Chapter 3
That should have been the last of it.
* * *
How did I end up like this…
Sungjin’s soul should have been incinerated. So why was he now alive, lying on a bed, and slurping soup that someone was spoon-feeding him?
The demon king guffawed.
It’s a napkin, you asshole.
The demon king had so gravely sworn to burn away his soul, so why was he in Sungjin’s mind, yapping away?
It had all started the day before. Sungjin had felt a wet towel rubbing his forehead. When he opened his eyes, he saw a middle-aged woman in an elaborate dress looking at him with tears in her eyes.
“Morres! My baby! Do you recognize Mother?”
“Oh, Your Highness! You’ve finally come to!”
Sungjin, confused amid the crowd of people fussing over him, could only blink.
The room looked fancy and vintage. He was being waited on hand and foot by people who seemed like servants. For a moment, he thought that he was in the afterlife. He only realized that something was truly off when a familiar voice echoed inside his head.
This frivolous voice, could it be?
Demon King?
Why was this asshole here? Hadn’t he wiped him out of existence?
What was he yapping on about? If neither the inferno of Gehena nor Sungjin’s own fist had been enough, then Sungjin was ready to get rid of the demon king again. He ground his teeth and tried to get up, but he couldn’t. His body fell down to the bed again. The crowd around him had been taken aback and pulled him back down, but that had only been a part of it. His body felt heavy and sluggish. It was hard to breathe, and his limbs were like a ton of bricks.
“Morres! What’s wrong? Baby, tell me what’s bothering you.”
“Your Highness, please, calm down just a little and…”
Let go of me! That demon king bastard is still alive! I have to kill him right now!
What the hell is this demon king going on about? Who are these people holding me down? Let me go! Let me go!
“Gak!” Suddenly, the back of his head ached, and his vision started swimming.
“Morres!”
“Your Highness!”
The urgent cries grew further and further away, and everything turned black. When Sungjin woke up again, he was still lying in the same room, surrounded by the same people. That damn demon king’s voice was still in his head too.
You, you bastard… Sungjin ground his teeth menacingly.
What did you say, you piece of sh*t?
They had a long way to go.
Sungjin grew so furious that the demon king worried he would die of his own anger. Despite the demon king’s expectation, Sungjin calmed down before the afternoon went by. He calmed down as he found out that the demon king’s physical body had been entirely lost to the flames and what was left of him were only the scraps of his soul. He also realized that it was no use being angry at a voice inside his head. There was nothing he could do about it. So he let his anger subside as he listened to the demon king’s explanation.
After the final battle, the inferno of Gehena had destroyed both the demon king’s and Sungjin’s bodies, but for some reason, the flames had died down without affecting Sungjin’s soul very much. The demon king said calmly that the inferno of Gehena had spread too quickly and allowed a little of his own soul to remain.
In other words, the demon king would never return to his former glory.
Then why didn’t you f*ck right off when you realized where you were? Why are you in my head talking to me?
The demon king sighed at Sungjin’s snappy reply.
It’s settled, then. Just destroy your soul. Simple.
Of course, Sungjin wanted to wipe out that remaining soul so that not even a speck of it was left. But how was he going to fight something without form? And there was no way that the demon king could summon the inferno of Gehena in his current state. When Sungjin had a goal, he tended to charge straight into it without checking his surroundings, but he wasn’t so stubborn that he would waste his effort on something impossible.
Once he accepted his situation, he felt that the chatty bastard in his mind was actually useful. He’d once been a demon king, after all. He knew a lot of things. The demon king had woken up a day before Sungjin had and quickly gathered an impressive amount of information about this new world and Sungjin’s situation. According to him, he could efficiently gather information by going into direct contact with other people’s souls and snooping on their memories.
Thanks to this, Sungjin listened to the demon king’s yapping to quickly learn about his situation while lying on his bed, being tended to by devoted servants. The demon king had reported that this was a world on a completely different plane of existence from Earth or the demonic world.
The original plane?
The ideological plane? And what’s Sigurt Earth 34?
The demon king clicked his tongue.
Sungjin thought about how much he regretted not leaving the demon king’s head intact. At least he would have been able to beat him up before he started mocking him.
The demon king’s soul trembled at Sungjin’s menacing thought. It disgusted Sungjin that he could feel the bastard’s soul so concretely.
Shut up!
Anyway, this world that belonged to a higher plane of existence was the holy empire of Delcross. It was ruled by holy emperors who were blessed by the great god through the generations. It was a powerful empire with countless kingdoms and grand duchies. The current holy emperor was the seventeenth. He was the biological father of the body Sungjin had occupied. In other words, Lee Sungjin had become a prince. Looking back, he had noticed how extremely polite everyone had been toward him.
But?
His mother, First Empress Consort Lizabeth Asayne, was the daughter of the powerful Grand Duke Asayne. Of all the women in the holy palace, her lineage was the most noble. Proud and confident even when facing the emperor or the empress, she believed wholeheartedly that her son, who had been born with the most noble blood among all the children of the emperor, would be the crown prince to succeed the holy emperor. And this expectation soon turned into excessive educational zeal and emotional attachment.
Fortunately, as a child, Prince Morres had been an obedient prince who endeavored to fulfill his mother’s expectations. He had not been very talented compared to his other siblings, but he had at least worked diligently to cultivate princely qualities.
But at the age of seven or so, he had started throwing angry, screaming tantrums more and more often until he had lost all regard for courtesy. He had gotten into the habit of cussing out and beating maids and other servants for no reason at all. Not a day would go by without the prince hurling various dishware and other objects, destroying them. Even the knights that guarded him hadn’t been safe from his bullying and harassment. When Empress Consort Lizabeth scolded him a few times for mocking and cussing at his teachers, he stopped attending classes entirely.
