TECS 01

Chapter 1

1. Calves trembling like a young lamb

“Love is a dog.”

I can’t remember when, but my eldest sister once said that to me.

The profanity spoken in such an elegant tone only seemed funny to me back then.

“Hey, don’t laugh. Take it to heart, youngest. This could be your story too.”

My second sister stroked my head and whispered gracefully.

The seven sisters got along well, but I always fought with the second one. Probably because her tone was so rude.

“Especially, don’t fall in love with a human man. With that charming face and cunning tongue, he’ll try to take everything you have. Before you know it, you’ll have given away your money, your body, and your dreams. And you’ll still be smiling, saying it’s okay.”

My third sister gave me the longest and most serious advice.

Of course, I brushed that off too.

No particular reason.

I was still young back then, and there were more interesting things in the world than men.

And above all… my sisters’ failures weren’t my failures.

‘Ah… if I had known this would happen… I should have listened.’

Was that just a flashback?

Coughing up thick, black blood, I struggled to blink. For a moment, my blurry vision cleared.

But I knew well—this was only a brief phenomenon right before death.

A candle burns brightest just before it goes out, consuming its own wick.

I looked down at the sword that had mercilessly pierced my chest, pinning me even to the wall behind.

My gaze slid from that cold murder weapon, wrapped in a divine radiance, to a pair of hands so beautiful and refined I could hardly believe they belonged to a man.

The hands of the man I had walked into the wedding hall with just this morning…

My husband’s hands.

In an instant, thick veins rose on the back of the hand gripping the hilt.

As if displeased even by the gaze of his dying wife, he twisted the blade.

“Keough…!”

Crack. Though the surroundings were noisy with the death throes of others, the sound of my own spine breaking echoed loudly inside me.

It was the very moment my sisters had warned me about.

The moment of bitter betrayal.

Black blood gushed out again. After the extremes of pain, I felt nothing at all.

“…Why did you come all the way down here, dear.”

The detestable man knelt on one knee on the floor stained with my blood.

Even after reducing his own wife to such a wretched state, bloody tears—reeking of fish—streamed down his cheeks, as if he still loved me. What a pathetic sight.

“I told you… to wait at home. If you had… I wouldn’t have had to kill you.”

Ha!

I wanted to sneer sharply, but I couldn’t. It was infuriating. My body temperature was dropping fast. There was no way to revive this flesh.

‘How did I not know? How!’

That you are the captain of the Holy Knights, the Crusade!

A ringing tinnitus buzzed in my ears. It felt as if someone had cut off my head and rolled it into a barrel of rotten wine.

I had loved him like crazy.

I still remember the golden ripening wheat, the crisp, cool air, the high, clear autumn sky. The shepherd boy standing blankly, staring at the pale daytime moon.

He was struggling to control his flock with a staff as tall as himself.

“Hey, thank you.”

When I, unable to watch, caught a runaway lamb that had fallen into a ditch and handed it to him, he smiled shyly and bowed his head.

Then his straw hat fell off… revealing brilliant platinum hair that rippled like waves of grain.

That was the moment.

The youngest of the seven lords of the demon realm. The cruel king who rules the lowest level of hell, the demon Astaroth—the day she fell into an inescapable love.

I took a liking to that simple, unsophisticated shepherd. Through him, I learned the value of humans, the preciousness of life. I learned not to despise the weak but to cherish them.

That was unbecoming of a demon, but I didn’t care.

As long as I could make this man—whose life was but a flash compared to mine—happy, I would do anything.

My sisters warned me that I was losing myself. They advised that a proper demon doesn’t settle down, that it’s better to have many lovers and rule over them. But I didn’t listen.

I even got angry and cut off contact, telling them not to interfere.

Eventually… I wanted to live like a human!

Foolishly, I wanted to marry him, bear his children, and raise them. I wanted to leave his traces in the form of offspring.

But for a demon, ordinariness was an illusion, and his love was nothing but foul, rotting garbage.

My foolish wishes had blinded my eyes and deafened my ears. They made me see only what I wanted to see and hear only what I wanted to hear.

This death was the price of that clichéd love.

“Enrique!”

Just then.

A human woman, possessing a poignant beauty, ran from somewhere and tightly embraced his back.

Lovely pink hair, like a spring spirit, fluttered in the air.

With a body so slender she seemed barely a handful, the woman shed tears in bursts.

…I didn’t know who she was.

“Ah, my poor Enrique! My love. You’ve suffered so much, haven’t you?”

“…Helene.”

“It’s okay. You did well. If you take this demon’s corpse to His Majesty, he will surely make you the crown prince!”

From the lips of this fresh, flower-like woman poured information about my husband that I had never known.

It was shocking enough that he was a holy knight with the power to kill a demon, but a prince? And he needed my life to become the crown prince.

‘I don’t know that man.’

The one I loved was a shepherd.

A simple, unsophisticated man who fumbled about, unable to properly care for even a single young lamb.

‘I was deceived. Completely deceived. It was a calculated approach from the start.’

You knew I frequented that area, so you…

Thoroughly hid your holy power and waited.

A wave of futility washed over me.

Finding it absurd, I giggled. The woman peeking out from behind him widened her eyes.

Seeing that, my stomach turned. All I could do was utter a bitter curse.

“I curse you, Enrique! Every moment I loved you is a disgrace to me!”

Ah, just because I screamed a little, my vision is blurring.

So this is death.

“I curse… you…”

Rage surged as if my soul had been thrown into a pit of fire, but my dry lips closed before they could utter the final words.

For a moment, I saw his lips trembling as if he wanted to say something to me. No, I didn’t see them. My vision was flickering. My life was fading.

“It’s your fault. You made me kill you…”

His last words were worth less than dust.

And so I died in vain.

Wearing the wedding dress I had excitedly dreamed of, on my wedding night.

It was the day the sun fell in my world.

How much time had passed since then?

“The blizzard stopped yesterday, so the weather is fine today.”

When I faintly regained consciousness, the first thing I heard was a low-pitched voice.

Even before opening my eyes, I could tell it belonged to a young man.

“Your Majesty likes landscapes covered in pure white snow, don’t you? That’s right. If you wake up now, I’ll make you a snowman. How about that?”

Swish.

The sound of curtains being drawn followed his gentle tone.

Immediately afterward, sunlight so intense it felt blindingly white rushed to my eyelids.

“……!”

I felt nauseous. Gasping, I curled up, embracing the pain spreading through my body.

‘What… is this? I was definitely dead…’

Gritting my teeth, I very slowly awakened my bodily senses.

First, my ice-cold toes. Then my calves, trembling like a young lamb… my thighs.

It didn’t take long to assess every corner of my body as the sensation reached up to my heart, where blood should rightfully be circulating.

“If you open your eyes, I’ll carry Your Majesty on my back out past the rear garden. You’ve always asked me to do that, but I’ve been unfilial and never managed to do it even once.”

Ah, it hurts. I felt queasy and dizzy.

My body was in terrible condition. So fragile that if someone tapped me, I might shatter right then and there.

‘Like a piece of glassware that’s already cracked.’

Panting for breath, it was only after a long while that I could finally lift my eyelids.

‘Who is that? I don’t recognize him.’

A ceiling painted with a majestic mural. A crystal chandelier so dazzling it hurt my eyes. And beneath it… a tall, muscular knight.

‘Could he be a holy knight?’

Along with my lingering anger, wariness surged up.

Forcing my body up, I tried to reach out and grab him by the scruff of his neck.

“…….”

But nothing happened.

No matter how many times I flailed my hands, it was the same.