Chapter 68
Murder?
Who would dare to kill Delac’s only child?
Ariella and Ludwig leaned in, urging Helene to tell them everything.
“The truth is…”
Helene began to share the story she had kept hidden.
As Ariella listened, a strange sense of déjà vu crept over her.
“Wait… this story… sounds really familiar.”
It wasn’t the kind of familiarity she welcomed.
“This is… exactly like my own life.”
Helene’s confession started from the day her real mother passed away.
Within a year of his wife’s death, Demon Lord Delac had taken a new bride.
“That was when everything started going wrong. My father also brought in a new queen right around then.”
Helene went on: she had constant, bitter conflict with her stepmother.
“I fought with that woman all the time too. I was sick of her.”
Things got worse. Her stepmother even tried to have her killed—multiple times.
Helene had no physical evidence, but testimonies from servants and all the surrounding circumstances left her certain.
Her stepmother was the culprit.
When she told her father, he didn’t believe her.
“I tried to tell him, but every time I accused her, she’d cry and beg Father to believe her instead.”
Ariella could picture the scene perfectly, including the excuses the stepmother must have made.
“Let me guess. She said you hated her so much that you made up lies. That no mother could ever hurt her own daughter.”
“That’s exactly what she said!”
“And she probably threw herself to the floor, screaming that she’d rather die than live being hated by the daughter she ‘loved with all her heart,’ right? Maybe even pretended to throw herself out a window?”
“My goodness, that’s… exactly what happened! Did someone already tell you about it?”
“No. I just… know a similar family.”
Memories Ariella didn’t want to recall threatened to resurface. She shook her head, forcing them away.
“Anyway, why would she want you dead? Does she have a son? Is she trying to make her own child the next Demon Lord instead of you?”
Ariella guessed, based on her own life.
But Helene’s family drama was a little different.
Her stepmother couldn’t have children at all.
And with demon lifespans being so long, it was far too early to be fighting over heirs anyway. No one knew how many hundreds of years Delac would live.
Still, her stepmother had reason to get rid of Helene.
“I think… it’s because I kept opposing her. Ever since she came, Father’s rule has become unimaginably harsh. And I’ve always spoken out against it.”
That made her stepmother an enemy.
“Wait. Harsh rule? You mean Delac has been… oppressing his own people?”
Ariella pictured the Delac Demon Lord’s lands she’d seen with her own eyes.
The cities were enormous, bustling with people, lively and bright.
“But the Demon Realm is built so that a ruler has to be a good one, right?”
She recalled what Gruve had told her on her first day in the Demon Realm.
Ludwig agreed, skeptical.
“If he mistreated his people, they’d all just leave, wouldn’t they?”
“Even Delac’s outer city gates were open. I saw it myself. Barely any inspections.”
If life got unbearable, people would leave through those gates immediately—and never come back.
If too many left, the magical sun would shrink and weaken. A Demon Lord without a sun would eventually die.
“So to survive, a Demon Lord has to rule well.”
“Normally, yes. But my father found a loophole.”
“A… loophole?”
“As you saw, the city gates are always open. People are free to come and go. But that’s because the capital is filled with free citizens. It’s different in the farmlands.”
Ludwig’s territory was small, so there wasn’t much difference between the capital and nearby villages.
But Delac’s lands were vast. Outside the central city, there were countless farming villages.
“Come to think of it, I didn’t see much farmland when I visited.”
“Neither did I.”
Ariella and Ludwig exchanged nods.
“In Delac’s territory, the farmers aren’t free. They’re forced to work in terrible conditions, unable to leave.”
Helene’s face hardened with resolve.
“The land is fertile, but the quotas are beyond reason. Farmers work until they collapse, barely sleeping at all. And even after all that, every grain they harvest is sent straight to the Demon Lord’s castle. They’re only given just enough to avoid starving.”
“…What?”
The revelation stunned them.
“But why doesn’t anyone run away? Oh, wait—”
Ariella stopped mid-sentence, replaying Helene’s words.
“You said the farmers lost their freedom to leave?”
“Yes. Like I said, Father used a loophole. He knew unhappy people would escape, so he made sure they couldn’t.”
“How?”
Helene revealed a secret almost no one outside Delac’s territory knew.
“There are… huge numbers of slaves in Delac’s lands. They’re locked up and forced to work under guard.”
* * *
Outside the Delac Demon Lord’s territory.
“Ugh… ughhh!”
A young demon thrashed in his sleep, trapped in a nightmare.
His name was Lokum.
He was drenched in cold sweat, his face twisted in fear.
He was sleeping in a massive barracks where hundreds of others were crammed together.
Thin mats lined the floor, barely enough to keep the dirt off their skin. Exhausted demons lay sprawled wherever they could find space.
No one stirred, too worn out from the day’s labor to react to Lokum’s muffled groans.
Until the door slammed open with a deafening BANG!
“Up! Get up, all of you!”
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A guard stormed in, ringing a sharp, metallic bell.
“Already morning?”
“Damn it. I feel like I’m gonna die from exhaustion.”
“My knees are ruined. Feels like someone shoved a knife in them.”
The demons groaned as they slowly sat up. Their faces were pale, their movements sluggish.
“Hey, Lokum! Wake up!”
Someone shook him until he opened his eyes.
“…Oh. Was it just a dream?”
Still half-asleep, he mumbled to himself.
He stared blankly at the ceiling, not fully aware of reality yet.
A few seconds passed.
“Thank goodness… It was just a nightmare.”
He repeated the words again and again, trying to convince himself.
The horrors he’d just seen and felt were nothing but a dream.
“Yeah… just a dream.”
In that dream, Lokum had been free.
He had lived on the edge of a Demon Lord’s land, hunting beasts and foraging for fruit, living his own life.
Then, without warning, strangers attacked. They captured him and dragged him away.
When he came to, he was in a place of misery and chains, forced to work like a beast.
He’d tried to run, but there was no escape.
They worked him until his nails tore off and his horns cracked. From sunrise to sunset, day after day.
But none of it was real. Just a nightmare.
Lokum took a shaky breath, trying to calm his racing heart.
“Yeah. No way something like that could really happen to me…”
“You’ve lost your mind, haven’t you?”
“…?”
The voice startled him.
Wait!
Who just said that?
His thoughts were a mess. But he knew that voice.
He blinked rapidly. His blurry vision cleared, revealing a familiar ceiling.
No… could it be?
He gasped sharply.
Something heavy was pressing against his neck.
His trembling hand reached up, hesitating.
He touched cold metal.
A collar.
A heavy, iron collar that circled his throat.
The one he’d tried countless times to remove… and failed every time.
“…Ah.”
Lokum’s face drained of all color.
In a whisper as soft as a breeze, he said:
“It wasn’t a dream?”
