"This is Noqhei, Your Highness. From this point forward, he will serve as your mentor and trainer."
The four-year-old Zeliker heard Zapter say this.
After eating breakfast today, Zeliker met his new teacher in the training room. Due to his poor physical and mental health, his old tutor has given up on him.
The soldiers and other demons at the training facility also laugh and cast scornful glances at him. Even his newly awakened powers were inferior to those of his brothers.
After receiving such a look, Zeliker was embarrassed and terrified to enter the training building again. He hid himself in his room.
Today, as was ordered by his father, he must come to meet his new teacher. Zeliker first intended to stay in his room like he normally did, but the night before, Alinda dropped by, and the two struck up a conversation.
Alinda persuades him to meet his new teacher.
"You have to try, dear. This teacher is good at passing along knowledge, and he won't push you too hard if you can't keep up. Try out his training for a week and see what happens."
Zeliker went silent for a moment.
"Okay…" He responded in a childlike voice.
Zeliker had no ill feelings toward his new teacher when they met face to face. Noqhei's emotion just conveys worry and anxiety, which puzzles him.
Noqhei has light green eyes and long brown hair which was tied into a ponytail. He was dressed in a grey suit and red polka-dot tie. Overall, he looked neat and gentle with a smile on his lips.
"Hello, Your Highness. I am Noqhei. I hope you'll allow me the opportunity to instruct you. Please let me know without keeping anything from me if you feel my lessons need improvement. I need to reflect on my teaching too if it does." The warm and soft voice told Zeliker.
Zeliker thought it odd because his previous teachers wouldn't employ a voice like that. Their voice only emitted disdain and iciness, which he perceived.
How strange to have such a demon talking nicely to him. Zeliker immediately became alert, though he kept a straight expression.
One week later…
"Congratulations, Your Highness. You complete a one-kilometre lap." Noqhei cheered while clapping his hands.
Zeliker panted loudly. Sweat had saturated his entire body. He was worn out but he didn’t allow himself to sit on the ground. He doesn’t want to show further weakness and wishes to improve his image in front of others.
Noqhei has only requested that he run a lap since the first day. For a four-year-old child, it was a taxing activity, but he wasn't a human.
While he can still reach 600 metres, anything beyond that causes him to become exhausted.
His brothers, when they were four, could run more than five kilometres, but he couldn't. This demonstrates how weak he was compared to them.
"You Highness, take this and sip. Tomorrow, we'll begin a new exercise."
Zeliker receives a bottle of clean water from Noqhei. He exercised caution once more, but after determining that the water was free of any unpleasantness, he drank it.
He ought to be surrounded by attendants, yet he dismisses them. All because he felt their malice to serve him and pity him.
Actually, if a royal demon was powerful, any other servitor demon would give their heart to serve them. His brother was respected by the servants, but not him.
This causes a small shadow born of resentment, guilt, and jealousy to take root in Zeliker's heart. It causes him to become mute most of the time and only answer with a short sentence if need be.
Zeliker also decided to take charge of everything from the moment he noticed the comparison. Learning was his best skill but… Cooking was not one of them.
He was lucky that he didn’t eat much and limited flowers fresh from human land where his mother loved to keep was eaten by him piece by piece.
He likes sunflowers more than the rest. He was glad Alinda didn't mind that he ate them but unbeknownst to him, Alinda silently ordered a part of her garden to grow sunflowers for him.
Zeliker didn’t know his action was watched by his parents and siblings but they couldn’t do anything since he didn’t want their help or presence near him.
Because of that, he once tried to have a taste of some human blood. He was never allowed by Alinda since she insisted he was still a child.
So, he felt a strong desire to taste it since he was curious, but he afterwards regretted it greatly.
Zeliker spent a month in a coma as a result of the burning feeling tearing down his inside. It was just a small lick but it made him feel enormous pain, causing him to scream.
Before he fainted, he didn’t know whether it was his illusion or not but Nekruis appeared near him in panic with his mother and his siblings. Nekruis hugged him and carried him to somewhere which was the last thing Zeliker saw.
When he woke up, he was alone inside his parents' marital room. Fear enveloped him since this room was out of limit for him.
