Chapter 40 - It's a Misunderstanding

The Phoenix, which plunged into lava to transform into new flames, was a mythical beast. And mythical beasts were closer to spirits than animals.

Naturally, the Phoenix's corpse was also a kind of spirit body—a mass of exceptionally pure, scorching mana. It was no different from an enormous elixir.

But mana was an alien power, utterly different from demonic energy.

That was why Berge had intended to take the corpse back to his tower. Just as the tower contaminated stored elixirs with demonic energy, he planned to corrupt it slowly before devouring it.

What was the rush? No hero's blade would be turned against him for a while, anyway.

But Berge had miscalculated.

WHOOSH

The moment his hand touched it, mana surged out. Blazing heat seeped through Berge's entire body.

ROOOAR

A raging torrent swept through him.

'This is fucking insane...!'

Mana forced its way inside, while his demonic energy refused to mingle with it.

Each sought to drive the other out.

The two energies bared their teeth at each other. They collided and bit, clawed and tore.

Their battlefield was Berge's flesh. Muscles ruptured and blood vessels melted. Pain like his bones being crushed assailed him.

Berge struggled to bring both energies under control somehow.

For what felt like an eternity—or perhaps only a fleeting instant—the mana drove back his demonic energy and knocked at the door to his heart.

THUD THUD

He spat out a gush of black blood.

His heart did not open its door.

All his demonic energy rose up. The weakness imposed by dimensional interference no longer mattered.

Left with nowhere to go by the homeowner's hostility, the mana wandered. Then it settled somewhere new.

'...?'

Berge was aghast.

He had two hearts. One was large, the other smaller. Both held demonic energy, with one serving as the primary heart and the other as a reserve.

But now the uninvited guest called mana had smashed through the second heart's door.

The barrier around that auxiliary heart was weaker. Restricted by dimensional interference, it could not withstand the Phoenix's power surging in like a tidal wave.

His heart grew scorching hot. That heat spread throughout his body as though exploding.

His consciousness blurred.

Through the haze, he saw the erupting volcano and himself floating amid the eruption.

Berge's body was hurled away with the volcanic blast.

* * *

When the wet sensation on his cheek woke him, Berge found himself sprawled on an unfamiliar wooded hill.

All his clothes had burned away, leaving him naked.

"... Get lost."

The deer licking his cheek fell over in fright at his killing intent, then stumbled away and quickly disappeared.

Watching its plump rump retreat, he began to wonder.

'A deer came up to me? And licked my cheek?'

No matter how well he concealed it, he was a Demon King, an invader. A being from another dimension.

An animal with keen instincts should have sensed that fundamental difference and stayed away.

Only then did he realize his situation and become aware of his body's condition.

'The Phoenix's corpse absorbed itself into me.'

After fighting his demonic energy for territory, it had abandoned the first heart and settled in the second.

More demonic energy than usual writhed inside his first heart. Its swelling to the point of bursting was hardly good news.

That was because all the displaced demonic energy had crowded into it. He could feel an immense presence firmly lodged in his second heart, which should have been empty.

It was supremely hot and supremely active.

Strangely, however, the alien sense of rejection he had felt before was gone.

'Why?'

It was still pure mana itself. And what filled his body was demonic energy.

Yet the two powers coexisted in the same body without clashing.

He soon discovered why.

'It locked the door.'

The uninvited guest was brazenly playing homeowner. It had completely cut off contact with the outside so the two incompatible energies would not mingle.

When he prodded it with demonic energy, it simply burned that energy away.

His stubbornness flared. Clutching his throbbing chest, Berge gritted his teeth.

"You don't seem to understand whose body you're living in."

I am the great Demon King, Berge Deias.

All his demonic energy raced toward his heart, hammering ceaselessly at the firmly shut door.

Stabbing his own heart with demonic energy was nothing short of self-harm.

But his wounded pride mattered more than such pain. His disgust at himself for losing to the mana of a mere mythical beast filled him with rage.

