BFT | Chapter 29

"Go to sleep."

The chief jailer hugged the beast and lay down. The beast rested his face against the chief jailer’s chest and stared blankly into space. He simply could not fall asleep. Leaving everything else aside, he could not understand why magic had not worked on the chief jailer at all.

Ah.... Could it be?

The beast looked up at the chief jailer. That unusual ash-blond hair. The frightening aura that suppressed the beast’s own presence despite his inferior human body. The strange coexistence of strong self-control and unrestrained violence. In many ways, the chief jailer was unlike an ordinary human.

His build alone surpassed that of most human men. Even in Abaddon Prison, where only young and robust thugs were locked up, the chief jailer’s body was top-tier. If they fought only with bare fists, even a fully developed demon might have trouble beating him.

Among all the humans the beast had seen so far, there had been only one man with a physique similar to the chief jailer’s. The executioner he had seen at the royal execution ceremony he had attended in Prince Arthur’s body not long ago.

The scene of that legal killer, counted among the nation’s best, casually walking into the execution hall had left a deep impression on the beast’s memory. A black mask with a pointed collar. A black cloak that fell all the way to the toes. A pace that was neither quick nor slow.

There was no tension in the executioner’s movements as he snatched up the axe placed beside the neck-rest in advance. Even the eyes exposed outside the mask looked lazily downward. He was about to cut down sixty-seven royal heads, and yet he looked as if he had wandered in while distracted, as though he had just stepped into his usual bakery.

That ordinary air only made the executioner’s cold-bloodedness stand out all the more strongly, like an excessively black shadow cast by the midday sun. The moment the executioner entered the hall, royalty, nobles, and priests all fell silent at once. It looked as if everyone had frozen at the appearance of a messenger of death.

Even more surprising, that executioner also gave off an unusual aura just like the chief jailer. Back then, the beast had absentmindedly thought, Could that guy be a half-blood born from a demon messing with a human woman?...

Now he understood. The chief jailer was a half-blood of demon and human woman. If he was a half-blood, that perfectly explained the chief jailer’s frightening aura.

Whether or not the Great Demon King, creator of the demons, had intended it, it was said that the demon-human half-bloods strangely possessed raw strength that easily surpassed even first-rate devils. Even magic did not work on half-bloods, and even more surprisingly, half-blood blood had healing power. Even though it only worked when the blood was fresh, this healing power was a trait half-bloods had that demons themselves did not.

It felt like being doused in cold water. If the chief jailer was a half-blood, then he could not be shackled as a slave. Beyond all else, his identity was undeniably that of a human man. It was uncertain how long the chief jailer, who was especially stubborn about the chastity rules set by human society, would continue loving him, this “fruit pie,” as the people in this country called it.

Unable to bear it any longer, the beast shook the chief jailer. The chief jailer must have fallen asleep in the meantime, because he frowned.

"What is it? You’re not sleeping?"

"I’m curious about the chief jailer."

"What... Thanks for the sudden interest, I guess, but I’m an orphan. I heard some old whore found me as a newborn in a trash can."

At that, the beast shuddered all over.

"Then do you maybe have healing power in your blood?"

"What are you talking about?"

The chief jailer asked back, fully awake now.

"You don’t seem like an ordinary human to me."

"Your build is too good."

"To be honest, I’ve almost never seen anyone with a better build than mine. But I don’t know what that has to do with healing power in blood."

"Half-bloods of demons and human women have unusually good physiques like yours."

"The fresh blood of half-bloods also has healing power."

"If that blood gets on someone’s body or is drunk, wounds and illnesses are cured."

"Have you ever had a case where, the moment the chief jailer’s blood got on someone, all their acne suddenly cleared up or something?"

"You little shit."

The chief jailer propped up his upper body and looked at the beast. Then, seeing that the beast’s expression was unusual, he explained in a calmer tone.

"No idea. I’ve made countless other people spill blood, but I’ve never been injured by anyone else. Even if someone had gotten my blood all over them and their acne disappeared completely, I probably would’ve ignored it. More importantly, curing illnesses with fresh blood is a dangerous idea. Unless you’re some mad noblewoman who caused a scandal all over Europe a few years ago...."

"That woman cured people with her own blood too?"

"The opposite. That madwoman bathed every day in the fresh blood of young maids. Supposedly, to preserve her youth, she kidnapped, imprisoned, and murdered seven hundred poor girls. She kept it up for fifteen years before finally being arrested, and because she was the king’s aunt, that was the end of it, locked away in a convent. If I had been the one carrying out the executions, I would have deliberately missed her head and back dozens of times and made her die in terrible pain."

The chief jailer’s face tightened slightly.

"Why are you asking this all of a sudden? Do you think it would make us closer if I were a half-blood with demon blood mixed in?"

The beast shook his head vigorously. If the chief jailer really was a demon-human hybrid, that would be disastrous.

"But really, do demons actually impregnate human women? Was that story about orgies with young men and women in the forest true?"

"That’s not a ritual, it’s playing together."

"The Baphomet race really likes dancing with young men and women on both sides, you know."

"Isn’t that the same thing?"

At the chief jailer’s words, the beast bristled.

"Rituals and play are different."

"Most of the demon myths and stories that spread among humans are distorted lies, so don’t believe them."

"Setting that aside, there are plenty of demons who transform into humans and have fun seducing young men and women, regardless of race."

The chief jailer frowned and stared at the beast for a moment. He looked incredulous.

"Sorry, but after hearing your explanation, I’m inclined to trust the demon myths and stories more. I have no idea what the difference is between what you just said and the demon stories humans know."

"They’re only similar at a glance, like M and N, but I think there’s a big difference."

"Anyway, there really are quite a few demon-human half-bloods, though humans just don’t realize it. Someone with an unknown father, or an orphan with an unusually good build, like a soldier, would be worth suspecting at least once."

"So you thought I might have been born from a demon and a human woman? I’m warning you, even as a joke, if you start talking about demon-human half-bloods you could be arrested on the spot. Do you know how rampant heresy hunts are in the human world?"

The chief jailer stopped talking and stroked the beast’s cheek with one hand. Even through his dazed state, the beast could tell that the man thought him somewhat pitiful. The chief jailer hugged the beast and lay back down.

"Sleep."

The chief jailer fell asleep quickly, but the beast could not close his eyes. The moment the thought came to him that the chief jailer might be a half-blood, a question that had long seemed extremely strange was answered.

At some point, the beast had started to like the chief jailer. Very early on, in fact. Since the chief jailer looked rough and stupidly like a brawler in the beast’s eyes....

That had also been the real reason the beast had tried to shackle the chief jailer as a slave. He wanted to keep him in his hands forever, no matter the means. Even if it was an unavoidable choice for surviving in the human world, the feeling of wanting the chief jailer himself was genuine. Even the beast, who could not understand it, had been feeling intense possessiveness toward the chief jailer.

But this was incomprehensible to demons. A demon who did not even feel possessiveness toward a mating partner falling for a human made no sense. Above all, the Great Demon King had planted a terrible hatred of humans into all demons, regardless of race. Demons could never love humans.

Chief jailer.... You must really be a half-blood of demon and human woman.

Someday, your love for me will fade too.

The beast suppressed his pain and closed his eyes. An old memory surfaced. A toy broke, and the gray wolf barked in alarm.

"Run! Don’t come back here again!"