CHAPTER 47…..
“Why did you say something so different from what you truly feel?”
Ijef asked Roziana with a rather troubled expression.
The two of them were walking together down a long corridor, having just left the room where Asterios had been treated.
Roziana looked at his sorrowful eyes and let out a small laugh.
“Ha, ha… you talk as if you can see straight through me, Ijef.”
As she laughed, the space around her seemed to glitter white and shatter away; Ijef quietly took it in.
It had only been three days since Asterios and the princess had returned from the Demon Realm. But in that short time, Roziana’s presence had changed noticeably.
Not only had she grown physically, but she returned seeming as though she had brought back the pain and scars of years spent in that other world. She was now an adult—cold, dignified, and unapproachable.
Moreover, she had come back of age. The fact that she had grown past time’s bounds, along with the overwhelming aura she now carried, had already split the Elder Council into two factions—those who feared her and those who revered her.
She was an unprecedentedly powerful princess with the might of a dragon, and even her summoned beast was a griffin—the elite guardian beast of dragons, said to appear only in moments of near-catastrophe.
The elders were in rare spirits, debating whether she would be the Empire’s great light or its great darkness.
Pushing aside his worries for her, Ijef quietly voiced his thoughts.
“While I was treating Duke Tenebres’s wounds and injuries, no one worried for him more than you did.”
“That’s not true. Everyone in that room was worried for As, Ijef.”
“But only you, Your Highness, stayed by his side for all three days he hovered at death’s door. You desperately wished for him to wake up.”
The one who had cried his name in anguish was none other than Roziana herself. And yet, the moment he opened his eyes, she had masked her feelings and greeted him with icy indifference as though nothing had happened.
‘Everyone must have been focused on her every move…’
Even to an outsider, it would seem there was something between the princess and her knight commander.
Soon enough, talk of the Duke of Tenebres would spread through the palace, carried by rumors and exaggerations.
Born into hardship and reaching adulthood in the shortest possible time, Roziana had already become the Empire’s one and only truly exceptional existence.
‘Why did she suddenly treat him so coldly?’
Ijef had been watching them since the time Roziana was in the Grand Duke’s estate. From her behavior and the circumstances, he had guessed that the masked Duke of Tenebres was the real Asterios—and that the two had grown together quickly.
He didn’t know what events and time they had shared, but the emotions between them were not fleeting.
To Ijef, whose nature was kind and transparent, it was obvious: their hearts were painfully twisted toward one another, as though something had intentionally knotted them that way.
Seemingly with no intent to hide it, Roziana began to explain in a gentle tone.
“A long time ago, As wronged me, and I can’t forgive him easily. And what I said earlier was the truth—I do need him.”
At her word need, Ijef’s eyes widened. For some reason, hearing that she needed someone made his chest ache. That reaction in himself startled him even more.
“Ijef, have you ever heard of the Demon King’s Cage?”
Her question brought him back to his usual calm.
“Yes. I learned about it when I heard of the incident where a black magician tore away the cage above the Magic Tower.”
“The cage is meant to steal an opponent’s mana. The Demon King traps prey inside and drains their mana through physical contact, driving them to death.”
“A dreadful object, just as I’ve heard.”
“Right. But in the Demon Realm, I used that cage—not as the one being drained, but as the one stealing the power.”
“You, Your Highness??”
“Yes. Me.”
How could that be possible? Ijef fell silent in thought, and then—ah.
He remembered.
When black magic had seeped into the Grand Duke’s house and a cursed creature from the Demon Realm had attacked them—he had shielded the young Roziana with his own body, and she had shouted a spell to protect him.
“Daku Shadow, naegereu ora!”
Back then, the princess had clearly used mana to call a spirit of darkness.
“…So, Your Highness possesses the power to become a Demon King.”
“Seems that way. You’re really sharp, Ijef—figuring everything out from just a few words.”
“It is truly fortunate you did not become the Demon King’s prey.”
But how had Asterios’s mana ended up connected to hers? Could it be that she had been chosen by the Demon Realm against her will—her magic growing stronger even though she did not wish to be Demon King?
Ijef asked, concerned for her in a different sense.
“By saying you used the cage, do you mean you made contact with Duke Tenebres inside it?”
“Yes. At first Mephisto trapped me there, but it was I who stole the mana. After that, I chose As and took his power.”
“…Of your own will, Your Highness?”
“Yes. My own will.”
From that, Ijef understood—she wanted to become stronger, even if it meant taking another’s mana.
“Your Highness… do you want to become Demon King?”
“That’s right, Ijef. More precisely, I want to become strong enough to defeat the Demon King.”
Roziana’s violet eyes were colder than ever.
But to Ijef, they seemed to burn like hot blue fire—bluer and hotter than red flame, the kind of magical fire said to be colder than ice yet able to burn everything away.
She was beautiful—like that very fire itself.
“I intend to complete the Demon King’s power through As.”
Then she would go back in time, destroy Beelzebub, and save her sisters.
That was the reason she had been born as a princess in this life.
“And—”
Roziana’s violet eyes curved prettily as she smiled at Ijef.
“I’ll take my revenge on As.”
“!”
It was a dazzling smile, but Ijef could tell she wasn’t joking. He stopped in his tracks, startled. Her face was entirely serious.
“This time, I’m going to make him pay in full for the wrongs he did in the past.”
Revenge—did she mean she still couldn’t forgive him and intended to destroy him?
Her slender, delicate hand rested lightly on Ijef’s frozen shoulder.
“Don’t be so afraid, Ijef. I won’t kill As. I just want to torment him until my heart is satisfied.”
That somehow sounded even more frightening—but Ijef couldn’t help feeling, in another corner of his mind, that he envied Asterios for being the focus of so much of her attention.
“I only want to make him pay the price for leaving me.”
The words she spoke next, he had not expected at all.
“So I’ll make him mine, and make him cry as much as I want.”
“!”
“So he’ll never dare make the same mistake again.”
Roziana intended to bind Asterios so tightly that the very thought of leaving her would never cross his mind.
“If I gained anything from this trip to the Demon Realm, it’s this—I became stronger, and I came to know exactly what I want.”
Only after being trapped in the cage had she truly faced her own desires.
She still wanted Tenebres.
Regardless of whether she forgave him for the past, she wanted him entirely, and she had no intention of letting him go.
Ijef looked into her shimmering violet eyes. He thought he understood now why she had clung to the dying Duke and wept so bitterly.
She still harbored a powerful love-and-hate for Asterios.
Their feelings had been tangled beyond repair by some past event.
But she still loved him fiercely. And that was why she both hated and wanted him, why she wanted to hurt him as much as she could.
The deeper the love, the greater the hate and anger.
“I will become strong, Ijef.”
Roziana turned to face him as he stood still.
“So you must decide—whether you can keep your vow to serve me even after I become Demon King.”
He had once served the god of the Celestial Realm—he had even been the High Priest.
‘Could you accept me as Demon King, Ijef?’
Her violet eyes sank into him.
Ijef answered without even a moment to catch his breath.
“In my vow…”