Then, at some point, the door opened. The blazing mana dormant within his heart poured out like a waterfall.

"...?"

At the same time, Berge's face twisted as his demonic energy crawled back into its own home regardless of its master's will.

But at the transformation that immediately followed in his flesh—

"...!"

He was aghast.

* * *

The demonic energy Berge had unleashed.

And the demonic energy boiling up in response to Drakson's rage.

Every hero in Tarta sensed both.

They went to Tarta's lord to convey the gravity of the situation, and word immediately reached the Heroes' Guild as well.

The city was thrown into turmoil, and a report was sent to the royal capital.

Amid all this, the wounded dwarven princess arrived.

"Demons and demonic creatures attacked us. Ormus's Second Prince fought to the very end to protect us, but a powerful demon killed him. I wanted to bring back at least his body, but..."

When Louise finally broke into tears, Tarta's warriors were enraged.

"Avenge the prince!"

"Heaven's punishment upon the wicked Demon King!"

The entire Kingdom of Ormus was stirred into an uproar.

"I will cut off that Demon King's head and put the prince's soul to rest!"

The king was furious, and so were his ministers.

Countless mounted couriers sought out heroes and guild offices across the continent.

Warriors gathered in response to a nationwide conscription order.

People sensed that this was no ordinary crisis.

* * *

'What in the world is happening?'

Granada was living in Hortonwork. Having returned to his position as captain of the Red Hawk Mercenary Company, he trained the mercenaries and received materials sent by the Golden Moon Trading Company.

The Demon King's new orders included buying elven slaves and sending them to his tower. These materials were for that purpose.

Locations of slave markets, places with many slave traders, and places with large numbers of elves or elves being put up for auction.

Joy at being able to save his own people coexisted with sorrow at having to sell them to a Demon King. Still, Granada believed they would eventually understand his intentions.

Fighting for the Demon King, taking revenge on humans, and gaining freedom was far better than dying miserably as a slave.

But once the crisis broke out on the continent, he could no longer concentrate on his work.

"Why would the Beast Demon King suddenly do this?"

Demon Kings were unquestionably terrifying, but they were not invincible beings who could never be killed.

They knew that themselves, and for centuries, coexistence had continued along a precarious boundary.

'The Beast Demon King was fairly good at keeping within those bounds, wasn't he?'

At least, that was true as far as Granada knew. If he hadn't respected those bounds, he would never have survived this long. He would have lost his head long ago, just like the Demon King of Lust.

But the matter was too serious to dismiss as an idle rumor.

In particular, the fact that Berft's Second Princess had feared for her life, and that every hero nearby had sensed terrifying demonic energy, lent it credibility.

"A high-ranking demon led dozens of demons and hundreds of demonic creatures in an ambush against us. Ormus's Second Prince fought to protect us but lost his life, and we barely escaped ourselves."

Louise's statement, delivered after she woke from two days of unconsciousness, had many holes if examined closely.

The greatest question was why Demon King Drakson, who had quietly kept to himself, would suddenly kill a prince. And the idea that Ormus's Second Prince, known for his selfishness and greed, had sacrificed his life for Louise was laughable.

Granada had never met Prince Max in person, but he had heard plenty of rumors about him.

Wasn't he said to be an ambitious man who gathered supporters and used every trick in the book to become king ahead of his elder brother?

Granada was probably not the only one who doubted the story. But the demonic energy had been too blatant, and Princess Louise and the dwarves too badly injured, to dismiss it entirely.

In the end, the enraged king of Ormus issued a mobilization order, summoned his warriors, and submitted a commission to the Heroes' Guild.

Smelling work, heroes began gathering in Ormus one by one.

It was no longer a question of whether Demon King Drakson had done it or not.

'Should I go too?'

For now, he needed to gather elves, but another of his duties was to support Hillen once the hero's journey to the Tower of Bitter Cold began.

But what would happen now?

Would they still go to the Tower of Bitter Cold? Or would the planned hero's journey change direction?

