It seemed the man didn't like me.
I realized that two days after meeting him. It wasn't an act of pretending to dislike me, either. He truly found me distasteful and kept his distance—if I so much as came a little close, he acted as though he might catch some kind of plague.
"...Sigh."
He let out a sigh.
I tilted my head. Why didn't he like me?
I didn't mean to be conceited, but I thought I was reasonably cute.
I was only ten years old, yet the village adults had been so captivated by that ten-year-old's appearance that they ganged up and tormented me. Up until then, I had been under the delusion that every man in the world was sexually attracted to children—and I had no choice but to think that way—so the man's behavior was, put simply, incomprehensible.
Look. The man was glancing at me again, shaking his head slowly from side to side,
"Sigh."
He let out an even deeper sigh. Sometimes, instead of sighing, he'd mutter things like "I'm definitely going to regret this," or "There was Jack Orland too," or "I'm the biggest fool in the world…"—unintelligible ramblings to himself.
For some reason, it made me angry.
In the end, the man granted my request and spared the villagers. Honestly, whether the villagers lived or died made no difference to me. My parents and Luke were precious to me, but what mattered more than anything was the man standing right in front of me.
The man was exactly the person I had imagined.
If he committed an evil act, he never justified it. He didn't exaggerate himself beyond what was necessary, nor did he look down on others beyond what was warranted. Earnestly. He was a man who gazed upon the world straight on.
I was all nerves and excitement at the thought of meeting one of my own kind for the first time, but the man's response was lukewarm at best. He seemed to genuinely regret having saved me. What a strange person. If he was going to regret it, he shouldn't have saved me—and if he saved me, he shouldn't have regrets.
The man saved me even while regretting it.
He could only be a strange man.
"Little one."
"My name is Daisy."
"Why can't you just obediently die for me?"
Let me correct that.
The man wasn't just a strange man, he was a truly strange man.
I blinked.
"Excuse me?"
"Think about it. Living as someone else's slave isn't a happy life. If you and Luke just commit suicide, I'll promise prosperity and glory to the rest of the villagers. I'll give your parents the best treatment. What do you say?"
The man was requesting that I commit suicide for him. With utter seriousness.
From this point on, my impression of him changed from "one of my kind" to "a slightly addled one of my kind." What nonsense was he muttering with such a serious expression?
"If I absolutely must die, please let me kill Luke with my own hands first. Then, make the villagers take their own lives. My position hasn't changed."
"That's right. It hasn't changed, has it."
The man nodded gloomily. He looked like a puppy soaking wet in the water, which was oddly cute.
"Sigh. Why does a freak like you exist in this world just to torment me? My life is truly cursed. Now I don't know what to do. Let fate take its course."
"......"
In short, the man and I were feeling completely opposite emotions.
While I was flustered at encountering one of my kind, the man was despairing, saying it was horrible to meet one. I was quite disappointed by this attitude. It felt similar to confessing love and being rejected. In the end, I also continued to maintain a brusque attitude.
And then the surgery.
The surgery to brand the Slave Brand was excruciatingly painful.
Even though taking a lot of anesthetic dulled the pain, the agony was so terrifying it tore at my living flesh, making the anesthetic completely insignificant. It was a pain that was hard to understand even now, looking back. The man — who was now just a ten-year-old little girl — was genuinely terrified that I might actually kill myself.
Why?
Why on earth?
I was nothing more than a miserable, wretched field peasant. The only thing I had was a frail, sickly body. No matter how I thought about it, there was virtually no chance I could pose a threat to a man. And yet, for some reason, the man treated me as his equal.
Not merely as someone of the same kind — but as someone of equal standing.
——This was something I learned much later.
The man regarded himself as trash, and he had seen through to the infinite talent hidden within me. That meant the two of us had been thinking in exactly opposite ways.
I thought I was trash, while the man thought he was the trash. I thought the man was extraordinary, but the man thought I was the extraordinary one. It was almost laughable. We had perfectly misread each other, evaluating ourselves and the other in reverse.
Of course, at the time, I had no way of realizing any of this.
The slave brand surgery had been so excruciatingly painful that I vented a small measure of grievance at the man — things like "I'll kill you" or "I won't forgive you." Honestly, I think that degree of complaint was perfectly justified. Your heart had literally been torn open as raw flesh and then stitched back together. What else could anyone expect?
When I glared at him with resentful eyes, the man spoke.
"For now, you are my adopted daughter. When the need arises, call me Father. In principle, whenever we enter a city or town, or when there are unfamiliar humans nearby, you should address me as Father."
That's right. Father.
From that point on, I called the man named Dantalion "Father." We were of the same kind — yet paradoxically, because we were of the same kind, neither of us noticed that the other saw themselves in the exact opposite way. And so, we became father and daughter.
The days that followed were spent waiting for the moment Father would violate me.
I had to be wary of anyone who found me strange. After all, I had been used as a plaything for men since the age of eight. Even if I mistakenly assumed every man in the world was a pedophile, that wouldn't have been my fault. Father was the first man who hadn't shown the slightest interest in my body — not even a speck.
Could he perhaps be impotent?
"Ahhn, ah, haaahn, Your Highness! More! Do it rougher, please!"
"Hahaha. You disgusting pervert pig. Squeal like a pig, why don't you!"
"Squee. Squee, squeal, uungh!"
