I Picked up the Demon King - Chapter 158

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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 158

 

When I came to my senses, I had become a king.

 

I sat on a lofty throne, looking down upon the world. I heard singing voices echoing to the music played by musicians, and I heard the voices of all people praising me.

 

I felt a pulsating power.

 

The power that enveloped my body. This was the miraculous power that the king had wielded. After savoring it silently for a long while, I realized. It felt similar to the power I had sensed from the Goddess.

 

“Bring me a mirror.”

 

A bowing servant immediately brought a mirror. A strange face was there in its place.

 

A face containing supreme beauty, different from my own face that I had seen all my life.

 

Eyes that sparkled as if holding stars and hair that seemed to unfold the night. Skin as white as if it had never received light.

 

If I removed only the expression full of interest, wasn’t this the face of the king who had cursed me?

 

The Goddess had kept her promise. She had fulfilled my wish to become king by switching bodies with the king.

 

I ran urgently and found the tree where I had been imprisoned. I pushed away the servants who tried to stop me and tore at the tree. Whether it was because the inside was hollow, or thanks to the miracle power filling my body, the tree tore away easily. It might have been more appropriate to say it collapsed.

 

Inside were countless insects and one corpse.

 

A corpse with all its skin, muscles, blood vessels, and organs devoured, leaving only bones. Yet a living corpse.

 

Though no sound came out, I could feel that corpse screaming. It was thanks to this power still remaining in the corpse. At the same time, I realized who it was.

 

“Ah, my king.”

 

Most powerful, beautiful, and noble king. Your situation and mine have been reversed.

 

I stole your body, stole your name, stole your position.

 

And thus I became king. So very easily.

 

* * *

 

After gaining the king’s power, I realized.

 

The reason the king had left me alone. And the reason my lies hadn’t worked.

 

In the bloodline of all noble houses, the king’s blood was faintly mixed. It was both a means to enforce the king’s commands and proof of being a noble.

 

The king could recognize it. The nobles who shared the same blood were the same. Even though I thought I had deceived them well, the Lord of Medei noticing the lie was also because of this.

 

But then, someone appeared who acted as a noble without even having that blood flowing, and dared to falsely claim to be of royal bloodline.

 

How ridiculous it must have been.

 

I became king and handled the king’s duties. There wasn’t much to do. Most problems were solved by the regional lords. The king was merely a reigning existence.

 

It was boring.

 

It was tedious.

 

I couldn’t feel any fun at all.

 

Only then could I understand the king’s expression that had been full of boredom. But occasionally, those who sought wisdom from the king would appear. Most were insignificant matters, but there were also those who made me uncomfortable.

 

“Your Majesty. I humbly request your wisdom.”

 

“Speak.”

 

“The famine in the kingdom is severe. There are no workers left alive, and even rain does not come, so what should we do?”

 

The shortage of workers was probably due to the sparks of war I had ignited. The war that burned throughout the entire kingdom had left only ashes in the kingdom.

 

But why ask me about the rain not coming?

 

The kingdom was everything to me, so it would be good if I could solve the famine. However, the king’s power was to heal wounds and prevent death, not to bring rain.

 

“How pointless…”

 

It was the moment I was about to shout and drive them away.

 

-My child.

 

The Goddess’s voice was heard.

 

It was the first voice I heard since becoming king. As if she had been waiting only for this moment, the Goddess called me.

 

-My child. The king I saved, the king I made.

 

Emphasizing the grace she had bestowed upon me.

 

-Since I granted your wish, you too must fulfill my desire.

 

She told me to repay the grace.

 

For the Goddess who made a swindler into a king, nothing would be impossible. What could she want from me to speak like that?

 

-Just as I saved you, I intend to save this kingdom.

 

“…”

 

It didn’t seem like it would be bad.

 

If the Goddess solved the kingdom’s famine, I would be praised as a wise king.

 

“What should I do?”

 

-Hold a ritual. Offer food, and command them to pray to me.

 

Build an altar and offer sacrifices.

 

The Goddess commanded thus.

 

I did so.

 

“My King! How can you tell us to offer food!”

 

“Do it.”

 

“We don’t even have enough to eat today. If we burn that, we will…”

 

“Do it.”

 

The Goddess will bring rain and save the continent. Just as she did for me.

 

I built an altar and offered sacrifices.

 

“Goddess, please bring us rain.”

 

But no rain fell.

 

“Goddess, please make the crops grow.”

 

Naturally, the crops withered.

 

“Goddess, please fatten the beasts.”

 

The beasts that should have grown fat eating them also starved.

 

The people who barely clung to life through the King’s power cried out.

 

“Goddess, please save us.”

 

No salvation came.

 

Even when the starving people reached the point of devouring each other, nothing changed. The people’s resentment pierced the sky.

 

We were not saved. The Goddess saved me, but did not save the kingdom.

 

The endless rituals only hastened the kingdom’s destruction. The solid royal authority crumbled like a sandcastle. Everyone hated me. Without the King’s powerful strength, I would have been killed or driven out long ago.

 

As King, as priest, I asked the Goddess.

