Chapter 1
A rain of arrows poured. The trees, stripped leafless, could do nothing to shield the fleeing figure. Sharp tips whizzed as they flew, relentlessly chasing the small back that stumbled on ahead.
Damn it all! A cry of rage rang through the birch forest.
“Aim properly, damn you!”
The one who had shouted came to a panting halt with heavy breaths. They had been racing without rest up the sloping path, and white breath hung thick around the mouths of those who had stopped.
“The arrows won’t fly, Captain. There’s no power behind them.”
The gasping men began to protest as if they had been waiting for the chance. Their point was that, though there was not a breath of wind, the arrows would barely fly at all, veering off in the wrong direction.
The captain leading the five assassins turned to look at the target slipping away, his narrowed eyes flashing with fierce bloodlust.
“Shut your mouth. We’ll lose her at this rate. Split up now and go after the Princess.”
“How do we signal that we’ve caught her?”
“Just kill her. Dump the body in the forest. Take only the Princess’s hair, neatly cut, to offer to Her.”
The moment the order was given, the assassins all drew thick ropes from their coats. Without delay, they kicked off the ground and climbed the birches. Hunting fugitives was their trade. Scaling trees to fly through the forest was nothing to them.
The five black-hooded assassins soared between birches whose white bark seemed to glow. Their bodies were as swift as the arrows they’d let loose, and soon they caught up with the Princess as she staggered along the forest path.
Long black hair streaming behind her, the Princess desperately ran until at last she pitched forward. Her slender frame tumbled wildly over the moss-thick forest path, crashing down in the middle of a dense stretch of grass.
The black wings that marked her a succubus weakly flapped in vain. They soon went limp like wet leaves in the rain.
The assassins landed one after another, the damp moss swallowing the sound of their feet. In the gloom, the daggers they drew from their belts gave off a sinister gleam, the five of them closing in around the Princess, who lay facedown and unmoving.
“Youngest, check if she’s still breathing.”
“What’s there to check? Just cut her throat as she is…”
“When I tell you to do something, you do it, you little brat!”
The assassin standing by the Princess’s legs hissed in rage. At his outburst, Doran’s limp wings twitched. The assassins quickly raised the daggers in their hands and fell into an attack formation.
“You woke her up, you dumb bastard. Don’t you know the Princess is a succubus?”
“You can barely call her a demon, anyway. She can’t even use her powers.”
“She’s still the Demon King’s daughter.”
The Princess they were hunting was Doran, Fourth Princess of the Demon Kingdom. The Demon King had fathered her after falling in love with a forest spirit during one of his conquests, and she was famed for her extravagant beauty. The forest spirit who had borne Doran had died under a god’s curse, and the Demon King, out of guilt, had cherished the Princess with particular care.
He already had seven princesses by the current Queen. The extent to which he doted on Doran was more than enough to enrage the Queen. As the Demon King’s strength waned and the struggles of succession began in earnest, the Queen’s hysteria toward Doran reached its peak.
“Her Majesty wants the hair whole and unblemished. Cut it carefully. Understand?”
The assassins nodded. The one they called Youngest knelt beside the Princess, taking her by the shoulder. Turning her over revealed the visage of the Princess who had been facedown in the grass. At the sight of her face, every one of them instinctively held their breath, widening their eyes.
Skin white as snow, lips a cherry red. Hair as black as ebony. They could see why they called her the reincarnation of Snow White. Born of the Demon King and a spirit, the Princess beguiled all who looked upon her with her mysterious magic.
An alluring succubus. A kind and lovely princess.
Seeing Doran barely breathing, her pale face damp with sweat, the assassins forgot what they had come to do and simply stood there, dazed.
A succubus by nature lived by taking in another’s essence. But Doran felt guilt toward the natural order of her kind. She absorbed only enough life to keep breathing, and so her body was always frail.
The Demon King’s blood in her veins did little. Her frailty only further unsettled the hearts of the assassins sent to harm her. What should we do, they asked one another, and before they knew it, they had slipped their daggers back into their belts. They had never seen the Princess from so close, and the awe her allure inspired was overwhelming.
It was then that Doran, having caught her breath, slowly parted her lips.
“Are your orders from the Queen?”
The voice that spilled from those slender scarlet lips was far too sweet, bringing forth ecstasy that seemed not of this world. A sound so pure and gentle that it even melted the cold hearts of these assassins who knew only bloodthirst and cruelty.
“Will she only be satisfied once I am gone at last?”
The Princess’s slight shoulders trembled. In the end, she could not go on, only able to bite her lip. Any moment now, that flesh of vivid red looked as if it might split and bleed.
