The Demon King's Death Sentence
Hmm.
The Demon King, Hilde Bryant, observed a strange phenomenon.
She had clearly drawn her signature Death Sentence to erase the insolent man who had behaved rudely before her. His body had died, yet his soul had not crossed into death.
If one had to guess the reason, it was usually one of two possibilities.
Either the target was strong enough to endure her attack.
Or his soul was not entirely his own.
Hilde Bryant’s eyes narrowed with interest at the curious situation.
The man was unmistakably weak. That ruled out the first assumption.
“You. There is something peculiar about you.”
Half of the man’s soul had already been shredded by her decree. Yet the remaining half seemed shielded by something else, staying perfectly intact.
She could see the constraint laid upon his soul.
She was about to read the words inscribed on that constraint when—
“Haha. Demon King, it’s been a while.”
The convenience store door opened and a sturdy, light-haired man stepped inside.
A familiar face.
“Manager.”
The manager showed no surprise at the sight of his dying employee. Instead he grinned and offered a casual greeting.
“Oh dear. What on earth did our clerk do to deserve being killed?”
Hilde Bryant released the power holding the man.
He dropped limply to the floor.
“Aigoo~ Demon King. Employees are part of the store’s human assets, you know. This counts as product damage. Damage.”
The manager clicked his tongue, squatted beside the fallen man, and turned his face this way and that.
“He showed insolence to this girl.”
“Huh? What exactly did he do?”
Hilde Bryant raised her arm and pointed at the snacks and ice cream that had fallen with him.
“Insolently, he tried to take what belongs to this girl. Therefore this girl sought to take his soul in return.”
“Weren’t there any kids you usually play with?”
“This girl looked, yet found none.”
The manager finally stood up slowly, scratched his head, and let out a sigh.
“Guess I’d better clean this up first. Demon King, please enjoy your snacks in the meantime.”
Hilde Bryant picked up the snacks and ice cream once more. She popped another piece of the spicy snack she had already opened into her mouth.
The salty, fiery flavor danced across her tongue. Simply having the snacks returned seemed to soften her mood. Perhaps using Death Sentence had been excessive after all. Such was the strange power of snacks.
“Manager.”
“Yes, yes. What is it?”
“It was quite an interesting contract.”
The manager, still squatting and working busily, turned to look at her.
“The thing bound to his soul, that is.”
“Aigoo. Our Demon King.”
A shadow crossed the manager’s smile.
“You saw something fun again.”
“He could not possibly have known his own value.”
Hilde Bryant’s eyes narrowed further.
She shifted her gaze from the man to the manager, a faint smile curving her lips.
“Is this your handiwork?”
The manager merely shrugged.
“Well, every dimension has its unique constitutions. Besides, I have no intention of handing him over~”
“Not even for a loan?”
The manager turned his head. His eyes met hers through his sunglasses.
A brief silence. The one who smiled first was the manager.
“Come on, that would be asking for disaster. Why would I lend him to the Demon King who breaks him the moment she gets annoyed?”
Since the reply was not to her liking, she pouted without thinking.
“This girl did not break the previous one, did she?”
“We’ll see. We’ll see.”
Humans were difficult to handle, each one self-willed in their own way. Both the manager and that frail servant.
Just as Hilde Bryant’s thoughts reached that point, the convenience store door opened once more.
A tall woman with neatly trimmed black hair that followed the line of her jaw and striking red eyes stepped inside.
She wore what people commonly called a suit—black fabric contrasted by a red shirt and buttons. Small horns grew from her head, hinting at her connection to Hilde Bryant.
The woman scanned the store once, then approached Hilde Bryant and offered a perfectly polite bow. Hilde Bryant, however, kept her lips pursed and merely glanced at her naturally.
“You found this girl rather quickly, Yuria.”
“You flatter me, Your Majesty the Demon King.”
The manager waved lightly at the demon woman called Yuria.
“Aa, Yuria, hello. If you’d arrived three minutes sooner I wouldn’t have had to bother with any of this.”
Yuria glanced between her seated master and the collapsed human man.
“Thank you for your consideration, Manager.”
“Wow~ I wonder which part of my words felt like consideration to you, Yuria? Next time, find our Demon King a little faster, okay~?”
The manager’s sharp reply continued, but Yuria only blinked lightly.
“I will consider it positively.”
“Which means you won’t. Right? This is exactly why demons give me headaches.”
As if he had expected exactly that reaction, the manager burst out laughing and nodded. Then, as though mentioning something trivial, he added.
“Good, good. Well… since the Demon King’s wallet manager has arrived, let’s wrap up the rest quickly.”
The sensation of a gentle breeze brushing my cheek and vanishing.
I opened my eyes.
White wallpaper. A bed.
An IV drip. Sunlight streaming through the open window.
Me, sitting in a chair.
My little sister, lying in the bed.
— Oppa, you fell asleep again?
Had I?
It seemed so.
But when had I even come to the hospital?
I was supposed to be working during the day.
— Are you leaving already?
I had to. I needed to work.
I had to pay it all back.
The hospital bills.
The loans.
The debts.
“… …Ah.”
As far as I could remember, I had died.
One hour after signing the convenience store employment contract and being dumped in some unknown place called Sanctum City.
I had suffered truly horrific pain and died of shock.
I thought my dream of 150 million won had vanished just like that…
“Wow~ So how does it feel to have worked in another world?”
When I opened my eyes, I was sprawled across the store floor. In the corner of my vision the manager stood smiling brightly.
“… I’m not dead yet.”
