MOOD FOR LOVE (12)

Kerberos smelled the scent of demons carried by the wind. The familiar, intense metallic stench of armor and the intermittent smell of blood. Among the demons, the strongest warriors took pride in emitting the smell of blood from their bodies.

Kerberos found it curious. What she once considered a symbol of fighting spirit and bravery now appeared as nothing more than a symbol of cruelty and barbarism. She shook her handcuffed hands and prepared to walk forward.

“Then according to the treaty! I will hand over Kerberos!”

A soldier with a good voice shouted and unlocked the handcuffs on her hands. The sword she used to wield hung at Kerberos’s waist, and her armor was well polished, ready for immediate deployment in battle. When she raised her head, she could see the demon forces filling the horizon.

“Oh! Kerberos! My love! Come into my arms right away!”

Daemon was there. They had brought quite a large army for the hostage exchange. Were they planning to attack right then if the human forces seemed manageable? Kerberos smiled, lowering her head so Daemon couldn’t see.

“It’s time to go, demon.”

The guard spoke condescendingly and patted her back. Kerberos nodded and moved forward. She had actually known it would come to this. Don’t they say that in love, the one who falls first is at fault? So, her quick steps toward the demons and Daemon extending his arms to her were inevitable.

---

“If you tell me you love me, I can do anything.”

At that time, Kerberos said that and reached out her hand. The porter lightly stroked her hand and moved it to her cheek. Then he said to her:

“…How cruel.”

At that moment, he showed her an expression tinged with emotion for the first time. An expression like smiling sadly and crying at the same time. She couldn’t understand why he made such an expression. She loved him, but he probably didn’t love her at all. She wondered what was stirring his emotions.

---

“It was just, just like a tantrum.”

Kerberos said that and raised her head. Her curly hair fluttered in the wind. The characteristic pointed ears of demons caught her hair, irritating her nerves. Daemon was smiling brightly but gritting his teeth, and the demon soldiers were giving her peculiar looks.

In the future, their gazes would turn to hatred and anger.

“It was like a tantrum, asking if he could just say the words ‘I love you.'”

Kerberos realized in the kingdom that the porter didn’t love her. But at the same time, she realized that even after discovering the porter’s cold act, her love didn’t cool. Like the saying that the one who falls first loses, she was unable to escape, leashed by love.

And now she was going to Daemon.

Standing a few steps ahead of the soldiers, he seemed to want to erase the inappropriate rumors circulating between him and Kerberos. Because Kerberos knew Daemon well, she could predict his next actions. He would embrace her tightly so she couldn’t push him away, then turn around once in full view of the demons, put her in his carriage, and return smiling.

So, she wanted to hear those words “I love you” before that. Because whenever she faced those disgusting events, the sound of that voice echoing in her ears would make it bearable.

Even a false love was a sufficient excuse to dedicate one’s life.

---

“…I can’t. I can’t say such words.”

Kerberos froze at the words from the porter’s mouth. The porter shook his head and distorted his face. With the most emotional expression she had seen from him, he was firmly refusing. Leaning against a tree, shaking his head repeatedly, and sighing deeply, he understood the weight of the words he had uttered.

“…Is saying ‘I love you’ that difficult?”

“…If you choose that dangerous operation, will you remain in the kingdom? If I don’t say I love you, can you continue to stay in the kingdom?”

“…Yes.”

The porter said. His face was a bit confused even as he spoke.

“…I hate you. I hated you because you’re a demon. But… but after seeing you cry at the demon stone exchange site, hating you felt strange and awkward. I don’t love you, but I also don’t want to force you to participate in the operation based on my false love.”

While Kerberos felt sad at the words that he hated her and didn’t love her, she also felt strangely pleased. Watching the man, whom she thought was full of cold acting with no possibility, now rambling with cracks in his mask, she could feel another love rising in her heart.

The porter grabbed his head, rolled his eyes back and forth, then opened his mouth.

“I don’t love you. But I don’t want you to enter danger. I’d like you to continue fighting with us here.”

“…Even though it’s a more dangerous path?”

“All operations have risks. There’s no such thing as a safe operation.”

“…I’m confident. I can infiltrate among them, create a contact, and provide real-time information for you.”

“But you don’t want to go, do you?”

Kerberos was left speechless at the porter’s words.

---

“Right. I didn’t want to go.”

Kerberos nodded. And she caressed the sword at her waist. She now knew where the kingdom’s army was hidden in ambush. The demon forces, unaware they were in mortal danger, proudly raised their spear tips forward.

The forest visible when she turned her head.

In that forest, thousands of kingdom cavalry were waiting for a signal.

The hill behind the demons.

The forces that had departed just before the agreement began had already climbed the hill and were waiting in a thoroughly prepared posture.

“Lovely Kerberos! Leap into my arms with all your might!”

Daemon was standing with his arms outstretched, defenseless. Kerberos thought of the porter again. The porter, who said he didn’t love her, ironically showed his affection for her by saying he didn’t love her.

That was enough.

He doesn’t want her to rush into danger while deliberately being fooled by love.

The fact that he worried about her was reason enough for her to risk her life here and now.

As humans say,

The one who falls in love first is at fault.

“Kerberos!”

Daemon ran toward her. She knew his abilities well. While he could easily defeat lower demons, among the nobles, he was nothing but chaff, except for the fact that he had the Demon King’s bloodline. Such a person was running toward her without even drawing a weapon or wearing proper armor.

Kerberos called Daemon’s name with a bright smile.

“Daemon!”

Daemon’s face momentarily flinched, and he hesitated with his outstretched arms. And with a smiling face, she moved her hand to her waist and took a big step forward. Daemon, who had leaped into the air, looked puzzled as he saw her reach for her sword hilt.

Daemon’s guards, blocked by him, didn’t see Kerberos’s actions in time, and the soldiers didn’t understand the meaning of her reaching for the sword hilt.

“Wa-wait…!”

Only Daemon, with the quick judgment befitting the Demon King’s bloodline, called her name and reached out.

And the sword was drawn, leaving a round sword mark diagonally. Blood splattered along her trajectory, and one of Daemon’s arms flew high into the sky. Daemon clutched his chest with a shocked face, and Kerberos stopped in place.

“Ah…! Aaaaah…!”

Daemon falls to the ground. Blood poured from his chest, and Daemon, rolling on the ground, vomited blood and screamed like a child.

“Guaaack…! Aaaah…! It, it hurts…! It huuuurts!”

Neither the guards nor the demons understood the situation.

Kerberos looked at the demons with a bright face.

---

“…I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. That’s enough.”

Contrary to the porter’s gloomy expression, a smile bloomed on Kerberos’s face. The porter didn’t seem to understand why Kerberos was smiling, but she didn’t mind. It was because the porter cared about her, because he thought about her being sad, that he couldn’t say he loved her.

“For now, that’s enough.”

---

“All troops! Attack!”

Along with the brave battle cry of the kingdom’s army, soldiers were swarming in. The demon army embraced Daemon, pouring hatred and curses on Kerberos.

“What a crazy woman! Betraying the demons and siding with humans!”

“Protect Lord Daemon! Retreat for now!”

Kerberos, with a bright smile, cut down a demon rushing toward her and charged forward with the kingdom’s army.

She shouted:

“Let’s drive these filthy demons out of this land!”