Divergence of Thought (Part 2)

Translated by AmaLynne

 

Her words left me speechless.

I had thought that I was special to her because of our many meetings, and that that was why she was so unconcerned about me seeing her naked. But when I was confronted with the fact that this was not the case, I felt my vision waver.

「I don’t want you to make the mistake of thinking that I’m going to expose my skin to any human being… I don’t care if people see my skin, but I am not comfortable with people looking at me curiously. Nevertheless…」

Demiurge’s eyes like purple crystal amethysts glow inorganically, and she matter-of-factly tells me.

「I am not ashamed to be seen, after all.」

「…Demiurge.」

I couldn’t respond to her words except to call her by name.

Ever since I woke up in the forest, I have felt a gap in consciousness and common sense between me and humans. Even when I, a man, was right in front of her, she did not attempt to hide her skin, and even putting on clothes was a bother for her.

Still, at first, I thought that the reason she was not embarrassed to show me her skin was because she trusted me.

However, that is not what I am talking about now. She told me from the very beginning that she does not feel any shame when people see her naked.

「……I don’t like to talk about this stuff too much if I can help it, but……」

As I open my mouth, the Demiurge points at me.

「Husband, I, Yggdrasil, and the Four Great Demons are…」

Then, pointing to herself, she gets up from the bed, approaches the window, and looks back at me, her silver hair reflecting in the moonlight.

「We have a fundamentally different thought process, to begin with.」

「―――!?」

A choking sensation. We were supposed to be a couple with feelings of mutual love for each other.

And yet, the way Demiurge is talking now, it sounds… is like.

「Husband… I am. The first time my husband confessed his love to me, I was stunned.」

Demiurge smiled bitterly, as if in self-mockery, and leaned against the window sill with her hands.

「I have never known any romantic feelings. Therefore, I felt nothing, just words passing through my ears… But husband was very forceful in those days. He repeatedly told me how he felt about me… and was so insistent that I even disliked him.」

That’s not how I remember it, how she and I got used to each other. It’s a memory of her and me that no matter how hard I try to remember it, it doesn’t appear… It’s a memory so precious to me that I’m still seething at the fact that I can’t remember it.

Demiurge’s mouth tells me fragments of it.

「He taught me, a god, about the human feeling of love… and I was interested in what my husband told me about love… but this was a mistake.」

Demiurge narrowed her eyes and squeezed her hand to her chest as if she were holding a treasure.

「I want to know. I hate to say this, but to gain knowledge, I connected my consciousness with Yggdrasil’s, and from its knowledge of the world, I learned about the humans’ view of love. I know it.] 

I just silently listen to what she spins out of her past.

「At first I didn’t understand… the complexity of the relationship… forcing the other person to stay connected, and I tilted my head many times at this all too imperfect emotional connection. I wondered where there was a need to bring something as superfluous as emotion into an action that was meant to produce a child…」

It is a value she once held. It was her own story, when she was dry beyond imagination from Demiurge she is today.

「I even thought it was laughable to see love quickly turn to hatred. But… on the other hand, some loved each other from beginning to end and respected each other until death…」

She brings her right hand, which had been resting on her chest, to her abdomen, perhaps around her womb.

「They have children, sometimes they fight, sometimes they have differences, but in the end, they return to their proper form… I, who have lived many years in solitude, have come to envy those who have someone they don’t mind living next to… So, I would first cuddle, even if only formally, next to husband… Somewhere along the way, I came to crave His presence so much that I began to seek it.」

As if to reenact the scene, Demiurge walks up to me from the window sill, crawls on all fours on the bed, and looks up at me from below.

「I was the one who once told Yggdrasil that she was imitating humans, but… I was the one who fell in love with the playful game of human romance.」

「―――!? That’s!」

I felt as if she had just called our relationship a mere flirtation, and I involuntarily got up from the bed with a burst.

But Demiurge smiles softly and puts her hands around my neck.

「I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. But I have always felt that I had to say something. I have to tell you the origin and the reason for my heart toward my husband. I know it is not right for me to tell you what I have just told you, but I still love my husband with all my heart. I can offer you anything, my body and my heart are His property. I will accept everything, even if it means being treated roughly here and now.」

Demiurge’s eyes like purple crystals shook and almost sucked me in as they were.

The words she speaks are not false. They are straight and sincere. The appearance of Demiurge, without any coloring by falsehoods, made me relax my shoulders.

「I love my husband without my common sense, which is deep inside of me. That may be something husband does not understand. But to share my heart with someone different from me, I have to twist some parts of it to fit together. For me, it is the values and common sense I have built up over the years.」

As if in apology, she hangs her head and softly presses her head against my chest.

「Please, husband, forgive this wretched woman for wanting to love the Lord so much. I hope you will agree to take her place next to husband, as you have always done.」

I suddenly notice that Demiurge’s body is shaking slightly. I gently wrap my hand around the back of her head.

She looks up at me with wet eyes and says,「Thank you.」

「Demiurge, that… the reason you’re telling me about it at this time, after all, it’s about Behemoth, isn’t it?」

「Umu. If I have said this much already, my husband must be beginning to understand what I want to tell him, don’t you think?」

Demiurge’s confession reminds me of what happened with Behemoth.

The concept that mating should be between people who like each other doesn’t exist in the first place.

「That’s right. Now she has the same intelligence and emotions as a human being. Therefore, it is difficult to judge, but her nature is that of a demon who moves according to her instincts. Her thoughts are inevitably drawn in that direction.」

That resigned look she showed when she admonished Behemoth… meant…

「That is precisely why she does not understand. To be denied their instinctive desire to mate with a strong male.」

There were no words.

It was as if he had told me that I had just denied her thoughts.

I understood that she was a demon, but I didn’t understand everything about her. On the contrary, I was trying to make her think like a human being,

I just imposed it on her.