“I could eat you, Your Highness.”

  “!?”

  Nora’s face froze in shock.

  “Kidding! You should’ve seen your face.”

  “So that means Mr. Fury only eats meat?”

  “I eat only meat, Your Highness.”

  “Like a lizard.”

  “Ah…”

  At that moment, Zeedee lowered her head, trying not to laugh.

  “…I’m a dragon, you know…”

  “Dragons are lizards too, Mr. Fury. Big lizards that breathe fire. RAH.”

  “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

  The royal guard burst out laughing as Nora let out the most unexpected sound effect. Zeedee grabbed Dan’s shoulder, shaking him while he slowly wilted with embarrassment.

  “HAHAHAHAHA!”

  “Mr. Fury, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Lizards are cool.”

  “Don’t pat me on the head and compliment me in the same breath!”

  “Some lizards are strict carnivores, Mr. Fury.”

  “Didn’t ask at all!”

  “GAHAHAHA!”

  “What’s so funny about this…”

  “What about Freya?”

  “Freya can eat anything—meat or plants.”

  Nora turned to look at Freya.

  “…Like a jellyfish, huh?”

  “Write this down too—I’m the most dazzling jellyfish in the whole damn ocean!”

  “The most dazzling one, huh…?”

  “Obviously!”

  Fury: “No legit evidence backing up that claim though, just so you know.”

  “Your highnesssss!”

  “Ms. Freya, what’s your life cycle like?”

  “What is this, am I being interviewed in place of the prince now?”

  “Come on, Freya.”

  “Ugh… fine. Only because His Highness asked.”

  “Oh sure, now you’re all polite… You nearly laughed me off my seat earlier…”

  She flicked her hair back dramatically.

  “I grew up in the sea.”

  A typical jellyfish life cycle starts with male and female jellyfish releasing their gametes into the water. The fertilized eggs develop into planula, tiny planktonic larvae that drift in the current. After 2–3 days, they find a place to anchor on the ocean floor.

  Then they grow and clone themselves by budding while remaining attached to the seafloor. This stage is called the polyp—this is where Freya’s life began. Once she matured enough, each bud detached from the “mother pod,” becoming tiny free-swimming jellyfish called ephyra. These slowly developed into the familiar umbrella-shaped medusa form we know.

  “From what I remember, I wiggled free from the pod with millions of my siblings. After that, it was even more chaotic than baby turtles on a beach.”

  “What did you have to survive from, Ms. Freya?”

  “Anything in the ocean that eats plankton basically.”

  “God…”

  “I still don’t get how someone like this survived the sea,” Dan muttered.

  “Because I’m the strongest, duh!!!”

  Freya shouted directly at him.

  “This proves I’m the one most worthy of you, Your Highness! Divorce that woman!!”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “How did it come to that!?”

  “How did you survive?”

  “Ran, hid, and ate. Ate, ate, ate—just kept eating until I got big.”

  Dan: “ Brought that whole ‘eat eat eat’ lifestyle to land too, huh?”

  “Yooouuur highnesssssss!!”

  “Mr. Fury, you’re not helping…”

  “The moment my legs sprouted, I was ready to climb ashore.”

  Maybe Freya’s ferocious personality could be explained by her childhood. Nature must have forged her into a survivor—forced to fight her way through a sea teeming with predators. Probably worse than any war. She must’ve watched her siblings get swallowed before her eyes. Her childhood was likely a hundred times more brutal than that of a sea turtles.

  “Were you the only one who made it out of the ocean?”

  “Didn’t see any others. So probably.”

  “And once you came on land, you just… walked into Diablo? No immigration checks or anything?”

  “Thirty years ago? Nah. You just went in and hunted to survive. Met other Diablo, fought them. If you’re strong, you live. If not, you die—or become a slave.”

  Brutal… From a human’s perspective.

  But in this world? That was just how beasts lived.

  “Slave?”

  “That’s how we live, kid. Whoever’s strongest becomes the pack leader. Then we fight other packs—free for all—until one dominant pack takes the whole island. Then that becomes the country.”

  “So how did you end up with Mr. Fury? Were you captured?”

  “Do I look like someone who gets caught that easily, you brat?”

  Freya began her story.

  “When I came ashore, His Highness was still in his egg, mind you. I wandered around until I joined a pack near the island’s eastern rim. Thanks to my amazing self, my pack expanded and took over the entire eastern sector.”

  “So you were gonna be part of a new ruling faction?”

  “That was the plan… until The king sent my love to me~”

  Fury: “My love? Who’s named my love?”

  “Oh please! Everyone knows about us!”

  Fury: “ Who’s us?!”

  “At the time, His Highness had just hatched. He was tiny—your size, actually. Like a twig puppet. Nothing like the sexy man he is now.”

  “I can totally picture that,” Nora said.

  “I’ll take it from here before the story gets too twisted.”

  Fury shoved a grilled fish in the royal guard’s mouth, silencing her.

