It's Troublesome That My Doting Dad Became A Villain

Meteor slowly turned his head.
Not far away, the Duke of Dimensions had revealed himself.
Meteor looked at him briefly, then turned his gaze back to the screen.

Trying to grasp the situation was no easy task.
Crescent is dead. She died saving me.
The words he had just heard from the Duke of Dimensions echoed again. That should have been impossible unless there was another Crescent and another version of himself.

But wasn’t Crescent very much alive?
The Duke of Dimensions took a step closer, his lips moving again.
“I wandered all across the land searching for the human daughter the Demon King left behind. Everyone knew Lloyd Delight abandoned his daughter and disappeared into the Demon Realm. But finding that daughter, Crescent Delight, wasn’t easy. For two whole years, I thought only of Crescent, chasing her traces day after day. Back then, I believed that finding the Demon King’s daughter was the only clue to catching the Demon King himself.”

“…Wait, what are you talking about? I’m the only one who knows Crescent is the Demon King’s daughter…”
So how could no one not know?
No, what kind of fantasy was Prima even spinning?

Was he just dreaming some nonsense?
The Duke of Dimensions clicked his tongue in pity.
“You still don’t get it? I didn’t become the Duke of Dimensions for nothing. The fact that we exist in the same dimension means someone crossed over into this world.”

“……”
Meteor’s mouth clamped shut.
It was a theory he’d dismissed without ever daring to voice it, simply because it sounded too absurd.

But… could it really be true that other dimensions exist?
Was this demon in front of him another version of himself from a different dimension?
His mind felt like it was crumbling, but Meteor held himself together.
He sharply struck back at Prima’s core, as if piercing him with the question.

“Then why are you here?”
Why was he hovering around Meteor and Crescent?
He had a guess, but he needed to hear it from Prima himself.

Just then, Prima opened his mouth again—and what came out was shocking.
“This world was created because of Crescent. It’s the only dimension where she exists. The Crescent who saved me and died returned to her eight-year-old self. From that point on, this world began to take form. Meteor, if Crescent hadn’t returned, you wouldn’t even exist in this universe.”
“…What?”

It felt like a massive storm had swallowed him whole without warning.
He understood every word the Duke of Dimensions said, and yet he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d misheard.
It didn’t sound like a lie, but it was far too unbelievable to be accepted as truth.

“So what you’re saying—”
Meteor finally managed to speak.
“—is that the Crescent who died saving you in that scene is the same Crescent I know?”

“Exactly.”
Only then did Prima pull up the corners of [N O V E L I G H T] his mouth into a smile.
Realizing that that smile was, in fact, his own made a chill ripple through Meteor’s body. It was almost like a grotesque sense of déjà vu.

Prima, wearing that unsettling smile, continued speaking.
“You’re me. So you should understand exactly how I feel. Someone saved me… and died. Is that something you could ever accept?”
No.

Absolutely not.
Especially if it was a small, delicate girl like Crescent in that screen—dying to save him? That was something that could never happen, even if he died and came back to life a hundred times.
He wasn’t someone who got saved. He was the one who was supposed to save others.

“After Crescent disappeared like that, you can imagine the kind of shock I went through. I wondered if maybe she was wandering the Demon Realm. I didn’t want to believe she’d died. So I went to the Demon Realm myself and disguised myself as a subordinate of some demon. You need status in the Demon Realm, too. Fortunately, the demon found me—an ordinary human—interesting. Eventually, I killed him and took his place, but in the process, I learned the truth.”
Prima fell silent for a moment.
After a short silence, he spoke again.

“Crescent really did die, but in another dimension, she was living a new life. From that moment, I had only one purpose. I vowed to go where Crescent was and protect her. But to cross dimensions, I needed the power of the Duke of Dimensions. That was the only way.”
No way.
Was that why…?

“To become a demon… ha ha…”
Prima laughed bitterly, as if reliving the memory.
It was a laugh tinged with deep regret.

Then he raised his head and looked directly at Meteor.
This translation is the intellectual property of .
His piercing blue eyes were sharp as blades, trembling not with holiness but with blind, burning obsession.

With that never-before-seen, intense gaze, Prima asked like spitting venom:
“Do you think I hesitated?”
“…”

“Would you have hesitated?”
“…”
There was no choice.

Meteor could understand the sentiment, but becoming a demon was like peeling off your very soul.
Even he wasn’t sure he could have gone that far.
Meteor glared back with eyes just as fierce and shot back:

“You’re insane.”
Did he like that answer?
Prima’s smiling mouth curled even deeper.

“I’d never become a demon. You’re not me anymore.”
He knew Crescent was the Demon King’s daughter, and yet he became a demon to protect her?
He wasn’t right in the head.

Even calling him crazy didn’t do it justice.
Prima laughed like he knew exactly what Meteor was thinking.
“Meteor, the fact that Crescent is the Demon King’s daughter doesn’t matter. Let’s see if you end up falling just like I did.”

“I said I’m not going to—”
The words burst out of him, but Meteor quickly clamped his mouth shut.
There was no point in saying it.

Hahaha.
Prima’s laughter echoed faintly, as if from a distance. As it rang in his ears, Meteor thought:
Right now, it wasn’t about demons or corruption.

Between Crescent and the Duke of Dimensions, there was a bond so deep, he couldn’t even begin to wedge himself between it.
Prima had crossed dimensions and didn’t hesitate to become a demon—just to protect Crescent.
Surely Crescent knew, too?

That truth left a chilling void in a corner of Meteor’s chest.
It felt like she was drifting farther and farther from him.
As if someone irreplaceable had already taken their place beside her, the emptiness inside him only grew.

Meteor and Meteor.
For the first time, Meteor began to feel troubled by someone who wasn’t himself.