The Yasha King’s Beloved (5)

“Search for him. Where did he run off to?”

“We poisoned him. Don’t think he can move properly.”

“Don’t let anyone notice. If this comes to light, we’re finished.”

As the sound of multiple footsteps pounding down the corridor echoed faintly in the distance, Ryoga bit down hard on his lip.

(—Damn it. Damn it. Damn it…!)

The curses swirling in his gut were endless. His entire body hurt terribly. Even taking a shallow breath made him feel as though he might lose consciousness.

But he absolutely could not collapse.

He had to protect his mother’s sapling and survive.

The whole affair had begun when the people of the village learned that his father was critically ill and started making a fuss over who would succeed him.

Ryoga had never intended to inherit the position. But many believed that Ryoga, as a Yasha, was the most suitable heir, and the oni who had long served his father practically forced him into the role. Before he knew it, people had even begun calling him the Yasha King.

Those who disliked Ryoga rebelled against that. Young oni he had defeated in the past banded together, spread malicious rumors about him, and began demanding that another oni be chosen as successor.

The conflict deepened with frightening speed, until eventually Ryoga was poisoned by the opposing faction.

As he writhed in agony, a group of oni burst into his room with unmistakable killing intent, and Ryoga realized that he himself was their target.

Because of the poison, he could barely fight, and his body was covered in wounds. The fact that he survived at all was probably a miracle. Barely clinging to life, he fled his room carrying only his mother’s sapling.

Sensing several pursuers behind him, he ran desperately. His large body made escape difficult, and all he could manage was using a spell to disguise himself as a small oni child.

(—Anywhere is fine. Anywhere but here. Somewhere safe. But where?)

As he ran blindly, Ryoga was forced to realize that he had nowhere he belonged.

No one needed him. No one loved him. Simply being alive made others try to kill him, and all he could do was suffer miserably. Even drowning in despair, he still did not want to die. At the very least, he wanted to deliver this sapling to his father. He wanted to leave behind even one piece of proof that he had lived.

“Ah…”

By the time he realized it, Ryoga had fallen into another world. A place inhabited almost entirely by frail creatures called humans. He had heard that weak Aberrations lost their minds when they fell into this world.

For a moment Ryoga feared the same would happen to him, but fortunately, his consciousness remained clear and he did not become confused.

There was almost nothing he could do in the form of a small oni child, so he curled himself up where he happened to have fallen.

(—If I rest for a little while… surely…)

The moment the thought crossed his mind, Ryoga gave a small laugh.

What would resting accomplish? Even if his wounds healed, what would he do then? The sapling hidden inside his clothes had weakened badly in the commotion. Even the bud that had finally begun to swell looked as though it might fall off at any moment.

“Ah…”

A pathetic sound escaped him.

Being a Yasha was nothing more than an empty title. No matter how immense his power was, Ryoga had no real power at all. No place to belong. No family. Nothing.

Maybe it would be better if he simply vanished here.

Just as that thought was beginning to take hold of him—

“…Are you okay?”

The voice was very small.

It was so weak, filled with fear, anxiety, and confusion, that for a moment he wondered whether loneliness had made him imagine it.

But the owner of the voice was undeniably there.

A girl about the same apparent age as his current form, her eyes wet as though she might cry at any moment, her body trembling pitifully. She was slender, with glossy hair. Everything about her was so tiny that Ryoga wondered whether he might accidentally crush her beneath his feet if they met while he was in his true form.

So this is a human?

Ryoga found himself staring at her shape in disbelief.

“I’m going to touch you a little.”

Ryoga remained unable to say anything as the girl gently pressed a hand against his back. The soft warmth of her touch seemed to warm even his frozen heart.

And his wounds as well.

(—This girl is a Princess. A human, and yet… how extraordinarily rare.)

A treasured existence capable of healing Aberrations.

Ryoga could hardly believe the strange workings of fate that had allowed him to meet one in a place like this.

She called herself defective.

Certainly, a human who healed Aberrations would be considered an aberration among her own kind.

But to Ryoga and those like him, her existence was nothing short of a miracle.

He wanted to tell her that she was wrong. That she was wonderful.