The demon king excitedly rattled on about the scumbag prince’s shameful past as if he was gossiping about Sungjin himself.
This is suspiciously detailed for information you gathered over only one day. Is it really trustworthy?
After that, the prince’s day-to-day life had fallen into ruin. His previously perfect manners had vanished, he had started to loathe moving his body, and finally, he’d even quit sword fighting lessons, which had been the one class that he used to enjoy. All he would do was lie on his bed and endlessly shove snacks in his mouth. No one had been able to figure out why he’d changed so suddenly. Their best guess had been that though the young prince had meekly obeyed the ambitious empress consort so far, he’d been suffering from tremendous stress in private. After years of this lifestyle, the most noble prince had become an ignorant, belligerent, and obese teenager who would be faster rolling around than on his feet.
It had happened four days ago. Morres had fallen asleep after enjoying a feast of a dinner, but at dawn, he’d come down with a fever that seemed to have no apparent cause. By the afternoon, he’d lost consciousness completely. There had been no signs of poisoning, and it had been a strange symptom to attribute it to an illness. Talented doctors of the holy palace scrambled to diagnose the prince, but none had been able to wake him up. The holy emperor pushed his political duties aside to visit the prince’s sickbed, and Empress Consort Lizabeth had cried by his side every night. Four days after the fever had started, Lee Sungjin had woken up in Morres’ body.
So where’s the real Morres’ soul?
That was what Sungjin was most curious about. He had unwittingly possessed another man’s body. Even for him, who was ignorant of spiritual things, this situation seemed out of the ordinary. It would be terrible if their occupation of the body had harmed the original owner.
But the demon king’s reaction was lukewarm.
So had they been so lucky as to enter the body of someone who had just died of an illness?
What if we get out of here?
Is there even a way for us to leave?
The demon king’s answer was ruthless.
Sungjin made a bitter face. Of course, he didn’t feel terrible about having been unexpectedly resurrected. When he had faced death with the demon king, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to avoid total destruction. But he’d felt a sense of accomplishment that he’d crushed the demonic world, though there had been some dregs that hadn’t yet been burned away. Up until then, he’d been happy with his life.
But now that he was awake again, his past life, which had been filled with patience, turmoil, and emptiness, came across differently. He had worn himself down again and again just to fight to destroy the demonic world. Sungjin’s past life couldn’t be described as a happy one, even if he was being generous. And now? Was he really going to live a new life in the body of another? Was that acceptable? Was this miraculous coincidence a reward for his turbulent past life?
As Sungjin fell deep into his thoughts, the demon king, ignorant of the turmoil in his mind, rubbed it in.
Yes, that had been another problem. Sungjin swallowed a groan as he looked at the giant body sprawled out on the bed. He was lying down, but his stomach was so large that it was blocking his view. His chubby limbs were so fat that his joints barely folded all the way. The slightest movement took away his breath and made him tired. This couldn’t be explained away as the lasting symptoms of the fever. It was unfortunate that he had possessed such a lousy body. He remembered his old body, which had been covered in big, powerful muscles.
He sighed. Is this really a blessing?
And that had been yesterday.
Now, Sungjin was lying on an ornate bed with a pretty napkin around his neck, forcing himself to gulp down the soup that Empress Consort Lizabeth was spoon-feeding him as if he were a dying baby bird.
“Now, Morres. Say ‘Ahhh.’ Say ‘Ahhh’ one more time.”
The shame was killing him, but the empress consort’s concerned face made him reluctantly open his mouth again.
The demon king’s laughter echoed in his brain. He was laughing so hard, he was choking.
That bastard, I’ll get rid of him one day, I swear.
Sungjin swallowed the soup, then stopped the empress consort who was already reaching for the next spoonful.
“Uh, Mother? I’m full now. You can stop feeding me, you must be tired.”
“Morres…” The empress consort looked at her son sorrowfully, then hung her head and wiped her tears away with the end of her delicately laced sleeve. “Yes, of course. You’ve lost your memory. I keep forgetting. You’ve never called me Mother.”
“Uh, um…”
How insanely awkward! To avoid suspicion, he’d said that he didn’t remember much from before he had fallen sick. But every moment that he talked with the empress consort, Sungjin was anxious that she would find out that he wasn’t really Morres.
He stammered, not knowing how to answer. In that short time, the demon king had snooped at the empress consort’s memories and tipped him off.
Dammit, you’ve got to be kidding.
He couldn’t make himself say “Your Majesty.” In the end, he went with a simple apology.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. It was just such a terrible fever. His Majesty himself came to your aid, but your fever wouldn’t subside. I was so worried that something serious was happening to you.”
The empress consort elegantly pressed out her sleeve, then carefully held Morres’ hand.
“I’m just happy that you’re up and healthy again,” she said.
Sungjin had to strain not to make a face when her soft, warm hand took his. He felt intense guilt at having to act like a son to a mother that was not his own. Her real son had already died, and his soul was gone. But the empress consort would never know, so she had been robbed of the opportunity to mourn. But that didn’t mean that he could tell her her son’s body had been possessed by a stranger’s soul. It was unlikely that she’d believe him, but even if she did, that would be a problem in itself. What if she went straight to exorcism? And what if his soul was really kicked out of this body? He wasn’t too attached to the rest of this life, but he would still would prefer not to commit suicide in such a grand way.
“But I guess even your sickness has a silver lining. How long has it been since my son sat with me so agreeably?”
Sungjin laughed awkwardly.
Morres, you asshole scumbag. How had he acted usually to make his mother touched by such a small act?
All he could do was laugh.
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