The Devil’s Voice

Devil: A transcendent being that embodies evil, corrupts humans, and opposes God.

By following the proper procedure, it was possible for humans to summon a devil and borrow its power.

However, borrowing that power required a suitable price, and devils were also said to twist their summoners’ wishes and lead them to ruin.

Common prices paid for a devil’s power included sacrifices, the summoner’s soul, or even parts of their body…

“I don’t want to die…”

Lying in a hospital bed no one ever visited, I murmured those words to myself.

Or maybe I only thought I’d murmured them and no sound had actually come out.

After all, a tube assisting my breathing ran deep into my mouth, so ordinarily there was no way I should have been able to speak.

Well, it didn’t really matter.

I was the only person here anyway, so it wasn’t as though I’d wanted someone else to hear me.

I had simply reaffirmed to myself that I didn’t want to die.

And yet—

“Oh? Then tell me this. Why is it that you don’t want to die?”

Someone’s voice sounded beside my ear.

Even though I was supposed to be alone in this hospital room, there was someone else’s voice besides mine.

…Why didn’t I want to die?

Wasn’t that obvious?

I didn’t want to die because I didn’t want to die.

You shouldn’t need a reason to want to live.

It was true that I had no particular dreams for the future, nor was I an outstanding student with a promising life ahead of me.

I hadn’t devoted myself passionately to any school club, nor did I have some girl I loved whom I desperately wanted to confess my feelings to before I died.

I had simply drifted through life without accomplishing anything, until my body ended up like this.

But that didn’t mean I could possibly be fine with dying.

If anything, it was precisely because I still hadn’t done anything that I didn’t want to die.

“I see. I came here thinking I’d fill my belly with the soul of someone on death’s door, only to find you barking such unexpectedly strong words. …So even with nothing to your name, you still want to live. You’re the exact opposite of me.”

With those words echoing beside my ear, the old man began telling me about himself.

What he told me was utterly absurd, but that didn’t really matter.

No one had spoken to me in such a long time, and even if this voice was nothing more than my own mind driven mad by loneliness, I was fine with that now.

The voice—the old man—said that he was a devil.

Yes, a devil. You know, those things with wings and tails that apparently went around doing evil stuff.

They probably showed up as enemies in games, so I was pretty sure they were villains.

Were they the ones with bodies made of stone? Or the ones that carried flaming whips?

“…Hmm. The stone ones are gargoyles, and the whip sounds more like a balrog. They’re all roughly the same sort of thing, though. Well, if you don’t know much about them, that’s probably healthier for you.”

The old man said it lightly, but his voice sounded just a little lonely.

Still, there was nothing I could do about that.

Maybe the members of the Black Magic Club at my school would have known something about devils, but… I’d never been particularly interested in that sort of thing.

“I’ve lived for a very, very long time. I’ve driven countless humans to ruin, devoured their souls, and grown stronger. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to, but that’s simply the kind of existence a devil is.”

I couldn’t really relate to what the old man was saying, but the part about devouring souls made me tremble.

Then again, my body couldn’t move, so perhaps it was my soul that had trembled instead.

Come to think of it, the old man had started by saying, “I came here thinking I’d fill my belly with the soul of someone on death’s door.”

No. I didn’t want to die, and I definitely didn’t want to be eaten.

I desperately commanded my motionless body to somehow escape, but then—

“Wait, wait. I don’t intend to eat you anymore. If anything, I’m thinking of saving you. You don’t have to believe me. I’m a devil, after all, and frankly it’d be troublesome if you trusted me. Just hear my proposal and decide whether you’ll accept it.”

The old man placed a hand on my chest as he spoke.

…

“I’m tired of living. How about it? Would you like to live as a devil in my place?”