#2
Like most boys his age, Jeha was obsessed with Bio-Man. He constantly pestered his mother to play Bio-Man for him. No matter how many times he watched the same episodes, he never grew tired of them.
The plots of Bio-Man were almost always the same. A powerful villain would appear, only to be vanquished by Bio-Man.
Occasionally, a monster of formidable strength would emerge, injuring Bio-Man. On such occasions, Jeha would clench his fists tightly, holding his breath as he stared intently at the screen.
One day.
Jeha was watching a new episode of Bio-Man. A newly introduced villain proved overwhelmingly powerful, and Red was ultimately kidnapped by the antagonists.
Stripped of his transformation, Red found himself imprisoned in a dim, subterranean cellar. Suspended from the ceiling, his hands bound by chains, Red bore no resemblance to his usual valiant and robust self. He appeared utterly frail and pathetic. At the sight, Jeha felt an inexplicable tremor in his chest.
The villain lashed Red’s bare torso with a whip. Red flinched, letting out a low groan. Overwhelmed by the agony, Red’s head lolled, and he lost consciousness.
Jeha’s fists trembled violently. No, his entire body was shaking uncontrollably.
Red, the hero of justice, was kidnapped and tormented by the villain. Yet, it wasn’t anger at his suffering that gripped Jeha. Instead, he was overcome by a strange, inexplicable thrill.
An electrifying surge of exhilaration, causing his nostrils to flare, shook Jeha to his core as he watched Red being tormented. He replayed the scene countless times, savoring that ineffable sensation. From that day forward, Jeha’s ambition shifted entirely, transforming from a hero of justice into a villain.
It wasn’t that the villain tormenting Red seemed particularly cool. Rather, he simply couldn’t tear his eyes away from Red’s suffering form. Being young and simple-minded, Jeha interpreted this feeling as the villain being ‘cool.’ And if he was going to be a villain who tormented a hero of justice, he decided he might as well become the greatest villain of all. Thus, the idea of becoming a Demon King was born.
Of course, looking back now, it was a laughable ambition. Nevertheless, Jeha wrote ‘Demon King’ as his future dream. Little did he dream he would actually become one.
“I should have just written ‘millionaire.’ Damn it.”
Jeha muttered, narrowing his eyes.
If only he had written something ordinary, like ‘President’ or ‘astronaut,’ as most snot-nosed eight-year-olds did, he wouldn’t be in this predicament. Even if he wouldn’t have truly become a millionaire, at least he wouldn’t have ended up as a Demon King.
“Damn Bellarossa.”
Jeha gnashed his teeth, recalling the hateful face of the former Demon King.
It was about a month ago that ‘it’ happened to Jeha, completely out of the blue.
****
[Are you Min Jeha?]
A man suddenly appeared before Jeha, who had been trudging along, his bag heavy with textbooks, and abruptly asked. Startled by the figure that had materialized in the middle of the dark alley, Jeha instinctively nodded. Before he could even register the man’s somewhat strange appearance in the dim light, a piece of paper was thrust before his eyes.
[Then you must have written this too.]
On the paper the man held out, in childish, scrawling handwriting, were the words: ‘Class 1-3, No. 11, Min Jeha. Future Dream: Demon King.’ Though Jeha couldn’t fathom why this stranger was inquiring about something from over a decade ago, he nodded, acknowledging it was indeed his writing. At this, the man narrowed his strangely colored eyes and smiled, a look of profound satisfaction on his face.
[To think there’d be someone who not only wished to be a Demon King but actually put it in writing. Well, it saved me some time.]
[Excuse me, but who are you?]
Jeha, finally regaining his composure, asked. The man, to his surprise, answered readily.
[Bellarossa.]
[Bellar— pardon?]
Jeha slowly began to take in the man’s peculiar appearance and attire. He also realized that the situation was decidedly odd. Driven by an unconscious sense of alarm, he instinctively recoiled a half-step. Yet, his backward step was rendered meaningless as the man strode closer, stopping right before him.
The man, after briefly peering into Jeha’s breathless face, curved his strangely colored eyes into a slight smile. That smile nearly made Jeha wet himself. It wasn’t a hideous or frightening face, but it exuded an boundless, primal terror.
[You will be my successor.]
The man declared.
He seemed to have stammered, ‘Pardon?’ in response. But he couldn’t be certain. Because in the very next instant, the man’s hand plunged into Jeha’s chest. He vaguely recalled looking down at his stupidly pierced chest before losing consciousness. When he awoke, he was already in an utterly unfamiliar place.
