Do Heroes Need Welfare Too? - Chapter 123

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 123

The Hero had already chosen isolation from people and had endured for a longer time than even the previous generation’s weakling.

However, he had already reached his limit.

Surely he would rampage soon and massacre the villagers whose lives were no more valuable than ants.

Was his curse so futilely blocked because of the relic that Iberis possessed?

But he wasn’t even a Hero, so how much of the Saint’s power could possibly be contained in a mere relic?

However, Aphene dismissed it as trivial and moved locations. It would be soon anyway.

Regaining his own power came first.

“Where is Iblith?”

“He’s probably with the Emperor.”

“Hmm, yes. He’s the one who awakened me this time too.”

Perhaps because the Demon King’s power wasn’t complete, his presence was so faint that Iblith hadn’t found him yet, but Iblith, who could move freely, had gone to find the Emperor with whom he had previously awakened the Demon King and made a pact.

However, the Demon King, who needed to reclaim his core, was delayed by the Hero and couldn’t achieve complete resurrection.

Making deals with humans wasn’t particularly pleasant, but there was nothing he wouldn’t do to regain his power.

A human who was human but had abandoned humanity.

He was a human whose ugly inner nature the Demon King had examined closely and found appealing.

“Anyway, his deal was also about killing the Hero. Let’s head to the Imperial Palace. The Emperor will want to see my face too.”

“Yes, my lord.”

* * *

After Iberis left, and after the Hero left, Abracxas stood there blankly, unable to leave, gazing at the castle gate of the Demon King’s Castle that he couldn’t cross.

“When he learns the Hero has left, he’ll surely return.”

Abracxas’s red eyes turned toward the great imperial castle.

He looked toward someone who was surely there.

Abracxas took out a handkerchief from his chest and held it up.

It was the last thing she had given him.

No one cared about the demon trapped in the Demon King’s Castle.

Not the Demon King, and not the other demons either.

But she alone was different.

When he sensed someone approaching nearby, Abracxas hurriedly hid the handkerchief in his chest.

“Have you returned?”

Abracxas knelt before his master whom he was seeing after a long time.

Unlike last time, the Demon King was with two other demons.

“That foolish Hero has finally left the Demon King’s Castle. It would be nice if he just went berserk and died, but why is this generation’s Hero so stubbornly long-lived?”

“But this will be the last time!”

Iblith spoke confidently from beside the Demon King.

His steps were confident, befitting a demon who took it for granted that the Hero would go berserk and die.

As if to reward his expectations, Aphene immediately went down to the basement to regain his power.

It felt almost like an illusion that the Demon King’s Castle, which he was returning to after so long, was welcoming him.

Now it was time to pass judgment on the humans who had looked down on him.

The corners of Aphene’s mouth began to curl up mercilessly.

“…What?”

But soon, caught up in the euphoria of regaining his power, Aphene hurriedly opened the basement door when he noticed a strange sensation he hadn’t felt before.

However, he still felt no power at all.

That couldn’t be right.

That foolish Hero knowing what it was…

Aphene screamed when he saw the empty space where his core had been.

“No, no, nooo!”

Only echoes that wouldn’t return rang through the empty basement.

Abracxas secretly grinned and smiled.

He had already stolen the Demon King’s core.

It was now in the hands of the Hero whom he so hated and despised.

* * *

Though Abracxas was in the Demon King’s Castle, they couldn’t fully trust a demon who was forcibly leashed, and crucially, there had been a Hero inside the Demon King’s Castle.

However, the reason they could live so peacefully was because they thought the Hero wouldn’t know about the core’s existence, and Abracxas, whose life was in the Demon King’s hands due to the pact, couldn’t dare betray him.

But then…

Iblith’s feeling of openness at returning to the Demon King’s Castle after so long was brief before he heard the news that the core had disappeared.

And now.

“You useless fool!”

Aphene’s legs trampled Abracxas relentlessly.

“How can a servant of the Demon King’s Castle not even know the core is missing?”

Aphene spat out his anger with heavy breathing.

Iblith, who was watching them without any thought of stopping it, yawned, while Abaddon watched silently with a hardened expression.

“Don’t you have any pride as a demon?”

“I never wanted to become one anyway. Wasn’t it you, Demon King, who forced me to stick to the Demon King’s Castle with a pact because you coveted my abilities?”

Abracxas spoke in a small voice while coughing. He was merely stating facts, but to Aphene, who had lost his core and his composure, it looked like defiance.

How dare this upstart not know his place and act up.

It was true that he valued Abracxas’s abilities, but he was already his limb, bound by a pact and unable to dare defy him.

“How dare you!!”

The Demon King’s killing intent pressed down on Abracxas.

Rather than the spirit of Aphene who hadn’t yet regained his power, it was probably the price for breaking the pact.

Aphene could kill Abracxas at any moment if he wanted.

Abracxas knew this fact better than anyone.

However, Abracxas had no attachment to life. At first, it was a life sustained by groveling before the Demon King and then the Hero.

It didn’t matter who the target was.

But now it was different.

Abracxas changed his expression and knelt before him with a grinning laugh.

“Please don’t be so angry. Didn’t you tell me to bring this…?”

Abracxas slowly opened a small jewelry box and showed its contents.

Since it was similar in shape to the box that had contained his core, Aphene’s eyebrows twitched, but after confirming the contents, one of his eyebrows rose.

“I was so busy secretly stealing this that I didn’t realize the Hero had run off with the core.”

What Abracxas showed was none other than a Subjugation Stone.

Aphene, who had heard the Emperor’s annoying whining, saw the Subjugation Stone he showed and thought of a good plan.

The Subjugation Stone could control demons, and furthermore, even humans exposed to demonic energy.

Come to think of it, wasn’t there something interesting in the Emperor’s basement?

Only then did Aphene stop the indiscriminate violence he had been pouring on Abracxas and smiled as if pleased.

“Hmm, yes. Since this was something done by a foolish demon who didn’t understand my grand intentions, I’ll let it slide just this once.”

“Yes, thank you so much, Demon King!”

Abracxas smiled while sharpening his blade.

Until the day when the Hero’s holy sword would completely pierce through his core.

And until the day he would be freed from the Demon King.

Until then, he had to remain an obedient demon.

* * *

“Do you… regret becoming a Hero?”

“No. Not even once. It was the first opportunity I chose with my own hands for a place where I could belong.”

Had he said such words?

Adam regretted choosing to become a Hero for the first time.

As if living an ordinary life was a luxury, fate mocked him.

It took away precious things as if having them didn’t suit him.

He had chosen to live without friends, comrades, or anyone’s trust.

He had only been greedy for Iberis alone.

* * *

Adam had become the 7th Hero, but no one including the Temple knew of his existence.

Only God knew of him.

Though he was a Hero chosen by God, he felt that he was different from the Previous Heroes.

In the first place, if he was a Hero, shouldn’t he go to the Temple?

Thinking of the Elderly High Priest, he felt an inexplicable churning in his stomach.

Even if he had awakened as a Hero chosen by God, the Elderly High Priest would not be pleased.

Unless he hid him away completely, saying he would attract even more attention from the Emperor.

And in the first place, he had heard that it hadn’t been many years since the Demon King died.

The 6th Hero Lawrence had defeated the Demon King just 14 years ago.

‘Around the same time I was born…’

Given the Demon King’s nature of resurrecting every century, it seemed unlikely he would need to emerge into the world as a Hero.

It was also uncertain whether he would even be alive by then.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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