Chapter 27: The Cost of Devotion

My head had already been cut off once.

But I had cut it off myself, and I had no intention of blaming His Majesty.

Perhaps because my feelings ran so deep, a corner of my heart still ached.

It was probably because my loyalty was not entirely pure.

I never expected my love to be returned, but when reality confronted me, it still tasted bitter.

His Majesty had entrusted a matter of utmost secrecy not to me, but to another servant.

There was nothing more to threaten him with, nor anything more to pry out of him, so I lowered my bow.

As I turned away with a complicated heart, the demon followed after me and said something thoughtless.

“Next time, just shoot him.”

Hwangbo Min was listening openly, yet he spoke as though it were nothing.

I ignored him and tried to pass by, but the back of my collar was caught, and the demon dragged me back.

“It’s dangerous. Stay right behind me.”

“I can protect myself. You deal with the suspicious men.”

The demon kept clinging to me and getting in the way.

Annoyed, I slapped away the hand gripping my collar and snapped at him.

When I pushed him aside and took the lead, Hwangbo Min shamelessly began pestering the demon from behind.

“General Jeok, if you wish to protect someone tonight, you may protect me.”

I pretended not to hear Hwangbo Min whispering to the demon and continued onward.

Perhaps because I had killed someone, the darkness around us felt different from before.

The air itself seemed to have changed in some subtle way.

The darkness was the same, but now that I had personally confirmed the danger lurking beyond it, it could not feel the same.

I walked with an arrow on the bowstring, keeping watch over our surroundings.

Behind me, I heard Hwangbo Min whisper quietly to the demon.

“Will it be alright to continue like this?”

“…”

“It seems the men pulling the cart came for the fifth prince. Is it really alright to just leave?”

They were close enough that I could hear them.

The more I listened, the stranger I felt.

Hwangbo Min spoke as though the demon and Hyeopbyeol shared some special connection.

His Majesty was one thing, since they were related by blood.

But why was he dragging the demon, a complete stranger, into it?

I turned around to give Hwangbo Min a sharp warning, but the demon picked a fight as though he had been waiting for it.

From the beginning, he had not listened to Hwangbo Min at all.

He had only been glaring at me.

“What is wrong with you? Do you not know how to behave quietly?”

“You are picking a fight out of nowhere?”

I could not understand why he was suddenly telling me to behave quietly.

Then the demon raised his hand.

His palm, spread wide like the lid of a cauldron, was intimidating.

If that hit me, at least one bone would break.

Frozen in shock, unable to move even a finger, I stared at the descending palm.

Whoosh!

“…!”

A strand of hair I had failed to dodge was sliced off and fluttered down.

A hidden weapon had embedded itself exactly where I had been standing.

Even after piercing the ground, it continued trembling.

I immediately fired an arrow toward the direction it had come from.

But the arrow merely cut through the night sky above the roof.

Beneath the arrow’s path, a suspicious man who had been lying flat rose and ran across the rooftop.

There was more than one.

The sound of roof tiles breaking echoed from every direction.

Only after sensing the danger I had failed to notice did a chill run through me.

There was only one reason the men who had been hiding until now had suddenly attacked.

The darkness made it difficult to distinguish the demon’s red hair.

They had thrown the hidden weapon to test whether he truly was the demon.

Once they confirmed it, they fled.

They could not defeat the Red Demon in a direct confrontation.

Rather than die pointlessly at his hands, they were fleeing to accomplish whatever purpose had brought them into the palace that night.

It was a wise choice.

If I were them, I would not choose the worst possible option of fighting the demon either.

Therefore, if the Red Demon pursued them to the end, they would never reach their destination.

If the Red Demon followed them there and interfered, their planned undertaking would surely collapse.

I ran after the men, following the sound of tiles breaking beneath their feet.

I shouted at the demon following behind me.

“Do not come with me!”

“No!”

Perhaps realizing that I intended to go alone, the demon grabbed my wrist.

My captured wrist could not move at all, as though it had been shackled to an iron chain.

His red eyes glowed softly in the darkness.

They were filled with killing intent and restrained me like chains.

