PWH C18

When Gabby appeared, the people around me flinched and quickly scattered. It really didn’t seem like it was just my imagination… Still, I’d rather have Gabby nearby than a crowd of strangers, so I stayed where I was.

I resumed observing the crown prince. Noticing my unwavering gaze on the prince, Gabby leaned in and whispered urgently into my ear.

“Hey, are you crazy? Why are you staring at him like that?”

“He makes me uneasy.”

There was something off about the crown prince. A familiar sense—a feeling of kinship.

He was definitely human, but why did I feel this way? Could it be?

I considered a possibility. The crown prince might have made a contract with a demon. However, I quickly shook off that thought.

The empire rejects demons and worships angels. It made no sense for the empire’s crown prince to be a demon’s contractor.

It shouldn’t make sense, and yet—

‘I need to confirm it.’

If my powers weren’t sealed, I could have checked for demonic energy in the crown prince right here. Unfortunately, my current situation made it difficult without physical contact.

“I need to touch the crown prince.”

“What?! Are you insane? That’s not something you can just smooth over with compensation money!”

“……?”

What nonsense was Gabby spouting now?

Ignoring his words, I started thinking of a plan. How could I touch the crown prince naturally? If I kidnapped him, no one would suspect a thing, but—

Just then, the crown prince and Lady Clement finished their dance and stepped off the dance floor, perhaps to catch their breath.

Seeing that gave me an idea—a more natural way than kidnapping.

I strode confidently toward the crown prince.

“Crown prince, you will dance with me.” I held out my hand, demanding.

***

The surrounding nobles seemed shocked by my actions.

“Goodness! How could Lady Isabella be so rude!”

“As expected of the delinquent from the Dunkeld family. She never disappoints.”

It appeared that it was considered taboo for a woman to ask a man to dance first among the nobility.

These humans were so old-fashioned. They lived less than a hundred years, yet they were more uptight than demons who lived for centuries.

Ignoring the murmurs, I stared at the crown prince and demanded a dance. In the end, he reluctantly took my hand.

The musicians began playing the next tune, and the crown prince and I started dancing.

“It’s been a while, Isabella.” The crown prince addressed me with familiarity.

‘Isabella knew the crown prince.’

It wasn’t surprising that Isabella, a high-ranking noble, knew the crown prince. What did surprise me was his tone. He spoke to Isabella with a certain closeness.

Were they friends?

“It has been a while,” I responded vaguely. Since I wasn’t sure of the exact nature of their relationship, I had to tread carefully.

Crunch—!

As I moved awkwardly, I accidentally stepped on the crown prince’s foot. Well, it was my first time dancing a human dance, so it was bound to happen.

“If you’re hurt by this, you have no right to wear the crown of a ruler.”

Before the crown prince could demand an apology, I preemptively scolded him.

“It doesn’t hurt at all—”

Crunch—!

I stepped on his foot again, this time deliberately.

“Think of it as the weight of the people you’ll have to support in the future.”

The crown prince looked at me with a tense expression. It seemed as though he was trying not to laugh.

“—You can step on my foot as many times as you want, but you don’t have to say things like that.”

From that point on, the crown prince led the dance confidently. He was so skilled that my clumsy movements went unnoticed.

While we danced, I focused all my senses on my hand, trying to detect anything unusual about the crown prince’s body. It was faint, so faint that if I weren’t a demon lord, I wouldn’t have noticed it.

‘That’s a power.’

I couldn’t tell whose power it was, though.

Such a power was granted only to demon lords and archangels. More precisely, demons with power were known as lords, while angels with power were called archangels.

Sensing both power and demonic energy, I concluded that the crown prince must have formed a contract with one of the lords.

Only lords could create human contractors without my permission.

I held back my laughter. The situation was far too amusing.

As a demon, I found it delightful. The crown prince of an empire that worshipped the heavens had made a contract with a demon.

