Ah, kidnapping! A hero’s way of meeting new people. Recently, more and more important figures in the demon realms have tried guessing who Marcel is based on his appearance from the party where he got introduced, the former version of himself. Some thought to themselves that they had found the Demon Lord’s weakness to exploit while others find it unacceptable that their god, the Demon Lord, is being tainted by his weak hero fiancé and want to find and do away with him while those, especially the ones in love with him, um... also want to do away with him. Many parties want to find the little hero and slit his throat and a person whom Marcel will soon meet... is one of them.
Having recovered from the unexpected attack at his heart by his elven friend, Marcel’s life continued like it used to, except now, he knew a bit more about his origins. He was back to sword training, magic training, and fighting off his boredom by reading a massive amount of very informative books and visiting the world outside the Demon Lord’s castle ever so occasionally. Life goes for him.
Meanwhile, while Marcel is living his life to whatever he thinks ‘the fullest’ is, someone is plotting his demise. He’s enraged, unhappy, and feeling murderous at the same time as, when he woke up from his sleep one day, he found out that the person he’s been pining for years said he was to soon be engaged to a hero. This news made him the most frustrated he’d been in centuries and so, he decided to do something about it.
The man ordered his guards to spy on all the possible suspects for who this hero might be, having deduced that the Demon Lord wouldn’t do something like locking him away in his castle until he was strong enough to deal with his enemies. As expected, he was right and Marcel heads out into the world under the name of Dave with a modified appearance and aura far from what he used to have. Having not forgotten what his guards had told him from having told him what they gathered about him during the party on the day he was betrayed, he decided to go with whoever had the most charisma amongst those who occasionally leave the Demon Lord’s castle. His guards had told him that the human hero had this ‘light’ around him that made people easily gather around him. Unfortunately, this person could be none other than Dave, Marcel who had quickly gathered around himself a circle of friends. The easygoing nature that allowed him to make friends with just about anyone had given him away and now, he was the possible target of this man whose feelings had been betrayed.
The possible target soon became, well, target, and guess what happened? He got kidnapped... again.
Taking a stroll through town as he sometimes did, he was kidnapped in the middle of the street. Blinded with dark magic and a powerful sleep spell, he was in no condition to save himself. Of course, the system deemed it as a successful kidnapping and sealed away most of his abilities even though this one who ordered the kidnapping might be after his life. Just what was Vitalis thinking?
Blinded and put to sleep, Marcel crossed worlds with his kidnappers to the home of the mastermind. After they got there, they tied his hand behind his back, then woke him up.
Opening his eyes, he saw a dark-skinned, dark-haired demonic beauty with purple eyes wearing a coat and waiting on him to wake up. He looked angry like he had some urgent business with him.
“Mhm! Where am I?” He said, waking up.
The man watched as the defenseless Marcel slowly woke up and finally seeing the little guy’s face while awakened, his heart throbbed in a very unexpected way. He knew that he sought had his appearance altered but not to this extent. Seeing the new and improved Marcel, his heart, hah... went badump.
Apparently, contagiously cute beauty turned silver-haired beautiful and cool beauty is still contagiously cute. Even behemoths like Alverona fell in front of such a fever. What could he, another slightly less powerful behemoth, do against such power? Marcel’s aura of unblemished purity made it even harder for him. Just a few glances and he was already wavering.
No, he shouldn’t let himself be swayed by some boy he just met. He doesn’t care about him, well, except for the fact that he’s the love interest of the man he’s loved for over a million years. Since the day he met this person, his heart has only ever belonged to him. How can this person he met just minutes ago sway such feelings? Besides, this person must die!
After stealing another couple glances at Marcel, he cleansed his throat and spoke,
“You! Listen here! I am Miguel Dunkelheit, one who loves the Demon Lord most and shall marry him. I order you to distance yourself from my love from this moment onwards or else, it shall be your death!”
What? How come what he wanted to say had changed so much? What is happening to him? He wanted to say, “I have called you here to rip apart your flesh, crush your bones and send your soul to the depths of purgatory,” not sound like some generic protagonist’s love rival?
