.

If he turned out to be impotent after all that, I would have every right to feel cheated.

He spilled that much semen, yet had no children?

That made no sense either.

“Han, do you not remember?”

“You were the one who first brought General Jeok into our camp.”

“Pardon?”

I had been lost in thought, so the words sounded like an accusation.

Startled, I asked again.

His Majesty was now standing beside me, looking calm as though he had expected this reaction.

“Yes, that seems to be the case.”

“You were young then, so perhaps you do not remember.”

“I was not that young, but I do not remember.”

I had not even reached the age of fifteen.

I had no idea what a battlefield was truly like.

I had only been dragged there because Father stubbornly insisted that he had to serve His Majesty, who was then still the Crown Prince.

People’s limbs were torn off as easily as pulling apart grasshopper legs.

Heads were cut off as easily as plucking the head off a dragonfly.

I had not been prepared to calmly accept such a battlefield.

It was the first time I had ever seen corpses.

All I remembered was staying awake through the night and vomiting every day.

Everything else was vague.

Perhaps my younger self survived the battlefield by erasing unbearable reality from my memory.

His Majesty, on the other hand, remembered that time.

We had both entered the battlefield for the first time, but he was a few years older than me.

“Do you remember going into the barracks because you said it was hard to watch the injured soldiers returning after battle?”

“Only the first few times.”

“Once I got used to it, I carried bandages around and wrapped their wounds too.”

“I know.”

“The first person whose wounds you wrapped was General Jeok.”

“To be precise, it was not a bandage.”

“It was clothing.”

What was this nonsense?

Still, His Majesty explained the situation in such detail that I could not suspect he was making it up.

“When you disappeared, I went looking for you.”

“You came out of the bushes somewhere that was not even a proper path.”

“General Jeok was following behind you.”

“Even now, I sometimes dream about that scene.”

“It was frightening, but so absurd that I could hardly believe it.”

His Majesty smiled as he spoke, as though the memory was truly ridiculous.

“Was General Jeok ever a small man?”

“He had just returned from battle, covered from head to toe in blood.”

“His hair and eyes were normally red, but that day they were completely crimson.”

“A huge man, terrifying and red from head to toe, was following behind a young boy like you.”

“My legs trembled from fear, yet I could not help laughing.”

“How could he follow you so obediently?”

“Han, I truly want to know.”

“How did you find General Jeok, who was our enemy at the time, and bring him all the way to our camp?”

“…I do not remember any of this.”

“It feels like I am listening to someone else’s story.”

“Anyway, General Jeok had cloth wrapped around his arm.”

“When I looked closely, it was your clothing.”

“The cloth was soaked red because it had been used to bind his wound.”

“You had brought bandages, but when you untied the clothes to replace them, the wound opened and exposed the flesh beneath.”

“You saw it and ran off to vomit.”

“You do not remember that either, do you?”

“…”

My younger self had apparently lost all sense of fear and possessed far too much unnecessary kindness.

No.

If I had already lost my fear, I should have strangled the Devil with those bandages back then.

What a regrettable waste.

“After you wrapped General Jeok’s arm with your clothes, you began carrying bandages around and tending to soldiers.”

“You were terrible at it, but you worked so hard.”

“The soldiers could not bring themselves to undo the mess you had made.”

“I should have wrapped them around General Jeok’s neck instead of his arm.”

His Majesty pretended not to notice my regretful muttering.

Then he lightly nudged me with his elbow.

“You seemed to have grown much closer to General Jeok lately.”

“Have things become better between you two?”

“If the day ever comes when I get along with that man, he may start making a fuss about holding a wedding.”

“He is not in his right mind, so he says nothing but insane things.”

“Still, without General Jeok, it would have been difficult for me to wield power as freely as I do now.”

“Even if you dislike him, please get along with him, Han.”

“…That is true.”

“General Jeok is Your Majesty’s man.”

Then why had the Red Devil killed His Majesty in the dream?

The image of His Majesty’s severed head rose in my mind.

I quietly pressed a hand against my aching chest.

“I say this because you are my person too.”

“There is no harm in getting along.”

“What do you think?”

“Should I arrange a meeting for the two of you?”

“Your Majesty, you must be busy with state affairs.”

“You do not need to turn my insides upside down as well.”

I rejected him cleanly with a serious expression.

His Majesty only laughed loudly and did not press further.

Even so, he did not forget to praise the Red Devil.

“General Jeok is a little straightforward, but he is not a bad person.”

“He is very consistent.”

“Yes.”

“He is consistently cruel, lecherous, vulgar, and ignorant.”

“Haha.”

“I hope General Jeok returns safely.”

“Every day, I worry about him.”

When that Devil returned, he would surely rush at me demanding to do it again.

The wounds he had torn open with his cock had only barely healed.

Whenever a scab began to form, he would push himself inside and tear me open again.

I could not even offer empty words of comfort.

Worry, misfortune, and bad omens hung over the road ahead of me.

I could not even pretend to laugh along with His Majesty’s hearty laughter.

I slowed my steps and secretly let out deep sighs behind him.

Under one flowering tree stood two utterly contrasting scenes.

“The Red Devil eats barbarians.”

“He tears them apart and eats them raw.”

“He roasts them in the fires of hell and eats them.”

“He boils them in the Yellow River and eats them.”

“With the Red Devil here, how could barbarians dare eat the people of the Hyeop Empire?”

By the time the song shouted by children running through the alleys became familiar, the Devil’s army returned to the imperial capital.

They returned bearing a glorious victory.

It had been roughly a month since they left to subjugate the barbarians.

Along the avenue filled with music, beautiful women scattered flower petals into the air in welcome.

The Devil’s army marched through the cheering citizens and presented the head of the barbarian leader to His Majesty.

On the day a grand banquet was held at the imperial palace to welcome the army’s return, the Red Devil finally received the rank of Grand General, a title that had been delayed again and again.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

This Hidden Class Is a Bit Off

ActionFemale ProtagonistGender Bender

Read Now →
Not interested