 

“Goddess, we have followed your commands. We offered sacrifices and prayed to you. Then why do you abandon us?”

 

I cried out for three days and nights without stopping. Then the Goddess responded.

 

-The sacrifices are insufficient.

 

“Look upon us. We already have nothing left. We have offered today’s food, all the kingdom’s wealth, even the meat and hides of beasts we hunted.”

 

But the Goddess would not compromise.

 

-The sacrifices are insufficient.

 

“Look upon us. We already have nothing left. What more would you have us offer?”

 

A warm voice descended to the surface.

 

-There is one thing you possess that remains.

 

It spread throughout the entire kingdom. So that not just I, the priest, but all the people of the kingdom could hear.

 

-The most precious thing. The most valuable thing. The most cherished thing.

 

Parents who had been devouring their children raised their heads. Hunters who had been hunting humans raised their heads. Beggars who had been begging for leftover bones raised their heads.

 

-That is yourselves.

 

Everyone in the kingdom realized.

 

We thought we had offered everything, but in fact we had not. We had been hiding the most precious treasure, so how could we have thought the Goddess would fulfill our wishes? Foolish, foolish.

 

“You’re telling us to offer ourselves to the altar!”

 

-Indeed so.

 

The people built altars filled with resentment.

 

-I am your mother. Your savior. Your master.

 

“Ahh…”

 

-Come to me by climbing the altar yourselves. I will gladly embrace you and be with you forever. You will feel neither thirst, nor hunger, nor pain.

 

The people did so. They climbed the altar themselves and set fire to their bodies.

 

And they rejoiced and praised the Goddess’s Grace. The power that had sustained their lives faded in the flames, and thus the kingdom was destroyed.

 

I had become King, but no kingdom remained to rule.

 

The beautiful world was no more. Everything had been like a dream. The kingdom I had gained so easily disappeared just as easily.

 

It was hard to accept that reality.

 

I was left alone.

 

Only then did the rain fall.

 

* * *

 

Much time passed.

 

I spent my time wandering through the fallen kingdom. I wandered aimlessly, sometimes stopping at places that drew my heart and standing there endlessly in silence. Then I would leave again.

 

Like the others, I tried setting my body on fire, but the King’s power would not allow me to die.

 

That was terror.

 

The terror of immortality that I thought I had escaped by stealing the King’s body. The endless terror that I would have to suffer eternally.

 

My mind collapsed countless times. But the King’s power would not allow me to remain broken.

 

In a situation where I couldn’t even go mad at will, I cried out loudly to the Goddess.

 

“O Goddess! My savior, my mother! My master!”

 

No answer came.

 

The King’s wisdom derived the answer over infinite time.

 

The Goddess had left. She had abandoned the Kingdom. She had taken all the people of the Kingdom as sacrifice and disappeared.

 

And I realized. That this had been the Goddess’s purpose from the beginning. That the endless famine that struck the Kingdom had been brought by the Goddess.

 

“Why, why…”

 

Over infinite time, the King’s wisdom derived the answer.

 

She was a goddess. But she was not a god of this world.

 

Only then did I realize. The endless power the King possessed, that duty. To protect the people from the outer gods who coveted the Kingdom.

 

The Goddess had stolen the King’s body and given it to me.

 

But she had not given me the King’s memories.

 

Foolish as I was, I did not know the King’s duty. I did not know I had to protect my world. I did not know what I had made a deal with.

 

Thus I became an incompetent king who offered the Kingdom to an outer god with my own hands.

 

The beautiful world was destroyed. By the Goddess, by me.

 

All the people, the souls of everyone in this world were plundered by the Goddess.

 

“Ah, ahhh…”

 

Because of me, a mere fraud, a liar.

 

I shed tears.

 

Over infinite time I recalled. The reason I had wanted to become king. The simple wish of a child who could not have a family.

 

I had ruined all of it.

 

Even though I had opportunities, I had kicked them all away.

 

I abandoned the father who took me in, abandoned the wife who loved me, abandoned the people who trusted me.

 

Why hadn’t I known? Why had I forgotten?

 

Shedding tears, I struggled to belatedly pick up the opportunities I had missed.

 

I struggled to rebuild the fallen Kingdom.

 

I gathered the remaining bone fragments, picked up the collapsed bricks, and soaked the barren ground with my blood.

 

My efforts were not in vain, as little by little there was a response.

 

Bone fragments gathered together, ruined buildings were constructed, and small sprouts bloomed.

 

But since all the people’s souls had already been devoured and disappeared by the outer god.

 

The gathered bone fragments did not move. The ruins collapsed again. The sprouts could not bear fruit.

 

So I cut my flesh to cover the bones, erected pillars with my bones, and made reservoirs with my spilled blood.

 

It was truly a bizarre form. None of the original beauty remained.

 

But it was my world, rebuilt by my hands. Made from me, the world I love.

 

I called the people born from the most evil things demons, the demon race.

 

I called the land covered with the most evil things hell, the Demon Realm.

 

I descended from the throne I had easily obtained and became the ruler of the Kingdom I had completed myself.

 

A god who created a new world upon the destroyed world.

 

The king of all evil and terrible things, the Demon Lord.

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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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