Chapter Text
Rumors about Hargon's bizarre choice of first words spread like wildfire across the castle.
Once again, Lulu provided the most pedestrian explanation--he was most likely curious about what was around his mother's neck. Children were sponges of their environment. What people SHOULD be worried about--according to Lulu, at least--was when Sappho would build a fashionable nail salon on the island. They already had a hair one and several bath houses. The fact that Lulutopia had gone years without a place to be yassified was unacceptable!
"The walls should be tinted pink! With a white trimming! No, put that block there! Every chair needs a sink and a foot-bath underneath!" Lulu barked orders at the other villagers. "I want it to be in the pyramid, that's where most of the tourists are! We shouldn't be walking around looking like smelly peasants with no sense of style!"
"But most of us are smelly peasants with no sense of style," Dougie wiped the sweat from his forehead as he and his brother placed some of the blocks.
"I know, but I don't want OTHERS to think that--" Lulu shouted.
"We've run out of pink dye." Sappho hovered over her tint cauldron.
"THEN MAKE MORE!" Lulu huffed.
"This island doesn't have any dye." Sappho went back through the blueprint.
"Then I guess you'll have to get some more from another island!" Lulu replied.
"My youngest child JUST learned how to speak a MONTH ago and you want me to go on a week-long voyage to another island by myself?" Sappho craned her neck around.
"Fine! Send that brute Malroth to find it!"
"You are just the absolute worst sometimes." Sappho groaned. "Fine, but you'll have to go with him."
"ME!? Are you mad!?" Lulu pronounced.
"You're right, that'd be a nightmare for Malroth. I won't do that to him, the poor guy still has nightmares from what f*cking HARGON put him through." Sappho lamented. "I can only picture what mental and emotional damage being stuck with YOU would do."
"Dammit, you!" Lulu stomped her feet. "Don't compare me to him!"
Hargon rolled his eyes in a nearby portable baby carrier. Yes, please don't, vile builder.
Anessa, being the selfless woman that she is, volunteered to go with Lulu to fetch the materials for the pink dye. The voyage would take about 1-2 weeks. Malroth, Sappho, and Haydin saw her off as the two women boarded the ship captained by Brownbeard. Haydin recited a poem he wrote for the occasion while Malroth and Sappho breathed a sigh of relief.
"I swear she's more whiny than the kids sometimes." Sappho shook her head while the boat sailed out of eyeshot.
"Only sometimes?" Malroth turned to his wife, making her chuckle.
"I love you," Sappho gave her husband a peck on the cheek. "Let's go to the Garden Gardens. We haven't talked to Rosie and Perry in a while. I wonder what they're up to."
Rosie and Perry had a large, rustic farmhouse that overlooked the fields. There was never a single quiet moment between the animals, the children, and the farmhands. Rosie was tiling a plot of sugar cane when she was tapped lightly on the shoulder. "Lady Sappho! Sir Malroth! What brings you here? I thought you were both busy in the Scarlet Sands."
"We ran into a roadblock; we ran out of materials so we sent Anessa to go get some." Sappho explained.
"I'm sorry to hear that, but I guess that sort of thing happens." Rosie adjusted her glasses, "Here things are going pretty well; we just finished pouring fresh water into the sugar cane fields. Thanks for leaving your special pot here. It's been a life-saver. So how are things at the castle?"
"Lloyd said his first words, and Lizzie's seventh birthday is in a month." Sappho recounted.
"How wonderful! What were they?" Rosie clapped her hands together.
"'I want that key'," Malroth quoted.
"That's...strange...how did a one-year-old learn how to use a full sentence? My four-year-old can't even do that." Rosie was understandably confused.
"We honestly don't know. He's been a weird kid since day one, honestly...," Sappho posed, "Maybe some of Malroth's divine genes? But then again, Lizzie and Victoria are both perfectly normal kids who grew at a perfectly normal rate. Meanwhile Lloyd is developing his skills at an alarmingly fast rate. It's like he unlocked some kind of cheat-code."
"'Cheat-code'?" Rosie and Malroth both glanced at the builder in confusion.
"Sappho, no offense, but maybe you're the one with the weird genes--" Perry was promptly lifted up by the neck and into a choke-hold by a furious Malroth.
"What'd you say 'bout MY WIFE?" Malroth's anger-aura grew as Perry's skin turned blue.
"N-Nothing," Perry begged. "P-Please let me down, Mr. Malroth, I was only kiddin'--"
"YOU BETTER HAVE BEEN!" Malroth threw the farmhand across the room, nearly breaking the wall in the process out of sheer force. The former god stormed out of the room. "C'mon Sappho, let's get out of 'ere."
