The Baby Isn’t Yours

At that moment, Buford gestured forth Lirik’s new toy at the man without hesitation.

The black robe fell off, revealing white hair that shimmered in the darkness.

With skin glistening with moisture and pale, clouded eyes, ‘It’ charged toward the Fairy King without fear.

The Fairy King squinted his eyes as he watched ‘It’.

“Luin!”

Buford immediately called for his guard to assist.

The man who had been following behind him in the darkness stood before Buford, his skin turned dark and his eyes as black as the night sky, lacking any white.

“I sense the aura of a demon,” the Fairy King’s voice came through, as if piercing through the essence in an instant.

However, his words were only partly correct, and the Fairy King seemed to know this as well.

“That’s not it. …Did you summon even a demon and put it into a chimera?”

The voice, filled with vitality, was said in a low tone as if it was unthinkable.

But Buford didn’t have the strength to respond to his words.

He immediately retreated after throwing two dolls to face the Fairy King.

Fortunately, the forest’s edge wasn’t far away from that place.

As far as the world knew, the Fairy King had never left the forest. It was his self-imposed decree, driven by his disgust for mingling with humans. He made it clear that he wouldn’t enter their realm if they didn’t intrude into the domain of the fairies.

So Buford ran for the exit without looking back.

Even while dealing with his escorts and Lirik’s new toy, the Fairy King didn’t lose sight of Buford.

With just a flick of his hand, a barrier of trees rose in front of Buford, blocking his path. That wasn’t all. Dark Fairies began to appear one by one from the darkness, surrounding him.

Their numbers quickly reached dozens. Furthermore, even the daytime fairies were awakened and pressed upon him.

-You, strange fellow.-

-He’s an enemy. An enemy!-

-Should we capture him alive?-

-Should we eat him?-

-The King said not to kill him.-

-I want to kill him. It’s strange. My anger is boiling up.-

-I want to kill… I want to kill! I will kill him!-

The little fairies scratched him as they lunged at him, seemingly trying to strangle his brain with their overwhelming presence.

One of the Dark Fairies, with long fingernails, reached out for his heart.

“You damn things!”

Buford revealed his true form and began tearing through the fairies coming at him.

He bit into their tiny bodies and even ripped off their heads. The fairies screamed in agony.

He conjured dark magic, and from the air, black flames in the form of otherworldly words ignited.

In an instant, dozens of columns of flames shot up, consuming the fairies.

-Kyaaaaaak!-

-Oh my god!-

Amid the screams of the fairies and spirits, Buford made his escape. Without looking back, he dashed away in a frenzy, leaving that place behind.

The blue Fairy Forest was burning in flames.

* * *

Recalling the fiery red that had gouged into his eye sockets, Buford opened his eyes. The sensation of being clawed and torn by the fairies was still vivid.

As soon as he returned, he devoured the spirits like a maniac. Despite eating them alive, his wounds didn’t heal easily.

It seemed that he might need Lirik’s treatment.

“…Damon.”

He called the person that had stayed in the room with a voice that sounded tired.

A magician with blue eyes and jet-black skin appeared. With an expressionless face, she approached Buford and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him passionately.

Both of them exuded the aura of darkness, filling the whole room.

“You went out while I was resting, and got hurt like this… Poor thing.”

Damon murmured in her distinctive husky voice, and Buford nibbled her earlobe gently, expressing his love.

As if he found this kind of Damon cute, Buford pulled her close and kissed her deeply on the nape of her neck. Groaning at the sensation, Damon laughed and burrowed deeper into Buford’s arms.

Her lips, painted red, stretched into a smile. 

She was the only magician who practiced black magic in the Empire. She secretly learned black magic, a type of magic that had been forcibly buried, and as such, she was loved by the demons. 

And Damon loved Buford. 

“I’m tired. I need to go back and see Lirik for treatment.”

“Why don’t you make a contract with me? You’ll be able to have even stronger powers than you do now.”

“And you’ll play with me for the rest of your life, right? You’re a greedy woman.”

“I’ll play with you well. Enjoyably. Hmm, how about it?”

Damon, who was moaning, approached Buford, her lips tinged with red, and gently kissed his neck. The seductive approach didn’t bother Buford, who was quietly enjoying it.

It felt like his sluggish body was melting away.

“Ah, that’s right. There’s some interesting news about the shadow placed in the lord’s castle.”

“Hmm?”

As if questioning what it was, Buford responded absentmindedly with his eyes closed.

His hand, exploring Damon’s waist, didn’t retract.

The touch, moving up her waist, finally reached her soft, gentle skin.

