I Took the Demon King as My Wife

“There doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with him. He probably lost consciousness temporarily due to accumulated fatigue.”
Wesley, who had examined Yeomje’s condition as he lay in bed, said as he removed his hand from the mage’s forehead.
“Phew… is that so…”
Hans, seemingly relieved, rubbed his chest and let out a deep sigh.
“I’ll go and request a cup of tea that’s good for fatigue recovery.”
“Ah… that would be much appreciated.”
Wesley bowed his head, then quietly closed the door and left.
“……”
Hans looked at the peacefully sleeping Yeomje with concerned eyes.
His skinny hands showed white knuckles clearly visible.
From the looks of it, he had probably skipped meals for several days and nights again while engrossed in magic research.
With the complacent thought that there had been many such precedents so this time would naturally be the same, Hans covered him with a blanket.
“Ugh…”
Just then, Yeomje seemed to regain consciousness, letting out a tired groan as he slowly opened his eyes.
“Yeomje! Are you conscious? Yeomje!”
Upon confirming that he had opened his eyes, Hans immediately grabbed his shoulders and shook him vigorously. His limp neck dangled back and forth.
“Le… let go… you… bastard… hey…”
Jolted awake, Yeomje frantically grabbed Hans’s arms that were shaking him. Hans finally stopped his vigorous shaking.
“You… you bastard…”
Yeomje frowned intensely while clutching his dizzy forehead.
Then, with a deep sigh, he slowly raised himself up.
“Ah, you should keep lying down…! The head butler said you need to rest soundly for half a day…!”
“Shut up!”
“……”
Hans, who had been showing obvious signs of concern, closed his mouth at Yeomje’s sharp retort.
“Who do you think is responsible for my current state…”
“Wh-who did this to you?!”
Hans asked with genuine anger. He had no idea who the culprit was.
His sincere voice only served to further provoke Yeomje’s anger.
“You! You! You dog…! Augh…!”
Yeomje raised his trembling, tightly clenched fist and swung it at Hans.
As the bony fist swung in front of him, Hans flinched slightly and backed away.
After venting his anger at the empty air for a while, Yeomje seemed to lose strength and stopped his fist.
“Sigh…”
He shook his head weakly and dropped his hand limply onto the blanket.
The situation was repeating with the same repertoire as always – nothing changed except that his head hurt.
Sure enough, Hans was staring at him with a blank expression, not understanding what was going on.
In the end, once again, the detailed explanation fell to Yeomje.
“You… have you visited Lasia since that day or not?”
At the topic Yeomje brought up with a sigh, Hans suddenly flinched. When the saint’s name was mentioned, his face instantly froze.
Seeing this, Yeomje distorted his already crumpled face to an even uglier degree.
“I knew it, you son of a bitch. You dump the dirty work on me and then pretend you know nothing about it?”
“……”
“If you weren’t the Hero, you would have been dead at my hands long ago, seriously.”
Yeomje raised his skinny fist toward the silent Hans.
Even though a snot-nosed kid’s clenched fist would be more threatening… Hans kept shrinking away from Yeomje’s gestures.
Each time this happened, Yeomje barely suppressed his rising irritation and trembled with his fist that wasn’t even intimidating.
Dropping his weakened fist again, he continued to confess what had happened to him.
“I told you, I’m a busy person. I haven’t slept since that day until yesterday evening, trying to console her all day. Crying and wailing, crying, getting angry, crying, getting angry – am I an emotional trash can? I’m a person who researches magic for you people, not someone who counsels heartbroken girls, you know?”
“……”
“Again, you’re keeping your mouth shut. Again, again! I swear, this guy’s mouth!”
Yeomje grabbed Hans’s tightly closed lips and shook them roughly.
Hans, without much resistance, let his face shake along with Yeomje’s hand.
“Tsk!”
Yeomje clicked his tongue and released Hans’s lips, which had been shaking limply.
Hans weakly dropped his head, avoiding the sharp gaze pouring down on him.
“Anyway, I didn’t mention anything about you, so you need to go to the church yourself and explain directly.”
“……”
“Not going to answer?”
Once again, a fist no better than a twig rose up.
Hans again slightly evaded his touch and reluctantly opened his mouth.
“What… could I possibly say if I went there…”
“What…? But this guy…!”
Yeomje’s eyes trembled involuntarily at Hans’s extremely intimidated voice.
“What do you mean, what could you say? You should tell her exactly what you told me!”
“But…”
“But what!”
At Yeomje’s fuming appearance, Hans remained silent for a moment before speaking.
“Don’t you know too… what feelings she harbors for me… For me to go and speak to her…”
“What, are you embarrassed?”
At Yeomje’s words that immediately caught the tail of his thoughts, Hans hesitated briefly before answering.
“No… rather than being embarrassed… it’s more like… I’m worried I’ll only hurt her more.”
“……”
This time, after silently listening to Hans’s explanation, Yeomje contemplated for a moment before opening his mouth.
“So, you’ll never tell her, and she’ll live her entire life with a misunderstanding?”
“No, that’s…”
“‘No’ my ass, that’s exactly what you’re saying. Isn’t it?”
“……”
Hans couldn’t answer. Yeomje’s voice, which he had barely managed to calm down, started rising again.
“Then are you going to hide it for the rest of your life? Let her suffer alone until she dies?”
“…How could that be. I just…”
“Shut up, there’s no need for a long explanation, go tell her tomorrow, right away. Whatever reaction she has is her business, your role is just to tell her. That’s it. Got it?”
“……”
“Answer me.”
Yeomje glared at Hans and poked his lips repeatedly. Hans reluctantly nodded.
