CHAPTER 0
[Scylla, Concubine of the 73rd Demon Lord]
[Human City—Months after the Human Nobles' betrayal]
The city below us was burning.
What was once a quiet city of humans became a gigantic lamp within a day. The humans were fleeing from the fire. Some were charred. Others were trying to douse the roaring flames but were failing as the smoke choked them off.
An army of 5,000 soldiers surrounded the castle, where I observed the devastation before me.
A week had passed since the city was offered a peaceful surrender. The 73rd Demon Lord’s army was ordered to spare as many humans as possible by the 73rd Demon Lord himself. Despite the objections of his generals, they reluctantly agreed to the orders he gave them. It was both a noble and utterly pointless decision, and his generals knew that. Humans, no matter how you see them, were creatures capable of making the most absurd choices even when their lives were at stake. It had been that way even after the treaty of peace between the Human Empire and Demon Territory had taken place. They exploit, scheme, and ridicule the demons who let them in their lands with open arms.
Although the 73rd Demon Lord, the young lord, was a relatively new Demon Lord amongst the other 72 Demon Lords, he was an efficient and ruthless strategist capable of making even the greatest walls crumble without raising a weapon.
A Demon Lord known for words, not swords.
That was why his army obeyed, followed, and stayed, observing what the humans might do.
The week had gone by, and nothing had happened, at least that was what it seemed. Coming from the actions that the city has taken, the lack of replies from the messengers, and vague agreements, they were likely either stalling to prepare a counterattack or planning an escape.Some chose the latter.
In that timespan, there were humans who secretly snuck out their women and children around the forest surrounding the city.
But that was to no avail.
Once the escapees were far enough to avoid eyes from the city, the demon army would ambush them, leaving no trace behind. 5 convoys, composed of women, children, and their guards, would be slaughtered this way. When the city had noticed the disappearances and the slaughter of the 6th convoy, they were enraged and declared the proposal of a peaceful capture to be annulled. It was that decision that led them to this.
If they hadn't escaped, they would have been spared.
If they hadn't resisted, they would have had a chance to live.
To go through with such plans knowing full well that it wouldn't succeed, they were hoping for a miracle to save them. That's why they fell. That is to say, they were desperate. A desperate animal will even offer its child as a plea to survive, and they have chosen that yet failed miraculously. Even if they had offered 10 children in their stead, it is still not enough, not nearly enough. They had not thought of the assumption that the predator wasn't willing to settle for a measly child, the predator wanted to consume all of them. It is the foolishness of wrong assumptions.
The foolishness of the ignorant.
Blood decorated the walls of the city's castle. It was a beautiful sight where the boastful mouths of those who chose to oppose the young lord were now eternally silenced. The knights that had commenced the eradication had already left, leaving me and the young lord alone with the corpses that were unceremoniously executed.
“Such pitiable things......”
The young lord murmured. He held a bottle of wine and sat drunkenly on an ornate seat made of gold that once belonged to the city’s ruler.
The young lord’s eyes were looking towards the city through a half-broken window.
“Hah. A burning sapling.”
He pointed to a burning child.
The young lord’s body swayed from left to right, looking at that one child and observing it carefully, frequently muttering random singular words ranging from ‘tiny’, ‘flee’, and ‘live’, to more ominous words such as ‘disgrace’, ‘pathetic’, and ‘die’.
This happened for a while, with the young lord’s words becoming more deranged until he stopped entirely.
He drank from the bottle of wine, then spoke.
“If we were to release a frail child to this world alone, what would happen? Would the child struggle, resist, and live? Could there be a hopeful outcome for those who were abandoned? Those who were left by their family—father, mother, siblings, and all? Such a child, devoid of protection and an absence of a nurturing family. A child who has not experienced the warmth of a parent’s embrace and the comforting words of siblings......”
My eyes were fixed on the child he pointed to, who tore its own skin when it tried to put the fire out, dying in an unpleasant manner.
I sighed internally.
It seems like the young lord is in another mumbling session, though this time he may be just drunk. It is quite concerning that the young lord has been a drunkard lately.
Well, what can I say? I am merely a concubine to his lordship after all.
This much is common.
“What will happen...... what will happen...... Scylla, what do you think would happen?”
He turned to me, who was standing quietly by his side.
“If your lordship with such intelligence cannot answer it, then this one, who is a mere servant, cannot fathom to answer such questions.”
I replied plainly.
The young lord tilted his head. His eyes darted for a while, then suddenly stopped.
“Oh, right.”
A small grin was seen on his face.
“They shatter, collapse, and eat themselves. They waste away and die. Children who have no protection from the cruelty of this world face ruin. They wake up to nothing, live up to nothing, and ultimately expect nothing.”
He paused and looked at me.
“On the contrary. If a child would be taken care of and given warmth, comfort, and protection. The child can thrive in this world, much like a delicate seed planted in fertile soil. Just as a plant would flourish in the right environment, a child is all the same.”
Although I consider myself to have adequate intelligence to even contest privileged scholars, the young lord seems to have ascended and understood something within the most inner fragments of the mind and discovered a part of it not known to anyone other than himself.
Basically, a madman.
“But what if those that made the child grow...... its parents, its siblings...... be taken away? Would that same plant continue to grow or will it wither? Would the child still be able to survive?”
The young lord turned his gaze towards me again, as if waiting for my answer.
Despite my insistence on replying further into his madness, I’m being forced to go deeper into his mental illness with each random question he throws at me.
By all means, let lightning strike this man.
“Would they not live off their own?” I finally answered. “As your lordship has just muttered, a child would not have the necessary skills to live, yet why couldn’t they? I, myself, was a child who resembled such descriptions. Nevertheless, I live. It is only part of their laziness that obstructs them—that is why they die.”
“Ah, a great answer,” he smiled. “Pitiable, yes, quite pitiable, really. Not only are these children being made an outcast by society but also by their families. Much like that of an empty oasis of a desert, once a nursery of life, to suddenly vanish letting those that rely upon it face the unbearable heat and death.”
The young lord raised both his hands and started to shout.
“Oasis! Oh, oasis! A place of comfort and protection, our sanctuary! Where shall you be now? Has the greenery within your pond already withered? Or has the pond been reduced to a mere puddle? The water that has conserved and kept life in this vast, empty desert cannot be seen anymore. Ah, where has your water gone? I beggeth ye to quench my thirst!”
The young lord laughed hysterically, as if he were introduced to a joke that could kill him with laughter. Then, as abruptly as he began to laugh, he also abruptly composed himself.
“Now, let’s say, by some miracle, that the plant survives in such a harsh environment. It clawed its way from the infertile ground with all the nutrients it could squeeze. The plant, slowly but surely, adapts to its environment.”
The young lord stood beside me.
“Even if a child is still a child, it can decide for itself, fend for itself, and live for itself. A child can do so as they are living creatures themselves. And you, Scylla, standing with me now, are a fruit of that.”
“No matter how unfair the world is?”
“Yes, my beloved. No matter how unfair the world is.”
The young lord threw the wine into the cascading fire.
“That is...... not the answer I expected.”
The city below us burned. The young lord hummed.
I stood there watching, seeing the smoke rise, creating a thick cloud that harbored the deaths of many, a cloud that was composed of hundreds of souls woven together in one thick lump of dark ashes.
The place was devoid of life yet oddly encapsulating in its broken tapestry of chaos as everything was reduced to nothingness.
. . .
A CHILD REFLECTS ITS PARENTS, BUT THOSE WHO HAVE NONE SHALL REFLECT THE WORLD.
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