Without hesitating or fumbling even once, he flipped through the contract in one smooth motion and pointed out the various ‘legal techniques’ subtly hidden throughout.
“This was to prevent you from disappearing from the ducal estate without my knowledge. And this…”
It was as if he had memorized every single page containing those clauses.
Seeing that there were more than a dozen such sections he pointed out, I was left speechless.
“My goodness… This was not a contract, it was a minefield.”
As my eyes sharpened, the corners of Rastan’s eyes drooped in contrast.
His normally slightly upturned, elegant eyes now looked somewhat lowered—not pitiful, but more like a sorrowful actor in a play.
“But the contract was not entirely unfavorable to you. There are also clauses stating that as long as you are my wife, you share all of the Duke’s wealth and authority…”
“And that divorce is impossible unless it is clearly your fault, right?”
“…Yes. It was also my resolve to ensure that you would never want to divorce me.”
He answered my nearly accusatory questions faithfully, then glanced at my expression before speaking cautiously again.
“You agreed… to forgive me.”
Since it was a promise I had made with my own mouth just moments ago, I had no choice, but I wrinkled my nose, feeling heat rise to my head.
“Who said I would not?”
“I was wrong. So please do not be angry. It will not be good for the baby.”
At his warm voice as he gently pulled me into his arms, I could no longer stay angry.
I leaned my head against his firm chest as if I had no choice, but my lips still pouted stubbornly to the very end.
“Hmph, using the baby as an excuse…”
Rastan cradled my head and placed a gentle kiss on it, then murmured softly by my ear.
“I will never again use shallow tricks on you. I will be honest with you about even the darkest parts of my heart. Until now, I pretended to be gentle to look good in your eyes.”
“Pretended… What happens if you stop pretending?”
A soft chuckle drifted lightly from above my head.
“Well. Ah, of course, I still need to accumulate good deeds, so I will not immediately revert to being like a true demon. But you may occasionally see glimpses of that side.”
“Oh my.”
I found myself imagining Rastan as I had once seen him, his blood-red eyes shining with cruel intensity.
As my body trembled slightly, he held me a little tighter.
It was a gesture as if to say, ‘After seeing this much, where do you think you’re going now?’
But unlike his tightened arms, his voice remained calm as he continued.
“When that happens, I would like you to point it out and restrain me.”
“W-when that happens… what do you do?”
“Hmm… nothing too extreme. Perhaps treating a sinner too cruelly by human standards, or trying to use clever deception like with this contract.”
“That is a very wide range.”
I pulled away from his embrace, lifted my head, and looked into his eyes with a smile.
His eyes, which had once been blood-red, now shone a clear blue like those of an ordinary human.
I raised my hand and gently brushed the side of his hair.
“Oh dear. It will not be easy taking a Demon God to heaven.”
At my teasing remark, a smile formed on Rastan’s lips as well.
“That is why I have been accumulating good deeds for so long. After all, I spent such a long time accumulating evil deeds before that.”
At his casual remark, I gave him a sidelong glare.
“Are you proud of that?”
In response, Rastan exaggeratedly bowed at the waist, using the formal greeting reserved for Imperial banquets.
“You flatter me.”
“Pfft, you really are shameless.”
“What you just said—that was exactly the kind of thing I asked you to point out.”
He raised one corner of his lips playfully, took my hand, and lightly kissed the back of it.
“Is shamelessness not the most basic trait of a demon? That is why, even with such immense evil deeds behind me, I still dare to dream of going to heaven with you.”
I let out a soft laugh, then suddenly remembered something.
“Oh, right. Then did you apologize and ask forgiveness from the people you hurt before?”
Rastan’s eyes widened.
“Ah, that…”
“What? Did you think heaven was a place you could reach just by living well on your own and eliminating demons? This will not do.”
I grabbed Rastan by the wrist and led him to the sofa.
“Sit down. This is going to be a long conversation.”
It seemed there was still a long way to go before we could reach heaven together.
***
“Waaah, waaah, waaah…”
Our newborn baby cried out with a clear, strong voice.
Rastan lifted the baby with hands as careful as if handling a feather. His blue eyes trembled with emotion as he looked over the baby’s face again and again.
“There exists something this small and lovable in the world…”
Perhaps it was his first time holding a baby, because his posture was awkward.
Fortunately, the baby didn’t cry and quickly fell asleep. It seemed the baby had also been exhausted from being born.