Would Hillen remain in command? Would another hero step forward?

There were nothing but questions.

Then his crystal ball rang.

『Can you reach our lord?』

"I haven't tried, so I don't know."

『As insolent as ever, I see.』

"Why don't you get to the point?"

『Try contacting him, and if you get through, please tell him to contact me. Also, the hero's journey planned for the Tower of Bitter Cold has been canceled, but for now, you can concentrate on your assigned task.』

"Canceled?"

『It was only for show anyway. With a stronger justification available, why launch two operations? I'm a little angry that this has cost me command of the hero's journey, though.』

"... That's a shame."

Granada disliked this thoroughly insincere hero, but he meant that much. All the more so because he knew the Demon King had been looking forward to it.

『It's fine. There will be plenty of opportunities. Besides, my moneybags covered everything I invested.』

That description of the Demon King was rather insulting, but it was fairly appropriate for a hero's attitude toward a Demon King.

'By investment, he means lobbying, of course.'

Knowing how the heroes' world worked, Granada clicked his tongue. Really, you couldn't even make a living as a hero without money.

The connection ended.

"I'll have to focus on finding elves for the time being."

But he couldn't reach him?

Granada channeled mana into the communication orb with a direct line to Berge.

It was dead.

* * *

"Don't talk nonsense!"

BANG

A fist slammed down. The solid hardwood desk lost its shape.

"I killed the Second Prince? I killed them all? What happened to the bastards I let go?!"

"... I suspect Princess Louise and the dwarves killed them all to conceal their own disgrace."

"That fucking bitch!"

A lycanthrope standing nearby was beaten for no reason. Its chest caved in, and it collapsed, choking and gasping.

"I should have checked all the way to the end!"

Being too distracted by the intruder to pay attention was a regret that would haunt him forever.

"My lord, please calm yourself."

"As if having the Phoenix's corpse stolen wasn't enough, now they're accusing me of killing the prince!"

The Phoenix's corpse had vanished with the volcanic eruption. The surging mana had swept through the surroundings, killing every grizzly bear and erasing even the intruder's traces.

"If I'd at least had that, this wouldn't be quite so fucking awful!"

"Damn it." Drakson swore.

In truth, the death of Ormus's Second Prince mattered more than the Phoenix.

With the dwarven princess declaring him the culprit, what came next was as predictable as a play whose ending everyone knew.

Demon Kings kidnapped princes and princesses. The heroes and kingdoms tolerated that to a degree.

But there was a line that must never be crossed.

Killing an heir to the throne.

It touched a kingdom's sorest nerve. That was how Turas Hindler, the Demon King of Lust who had gone after the Kingdom of Akan's First Prince, had met his end.

"The heroes will move. A hero's journey will begin."

This was not merely one prince among many, but an important figure vying for first or second place in Ormus's succession. And he was dead.

"I cannot die like Turus. Absolutely not."

His death was not certain.

Objectively, Drakson was not weak. He was one of the strongest among the countless demons, and he had completed the Demon King Military Academy's course.

Though he had not been able to live as proudly in Arain as in the Demon Realm, he had diligently developed his tower and lifted the restrictions of dimensional interference.

Arain's circumstances had prevented him from living his ideal life as a Demon King, but all the time he had kept his head down, he had been sharpening his blade and preparing.

Drakson's eyes flashed with killing intent.

"Bring me a list of the top heroes likely to join this hero's journey."

"Keep your attention on the expedition. Report everything to me—where they gather, how, in what numbers, and how they move."

"Watch Ormus and the Heroes' Guild as well."

Casey bowed silently. At Drakson's gesture, she left.

Drakson quietly took out a communication orb.

"Damn it. To think I, a Demon King, would stoop to this..."

Still, if there was even a thread of hope, he had to seize it.

Grinding his teeth, he channeled demonic energy into the orb. After a long while, the other party responded.

"This is all a misunderstanding. I most certainly did not kill Ormus's Second Prince."