‘I’m sure someone flew into the sky from here! Did I see it wrong—?’

‘Good heavens! Oh my goodness! This house has a hole in the wall!’

Several days had passed since that night.

I waited endlessly for my dad to return home.

The broken wall had been repaired by the neighbors. Masha, the cook who worked for our house, took care of my meals.

But as the days dragged on, my doubts grew heavier.

‘Where in the world did Dad go, leaving me behind?’

Was the person I saw that day really my dad?

Yes, it had to be. It was undeniably his face.

Though his appearance had changed—dark marks around his eyes, horns on his head, and crimson pupils—it was still him. It couldn’t have been anyone else.

Even the villagers were bewildered by my dad’s disappearance. Never mind the wings; this man was known as the village’s ultimate “daughter fool.”

He was the kind of person who couldn’t even bear to leave his precious daughter for half a day, let alone an entire day.

And yet, the fact that a normal human being had sprouted wings and flown into the sky was far from ordinary.

A month passed like that.

Dad still hadn’t come back.

In the meantime, I discovered something peculiar. In Dad’s room, I found a mysterious vial of what seemed to be a magical potion.

The bottle was almost empty, as if someone had drunk most of it.

Could it be that Dad drank this potion and, just as he claimed, actually turned into a demon?

I carefully took the bottle and hid it in a place only I knew about.

Another month went by.

Dad still hadn’t returned.

Instead, strange news began circulating: the Church of the Holy Palace declared that Baal, the Great Demon King, had returned.

‘How is that possible?!’

People gossiped, saying it made no sense.

Baal, the king of all demons, the ruler of hell, the greatest demon lord of the Demon Realm, had supposedly been destroyed centuries ago.

The story went that Baldwin Pluto, the head of the Pluto ducal family and a holy knight, had obliterated Baal’s very soul.

And for centuries, there had been no sign of demonic energy plaguing the human world, which proved the story true.

However, the Demon Realm had been in turmoil ever since. Without their supreme leader, Baal, the demons had been fighting among themselves for power.

It was all the kind of tale you’d hear in children’s fairy tales.

‘But now they’re saying that same Great Demon King Baal has come back?’

The things Dad had said that night were turning out to be true.

I was stunned.

‘Did Dad really become the Demon King and abandon me?’

How could that be?

The news of Baal’s revival quickly reached Neverland.

“Crescent… Could it be? Are you really the daughter of the Great Demon King?”

“What?”

“Oh heavens above! I always thought it was strange how breathtakingly beautiful you and your father were!”

Masha nearly fainted as she ran off, leaving me behind. Rumors about my dad being the Great Demon King Baal were spreading rapidly.

People who had seen him take flight into the night with his black wings had spread the story.

The villagers who used to check in on me every day, worrying about my well-being, stopped coming altogether.

My dad, a Demon King? That was absurd.

‘Dad would never abandon me. He’s going to come back. He has to.’

So I resolved to eat well, sleep soundly, and stay healthy, so that Dad wouldn’t have to worry when he came home.

But as time passed, the food supplies in the house started to dwindle. Thinking about the potatoes growing in the garden, I went outside to fetch them.

“The Demon King’s daughter, get lost already!”

“!”

Startled, I froze in place as a rock flew toward me.

“I knew it! Strangers like you had no business settling in this village!”

“Leave Neverland!”

Frightened, I ran back into the house.

If my dad truly had turned into the Demon King, I wanted to grab him by the collar and demand that he take care of me.

‘Crescent, I’ll protect you forever.’
‘I’ll protect you forever too, Dad!’
‘Haha, then our little angel will need to eat a lot and grow big and strong.’
‘Okay! I’ll grow this much and become just like you, Dad!’
‘Hahaha.’

That happy exchange now felt like a mirage, slipping further and further away.

Dad had promised to protect me forever. But now, he’d left to become the Demon King?

It couldn’t be true…

The real trouble began the next night.

