Published: March 21, 2026
You look rather gloomy right now. Before noon, go out and get some fresh air before coming back in. Your food will taste bad otherwise.
Because Amelia told me that before we disembarked, I went out onto the deck just before noon.
It’s no wonder I look gloomy. With time slipping away by the hour, it’s impossible to be in good spirits while feeling the end of my life approaching.
“Come to think of it, how long has it been since I last looked out at the sea like this?”
The ship—coated in camouflage magic and unable to stop or land—still drifted slowly around the Demon Clan territory.
Looking back like this, I felt as if I had been running nonstop since the moment I was born. I gazed at the sea with a strange, heavy feeling. The last time I saw the sea, I had childhood friends—different races, but comrades you could trust your back to. Now there was only one person here.
Back then we joked that Aoi of the Human race, Crow of the Beastmen, and Ritter would die first, and in the end Luke of the Elf race would be the only one left to see the end. We laughed that if we could meet again before that, it would be nice. But Aoi and Luke sacrificed themselves to let Crow and the others, who were blocked by the Demon Clan, reach the demon king. Bearing the weight of those two lives, we got close to the demon king’s presence, only to be forced into a frustrated retreat by Mahiro.
“If only I had died back then...”
If that had happened, then now—at this very moment, when my lifespan is nearly exhausted—I wouldn’t be thinking like this.
“Don’t you say something like that even if you die!!!!”
At that moment, a high voice rang out on the deck, where I had thought I was alone.
I turned my gaze that way and muttered bitterly.
“...Hah, you planned this. Nosy princess. I must be getting senile if I didn’t notice.”
Now that I thought about it, Amelia had said she was going off the ship and would eat outside for lunch. There was no way the food would taste bad. She must have said it to get me to talk with Ria. I should have realized with a little thinking. Perhaps the encroaching end of my life had unsettled me to the point I couldn’t even think that far.
Ria, eyes brimming with tears as if she might cry, stopped right in front of me.
I had been avoiding her even in this cramped ship because I didn’t want to see those eyes.
“If Crow had died in the Demon King’s Castle along with the predecessors, I wouldn’t be alive now. No, I probably wouldn’t even have been born... Crow, you look too much at what you’ve lost!”
I’d met a pregnant woman near a small village in the Beastmen territory while I was fleeing from the Demon King’s Castle, unable to even be there when Ritter died, wandering in despair looking for a place to die. It was pure chance that I saved her from a monster attack. I didn’t want the Demon King, the Demon Clan, or monsters to take any more lives right before my eyes.
In the end that woman died without my knowing, and I heard that the child I named after her was taken in by the mother’s relatives. The whole village went missing except for the named child, and that child had been brought into the royal family. Into the Lagoon Royal Family—the family that harbored the person who killed my younger sister Aria.
“...Whatever I think about it is of no concern to you.”
I turned my gaze back to the sea and muttered.
This girl always looked straight at me. That steady gaze felt comforting, but at the same time a little frightening.
Come to think of it, her mother also used to look straight at people when she spoke.
“...I know that Crow doesn’t like me very much. But please, listen to what I have to say.”
Her words made me widen my eyes. Where had that misunderstanding come from? Or was it my attitude up to now?
Ria piled on words when I said nothing.
“...I entered the Lagoon Royal Family in order to learn about Crow.”
I lifted my face at those words.
“In exchange for casting the guardian’s power on the royal family for as long as I live, I demanded access to all information existing in the castle. That’s why I became an adopted child.”