The Tragic Past

“Mmm, mmaaah…”

Ma Hana trembled slightly.
Her mother, Han Ara, was the only daughter of the 72 Demon Kings—a startling revelation—and she had fled the Demon Realm for the surface world.

Ma Hana, listening to the story, hesitated, as if she couldn’t keep up.

She sighed.

She had suspected her parents’ story wouldn’t be ordinary. She had intuited there would be a secret she couldn’t bring herself to tell others. But she hadn’t expected it to be this extreme.

At least in this—Meowi’s specialty of sensing things at a hundred levels—Yu Seha wiped his forehead.
Wiping away cold sweat, he asked softly.

“Are you okay?”

“Mmm, mmaa…yeah.”

Just that one sentence calmed the anxiety in her chest.

Yes. It’s okay.

Because Seha was here—because he was always with her.

Ma Hana smiled faintly and leaned against Yu Seha’s shoulder; he returned the smile and stroked her hair. For them this was nothing special—they had always been together,

but the two watching—her would-be parents-in-law—felt differently.

“Oh my, oh my…as expected, my daughter,” Han Ara’s eyes shone.

“N-no, th-this can’t be! She’s still a baby; it’s too soon!” Ma Tae-han stammered.

Yu Seha smiled awkwardly at Ma Tae-han’s glare, which felt like hot flames.

After about ten minutes’ rest, Han Ara resumed her story, now having come to her senses.

When she first opened her eyes, she found herself in a dungeon’s resting area prepared by Ma Tae-han and the others. As she blinked in confusion, Ma Tae-han’s voice asked,

“E-excuse me, are you all right?”

Han Ara kept a guarded silence.

That was natural. In her life, every value judgment was centered on the Demon Realm. There, kindness usually hid an ulterior motive—actions meant to deceive and stab someone in the back.

She had another reason to be cautious: Ma Tae-han’s appearance. When Han Ara first ascended to the surface and met him, he had cute cat ears and a tail. At first she thought he might be kin, but she couldn’t sense any Magi from him and realized he was an entirely different species.

Ma Hana raised a hand.

“Mmm, mmaa…um, the demonic energy—didn’t they notice it while they were caring for you?”

“Should I call it a tremendous stroke of luck? She’d used up all her strength fleeing here…so her Magi hadn’t recovered. I also restrained it because I knew using Magi on the surface would bring bad consequences.”

Because of that, Ma Tae-han assumed Han Ara was just an unlucky civilian caught up in a gate. Being Ma Hana’s father, he was kind-hearted. He nursed Han Ara, changed her wet towels, even cooked stew and fed it to her from a spoon. Han Ara let out a small laugh, finding it oddly endearing.

“…Honestly, it was absurd. From my perspective it looked like a tiny creature puffing itself up, trying to protect me.”

Compared to Han Ara’s true body, Ma Tae-han might as well have been a cute hamster. But in any world, as Yu Seha had said, sincerity wins out in the end.

Han Ara gradually lowered her guard and hungrily accepted the food Ma Tae-han offered.

She didn’t entirely let go of her suspicion—she feared this unfamiliar world, and she watched Cha Yeo-joo and Im Hye-ja peering from beyond the tent with sharp eyes, thinking, Did they notice my true form?

“Back then I didn’t know what feelings those two had for Tae-han…or how much of a thorn I must have seemed.”

At Han Ara’s mutter, Ma Tae-han cleared his throat.

“Ahem, ahem…”

“Anyway, he’s my husband, but he’s quite popular…Honestly, if those two were a bit more forward, they’d probably be with him already.”

“Ahem!”

Eventually Han Ara was rescued and somehow settled into Ma Tae-han’s party.

There were several reasons, but the biggest was Han Ara’s strength. Even constrained in humanoid form, her power far surpassed ordinary hunters. Ma Tae-han’s party lacked offensive punch, so Han Ara as pure damage-dealer was invaluable. Second, her pitiable state—no status, no home, no common sense—made her an easy target for suspicion. A strong person who knew nothing made no sense to Cha Yeo-joo and Im Hye-ja, but kind-hearted Ma Tae-han couldn’t leave her and cared for her consistently.

“…Naturally I ended up living at Tae-han’s house.”

“Mmm, mmaa, that’s…!” someone exclaimed.

“Yes, it’s cohabitation. It was the kind of situation where such things easily happen. Ma Hana, make sure you woo a fine son-in-law and live with him, okay?”

“H-honey!”

“Mmm, mmaaah…I-I’m already doing that…”

“As I thought, my daughter!”

“Mmm Meowi!?!?!”

Cha Yeo-joo flared up at this, and Im Hye-ja wouldn’t tolerate it either. To them, Han Ara was a rolling stone—suspicious and intrusive. Perhaps because Baal had taken both male and female roles and sired the daughter, Han Ara’s beauty and mystery made them unforgiving.

“So, reluctantly…we all four lived together.”

Four people rubbing together—no, three people and a monster.

Han Ara learned humanity from them and slowly began joining in their foolishness.

“It was happy, since I learned the concept of ‘friend’ for the first time and discovered what friendship was.”

As time passed, unlike Baal—who had been both parent and oppressor—she grew attracted to Ma Tae-han, who cared for her, cherished her, and occasionally patted her head. A vague pink feeling, a twinge in her lower abdomen, the urge to do something right away.

“Love.”

