The Demon King Descends and Gathers His Servants
It was fortunate that she was still alive.
Re-hyun’s words sounded like the words of a man who loved his lover, Irene, and rejoiced that she had survived.
But he was no longer the hero, nor a human, but the Demon King whose blood flowed with demonic energy.
What pleased him was precisely that Irene was alive, just like him, crushed by this world.
Right now, Irene had a 99% chance of being brainwashed.
But Re-hyun also kept the possibility that she had betrayed him in that 1%.
If she was the Irene he knew, no matter how sane she was, she would never have become the wife of the current emperor of the Habsburg Empire.
But one could never know.
She might have undergone a change of heart after being rescued by him.
If she had, he would simply turn her into a slave.
If she had not, he would transform her into a demon as a reward and make her his wife.
Either way, nothing would change.
*‘The plan remains unchanged.’*
Re-hyun had heard the situation with Irene, but he had no intention of deviating from his original plan.
The plan would proceed exactly as he had intended.
His first goal was still the Saintess Lucretia and the Holy Kingdom of Astraea.
“Well, you seem rather knowledgeable about information. Is there a way to obtain information?”
Re-hyun wondered how the brother and sister who lived in a cave as a base in this deep forest managed to gather the information of the entire continent.
The first thing that struck him as odd was the section on reports about Jason Light.
[There is information that they are trying to acquire the title of son-in-law by marrying the princess of the Minoa Kingdom and receive the kingship.]
Recalling the part where Ron had said “there is information” naturally led Re-hyun to conclude that the brother and sister must have a way of obtaining information.
And Rin nodded at Re-hyun’s words.
“Yes. The surviving black mages hid their bodies only by going underground, which made them easy targets for those chasing them, so they fled to places like deep mountains and forests where people rarely tread. But they signed contracts with a few black mages who had not learned magic, guaranteeing they could never betray them. Those people gathered information from the underground and steadily sent it to the responsible black mages. Through connections between the black mages themselves, they shared information with each other.”
In short, they obtained information through those bound by unbreakable contracts and shared it among themselves.
“…Rather sloppy, isn’t it? Well, given the current situation, expecting anything complex is unrealistic.”
The credibility of the information was somewhat doubtful, but since pursuit had already reached even the underground hideouts, it was probably the only way to gather information.
However, Re-hyun did not yet know that information guilds and their executives or guild masters from across the continent could obtain information and were bound by contracts to follow orders, so the information he received was both high-quality and abundant.
Since they were cooperating to survive now, there was no competition among black mages; only cooperation or betrayal for survival existed.
But to survive, betrayal required guarantees of safety, yet black mages, demons, and monsters were mostly massacred the moment they were seen, and even reporting colleagues meant almost no chance of survival.
Thus, black mages mostly gave up and died without any transactions tied to their lives.
At the very least, they sought even the smallest revenge by not burning information that would benefit those who killed them.
Black mages were not fools to begin with, and since they were mages, they were smart enough to look after their own safety on their own.
And Ron and Rin looked at Re-hyun with eyes full of anticipation.
They believed that the Demon King’s power had turned them into 7th Circle black mages in one stroke, and that he could create a far more powerful army of darkness to sweep the Intermediate World clean.
Therefore, Ron and Rin waited for Re-hyun’s command to gather all the black mages, demons, and monsters remaining in the Intermediate World.
But Re-hyun said something completely different from their expectations.
“Do not speak of my descent into the Intermediate World to any black mage, demon, or monster. Do not even hint at it by any other means. Hide it thoroughly.”
Re-hyun ordered that not a single member of the army of darkness should know of the Demon King’s arrival.
When Ron and Rin expressed surprise at the unexpected command, Re-hyun looked up at the sky and spoke.
“It is still too early. There is a goal I must handle first.”
“…Revenge?”
Ron asked cautiously.
Re-hyun shook his head.
“No, that is not all. Revenge is included, but this is a prelude to the greater revenge of the world’s destruction.”
With that, Re-hyun told Ron and Rin his goal.
“First, I will annihilate the Holy Kingdom of Astraea. Right here, with this Holy Sword.”
Re-hyun drew the Holy Sword from the scabbard at his waist.
Shu—!
As soon as Re-hyun pulled out the Holy Sword, Ron and Rin, along with Selina and Lucien who had been quietly standing behind him, quickly retreated.
Vampire Queen Selina and Dark Elf Queen Lucien were not weak enough to be harmed by the holy aura emanating from the Holy Sword, but the feeling of impurity remained the same.
However, since Re-hyun was the owner of the Holy Sword and did not consider the four subordinates present to be his enemies, the sword gave them only a faint sense of impurity without causing any other harm.
*‘The Holy Sword?’*
*‘With the Holy Sword, annihilate the kingdom?’*
Ron and Rin stared blankly at Re-hyun. It seemed they thought the Demon King, who was human-born and the former hero, had a truly peculiar idea.
But to the Holy Kingdom of Astraea, Re-hyun’s existence was nothing but a catastrophe.
