Chapter 36: Demon Queen

Hearing Zacken ask about their past, Valkira froze for a moment. As a gentle breeze floated through her hair, she pulled her knees close and leaned against them.

“I don’t particularly want to talk about it… but maybe you also have the right to know everything about us—the demons.”

“If you don’t want to, then—” Feeling her hesitation, I tried to dismiss the topic, but she interrupted me.

“No… it’s just not a good story. And it includes an ugly side of us.”

“That’s fine. Every coin has two sides. Whatever you all might have done in the past doesn't change the present—that demons are working hard to settle down now. I’m just curious to know what the real you and Verixa were like.”

She chuckled softly, covering her mouth with her hand. Becoming calm again, she continued, “You really are a strange one.”

“I hear that from time to time. I just hope being 'strange' is a good thing,” I said, laughing at myself.

“Yeah, strange in many ways, but that’s what makes you different from the rest of us. I won’t lie—you are reckless, always babbling nonsense, unplanned, undisciplined…”

“Wait, wait, wait! I get it! You don’t have to list everything—” As I tried to stop her, she kept going.

“But even so, everyone out there believes in you. You might be reckless, but you always think about others. You babble nonsense, but that makes people feel comfortable. You’re unplanned, but everything you do somehow turns out right. You’re undisciplined, but that opens up opportunities to discover something new.”

“Those sound like praises to me. I just do what anyone else would do,” I said, scratching the back of my head.

“Hehe…” Valkira chuckled softly and took a deep breath. “Before Princess Verixa was born, who the demons were and who we are now were vastly different. We were at the top of the world; every other race feared us. We had every luxury in life, but our greed grew as Lord Zenak—Verixa’s father—started a war against humanity. A war second to none.”

“I see.”

“When the war started, I was only a little older than Verixa is now. Queen Seraphina took me under her wing after my parents died in battle. I trained in the Demon Capital to become a soldier just like my father. Even though I was just an ordinary demon in the Queen’s eyes, she treated me as if I were her own.”

“Sorry, I might have brought up a sensitive topic,” I apologized as she paused.

“Don’t worry. This is a reality I’ve already accepted,” she said, continuing her story. “Verixa’s mother was pregnant back then. She was a demon, but even so, her philosophy about coexisting with every other race with equal rights was quite odd to us. I don’t know why, but she was deeply unhappy with the King’s decisions. To stop him, she declared war against him by convincing the council of her ideology. Some demons agreed, while others hated the idea. But things came to an end when she rebelled, stripped the King of his powers, and sealed him away in the Ignis Veil Dungeon.”

“So, after that, the demons left that place?”

“Well, yes. The demons split into two factions: those who followed the Queen and those who stayed in Ignis Veil. But rumor has it that the human army attacked Ignis Veil later, and every demon there perished.”

“So the humans were unable to break the King's seal?” I thought deeply about it as the words slipped out. “It’s not that they couldn’t break it, but rather they never tried to, fearing that if the Demon Lord were set free again, he would—”

“Yes, that is also our assumption.”

“So what happened next?” I asked.

“After leaving with the Queen, we wandered for a while and soon established a temporary capital—the Demon Capital, where you were summoned.”

“Mistakenly summoned, anyway,” I added. “As far as I know, that city was massive and quite developed. Queen Seraphina really worked hard to build it up.”

Valkira nodded. “She really did. She tried to reach out to other races, sending formal invitations to sign a peace treaty. But because we demons had killed so many of them, no one ever showed up.”

“And that’s when Verixa’s mother became the Demon Queen.”

“Yes.” Valkira’s voice cracked slightly. “She took a broken kingdom and tried to rebuild it. She sent envoys to the goblins, the beast-kin, even the elves—trying to form alliances. She wanted to create a world where her daughter wouldn't have to grow up in constant fear of extinction.”

“Hmm.”

“Later on, we defended ourselves as the years went by. Every day was war for us. People went out to fight and never returned. As we grew weaker, the human army began their march against us. With the help of the isekai heroes, they were finally able to slay Queen Seraphina.”

I remained silent for a moment, letting her words sink in. The weight of everything she had carried—the war, the loss, the heavy responsibility of protecting a child queen—was staggering.

“…What about you?” I asked softly. “What was Valkira like before all of this?”

She blinked, caught off guard by the question. “Before?”

“Yeah. Before you were the Commander. Before you had to protect Verixa. What did Valkira want? What made her happy?”

Her lips parted slightly, and for the first time, I saw something flicker in her eyes—a distant, almost forgotten memory.

“I… wanted to be a singer,” she admitted, her cheeks flushing slightly.

“A singer?!” I couldn’t hide my surprise. “You? The stoic, sword-wielding, ‘I’ll cut you down if you look at the Queen wrong’ Valkira?!”

“I was young and foolish!” she protested, her face turning bright red. “When I was a child, I used to sing to the soldiers around the campfires. It was the only time they seemed happy—when they forgot about the war and just listened. I thought… if my voice could bring them peace, even for a moment, that was enough.”

“That’s beautiful, Valkira.”

“S-Shut up! You’re mocking me!”

“I’m not mocking you! I’m genuinely touched.” I grinned, but my voice was sincere. “You gave them hope. That’s not nothing.”

She looked away, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her armor. “…I stopped singing after the war. There was no time left. No joy left to sing about.”

I thought about that for a moment. Valkira had given up her dream to become a warrior. She had buried her desire for peace beneath armor and duty. And no one—not even Verixa—had ever asked her about it.

“Valkira,” I said, “when this is all over—when we’ve found a safe place for the demons, when Verixa is old enough to lead on her own—what will you do?”

She hesitated. “I… I don’t know. I’ve never thought that far ahead.”

“Maybe you should start,” I suggested gently. “Because I think the world deserves to hear the real you.”

She stared at me, her crimson eyes wide and vulnerable. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Finally, she broke the silence.

“If… if we survive this,” she said, her voice soft, “I’d like to sing for you someday. It’s been so long… I’m probably terrible at it now.”

“I’d like that,” I said. “I’ll even clap. Maybe throw a flower or two.”

She laughed again, and this time, she smiled—a warm, unguarded smile that reached her eyes.

“Deal.”