At first glance, there seemed to be no problem, but how could he trust the terms of a contract written by a demon? Sure enough, Lucian soon found something strange. 

“Demon Queen, what is this Red Moon Calendar?” 

“It’s the calendar used in the demon realm. The moon is red, so we call it the Red Moon Calendar.” 

“And how many days does a year have in the Red Moon Calendar?” 

“……” 

“Demon Queen?” 

At his question she avoided his gaze without answering. Lucian sighed deeply. Of course. 

“Change it to the Julian calendar immediately. Otherwise I won’t sign the contract.” 

When he handed the pen back, the demon queen reluctantly changed the terms of the contract, looking disappointed. 

It was not until much later that he learned that one year in the Red Moon Calendar was equivalent to ten years in the human world. The demon queen, who had pretended to grant his request, had been waiting for the chance to deceive him again at the first opportunity. 

“Is it good now?” 

Lucian looked suspiciously at the demon queen who had handed him the quill and checked the contract once more. He couldn’t find any other suspicious clauses, but he still couldn’t let his guard down. 

That was a lesson he had learned long ago at the monastery. 

Demons may appear to grant your wishes, but in reality they will not. Since the terms of a contract are absolute, demons have perfected the art of finding loopholes in them. 

For this reason, making a deal with a demon is considered taboo. It is said that they will go to any lengths to get the results they want. 

Although he had no choice but to accept for the time being, Lucian was well aware that the moment he made a deal with the Demon Queen, he had already fallen into their hands. 

“I would like to add one more clause, Demon Queen.”

As soon as he spoke, the pen slipped from his hand and prepared to write at the end of the contract. Lucian continued to speak calmly. 

“If for some unavoidable reason I am unable to destroy you…” 

Scratch, scratch, scratch… 

“…you must be destroyed by the power of the contract.” 

The quill stopped and silence fell over the room. The demon queen stared at the newly added clause in the contract, making no reply. 

{If Lucian Valentinius is unable to perform the exorcism at the time of the contract’s termination, the Demon Queen Rose will be destroyed by the power of the contract exactly 24 hours after the contract’s termination date.} 

The woman, who had been silent for a moment, let out a small laugh and turned her head towards him. 

“Don’t you think you’re being a little too suspicious of your future wife?” 

The demon queen grumbled, but didn’t refuse outright. Before she could object, Lucian added an explanation. 

“It’s just a precaution. There’s always the chance that I could lose my life in an unavoidable accident.” 

Though he said otherwise, the truth was that he had added the clause as a safeguard in case the Demon Queen betrayed him. The Demon Queen, as if already aware of his intention, let out a faint grin, but didn’t bother to argue further. 

“Well, that’s true.” 

At her calm reply, Lucian couldn’t help but feel a shiver run down his spine. It sounded as if she was admitting that she could kill him at any moment. 

To let his guard down, even for a second, would be the end of him. 

For Lucian, this marriage was nothing more than a charade to achieve his goal. Even at the moment of their vow-sealing kiss, he never forgot that the being before him was a demon. 

With a stiff expression on his face, Lucian began to move the quill. 

Meanwhile, as Rose watched Lucian’s side profile, carefully signing the contract, she remembered the dream she’d had the night before: an image of herself caressing Lucian, who was kneeling and saying he couldn’t do it anymore, his sword having fallen to the ground. 

“Even if you don’t kill me, I will disappear because of the power of the contract.” 

Perhaps it was a prophetic dream. 

“If in the end I must face death at your hands, and if that is the future the Three Fates have decreed for you and me, then…” 

For the first time in her life, Rose thought, ‘I want to defy this so-called fate.’ 

Rose knew that even the power of the Three Fates, said to be unchangeable by the Creator God of Heaven, could not reach beneath the depths of this infernal land. She also knew that any treaty could be cancelled as long as both parties agreed. 

At that moment, when the holy knight dropped his sword and knelt before her, she suddenly wanted to see the expression on his face, hidden behind her shadow, and to see it while she was still alive. 

For that, Rose decided that from that moment on, she would do everything in her power to win his favour. She hadn’t yet realised that it wasn’t she who was clinging to Lucian in the dream, but Lucian who was clinging to her. 

“You know, I’m curious about something.” 

After he’d finished signing, Rose spoke casually to him, who still hadn’t put down the pen he was holding. 

“What was the land Lucian lived in like?” 

Now that they were married, she thought it was important to know about his past, so she asked. Without even looking at her, he answered indifferently. 

“It’s a place where it’s frozen all year round and not even a blade of grass can grow.” 

Rose blinked, closed her eyes and opened them again. 

“The land is frozen? And why?” 

“Because the goddess of the earth, having lost her daughter, fell into eternal slumber.” 

Rose’s mouth, on the verge of speaking, suddenly fell silent. 

“Why do you ask that?” 

After reading the contract countless times, he turned his eyes and asked, but Rose couldn’t answer right away. 

‘What if you find out I come from the lands outside? Perhaps…’

“No matter how long you wait, no one will come for you, so give up, your mother no longer needs you now that you are no longer a virgin.”

Maybe he’ll think I’m dirty, just like my mother.

“Hmm, that’s nothing.” 

She couldn’t bear it. Suddenly she tried to shake off the memories of the past and answered. As if she had never been human, as if she didn’t know what the human world looked like. 

“The land of the Demon Realm is all burnt and black, so I was just curious what the human world looked like.” 

All this was as if it had never happened; it had always been chaotic and tainted from the beginning. 

As she watched the man look on indifferently, continuing to read the contract, Rose exhaled softly in relief. 

She didn’t want to be found out. She couldn’t be discovered at all. She had always been a demon, never pure. 

She had to believe that. 

Quickly, as she always did, Rose dismissed the fleeting thoughts of the human world. 

***

Thirty thousand years ago, eternal winter came to the human world.

The goddess of the earth, Demeter, wandered the world calling the name of her lost daughter and, overcome with grief at the loss of her child, fell into an eternal slumber. From that time on, the human world became a barren land, constantly buffeted by snowstorms.

Surviving in despair, humanity spent thousands of years hoping for a miracle, sending knights to the Demon Realm to avenge the dead Spring Goddess. They believed that if they could defeat the demon Lord Pluto and avenge the death of her daughter, perhaps the slumbering Earth Goddess would awaken.

Carrying the weight of millennia of human desire, Lucian arrived at the Demon King’s castle, shouldering the hopes and sufferings of his entire race.

“The dining hall is over there, and on this side are all the guest rooms.”

Even after marrying the woman and being introduced to the structure of the castle, Lucian was still busy trying to understand the demon’s intentions.

“This room was originally used by the servants, but it’s empty now, so you can use it if you like.”

As she continued to open the doors to the empty rooms, Lucian followed the movement of her fingers with cold eyes.

The freshly cleaned appearance of the castle, done in just one night, gave him an inexplicable feeling of unease. It was as if the traces of the intense battle had completely disappeared. Sometimes he wondered if everything that had happened, including the death of the demon king Pluto, had been a dream.