Meet Miguel Dunkelheit, Greater Flame Emperor Demon, and the next unlucky victim of the walking trap that is Marcel.
Marcel who had to sit tied up through that cheesy line, couldn’t help but wonder what business this jealous man had to do with him. This wasn’t any of his business! Didn’t the Demon Lord say he’ll handle matters like this?
“Um... I don’t get it! Why was I kidnapped? Should you be talking about this with the Demon Lord instead of me? Besides, I am not even him, the person you’re looking for.” He said with a nonchalant expression. Marcel didn’t want to ever do this but the situation called for it. He never imagined that he’d one day, deny being Marcel in front of who might be a possible psycho. Just how much will he change before he finally defeats the Demon Lord at the end of their forty-year agreement?
On the inside, Marcel felt dejected since he just denied his identity in order to survive but on the outside, he still looked nonchalant, unwilling to be there, and absolutely annoyed. This was all to make his act of not being Marcel believable but Miguel Dunkelheit wasn’t to be easily fooled.
Before bringing Marcel here, he’d not only confirmed with his guards about whom all the possible suspects regarding the identity of the Demon Lord’s wife were, including their personal lives, whom they met with, how they interacted with each other, including the Demon Lord and found that Marcel was the one who not only possessed the charisma of the person he was looking for but also, acted most like a lover around the Demon Lord. He was either angry, blushing, angry blushing, being coddled, coerced, or placated and sometimes, even manipulated. He was very sure about this, so much so that he’d bet all of his power on it.
“I’m not buying it! Dave is Marcel! I know that!” Miguel exclaimed. He looked on the verge of exploding in anger.
Marcel looked at the man acting like some big baby and sighed, “Okay! So, now what, guy who’s willing to tell some stranger he just met all about his crush?” Marcel looked up at him in the eyes and smirked. Miguel blushed uncontrollably, embarrassed because of what Marcel had just said.
“You-you... I want you to leave the Demon Lord. I consider you my rival and I wish to talk with you one-on-one before I made any moves.” He blushed. Marcel looked at him and couldn’t help but quietly laugh. This man looked so embarrassed.
“Rival?”
“Yes, you are my rival! I heard you ki-ki-kissed the Demon Lord at the party nearly two years ago. Everyone saw it!” The guy decided to stop being so embarrassed and confront Marcel about what he heard. Unfortunately, Marcel confirmed his identity as well with his next words and he almost regretted it.
“For the record, he kissed me, not the other way around!” Now he was the one blushing and shouting. He doesn’t know why, but whenever he remembers a moment with the Demon Lord, he remembers all of them, especially the sexual ones.
“Great, so you really are Marcel?! That makes this so much easier! Promise to the Demon Lord now and I’ll let you go!” Miguel showed such joy and happiness while he told Marcel to leave. Once again, his words were altered again as they came out of his mouth but this time, he was willing to let it pass. As long as Marcel left the Demon Lord’s side, he would leave him alone.
When Marcel heard what Miguel said, he immediately thought something along the lines of,
“Oh, you ignorant fool! You don’t even know about the bond or the promise and you’re speaking nonsense. I am the Demon Lord’s ‘wife’ whether I want to be or not. I guess I’ll be dying today!” He thought, saying his goodbyes to the short life he had. He hadn’t even given Sephana an answer to ‘witch’ option he would take but his life is about to come to an end because, for some reason, his mouth wouldn’t allow him to say anything to deny it. He was dead... for sure! Goodbye, life!
The end.
At least, so he thought, but then Miguel, like any character with a bad-ending romance, began reciting his monologue.
“For the longest time... I have loved the Demon Lord. It all started on my tenth birthday when I first caught a glimpse of him when my fathers and I visited Nephavion. It was love at first sight and the young me was captured from that moment on. The Demon Lord, like the sun, his power bringing warmth to us all. The spirits show him their benevolence, the demons bless his presence and so do we all, his loyal subjects. The joy he brings us is tantamount to that of waking up to a brand-new day to see life coursing through your body, the joy of finding water in an arid desert, the joy of resurrecting after a horrible death to new life. He’s the unattainable rose who claimed the hearts of many who can only dream of a chance to be in his presence... blah, blah, blah...”
