39 — Chapter 39

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“What’s your name, kid? Heh.”

Dumaine lowered his stance and spoke to the boy in front of him. Their eyes met. The boy trembled at the sight of Dumaine’s gray irises, his body quivering before he even realized it. His mind wasn’t fully present, but fear had smothered his awareness and drawn out his unconscious instincts, making his body shake.

When the boy gave no reply, Dumaine let out a low chuckle. He raised his hand and placed it against the boy’s forehead again. Black currents swirled where skin met skin, then shifted into a deep gray.

“Ah…?”

A faint sound escaped the boy’s lips, unbidden. His eyes regained a hint of light, as though the simple act of speaking had roused him from the fog. Watching this, Dumaine laughed quietly and repeated his question.

“Your name, kid. What is it? Heh.”

When the boy still didn’t answer, Dumaine’s left hand cracked across his cheek. The boy’s head whipped to the side, a red mark blooming where the blow had landed.

The boy suddenly heard a voice—like an echo from a dream. It was a voice he thought he knew well, though he couldn’t place it. He tried to remember, but his body grew heavier and his thoughts sluggish, as if sleep were pulling him under. With no strength in his limbs and only a thin thread of consciousness, he began to wonder if this was all just a dream.

Then he remembered—the demon that had suddenly appeared in the village. The memory of its face burned sharp and clear in his mind, and he instinctively shut his eyes. Or at least, he felt like he did.

Once he thought his eyes were closed, drowsiness struck him hard. He wanted to surrender to sleep, but a chilling thought followed: what if sleeping inside a dream meant death? Yet almost immediately, he decided death was preferable to facing that demon’s face again. And besides, whether sleep in this dream meant death or not was uncertain.

Resolving himself, the boy let his mind drift toward sleep. But just as he was about to fall, a heavy impact struck his forehead.

The shock was strong, but there was no pain—no real sensation of injury. Instead, his hazy mind grew clearer. The blurred edges of the world sharpened, shapes around him becoming distinct once more.

Without meaning to, the boy parted his lips, a faint sound spilling out.

“Ah…?”

The boy thought, So I’m waking up from the dream, and found it strange. To feel the act of waking so vividly—this was the kind of experience that would fascinate a curious, hot-blooded boy.

As he marveled, a faint voice brushed his ears.

“K… id… na… me… wha…”

He instantly realized it sounded like the voice he had faintly heard in his dream. Oddly, the events of that dream replayed in his mind with startling clarity. As he tried to decipher what the voice was saying, his head suddenly jerked to the side.

At first, there was no sensation at all. But as time passed, pain bloomed across his cheek. What began as a faint sting sharpened into true pain, and with it, his scattered mind slowly returned to focus.

And then, clear words reached him.

“Kid, what’s your name? Heh.”

The boy clutched his aching cheek, forcing his heavy eyelids open to look ahead.

And he saw the demon.

No—he saw the demon in his mind. Yet strangely, he didn’t faint or try to flee. This was the result of Dumaine pressing a trace of the destructive energy from his own body into the boy’s forehead.

Dumaine seemed pleased by the boy’s changed reaction. He laughed and asked again.

“Heh. Kid, what’s your name?”

The demon’s voice echoed in the boy’s ears, sweet as honey, almost seductive. He tried to resist the temptation, but his will betrayed him.

In the end, he yielded to it and opened his mouth.

“N… Nardi…”

“Nardi? Heh. Good. You’re my toy now. Hahaha!”

Dumaine burst into wild laughter, then reached out once more and pressed his hand against the boy’s forehead.

From his palm, a deep gray current poured into the boy’s skin, seeping inside. After a short while, he lifted his hand.

The boy’s forehead glimmered faintly with gray light, and the blue of his eyes had turned to cold, lifeless gray.

“Haah… haah…”

Dumaine panted harshly the moment he pulled his hand back. He hadn’t expected it would take so much effort just to create a single toy.

Meanwhile, the boy collapsed with a serene expression. When he regained consciousness, he would no longer be himself. He would be nothing but Dumaine’s puppet—obedient, unquestioning, and bound to follow every command.