Those belonging to the darkness that possessed demonic energy were well aware that holy power was an absolute enemy to them.
But Re-hyun was both a Demon King and the owner of the Holy Sword. No matter how much the Pope or Saintess poured holy power into attacks against him, it would mean nothing.
He was the first person in history to wield both the Holy Sword and the Demonic Sword simultaneously and manipulate the most powerful holy power and demonic energy.
Ron and Rin felt the terrifying scale of his existence at the peak of both holy power and demonic energy.
To the Holy Kingdom of Astraea, which used holy power, he was the worst enemy imaginable.
“Hmm~”
After stating only his purpose to Ron and Rin without explaining the reason, Re-hyun used magic to check his current position on the continent and the distance to the target, the Holy Kingdom of Astraea.
“…Quite far.”
Of course, that was natural.
The strongest kingdom on the continent, the Habsburg Empire, ruled almost the entire western and northern halves of the continent except for the northern wilderness. Excluding the wilderness, it controlled a territory close to one-third of the continent.
The next largest was the Holy Kingdom of Astraea in the south.
For reference, the three kingdoms destroyed by Demon King Laylana— the Iverian Kingdom, Kalmar Kingdom, and Frank Kingdom—were located in the central part of the continent. The Minoa Kingdom was in the northeast, the Gallia Kingdom was to the southeast of the Minoa Kingdom and east of the Kalmar Kingdom, the Valois Kingdom was to the south of the Gallia Kingdom, and the Sardinia Kingdom was to the west of the Valois Kingdom. The Venice Kingdom was to the west of the Sardinia Kingdom, and the Frank Kingdom was to the northwest, the Kalmar Kingdom to the north, and the Holy Kingdom of Astraea to the southwest.
Among the territories on the continent, the Holy Kingdom of Astraea, being the southernmost, had a warm climate and was suitable for agriculture.
However, because the Holy Kingdom of Astraea was too well-developed, it had no wilderness territory, and it ranked as one of the countries with the most dwarves after the Valois Kingdom, where the most dwarves resided.
The Habsburg Empire, compared to the Holy Kingdom of Astraea, was the country with the second-highest number of dwarves, so the scale of the dwarven population was clear.
Furthermore, elves were not limited to the Habsburg Empire or the northern Minoa Kingdom; they had the highest number of elves living in the Holy Kingdom of Astraea.
In addition, since priestesses were scattered throughout the territory, the Holy Kingdom of Astraea was the worst country for the army of darkness to inhabit.
The place where Ron and Rin currently were was also east of the Habsburg Empire, southwest of the Minoa Kingdom, and deep within the forest in the former Iverian Kingdom that had been abandoned due to poor development.
It was a wilderness close to the center of the continent, so people’s gazes did not reach it.
Although there was also the wilderness of the Frank Kingdom, Ron and Rin chose the wilderness of the Iverian Kingdom because they wanted to stay as far as possible from the Holy Kingdom of Astraea.
At least they could live comfortably in the slightly warmer weather there, and black mages who had given up the true northern part of the continent abandoned by the Habsburg Empire and Minoa Kingdom still endured the cold and lived painfully there.
Fortunately, because Re-hyun had descended near them, it was a stroke of luck for the two siblings to obtain power.
But for Re-hyun calculating the distance between his current position and the destination, the 7th Circle black mages were too heavy a burden to bring along immediately.
*‘It will be a bit late.’*
If it were Selina and Lucien, he could simply adjust his speed slightly and they would follow quickly.
Since they had such skills from the beginning, he had brought them to the Intermediate World.
But Ron and Rin had not yet fully grown, so he could not expect that level of ability.
If such a thing had been possible, Ron and Rin could have defeated the top archmages of the Intermediate World—Jason and Griffith—who had betrayed him.
The capital of the Holy Kingdom of Astraea was located slightly south of the center of its territory. Since it was a strong kingdom with territory second only to the Habsburg Empire, in the former territory of the Iverian Kingdom, it would take at least passing through two nations to reach the distance.
“Well, I should practice first.”
Re-hyun, the former hero who had descended into the Intermediate World, muttered.
Lucien, the Dark Elf Queen who knew what his words meant, nodded.
“That is a good idea. Since the Demon King has no actual combat experience yet, it would be better to gain experience first before going straight to the Holy Kingdom of Astraea.”
Even for a Dark Elf, aside from the black hair and eyes that changed from the normal elves and the addition of demonic energy, their appearance had not changed much. Their snowy white skin and beautiful beauty remained unchanged.
Especially for Dark Elf Queen Lucien, who was the strongest and most beautiful beauty in the Dark Elf race, her beauty would not fade even if placed beside Irene.
The same applied to Vampire Queen Selina, but while she, as a vampire with a strong image of darkness, looked different from normal elves only in hair and eye color, Lucien appeared like a benevolent race.
However, despite her benevolent appearance and composed personality, Re-hyun knew what her greatest hobby was.
The hobby of a beautiful Dark Elf Queen! It was slaughter.