~ Chapter 1: A New Body, a New Life ~
[Alseus’ point of view]
A warm embrace, constant care and protection were my new environment. The humans around me took care of my every need. The moment this disgustingly weak body of mine let out a cry, someone came over and fed me or wiped my bottom.
Sometimes, I ate from a bottle and other times from the breasts of my mother. As her baby, I felt no shame, just the need for food and the warm protective embrace she held me in. Her voice comforted me and made me fall asleep with ease.
For the first time since I could remember my own existence… I felt at peace… relaxed…
As the days flew by, my vision became clearer. It was blurry for the most part, but anyone who approached me within a palm’s reach was discernable… well, barely. I also saw only in black and white with shades of gray all around.
By the time I was a few months old, I had regained some of my eyesight and even the ability to see in color. I could now tell who my mother, father, nanny, and maids were.
The woman with blonde hair, light green eyes, milky white skin, the type of body that would make even a succubus envious, who wore light makeup and extravagant clothes covered with frills and jewelry was my mother. From what I could see, these garments inconvenienced her terribly, especially whenever it was feeding time, however, she maintained her grace and elegance in front of the others.
My father was a stern man with dark brown hair, black eyes, a toned body trained with the sword, and the attitude of a general ready to face countless foes on the battlefield. At least, that was how he presented himself in front of the maids. In front of my mother, he melted into a tenderly loving husband who forgot all of his bravado.
As his son… I felt somewhat ashamed. I could not understand his change in disposition. Who was he trying to impress with that act of his? The moment the truth was out, his well-crafted reputation would come crumbling down.
We lived in a big mansion that, in my opinion, looked smaller than my doghouse when I was the Demon King. In this place, we had several servants who were hired as maids, butlers, gardeners, and maintenance workers. Among them was a woman with beast ears and a seriously fluffy tail that for some reason caught my attention like a hypnotizing chant. She reminded me of the lychantropians, a type of demons who resembled humans physically but had animal features like tails, ears, and snouts. During the full moon they would typically change into their primal forms, which was a beast of some kind that could lay waste to a battlefield. In order to exploit this trait, I often deployed them during the full moon by themselves. Unfortunately, they had the flaw of being unable to discern between friend and foe in that form.
The maids in this mansion loved to gossip around me. My mother often talked to me whenever she had the chance, and so did my father, although, why was he complaining to a one-year-old about how bad legislation was?
What I found out from them was that I was the son of a prestigious noble family within the Ariandrea Kingdom. The name was completely unknown to me. Honestly speaking, even the language felt a bit unfamiliar, but it vaguely resembled the tongue of the humans, the one the Hero and his companions spoke. I learned it during my time as a Demon King just for fun, but I never thought it would end up being useful like this.
Now, knowing the language and speaking it were two different things. First of all, the anatomy was completely different. I had no venom glands under my tongue which pushed the muscle up by a bit, and there were no fangs hidden in my upper jaw. So, pronunciation and talking had to be done differently. There were no scales on my body, which made my skin feel sensitive to everything: touch, heat, pressure, cold… Comfortable lava baths in this lifetime were a definite NO for me. To top it off, I had no tail to use for balance or for attacks. The lack of wings was a blessing in disguise for the most part. Never used the damn things for much.
As a Demon King, I communicated with my every muscle and every fiber in my body. If I did not focus, the sounds I released from my mouth would turn into hisses and growls. So naturally, in this fleshy weakling body, I would have to learn how to talk from scratch, until then… well… I still needed to be fed and taken care of by the adults.
Let me make it clear though, I was not embarrassed of the fact that a grown woman was now feeding me with her breasts. She was my mother, and this body required the nutrition she offered naturally. Her protection was also comforting.
What was weird for me was having parents who did not set you up to go fight against an entire species just to be destroyed by them. I was born from the Life Pool as a potential Demon King. I fought my way to become one. The other demonkind, however, were different. While a lot of demons were spawned directly from the pool, once unleashed on the world, we were capable of reproduction. These naturally born offspring were precious to the demonkind, making them act irrationally at times in order to protect them from their perceived threats.
It was a known fact that most of the demonkind’s aggressive cases against mankind happened because the adults were simply trying to protect their children, whereas the humans thought it was natural to kill a child just because they considered themselves to be ‘noble’.
That being said, I was no natural born demonic spawn. As far as I could tell, my body was 100% that of a human. I had reincarnated as a human being.
Was this, I wonder, the answer to my question back then? Was this how the gods planned on showing me the reason why they cared for mankind more than they did for demonkind?
It was an interesting approach, but I was certain that once I was going to show my magic, everyone would know that I was the former Demon King. Shadow and Death magic were my specialties, after all. That was why I knew almost all that was ever written or theorized about reincarnation. It was an interest of mine too, but I was never able to acquire proof of it.
What I knew of reincarnation was that it was basically a divine magic that copied the mind and physical body of an individual in the current time and space to another time and space in the same world.
