Chapter 50 : Each One’s Circumstances
Chapter 50: Each One’s Circumstances
Everything slowed.
Hillan Cargill’s sword cut through the air.
The Demon King’s dying cry was heard.
Sslice—
A head fell.
The Demon King’s head.
It crashed down.
“Ah.”
Casey let out a scream.
The Demon King.
The Demon King was.
Dead.
For decades, Casey, the adjutant who had assisted Draxon, could not believe it. She did not want to believe it.
Not even the humans’ eardrum-splitting screams.
Not even the life-filled blood they spilled.
She heard nothing.
“...My Demon King.”
Her trembling hand reached out. Too far.
“Die!”
A human knight swung his sword. She grabbed it bare-handed and crushed it. She tore off his head and threw it aside.
“My Demon King.”
She took one step forward. A mage stirred the wind.
Crunch—
Her muscles forcibly ripped the wind apart. She destroyed the mage’s heart.
“...My Demon King. My Demon King. My Demon King. My Demon King. My Demon King. My Demon King. My Demon King. My Demon King. My Demon King. My Demon King.”
Draxon grew closer and closer.
Unbearable fury surged up.
How dare they. Humans. To whom.
How dare they, to whom.
Across a battlefield where thousands tangled, she saw clearly the face of the one who had killed the Demon King.
Hillan Cargill.
The bastard who had killed the Lust Demon King.
A hero. A dog of a hero.
Die. Kill. She would kill him.
She bared her killing intent. Her ferocity exploded. Demonic energy burst out.
She would.
Kill him.
At that moment—
Thud—
A powerful impact shook her. She rolled through a space littered with the corpses of monsters and humans.
Which worm dared…!
“Get a hold of yourself, Casey.”
“...Quail?”
Quail, wearing a bear-fur cloak, pulled her along.
“We have to run.”
“But the Demon King...!”
“The Demon King has already passed.”
“That’s why I have to take revenge…!”
“The Tower is collapsing! At this rate, you won’t get revenge—just a stupid death!”
A Tower belonged to the Demon King.
The Demon King’s servants belonged to the Tower.
Thus—
When the Demon King died, the Tower collapsed.
And when the Tower collapsed, all monsters and demons lost their protection.
The power that shuts out interference power between dimensions.
Now that the shield known as the Demon King and the Tower had vanished, every surviving demon and monster was forced to face, head-on once more, that force which weakened lifeforms from other dimensions.
“If not now, we can’t escape.”
Unless they ran now, while the Tower still barely held its shape—
“Who said you could?”
Heroes drenched in monster blood stood before them.
“Who said an upper-rank demon could just walk away?”
“There are two upper-rank demons here!”
“Get ’em! The Demon King’s dead, they’re weakened!”
“That one’s mine!”
Their swords rained down.
“Go.”
Quail blocked every strike aimed at Casey with his own body.
“I’m not so weak that I’d lose to the likes of you.”
Quail roared.
That day, three upper-rank demons, ten mid-rank demons, fifty-two low-rank demons, and 1,321 monsters died.
* * *
The Tower collapsed.
No—vanished.
The Tower, created by the Demon Realm’s authority, vanished the moment its core—the Demon King—disappeared.
Only the traces of the fierce battle remained: the corpses of monsters and demons, and the corpses of heroes and humans.
“Ha, was this your intention from the start?”
Rozel Charnte looked sorrowfully at the fallen body of the Demon King.
“Given the circumstances, I merely did my best.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Hillan Cargill answered politely. Rozel huffed but did not pursue the matter further.
Heroes obsessed over killing demons and Demon Kings. Killing them allowed heroes to absorb their power and grow stronger.
But precisely because the competition was fierce, an unspoken rule existed among heroes: no disputes after the kill, no matter who delivered the final blow.
Moreover, Hillan Cargill and Berje each did their part to the fullest.
Had the two not held Draxon back even briefly, Rozel’s flames would never have been able to burn him.
If they had turned away and not cut off his head, they would still be fighting now. Perhaps the severed head lying there would not have been Draxon’s—but Rozel Charnte’s.
‘Could I tell someone who fought so hard, someone who already killed one Demon King, to stop being greedy? Throw a tantrum over it?’
She could, if she wanted. In fact, some heroes deliberately picked fights and killed others over it.
But they had to bear the risk themselves.
What hero would trust and follow someone who prevented others from taking a demon’s head just to keep the spoils for themselves?
“I’ll take the corpse.”
Suppressing her regret, she stored Draxon’s body in her subspace.
From the start, all monster and demon byproducts were promised to Rozel Charnte and the Kingdom of Arkan, so Berje did not care.
The fact that Draxon was dead alone meant Berje had achieved the purpose of coming here.
‘If I died, would my Tower have ended up like this too?’
The thought of his corpse being toyed with by those damned heroes made fury rise within him.
While he was lost in idle thoughts, the cleanup finished.
The Kingdom of Arkan’s forces collected anything of value, gathered all monster and demon corpses into subspace pouches, and recovered their own fallen.
And then they burned the site.
“What are the casualties?”
“Hundred and forty-one lightly wounded, fifty-five seriously wounded, two hundred seventy-one dead.”
Rozel Charnte’s face twisted.
“...The damage is severe.”
“The demons and monsters were far stronger than expected. And the Demon King’s death lasted longer than anticipated…”
Inside a Tower, demons and monsters held overwhelming advantage. Moreover, the strength of the Demon King and the demons had exceeded their expectations.
She glanced sideways at Hillan.
“They’re nothing like the Lust Demon King. We’ll need to reconsider the level of the other Demon Kings as well.”
“Yes.”
However, the Kingdom of Arkan had undeniably suffered a painful loss.
“...It can’t be helped. At least we obtained everything we wanted.”