As Malroth and Sappho prepared to leave, Rosie spoke up. "I'm sorry for what Perry said, but you can come over anytime! I'm sure Lizzie and Victoria would like to have play-dates with our kids."
"Yeah, it might be good to get them out of the castle...," Sappho nodded. "Alright, they can come over for Lizzie's birthday!"
Hargon knew that it was only a matter of time before he'd be back up on his feet--literally. Time seemed unbearably slow right now, but it was beginning to plug along. He was now capable of speech, and with every passing day his walking was getting better and better. He went from falling to his knees within mere minutes to being able to go across the large banquet hall in a matter of months. He still had difficulty with stairs and wasn't tall enough to open door knobs, but that would be fixed in a matter of time.
He still had to eat and sleep, which hadn't changed. He REALLY took his magical prowess for granted. Thankfully he no longer had to rely on the milk of a desert prostitute. The same meal every single day. Now he was able to eat a variety of blended-up veggies and fruits straight from the fields of the Green Gardens.
So there was progress; insufferably slow, but progress all the same.
Now Hargon had to focus on regaining his ability to use demonic magic. He needed access to the ancient texts that laid deep within the Children of Hargon's most private libraries, but it was likely those had been abandoned or destroyed. He needed some sort of staff to help cultivate and release magical force at will. He needed some sort of cauldron or an altar to brew the energy.
There was a regular altar to the Goddess in the castle, and a library with a few texts on magic. He did sense that there was a source of magic within the castle that someone was skilled enough to cultivate. It was on the east side of the castle in the library; but unfortunately it was behind the forbidden doorway to Sappho's private study.
Did the Builder find a means to cultivate magic for her own horrid ambitions? Was he seducing Master Malroth to harness his powers? Hargon wouldn't put it past her. Not to mention that it'd also make her a complete hypocrite on top of being a vile builder. How could she have the gall to attack HIS cult for trying to awaken Malroth's true form for their ambitions while ALSO using the Master of Destruction's power for HER own gains? The thought made his blood boil.
What's worse is that while Lizzie was a copy of his father Malroth, Victoria had his tan skin while having her mother's hair color, he was trapped with looking like a gender-swapped version of Sappho. The same blond hair, the same skin tone, and even the same facial shape. Even if he enacted his revenge against Sappho, it was likely that every time he looked in the mirror he'd see...her looking back at him.No matter what, she would haunt him until the day he died (again).
For now, he had to bear with the builder family's facade of domestic bliss. And unfortunately, that meant dealing with birthday parties, play-dates, and other interactions with tiny humans.
The farmhands from the Green Gardens brought their gaggle of obnoxious children; Tom (9), Al (7), and Sharon (4). Their fourth child was at home sick, so that was one less brat to deal with.
Lizzie sat in front of a giant sponge cake with seven candles placed atop of it. Her eyes gleamed brightly as the girl blew into it before being cut the largest piece. She stuffed the cake down her throat, barely bothering to use a single fork or knife. Again, these gullible idiots clapped and cheered because a child ate something and managed to survive another year, as if that was some sort of accomplishment.
Hargon sat in the corner in his high chair as he watched the chaos of children (and young people at heart) begging for larger pieces that had the most frosting on it.
"No fair, you got the one with the more sprinkles!" Victoria pouted.
"Hey, can I like the bottom of the plate when you're done cutting it?" Malroth asked as Sappho chuckled.
"Ew, gross, Mr. Malroth!" Sharon squirmed.
"I did the most chores this week, so I should get a bigger piece than Tom!" Al pointed at his older brother.
"I should have the bigger one 'cause I'm older!" Tom shoved a piece into his throat.
I hate all of them. I view all of the humans in this room with contempt.Hargon stared up at the chandelier in boredom. Maybe if he acted tired they'd take him back to his room? Hargon pretended to yawn, "This is exhausting! Escort me to my bedchambers!"
Sappho's head turned to Esther, who picked Hargon up and took him away from the place. Despite him being upstairs, he could still hear the loud noises coming from downstairs...along with a conversation between the head of the Green Gardens, Rosie, and Sappho.
"So...did those words really come from that one-year-old's mouth? I don't even talk that formally." Rosie whispered. "He really IS weird. And I don't approve of how my husband said it...but he might be onto something. Lloyd's a lot more like you than he is Malroth."
"What?" Sappho blinked.
"I must agree with Lady Rosie on this," Esther admitted. "You are a prodigy builder, the most intelligent person I know; not only that, you're charismatic enough to sway the King of Moonbrooke, not to mention dozens...no, hundreds of people to help you reach your goals and abandon their religion. You're able to adjust clever strategies on the fly and construct complex blueprints that can turn the tide of wars in mere minutes. It's more likely that he inherited those traits of genius from you."
