The Demon King Experiences His First Real Battle. 2
Jae-hyun’s promise had sounded far too merciful, yet beneath those words lay a hidden trap.
It was common knowledge among demons that contracts were often scams or riddled with loopholes, and one had to be meticulous when dealing with them. That was why black mages usually only made pacts with demons once they had already become black mages themselves.
For instance, in contracts promising power in exchange for a price, they would deliberately omit any specific date and claim they would deliver the strength a hundred years later. They would then find every possible flaw and devour the payment while leaving the recipient empty-handed.
But given the desperate situation at hand, the woman was crying and thanking Jae-hyun with tears streaming down her face.
“Th-thank you! Hic…”
“Then I’ll assume you accepted. Now I’ll ask you directly. Do you agree to the terms of this contract?”
Jae-hyun took a single sheet of paper from his spatial pocket and sent it flying toward her. The contract halted in front of the woman’s face.
The only problem was…
“I-I can’t read,”
the woman admitted, her voice trembling. It was only natural. Unlike Korea, where the simple and efficient Hangul alphabet kept illiteracy rates low, the language and script here were far more complex.
Though the language here carried faint echoes of Earth—its words seeming subtly connected to our own—the characters themselves were far more difficult than ancient script. Even though it was a phonetic system, one wrong connection could turn it into an entirely different word. Like Korean and Hangul, this language was not composed solely of sounds; the subtle nuances required careful study.
Studying it properly would take at least a month. Yet most commoners could barely afford to eat, let alone spend time learning to read. The state itself made little effort to reduce illiteracy rates. As a result, only a tiny fraction of people ever learned to read, and even then, it would take three months to reach the point where one could devour novels as fluidly as Jae-hyun did.
“This contract simply states that you will obey my commands. Answer me: will you make the pact or not?”
Jae-hyun explained the terms to the woman. In her foolishness, she agreed to the contract with the Demon King.
“H-here I go! I accept the contract!”
As a mother willing to do anything to protect her daughter, she had accepted. But the moment those words left her lips, the contract between Demon King Jae-hyun and the woman was sealed.
“Now neither I nor my subordinates will be able to touch your daughter. I will also grant you a powerful mental strength that strengthens your life force and makes you yield to nothing. In return, you will obey my commands unconditionally.”
Jae-hyun announced that the contract had been fulfilled. The woman, overwhelmed with relief that her daughter was alive, believed her child would grow healthy and strong thanks to the life force and unbreakable mental power he had promised.
She had no idea how deeply she had underestimated the contract she had just made with a demon.
From within his spatial pocket, Jae-hyun withdrew something. It was a kitchen knife.
“Very well. Fillet your daughter alive with this.”
The woman fell silent. She could not yet accept the command she had just received.
“What… Aah!”
But she quickly realized what was happening. Anyone would have. The kitchen knife Jae-hyun had floated in the air like the contract had been placed before her, yet it was now gripped in her own hand as if of its own volition.
“M-Mommy?”
The ten-year-old daughter called out to her mother in confusion, unable to understand what Jae-hyun had meant. But her mother was no longer free.
She forcibly pinned her daughter to the floor and suddenly released a torrent of demonic energy from her entire body. The flow of that energy bound the girl’s form and slammed her down onto the ground.
The villagers, sensing what was about to happen, backed away from the woman with horrified expressions. It was too terrifying.
And what unfolded was a sight no human should ever have to witness with open eyes.
A mother, driven by demonic compulsion, bound her beloved daughter, accepted a bit from Jae-hyun, forced it between the girl’s lips, and began to fillet her alive.
The daughter’s eyes flew wide with agony as the knife sliced through her flesh. She bit down hard on the bit, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Of course it hurt. Filleting someone alive was never painless. Blood poured in torrents, yet the ten-year-old girl could not faint or die. That was thanks to the overwhelming life force and mental strength Jae-hyun had granted her.
The woman had believed this was a blessing, but it was in truth a curse Jae-hyun had bestowed upon the young girl so that she would suffer and perish.
“Ugh! Uuuugh!”
The girl thrashed in agony, foam bubbling at her lips, but the woman could not stop. She could not believe she was actually filleting her own daughter alive.
The woman’s soul screamed, her mind fracturing under the weight of despair.
It was a truly cruel and horrific scene, yet Jae-hyun, Selina, Lucien, Ron, and Rin showed not the slightest reaction.
“Watching this is starting to get boring.”
Jae-hyun actually found the spectacle dull, and at his words, one man finally snapped.
“Y-you demons! Aren’t you afraid of the gods?!”
Finally unable to bear it, a middle-aged man raised his voice in fury, pointing straight at Jae-hyun. At the man’s shout, Jae-hyun clapped his hands.
“Yeah yeah, it’s good that at least one of you has the guts to speak up. You’re better than those other idiots.”