He was not.
After I accidentally witnessed Father furiously copulating with Master Jeremy, the impotence theory was immediately and thoroughly debunkated. Far from being impotent, his sexual appetite was more voracious than any man I had ever encountered.
Then could it be that he was the type who only got excited by adult women?
"Mm, Dantalion, I-I can't take anymore... haaahn! My body won't hold out anymore...!"
"Say 'Please forgive me, Master,' and I might just stop. Come on. Say it. Get on your knees and beg like a dog."
"Master... aahhn, Master, please forgive this worthless slave..."
It wasn't that.
Father actually seemed to prefer a child's frame. He played far more vigorously and far more enjoyably with Barbatos than he ever did during intercourse with Master Jeremy. Whenever Barbatos visited the Demon Lord's Castle, Father would happily spend a full two days doing nothing but that. I had no choice but to abolish my Father-onee-san theory.
The situation was only growing more baffling.
One day, I stared seriously into the mirror. It was to evaluate my appearance objectively. I thought of Laura de Farnese, the Minister of Military Affairs, along with Barbatos, Master Jeremy, Paimon, Sitri, and all the other stellar lovers Father had accumulated, and carefully compared myself to each of them.
...No matter how I looked at it, I was prettier.
It wasn't vanity. It was an indisputable fact. My black hair was more beautiful than the night sky, my snow-white skin was so smooth it would slip from the slightest touch, and my two eyes were more deeply captivating than obsidian. I could state with certainty that I had never seen a woman more beautiful than myself.
"......"
So why wouldn't he touch me...?
Laura de Farnese, the Minister of Military Affairs, was always wandering around the Demon Lord's Castle grumbling things like, "Our lord is at it again as usual!" and "There's no room left in my body!" — but honestly, it just came across as a full stomach complaining about being too full.
A blonde woman whose only talent was fighting wars.
I had disliked Laura de Farnese, the Minister of Military Affairs, for a long time. This woman didn't know her place. The subordinates and the vassals treated the Minister of Military Affairs as though she were Father's wife. And the Minister herself didn't seem to mind that misconception, smirking with her nose held high as she strutted about.
Stupider than me to boot.
Laura de Farnese only knew a mere six languages. In contrast, within two years of becoming Father's adopted daughter, I had mastered eight languages. In terms of raw intellect, the Minister of Military Affairs was no match for me whatsoever. Yet the Minister strutted about as though she were the greatest philosopher in history.
Well, fools don't know they're fools.
I decided to magnanimously forgive her.
However, there was one thing I absolutely could not tolerate: the complete absence of any concept of hygiene in this woman's skull.
If the Minister of Military Affairs happened to be strolling through the Demon Lord's Castle and Father pounced on her for about three hours of intercourse — a remarkably frequent occurrence — she would then drag her feeble footsteps toward the underground spring lake, shuffling along aimlessly.
Dripping Father's cum all over the Demon Lord's Castle hallways as she went.
What an appalling sight that must have been.
Minister of Military Affairs Laura de Farnese was, in a word, a woman utterly devoid of any concept of shame. On certain days, she would forgo clothes entirely, reasoning that "there was no point in the hassle of getting dressed when the Lord was just going to tear them off anyway."
She was hardly what anyone would call sane.
Cleaning up the hallways that Minister Laura de Farnese had sullied always fell to me as Head Maid. Once she shuffled past, I would quickly grab my cleaning supplies and scrub away the cum. Anyone who hasn't experienced this firsthand cannot possibly understand how insane this job was.
If I had my way, I would have collected every drop of cum she left behind in a bucket and dumped it right over her face someday.
Unfortunately, Father's order made that impossible. I was forbidden, as a matter of principle, from harming Father or any of his lovers. If not for that command, Minister Laura de Farnese would have bathed in cum hundreds of times over by now.
"Head Maid. Your hands are unusually clumsy today."
As I was cleaning Father's office, Minister of State Affairs Lapis Lazuli spoke to me. I set my cleaning tools on the floor and immediately bowed respectfully.
Minister Lapis Lazuli was a person of an entirely different caliber from Minister Laura de Farnese. The Minister of State Affairs enjoyed Father's complete and utter trust above all others. What I particularly appreciated were two things: first, that Lapis Lazuli never once put on airs, and second, that she was genuinely competent enough to warrant Father's favor.
For the record, she was also someone who did not have sexual relations with Father.
That wasn't particularly important information, though.
"I'm sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment."
"Is something troubling you? Miss Daisy is Dantalion's daughter. If you have any concerns, you are welcome to confide in me."
The Minister of State Affairs almost always referred to Father as "Dantalion."
She was the only person permitted to use that form of address. The other subordinates predominantly used terms like "my Lord," "Your Highness," or "Demon Lord." The Minister of State Affairs, despite being Father's subordinate, called him by his name.
That was rather presumptuous, but I decided to be magnanimous about it once more. Compared to the Minister of Military Affairs, the Minister of State Affairs was practically a saint. Besides, the title wasn't exactly grand — if anything, it was a bit pathetic.
"Yes. I do have a concern."
"Then by all means, share it."
"Why won't Father take me to bed?"
"......"
Lapis Lazuli, the Minister of State Affairs, stared at me with an expression that said, 'What on earth is this child talking about?'
It was a little rude.