Episode 8
Gremory regretted listening to Isolen’s drunken rambling.
Since that day, Isolen had been clinging to her incessantly—under the pretext of teaching noble etiquette, or properly instructing her in work and manners.
Even when Gremory offered no response, Isolen kept talking without pause. To Gremory, she had already become part of the mansion’s bamboo forest—something that simply existed in the background, impossible to ignore.
“Morri, you really need to learn etiquette. Look at how you’re sitting right now! You look like a complete thug.”
“……”
“And you’re supposed to attend the upcoming imperial banquet! Don’t tell me you’re planning to sit like that and tear into raw meat in front of everyone?”
In the servants’ lounge, Isolen placed a plate of sliced cake in front of Gremory and widened her eyes insistently. But Gremory only stared off into the distance, ignoring her completely.
“There might come a time when you have no choice but to eat normal food. So just try it, okay?”
“……”
“Come on, just one bite. Ah—”
Isolen personally lifted a piece of cake with a fork and held it to Gremory’s lips. With a deeply displeased expression, Gremory accepted it. It was better to get it over with quickly.
She swallowed it without even chewing properly, then immediately gagged as tears welled in her eyes.
Isolen stiffened awkwardly, suddenly feeling guilty.
“Even if you’re from the northern snowfields… still, a person should be able to enjoy cake. Your taste is really unusual.”
“……”
“But if you keep trying, maybe one day you’ll learn to enjoy it. I understand you like raw meat, but you can’t keep eating in such a grotesque way forever.”
Gremory’s expression darkened. She grabbed a notebook and scribbled furiously.
「Shut up. You think I eat raw meat because I want to?」
“……Huh?”
「Eat your cake all you want, like a normal person. I’m never eating that kind of trash again, so stop forcing me.」
Suddenly enraged, Gremory stood up and stormed out of the lounge.
Left alone, Isolen blinked in confusion.
Did I say something wrong?
“Raw meat… she doesn’t eat it because she wants to?”
Gremory retreated into her dark, secluded refuge and curled up tightly under the blanket, wrapping herself in layers of warmth.
Aeris carefully observed her, sensing her gloomy mood.
— Um… are you okay?
There was no response.
Gremory was angry.
Very angry.
So angry that cold air seemed to seep out around her like frost.
“I never wanted to become some disgusting witch who only eats raw meat.”
Ordinary witches could eat normal food. They had to blend into the human world and live among humans unnoticed.
But Gremory was different.
In her childhood, her “home” had always been dark and suffocating. A narrow space barely large enough to lie down in.
A prison cell with no windows.
She grew up in that place, learning nothing. No warmth, no softness—only emptiness.
For ten long years, no one came for her. Only the merciless winter returned again and again. To survive, she wrapped her endlessly growing hair around herself just to keep warm.
Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—she never had to worry about starving. When demonic rats appeared, she ate them raw.
No language, no emotions, no thoughts—only the act of eating rat flesh kept her alive.
As with humans, habits in demons form during early childhood. Unlike humans, however, demons could rarely change them. Ten years of eating raw vermin had permanently carved that instinct into her.
Then, one winter day, the door finally opened.
“My child… you were here!”
A woman with flowing black hair embraced her tightly and wept.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry I only found you now…”
Smiling faintly through tears, the woman carried Gremory out of the cell.
After three years of education in the demon realm, Gremory eventually joined its upper ranks.
Even then, she was treated like livestock—but she didn’t particularly care. She had never learned what was wrong, nor what it meant to feel wronged.
Only later, after hearing an old human acquaintance’s words, did she realize how twisted her situation had been.
And so Gremory fled the demon realm.
After that, Gremory’s appetite dwindled.
Even black goat raw meat, once her favorite, went untouched. Fresh blood from cattle was no different.
In the end, all the blame fell on Isolen. The servants gathered around her, accusing her relentlessly—asking just how cruel her “etiquette training” must have been to break Morri’s spirit like this.