  “When I hatched, I was sent to the eastern front by order of my father. The mission was to reclaim lost territory. That’s when I met her.”

  “You black-screened her in 1 punch Mr. Fury?”

  “Ho no, not yet, I wasn’t even strong enough back then.”

  Freya: “And I wasn’t that weak, okay!?”

  “Let’s just say I managed to win. My first real success—justifying the energy my mother poured into hatching me. Even though I ended up with only my left arm intact… Freya looked worse that day. So I won.”

  “You’re not gonna mention how you fell for my charm, huh~?”

  Zeedee came closer, with teasing eyes, grinning.

  “Poison isn’t charm.”

  “But you did like me, right~?”

  “…Maybe a little.”

  “Aha!! See!? You were bewitched by the allure of the most dazzling Diablo in the sea!”

  “Mr. Fury, your voice got real soft there.”

  “I’m losing my mind…”

  “So what happened after you won?”

  “I was going to kill her, honestly. But His Majesty didn’t want to waste such talent. So we went with the natural way: don’t die, become a slave. And eventually, we took over the island.”

  “And then you used your connections to make her your royal guard, didn’t you, Mr. Fury? Smooth move.”

  “Hey, I didn’t just pick her, okay? Others joined later too.”

  “Oh really?”

  “If all I wanted was to breed, I wouldn’t have made her a royal guard.”

  “Because I’m awesome, Your Highness!”

  “Whatever Freya, I won't argue anymore.”

  “You must have lots of concubines, Mr. Fury?”

  “Hey, kid—”

  Freya raised her voice.

  “He’s mine. Not sharing. Got it?”

  “Huh? I figured a guy like Mr. Fury would have whole rooms full of lovers.”

  “I’ve only got Freya.”

  “That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. He’s just obsessed with me.”

  “It is. Most unusual man on the island, Nora, I tell you that.”

  “Come on, Your Highness! Back me up here!”

  “You back me up first! That was twenty years ago! Now I’ve only got a wife, alright?!”

  “NoW i’Ve oNly gOt a WifE, aLrIgHt!”

  “Two million years!”

  “…By the way.”

  Nora looked down, scribbling in her notebook. Then she looked up with a sudden question.

  “ Mrs. Freya… are you immortal?”

  “Immortal?”

  Beneath the vast ocean, scientists made a remarkable discovery not too long ago—a tiny jellyfish species capable of reversing its own life cycle. When its body begins to deteriorate near death, it reverts to the polyp stage, buds off a new body, and begins life anew. In theory, if undisturbed, it could repeat this cycle endlessly, defying death itself.

  “…That’s a strange question. Am I immortal? Hmm… I don’t really know.”

  Zeedee shrugged.

  “I’ve never reproduced or budded off a clone.”

  “You mean… even you don’t know whether you could do it or not, Freya? Then doesn’t that mean you might be able to bud yourself?”

  “I’ve never thought about it.”

  She said,

  “Even if I could, I wouldn’t want it. The meaning of my life isn’t to live forever. If the day ever comes when our kingdom is without Prince Fury… on that day…”

  Freya’s voice dropped low.

  “…I’d walk into the sea and sink to the bottom... probably somewhere quiet… let myself drift, and let it go...lie still forever.”

  The words made Nora freeze.

  Her writing hand stopped. She looked up.

  It was just a brief moment—but she could feel it. Freya meant every word.

  “Why are you getting all dramatic?”

  Suddenly, Dan threw an arm around Zeedee’s neck and gave her a playful noogie.

  “Ow ow ow! Your Highness! My gorgeous hair!!”

  “Does she look like someone with an academic mind, Nora? What were you expecting from her?”

  He smirked.

  “We’re not exactly prolific, you know. Freya and I have been trying for over a decade and not once have we succeeded.”

  “…Good grief. Then that Demon King…”

  According to books, records, and illustrations, Nora had always read that the Demon King had three heirs.

  “The King must be something else.”

  She had a mountain of other questions to ask, but it was far too many—especially now that the grilled fish had been reduced to bare bones tossed into the fire.

  “Let’s get some sleep. We’ve got morning training.”

  Dan poured water on the fire and tidied the area.

  Nora stood, brushed her long hair back, and packed her notebook.

  “Thank you very much for all your answers today, Mr. Fury.”

  “Bet you wrote down a ton. If you publish this as a book, I want royalties.”

  “I still have so many questions, Mr. Fury.”

  “Hey, you little sneak. Didn’t you and Your Highness agree on one question a day? Taking advantage of us, huh? You squeezed out like, two thousand questions today!”

  “Cut her some slack, Freya. Grilled fish saved her, didn’t it?”

  “I grilled those fish myself for you, you know!”

  “They were delicious, Freya.”

  “Hehe~ Your Highnessss~??”

  Nora (internally): It’s just plain grilled fish though…

  “Get home safe, Nora.”

  “I will, Mr. Fury.”

  The two sides waved goodbye to each other—

  As the scene faded into night…