With a voice full of delight, as if whispering like a moan, Damon said:

“A living, um… dragon egg was brought into the lord’s castle.” 

At that moment, Buford’s hand stopped.

His eyes slowly opened, pupils circling within his eyes.

“Someone brought it near the Fairy Forest.”

Damon said, gazing at it as if it were adorable. Her voice lowered as if to hide her enjoyment.

“How about that? Doesn’t it pique your interest?”

“If that’s true.”

She whispered seductively, smiling like a true demon.

“…Should I go and steal it?”

Buford’s ruby-like red eyes gazed at Damon, and a smile crept upon his eyes, which were half-lidded as if in a daze.

Damon found that smile captivating, as perfect as the black dot beneath his right eye.

It was an eerily perfect and devilishly beautiful charm.

“This is why I like you, Damon.”

He smiled deeply and plunged into her lips without restraint.

As lips and saliva made a frictional sound, Damon’s cries pierced the darkness.

Below, the corpses of the spirits had long turned into wind and earth.

* * *

At that moment, Lua’s central square.

A round, bumpy, brown head rises prominently.

As black eyes, like ripe plums, look around as if something is amiss.

After a few rounds of observation, the mole’s head, as if she finally realized something was amiss, began to shake frantically.

-Kyu? Kyuuu? …Kyuu. Kyu!-

The mole’s black pupils shook frantically as if it had realized she had taken the wrong path too late.

Not knowing what to do, the nervous mole, Teirra, bit into Simon’s magic bead with a crunch.

At that moment, his magic spread like a spider’s web from the center of the square.

* * *

At that moment, the reception room of the lord’s castle.

Allen and Hemmie, carrying the dragon egg, waited for him to come out.

They heard a message about the lord’s hurried return to the castle due to the fire in the Fairy Forest about 30 minutes ago.

The distance from here to the square was about 30 minutes. So it was time for him to arrive.

“But Kalia said that the magicians won’t be able to come quickly.”

“Even if they come as fast as they can, it will take at least a month. Since we came here like that.”

“Wouldn’t it take about two months if we came here normally? But maybe the magicians will come faster using teleportation magic?”

“Even if they come faster, it will still take a month. At best, three weeks.”

“…Well, what should we do with this?”

Hemmie pointed at the dragon egg she was holding.

“We’ll have to temporarily transport it to a major city’s magic department closest to here. Since we can’t do it, we’ll ask the lord to do it. We’re in a state where we can’t leave this place right now.” 

“You said that Kalia’s due date has been pushed forward, right?”

“Yeah.”

Allen, who nodded heavily in reply, was lost in thought. 

Usually, a woman’s pregnancy lasts for 40 weeks, or about ten months. Currently, Kalia was 37 weeks and five days pregnant.

But the baby was growing unexpectedly fast. It had already passed 3 kilograms, and if it grew any larger, the mother was at high risk of danger during childbirth.

Continuing like this, the estimated weight on the expected due date was about 4.7 kilograms. Giving birth to such a large baby would be incredibly difficult for the mother.

He had been thinking of a cesarean section, but he realized during the morning examination that Kalia’s uterus had dropped.

“The numbers for contractions also look abnormal…”

Her body seemed to prepare for childbirth as if it was saying that she wanted to give birth immediately.

“From what I can see, we need to prepare for childbirth within a week. The baby can’t get any bigger, and we can’t delay any longer.”

“Is Kalia alright, though?”

Allen nodded heavily in response to Hemmie’s worried question.

He smiled faintly, as if to reassure her.

“I think she’s fine; her body seems to be fine. I even heard that she had a good night’s sleep last night. The movements yesterday helped for her swelling to subside for the first time in a long time.” 

“She’s someone who has always been very active over the course of her life. She must have been very frustrated to suddenly be so still because of her pregnancy. Now that I think about it, we’ve been overprotective, Allen.” 

“What?”

When Allen looked at Hemmie in astonishment, Hemmie continued with a slightly raised face:

“Miss was so cool. You’ll never know how wonderful she was yesterday, Allen. Frankly, to be pregnant and be able to move as she did was genuinely amazing. Anyway, when she was in the forest yesterday, I felt it. Kalia is the wind! The wind itself! The Goddess of the Wind!”

Hemmie, exclaiming passionately, turned around in circles as if her excitement wouldn’t subside.

“Please, Hemmie. Don’t do that. After childbirth, she still needs to take good care of her health. If she keeps putting in wind or something like that, it won’t be good.”

Hoping to dissuade her, Allen’s words didn’t seem to reach Hemmie, and her pupils glittered as if she was lost in a dream.

At that moment. 

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. You brought the dragon egg, didn’t you?”

The waiting lord finally returned.