The Prince From Another World

A New Life

It all sounded like a crazy dream. A demon suddenly appeared in a girl’s room and marked her as his slave? Ridiculous. It sounded more like a plot straight out of a fantasy romance novel. But in Yumeko’s case, it wasn’t.

After Yumeko finished changing into her uniform in her bathroom, she walked up to the mirror above the bathroom sink. Pulling on her uniform top a bit, she could see the mark that the ‘man’- who called himself Yagrazeel- left on top of her left chest. It had the shape of a dragon head made out of strange black writing. She had never seen any of the words before, but she could read them for some reason. Well, more like how to pronounce them. She still didn’t understand what the whole sentence or symbol meant.

As she continued staring at the mark, she tried to recall everything that happened right up to that point.

After marking her as his property, the mysterious man immediately slumped down on her bed, falling into a deep slumber. On the other hand, Yumeko fell to the ground, left alone to recover from the immense pain she had to go through. She stayed on the floor for some time, breathing heavily.

Once she recovered, as any sane person would do, the first thing Yumeko did was report him to the police. Well, she tried to. Her hand was wrapped around her phone, but she couldn’t bring herself to dial the number. Forcing down her finger just made things worse. The mark on her chest glowed bright red each time, stopping her from pressing down and sending jolts of pain across her whole body. She almost dropped her phone the first time it happened.

Feeling frustrated and hopeless, Yumeko decided to get out of her own bedroom and slept on the sofa in the living room. She was hoping everything that just happened was all part of a crazy nightmare. Unfortunately for her, when she woke up the following day, both the mark and horned man remained.

Desperate and almost out of options, Yumeko tried attacking the demon prince directly with a kitchen knife. But the mark once more prevented her, sending her flying and crashing to the floor. As if there was an invisible force that pushed her away.

With no option left, Yumeko walked out of her room with her head hanged low. She concluded that the mark rendered her incapable of harming him, whether directly or not. On the other side, it also allowed her to read and speak in his language. Ever since the mark was embedded on her chest, she had been strange words floating around in her mind. Ones that didn’t fit any language in the world.

When Yumeko snapped back to the present, she made sure the mark was hidden before she walked out of the bathroom. She had to leave for her high school in a couple of hours, but the horned man was still in a deep sleep. So she prepared breakfast for him, then left a note in the man’s language, telling him she would return in a couple of hours. She made the note sound as apologetic as possible so as to not anger the mysterious man further.

With that all done, she left.

Other than forgetting about her homework, school went uneventful. Her friends noticed her spacing out a couple of times, but she just said it was because of her lack of sleep. She was lucky the mark was easily hidden underneath her top.

After a brief meeting with one of the teachers to talk about her scholarship, Yumeko left the school building. Near the school gate, she passed by her friends. They asked her to join them on a trip to the karaoke, but Yumeko refused, pretending that she had to go home quickly to study. They nodded understandingly, teased her a bit for studying all the time, then waved her goodbye as they walked away.

Obviously, she couldn’t tell them about last night. She didn’t want anyone else to get enslaved or hurt by the demon prince.

On the bus ride home, Yumeko contemplated her options. The mark prohibited her from doing anything that would endanger the man, so she couldn’t tell anyone that could face him. And that’s not taking into account the fact she didn’t know the true extent of his power. For all she cared, he could transform into a dragon and burn down the whole world.

And just like that, before she could really start thinking about it, she already reached the end of the road with one option left.

Continue being his slave and hope for the best.

Yumeko slowly lowered her head to the empty seat in front of her. She cursed her fate under her breath. Out of all the schoolgirls in the world, she just had to be the one experiencing this bizarre event.

What did I do to deserve this, honestly...?

“Where have you been!?” a loud voice boomed as soon as Yumeko stepped inside her apartment. It looked like her note and breakfast didn’t have much effect. The demon prince was standing right in front of the front door, eyebrows furrowed and hands crossed. His armor was nowhere to be seen, allowing Yumeko to see the black tank top hidden before.

And just as she suspected, although the man was talking in his language, she understood what he meant. It was out of reflex, but she responded to him in the same language.

“I-I had school! I needed to go!” she yelped.

“A slave has no need for school,” he growled, slowly making his way towards her.

“B-But-“ was all she could mutter as she backed herself to the front door. Within mere seconds, he reached her position.

“You dare defy my words?!” he slammed his fist onto the door with intense strength. His colossal figure was looming over Yumeko.

“N-No!” her mind scrambled all over the place, trying to come up with some sort of reason or excuse, so she wouldn’t need to drop out of school. It would be a disaster if her friends or even her parents visited her. They would either become his slave or die.

