“Wait! Easy—don’t use—”
Before she could finish, a cool wash bloomed over Rafi’s arm, tingling like spring rain on new leaves.
She looked down. Ling’s small hand pressed to the wound, cold flowing from her palm like an icy spring.
A green glow leaked between her fingers, and fine verdant threads danced there like ivy in a breeze.
After a moment, Ling let go, and the chill ebbed away like a retreating tide.
“There. That’s about as far as I can take it.”
Rafi checked her arm. The split gash had knitted shut, and even the scab had vanished like dust after a storm.
The arm that couldn’t channel strength now felt power coursing back, a quiet river finding its bed.
Yet something was strange—a faint discord, like a wrong note in a temple bell, under flawless skin.
“Ling, are you not fully recovered?”
Ling lifted a dead‑fish stare, bare and blunt as a blade laid on the table.
“It’s that bizarre wound of yours. The layer beneath won’t mend, like something’s blocking it.”
“Will it never heal? What if I—”
“I don’t know. But I can promise it’s mending slowly, like moss taking root, if no outside force pries at it.
If I push mana like I did, it splits again, oddly. So I fixed the surface. Let the muscle below knit itself.”
Rafi nodded, the thought settling like dust in sunlight.
“By the way, how careless are you? Taking a wound like this—seriously dumb.”
“Ah… haha…”
Whether Ling forgot or just chose to, she scolded Rafi anyway, smoke curtaining the cause.
Rafi could only give two dry laughs; she’d just been healed, and you don’t kick away the step someone offers.
So the ever‑considerate, impossibly cute Miss Rafi ended the topic with that perfect, gentle dodge.
“All right, Demon King, let me take you back to rest.”
The secretary, seeing her Demon King grind through problems like stone on stone, stepped in to smooth the ripples—she truly wanted Rafi to rest.
But against expectation, Rafi shook her head, the refusal firm as a closed gate.
“No. I still have to head to Elusen.”
Ling looked at Rafi—like a tireless work machine—storm‑light flickering in her eyes.
“Why push yourself so hard for us? It’s our job.”
“Huh? Are you kidding? I told you—if negotiators vanish to another country, it’s suspicious as hell.”
Ling shook her head, reason sliding off like rain on lacquer.
“You know I’m not asking that. I’m asking why you’re fighting so hard for us.”
Rafi’s gaze skittered away like a startled sparrow.
“I—I said it, didn’t I? For the Daemon race’s future…”
“Look into my eyes!”
Rafi froze. She tried to turn away, but Ling hauled her back, an iron hook on silk.
Their gazes locked, and Rafi squirmed, heat pricking like mid‑summer under a noon sun.
“Tell me the real reason. Don’t hide behind the Demon King. Talk to me as Rafi.”
Under Ling’s gaze alone, Rafi’s body felt strange—Ling was the true king, her command like a seal on stone.
The thought of hiding behind “Demon King” was crushed at once, a paper charm in a storm.
“I… I…”
“Spell it out!”
Something gathered at her eyes. Her vision blurred, a warm trickle blooming at the corner like melted amber.
“I—I—I just want your forgiveness!”
The feelings she’d dammed up hit the floodgate and burst, a river breaking its banks.
Since meeting Nina, she’d learned what a bond feels like; guilt for hurting Ling clung like dusk mist.
She wasn’t bad at heart—she’d never known bonds, never grasped loss; that’s why she’d done it without a blink.
Now a rare chance to atone had come. She didn’t want Ling reopening that heart‑split wound because of her.
So she took the long way, hiding her true aim behind “working for the Daemon race,” a veil over a lantern.
Even if Ling never forgave her, maybe her heart would ease; maybe nights wouldn’t close with that shadow.
That was the “selfish” truth Rafi hid beneath the label “for the Daemon race’s future,” a seed under soil.
And clearly, that “selfishness” pleased Ling—pleased her deeply, like rain finally greeting thirsty earth.
She reached out, wiped Rafi’s tears, and bloomed a smile—a true one, sunrise after a long night.
“I forgive you~”