“There is one more issue.”
“...?”
“There is practically no money or valuables.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I found it strange as well, so I searched several times, but… nothing.”
“...The kingdom will throw a fit. Well, Arkan is swimming in money anyway.”
Rozel Charnte dismissed the matter. Wealth was never something that interested her much.
Only the Demon King’s body mattered. For a Beast Demon King known to lack magical sophistication, that was all she could gain.
Then—
“There’s a prison here!”
As the last underground prison vanished, the princes and princesses who had been trapped inside appeared.
Two princes and two princesses.
The two princes were all from Ormus, and one princess was the First Princess of a tiny nation with no real power. And the last one was…
“...!”
Why is she here?
Berje froze. Those who recognised the princess’s face gasped in shock.
“Your Highness!”
“My goodness, Princess!”
“What is the Princess doing here?”
The knights and mages of Arkan all bowed deeply.
“...Mm.”
Slowly, lazily, crimson eyes swept over them. Her oil-soaked, tangled purple hair fluttered in the wind.
“...The Tower.”
She tilted her head. The long robe dragging across the ground sagged heavily.
“The Demon King died?”
“Yes, Your Highness! We defeated the Demon King!”
“You are… who?”
“I am Hokel, Commander of the Golden Lion Knight Order.”
“Ah, I think I’ve heard of you… maybe…”
Mumbling something under her breath, the princess spotted Rozel Charnte and waved.
“A familiar face…”
“Princess. Why in the world are you here?”
Rozel let out a long sigh.
“To gather materials.”
“Gather materials?”
“Monster bodies…”
“You came all the way into a Demon King’s domain to gather monster materials?”
The princess nodded blankly.
“And the Beast Demon King didn’t harm you?”
“I gave him money, he gave me monsters.”
“You gave him money and he tossed you a few low-grade monsters?”
‘She really is a lunatic.’
Berje, who had been listening intently, was honestly impressed.
She went in alone and made a deal with a Demon King?
For chimera research?
Was she insane, or was something missing from her head?
‘So Draxon must have taken her money to buy my demonic energy.’
But really—what was wrong with both the guy who accepted it and the woman who offered it?
‘And yet he threw a fit claiming I wasn’t following the Standard.’
To be fair, the Standard never said a Demon King couldn’t cooperate with humans.
Naturally so—because such a thing simply never happened. Until now, no Demon King had ever cooperated with humans.
The closest was enslaving them as Black Mages or Black Knights.
But the Demon Kings of Arein were different.
‘If Draxon was like this… then Jason Kokemundo definitely is too.’
Perhaps even Ugar Velbek was the same. The only one who might not have colluded with humans was Reina Sordein.
“Did His Majesty know the Princess was here?”
“I left a letter. Said I was going out.”
“You came all the way here after leaving only a letter? Ha. You thoughtless Princess.”
Rozel pressed her fingers to her forehead.
“Let’s return to the imperial palace first. Understood?”
“Not yet…”
“Not yet, my foot. With the Demon King dead, what more are you planning to do? We already collected all the monster corpses, so let’s go.”
“…A lot?”
“A huge amount.”
“Mm.”
The Princess nodded.
“Finish up and withdraw! Make sure to stay quiet while retreating!”
“Yes!”
“Escort the Princess.”
“Yes.”
Rozel tossed the Princess to the knight order and sorted out the situation.
Arkan’s elites began to retreat stealthily.
Like that.
The Beast Demon King died.
And the Beast’s Tower collapsed.
* * *
Zetoson.
He had no surname. He was an orphan, and by luck was taken in by an old man who ran a small magic shop.
He began his life as a shop assistant and discovered his own talent.
His mouth.
He was exceptionally skilled at reading emotions and persuading people.
When the old man passed away and left the shop to him, that talent fully blossomed.
He stocked cheap goods and sold them at high prices. If he attached a convincing effect and a convincing name to them, people bought them readily.
That was how he earned a lot of money.
But for the first time, a problem arose.
“Just my luck.”
The Princess of the Dwarven Kingdom, Louise Berfht.
Of all people, the one he scammed had to be a princess.
He had no idea she would notice his scheme.
Louise cleared out every last item in his shop as compensation for the scam.
‘If only it had ended there!’
Had that been all, it would have been fortunate, but she did not stop there.
“You dared scam me? I’ll make sure you never set foot in this business again.”
She used her authority as a princess to spread malicious rumours about Zetoson among the kingdom’s nobles.
The fact that he had scammed an important diplomatic figure—the Dwarven Princess—became known everywhere, and even when he cried injustice, other victims of his scams stepped forward as if they had been waiting.
“What kind of filthy bastard is this?”
“Bringing shame to the whole kingdom.”
“And this thing calls himself a merchant?”
The security forces burst in, shut the shop down by force, and stripped him of all merchant rights. The money he had saved was seized and returned to the national treasury.
The only reason he wasn’t thrown in prison was because Louise had given him the favor, if it could be called that, of saying he didn’t deserve to be fed and housed for free.
‘Damn it! Like I’m the only one who scams people!’
Time passed.
He tried to find work, but the rumors had already spread everywhere, and no one would take him in.
In the end, he had no choice but to leave the royal capital.
‘Where should I go?’
Perhaps to the Trafarta Union, where commerce was most developed?
Then he suddenly remembered the human who had tossed him a single gold coin.
‘Come to think of it, the Golden Moon Merchant Company has been doing well…’
The hero, Hillan Cargill, was said to have ties with the merchant company’s successor and had used that to secure a huge investment…
‘Let’s go.’
Surely someone who threw the fortune of 1 gold coin at him wouldn’t go back on his word.
Zetoson knocked on the doors of the Golden Moon Merchant Company.
Not knowing he was walking into a dragon’s maw.