When he came to, the man—the Demon King Bellarossa—was gone. He had vanished, having passed everything on to Jeha. Jeha was no longer Min Jeha; he was the new Demon King Bellarossa. To be forcibly appointed as the Demon King’s successor, all because of a childhood dream he’d scribbled down as a snot-nosed eight-year-old? It was truly an absurd and unbelievable turn of events.
“You rotten bastard. Go to hell.”
Jeha wished it with genuine malice. Then, he let out a heavy sigh. Telling a Demon King to ‘go to hell’ wasn’t much of an insult. Perhaps telling him to ‘go to heaven’ would be more offensive. Though, having vanished, he wouldn’t be going to either heaven or hell anyway.
Jeha raised his right hand and spread his fingers wide. What he saw was a hand identical to his former one in appearance. The sensation was the same too. Yet, the hand before his eyes was not his old body.
His human flesh had vanished without a trace the moment he inherited the name of Demon King Bellarossa. Instead, his body was now composed of Jeha’s—no, Bellarossa’s—demonic power. Unconsciously, he was recreating the physical form he remembered. Because of this, Jeha gazed at his own reflection multiple times a day. He worried that if the memory of his physical form, which constituted his body, were to fade, his appearance might grotesquely distort. To call it ‘worry’ was an understatement; it was closer to terror.
He had become an incomprehensible being in an incomprehensible place, through incomprehensible means, for incomprehensible reasons. Yet, he had no choice but to accept this bizarre reality. Because he could feel it within himself. He was Bellarossa, the Demon King of Sloth and Corruption.
He simply knew. The Min Jeha of another dimension had utterly vanished without a trace. He had left no mark of his existence, no memory in anyone’s mind; he had, quite literally, perfectly evaporated.
He hadn’t given up immediately.
Bellarossa’s power was immense, capable of transcending dimensions.
Jeha shook off Paimon, who tried to restrain him, and crossed over to his former world. He then confirmed it: there was no longer any place for Min Jeha there.
His family didn’t even remember that a Min Jeha had ever existed. They were harmonious and happy. Neither his friends, nor his school, nor even past records indicated Min Jeha had ever existed. Bellarossa had completely eradicated any place for Min Jeha to return to.
Jeha ultimately had no choice but to return here. He didn’t even attempt to undo what the former Bellarossa had wrought.
Even if he were to implant memories of himself back into his family and friends, they would merely be implanted memories. They could never be the bonds and recollections naturally accumulated over years of birth and growth. Even if they were to feel them, to Jeha, it would feel inherently unnatural. As long as Bellarossa’s power resided within Jeha’s body, Min Jeha’s existence in that dimension would forever remain that of an outsider.
Ultimately, no matter what he did, he was already Bellarossa. There was only one way to shed the title of Demon King. Just as the former Demon King Bellarossa had done, he would have to appoint a successor, transfer all his demonic power and name, and then vanish.
According to Paimon, the Bellarossas, true to their nature as Demon Kings of Sloth and Corruption, had an unusually frequent succession rate. Their very attribute of sloth meant they quickly grew weary even of their own existence. The accursed former Bellarossa, in particular, was exceptionally extreme, seeking a successor after merely two hundred years. Furthermore, they were reportedly too lazy even to search for one, supposedly saying, ‘If there’s some fool who wants to be a Demon King, I’ll just hand it over to them.’ And Jeha, unfortunately, was that fool.
Such an extreme level of sloth, to be bored even of existing, was truly astounding.
‘What’s so hard about simply existing? You just have to lie still and breathe,’ Jeha had briefly thought on his first day. But now, he was beginning to understand the former Bellarossa’s sentiments. As time passed, everything was becoming a bother to Jeha. Perhaps it was the influence of Bellarossa’s existence itself, said to embody sloth and corruption.
[You don’t have to do anything. Simply existing is enough. So please, live as long as possible. I beg you.]
Paimon had made that plea the day they first met, their face conveying the numerous bothersome tasks involved in a change of kings. Not only Paimon, but all the demonkind who came to pay homage to the new Demon King earnestly implored him to live long. Jeha had nodded in bewilderment, but several months later, he honestly wasn’t so sure he could fulfill that request.
Jeha waved his hand through the air.
A white-haired man was reflected in the mirror that appeared in the empty space.