The heavy doors of a ruined castle creaked open.
Fujikawa Airi stepped cautiously into the grand hall, her sandals splashing through shallow pools of blood, her white nightgown billowing in the cold wind. The scent of iron was suffocating, clinging to her throat and making her stomach churn.
Around her, the bodies of knights and commoners alike lay strewn across the marble floors, faces frozen in terror, weapons shattered and useless at their sides.
Above it all, seated upon a grand, crimson-drenched throne, was a boy.
He couldn't have been more than five or six years old, dressed in resplendent noble clothes stained by the chaos around him.
His black hair was tousled, small black horns curling from his head like a devil from an old legend. A spade-tipped tail lazily swayed behind him. In one hand, he held a polished metal scepter; in the other, he idly toyed with a golden butterfly that perched on his finger, seemingly unbothered by the carnage.
Standing proudly beside him was a sinisterly beautiful woman.
Her black hair cascaded like a waterfall over a pristine white wedding dress—in her hands she held a bouquet of white roses stained with blood, while she smiled happily.
At the boy's other side, a human girl, barely fourteen, stood demurely in a maid's dress, her hands clasped before her, her eyes lowered in perfect submission.
The ruined banners overhead still fluttered from the broken rafters, bearing the once-proud crest of a fallen barony. Airi tried to remember what little she could of those crests—just like the faces of the people sprawled across the floor.
Airi wasn't a newcomer to strange dreams.
She held the godhead of clairvoyance; after all, she was Airi of the Stars, the Saint of Prophecy, the Hero of Veyrunth...
And through her years in this world, she had learned to never take any one of her dreams for granted. Are the demons still a threat? Who is this child? Or is it that woman beside him I should fear?
Her eyes scanned Velmaria—a wedding dress? What could that mean... She thought deeply about what she was seeing. Her dreams rarely showed full scenes about the future; instead, they offered fragments and glimpses of it.
And from what she could tell, this one represented the fall of a region.
The fact that the scene was centered around a smaller castle and only commoners and knights were dead indicated that the disaster wasn't widespread—it was contained to a single place or region under a noble's rule.
The second thing she noticed was far more chilling: Velmaria was pregnant. She hadn't noticed it at first, but the closer she looked, the more prominent the woman's belly became. A new generation of demons? she thought, casting another wary glance at the demon child on the throne.
The boy's crimson eyes lifted to meet hers.
They were soulless eyes, cold and fathomless, as if he held nothing but endless darkness within him. Airi shivered. She had fought demons, dragons, and monsters centuries old—yet this child unsettled her.
Her voice broke the heavy silence.
"Who are you?" she asked, her Japanese accent curling around the words, her voice almost a whisper against the vast emptiness of the ruined throne room.
The boy smiled then—a slow, chilling smile—and golden butterflies danced around his head like a twisted crown.
He muttered something, but Airi couldn't perceive it.
Then, a golden status panel appeared beside him—
──────
Name: ???
Race: ??? (???)
Class: ???
Level: 16
EXP: ??? / 800
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Affiliation: ???
Title(s):
● Monster's (Shared title)
????
????
????
──────
HP: 432 / 490 (????) {+70}
MP: 160 / 218 (????) {+40}
Stamina: 348 / 357 (????) {+65}
Strength: 18 (???) {+6}
Dexterity: 22 (???) {+7}
Vitality: 16 (???) {+10}
Intelligence: 14 (???) {+9}
Charisma: 25 (???) {+13}
──────
ABILITIES
??? (Passive): ????
??? (Active): ???
??? (Passive): ????
?? (Active/Passive): ???
??? (Passive): ???
??? (Passive): ???
?????????
──────
?????
??? (?????):
????
??? (?????):
????
──────
Everything was mostly covered up, but this only intrigued Fujikawa Airi even more. Only level six? That was decent, sure—but nothing she should be intimidated by. A demon at that level should be completely weak compared to an imp.
So is it the last section that makes you a threat? she thought. Or is this meant to show that they're getting better at hiding themselves... blending in?
She sighed, deciding to take a look around the castle—but then—
"You've seen mine, so it's only fair I see yours~," Malrik said as she turned away from him. "Or were you planning to leave? Tch. Humans are so inconsiderate."
Airi froze mid-step. Slowly, she turned back around—