[Your Highness! Step back! It’s dangerous!]

Even as his body burned, Zetak’s only concern was for me. As the coals splashed towards me, he caught them with his own hands and threw them aside. Even though it was I who had caused his suffering.

Do I care for this child? I asked myself once again, and the answer was still no.

If I cared, I would have let go when I pushed his face into the fire. I would have picked him up when I saw him scream in pain. But again, I felt nothing. A monster is still a monster. Even though I was born a human, my mind is still that of a creature in a human body. I am still the centipede crawling through the muck of the demon world.

[Why do you follow me?]

[Your Highness…?]

Zetak looked up at me, panting with pain. There was nothing in his eyes but concern for me. I wondered if doing something more serious might awaken something in me. So I ordered Zetak’s arrest and framed him with false charges of attempting to murder me.

Zetak begged for forgiveness, not even knowing what he had done wrong. His eyes, filled with fear, were not afraid of death. They were afraid of being cast aside by me. After all I had done to him, why did he still care for me? I was curious – how far could he go before he reached his limit?

“I’ve done something terrible, haven’t I?”

The thought slipped from my lips before I realized it. At my muttered words, Zetak looked up at me with eyes weighed down by grief. Yes, by human standards, what I had done was nothing more than senseless torture. I now understood why he would slaughter me so mercilessly in the future. The scream he had made five years ago seemed to echo in my ears.

[It’s all my fault. Everything is my fault! Please, tell me what I’ve done wrong and I’ll fix it. Please… please, Your Highness].

Was it when I pulled out the child’s first fingernail that he said those words? It wasn’t out of fear that I would pull out the second. It was a plea for me not to cast him aside.

[Please, forgive me. Let me stay by your side, Your Highness. It’s all my fault. Please, with this, let me be forgiven.]

[There’s no need to ask for forgiveness. You’ve done nothing wrong.]

Confusion spread across the child’s face. As I watched, I grabbed his second fingernail with the pliers. Even then, Zetak’s eyes never left mine, staring straight into mine.

[If I’ve done nothing wrong, then why…?]

[Well, I suppose I just…]

[I’m curious to see when you’ll finally learn to hate me.]

I said as I pulled out his second fingernail. His reaction was unchanged. Eventually, he stopped begging for forgiveness or talking to me, but his eyes always conveyed the same plea:

[Please don’t leave me. I will endure any pain. Just don’t leave me.]

It was fascinating. Even after losing all ten fingernails and then having all ten toenails removed, he was the same. So I took the whip.

After dozens of lashes, the child finally began to look at me as if I were a monster. Pain, grief, anger, resentment – all these emotions were in his eyes. But even in that resentment, there was a trace of longing and attachment to me. Sensing this, I carved the mark of a slave on his back.

[Will he be able to bear this? Will he still care for me after all this? Why will he continue to care for me despite all this suffering?]

Zetak screamed in agony as the mark burned into his skin. At that moment, I could finally see that even the tiniest shred of affection he had for me was gone.

[I’ll ask you—do you still care for me?]

[…I… Your Highness, I…]

[I will kill you]

The voice came from his blood-soaked lips, sounding like it belonged to a creature crawling out of the depths of the demon realm. That marked the end of my experiment. The child I had cast out of the palace so long ago was someone I had forgotten. That child was Zetak.To the child now in my arms, I was nothing more than a monster wearing a human disguise. Could I truly change that future?

[I like you, Your Highness.] 

Those words resurfaced in my mind about a year after he had become my servant.

The child who had said those words was smiling so brightly. Even I, someone devoid of emotion, could feel it: ‘Ah, this child is truly happy.’ It was such a radiant smile. But now, there was no trace of that light in Zetak. I was the one who had caused that change in him. Why was that? Suddenly, I found myself longing to see that smile once more.

***

The summons from the palace arrived barely a day later. My actions had reached my father’s ears. As a result, I found myself back at the palace after a long absence, with the entire family gathered for a meal. The atmosphere was far from cozy.

My father and mother, along with four other concubines and their children, all gathered in one place, and an invisible power struggle began. Bapharos’s expression was particularly self-satisfied. It seemed as if he had taken the opportunity to say various things in my father’s ear.

“Jaibid. I am truly disappointed in you.”

As he set down his knife, my father was the first to speak.

“What do you mean?”

“Reflect on your actions.”

My father shot a disapproving look at Zetak, who was standing behind me.

“If you have any sense left as a human, you should be able to speak. So, what is your name?”

“He is…”

“Jailed, I didn’t ask you.”

My father asked again, but Zetak remained silent. Instead, he opened his mouth to look at my father, and my father’s expression hardened. I wondered why he was behaving like that when the answer came from Bapharos, who was sitting across from us.

“His tongue has been cut out.”

“What…?”

I turned to look at Zetak, surprised at the unexpected response. But he had already pressed his lips together in a straight line.

“Open your mouth.”

“…”

“I said to open it.”

“…”

Zetak didn’t move, as if he had nothing to show me. Had I cut out his tongue? I searched my memories, but I had never done anything like that. Had it happened after I threw him out of the palace? Yet in the future I saw, he was able to speak. My brow furrowed at the contradiction between the future and the present.

“Enough. What use is it to know his name? Jaibed, don’t you understand that a creature tainted by a monster could lose all reason and devour a human being at any moment? He must be sent to the temple immediately to face judgment.

“If that were the case, I wouldn’t have brought him here in the first place.”

“True. Let’s say I spared him out of pity. But what on earth were you thinking when you appointed him your servant? I have received a message from the Administration Palace. The papers for his appointment as your attendant have arrived. It says that you signed as a recommender. Is that true?”

“It is as you heard. I intend to keep him by my side.”

My father said nothing. He just twirled his wine glass and stared silently at Zetak, who stood behind me. Had he realized that this was the child I had cast out five years ago? Come to think of it, I hadn’t used a pseudonym when I’d filed the papers at the palace. If he remembered his name, it was possible.

But perhaps that was just my paranoia; my father’s eyes reflected nothing more than the gaze of someone looking at a stranger. No, more precisely, it was the look one gives to something filthy, tainted by evil. It was probably the typical perception of a man merging with a monster.

“Let me ask you one last thing. Bapharos mentioned that you share a room with that thing. I doubt that could be true, but just to confirm, is that the truth?”

My father’s voice was calm, but the anger underneath was palpable. I could feel his patience running out. But that was all. Whether he was scolding me or praising me, I had no interest in his words.

“Thanks to my brother, I no longer need to speak for myself. It is as you heard; I share a room with him.”

“Ha… Have you lost your mind? Sharing a room with such a filthy monster?”

My father’s words sent a shiver down my spine. The murderous intent was palpable, and it came from none other than Zetak. Though directed at my father, it was brief – so brief that even I, a creature sensitive to the aura of death, almost missed it at that moment.

So my father couldn’t have noticed. Nor did the palace guards who stood lined up against the wall. But my father, sensing the full weight of the murderous intent aimed at him, shuddered momentarily, as though struck by an inexplicable chill.

“I won’t say it twice. Get that thing out of here immediately.”

“Yes, Jaibed. No matter how much you pity him, he is a child fused with a monster. I’m worried about you getting hurt. What would happen if he went on a rampage in the academy?”