Oh, humans—how consistently foolish they could be. I didn’t know which lord had entangled themselves with the crown prince, but it was certainly entertaining.

“You seem to be in a good mood,” said the crown prince to me.

“Well, it’s not a bad mood.”

Since inhabiting this body, this was the best I’d felt.

“But, Isabella…”

The crown prince whispered in my ear, pausing for a beat before continuing, “You seem different somehow.”

“……”

Had he noticed? That Isabella’s soul had changed? It seemed I’d been complacent, assuming all the duke’s family members were oblivious.

Even if the crown prince had figured it out, I wasn’t particularly worried. I didn’t need to reveal that I wasn’t Isabella, but it wouldn’t be much of a problem if he found out.

‘I have leverage over him.’

That leverage being his contract with a demon.

The crown prince spoke slowly, “…You finally did it, didn’t you?”

“Did what?”

“That thing you said you’d do back then.”

“And what would that be?”

“……”

What was this guy playing at? Was he trying to provoke me?

“I’m not a mind reader. Speak clearly.”

The crown prince sighed deeply and said, “A contract with a demon. You finally made one, didn’t you?”

I froze upon hearing his words.

It seemed Isabella had told the crown prince she intended to make a contract with a demon. What on earth was their relationship?

Still, there was one thing the crown prince didn’t know—that the current Isabella was a demon in a human’s shell.

“…Yes.”

For now, I decided to play along.

The crown prince’s eyes darkened briefly, a reaction he quickly concealed, though I had already seen it.

He forced a bright smile. His lips curled upward, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes—it was hollow.

“Then why do you speak this way? Is it a side effect of the contract?” The crown prince tilted his head slightly as he asked.

What about my way of speaking? I felt a twinge of annoyance, sensing that he genuinely thought something was off.

“Yes. It’s because of the contract,” I answered with a pout.

We danced in silence for a moment.

“Ha. Isabella.” The crown prince sighed, looking at me with a conflicted expression. “I told you never to make a contract with a demon.”

“You’re ridiculous. You get to make a contract, but I can’t?”

“Well, that’s true.”

The crown prince quickly agreed with me, smiling as he added, “Besides, it’s not like you ever listen to anyone anyway. I should’ve expected this—it was my mistake.”

What was their relationship? The crown prince’s tone was so familiar.

He kept talking to me.

“By the way, Isabella, I never imagined you’d want to be my partner so badly.”

Hearing his words, I glanced at Lady Clement, who was watching us from outside the dance floor. The crown prince followed my gaze.

Lady Clement hurriedly averted her eyes when she noticed us looking at her. To be precise, she was avoiding the crown prince’s gaze, not mine.

She seemed frightened.

Could it be?

“So there’s someone else who knows your secret?”

The crown prince shrugged. “That young lady is more perceptive than expected.”

“She’s afraid of you. Then why did she accept your invitation to be your partner?”

“It wasn’t her choice.”

The crown prince continued, “The young marquis will do anything to make his sister the empress. He doesn’t care if the emperor has made a contract with a demon, as long as it puts his sister on the throne.”

“So, the young marquis knows your secret as well?”

“He doesn’t know about the contract with a demon. He only suspects I’ve gained power through dubious means.”

Why was the crown prince so loose-lipped? Did he think I was Isabella and decided to tell me everything? I looked at him with a puzzled expression.

“But Lady Clement knows about the demon contract.”

“……”

Something was wrong.

The atmosphere around the crown prince suddenly grew hostile, and I instinctively tensed my hand. The crown prince tightened his grip on my hand as well.

“Isabella, you told her, didn’t you?”

The way he’d been treating me felt strangely off since earlier.

“Are you angry that I told her?”

“Me? I’d never get angry at Isabella.”

The crown prince smirked at my question.

“But you—no, the one hiding behind Isabella’s face—I think I might just get angry at you.”

As he spoke, he squeezed my hand so tightly that blood stopped flowing.

“So, tell me. Who are you?” asked the crown prince coldly.