I faced those murderous eyes and swallowed dryly from instinctive fear, but there was no time to waste.

The sound of tiles breaking under the weight of adult men was growing farther away.

No matter how hard I twisted, the demon would not release my wrist.

“Then let us do this. Meet me at the court hall. I will only check what they are planning.”

“Do you think you can face those men alone and remain unharmed?”

Since waking from the dream, I had never once placed my own safety first.

Yet the demon was speaking of it.

That man—the one who had ruined my safety more than anyone else—was worrying about me.

A strange feeling rose in my chest.

I forgot even to twist my captured wrist free and stared at him.

Perhaps emotions were swelling within him as well, because his red eyes burned fiercely.

“Is it really so hard for you to stay still? I said I would do everything for you. What is the problem? What can a fool like you possibly do by charging in?”

But the words that followed were so absurd that the strange feeling disappeared without a trace.

“A fool? Charging in?”

Was that how he saw me?

The anger that rose in protest faded when I met his contemptuous gaze.

At the same time, my heart dropped heavily.

It was nothing new.

Recently, his attitude had changed because we had shared a bed, but the demon had never treated me as a complete man.

He usually looked at me with contempt and disregard, constantly sending me displeased glances.

In fact, it had been so long since he had openly dismissed me to my face that it almost felt familiar.

Yes.

That was right.

This was who he had always been.

He had always been this cruel and wicked.

What had I foolishly expected?

I had been deceived by a brief moment of kindness and forgotten his true nature.

How foolish.

“If you had been alone, do you think you would still be alive? You would have been stabbed to death before midnight. And now what? You want to go around alone?”

“I do not care if I die.”

My voice came out calmer than I expected.

Once I remembered the demon’s true nature, I felt strangely composed instead.

The demon’s thick eyebrows twitched.

But even if he saw me as a foolish idiot, I had no intention of correcting him.

I knew he was right.

I knew that offering my life unilaterally for someone who did not know my feelings was a foolish act of treating myself as worthless.

But at least this feeling belonged entirely to me.

Even if it was unrequited love, there was no reason for an unrelated person to call me foolish for it.

I told the demon clearly once more.

“For His Majesty, I do not care if I die.”

Perhaps speechless, the demon’s lips moved as the dark hollow of his mouth opened and closed.

From that dark hollow, which seemed full of countless cruel remarks, anger finally spilled out.

His tone was that of someone clutching his chest in frustration at the sight of a fool.

“His Majesty, His Majesty. Are you someone who cannot live without the emperor?”

“Do you know what is most miserable?”

You would not know.

You were born a strong martial artist.

Nothing had ever failed to go your way.

You would never understand how I felt when I was trapped in an underground prison, scraping at the floor.

You would never understand the misery of being unable to do anything except claw at the ground and cry out, unaware that His Majesty’s head was about to be cut off.

“The most miserable thing is staying still. Being locked away alone, not knowing what is happening outside, breathing and living without knowing that someone precious to you is dying.”

The fingertips that had scraped the underground prison floor came back to me.

Fingertips whose flesh had torn away against stone.

The despair from that time stabbed into the rotten part of my heart.

I clenched my trembling fist and steadied my breath.

“I know how to protect myself. As you say, I may be foolish and lacking, but I am trying not to be helpless.”

“…What can you do with hands that cannot even wring a chicken’s neck?”

Even after I said that, the demon remained the same.

What had I expected when I confessed my feelings?

A self-mocking smile touched my lips.

“That is why I slept with you.”

I had done what I could with hands incapable of wringing a chicken’s neck.

“Just as I chose to share a bed with you of my own will, I am doing what I can do.”

You would not understand.

You might find me insignificant, but I was struggling desperately and doing my best.

I did not want to argue anymore.

The demon and I would never yield our stubbornness.

It was better to part ways here.

At the edge of my vision, I caught sight of Hwangbo Min staring in shock.

I pretended not to see him, turned my head, and said:

“I will see you at the court hall.”

Step by step, my calm footsteps gradually quickened.

Even when they became a run, only one set of footsteps echoed.

The demon did not follow.

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