And so, Marcel, who had his hands tied to his back and sat on the ground, was forced to listen to Miguel’s monologue which was mostly praises and admiration for the being he could one day call his husband for two hypnotizing hours straight and only then, did he start to see the end of that song.
“...I tried so very hard to make myself worthy of the sun and proposed to him many times, asking him to marry me, only to get rejected over and over again for so long. I failed so much that I thought, ‘If I didn’t do it, then nobody else would make that man swoon,’ and then suddenly comes a hero while I’m asleep and the Demon Lord says he’s getting married. I won’t accept it!”
Marcel who’d at this point, listened to the guy babble on for two hours straight sympathized so much with him. He felt so sorry for him. How was it possible for someone to pine after another for more than a million years, fail every time at trying to court him and even give up to go sleep off some of the pain, then wake up to hear that the guy he liked was to marry some random stranger he decided to make his partner? He understood Miguel much better now. This explained why the guy was so angry with him. He’d talked for so long about his feelings for the Demon Lord and had gotten so emotional that, when he asked the guy to untie the ropes on his hands ... he did. He was so caught up in his feelings that he forgot all about how this random stranger who ruined everything was the person whom he kidnapped and uh... released.
Miguel was a kind person at heart and before he knew it, Marcel had become his guest. He served him food and a lot of it at that, all while he was still caught up in telling the little homewrecker all about his feelings. The hours turned into days and before he knew it, Miguel had recovered enough to recognize Marcel as the homewrecker again but still, the little guy was such a good listener that he didn’t care anymore.
Meanwhile, as this is all happening, everyone else who isn’t Marcel, Miguel, the Demon Lord or Alverona, is panicking. They had all thought that the whole ‘Marcel getting kidnapped’ thing was all over and done with when the elves got their hands on him, so they never anticipated anyone else kidnapping him again. Since the elves’ nature-granting ceremonies, when most people realized that he’d already accepted their vast array of natures, they didn’t think of adding any more power to him since they weren’t going to gain anything from doing so, or at least, so they thought.
Marcel’s friends who came to visit when they heard that Marcel was kidnapped were shocked as Allan nonchalantly shrugged and said, ‘it’s happened again,’ as this happened on a regular basis, although, so far, it had only been twice. They asked what happened in the past and Allan told them all about it. His friends still worried and asked the Demon Lord to send guards to look for Marcel and he said that he’d be fine nonchalantly as well. Just how sure were they about Marcel returning safely?
Sure, Marcel has exceptionally good luck that there’s a high chance of him surviving a highly deadly bomb probably unscathed. He’s also being protected by the Spirit of the world, who um... controlled most of the world, so he’ll be fine. Claude, when consulted, said the same thing, supporting the Demon Lord’s and Allan’s statements, and went back to work. Shalia called back home since she was still worried and tell them of what had happened, and they sent over a few guards to look for Marcel.
Currently, the elven guards are looking for Marcel, and what was he doing while they tirelessly searched for him? He was having a great time now with Miguel Dunkelheit. It’s been several more days in Miguel’s world, and they look to have already become friends. Yes, the homewrecker and the offended have become friends. Miguel Dunkelheit is very much of a talker and most people find this noble very annoying and hard to deal with, but unlike them, Marcel finds everything he says very interesting. Marcel randomly asked him why he likes the Demon Lord on one conversation of theirs, apart from you know, the praises and he answered, “I don’t know either...”
He further elaborated on this answer after thinking about it a bit more,
“Well, he’s very attractive and his demeanor is excellent. He treats everyone with the respect they deserve and is overall, a very bright sun who gives us all his warmth. Who wouldn’t like someone like that?”
“Huh? That sounds more like admiration than love to me...” Marcel said without thinking, “You admire him, right? From what you’ve said about him so far, you think that he’s a very great guy, but you don’t seem to hold any feelings deeper than admiration for him, so, are you sure that you like him?” He continued. It was strange! All his words sounded like he was an expert in matters such as this but honestly, the little guy didn’t even know what romantically loving someone meant, but his mouth kept on talking and he agreed with every word he said.
