IDDYD 01

Chapter 01

In the Parthia Empire, the name Alice Erdin carried immense prestige.

The heir to the Erdin dukedom, the flower of high society, a genius mage who might only appear once in a thousand years.

She was the object of admiration for everyone, regardless of age or gender.

In other words, in her dictionary, mistakes simply could not exist.

Alice Erdin had to be perfect in every way. That was the weight carried by the Erdin Dukes, a family that had produced great mages for generations.

In that sense, Alice could not understand the situation she had found herself in.

“What… what is this?”

A fierce wind swept through her private laboratory along with a dazzling white light that filled the room, emanating from the magic circle she had drawn on the floor.

The spell she intended to cast was supposed to be a large-scale teleportation magic—not one that would send objects flying around the lab as if a storm had broken loose.

‘What went wrong? The formula was definitely correct…!’

Her elaborate blonde hair was blown into disarray by the wind, obstructing her vision, yet she focused solely on finding the problem in her magic circle.

She planned to wait until the wind subsided and then carefully examine which part of the magic circle had gone wrong.

“Huh? Something…?”

It was then that she realized something was amiss.

A silhouette appeared in her sight.

Alice was alone in the lab. There should have been no silhouette.

She brushed her hair aside to see clearly and confirmed the figure’s identity.

A man stood atop her magic circle. His hair was neatly white, his skin pale, and he wore a pristine white uniform.

Everything about him, from head to toe, was white, as if light itself had taken human form.

When he opened his eyes, his purple irises revealed themselves beneath long lashes.

The scene looked like a painting—one that might hang in the central hall of a grand temple.

Even Alice, who had grown up as a high-ranking noble with a cultivated sense of aesthetics, could not tear her eyes away from his beauty.

“Wait, purple eyes?”

Alice snapped back to reality.

A warning sounded in her mind. A dangerous thought had crossed her head.

Just in case, she extended her hand forward, preparing for a potential threat.

“Who are you? How did you get in here?”

Alice’s lab was within the Erdin family estate, protected by multiple layers of magical barriers.

No ordinary person could have entered.

As she prepared to cast a binding spell to send him to the underground prison, the man smiled.

“You seem to have guessed my identity.”

He spoke with a gentle, melodious voice that matched his stunning appearance—words that made no sense to Alice.

Alice frowned, and he added:

“I’m a demon.”

“……What?”

“A demon. I came through the magic circle over there.”

He even pointed politely at the circle on the floor, but his courtesy barely registered with her.

The first words he had spoken were too shocking.

“…A demon? You?”

“Yeah.”

“A… like the ones in fairy tales, with horns on their heads, doing bad things, summoning monsters… that kind of demon?”

“Your imagination is crude, but that’s basically right. No horns, though.”

He muttered about how human imagination hadn’t progressed in hundreds of years, but Alice had no energy to care about such trivial complaints.

‘A demon? Did I really summon a demon?’

She had hoped it wasn’t true until she saw those purple eyes, which only demons could possess.

The Parthia Empire, home to the Erdin Dukes, was a nation devoted to the goddess Ferdia.

Given the Empire’s devotion, it was natural that they rejected demons, beings opposed to the gods.

For Alice, a citizen of Parthia, having summoned a demon was a serious problem.

Summoning a demon in the Empire was a capital offense.

If it were discovered that the heir of the ducal family had summoned a demon, not only she, but the entire family could be destroyed.

Grasping her predicament, Alice screamed in frustration, clutching her head.

“This is impossible!”

“What’s impossible? You even drew the magic circle yourself.”

“I didn’t summon a demon because I wanted to! The magic circle I drew wasn’t meant for this!”

Alice pointed at the scattered sheets of paper on the floor, shouting.

Her usual calm and elegant speech had vanished.

The demon picked up one of the papers, glanced back and forth between it and the floor, and then pointed to the center of the magic circle.

“This is where it went wrong.”

“What?”

“This part. On the paper, this line is straight, but on the floor it’s slightly curved.”

Alice snatched the paper and checked. As he said, one line in the magic circle on the floor was subtly off from the paper.

“Looks like you’re quite a magician yourself. You can even draw such a complex circle.”

The demon’s admiration did not reach Alice’s ears.

“I made a mistake? The elite among elites, I messed up one line and summoned a demon? Me, this genius mage?”

She could hardly believe she had made a mistake, and now she might be executed for a single misdrawn line.

The demon watched the flustered Alice with amusement and gave a noble bow.

“Shall I introduce myself properly? I am the demon Aiden. I can grant anything you wish.”

“…Anything?”

“Yes. Money, honor, power, revenge, even love for someone. Anything. As long as your wish or desire is in it.”

Aiden stepped closer, grabbed her arm, and lightly pulled her toward him.

Startled, Alice’s body moved unresistingly toward him.

He whispered into her ear, his enchanting voice tickling her:

“So, what is it that you want to achieve?”

“What I want to achieve…”

Alice, as if entranced, stared into the void, then sharply withdrew her hand from his and pointed at the fading magic circle.

“You go back to the Demon Realm.”

“……”

“Disappear. Right now.”

In conclusion, Alice failed to send Aiden back to the Demon Realm.

Once a demon is summoned to the human world, it must grant at least one wish from the summoner to return.

But Alice had no wish for him. She didn’t particularly care whether Aiden granted a wish or not.

Seeing Alice’s indifferent expression, Aiden asked curiously:

“Why bother sending me away when you summoned a demon? This is your chance to have a wish fulfilled.”

“I have no wish.”

“Don’t lie. What human doesn’t have a wish?”

“Right here. I already have wealth, honor, and power.”

“Still, you must have a dream you want to achieve.”

“Not right now. Even if I did, I could achieve it on my own—why rely on a demon’s power?”

“…You’re really an annoying human, huh?”

“True enough.” Alice shrugged.

She truly had no interest in making a deal with a demon.

Aiden muttered quietly to himself:

“…This wasn’t part of the plan.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

Pretending he hadn’t said anything, Aiden smiled at Alice.

Alice, holding a piece of chalk, looked at him with a sigh:

“So, you’d better go back to your world. I’ll redraw the magic circle for you.”

“Do you even know what the return circle does?”

“Just draw the same one as before, right?”

“The one you drew earlier connects the human world and the Demon Realm, but it’s also a summoning circle. If another demon comes out, you’ll have to make a contract with it too.”

“……”

Alice froze. She could not risk drawing a new summoning circle to send an already summoned demon back.

“Then… still want to draw it?”

As if reading her mind, Aiden smirked playfully.

Alice sighed deeply at his infuriatingly beautiful smile.

“…So, what do you want?”

“Hm?”

“You want to stay in the human world, don’t you?”

“You’re quick to understand.”

Aiden stepped closer to Alice, smiling softly.

She pushed him back slightly, but their distance closed again.

Meeting her gaze, he smiled gently:

“I have a proposal for a deal. How about it?”