I Picked up the Demon King - Chapter 1

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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 1

 

“How much is this?”

 

I asked after hesitating in front of the bakery for a while.

 

I didn’t have much money left. I needed to save it to last until Master returned, but I thought this much would be okay.

 

“Ah, that? Let me see….”

 

The Bakery Owner, who always wore a scowl from chasing petty thieves, pondered for some reason with a smile on his lips before speaking.

 

“Just take it.”

“…Excuse me?”

“I said just take it. It’s a good day, so that much should be fine.”

“A good day?”

 

Now that I thought about it, the people inside the castle had bright expressions. There was an excited atmosphere somewhere, and even the entry inspection was faster than usual.

 

“Is there some kind of festival happening?”

“Huh? What? You haven’t heard yet?”

 

The Bakery Owner asked back as if bewildered. But no matter how much I thought about it, today was far from being a holy day.

 

My question was soon resolved.

 

“The Demon Lord is dead! The Hero has won!”

 

Through the shout of a young man running while waving the Religious Order’s flag.

 

“The war with the Demon Realm is over. An age of peace has come, so it’s a good day. Don’t you think?”

 

Through the voice of the Bakery Owner who smiled while putting bread in a bag.

 

“….”

 

The strength left my hands.

 

Clink.

 

The pouch I had been clutching fell to the ground, but I had no capacity to care about it.

 

Only one thought filled my head.

 

‘I’m screwed.’

 

It had been 2 years and 9 months since the Hero, who received divine revelation, set out to subjugate the Demon Realm.

 

…It was a day when it had been 3 years since I began studying Dark Magic.

 

* * *

 

A sandstorm swept across the land filled with death.

 

Two months had passed since the Hero subjugated the Demon Lord.

 

Naturally, the Middle Realm was swept up in festive fervor. It was daily routine to put wandering mages on the execution block under the pretext of remnant cleanup, and adventurers who already smelled money were inquiring about dungeons of Dark Mages who died in the war.

 

Yes, it was a festival. A festival of madness.

 

In a situation where even ordinary people were branded as witches and burned, a Dark Mage like myself would be finished the moment I was discovered. Excuses like being just an apprentice or not knowing any useful spells wouldn’t work.

 

“Cough, haah….”

 

Therefore, the place I headed to was the underground of the world. The Demon Realm.

 

I spent all my remaining money to prepare. I endured for dozens of days near the Gate of Demon Realm, waiting for the Holy Knight Order to withdraw.

 

Preparing for my last chance to survive, a life-or-death gamble.

 

“I’m going to die….”

 

Finding the path wasn’t difficult. I didn’t even need the cheap Map I bought just in case.

 

The dense holy power that still hadn’t faded. I just had to follow the thickest trace among them.

 

Paradoxically, that was the biggest problem.

 

The barren environment of the Demon Realm, the traces of battle that hadn’t disappeared over several months, even the insects gnawing on the corpses of dead demons weren’t major problems.

 

Holy power that seemed like it would melt my skin just by touching it.

 

The lingering holy power that was definitely the Hero’s was more dangerous to me, a mere apprentice Dark Mage, than anything else. To the point where I wanted to give up several times along the way.

 

Despair and fear. At the same time, even awe bloomed.

 

Just how strong a power did they possess for such aftereffects to remain even now, months later? How terrible must this place have been during the subjugation?

 

The words of people who chattered excitedly that they were surely the Goddess’s incarnation suddenly made sense.

 

At the same time, I became certain of my choice.

 

“Soon, I’ll arrive.”

 

If my calculations were correct, just a little further and I’d reach the Demon Lord’s Castle. The place where the most fierce battle in this entire Demon Realm had taken place.

 

The legendary achievement of subjugating the Demon Lord. The existence of the Hero called the Goddess’s incarnation.

 

Although the Religious Order’s power had temporarily decreased due to the aftermath of the subjugation, they would recover quickly and then some. No, beyond simply recovering, they would probably possess stronger power than at any other time in history.

 

I could immediately avoid people’s madness by going to live in uninhabited mountains, but when that time comes, there might be massive cleanup operations led by the Religious Order.

 

To survive, I need power.

 

That could be money, an Artifact embedded with excellent magic, or a means to cultivate my own strength.

 

The results I gained from suffering under my Master were just a few spells at most. Before proper teaching could even begin, my Master left to participate in the war.

 

To make matters worse, my Master didn’t leave behind a single decent Magic Tool while going off to die. He probably never expected the war to last that long, or even that the Demon Lord would be defeated.

 

In this situation where my Master’s death is half-certain, the ways for me, a mere apprentice Dark Mage, to grow stronger are limited.

 

That’s why I came to this place.

 

The site of the war. Among all places, if it’s the Demon Lord’s Castle where the fiercest battles would have taken place, perhaps I could find something helpful.

 

Of course, the Hero and his companions, or the Allied Forces that participated in the war, aren’t fools either. They would have been careful about cleanup.

 

Countless priests would have performed Purification Rituals everywhere, and they would have found and recovered or destroyed powerful Magic Tools.

 

However, sometimes the symbolism of a place alone has value.

Especially for spellcasters like myself.

 

I could sell off any unprocessed Artifacts, and if I found even bone fragments of high-ranking demons, I’d be able to use spells several levels stronger than now. If I could obtain the soul of a dead knight, that would be perfect.

 

As I climbed the hill, the Demon Lord’s Castle came into view.

 

“This is…”

 

The castle walls, dozens of meters high, hadn’t lost their majesty despite being half-collapsed. Rather, the horrific traces here gave me chills worse than any battlefield I’d seen on my way here.

