It had been exactly one week since I officially decided that keeping a human around was somehow a good idea.

  In my defense, the results were… arming.

  Zone 3 no longer looked like it was one bad wind away from colpsing into existential despair. There were rows—actual rows—of crops now. Not just potatoes, but carrots, onions, leafy things Charmie kept calling “green confidence boosters”, and something Mira swore was cabbage but looked suspiciously like a demon pnt trying to disguise itself.

  Demons walked around carrying baskets instead of pitchforks. Some were boiling potatoes. Some were baking them. Some had figured out how to mash them.

  I stood there, hands on my hips, staring at the scene with narrowed eyes.

  “…I’ve been repced,” I muttered.

  Charmie popped up beside me immediately, like she’d been summoned by my insecurity.

  “Nonsense, my lord!” she said brightly. “You’re still the source of potatoes!”

  “That’s worse,” I replied. “That means my legacy is starch-based.”

  Behind us, Sparky cleared her throat.

  “My lord,” she said calmly, “you are observing the field again without supervision.”

  “I am supervising,” I said. “Mentally.”

  Sparky's eyebrow twitched. “You are standing on onions.”

  I looked down. “Oh.”

  I stepped off quickly.

  [Announcement: Stomping on crops will be identified as a crime.]

  “WHY is that announcement so fast,” I snapped.

  Mira, who had been kneeling by the field showing a group of demons how to space seeds properly, gnced over her shoulder.

  “Because you stomp on things a lot,” she said ftly.

  “I walk with authority.”

  “You crushed a tomato st time.”

  “It challenged me.”

  She snorted, then immediately pretended she didn’t.

  Yes. This had been my life for a week.

  Mira was still handcuffed. Not because she’d tried to escape. But because Sparky refused to trust her and insisted on “symbolic security measures.”

  The cuffs were loose enough that Mira could work, eat, gesture, and occasionally smack my arm when I said something stupid, but not loose enough to be considered freedom.

  “You know,” she said, standing up and dusting dirt from her knees, “most rulers don’t make their advisors wear restraints.”

  “You’re not an advisor,” I replied. “You’re a… temporary educational resource.”

  She stared at me.

  “You’re terrible at diplomacy.”

  “I’m learning.”

  “From who?”

  I opened my mouth. Closed it. “You...” I admitted.

  She blinked.

  Then looked away quickly. “Don’t say things like that so casually.”

  Charmie’s eyes sparkled.

  It wasn’t just farming.

  Mira had been teaching us human things. How to fix broken tools without chanting. How to reuse metal scraps instead of throwing them into ominous piles.

  The demons listened, suspiciously at first.

  Then with the terrifying enthusiasm of people discovering convenience for the first time.

  One demon cried when Mira showed her how to make a simple lid for a pot. Another bowed so hard she face-pnted into the dirt.

  Mira didn’t know how to handle it. She kept rubbing the her cheek, awkward and stiff, like she was waiting for someone to yell at her.

  And the more time passed… the less she looked like someone who hated demons. And the more she looked like someone who didn’t know what to do with kindness.

  Later that day, Mira and I were scavenging again.

  Zone 3’s outskirts were still full of broken human artifacts. Most of them useless. Some of them terrifying. One of them had tried to elect me as its leader when I pressed a button.

  Mira had confiscated that one immediately.

  “Don’t touch random glowing screens,” she scolded.

  We crouched near a half-buried metal box. She pried it open carefully, eyes focused.

  “This might still work,” she murmured.

  “You say that about everything.” I said.

  She paused.

  The silence that followed wasn’t awkward.

  Just… heavy.

  I watched her work for a moment, then asked, “You still won’t tell me why you’re here?”

  Her hands froze.

  Slowly, she stood up and turned away.

  “I was…” she hesitated.

  “…thrown out.”

  “By humans?” I said quietly.

  She nodded.

  “Why…?” I asked.

  She let out a breath, long and tired, “I lost.”

  I blinked. “Lost?”

  She leaned against a broken pilr, eyes unfocused. “I was a candidate. For hero selection.”

  My heart skipped.

  “A hero?”

  “Yes.” Her lips twisted into something bitter. “Potential hero. Chosen group. Training. Evaluations... I was cheated and lost to my junior in the first evaluation,” she said simply.

  She sighed. “They said they didn’t need me anymore.”

  “That’s cruel,” I said before I could stop myself.

  She shrugged. “That’s how it works. They only keep the strongest. Especially when preparing for an attack.”

  I frowned. “An attack?”

  She met my eyes. “You didn’t know? Demons attack humans at least once a year. Territory disputes. Resources. Maintaining the bance of power.”

  My stomach dropped. “That’s… not in the prophecy.”

  She gave a humorless ugh. “Of course it’s not. But it’s written in human history.”

  I stared at her.

  She might be right. If the prophecy never mentioned it, then maybe fate itself wanted that truth erased.

  I squinted. “Can I trust you...?”

  She met my gaze.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  That answer felt worse than a lie.

  ---

  The next morning, Mira stood beside me at the field again.

  The demons waved when they saw us. One offered Mira a boiled potato. She accepted it awkwardly.

  I watched her for a while. Handcuffed and grumpy while teaching demons how to rotate crops.

  “I’m making sure my demons don’t starve,” I whispered. “I’m teaching them to build. To fix. To live better… so we won’t have to attack humans.”

  She stared at me like I’d spoken nonsense. “You believe that might happen...?”

  “I do.”

  She shook her head slowly. “You’re either naive… or dangerous.”

  I smiled tiredly. “Why not both?”

  She stared at me for a long moment, then turned away quickly. “You’re strange,” she muttered.

  “You keep saying that,” I replied.

  Then I said quietly, “I’ll defend this pce... every demon and every living things here…”

  She paused.

  I continued, “Including you, who’s standing here right now.”

  She blushed and stiffened. “Don’t... say things like that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because...” she said in a low voice, “it makes me harder to hate you.”

  I smiled.

  [Announcement: Demon Lord has unknowingly deepened emotional bonds.]

  “I swear,” I muttered, “this thing is trying to write a romance itself.”