Dear Santa, Satan Here
Nick is the 394th generation of Satan, the son of the 393rd Satan, the grandson of the 392nd, the great-grandson of the 391st and so on, tracing backward to the greatest Satan of all: the progenitor who laid the foundation for humanity’s entire career of moral decay.
That primordial Satan had no need for oversized horns or vast wings. His true “achievement” lay in turning evil into habit, sin into daily routine, and making humans commit wrongdoing with faces full of willing consent. He was the first to conceive the hereditary model of Hell, where power is inherited by bloodline, while responsibility is… always passed down to the next generation.
His descendants carried on that legacy with remarkable creativity: one generation specialized in inventing ever more subtle temptations; another focused on soul contracts with fine print; yet another achieved success without lifting a finger, because humans were destroying one another faster than demons could tempt them. As a result, Hell expanded more departments, more layers of management, and countless meetings in which no one could remember what the original purpose had been.
As the 394th generation, Nick grew up beneath the family’s impossibly long shadow. He bore not only demonic blood but also the pressure to “make something of himself,” because in a family whose ancestors once dragged the entire world into downfall, becoming an ordinary Satan was, in fact, the greatest failure of all.
Thanks to being born with pedigree, Nick was exceedingly arrogant and haughty. With horns larger than any antelope’s and wings capable of turning day into night, he gave himself the grandiose nickname Nick, Blood of the First. He lived without fear of anyone wherever he went, humans trembled. And he didn’t stop there: he forced humans to carve statues of him, to worship him. There was even a group of humans who voluntarily formed themselves into his flock.
Until one day…
Nick was utterly defeated in a battle with Gabiuel. Not the kind of loss that could be blamed on circumstances, but a clear, clean defeat, witnessed by far too many eyes that should never have seen it. From that moment on, Nick vanished from every Hellish banquet, bolted his doors shut, and lived with humiliation like a brand-new heirloom, one no member of the Satan lineage had ever been forced to inherit before.
One year after the entire world was shaken by the disappearance of the demon Satan, Gabiuel appeared at Nick’s door. He knocked with a politeness that was suspiciously excessive and presented an even more suspicious proposal: go down to the human world and investigate a series of child-disappearance cases.
To Nick, it sounded almost absurd. A descendant of Satan, bearer of pure Hellish blood, going to save children? But Gabiuel calmly said that if the case succeeded, he would allow Nick a public match before all relevant parties and officially restore his honor, the one thing Nick had lacked since the day of his defeat.
That promise made Nick hesitate. For a long time. And then, at last, he agreed.
Only, the “honor” Gabiuel spoke of turned out to be far harder to swallow than Nick had imagined.
Because the moment he set foot in the human world, Nick discovered that his mission was not to investigate in Hell’s usual fashion, but to… serve as Santa Claus’s assistant. Gabiuel explained, with a logic so reasonable it was impossible to refute, that all the disappearances occurred during Christmas, and the person who could approach children most frequently, most legitimately and with the least suspicion from parents was none other than Santa Claus.
And so, amid twinkling lights, ringing bells, and the cloying sweetness of gingerbread, one of Hell’s most arrogant Satanic descendants was forced to don a glaring red suit, learn how to smile kindly… and begin the strangest investigation in the history of both Heaven and Hell.
