I Have Become The Heroes’ Rival

I just received permission to do as I pleased.

Felix’s face was dark with heavy resignation.

Seeing him unreservedly raise his hands and feet, I cheered inside. Felix would finally stop disappearing like a ghost who had seen the light whenever he saw me. That was what he declared.

Frankly, it was like this. If I could live without seeing him for the rest of my life, I would have given up already.

Before Felix fell ill, I had no intentions of pushing him this far since I thought his condition was gradually improving.

Just like how he had tamed me, I was thinking of taking it very slowly.

However, if this was an eternity wheel that kept spinning, and we had no choice but to clash continuously, then we now had no choice but to compromise.

He….… he didn’t hate me.

I didn’t hate Felix either.

“Is your desire to kill me?”

“…….No way.”

“Do you want to break my arms and legs? Is it the kind of desire where you want to gouge out my eyes, pluck out my nails, cut out my flesh, pull out my heart and hang it?”

“That……. how could you…….”

Felix’s eyes trembled as if he was shocked by my words.

I deliberately said it so provocatively to the point that it was excessive, and the response that I received questioned how a human being could have such a terrible desire.

No matter how I thought about it, Felix was Felix.

“Then there’s no problem, right?”

“The things I do to Irene……. It might destroy you.”

He closed his eyes tightly, and for the first time, revealed the tiny crack in his distress.

It was a silent contempt for himself, which he had tried to repress for a very long time. It was so thick that it seemed to spread like flames just by being by his side.

However, I was assimilated with that emotion and had no intention of trembling with fear.

‘Are you going to ruin me? Who the hell…….?’

“It’s okay. I’m strong. I will never easily break or break at all, so don’t be afraid.”

“Even after seeing this wall, you’re still saying that?”

“The body is softer than the wall, but that’s not the most important thing. The most important fact is that, even if Felix uses his sheer strength, he won’t break me.”

Felix knew that too.

I looked up at Felix and stretched out my hand. I then grabbed his hand that was trapping me between him and the wall and slowly pulled it towards me.

I did it very slowly so that he wouldn’t get scared and make extreme choices.

Felix, who kept his mouth shut at all costs, did not particularly resist.

He just repeatedly clenched his fist with cold sweat dripping down his expressionless face. It seemed as if he was trying not to put strength into his hand somehow.

Blue veins bulged against the back of his hand, and at the same time, long, hard fingertips touched my cheek. It was rough. But I could also feel the neatly trimmed round nails.

His large, articulated hand seemed big enough to cover my entire face. As he wrapped his hand around my cheek, I tilted my head along with the touch and asked.

“How is it?”

Felix parted his parched lips.

“It’s hotter than a fever…….”

And he ended the conversation in a miserable voice.

“…….And sweeter than death.”

* * *

–What?! You’re surprisingly bold.

Maybe it shouldn’t have worried. The two might fling into it¹ first. The power of the devil, who watched the scene from beginning to end, giggled.

The later you experienced it, the fiercer the love. Humans intoxicated in the ecstasy of unfamiliar love were easily broken.

It would not be long before that pure soul was completely taken away, the devil was sure.

Humans who fell in love became fools. In particular, once blinded by love, they wouldn’t be able to take of themselves.

With a little provocation, their reason would be discarded, their sanity would be instantly destroyed, and they would be engulfed in madness.

The beginning might be as intense as a flame and more dreamy than a mirage, but there was no such thing as a beautiful farewell.

If it was love that rescued you from the swamp of despair, then it was love that was also over your head².

Humans mistakenly believed that love was eternal, so as it slowly slipped through the cracks little by little, they would desperately try to grab hold of it like the fleeting grains of sand.

When he decided that he could no longer hold onto it with his own strength, he would call the devil for help.

That point was Leraze’s area of expertise.

Of course, before it led to a catastrophe, and while he was impulsive with pleasure, it would steal and eat his soul bit by bit.

It would give him a taste of pleasure worse than hell.

The power of the devil was delighted at the thought of taking away a pure soul. To struggle and fight against an insolent human must have been a required challenge it had to face before it could leap back to the demon realm.

It wasn’t a poor choice to believe in Leraze’s words and come to the human world after all.