The problem was that from what I knew, reincarnation COPIED the body, it did not RECREATE it.
So, was this another form of reincarnation or of soul transposition? However, how could a human body accept it? I did not understand the mechanism behind it… or maybe I simply lacked the necessary knowledge.
During these past months since I was born, while I continued to pretend to be just another normal baby, I focused on recreating my Magic Core, I needed it in order to cast my magic, but it was not easy. It quite literally felt like I was moving shards of glass through my body, which led to me to feel mind-numbing pain during the process.
It was painful… It hurt… And I only did it during the night or when I was sure I was alone… Because, in my baby body, the tears kept soaking my pillow, and my muffled screams were not a pretty sight.
I got caught once by a maid; she was horrified and immediately called mother. Then the doctors were summoned and cast healing spells on me when they found some internal bleeding.
I thought it was normal to bleed internally, but… I guess I was wrong?
After that time, I made sure to slow down the process just in case anything else happened to my fragile baby body.
Still, even with the increased danger and the problematic monitoring of the humans around me, I did not give up on this process. I was certain I was going to need every little bit of strength I could muster in order to survive in this world, and recreating my Magic Core was the first of many steps.
The way I saw things was simple. At one point in time, my family was going to figure out that I was a reincarnated Demon King and immediately rally against me. I would be on the run then with nothing but my strength and knowledge to rely on. I would be wanted all over the land the very next day, and both mercenaries and knights would search for me.
If there was a Hero in this world, they would certainly feel my presence as soon as they came close to me and proceed to hunt me down like the savage monster that he was. Just the thought of that mindless beast going after me sent chills down my spine.
Still, this human family of mine was weird... There was always someone in my presence, and mother never missed my feeding time. The house was warm and my diaper was changed by a maid whenever I sounded the alarm. The air was clean, and I couldn’t feel any killing intent diverted at me. Both of my parents took their time to cuddle me and spend time with me reading me stories and telling me about their day.
Why? Was this normal?
Because I knew their language, I learned that my father held the job of Minister of Finance in the Ariandrea Kingdom. It was a very respected position as far as I knew, but the fact that there were all sorts of holes in the budget didn’t seem to be alright for my poor father.
Mother, on the other hand, was a respected woman in the noble society. She was not only the personal adviser of the Queen, she was also born as the second daughter of the Duke of Margravery. I never got to meet the man so far, but she was doing her best in trying to get him to meet me. She kept saying that grandpa was still upset with my father for some reason. Apparently, mother changed her name to Ardemant, father’s name, however, he was not the first son but the third of the Marquis.
To make matters worse, my father stole the job of Minister of Finance from the oldest son of Duke Margravery, and my mother stole the job that was initially promised to the wife of the heir of the Ardemant family. Thus, they each became the enemy of their in-laws.
Since the two of them were nobles by direct lineage inheritance from their parents and not the designated heir to the title, their nobility was essentially borrowed. This meant that, despite being born of nobles, I was essentially a commoner in status. To rectify this, father was trying to buy himself a new noble title so that I would be recognized as a noble as well; however, to do this, they had to earn the approval of the Margravery Dukedom.
In other words, things were a political mess… And everyone was yapping about it during my nap hours.
The maids loved to gossip. No, it was better said that gossiping was part of their nature. Still, thanks to them, I got to learn a lot about those many weird problems in my family.
Father and mother were not cast out of their respective families. If they divorced, they could return safely, however, I would end up getting the short end of the stick. I was not welcomed by either family. If the divorce happened, my only choice was probably an orphanage or the street, which made me a little sad.
Sadness was an emotion that had always puzzled me. I often saw it in humans, but I could never tell how it came to sprout in their hearts. This was also one of many of their emotions, which I was starting to feel creeping up on me. Demon Kings held complete control over their own emotions, human babies could not even control their own bowels.
Honestly, sometimes I felt like I was in the middle of a boat with holes all over the place, and there were simply not enough fingers, toes, tails, and horns to plug them all! It was starting to get terrifying sometimes. Were humans always such an emotional mess?! This did explain A LOT of things.
Compared to them, the demonkind were straightforward, rather blunt with their emotions and thoughts. We either said what was on our mind or shut up and let someone else do the talking.
For a while after I was born, I never did get out of the house. I spent most of my time in my crib or around the house, carried by my nanny, a maid, or my mother. From the little I could see, because for some reason my eyes took months to get rid of the blurriness, there were a lot of strange things here. The weirdest one was the one they all called a TV. It had little people dancing inside.
I couldn’t believe that humans were capable of such frightening magic. To be able to conjure up a trap for their fellow men and trap them inside such a confined space just to make them dance around for the entertainment of others took exceptional skill. As for the captives, it was a fate more horrible than ending up as a torture test subjects in the hands of my ex-wife. Not a fun place to be. There was a good reason why I sent her to another dimension.
Why was I even married to her in the first place? My memories were a bit foggy on that one.
