The troublesome situation was this: Milim, who had been getting along just fine here for the past few weeks, suddenly showed up in my room today.
When I shot her a look that clearly asked, "What exactly are you here for?" Milim finally opened her mouth.
"...This castle is too gloomy. I don't want to sleep alone anymore..."
Milim made a tearful face.
She was a Demon Lord who had lived for thousands of years, but maybe because she looked like a child on the outside, she seemed pitiful enough to tug at my heart.
"..."
'...She does have a point. This place really isn't somewhere a kid should be living alone...'
Places like Guy's throne room and the sparring grounds were made of ice, but except for the room where Velzard stayed, the bedrooms were all a dull dark crimson, so it wasn't hard to understand why Milim hated it.
'Honestly, the fact that she put up with it this long is impressive...'
...I guess I've always had a soft spot for kids who feel like younger siblings.
Even knowing that, I couldn't seem to change it. That was the problem.
"Phew... Fine. You can stay here for one day."
"R-Really?! Thank you!"
"I'm kicking you out first thing tomorrow morning. Got it?"
"Yeah, yeah! Of course!"
Milim's tearful expression instantly turned to relief. She must have been that happy not to sleep alone, because she started swinging her arms and grinning brightly like a real child.
'...No, maybe that's only natural.'
Considering how bleak her past was, it wasn't strange for her to be this happy.
Milim had gone through far too many misfortunes—things no child should ever experience, or even imagine.
A little past midnight, in the dark of night.
Through the window, the sky was visible—stars and blowing snow scattered across it like dots on a black canvas.
Thinking, as always, how dazzling it looked, I was just starting to drift off to sleep when I heard a question from Milim, whom I'd assumed had already fallen asleep beside me.
"...Hey, Rio. Do you hate being alone?"
That was a pretty sudden question for the middle of the night.
"...Where did that come from all of a sudden?"
"...Sometimes you look lonely... like me."
"..."
At Milim's words, Rio's blue eyes widened slightly.
"You feel kind of like me..."
The reason was simple: she looked like she might burst into tears at any moment.
'...'
Demon Lord [Destroyer], the Dragon Princess, Milim Nava.
As the daughter of the Creator God Veldanava, she looked like a Demon Lord who would never show weakness, but in truth, she was no different from an ordinary child.
A pitiful child left all alone in loneliness after losing her parents and her friend at a young age because of humanity's greed.
...
...Just as Milim said, maybe she and I really were alike.
Not the me I was now, but the me from my previous life—the one who lost his parents fairly young, the disabled wreck barely clinging to life, with no friends at all.
"...Yeah. Maybe you're right. Maybe I am lonely."
At a certain point, my previous life had become nothing but loneliness.
From my hospital bed, I could only see the outside world through the tiny window set in the hospital room door.
The only voices I heard were the nurses who came by a few times a day and the doctor who visited once in a while.
I spent years trapped in a body with one arm amputated and no sensation at all.
A painful life where every day repeated exactly the same.
And the hardest part of that life was that there was no one who understood me and helped me endure it.
"...Being alone means there's no one you can truly rely on for help."
Back then, I was alone.
And even now, I'm still alone.
No matter what Blanc, Guy, Miss Misery, or Rain might think, in the end, they're fundamentally different from me.
Because I was a monster, and at the same time, a [Hero]. That difference was too great.
...
"...So it really is like that..."
After hearing my answer, Milim's face turned sad again.
She understood all too well what kind of pain he had gone through.
But—
"But it's okay now! I'll help you, and Guy will help you, and Ramiris too!"
Precisely because of that, she showed Rio a bright smile—this new friend she felt a kinship with.
She wanted him, someone so much like herself, to forget his pain, even if only a little in this moment.
"Milim..."
And to a demon who could see straight through the essence of a soul, her feelings were painfully clear.
"...Yeah. Thank you... Milim."
"Mm! That's only natural between friends!"
...
Yellow moonlight fell across the aurora drifting alone through the night sky, unable to mingle with the stars.
Tonight... the night sky looked a little more splendid than usual.
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