Only after staring at the baby’s face for a long time and lightly pressing his lips to its cheek did he carefully hand the baby to me.
“You worked so hard, Evelyn.”
After we married, he had begun speaking informally to me without realizing it. Only when we were alone, without others present.
Before, he would only drop formal speech occasionally, when he was very emotional. At those times, it felt as though a hidden side behind his usual composed and restrained exterior would briefly reveal itself.
But now that I knew what lay beneath that hidden side, I liked it when he spoke to me informally. It felt as if he removed the mask he wore in front of others only when he was with me.
Leaning against the bed, I accepted the baby and replied teasingly.
“I was the one who gave birth, so why do you look like this?”
Indeed, Rastan’s complexion was dark and drained.
“You look like someone who has not slept for three days and has just come back from an all-night battle.”
At my words, he touched his face with his long fingers.
“Is it that bad? You’re the one who suffered… I feel ashamed.”
He said that, but it was obvious he had been extremely worried while waiting outside. Since he was a man, the midwife hadn’t allowed him to enter the delivery room, so he must have been left to suffer in anxiety outside.
I could vividly picture him pacing back and forth just outside the firmly closed door, unable to stay still.
“No need to feel ashamed. Thank you for worrying about me.”
I smiled softly and looked closely at the baby wrapped in its blanket once more.
Perhaps because the baby resembled Rastan, its hair was the color of the night sky—black.
‘For now, the newborn hair is thin, so it looks more like a light grayish-brown, but once it grows a little more, it will probably become completely black like Rastan’s.’
At that moment, as if sensing my gaze, the baby slowly opened its tightly closed eyes.
And its eyes met mine as I looked at it.
“Oh my, the baby opened its ey—”
I was speaking lovingly to Rastan while looking at the baby, but suddenly stopped as something came to mind.
The baby’s eyes were a mysterious color, mixed with both light green and blue.
‘…Huh?’
It could have been seen as simply a mixture of my eye color and Rastan’s, but the moment I saw the baby’s black hair and those strangely familiar eyes, I couldn’t help but think of someone.
A name I had longed for with all my heart.
“…Rosie…?”
Perhaps he heard my disbelieving whisper, because Rastan stepped closer to my side.
He looked at the baby with puzzled eyes, but soon his expression also turned to one of surprise.
“…I see. It’s the same color as that child’s.”
Staring blankly at the baby with my lips slightly parted, I carefully lifted the blanket wrapped around it. There was something I needed to confirm.
And the next moment, my eyes widened.
At the center of the baby’s collarbone was a very faint green mark.
‘This is definitely…’
It was the green light I had seen faintly glowing at the center of Rosie’s collarbone in the memory of my previous life—the one I had glimpsed by accident when I was forcefully ejected after trying to enter Ifrit’s unconscious.
My heart pounded wildly, beyond my control.
Rastan, who was looking at it beside me, also widened his eyes slightly.
“C-could this perhaps just be a birthmark?”
I remembered that in Korea, babies were often born with Mongolian spots. I didn’t want to believe something impossible too quickly and end up disappointed, so I tried my best to doubt it.
At my words, Rastan’s eyes narrowed slightly. When he gently placed the tip of his finger on the faint green mark, it emitted a weak glow.
It was the exact same light I had seen from Rosie that day in my previous life.
“Since it reacts to my magic, it’s not an ordinary birthmark or stain.”
“Then…?”
“I do not yet know exactly what it is, but it is certainly a trace of magic.”
I sat there in a daze and carefully laid the baby down beside me. My hands had begun to tremble uncontrollably.
Now, I could no longer deny it. There were already too many similarities to Rosie.
Looking closely, even the baby’s facial features seemed to resemble both Rastan and me, yet at the same time, there was something unmistakably similar to Rosie.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, tears quickly welled up and streamed down my cheeks.
“Rosie really… Rosie really came back to us. Rosie…”
As I thought of Rosie, an aching pain naturally spread through my chest. But when I looked at the baby before me, that pain vanished in an instant.
In its place, intense joy and excitement filled my heart, rapidly growing.
“Hng… that child… she came back to me as my daughter…”
Tears fell in drops onto the baby’s face, just like the day Rosie died.
But instead of closing her eyes and growing cold like Rosie had, the baby scrunched her nose, unfamiliar with the warm liquid wetting her cheek.