Han Ara loved Ma Tae-han. Ma Tae-han loved Han Ara. He had apparently fallen for her from the moment he rescued her.

One day, when Cha Yeo-joo and Im Hye-ja were away for personal reasons, Han Ara threw herself at Ma Tae-han. After that day, they became lovers.

“…However, conflict was inevitable.”

Han Ara lacked self-awareness, and what she did was cowardly. Cha Yeo-joo, having learned everything, flew into a rage and struck Han Ara’s cheek hard. Im Hye-ja watched and did little to stop it.

Receiving Cha Yeo-joo’s fury, Han Ara felt uncontrollable anger rise.

For Han Ara, the complicated relationships among women were incomprehensible. What she felt was simple: the friend in front of her had hurt her. That alone catalyzed the awakening of her true body.

Yu Seha, who had been listening quietly, murmured.

“…The true body—complete beastification, I see.”

“Yes. The power equivalent to when Baal reveals his true form. That which had been suppressed finally burst out.”

Boom—!!!

A colossal power swelled with Han Ara’s fury. A massive figure appeared, literally smashing the house to pieces.

It was Han Ara’s true body. With blazing eyes and fur so coarse you couldn’t tell what it was made of, the yellow-and-white quadrupedal beast looked like a blend of wolf, bear, and fox.

It was about twenty-seven meters long—calamity-sized, yet still small and weakened compared to her original form. Because Han Ara had continually suppressed and refused the Magi, it had emerged in a weakened state.

Even so, it proved she was one of the 72 Demon Kings and that being the daughter of the Demon Beast Emperor Baal was no empty title.

If Han Ara hadn’t clung to a thread of reason at that moment, and if Im Hye-ja and Ma Tae-han hadn’t risked their lives to stop her, Cha Yeo-joo would have died at Han Ara’s hands.

“Excuse me, but how big and strong is her perfect true body?”

“Hmm…I’d say about ninety meters, and by this world’s standards…upper S-rank. As a side note, even weakened like that she’d still be at the low end of S-rank.”

Yu Seha nodded. Indeed, the power befitting a superior being born under a Demon King’s care. It was clear even three A-rank fighters together wouldn’t win.

During the rampage, Han Ara barely regained control, suppressed her true body, and returned to humanoid form. Sitting among the collapsed ruins, she faced three eyes full of fear and dread.

Seeing that, Han Ara realized she could no longer hide. She moved far away to avoid the hunters flocking to the commotion and confessed everything to the three.

“…Actually, running away would have been one way.”

But Han Ara didn’t want to run. She couldn’t betray her friends, and she didn’t want to deceive the man she loved.

The three were shocked. Though the Demon Realm and Demon Kings weren’t widely known, it was clear they were humanity’s enemies.

Naturally, they fought fiercely. Cha Yeo-joo drew a knife to kill; Ma Tae-han stopped her while Im Hye-ja tried to calm things.

Cha Yeo-joo, restrained by Ma Tae-han, burst into tears and unleashed her rage. It made sense: her friendship with Han Ara had been strained, and her love for senior Ma Tae-han felt stolen.

Cha Yeo-joo screamed.

—Senior! Snap out of it. That female…does she look like a person to you? That’s a monster!

And of course the offspring of a monster is a monster!

Harsh words, but not incorrect.

Han Ara gave a bitter, conflicted smile. Ma Tae-han looked at her with pity.

“…Thus I lost a precious friend.”

That dawn Cha Yeo-joo left, and Ma Tae-han, Im Hye-jha, and Han Ara stayed in a hotel while finding a new home.

Han Ara quietly slipped away during the lull after everything had ended. She intended to leave forever; she thought she’d only be a burden if she stayed.

“…But Tae-han, who had noticed in advance, stopped me.”

Ma Tae-han grabbed Han Ara. Holding her as she resisted, he shouted and begged her to stay by his side—saying he didn’t care that she was the Demon King’s daughter or a monster, that he didn’t care about such things at all, and begged her to walk with him as the woman he loved, as Han Ara.

Faced with such a plea, Han Ara opened the door to her heart and kissed Ma Tae-han.

Time passed. They found a home, started a family, and like anyone else, became a married couple.

Finally…a life more precious than anything in this world was conceived.

“Mmaa—no way?”

“Yes, it’s our angel-like Hana.”

Happiness returned. Although they had lost Cha Yeo-joo and hurt Im Hye-ja, they believed the relationship could be mended someday and they enjoyed their newlywed life.

It seemed everything would be fine. It seemed like no problem would ever come. However…

Yu Seha, who had been listening quietly, narrowed his pupils. The strange doubts and unease he’d felt since hearing Han Ara’s origin and Baal’s purpose tightened into something worse. He squeezed his eyes shut as Han Ara spoke the words that turned his thought of ‘No way?’ into reality.

“…The moment I held our Hana safely after she was born at the hospital…I fell into despair.”

A tiny, precious little girl—and on that child’s body, the seed of evil was unmistakable. A binding and curse only Han Ara could distinctly feel.

“…Baal’s will.”

Ma Hana had been implanted with Baal’s binding: a curse harsher and stronger than the one on Han Ara. At the appointed time it would devour the true body’s consciousness and become the beast-will that moved according to Baal’s desires.

Ten years.

The moment Ma Hana turned ten years old, the existence called Ma Hana would die—replaced by a rampaging demonic beast born to enact Baal’s will.