Miguel Dunkelheit didn’t know how to answer Marcel’s question,
“I-I-I like the De-Dem—De--” Huh, he can’t say it no matter how hard he tried. Just what was happening to him? Right after Marcel shared what might not be his thoughts with Miguel, he suddenly found himself unable to say that he loves the Demon Lord anymore. The feeling he’d held inside him from over a million years, since he was a 10-year-old demon just up and vanished, nowhere to be seen anymore.
This was the first time he’d been forced to think about how he truly feels about the Demon Lord instead of what the 10-year-old him who’d recently learned about what love was thought when he saw the bright sun enter the room his fathers and himself awaited their audience with him. What he felt for the Demon Lord wasn’t romantic love. The man was his sun, the one who brought the young him so much warmth and comfort to him during the hardest times when his parents left him to travel. What he still felt was the love one had their older brother or the one that one admired the most. He had so much admiration towards the Demon Lord and now that he thought about it, he knew only the good things that everybody else knew about their sun and preached it like everyone else, not knowing about a single bad habit or personal flaw that everyone had.
Miguel’s eyes seemed to have been finally opened to the truth after what Marcel said.
After having his eyes opened to the truth, Miguel instantly had a new target. As expected, it’s Marcel!
He looked to Marcel with sparkling eyes and thanked him,
“You opened my eyes to the truth about how I felt about the Demon Lord.” He said, his glistening eyes expressing his joy as he grabbed Marcel’s shoulders. If Marcel hadn’t been here to help him recover from his man crush, he might have continued to continue to mistake those feelings for love and who knows for how long he would continue to try and win the Demon Lord’s affections. He felt grateful but at the same time, a pleasurable feeling was budding inside of him. This feeling was what one held towards that special someone. Unfortunately, he’d found this special someone in his ex-crush's own target, Marcel. Ha...
With this feeling budding inside of him, he immediately needed to know where he stood. This person was to be engaged to the Demon Lord soon. He had to know about his feelings for his mighty big brother figure. Only then would he make his plan of attack.
Still holding unto Marcel’s shoulders, he let go and cleared his throat, feeling slightly embarrassed as his face slowly heated and after recovering a little asked,
“How do you feel about the Demon Lord?” He asked the question so suddenly that Marcel didn’t know how to react. His face heated slightly, becoming flush. This question was so unexpected. He knew that he had favorable feelings towards him because of past events but he wasn’t like, in love with the Demon Lord or anything though whenever someone mentioned what his feelings towards the Demon Lord were, he’d get slightly embarrassed, flushed and his thoughts would become somewhat disoriented. Is this what they refer to as the first step to developing a crush on someone?
As Marcel stood there and tried to figure out how to answer Miguel’s question while showing all the symptoms of a young maiden with a crush, his stomach growled, saving him.
When his stomach growled, Miguel broke focus and he managed to get away with not answering the question. Miguel’s thoughts shifted to what to do about the foodie’s rumbling stomach instead of matters concerning Marcel’s feelings towards a certain someone. This thought wasn’t completely gone though as he still hoped to get an answer, so he waited patiently for Marcel’s answer but never got any. Instead, he was met with a young man with a flushed face, intentionally staring off into the distance as if he didn’t know he was waiting for an answer. His avoidance of the question was so clear that anyone would recognize what he was doing at first glance.
Ah, was this fool really the one who opened his eyes? What happened to the person who said those words that snapped him out of his million-year-old crush? How different can one person become after a few minutes? So strange!
“Ah, I’m hungry! Miguel?” Marcel seemed to have also recovered a bit. This time, he wasn’t going to be flustered about this. He had to avoid giving an answer at all costs.
Although Miguel noticed what he was doing, he let him get away with it this time. He said nothing more about what might be his special someone’s crush on someone else and answered Marcel,
“Okay! What would you like to eat? I can have the servants prepare anything you want.”
And so, Marcel managed to safely avoid the dangerous situation he was in that might have led this guy who had a crush on him to lock him up in his mansion, unwilling to let him go. This time, Miguel was planning to do things the right way and he already had a plan in mind. Good for him!
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