Chapter 371: 1 Year and Some Months

"...Mommy! Play! Ball!! Go whoosh whoosh!!! Hehehe!" Kali shouts, running through the room as she bounces a ball against the floor and catches it. I smile at her while polishing my sword.

"Kali, take it easy. Your birthday was only two days ago and you already want me to take your present away?" I tell her to be responsible. It's been many months of war now.

More specifically, one year and some months. A lot has happened in that time. Eve and Shizuka have grown quite close. The war escalated in a strange way.

After three months of war, instead of advancing, the Queen of the Angels raised a barrier that lasted an entire year, and no one could break or breach it. Once the barrier dissolved, the war resumed. It delayed the timeline so much that soldier-versus-soldier combat is still ongoing.

Though now there's no more stalling since we've gained ground. Soon we'll start invading her kingdom's territory, which will push the war to its peak. But until that happens, I keep looking after Kali.

Of course, Esther still hates her, and now Kali understands that. But what matters is that Kali has grown well and can now speak, even if she mispronounces words and can't form complete sentences.

"Mommy!! This! What?" She comes up to me holding the ball she likes to play with. Though now that she can talk, I've realized she says some pretty disturbing things that leave me a little concerned. She doesn't play with the ball because she likes the ball — she likes chasing something that runs away from her. It shows, without a doubt, that she's a Ghoul with one hundred percent certainty.

"It's my sword, baby, but you can't touch it! Its name is Infinity +1."

"..." Kali stares.

"Shword?"

"Hahaha, no, sweetie, it's sword. I—" Before I can say anything to help her with the pronunciation, the door opens. And the moment the door opens, just from hearing the sound, Kali's expression closes off into something extremely cold.

"..." Kali looks at Esther, who just walked in, and her expression is exactly the same cold expression Esther wears.

'Esther has become terrifying...' Over this past year and some months, Esther's power has grown frighteningly high. It's still not her peak, but she already has more magic than I do, which is absurd since I'm the Demon Queen.

"Esther, weren't you busy with the invasion preparations? It's pretty soon..." I try not to go into too much detail because Kali already understands a lot and even tries to repeat words she hears.

"...I finished. I wanted to come surprise you." Esther walks past Kali as if she doesn't even exist. A slightly more acceptable change — instead of showing contempt with words and making me angry, to keep the peace Esther has simply started treating Kali like a piece of furniture.

Which is cold, but it's better than her calling our daughter a parasite. She used to do that so much that Kali's second word was literally [Parasite], while her first, thankfully, was [Mommy].

"Your jealousy is showing," I whisper to Esther as I put my sword away inside my storage ring. Esther, who climbed onto the bed, straddles my lap.

"I know, but I don't care. I'm hungry. I'll come get you later to eat—"

"No!! Mommy! Milk!! My milk!" Kali approaches, speaking indignantly at Esther, who looks at her, and the contempt in Esther's eyes bothers me. But Kali, used to it, doesn't even react to her gaze.

'...' Another good thing is that Esther doesn't say she wants to devour my flesh and blood anymore. So to Kali, "eat" literally means drinking my milk. On top of that, since Kali eats a lot and still nurses from my breasts constantly, I never stopped producing milk.

"..." Just to provoke her, Esther rests her face against my chest and licks over my clothes, looking directly into Kali's eyes. Kali makes an adorable expression of pure indignation.

"Esther, stop provoking a child. You're so jealous," I say, hugging her.

"Kali, ignore your other mommy. She's just bitter and insecure," I tell Kali to calm her down.

"Evelyn, don't put me down like that. I'm not insecure, since you belong only to me." She speaks while pressing against my belly, making me feel that sphere inside my womb.

"N-Not here," I whisper in her ear, nervous she might do something lewd in front of our daughter.

"No!! Mommy mine!! Mine!!" Kali grabs Esther's arm, trying to pull her away. Esther just twists her arm, spinning Kali around, and then grabs her little dress by the back, lifting her off the floor.

I shoot Esther a stern look. She seems to be thinking about throwing our daughter forcefully. She rolls her eyes and drops her carelessly onto the floor. Kali falls, furious.

"...P-Parasite!" Kali throws the ball at Esther's head and runs out of the room shouting [Parasite] nonstop, probably going after Saluvia, who treats her relatively well.

"You should stop that," I say to Esther, who turns her face to me with a scornful smile.

"Stop what?" She speaks as if she hadn't understood.

"That. You were about to throw our daughter with force." This is, unfortunately, one of the bad points. Esther's possessiveness has increased, to the point where if I'm not watching, Esther will "accidentally" hurt our daughter.

"Lately, you're the one acting like a child, Esther. You always find ways to try to hurt our daughter." I was a fool with our "contract" in the past.

It's true that Esther won't kill our daughter, but nothing stops her from hurting her in small, constant ways. And worse, Saluvia presented an even more tense scenario — that Esther would make Kali kill herself. Of course, I doubt Esther would do that because she knows it would make me sad and worsen my depression.

And recently, I've been using my depression a lot to make her obey certain things. But still, the risk exists, so I never leave Esther alone with Kali.

"Me? She hurts herself..."

"You're not blind, Esther. You shut a window latch on Kali's hands when she was trying to climb up and then said you didn't see her. Do you think I'm an idiot?" I know it's not one hundred percent her fault in some ways. Esther isn't the most lucid person. But it's still frustrating.

"That little parasite called me a parasite."

"You call her a parasite! That's why she learned that word! You can't complain about her if every time you show up, you give her a look that seems to wish her harm. Of course Kali hates you."

"Alright, alright, enough of this conversation, Evelyn. We're wasting time talking about her when we should be doing something better."

"...Sometimes I wonder if you only see me as a piece of meat," I say to her, seeing that look of desire in her eyes.

"Don't say that! I love you. You know I can't control myself. Don't throw that in my face..." She speaks, sounding a little hurt. All because lately she eats every night, which shows she's sunk deeper into hunger and Ghoul instincts.

Fortunately, this seems to be the limit. Her body still needs to process everything she eats, so Esther won't increase her hunger beyond one meal a day. So we've reached the limit of where her instincts and hunger will take her.

Although it is a bit frustrating having her devour pieces of my body every day, I accept it gladly because I love her.

"If you eat so much, you'll get fat," I say, touching her belly.

"Hahaha, what a funny joke." She rolls her eyes. The reality is that instead of getting fat, Esther has slimmed down a little. Her metabolism and bodily functions have started burning far more calories and fat than before.

To the point where she always prefers to eat parts of me with more nutrients and fat now, like my breasts and certain organs.

"Esther, I honestly don't know what you'd do without me," I say, happy about it. One week. If Esther went one week without devouring pieces of me, she'd be dying of hunger and would also start losing a lot of weight, becoming exhausted and looking sickly.

"...You talk about me, but your smile is sick when you imagine how much I depend on you..."

"..." I look at her with an innocent gaze.

"I'm not happy about having to eat you every day either. It's exhausting being hungry all the time. Not to mention it means I can never be away from you for very long either... those three days of travel I had to make were hell." When she says that, I let out a little giggle.

That day three months ago, she arrived looking paler than usual, and the first thing she did when she saw me was bite me and drink my blood. It was almost funny and kind of cute.

"I like it. I like that your health depends on my existence. I love knowing that without me you'll die. We are like one." I hug her, giving her a little kiss on the cheek.

"...You really are a witch. An evil witch who chained me. I wonder who's really the one imprisoned here." She speaks, grabbing the chain on my collar and pulling.

"Hmmm... we're both imprisoned, love," I say with a moan.