Chapter 426: The Demon Princess (2)
"The seed has fully merged with his body. Now... it’s only a matter of time before the will inside it awakens. All I can do is suppress it for as long as possible."
Apparently, Sansa had already snuck into where Danzo was resting.
Using her powers, all she could manage was to keep his human side alive for as long as she could.
But when the time came, Danzo was destined to become that monster.
In that instant, I finally understood where the one-month time limit had come from.
It was her.
Sansa looked at me with quiet sadness.
Danzo had been a rare kind of friend .. even for her, someone who hadn’t spoken with him much until recently.
"I think you already know... but when the time is up, we’ll have no choice but to—"
"I know."
I cut her off before she could finish.
Maybe she went to see him intending to end it, but she just couldn’t bring herself to kill him.
Instead, she gave him as much time as possible to live on as the Danzo we all knew.
In the blink of an eye, a small spark of hope had appeared .. then died just as quickly.
I didn’t know if she sensed my disappointment... or something else.
But then Sansa stood, pulling me into a tight embrace, burying my face against her chest.
Her grip was too strong for me to break, even if I tried.
So, I let myself go with the flow.
Her body was incredibly strong... yet impossibly soft.
A strange contradiction.
I had deliberately avoided her gaze, yet she kept staring at me even now.
Then, silence fell.
Sansa no longer had a human heart, so the only sound in the room was my own heartbeat.
A few seconds later, she broke the silence again.
"When I turned into a demon, I think a part of me rejected it. That’s why I tried to kill myself on the battlefield... to end the disgusting thing I’d become."
She was recalling the end of our battle against the Ultras.
I remembered how she had fought Beatrice and Gavid Lindman alone, acting like she was having the time of her life.
But who would’ve thought those kinds of thoughts were swirling inside her all along?
"I knew a demon couldn’t live among humans. Even Oliver gave me that look of pity the moment he saw me."
Maybe his mask had hidden his expression, but Sansa could read those feelings through his eyes alone.
The same eyes that now looked at her like she was a monster.
"And yet, you’re the only one who didn’t look at me that way... I want to know why."
"Why didn’t I treat you like a monster?"
I chuckled softly, recalling everything.
It wasn’t like I did it on purpose.
"I could never treat you like that, Sansa. After all... the real monster here is me."
If she was a demon, then this body of mine was far from human too.
With bizarre powers... and the looming presence of some otherworldly being inside me.
If anything, I fit the title of ’monster’ better than she did.
That alone was why I never changed the way I treated her.
Because I simply didn’t have the right to.
I didn’t know how much of that Sansa understood from my thoughts, but she didn’t ask.
Maybe she was waiting for the day I’d tell her myself.
So we left it at that embrace.
For a brief moment, it felt like something else was about to happen .. especially when our eyes met again.
But neither of us moved.
Not with everything at stake.
I guess she was being considerate, otherwise she would’ve done whatever she pleased.
Then, after a moment of awkward silence, she finally let me go.
To break the silence, I spoke up, realizing she’d been here far too long already.
"I’ll talk to my sister about it later. You can stay here for now."
Given that she was probably being hunted by Sir Alon right now, it seemed right to hide her in the Starlight Estate for the time being.
"Are you sure about that? You might end up on the receiving end of my grandfather’s wrath if he finds me here."
She laughed again, regaining that playful tone of hers, but I wasn’t particularly concerned about Sir Alon.
When the Demon King himself was already breathing down my neck, what difference would adding one more threat make?
"I’ll worry about that when it happens."
"I see. Then I guess I should thank you."
"For what? All I’m doing is giving you a room in this house."
The moment I said that, Sansa narrowed her eyes mischievously.
"Hmm... a separate room, huh?"
"Yes, a separate room," I said firmly.
Realizing what she was trying to do, I quickly pulled away.
After all, if I stayed with her in the same room any longer, even I wouldn’t be able to control myself, and things would escalate far beyond a mere embrace...
We both wanted it .. that much was clear. But this wasn’t the right time. Not with everything I was dealing with right now. I couldn’t afford to think about Sansa properly. Not yet, at least.
Until then... it was better to draw the line.
"Alright then."
With a wide grin, she stood up, the darkness thickening around her until it swallowed her whole.
"But remember, Frey .. walls don’t mean much to me ~"
And just like that, she vanished completely into the shadows.
Placing a hand over my face, I sighed quietly.
"She really picked up an annoying ability..."
Lying back on my bed, far too large for one person, I realized just how late it had gotten after spending so many hours with the demon princess.
So I closed my eyes, trying to fall asleep, knowing full well how much awaited me in the days to come.
That night, for the first time in a while, I managed to fall into a deep sleep .. something that had eluded me recently.
Her presence, oddly enough, had been comforting.
And so, another long day came to an end.
---
Final Deadline: 27 Days Left.
...
...
...
The days passed quickly after that.
I kept visiting Danzo whenever I had the chance.
But no matter how many times I looked at him...
He was no longer the same person.
The energetic, explosive man I knew had turned into a quiet, frail figure .. confined to his bed, drained of his strength.
As painful as it was for Danzo himself, it was equally painful for me to witness.
Still, I tried my best to hide those feelings from him, while preparing myself for the final plan my mind could come up with.
I waited until my body fully recovered, and in the blink of an eye, another five days flew by.
But now that I was back at my peak, it was time to take the next step.
Fully equipped and armed with a dimensional ring packed with everything I could carry, I stood alone atop the eastern peaks of the Oaklas Mountains, overlooking the Nightmare Lands ahead.
After exhausting every option I had on this planet, I came to a bitter realization.
The answer I sought didn’t exist among humans.
To save Danzo, I needed a power far beyond anything found here.
A power that existed on another world entirely.
Staring at the system interface, I confirmed what I was about to do.
"You won’t tell me how to save Danzo... but you will show me the way to leave this planet."
Spending all my achievement points, I steeled myself for a journey into the unknown, a quest that might lead me to Danzo’s salvation.
Time moved much slower here on Earth than on other planets .. that was something I’d already learned during our trip to Londor.
So I wasn’t too worried about the countdown.
I had found a way to bend the system’s rules to my favor.
With that, I ventured alone into the Nightmare Forests, heading toward the Shadow Sect .. the starting point of my journey.
Whatever answer I was searching for...
I was certain I would find it there.
And with all my heart, I prayed that the future waiting for me... would be just a little less dark than the one fate had written in stone.