"Are y'all just sayin' I'm the dumb one?" Malroth scowled as he licked off frosting from the cake.
"I mean not to offend you, Sir Malroth," Esther spoke softly. "It's just that Lady Sappho is more...eloquent."
"What the f*ck does that mean?" Malroth growled.
"Eloquent means well-spoken," Sappho answered only for Malroth to continue to stare with confusion. The builder cleared her throat, "I can use fancy words."
"Oh, yeah...I can't really argue with y'all there." Malroth shrugged. "I'm more o' action guy than a talkin' one."
"Can I have another piece of cake?" Lizzie interrupted. "It's MY birthday! You should be talking about ME!"
"Very well, Lady Elizabeth," Esther elegantly sliced the cake and placed it onto the seven-year-old's dish.
Lizzie devoured the last slice cake as the children divulged into more arguments before being interrupted by Sappho clapping her hands together. "PRESENT TIME, LIZZIE!"
Lizzie stood up on her chair and was about to leap on the table, slamming the other children's plates and making many of them cry. "GIMMIE! GIMMIE! GIMMIE!"
"Sit down first," Sappho ordered. "Neither of your younger siblings were this immature on their last birthdays! You're seven years old now, you should be a better role model for your younger siblings!"
"FINE," Lizzie pouted as she sat back down.
"Here, I made this. Your very first weapon. A cypress stick." Sappho handed a wooden club to her eldest daughter with a proud look on her face.
"I don't get an Aurora Sword Orichilcum 3.4 update version that YOU have?" Lizzie's face fell with disappointment as she held the gift.
"Not for another ten years." Sappho shook her head, "You'd slice your eye out."
A few months later, Hargon had finally mastered how to walk up staircases again. He was still a few inches short of being able to reach the doorknob. Nonetheless, it was nice actually being able to walk through the castle on his own two feet. Sadly, he was still always watched over by one of the castle guards or Esther for what he assumed was safety reasons, so he couldn't sneak around that much. Esther wasn't particularly strict, however. He was able to convince the nun to take him to the library each day with ease. Victoria also loved the library, so it didn't seem suspicious one bit.
The magic textbooks were on the top shelf, again for safety reasons; but he would no longer be deterred. If revenge against the builder were to ever happen, Hargon needed to regain his magical abilities. He probably wouldn't have the same as he did as a demon king, that much he knew; but there were some powerful humans witches and wizards throughout history. He couldn't stand to be a regular, powerless human for much longer.
"Why're you tryin' to get the books at the top!" Victoria had climbed up the ladder for him. Her interest had been sparked by Hargon telling her a little bit about magic, so she followed her brother to search for some.
"It's the burgundy-colored textbook on your left!" Hargon shouted.
"What's burgundy?" Victoria asked.
"It's dark red!" Hargon clarified.
"OK. I think my head's starting to feel a lil funny," Victoria's forehead was turning blue as she leaned on her heels. Her slim little arms finally picked up the book as she then fell immediately on top of Hargon. Thankfully, their fall was cushioned by a nearby domesticated slime from Skelkatraz named Splodger Splodgington Oozequire.
"T-T-Thank the Goo-ddess! I-It's a goo-d thing I got there in slime!" Splodger Splodgington Oozequire said. "What's the book, kids?"
"'Enchantments & Spells of the Legendary Mage Serenica, Vol I'," Hargon read aloud.
"I've heard 'bout her! She was the great-great-something of the two mages who helped Erdrick's ancestor's...ancestor's, Erdwin!" Victoria peaked her head around.
"Indeed. These spells are thousands of years old. They must've stood the test of time for a reason." Hargon nodded. The book was basically as large as he was at the moment, so he had Victoria flip through it with him.
It was amateur hour, but that was to be expected. It was the first volume in a 26-book collection that began with the very basics and slowly led up to more advanced spells. The reason why Hargon chose to begin with the first volume was to see if there were differences in how to start the core of one's magic energy between demons and humans.
As it turns out, there was. A BIG one.
You had to connect with the World Tree, Yggdrasil, provider of life and light. Human magic was light, soft, and flowed through the blood veins like rays of sunshine.
Demons got their magic power inherently from the darkness, something that was much heavier and weighed down on the body. If he were to try to use demonic techniques as a human, it would literally eat away at his lifespan, health, and mind until you died. Only a handful of wizards or witches were able to even get to the point of using spells in a battle setting. All of them died prematurely. The most successful was a man named Wei Wuxian, but he died by the age of 23. Dying was something that Hargon DID NOT want to go through again, thank you.
