An annoying situation—Milim, who had been getting along fine here for weeks, suddenly came to my room today.
When I gave her a look asking, "What on earth did you come here for?" Milim finally opened her mouth.
"...This castle is too gloomy. I do not want to sleep alone anymore..."
Milim looked as though she might cry.
She was a Demon Lord who had lived for thousands of years, but perhaps because she looked like a child, she seemed so pitiful.
"..."
...Certainly, this place is no good for a child to stay in alone...
Places like Guy's throne room and the training grounds were made of ice, but aside from Velzard's room, even the bedrooms were all a dull dark crimson. It was only natural that Milim disliked it.
Should I consider it impressive that she put up with it this long...?
...It had been the same with my retainers, but I seemed to have a weakness for kids who felt like younger siblings.
The problem was that even knowing it, I could not change.
"Phew... All right. You can stay here for one day."
"R-Really?! Thank you!"
"I am sending you right out tomorrow morning. Got it?"
"Mm-hm! Of course!"
Milim's tearful face turned relieved. Perhaps she was that happy not to have to sleep alone, because she swung her arms and beamed like a real child.
...No, perhaps that is only natural.
Considering that her past was hardly a happy one, there was nothing strange about her being so delighted.
Milim must have endured many misfortunes that no child should ever experience—or even have to imagine.
**
A dark night, just past midnight.
Through the window, the sky was visible: stars and a snowstorm scattered across it like dots on black drawing paper.
Just as I was drifting off to sleep, thinking as always that it was magnificent, I heard a question from Milim, whom I had thought was already asleep beside me.
"...Hey, Rio. Do you hate being alone?"
It was a rather out-of-the-blue question for the middle of the night.
"...What brought that on all of a sudden?"
"...Sometimes, you look lonely... just like me."
"..."
At Milim's words, Rio's blue eyes widened slightly.
"I think you are like me..."
The reason was that, as she said it, she looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
...
Demon Lord [Destroyer (Tyrant of Destruction)], and Dragon Princess Milim Nava.
As the daughter of Creator God Veldanava, she appeared to be a Demon Lord who never showed weakness, but in truth, she was no different from an ordinary child.
A pitiful child left alone in loneliness after humanity's greed took her parents and her friend from her while she was still young.
............
...As Milim said, perhaps she and I really were alike.
Not the me of now, but the me from my previous life—the one who lost his parents relatively young and had no friends because he was a disabled person barely clinging to life.
"...Yeah. As you said, maybe I am lonely."
From a certain point onward, my previous life had been nothing but lonely.
From my hospital bed, the only way I could see the outside world was through the tiny window set into the hospital room door.
The nurses who came several times a day and the doctor who occasionally visited were the only people I could ever talk to.
I had spent years bound to a body with one arm amputated, a body in which I could feel nothing at all.
A painful life where the same day repeated over and over.
The hardest part of that life was that there was no one who understood me or supported me.
"...Being alone means there is no one you can truly rely on for help."
I had been alone then.
And even now, I was alone.
Whatever Blanc, Guy, Misery, and Rain might think, there was ultimately a vast difference between us.
The vast difference of being a monster, yet also a [Hero].
...........
"...So it was like that..."
Having heard his answer, Milim once again wore a sad expression.
After all, she knew very well what kind of pain he had endured.
But—
"—But it is all right now! Guy, Ramiris, and I will help you!"
Precisely because of that, she showed Rio—a new friend with whom she felt a kinship—a radiant smile.
Hoping that someone like herself would be able to forget his pain, even if only a little, in this moment.
"Milim..."
And to a demon who could see through the essence of souls, her heart was plainly visible.
"...Yeah. Thank you... Milim."
"Mm! It is only natural between friends!"
..............
Yellow moonlight fell over the aurora, which drifted alone through the night sky, unable to mingle with the stars.
Tonight... the night sky seemed a little more splendid.
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