The power of the devil fumbled through its past.

One day, in the distant past, thousands of years ago, Leraze said as he stoked the bow that had accompanied him to the battlefield and had a fragment of his soul embedded in it.

“We fought together and won the battle. But since you’re just a fragment of me, you won’t understand what love is. If the only love that humans felt were just pleasure, then there would be no reason for a devil, like me, to exist.”

Those were quite shocking words for a newborn, bow-bound soul fragment. It seemed to imply that a devil existed beneath every human.

–There’s no greater existence than the devil.

Leraze replied to that.

“Without humans, devils cannot exist.”

–Then, what is human love?

When the soul fragment enquired, Leraze replied again.

“Devil, angel, heaven, hell, pleasure, anger, happiness, pain, sorrow.”

Hearing those words for the first time, the soul fragment automatically thought, ‘–What does he mean?’. Did it mean that love was a collection of all the chaos of the world?

“No matter what I say, I can’t describe it enough.”

Only after at least hundreds of years had passed since the soul fragment fell into the human world did it realize that love was undefinable.

“Moreover, most love leaves a bitter regret. That’s where we come in.”

Leraze painted a seductive smile on his beautiful face as he looked at the soul fragment that didn’t understand what he was saying.

“If you want to become a complete devil, you will have no choice but to enter the human world. If you wish, I will set you free once this long war is over.”

Although it was born from a part of the devil’s soul, it wanted to become a complete devil. It didn’t want to stay in the bow all its life.

So it said yes, and about 4,000 years ago, when the first and last passage connecting the human world and demon realm was open, it took advantage of the chaos to escape from the demon realm.

Thousands of years passed.

The soul fragment passed through countless humans.

It was enough time to grasp what human love was.

‘Humans are defective. An imperfect existence. What more, love is about filling half of yourself, whether body or soul.’

So the moment they broke up, they would act foolish as if they had been torn in half. Because they wouldn’t be able to forget the fullness of the halves being stuck together and becoming one.

It was a conclusion drawn after a prolonged observation.

So the power of the devil believed that love involved the body rather than the mind. That’s why Leraze, who governed pleasure, was such a powerful being.

It was an exceedingly perfect theory.

‘I’ve finished all my preparations to become a great demon.’

Now, after devouring this bastard, Felix’s soul, as nourishment, he would be reborn as a complete devil with a considerably plausible appearance as the foundation.

The power of the devil was ecstatic and looked down triumphantly at Irene through Felix’s eyes.

That woman was an extremely significant sacrifice for it to become a complete devil. But…….

Irene smiled brightly as Felix’s hand wrapped around her cheek. An immense light poured through the large window and colored the side of her face.

His heart pounded painfully.

Oh, it truly hurt so much.

–Stop hurting yourself. Damn you.

Felix ignored the devil’s words as usual.

–I told you to cherish your body.

It was so painful. It didn’t just happen once or twice. The power of the devil grumbled with irritation.

It was as if the wound on the heart was opening little by little every day, and blood seemed to leak out again.

It was the first time the devil experienced such pain.

Sharing a body with a human was more inconvenient than it thought. All five senses, every memory, every emotion, even every moment of pain Felix felt, were shared. It was definitely better when it was in the bow.

Especially considering how Felix was a sacrificial and foolish human who spared no effort to care for his body.

The bright light made his eyes burn, and the sight of the woman smiling joyously made his heart thud so much he felt like he was going to vomit.

‘I wish I could just hold onto that smile and die in my sleep.’

‘–Those were that damn guy’s thoughts, not mine.’

The power of the devil judged coldly, but the rapidly beating heart felt like its own.

* * *

T/N: I’ve added a bonus chapter as an apology for my late update (and to reduce the effect of the ’s (slight) cliffhanger (?) ahaha). Please have a lovely week, everyone!

Also a small note, I continued using “it” to portray the power of the devil (aka the soul fragment) since the mightly demon, Leraze himself, was introduced in this chapter! I’ll most likely continue to do so to minimize any confusion.

^{1. To “fling yourself into something” means to do something with a lot of enthusiasm.↩}

^{2. Over one’s head means to be too complicated to be understood by one, or something lingering as a source of concern/worry.↩}