 

Remains of what seemed like tens of thousands of monsters. Weapons and armor and corpses that even the Allied Forces couldn’t recover. Craters carved out as if struck directly by high-level magic.

 

The thick smell of death pierced my nose. If anyone asked about hell, I would tell them about this scene without hesitation.

 

But there was no time to delay.

 

“…I need to hurry.”

 

I had already wasted too much time.

 

Skilled Dark Mages would have all died in the war already, but there was no guarantee that among the survivors, no one else had the same idea as me.

 

I gulped down what little water remained and urged my trembling legs forward. Dodging and swatting away palm-sized flies clinging to corpses, I barely reached the broken castle gate. And then.

 

“Haha, ha…”

 

The strength left my legs that had been barely holding up. I could only laugh at the absurdity.

 

The castle that held the brilliant history of the Demon Realm, which I’d heard about from my Master, was nowhere to be seen. There weren’t even traces of the fierce and desperate battles I’d witnessed until now.

 

There was only a massive hemispherical crater.

 

As if space itself had been completely annihilated, nothing remained… Only something whose width was impossible to even estimate was there in its place.

 

“This is hopeless…”

 

I had thought wrong.

 

Objects worth money? Hidden Artifacts? How could such things remain?

 

Look at that thick holy power emanating from the bottom of that crater. The Hero’s strike had clearly blown everything away along with the Demon Lord.

 

Realizing that my life-or-death gamble had failed, the fatigue I’d been holding back came flooding in.

 

I had no intention of giving up and dying here. I sat with my back against the castle wall and organized my future course of action.

 

The corpses I’d seen on the way were already unusable due to Consecration and Purification Spells. Valuable items except for broken weapons and armor had been recovered for the families.

 

But that too was human work.

 

Just as there are no perfect people, there can be no perfect job execution. If I searched carefully on my way back, I could find overlooked corpses or items.

 

Though it was far from my intended goal, now wasn’t the time to be picky.

 

I wasn’t the only one holding out in front of the Gate of Demon Realm. I’d seen plenty of mercenaries and such who came looking for scraps.

 

I had to hurry. I needed to quickly find what I could take and leave the Demon Realm. Just as I was shaking my head and trying to get up.

 

Glint.

 

“What’s that?”

 

I saw something glinting in that deep crater.

 

There was something there. The distance was too far to see clearly, but whatever it was, if it remained in there, it certainly wasn’t an ordinary object.

 

The moment I suppressed my aversion to the thick holy power and stepped forward.

 

Crumble-

 

“…!”

 

The ground I was standing on collapsed, and I instantly fell downward.

 

I snapped to attention the moment I realized I was falling, but all I could do was desperately try to reduce the impact even a little.

 

Perhaps that effort paid off. Or maybe it was because the slope decreased as I went further down.

 

What was certain was that I hadn’t died.

 

My body was in terrible condition from rolling across the ground, but considering I had fallen from such a tremendous height, being alive was nothing short of a miracle.

 

“Kugh…!”

 

However, I was gradually dying.

 

It wasn’t because of the injuries from the fall. My skin was scraped and bones seemed broken, but not to the point of death.

 

The reason was simple.

 

The divine power that grew thicker toward the center of the crater. It was such an incredible concentration of divine power that I could mistake this place for the Sanctuary of the Religious Order.

 

The faint magic power implanted in my body was reacting against the divine power. The divine power, which normally provided all sorts of beneficial effects to humans, seemed to have identified me as an enemy without missing that faint magic power.

 

My vision gradually turned red. I could dimly see my skin melting away. Even breathing was difficult.

 

“Cough…!”

 

The body I had barely managed to raise collapsed.

 

In the midst of pain I had never experienced before, tremendous regret washed over me.

 

“Ah, ahhh…”

 

I should have been more careful. I shouldn’t have come to the Demon Realm. I should have just gone into the Mountains and lived in hiding. When my Master left, would things have been different if I had followed? If I had known we would only have a few months together, I should have learned more earnestly. No, I shouldn’t have become a Dark Mage in the first place. If I had known a Hero would appear in this world, I never would have made such a choice…

 

Just as I was about to accept death, regretting every choice I had made in my life that led me to this place.

 

Glint.

 

In the corner of my vision, I saw a bothersome light. With a dazed expression, I stared at that light as if entranced.

 

It was bright enough to feel sacred, yet as dark as the death that would soon come. At the same time, I could feel an eerie red aura.

 

It was truly a paradoxical description. Perhaps I had injured my head in the fall and was seeing things.

 

When I came to my senses, I was desperately crawling toward that light.

 

I don’t know where such strength came from. I didn’t care that my already melted skin was scraping against the rough soil of the Demon Realm, I just crawled.

 

After what felt like an eternal moment, when I finally reached the light.

 

“This is, a Soul?”

 

It was different from what I had learned in theory, and different from what my Master had shown me. But my intuition was certain.

 

That the identity of this strangely beautiful light before my eyes was a Soul.

 

Despite the tremendous presence emanating from the Soul, the power I could feel was insignificant. It was natural. The power contained within the Soul was none other than demonic energy.

 

The Soul containing demonic energy was resisting in this space filled with divine power.

 

By conventional thinking, it should have been destroyed long ago. The Hero, his companions, and the Priests of the Religious Order weren’t fools either. Even if there was a Soul that barely managed not to be destroyed at this place that had been the center of fierce battle, what awaited it would have been a baptism of countless Divine Spells. The forces that remained for over a month after the war ended were there for such cleanup.

 

But that wasn’t what mattered.

 

Feeling an intense attraction, I struggled to raise my body. And I reached out my hand…

 

I grasped the Soul.

 

-How pathetic.

 

I thought I heard such a sound.

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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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