Chapter 58

I sat quietly in the Demon King’s castle garden with Potato, staring melancholically at the stars.

Potato, unaware of my inner turmoil, twitched one of his ears before grabbing my clothes with his teeth, trying to drag me inside.

But no matter what he did, I simply sat there, gazing blankly at the night sky.

I finally understood why Adam had been looking up at the stars the first time I met him.

Just staring at the endless black sky made my mind feel lighter.

It helped untangle my messy thoughts.

“I’m not okay at all…”

No, I wasn’t.

I finally stopped denying reality.

Maybe it was because Ben was gone.

Now that the castle was just the two of us, everything felt strange. Uncomfortable.

Well, except for Abraxas—he didn’t count.

Lately, he had been nowhere to be seen within the castle. I had no idea what he was up to.

Other than that, my days were uneventful.

Adam greeted me kindly, watched over me as I ate, and listened to everything I said.

It was all… completely normal.

But when he smiled, everything changed.

For some reason, Adam kept laughing at my constantly shifting expressions.

And every time he did, my face would burn red, and I’d run away.

Today was no different.

Near the forest, I had picked some wildflowers and woven them into a little crown for Potato.

Then, on a whim, I made a flower bracelet, like the ones I used to craft as a child, and placed it on Adam’s wrist.

The pink flowers looked surprisingly natural against his pale, beautiful skin.

But when I looked up, I suddenly found myself staring straight into Adam’s gently curved eyes.

After that, I had spent the entire day running away from him.

Even now, I was hiding in the garden, escaping Adam once more.

His smile had been especially radiant today, and it left me feeling strangely unsettled.

I was the one who asked him to be kinder to me.

But now that he was smiling at me, treating me warmly, it made my heart restless.

I knew Adam wasn’t acting with any deeper meaning—just pure, simple kindness.

‘Or maybe he’s just teasing me.’

…That seemed more likely.

As if my thoughts weren’t already a mess, Potato had been pacing around me restlessly all evening, making it worse.

Then, after eyeing me for a moment, he suddenly bolted.

I watched as he disappeared into the dense forest, vanishing without a trace.

Slowly, I got to my feet.

‘Yeah, this kind of self-pity doesn’t suit me.’

I should just go and ask Adam directly.

Under the cover of night—when I could make reckless decisions I’d regret in the morning—I resolved to confront him.

But before I could act, a disturbance broke out nearby.

Clang!

A sharp, ringing sound echoed through the Demon King’s castle.

Not long ago, Potato had been growling toward the back of the castle, so I had hugged him to calm him down.

Now, Potato was nowhere to be seen.

I had assumed no one was there.

I stepped toward the rear garden, my curiosity piqued.

Could it be Ben?

Tonight marked the third evening since he said he would return.

He was later than expected, and I felt a growing sense of unease.

The sky was especially bright tonight, with the moon shining in full splendor.

Its silver light illuminated my surroundings.

And beneath it, I spotted Ben—his face pale as a sheet, gripping a frying pan like a weapon, trembling violently.

“E-E-Eve… W-What do I do?”

I was momentarily speechless.

Ben couldn’t even bring himself to look down.

So I slowly lowered my gaze for him.

“…….”

I glanced back and forth between the corpse (?) and Ben.

The figure lying on the ground looked oddly familiar.

Wait, is a demon really supposed to go down that easily? Where’s the combat power measurement?

It had been months since Ben started living in the Demon King’s castle.

But he still didn’t know the identity or even the face of some of the castle’s other residents.

It was one thing to be unaware of the beasts, but explaining that a demon was coexisting peacefully with a hero would have been a bit much for an ordinary guy like Ben.

That’s why I had told Abraxas to avoid being seen as much as possible.

And this was the result.

Ben, returning home in high spirits with his newly purchased cooking tools, had mistaken Abraxas for an intruder and smacked him with a frying pan.

‘…Is Ben secretly hiding his true strength? Is he actually the strongest in this world?’

I mean, he was managing to handle the warrior—the one who had defeated the Demon King—through sheer cooking skills.

But knocking out a demon?

Maybe Ben should have been the hero, not Adam.

Faced with this absurd situation, it took me a while to finally open my mouth.

“…Why is Abraxas like that?”

“A-A…Abraxas?”

Ben stammered in confusion.

I picked up a twig and prodded the seemingly lifeless Abraxas.

Hmm. He might actually be dead.

I silently wished him a good afterlife.

May you be reborn as a kind-hearted demon.

But just as I was about to close the case, Abraxas suddenly shot upright.

I had noticed his body twitching a little after he collapsed, so I figured he wasn’t actually dead.

As he always said, he was still a demon, after all. No way he’d die that easily.

“Owww, there’s a bump on my head!”

Abraxas whined, rubbing the growing lump on the back of his skull.

When he turned to glare at his attacker, I quickly stepped between them, shielding the already-nervous Ben from his gaze.

“……?”

Ben’s confused eyes met mine, silently demanding an explanation.

Well, I couldn’t hide it anymore.

After a brief hesitation, I decided to explain it in a way he could accept.

“Uh, Abraxas is… kind of like the warrior’s servant. He swore loyalty as a way to atone for his past and become a new person.”

I studiously ignored Abraxas’s glowing red eyes as I spoke.

Did Ben even know much about demons?

Given that he was from Dainel Village, he might.

But I decided to trust in Ben’s usual obliviousness.

Thankfully, he seemed to have an epiphany.

“Ohhh. I think I’ve seen him before. I thought he was a ghost… There was that one time I saw a shadowy figure in a room, but when I blinked, it vanished. And the next day, the messy room was suddenly spotless.”

So Abraxas had been following my orders to stay out of Ben’s sight.

Ben clapped his hands in realization.

“So he’s a house fairy?”

“…Something like that.”

…More like a house demon, but sure.

Considering how engrossed he was in Tommy’s fairy tale books, it made sense that he believed in those kinds of things.

I mean, we lived in a world where beasts could talk, there was a Demon King, a hero, and literal gods. Who was I to say fairies didn’t exist?

Now that Ben understood Abraxas wasn’t a threat, his grip on the frying pan relaxed.

“But Abraxas—”

Suddenly, a rustling sound reached our ears.

Rustle—

Too loud to be just the wind.

I narrowed my eyes and looked past Ben.

Then—

Something shot up from the darkness below.

And it happened to be right behind Ben, against the castle wall.

The very same castle wall that should have been completely sealed off.

Ben knew that, too.

Before I could fully process the situation, his already pale face drained of all color.

And in sheer reflex—

“UWAAAH!”

CLANG!!

The sharp sound rang through the castle again.

Ben, still on edge, had instinctively swung his frying pan.

And in that brief second, I immediately understood why Abraxas was lying motionless on the ground.

Without thinking, I reached up and touched my own head.

…Thank god it was still intact.

Then, Abraxas—who had been trying to block my approach toward Ben—suddenly shouted.

“A… A kind citizen has just been knocked out with a frying pan!”

Wait, someone just came out of the castle wall?

Was it… really a ghost?

Abraxas yelped and dashed toward Ben at full speed.

I followed after him, only to be met with the aftermath of Ben’s latest crime.