While Isolen was being figuratively beaten down by everyone around her, Tession knocked on Gremory’s door.
“Hey, Morri. Can I come in?”
“……”
“That’s a yes, right? I’m coming in… oh my.”
The moment he opened the door, Tession froze.
The room felt even darker and more suffocating than usual.
He approached the bed where Gremory lay buried under the blanket.
“Morri.”
“……”
“Let’s go outside. I’ll show you my territory.”
“……”
“It’s nothing special. It’s just tradition. I always show the women living in my mansion around the estate.”
“Nothing special,” my foot.
Gremory scoffed internally. He was clearly just worried about her.
“Hmm? Morri.”
Tession placed a hand on her shoulder and gently stroked it. His touch was surprisingly soft.
Gremory thought emotions were a double-edged sword. The more she understood them, the more they awakened the wounds and rage of the demon realm—yet also the warmth and tenderness of the human world.
Why are humans so kind to others?
Slowly, she pushed herself upright.
Tession’s face immediately brightened.
“You’ll come with me?”
She nodded.
“Alright, let’s go!”
He took her hand and pulled her out of the suffocating darkness of the room.
It was only a door away, yet beyond it the hallway was filled with brilliant sunlight.
Inside the carriage heading toward the city, Tession pointed out landmarks through the window as he explained.
“That large volcano over there is where the monsters live. Around April, they come down to the villages for food. So I usually lead a subjugation force up there around mid-March.”
“……”
“Since it’s early March now, there’s nothing to worry about. Ah, and over there—”
Gremory wasn’t even looking outside. Her eyes were fixed on Tession instead.
There had once been someone like him.
A seventeen-year-old village girl named Lenia. Everything Gremory knew of the human world had come from her.
So lonely she had summoned a witch just to have a friend…
“Sometimes, mutated monsters wake early from hibernation, but that’s rare. Hmm… I didn’t expect you to listen so attentively, Morri.”
“……”
“Is there something on my face?”
“……”
“Morri, don’t stare at me like tha—!”
Suddenly, Gremory reached out and touched his face.
Tension froze Tession in place, his cheeks flushing as he didn’t pull away.
Then—
She plucked a fly off his cheek.
“…Yes, there really was something there.”
Only then did Gremory look out the window.
The fields outside were melting from winter, fresh buds sprouting across the land. It was a scenery impossible in the Demon Realm, where everything was blackened stone and gloom.
Darkness and decay had their own charm—but so did the color and warmth of the human world.
A faint smile slipped across her lips.
Lenia came to mind again.
The girl who once told her that human cities were beautiful, who had placed colorful flowers into Gremory’s arms, insisting she should see them with her own eyes.
“She even said she wanted to visit the capital someday…”
How wonderful must that place be?
Then—what was this prickling sensation on her face?
She snapped her head toward Tession.
But his gaze, which had clearly been on her, quickly shifted away to the distant mountains outside the window. His face was faintly red.
What was wrong with him?
Gremory decided it wasn’t worth thinking about and pulled her hat down. Tession complained that she didn’t need to hide her black hair, but she ignored him.
Soon, the carriage stopped near the city center.
“From here, we’ll have to walk. It’s too crowded for the carriage to pass through.”
Tession stepped down first and offered his hand, escorting her like a gentleman.
In the warm spring afternoon sunlight, Gremory stepped out of the carriage.
The ground felt soft beneath her feet, like stepping on wild grass left to grow freely.
The dry gravel path clicked under each step, and the sounds of the city grew louder and louder.
And the closer she got, the more irritated she felt.
She didn’t like crowds. Or noise.
Finally, they arrived in the heart of the city.
A massive tide of people surged through the streets. Crowds gathered in front of famous restaurants, street vendors shouting to attract customers—the chaos left Gremory’s mind blank.
Swallowed by the noise, she felt as though she had been dropped into an entirely different world.
What had sounded like irritating noise from afar… up close, it wasn’t noise at all.
It was life.
