episode_0021

In fairy tales dealing with love, the love story between a boy and a girl always focuses only on the scene where the two meet and love blossoms.

But the reality is that behind that beautiful stage, there are more rusty gears creaking and making discordant noises, and I was seeing the back of it with my own eyes.

-Thump. Thump.

Lucifer moved forward, barely dragging his feet like a machine.

Even if you see light in the middle of a cesspool, it doesn’t change the fact that you are stuck in a cesspool. Rather, even though you can’t get out of the cesspool, the light continues to shine like a torture of hope, driving you crazy.

The broken white wings dragged on the ground. With nowhere to call home, Lucifer continued to walk, enduring the bitterness and dreaming. Like a moth bewitched by light.

“A prostitute and a beast’s offspring, born from mixing with a pigeon!”

“Die, you son of a monster!”

“You sinister guy, get out of our town!”

-Thud, thud.

People on the street threw trash at Lucifer’s head.

I just thought it might look a little dirty so I should wash it.

“Hey, you motherfuckers. Won’t you turn off? Won’t you turn off?”

Leah swung her fist at the townspeople who were throwing trash at her. It wasn’t a punch that would make much of a splash.

“There’s something good today.”

Lucifer rummaged through the garbage and pulled out a half-rotten, filthy apple.

That was his job, his daily bread.

Well, Lucifer always thought to himself that it wasn’t really a bad thing that he was a monster’s offspring. What other winged thing could mate with humans? No matter how well he treated them, his father was an albino harpy.

Even if that wasn’t the case, they had no right to criticize me for thinking like that. My mother died giving birth to me, and my father left me behind, leaving me with nothing but the shackles of a criminal, and I never even knew their faces.

Lucifer fell into a deep sleep for the first time, looking forward to ‘tomorrow’.

And as she watched all of this, Leah felt guilty, like a bystander, even though she had done nothing wrong.

“Ugh…”

Leah was worried about leaving Lucifer like this. However, she realized that it was a needless worry since she would not be able to get involved anyway, so she looked at Lucifer with pity and stroked him. To be exact, her hand only crossed the air, but Leah tried to ignore that fact.

“I’ll take better care of you when I get back to reality. …Sorry.”

After muttering like that, Leah started walking in the direction of the girl named ‘Noah’ she had seen earlier.

*****

Noah.

The girl was the only daughter of a successful merchant family.

She was a rich girl who was especially cherished by her father because she was innocent and pure.

“Dad!”

Noah jumped into his father’s arms. Leah roughly diagnosed him as a rich man with an innocent face and a bulging belly.

“Oh my, Noah. Are you here?”

“Yeah! I like this town! I even made a new friend!”

In his father’s arms, Noah explained his day’s events one by one. About the beautiful yellow flower field and the new friend he met there.

In fact, the girl’s father had been contemplating for a while whether to move to another place after seeing the condition of this village. He had high expectations since he had come here on the recommendation of an acquaintance, but the water and air were just as good as the name suggests, but the neighbors were a bit rough around the edges.

But when his daughter Noah spoke so contentedly, the father finally sighed and decided to watch a little longer. Even if he rotted, he wouldn’t have tried to feed her a piece of shit, right?

“Okay, then let’s live here.”

“Wow~!”

Twinkle, twinkle. Every time Noah shook his legs excitedly, a faint light sparkled in his eyes. This was clearly a trace of his wife, a half-blood water spirit who had passed away from a chronic illness when he was young.

“Umm…”

And Leah was overcome with a strange feeling. Strangely, she felt as if she had been invaded…

The only thing I learned after coming here was that Noah was the only daughter of a merchant family. And there were no particularly suspicious signs-

-Shasak.

Leah’s body was once a warrior, so her senses were sharper than those of an ordinary person.

That’s why it was not difficult to detect the sound of a mouse sneaking past.

Of course, it was just an ordinary rat. I didn’t think there was any need to overreact… but the rat’s movements were quite systematic, as if it had been trained, which was suspicious enough.

“Come here! Yay!”

-Koosh!

So I tried to catch the rat and jump in to check, but the rat quickly escaped. No, actually, since I couldn’t be seen or caught, it might be more accurate to say that I was doing something stupid by myself.

“Aya… Hey, shit. Why are you so quick, you little rat? Your knees are scraped…”

However, it wasn’t like there was no harvest at all. What Leah saw was the very same technique that she was familiar with because she had seen it quite often.

“It’s cruder than what Bell used to use, but… That’s clearly a low-level manipulation technique. One for controlling low-level creatures like rodents and bugs, and…”

A spell that shares vision with the caster.

After all, it seemed like things weren’t completely peaceful here either.

Leah sighed. How on earth did Abel’s past get so twisted?