With the strength he had left, Zeliker went back to his room while avoiding the guards and other demons in the hall. He was startled to see Noqhei waiting in front of his room.
"Your Highness, do you want to be strong? Stronger than your brothers?"
Noqhei didn’t ask anything about his well-being. Instead, he addressed him with the voice of temptation.
Zeliker sensed the oddness, yet he had no choice but attracted to it because that was exactly what he had been longing for.
"Can you make me stronger?"
"Yes, Your Highness…"
Closing his eyes, Zeliker sees the past, other people's perspectives, and the helpless demon he once was.
He looked toward Noqhei with a determined expression.
“Make me stronger.”
It was a command and it give Noqhei a small shudder.
"... As you wish, Your Highness. May you get what you seek…”
The light green eyes watch Zeliker change slowly to silver and glow brightly.
“Rest for now, Your Highness. I’ll meet you tomorrow. Oh, and consider this your last peaceful night's rest. Well, then. I’ll take my leave now.” Noqhei bowed and disappeared.
Zeliker gritted his teeth when he was alone and chuckled. He went into his room and laid down on his bed, slowly welcoming another restless sleep.
Despite his young age, Zeliker knew he was brighter than most and had been aware of others' feelings toward him ever since he could remember.
He knew Noqhei wasn't as sweet or compassionate as he appeared to be. That is definitely not how a demon would act.
But he never could have imagined how much he would change or how cruel he would become, unable to tell the difference between the reality and the fake.
The next day, appearing again in the training room, Zeliker saw Noqhei in his blood-like suit, smiling cheerfully at him.
“Shall we begin, Your Highness?”
Zeliker responded with a nod before being startled by a sudden fall into a large pit. After tripping and peering around his dark surroundings, he cautiously stood up.
"Your Highness, you need to die to become a true royal demon."
Before the darkness vanished into the light, Zeliker heard it for the last time. He shows up in his bedroom with his body laying down on his bed. Everything looks normal and makes him feel strange.
He anticipated being attacked in his chamber, but after many minutes passed with no change in the atmosphere, he stood up and went out.
Two guards were stationed outside and were sternly focused forward.
Zeliker was used to their differences toward him.
“Am I dreaming of meeting Noqhei? Why does everything look real?”
He went toward the training facility with confusion. He saw Noqhei there.
“Oh, Your Majesty, how are you feeling?”
Zeliker stared at him for a long time.
Noqhei raised an eyebrow at him. “Your Majesty?”
“Didn’t you say, you’ll make me stronger yesterday?” Zeliker cautiously asked.
“Yes! And that is why today we need to improve your body muscles. Though you are a child now, Your Highness, you can increase your stamina first.”
“... Okay…” Zeliker felt dreadful all of a sudden.
After the training by running again, Zeliker went back to his room, worn out once more.
He realised he hadn’t eaten anything yet and went to get a small sachet inside one of the cabinets beside his bed.
The sachet was filled with sunflower seeds. He ate them slowly while savouring their taste and smell.
Suddenly, he heard some harsh movement outside. Then, a strong odour of metal and putrid was smelled by him, almost making him puke out his meals.
Zeliker's eyes widened. Soon, the movement stopped in front of his door.
Unable to think or move, he watched as the door was pushed from outside and the sound of a creak could be heard loudly in his ears.
Something or someone in a small size but a little taller than him was moving toward him. Bloods dripping from some part of his body.
"Brother… Zeptas…?"
Zeliker couldn't believe what he had seen. His brother may have been a wild child but to kill their guards without reason bewildered him.
Zeliker was shocked when Zeptas suddenly jumped on him and choked him.
'What the heck?! What's wrong with him all of a sudden?!'
He struggled wildly and even struck Zeptas stomach to let him go.
However, the grip was so hard until Zeliker felt the inability to breathe. From his chest to all parts of his body slowly feel so much pain.
'Is this what suffocating feels like…? Am I… Going to die…?'
Tears of disbelief and despair slid to his cheeks before everything in his surroundings slowly blackened until the last thing he saw was Zeptas' grin and his glowing silver eyes.
This was his first death…