“Is this the place? The house where the demon was last sighted? There’s definitely traces of demonic energy here.”
“Yes. It’s this house. I’ve always thought it was suspicious. I mean, where in the world would you find a man that handsome?”
“Everyone knows how these two played their little demon games all the time! And to think we found it cute, not realizing they were real demons. How shameful!”

Listening to the murmurs, I hid behind the window and peered outside.

A group of men dressed in pristine white uniforms sat atop white horses. Even at a glance, they looked extraordinary. They were the holy knights of the Church of the Holy Palace.

‘They wouldn’t have come here to kill me… would they?’

Was it because I was the Demon King’s daughter?

But I wasn’t a demon. My dad was a good person.

The knights exchanged meaningful glances before one of them kicked the front door open. The entire house seemed to shake from the impact, and I staggered backward.

If they caught me, I would die.

That instinctive thought sent me fleeing before I even knew what I was doing. I slipped out through the back door and ran, and ran, and kept running.

With no parents and nowhere to go, there was only one place left for an eight-year-old child.

I barely managed to find an orphanage.

How far had I run from Neverland to reach this place?

Fortunately, the orphanage welcomed me.

“Oh my, what’s your name? Losing such a beautiful child… your parents must be heartbroken.”
“I don’t have parents.”
“What? No parents?”
“Yes. They both passed away.”
“Oh dear, you poor thing.”

The orphanage’s headmistress, Eva, believed my lie without question.

“And what’s your name…?”

Crescent Delight.

But I couldn’t use that name anymore.

It was a precious, lovely name my dad had given me, but now it was tainted with the label of being the Demon King’s daughter.

I blurted out the first name that came to mind.

“My name is Dallas.”

“Dallas. What a beautiful name. Don’t you worry anymore. Our orphanage will protect you.”

“Really?”

“Of course!”

“Thank you…”

I was safe.

At least for now.

***

As Time Passed, I Turned Ten Without My Dad

Time went by, and I turned ten years old. By then, I had managed to adapt to life in the orphanage while hiding my true identity. Still, deep down, I knew the Church of the Holy Palace would eventually find this place.

After all, the child of the Demon King had vanished, and they wouldn’t stop searching until they found me.

Meanwhile, the Sientri Empire faced an unprecedented crisis brought about by demonic energy. Ever since the Great Demon King Baal returned, the spread of this malevolent force had intensified.

"Brace yourselves, humans. From now on, the Demon Realm will take over your world."

‘It really happened just like Dad said it would…’

Was my dad truly the Demon King?

I couldn’t stop thinking about the mysterious potion he drank. I needed to figure out exactly what it was. To uncover its secrets, I started studying herbology in whatever limited conditions I could manage.

My obsession earned me the nickname "the crazy experimenter" at the orphanage. But honestly, I owed it all to the countless ancient texts I’d read while I was with Dad.

Eventually, I succeeded in identifying every ingredient in the potion. However, despite analyzing the formula, I couldn’t begin to fathom its effects. It was a concoction unlike anything that had ever existed in this world.

Even so, I couldn’t deny the truth any longer: Dad had become the Demon King and disappeared.

After he vanished, Baal emerged. And worst of all, Dad himself had claimed to be Baal.

“Ugh, Dad, if you were going to go to the Demon Realm, you should’ve taken me with you!”

How could he leave me behind, all alone like this? The thought made my heart ache with bitterness. I missed him so much, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but resent him.

Was he really out there wreaking havoc on the world, hurting innocent people?

The hardest part wasn’t the loneliness. It wasn’t even the uncertainty. It was the longing—the unbearable ache to see him again.

His warm, smiling face. His gentle, affectionate words. The endless kisses he’d shower on my cheeks before they even had time to dry.

He was my one and only dad, someone no hundred mothers could replace.

“Hey, what are you doing over there again?”

“Huh? What do you want?”

Startled, I turned around to see who had spoken.

I had been sitting alone in the orphanage yard, flipping through an old herbology text, when the voice interrupted me.