‘Tch. Hey, snap out of it.’

Ah, did I just say ‘anyone’?

A cold smile touched the corner of Yul’s mouth.

“Hey, get up on your own.”

One step, two steps.

Counting the footsteps drawing closer, Yul looked up with glistening eyes.

“Oh, you came……”

“Get up.”

“Help me up. My legs won’t hold me. I think the medication is wrong. What am I going to do.”

Her mumbling looked utterly pitiful.

Black hair that fell to her waist, a small and delicate face. She almost never saw sunlight in here, so her skin was clear of even a single freckle. Emerald eyes set in a pale face, lips drained of color, a worn and faded patient’s gown. It all made her look like a carefully crafted porcelain doll.

Not the kind of beauty that shimmers with life and moisture, but a decadent beauty, the kind felt in a park that once saw many visitors and has now been quietly forgotten.

For all her reputation as the most unhinged patient in the ward, Yul’s appearance was strikingly, impeccably pure.

“Please hold me. Won’t you?”

Watching a woman like that struggle like a deer with a broken leg, anyone would want to help.

This orderly had taken the post to replace the previous one who had fled with a bitten ear. He had heard Yulia Vergeus’s name spoken with dread more than once before starting the job, but like the orderlies before him, he was careless.

‘Please. She’s a slip of a woman. How strong could she be.’

Dismissing Yul with contempt, the groundskeeper let a sly hunger creep into his eyes.

‘Maybe I’ll take her to an empty bed before throwing her back in solitary. She probably wants it too, doesn’t she?’

He helped up her slight frame and let his hand wander, kneading at her backside. When she didn’t react after a few gropes, he moved toward somewhere deeper, and at that exact moment, their bodies pressed closer together.

Crunch!

Blood burst.

“AAAARGH—!”

The only weap*ns she had were primitive ones. Fingernails and teeth. But Yul was a seasoned hunter who knew how to use what she had.

She climbed on top of the groundskeeper as he collapsed clutching his ear, blood smeared all across her mouth, and let out a roar.

Not a woman but a she-demon. Not a human but a beast. The most unhinged of all the unhinged.

This was how Yul had survived in this locked ward.

“Y-you crazy b*tch!”

The warm taste of blood pooled beneath her tongue.

Yul held her jaw clamped shut even as the groundskeeper finally gathered himself enough to fling her off. Even when the metallic taste filled her entire mouth, even when she chewed through a torn piece of flesh, she did not stop.

In all the years she had been here, not a single family member had come to visit. She was abandoned, which meant she occupied the lowest rung in this ward.

But Yul had endured. She had gritted her teeth and held on, refusing to let anyone lay a hand on her body without consequence.

She had given up being human in order to keep wanting to be human.

As she laughed out loud, the groundskeeper screamed at her.

“You crazy……! How dare you—!”

He looked ready to strike her, but Yul knew. When she showed her teeth like this, the other person was the one who backed down.

“Hit me. Go on, hit me.”

She lifted her chin and asked, and it was the groundskeeper who took a step back.

She was no predator herself, but she could drive off jackals this way. She had no idea how long she would have to keep doing this……

That was when, from a corner of the courtyard where no one should have been, the sound of applause rang out. Slow but deliberate, five claps, as though someone were offering genuine admiration.

“Wow, you really are properly insane, aren’t you?”

She turned her head. A stranger stepped out from the shadows. Behind him stood the bald hospital director, face drained to a sickly green, looking exactly like a mouse caught in the jaws of a tiger.

“Impressive. And she’s not bad-looking either. You said she’d been out of contact with her family for quite some time.”

“Yes, yes sir.”

“The hospital fees must have stopped too?”

“That’s why we’ve been, been using her as a subject for new drug trials, sir.”

She had no idea how long he had been standing there, or how much he had seen. But the face of this man, clearly someone who would never have any business in a place as run-down as this, wore an expression of pure, delighted amusement.

“I like women like you.”

“I find men like you repulsive.”

The insolent reply didn’t faze him. Arrogant-faced, he simply let his eyes curve and asked:

“I need a woman who can carry my child within three months. Interested?”

***

The most celebrated figure in the Empire’s social circles. King of the southern back alleys. Owner of a casino that pulled in obscene amounts of money. And, unfairly, a man of powerful lineage on top of all that. A Master of formidable ability in his own right.

Zayed Idmazel.

Heir to a land so vast and prosperous it could have been called a kingdom in its own right, he was nothing less than a son of the gods. Born into privilege and raised on adulation, it was only to be expected that his character would be rotten.

Yet that very flaw in his character had led Zayed down an unusual path.

From the age of six, fear was a concept foreign to him. He had roamed the back alleys where the most dangerous people gathered as freely as if they were his own home. Filth-smeared streets. Crumbling haunted houses. Taverns where bodies turned up on a near-daily basis. Every one of those places was his playground.

Even so, a psychiatric hospital, and a locked ward at that, one designed to keep patients from ever returning to society, was not somewhere he would ever have had reason to set foot.

Until today.

“You. You claim you’re sane?”

He opened the ‘interview’ in a playful tone. He had come looking for a woman because he needed one, but Zayed was skilled at keeping his cards hidden.

“Make me find you interesting within three seconds. Do that, and I’ll make you my wife. Oh, and as a bonus, I’ll burn this hospital down.”

The director’s office. Zayed had turned out its owner and taken the seat as though it were his by right, and now he addressed the disheveled woman before him. A place he would ordinarily never visit, and a woman he would never have had any reason to meet in his lifetime. The combination of the two was putting him in a remarkably good mood.

When the woman who had been glaring at him finally opened her mouth, Zayed grew even more pleased.

‘Ah, should I be thanking my grandfather for this.’

There was a reason Zayed had left the familiar south and come all the way out here, to this backwater in the Empire’s north. It had all started a month ago, with his grandfather’s ultimatum.

***

“Take a wife and give me an heir.”

“Senility is only charming in moderation, Grandfather.”

In the Empire’s south, the Idmazel family held vast territory. The family head, Gillian, and his one and only descendant, Zayed, were sharing drinks in the middle of the afternoon.

“I’m not joking. I have a few years left at best. I want to see you living properly before then.”

“Having a wife and children is living properly? Let go of that outdated way of thinking. You’re behind the times.”

Arrogant, uncontrollable, ill-tempered, and a libertine.

The one person Zayed respected, for all of that, was not the emperor, not any god, but the old man sitting before him now.

Gillian Idmazel. The man who had taken him in when his parents abandoned him, fed him, clothed him, and raised him. His paternal grandfather.

Because of that, Zayed used formal speech in front of his grandfather. He had never once treated him carelessly.

That didn’t waver now, even with forced marriage on the table. The phrasing was a little…… well, but at least he was being respectful, wasn’t he?

Good enough.

Zayed decided to see it that way.

“Tsk. You need a wife and children to become a proper person. No argument. Get married.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Then when I die, I’ll donate every last asset of this family to the imperial household. I’ve already written the will and had the emperor notarize it.”

“…… Have you actually lost your mind, Grandfather?”

Zayed had been tipping strong liquor down his throat, and now his brow furrowed.

Gillian stroked his white beard, looking thoroughly entertained.

“I have. The emperor was delighted. He even said something absurd about hoping you’d stay unmarried for the rest of your life.”

“……”

“Oh, and bringing in a child that doesn’t share your blood, or a woman you don’t care for in the slightest, won’t work either. I can verify bloodlines with a spell, so don’t think about trying to fool me, you little wretch.”

Come to think of it, a few months ago, Grandfather had made the trip to the imperial palace despite his poor health. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now it had come back around to bite him.