*****

“Lucifer!”

“…”

The next day, Noah came running into the field of yellow daffodils, carrying a bag full of bread in his arms.

Lucifer was still quiet, but at least he was making more of an effort to keep himself clean than last time.

If you ask me how I know this, I can answer simply. Because I saw him washing his body in the icy river water at dawn without any hesitation. I tried to stop him somehow, but he couldn’t hear me, and Lucifer ended up washing his body in that water. It’s a miracle that he didn’t catch a cold.

“Wow! I asked the bakery owner to give me some! Let’s eat it together quickly before it gets cold!”

Noah took a warm tart out of the bag.

“This is…”

However, Lucifer just tilted his head from side to side as if he didn’t know how to eat.

“Okay, open your mouth. Ahh-!”

“…Ahh…?”

“Yep!”

The tart split in half in Noah’s hand fit into Lucifer’s mouth.

“…!”

“How is it, is it delicious?”

“…Yeah.”

“I brought more, so eat as much as you need!”

What the two of them did in that flower garden wasn’t all that grand.

Noah would chatter to Lucifer while he was eating bread about what happened the day before or the day before, and Lucifer would listen and nod or sometimes respond.

“So then Uncle Luker put on Hakuna makeup-”

“…What is Hakuna?”

“Ah, Hakuna is the name of the main character in the mystery novel Extra, which is popular in the Empire these days! The author’s name is Apibelno, and this is already the author’s 12th full-length novel? The other works are all fun too! Oh, right. The story is about a novel set in a detective academy, where the main character from the Empire possesses an extra and gains the ability called the status window-”

However, since it was clearly something from a world Lucifer had never experienced, Lucifer found himself drawn into the story.

As I continued to listen to Noah’s story, I felt as if I had become a human being in the sun, and I felt a warm, hallucinatory feeling.

“…”

“Why?”

“No, just.”

I hope I can be this happy every day from now on.

Flowers attract insects.

Sweet food attracts flies and the like.

And Noah was a sweet flower.

*****

“Lucifer~ I’m here!”

“Noah!”

Hook, the viewpoint changed in an instant. Was it to make me realize that this wasn’t reality? The immersion dropped in an instant.

The scenery was still a field of yellow daffodils.

The only difference was that now Lucifer was the one greeting Noah first.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Sorry! I meant to come a little earlier, but Uncle Luker came to visit.”

“…That uncle?”

Lucifer looked slightly uncomfortable, but had no intention of showing it to Noah. He quietly suppressed his emotions.

“Rather than that, look at this! Wow!”

Noah took out of his bosom a wreath of daffodils.

Perhaps it was made by picking a few daffodils from around here?

“Crown…?”

“I spent all day yesterday making this for you! Hehe-”

Noah placed the garland on Lucifer’s head with a look of anticipation.

“They suit you so well!”

“…Thank you… …This is the first time I’ve received something like this…”

Tears were being held back between Lucifer’s words, but they finally came out.

“…ugh, thank you… …sniff.”

“Eww…?! Don’t cry…!”

Pat, pat. Only after Noah patted his back for a long time was Lucifer able to calm down.

“…It’s nothing compared to a crown, but…Can you give me your finger for a second?”

“Finger? Here!”

Noah held out his finger to Lucifer without a doubt. Lucifer picked a flower nearby and wove it around Noah’s finger, making a flower ring.

“Me too, it’s a gift.”

Because this is all I can give you.

Leah had the illusion that Lucifer was suppressing those words.

“This is my favorite gift I’ve ever received! Thank you, Lucifer! ”

And Noah looked at the ring with a “Wow!” look in his eyes, and soon smiled brightly with a face full of happiness.

-Gulp.

At that moment, Lucifer’s stomach made a sound as if expressing hunger, and Lucifer blushed in embarrassment.

“You haven’t eaten yet?”

“…Yeah.”

“Then let’s go to my house together! I got permission from dad!:

“…Your house?”

Lucifer wiggled his fingers, muttering softly, “Is that really okay?”

“Of course! Now that we’re on the subject, let’s go right now!”

“No, Noah?! Wait a minute! Wait a minute!”

Holding Lucifer’s wrist tightly, Noah started walking back to his house.

I had that question.

Why does Abel love me?

I know. It’s a worry beyond my capabilities. But… if there’s a reason why I’m loved by Abel.

In Leah’s eyes, there was a blueprint of Noah smiling brightly and Lucifer looking happy even as he was being dragged away.

Maybe it’s because I resemble that kid named Noah.

Well then… what should I do?

A complex array of emotions swirled in Leah’s eyes.

At least in those eyes, jealousy didn’t creep in as easily as it did the last time with the succubus leader.