When the Princess shed her weary tears, the assassins could no longer resist. They kneeled where they stood and bowed their heads, confessing their sins as they begged forgiveness. Loudest was the Youngest, who had said they should simply cut her throat.
“What did she want of you? I doubt the order was to kill me gently.”
“The Queen… Sh-She… She commanded us to take Your Highness’s hair.”
Ah, Doran sobbed. She turned her head as if she could not bear to hear another word.
“How cruel. Is my life not enough? Must she take my hair?!”
The assassins could only breathe in ragged breaths, for they had no answer.
The Demon King’s kingdom was always dry, most of its land now barren. From peasants to royalty, the people’s skins were rough, their hair especially dry and dull. Such was the fate of those born in the Demon Kingdom.
The women of the Demon Kingdom went to great lengths to care for their lengthy locks, with treatment oils and wraps of cloth. Even so, in the face of such relentless arid air, stiff and coarse and split became their hair.
But Doran was different. The forest spirit’s heritage had made her beauty itself, her porcelain skin drawing every gaze. But the Fourth Princess’s true allure lay in those abundant locks of long, glossy black.
None in the kingdom possessed such hair, nor was it something money could buy. Such was the nature of Doran’s obsidian blacks, and such was why the Queen coveted it so. Even if it meant taking her life.
Doran lifted her head, sensing her fate. The dense grass stretched on without end, and there seemed no path by which she might escape.
The trunks of the birches, wrapped in white, swayed in the dark with the faintest light. Doran gazed in silence at those tall, proud birches, taking in the white. Rounded blacks in glowing bark, where the trees pruned their branches to leave eye-like marks.
“I suppose I must go quietly, for your lives’ sakes at least.”
“Your Highness…”
“The Queen has a magic mirror, does she not? No one will be able to deceive her.”
With both hands, Doran gathered her lengthy hair and lifted what she held, baring the back of her pale, delicate nape.
“Please, let there be no pain. Please, end my breath in a single stroke.”
The assassins were stunned by the Princess’s bearing as she relinquished herself and prepared for death. Their captain had not shown himself, which left them all the more at a loss.
And so, faced with a princess who asked for death, the hesitant assassins split in two. Some wished to defy the Queen and go back as they were, while others wanted to take the Princess’s life before anyone arrived.
“Fucking hell! If I go back without killing the Princess, I’m the one who’s dead!”
One assassin flew into a rage, snatching the dagger hidden at his belt. As he lunged at the Princess, a fight broke out between those who meant to kill and those who meant to save. Grating shrieks of metallic chaos rang through the air as blade met blade.
Soon, the five assassins were tangled together, trading blows with their fists, brawling in the grass around the Princess in a free-for-all.
The Princess was already exhausted from the relentless chase. She had left the castle to rest at a villa because she was unwell, and thus she had come to pass through this remote forest path.
The day had already faded, and the forest depths chilled the bone. Watching the assassins fight, the Princess, bewildered, trembled as if she might shatter. Unable to endure the fatigue and cold, her body slowly crumpled backward.
Soon she collapsed completely, consciousness now gone. And then that sound began to chime, from beyond the grass where she’d gone down.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong…
There was a story told throughout the kingdom. A sound none born in the Demon Kingdom could fail to know. The sound of terrifying legend, ringing closer and clearer for the Princess as it tolled.
The fighting assassins all froze. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong… The sound grew stronger, closing in around the grass.
Do you hear that? We have to get out of here now. Then what about the Princess! If we keep listening, we’ll go mad! The assassins each shouted one by one, then fled from the sound in the opposite direction as they tried to run.
Ding-dong, ding-dong. Run if the forest’s deep bells toll, for it is the reaper come to take your soul.
When the assassins, never looking back, had vanished beyond the forest… Ding-dong, ding-dong… The source of the ringing bells pushed through the grass.
They were lovely dwarves with hair dyed red, yellow, blue, and green, each blinking with the same-colored eyes as they assessed the scene. Realizing at once what happened, they rushed toward the Princess lying on the ground.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong…
The ringing refused to end. Little bells the dwarves had tied to each other’s wrists so they wouldn’t lose their way in the forest. The four dwarves gripped the cord that linked their wrists, then ran to Doran and dropped down.
Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green, in turn, pressed an ear to Doran’s chest. They blinked in silence, exchanging glances amongst themselves.
Green was the first to rise. Through her glasses, she scanned the surrounding forest with care. Then, examining the trampled, torn grass, she gave a large nod. The dwarves who had been sitting followed Green and stood.
Red took Doran’s head, Yellow her back, Blue her hips, and lastly, Green her legs. Then they lifted her high above their heads.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong…
Ringing their bells, they carried Doran into the forest depths. Soon Doran, the bells, and the dwarves all vanished without a trace.