“Well. You definitely died, you know?”
The manager shook his head and said something bizarre. If I had died, how was I alive?
“That’s because I brought you back.”
“Is it okay if I just give up on understanding at this point?”
“Kids these days don’t even say thank you first when you revive them.”
It wasn’t as if I had barely survived death—I had properly died and been brought back. Wasn’t it more natural to wonder what kind of trick he had pulled?
Still, the manager kept grumbling, so I reluctantly thanked him.
“Ugh, my head… Ack?!”
The moment I sat up, my eyes met the little girl who had killed me earlier for taking a few snacks.
“You should be grateful for your constitution.”
The girl smiled as she spoke words I could not understand.
“There are not many who can keep breathing after behaving rudely before this girl.”
She then calmly popped another piece of snack into her mouth. She really was nothing short of a psychopath.
“Ugh…”
Just because she looked cute. I must never get involved with her again.
I fled back to the counter and listened as the manager explained what had happened.
“… So that little girl is the Demon King. I talked back, got killed, and then you came in whistling and revived me.”
“I never said I came in whistling, but the summary is neat so I’ll allow it.”
Allow it my ass.
“Please explain properly. What’s this about my constitution, and what exactly is this place?”
I considered grabbing the manager by the collar but stopped myself. He had saved me, after all.
“There are tons of beings who can kill me with one finger. Does an hourly wage of fifty thousand won with life allowance even make sense?”
I had thought it was a dream job. It was the exact opposite.
“I was surprised too~ You’re the first person to die less than two hours after starting.”
The manager looked at me with genuine admiration.
“Even the Demon King is rare among those who can ignore the rules of the convenience store.”
“And I acted up to that rare being and got killed for it?”
“Mhm~ Exactly!”
I was going to lose my mind.
“Logically speaking, where is the law that lets you kill someone for taking snacks inside a convenience store!”
“Not in Korea, but in this neighborhood power is common sense and each person is basically their own law.”
“Still… even so…”
I sighed. There was no point in arguing further.
“Anyway, don’t worry. Employees are definitely company property, so it would be troublesome if they became unusable. We make sure to revive them properly.”
Did he just say “unusable”?
That was no way to talk about a person!
“And the Demon King promised not to kill recklessly anymore just because she’s in a bad mood.”
I glanced at the girl called the Demon King. When our eyes met she spoke while chewing a mouthful of snacks.
“Do not mind it. Every being is allowed up to three mistakes.”
“… Did I commit three mistakes?”
“Speaking down to this girl, interrupting this girl’s precious teatime, and attempting to take what belongs to this girl.”
So petty.
And she had exploded at the third one anyway.
Who was the one eating without paying in the first place?
Whether I felt wronged or not, the Demon King remained shameless.
“Your Majesty the Demon King, it is time to return.”
The secretary-like woman who had been standing behind her finally spoke. The Demon King pouted in clear dissatisfaction.
“Hing.”
“Your Majesty.”
“I understand.”
While the woman cleaned up the mess of wrappers, the Demon King approached me.
My body flinched on its own. Even though I knew she wasn’t going to kill me again, the terror of death had been burned into my memory and refused to fade.
“Take it.”
She set something on the counter in front of my flinching self.
It was the ring she had offered as payment earlier.
When I lifted it, the blue gem caught the fluorescent light and sparkled beautifully.
“… Why are you giving this to me?”
“This girl could not fathom your ignorance, so consider this compensation.”
I was beginning to understand Demon-King-speak.
The statement basically meant, I messed you up pretty badly so here, take this and get lost.
It felt weird to be paid off for being killed, but the ring itself looked expensive.
Surely it wasn’t cursed or anything that would give me nightmares.
“You are weak and overly suspicious.”
“That’s because I’m weak…”
I accepted the ring hesitantly.
Did I have to wear it? I had no idea how to store a ring, so I would just put it in a drawer for now.
Having handed over the ring, the Demon King nodded several times in satisfaction and turned away.
“I shall visit again. Your spiritual constitution interests me as well.”
“Ah… yes.”
Please never come back…
Only after both the Demon King and her secretary had left the store did I let out a sigh that seemed to empty my lungs.
It really had been a storm.
“Oh, and I dragged the senior back.”
“Huh? Didn’t he quit?”
“Excluding the probation period, he still has a week left on his contract.”
“There’s a probation period too?”
“You’re on probation right now. One week.”
The manager snapped his fingers. Suddenly Kim Gichan—who had run away declaring his resignation thirty minutes earlier—appeared out of thin air and crashed to the floor.
His hands and feet were neatly bound with duct tape like a kidnapping victim. The resigned look on his face was almost impressive.
“Kim Gichan. You’ve still got a week left, so make sure the handover is done properly, you bastard.”
“Wait, this is the first I’m hearing about probation, Manager!”
“Of course it is. You don’t even remember where you put your own contract.”
After tearing off the tape and slumping into the chair beside the counter, Kim Gichan sighed as if the world itself had collapsed. The sight was so similar to how I had looked moments ago that I began to feel an odd sense of sympathy.
“Has the convenience store worker’s glorious desertion finally ended?”
“Looks that way.”
“You must be heartbroken that your resignation was rejected.”
Contrary to my expectation, Kim Gichan simply shrugged.
“Well… it is a shame. But I did complete my bucket list.”
“Bucket list?”
“Telling the new hire to screw off and then quitting.”
Watching Kim Gichan smile at me as he said it, I realized I might be the only person here with any common sense.
Survive a whole year in a place like this.
… Could I even manage it?
Ding.
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