Hargon would have to start from square one if he wanted to live past the age of 30 in this puny human body he was now trapped in.
"You look like y'all got somethin' on your mind." Victoria mentioned as she watched Hargon flip through the pages.
"It's going to take more work than I thought." Hargon bit his lip. It was like every time he made some progress, a new roadblock made itself apparent.
"Well, duh! People dedicate their 'ole lives to this sorta thing!" Victoria looked up at him.
"Hm," Hargon paused as he gazed over at his older sister, who kept trying to read the small, slightly faded print on the frail pages.Victoria cradled her chin in between her hands as she tried to keep up with Hargon.The two children read until they collapsed from exhaustion. Once again, the prison slime watched over them.
Malroth walked into the room. "Ah, there they are! Hey Slodger! What's goin' on?"
"The children were reading about magic. You might want to have someone accompany them next time. Miss Victoria nearly fell off trying to get a book for Mister Lloyd! It was a goo-d thing I was here!" Slodger explained.
"Magic, huh? My kids are a bunch of real nerds." Malroth folded his arms before propping both children up on his shoulders. "C'mere, your mom's gonna give me an ear full if you catch colds for sleepin' on the ground."
"Master Malroth...I can get through...just one more chapter...I promise," Hargon groaned in his sleep.
"I wanna learn Kazapple...," Victoria murmured. "Shiny pretty light thing...,"
Chisaki Suzuki snuck out of bed while everyone in the castle was sound asleep to get her hour of checking up on what was going on back home. She unlocked her private study, made sure that the door was shut, and opened her laptop.
The events of 2025 on Earth were a trip.
By some miracle, Joe Biden was reelected by a difference of less than 500 votes, he died of old age before his second inauguration, leading Kamala Harris to be the first woman of color to be president. Drumpf committed suicide in his Manhattan apartment while under house arrest. The conservative states were not happy with this since that meant that they'd have to treat a black woman with respect, and it launched into a full-out civil war with the south and the Midwest succeeding from the union, creating The Neo-Confederacy of Gilead.
NATO and its partners (including her homeland of Japan) were pulled into it due to economic reasons, and now there was a draft of every man, woman, and even non-binary person fit enough to serve in most developed countries. Again, including Japan, which hadn't had a military in decades. Her cousin, who was only 13 when she left, had been drafted to the front lines in an encampment between Iowa and Missouri. Pictures of him standing in NATO military uniform with his new French and South Korean army buddies were posted all over her Instagram feed.
Surprisingly, Russia and China decided to chill out and watch the West destroy itself. There were rumors that the night before the first major battle that took place outside of Tulsa, Arizona, Putin and Xi Jinping drunk champagne on a private jet and toasted to the collapse of western civilization. Two of the biggest assholes on the planet were sitting back in a co*cktail lounge in the sky while innocent people died.
So yeah, that was happening, and she couldn't talk about any of that to anyone without looking insane.
Chisaki closed her laptop and lied to herself that she would look away tomorrow night instead of doom-scrolling. She locked the door behind her. "Goodnight Earth,"
Months passed, and he was nearing the third anniversary of being trapped in this human cage of a body by King-Purple-Jacket-Man. He had read all 26 volumes and was now going through the again to see if there was anything he missed.
"Hey, you've been in here for...hours. Every single day. Aren't you gonna play outside? It's really nice." Malroth piqued his head into the library. It was the transition time between spring and summer when it wasn't a burning hellhole but it also wasn't freezing.
"I'm busy, Master." Hargon jotted down another note.
"Y'all keep callin' me that. That's a lil' weird." Malroth blinked. "Yeah, I'm your dad so...I do have the final say in things...so I guess you're wrong? Look, the point is...your mom 'n I are really worried about you lately. Why don't you bring that book outside and you can just sit by a tree and read it?"
"Of course, Master." Hargon shut the book tightly.
Hargon leaned against a tree in the meadows south of the castle as he flipped through the pages of one of Serenica's book.
"In order to establish a thread to the World Tree, you must first master meditation. Try thinking about nothing for at least an hour a day in order to clear your mind. Once your mind is cleared, you will be transported to an empty plane called 'Purgatory', which exists to connect Malhalla to Yggidrasil. Either a long-dead hero or a holy being known as a 'Celestrian' should guide you through your journey to connect with the World Tree's energy."
"Once you have successfully connected with the World Tree, you'll receive one of her leaves which will be implanted in your soul. That will live within you until the day you die and return to her branches as a new blossom."