“Ah, I see you understand…”
“Promise me.”
In response to Hans’s uncertain answer, Yeomje abruptly held out his pinky finger in front of his eyes.
Reflexively pulling his head back and staring blankly at this, Hans eventually grimaced and said,
“Wh-what…! We’re not children…!”
“No, you are a child. Looking at your behavior, you’re exactly like a ten-year-old brat. So hurry up and promise.”
Yeomje kept thrusting his hand toward Hans’s face as Hans continued to back away.
“Ah, fine… good grief…”
Hans muttered something about what nonsense this was while still hooking his pinky finger firmly around Yeomje’s.
At this, Yeomje raised his tiny thumb and said,
“Stamp it too.”
“…Yeomje!”
“Hurry up.”
“…This is making me crazy.”
Finally, after completing the complex contract including stamp, copy, and signature, Yeomje left.
Hans had told him to rest a while since Eilena wouldn’t be back for quite some time, but Yeomje replied “If you were in my position, could you rest comfortably?” and promptly returned home.
Though it felt like they bickered every time they met, Hans still felt somewhat regretful.
“Huh…?”
However, such feelings immediately dissipated when he saw the scorched mark left on the floor.
“That… that… magic practitioner nuisance…!”
Hans quickly pulled at the hem of his shirt and frantically scrubbed the blackened floor.
But this wasn’t from an ordinary fire… how could a mark left by the blue flames of Yeomje, the Tower Collapser, be erased so easily?
No matter how much he scrubbed, the sooty floor showed no signs of returning to its original state.
In the end, Hans had to endure a thirty-minute lecture from Eilena about nearly burning down the mansion that day.
Hans felt wronged, and the Hero resented the mage.

The next morning.
Hans was heading to the dining room after finishing his morning training as usual.
Just as he was walking with a light step, guessing the day’s menu from the savory smell wafting from afar,
He stopped in his tracks at the sight of a woman encountered in front of the dining room door.
“Are you going again today…?”
“……”
Eilena, who was passing through the corridor in neatly arranged attire.
She briefly turned her head at the voice that suddenly addressed her.
After staring blankly at him for a moment, she promptly turned her head and spoke as she passed by him.
“When policies need to be implemented as soon as possible, how could there be time to rest?”
Whether she had accepted what they had discussed in the carriage the day before, she didn’t ‘blush’ while facing Hans.
However, that venomous and poisonous voice still flowed from her neat lips.
“Even when you speak… really.”
Hans turned his body to follow Eilena as she passed by, with an uneasy look in his eyes.
Suddenly, he noticed a maid closely following behind her and tilted his head curiously.
“Hey, you are…?”
“…!”
At his questioning words, the two walking women suddenly stopped in their tracks.
Ku, who was momentarily startled and almost revealed the eye hidden on her forehead, quickly composed herself and slowly turned around.
“…I’m formally greeting you for the first time, Master. I am Ryuku, who has been serving Madam exclusively for the past few days. Since Madam has been so busy with her schedule, and I’ve been assisting such a busy Madam… I apologize for not having properly greeted you earlier.”
Ku narrowed her eyes and bowed deeply. She deliberately emphasized the word ‘first.’
She was now not the Four Heavenly King ‘Ku’ but the maid ‘Ryuku.’
Unlike her previously seductive appearance, she had completely changed her skin color, hair, eyes – her entire external appearance.
Moreover, she was using voice modulation magic, so if she intended to deceive, she could even fool her own parents.
No matter how much of a Hero Hans was, there was no way he could notice such a disguise when he had only briefly fought her that day.
“Hmm…”
Hans blinked as he stared intently at Ku, who was bowing to him.
“……”
Eilena, with her back turned, could neither take a step forward nor turn around to face him.
She swallowed nervously as unfounded anxiety began to creep up.
‘Could it be…’
Had he found out?
Though it seemed unlikely, his continued silence amplified her anxiety.
What would happen if he discovered that her identity was that of his disguised subordinate?
While she, who played an important role in ‘peace,’ might be safe, Ku, who externally had no role, was an exception.
It wouldn’t be strange if he, finding it contemptible, immediately drew his sword and struck her down.
‘Why… why isn’t he saying anything…?’
The creeping suspicion grew uncontrollably, beginning to interfere with her breathing.
Invisible beads of sweat began to form on Ku’s forehead as she directly faced him.
As both of them were tense with anxiety, at that moment…
“Well…”
Hans’s tightly sealed lips finally opened.
“…You don’t need to greet me. It’s not an obligation, you know.”
“Ah…”
At his casual tone, Ku let out a short sigh, as if expelling the anxiety she had been harboring.
‘Whew…’
Eilena, still showing her back, also inwardly swallowed a sigh of relief as she relaxed her terrified expression.
As if knowing the inner thoughts of the two women… Hans asked Ku in an indifferent tone,
“Are you following her all the way to the imperial palace?”
“Ah, no. I was planning to escort her just to the carriage.”
“…I see.”
To avoid arousing suspicion, Ku quickly answered with her head lowered. Adding to this, Eilena urged her in a composed voice,
“Ryuku, let’s go quickly.”
“Ah, yes, Madam. Then, Master.”
Ku bowed respectfully to Hans and followed Eilena, who had started walking outside.
“……”
Hans stared at the two retreating figures for a long time, seemingly lost in thought.
“Hmm… I don’t know why she specifically chose a maid, but… whatever.”
Rubbing his chin and muttering to himself, he opened the dining room door with a thud and went inside.
Today’s breakfast menu was seafood fritters with a thin batter coating and thin soup.
Hans enjoyed his pleasant breakfast.