But he could barely speak.

If only he could take her home right now and have her heal his father.

The thought crossed his mind.

(—No. She wouldn’t survive it.)

Ryoga had crossed from the other side into this world by accident. Most likely, a fissure had formed because some unknown conditions happened to align. Ordinary Aberrations sometimes died or lost their sanity simply from crossing between worlds.

For a human, it would be even worse.

The girl told Ryoga to run.

Even though it was obvious that he was not human, she neither recoiled from him nor feared him nor looked at him with disgust.

She simply told him to escape.

Then, as if that were not enough, the girl even healed his mother’s flower.

The bud he had thought would never bloom opened and produced a beautiful flower.

Its radiance lit something inside Ryoga’s heart.

“Pretty.”

The girl smiled softly.

Her smile was far more beautiful than his mother’s flower.

(—I want her.)

What surged through him was an almost painful tenderness, mixed with desperate longing.

It happened so simply it was almost absurd.

So instantly it was almost trite.

Ryoga had fallen in love.

She had saved his life and protected his mother’s flower. She was so frail and small, yet her presence was overwhelming. In Ryoga’s empty world, something precious had taken root for the first time.

“Ah…”

He opened his mouth, wanting to tell her something, but only a hoarse sound escaped.

In the end, they were human and oni.

Their destinies were never meant to cross.

What would be the point of telling her? What would be the point of wishing for more?

The image of his father grieving after his mother’s death surfaced in his mind.

Ah.

Ryoga understood with painful clarity.

If he lost this girl, he would become exactly like his father.

“Take care of the flower.”

Ryoga desperately restrained the urge to take the hand of the girl who was trying to help him escape.

Let’s run away together.

The words rose to his throat but never became sound.

He himself was being hunted.

His life was in danger.

Why did it have to be now?

If only they had met under different circumstances, then even if their worlds could never truly intersect, he could at least have watched over her.

As the least he could do, Ryoga gave her a petal that had fallen from his mother’s flower.

It was a miraculous flower capable of saving even an oni’s life.

He gave it to her with the hope that perhaps it might someday protect her too.

Though reluctant to leave, Ryoga said farewell to the girl and departed.

It was only when he finally found a fissure that could return him to his own world that he realized he had not even asked for her name.

Just how completely had he lost his head?

A dry laugh escaped him.

(—Someday, I’ll go ask her name.)

That small wish strengthened his heart.

For the sake of that someday he wanted to reach, Ryoga overwhelmed the oni who had tried to kill him and delivered his mother’s flower to his father.

“…I’m sorry. You simply… looked so much like her that I pushed you away.”

His father, whose life had been saved by his mother’s flower, admitted it in a tear-choked voice.

Ryoga quietly cried as well.

If this had been before he met that girl, he probably would not have been able to accept his father’s words so easily.

He might have become furious, accusing him of trying to cover everything up with empty words.

“It’s fine. It’s over now.”

Because Ryoga had already been saved.

By a small hand that had gently healed him without asking for anything in return.

By a pure smile.

“Ryoga. You are strong. There is no one else who should succeed me.”

“…No. It doesn’t suit me.”

Ryoga shook his head at his father’s words.

“I’m leaving the village. It would be better if I weren’t here.”

There was nothing for Ryoga to gain here.

He no longer cared about being acknowledged by this place.

“I see… If that is what you want, then do as you please.”

Perhaps because he felt guilty about the past, his father readily accepted Ryoga’s wish.

Then he gave him a remote tract of land where he had once met Ryoga’s mother.

Ryoga built a residence there and decided to live quietly, apart from everyone else.

But fate was strange.

Before long, stray and outcast Aberrations somehow began gathering around Ryoga.

He welcomed the weak and homeless among them as his retainers, and before he knew it, his household had grown large.

They began calling him Master. Surrounded by those who genuinely cared for him, Ryoga finally obtained a peaceful life.

And all of it, perhaps, was thanks to the girl he had met that day.

Would they meet again someday?

Would they finally tell each other their names?

Ryoga still remembered the day he had wanted to kill his own carefree past self for ever thinking such things.