Jae-hyun clapped enthusiastically, clearly delighted by the man’s defiance. The middle-aged man was momentarily stunned into silence. Then Jae-hyun spoke to him.
“By the way, you have excellent eyesight. How did you know the two of us here are demons?”
Jae-hyun reached out with both arms, pulling Selina and Lucien—who stood on either side of him—into his embrace, and asked the middle-aged man mockingly.
“Ah, demons?”
The middle-aged man, who had never expected them to truly be demons, staggered backward in shock. But behind Jae-hyun’s back, a black hole opened, and something emerged from it.
“Kieeeeeee!”
It was a truly grotesque monster.
It had a long, gaping mouth, countless tentacles writhing across its body, long arms tipped with razor-sharp claws, and oddly proportioned legs that were both short and thick.
It was the very monster Jae-hyun had chosen for torture.
“As a reward for your courage, I’ll let you have a child to leave behind for future generations.”
Jae-hyun spoke to the middle-aged man as if granting him mercy, then slid his hand into Lucien’s skirt.
“Haaang~”
Lucien moaned and writhed as Jae-hyun’s hand moved beneath her skirt. The sight of the beautiful dark-elf queen—her long, glossy black hair cascading like silk, her alabaster skin glowing, her voluptuous body writhing in ecstasy—moaning lewdly was far too erotic. Yet after confirming what he had done, Jae-hyun clicked his tongue.
“Lucien, you’re lactating again.”
“Haaang~ But… seeing a child being filleted alive makes me so excited, what can I do?”
Lucien pouted in an utterly helpless, adorable manner. Showing such behavior toward the Demon King would turn an ordinary woman into a soccer ball, but at this moment, Lucien was well within Jae-hyun’s tolerance. He found her pouting strangely cute.
Originally, Selina and Lucien had been taken for their secrecy and usefulness, but they also served as his night attendants. Jae-hyun was no saint, and since he had become Demon King, he had no reason to refuse beautiful women.
He had long abandoned any notion of preserving his virginity before marrying Irene.
And Jae-hyun’s hand that emerged from beneath Lucien’s skirt was soaked in her love juices. It was not that his touch had made her wet, but as Lucien herself had said, she had felt overwhelming sexual excitement from watching the young girl being filleted alive by her own mother.
These crazy demons!
Thanks to this, the villagers present could finally feel just how insane Jae-hyun and Lucien truly were. And as she watched the scene, Selina asked,
“Should we just let it die slowly?”
“We have to. We can’t treat them because of the contract, after all. Well, since the mother wants it, we’ll let her die however she wishes.”
The woman wanted to scream that she refused, but her body no longer obeyed her will. She continued to fillet her daughter alive, driving her toward death.
In the girl’s agony, the emotions of terror and despair she vomited forth, along with the woman’s crushing despair, reached Jae-hyun. He laughed at the negative emotions.
Those who died filled with such hatred and despair yielded far more death energy. By absorbing that energy and transforming it into demonic energy or black magic, Jae-hyun could grow even stronger.
And Jae-hyun gave orders to the summoned monster.
“Go. Brider.”
“Kaaaaaaa!”
The moment Jae-hyun’s command fell, the standing monster roared and began advancing toward the middle-aged man. The man screamed.
“Uwaaaak! Get away, you monster!”
The middle-aged man, surrounded by Death Knights who had drawn their swords and blocked every escape, could only watch in horror. He screamed at Jae-hyun’s summoned monster, the Brider. He would rather be cut down by the Death Knights.
But the Death Knights only restrained him from fleeing; they did not kill him. They merely whipped him with their edge-less oar-like weapons.
“Ouch!”
The middle-aged man who took several blows from the club fell forward. The tentacles of the monster Brider that approached him pierced his abdomen, both arms, and both legs.
“Uwaaaak!”
The pain was like being stabbed by a spear. But it was not over. Something was being injected into his body!
“Kuuuuh! W-what are you doing, you monster?!”
The middle-aged man glared at the Brider with a pained expression and demanded an answer, but the reply came from Jae-hyun.
“I told you. As a reward for your courage, I’ll let you have a child to leave for future generations.”
The middle-aged man quickly understood what it meant.
“Kraaaak!”
The man screamed and fell backward. To Ron and Rin, who were staring in confusion, Selina kindly explained.
“The Brider is the most vicious reproducer among monsters in the Demon World. It lays eggs from its tentacles, but the eggs must be inserted into another living being’s body. It stabs the opponent with its tentacles and injects the eggs directly into their flesh. Once inside, the egg hatches immediately. The small Briders then devour the host’s flesh from the inside, suck blood, and grow rapidly. There are probably about five of them inside this man now.”
Selina’s explanation was heard not only by Ron and Rin but by the entire village. They all thought the same thing at once.
They really are demons!
We should just kill them cleanly!