Seeing the TV made me realize I had to speed up my Magic Core formation or else I would risk ending up just like those buffoons on the TV magic trap when they figured out who I was!
With my mind set and my will aligned, I spent most of my awake time in meditation, stealthily trying to get all of those shards to form into a core. Then, on the fourth month, I was able to do it. The last piece made its way to the core all the way from my left little toe. With an imaginary clink sound, it connected.
In that moment, I could feel my magic returning. It was weak and feeble like a little rabbit that I had just caught with my bare hands. If I held it just a little tighter, I would risk killing it. The same was with my magic flow, it was weak and easy to disperse, which meant that I had to be careful when weaving magic. At the very least, I could cast a simple protection spell on myself.
“[Kasarak]” I mumbled the name of the spell.
It took me seven tries, but eventually, I succeeded. Unfortunately, I was too weak to use no-chant magic. This was a short-chant spell, with most of the chanting being done in my mind.
This was an unnecessary process for the most experienced individuals; after all, magic was about weaving an energy not writing a book. Why would you need words to make it flow in a certain direction? Well, the answer to that laid in what everyone understood by those words. A chant was there to help you memorize the flow, to make you understand it better, to help you envision it from the beginning to the end.
I used a chant just to be extra sure that the spell would form smoothly.
[Kasarak] was a tricky one. It granted me regeneration, physical invulnerability up to a point, and enhanced magic resistance. It was a buff-type spell, which I could also start to enchant on my skin from now on.
I had to be careful when chanting this because [Kazarak] was its sister spell, which was a debuff-type that made the target feel physically weak, become a magnet to pointy metal things, and granted weakness towards the light element. A single light spell could kill your average demon with this spell cast on them.
A long time ago, I cast this spell on a mage once, and he died because he fell back and the fork in his backpack pierced his lungs. It was such a weird way to go that I even ended up giving the poor sap a decent burial.
So as to not alert anyone in the mansion, I cast the spell when I was alone in my room. It would have been weird to see me talk and also cast magic like this. I still had to make them think that I was nothing more than a foolish little weak baby. I wasn’t ready to defend myself against them!
That night, however, something strange happened.
While everyone was sleeping, someone sneaked up to my crib, and their killing intent woke me up instantly. One of our three maids was standing above me, and she was holding a very sharp dagger in her hand.
I gulped in fear and tried to cast something to chase her away, but the chant for [Apocalyptic Fire] was too damn long!
The dagger fell upon me and... Clank?
I was just as amazed as she was, but the dagger simply broke when it touched me.
Huh... I think I forgot about [Kasarak]. I thought.
“What are you?!” the woman asked with a gasp.
Actually, that was my question. Why was she here in the first place trying to kill me? Not that it surprised me, I was the Demon King, but still... how, why, when?!
“If daggers don’t work… I’ll just strangle you to death!” she declared as she reached out to wrap her hands around my throat.
Well, can’t say I did not warn her, but...
“GYAGUGAGA!!!” she let out a very weird sound right before she soiled herself and fell back on the ground, skin dark and smoking like a slab of roasted meat.
Actually, I could not have warned her, right? Muhahaha!
[Yagaris] was a simple lightning spell used by demons to scratch their backs, but it wasn’t supposed to kill her. How could she be so weak?
While I would have wanted to test out some other spells on her, oh well, beggars can’t be choosers. Let’s go back to sleep! I thought, in my innocence.
The next day, I woke up being smothered in my mother’s breasts.
“Alseus! Alseus! My poor baby! I thought I had lost you! Oh, my poor baby!” mother cried.
No, really, her tears were like running water! I had more chances of dying from drowning than from stabbing!
“It’s alright, dear, he’s safe... but... who could have done this?” father wondered as he looked at the maid.
“Master, this one... she came here with a knife. Do you think she…” another maid brought the broken blade over to him.
“Where’s the rest of it?” father asked and then he caught sight of the shiny blade in my crib. “What could this mean?” he asked.
I pretended not to know. I was just your average everyday innocent little reincarnated Demon King baby. There was nothing to see here! No, sir! Nothing at all! Move along!
“She could be an assassin, but who saved the young Alseus?” the other maid asked.
This one had short blue hair.
Yeah... it was a normal thing here to have hair of a different color when your Magic Energy was at a high level. It caused some sort of mutation in one’s genes, but not on me, definitely! I made sure that stuff did NOT happen, I was no fool to start growing wings and a tail at not even one year old of age! That was for when I was three!
“Who cares! I’m just happy he’s safe!” mother said crying.
“I do. I will conduct a thorough investigation! Something like this... it can’t happen again. My poor boy, I’m sorry this happened to you.” father told me.
What’s wrong with them? Why are they talking as if they never witnessed the assassination attempt of a family member before? I thought these things were common among humans? Something like a greeting? I wondered, but strangely enough, all of this affection I was being showered with, it didn’t feel so bad.