“Then give me a good reason on why I should allow you to continue attending,” the man crossed his arms, tapping his foot impatiently. It was clear she didn’t have much time to think of a good excuse, so she used whatever thought came first.

“I-If I drop out, people would get suspicious. It would attract unwanted attention to me, a-and to you!” she exclaimed. The man furrowed his eyebrows, considering her excuse. “S-Surely, you don’t want to attract unwanted attention?”

The demon prince closed his eyes for a second. “... It does make sense… Fine. I will allow you to continue, for now.”

Yumeko breathed out a sigh of relief as Yagrazeel walked away.

“I must say, human. Your world is truly unique,” Zeel said as he admired the lamp on the ceiling, then his gaze shifted to the television that was broadcasting some news. Yumeko realized she had forgotten to turn it off when she left for school.

“Y-Yes, it is,” Yumeko said as she took off her shoes.

“I’m your Master. And you will address me as such.”

“O-Of course! M-Master Yagrazeel,” she said as she walked up to him.

Zeel nodded, satisfied by how obedient his new slave was. “Zeel. You are wasting your breath saying my full name. Just use Zeel.”

“As you wish, Master Zeel.”

“Good. Now, tell me. I have been admiring this thing in your absence. How does it work? It seemed to have the same purpose as a Cryvis. Still, instead of crystals, it’s made out of glasses and this other weird material,” Zeel placed his hand on top of the television. He was admiring it all around and even tried to pull its plug out of the socket. 

“It is a television, Master. It receives radio waves and transforms them into pictures and sounds while being powered by electricity,” Yume explained. An explanation she entirely copied from her teacher in middle school. Since the words radio and television couldn’t be translated, she mentioned them in English.

“Television? Radio? Your inventor has a weird way of naming things,” Zeel turned his head toward her. His eyebrows were furrowed, but this time it wasn’t out of anger. Instead, he looked confused.

I mean, Cryvis is a weird name too…

“W-Well, they invented it. It is the inventors’ right to name their creation.”

“Not anymore. I shall change the name of this thing into... Tryvis. And anyone who still calls this television under my rule shall be executed.”

... W-What? There’s so much wrong in that one sentence.

“I-I’m sorry, Master, but I don’t think I get what you mean by ‘under your rule’,” she decided to ask him the most troubling thing of them all.

“Like I said, under my rule. For a slave attending school, you’re unbelievably dense,” Zeel said as he sat down on the sofa.

“Then please enlighten your ignorant slave, Master,” she said with a bit of a bow.

“Hmph. Farewell. What I meant was that I will be the king of this world. I shall build my kingdom and bring to it the same glory my father once brought to his kingdom. You are in school. Surely you learn about kingdoms and the likes.”

J-Just, who is this... man?! I thought he was just a mage!

“Y-Yes, but unfortunately, there is no such thing as a kingdom around here for at least a thousand years.”

“WHAT?!” Zeel immediately stood back up from the sofa, stomping his foot onto the floor. Yume had a feeling something terrible was going to happen when she explained everything to him.

“Most places nowadays choose to implement democracy, Master. People are chosen by everyone to become their leader.”

“A leader that is chosen by everyone?! OUTRAGEOUS!” he stomped his way to the television and threw it to the wall, breaking it in half and denting the wall at the same time.

I should have kept my mouth shut...

Yume could only stand there and watch when Zeel destroyed her TV. Not only did she have to clean up all the glass shards and repair the dented wall, but she also had to come up with a reason to tell her parents as to why her TV was split into two.

“But wait,” Zeel lifted a finger as a thought came to his head. His expression shifted from anger to pleasure.

“I have heard about this. Some human settlements implemented something similar. And their system allowed weak people to rise into power. Heh, maybe taking over this world would be much easier than I thought,” Zeel smirked at the thought.

A sigh of relief escaped Yumeko’s plump lips as the rest of her apartment was spared from further destruction.

“If that’s the case, then I need to recover as soon as possible. Human. Cook up a lunch for me. And you better make it taste better than what you served me for breakfast.”

“Of course, Master. I will start right away,” she said hurriedly.

Yume cursed herself for never practicing cooking when she could. Most of the food she ate was instant food that she bought from the market, delivery food, or instant noodles. And the breakfast she served him was just a food box from a grocery store that she heated up. Yumeko used to help her mom cook when she was still living with her parents, but she was never good at it.

As the young schoolgirl walked to her kitchen, she could only hope that her limited experience would suffice to satisfy his taste.