Preparations (Part 2)

My preparations were simple: acquiring knowledge. It was a primal, straightforward instinct that had existed since the dawn of life, and what I sought through it was none other than personal intelligence on the Demon Lords.

You might ask, "If you want information on Demon Lords, shouldn't you be browsing the Demon Lord Gallery? Why crack open a book?" But turning to physical books was a strictly objective, calculated decision on my part.

Certain Demon Lords are clearly connected to the lore of this dimension in one way or another.

Setting aside the anonymous guests, specific fixed-nickname regulars—or figures like Moses, whom I had watched in the Colosseum—bore remarkably close ties to knowledge that existed right here in my world. Beyond their identities, concepts like the "Death Star" and "Faust" were constantly tossed around the forums as casual conversation. Granted, Odin and Moses stood at the polar opposite ends of the myths I grew up with, but the fact that they were Demon Lords was merely their present state—the final outcome.

Therefore, I reasoned that if their origins and paths largely mirrored Earth's mythologies, those records held substantial value as actionable intelligence.

I had reached that conclusion seven days ago. Ever since, once I wrapped up my daily chores like Gate clearance, I spent my spare time scavenging across the ruins of the world. For an entire week, I dredged surviving tomes from the ashes of grand libraries and meticulously checked call numbers to track down volumes in miraculously preserved regional branches. Through sheer persistence, I unearthed every book on world mythology and demonology I could get my hands on.

"Hmm..."

I spent ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hours poring over the mountains of salvaged books, scribbling notes until the moon sank and the morning sun broke across the horizon. Only then was I finally able to sort through the chaos.

"Is it that time already?"

A mere four hours remained until ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Pandemonium Regular Meeting. It could have been nerve-wracking, but it didn't bother me much. I had already wrapped up my core research.

"First off, figuring ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out the mods was surprisingly easy."

The three sub-managers—SpiderLord, MarquisWolf, and FeatheredSnake—had been identified in no time. Most notably, MarquisWolf had outright given me his true name: Amon.

While flipping through the texts, I had spotted "Amon" listed among the 72 Demons of Solomon. The moment I saw his name, I scoured every reference to the 72 demons, which quickly led me to conclude that our sub-mod SpiderLord was none other than Baal. As an added bonus, I deduced that the gallery regular White Skeleton was likely Vassago, another pillar of the 72.

As for FeatheredSnake, the answer lay in mythology. His true name was—

"Quetzalcoatl."

An omnipotent entity revered as a supreme deity in Mesoamerican myth turned out to be our forum moderator. If he differed from Odin or Moses, it was that his fate hadn't been completely inverted into that of a Demon Lord; rather, he had always walked the razor's edge between a benevolent god and a wrathful one.

In any case, while I had successfully uncovered the true names of all three mods, the real problem was that my breakthrough ended there. There were virtually no other regulars whose handles mapped cleanly onto known folklore or myth, and many barely posted on the forum in the first place. In the end, collecting data on mythological Demon Lords hit a dead end faster than anticipated. I had spent the remaining hours combing through past posts and Odin's lore guides, compiling rough dossiers and memorizing fragmented details. The finalized list looked something like this:

In truth, it was less an intelligence dossier and more a classification chart separating crazy Demon Lords from sane ones.

...Should I have just written down the sane ones?

Instead of pulling an all-nighter trying to catalog hundreds of regulars, wouldn't it have been ten times easier to list the handful of sane Demon Lords and simply resolve to steer clear of everyone else?

Now that I think about it, yeah. Why didn't I do that?

I was almost awestruck by my own sheer stupidity for only realizing it now. Still, the effort wasn't completely wasted; it would prove useful when dodging threads posted by those lunatics.

"Let's see what the other Demon Lords are up to."

Whatever the case, I had done all the preparation I could. The sub-mods had assured me they would announce the avatar projection transit once the time came, so all that remained was to wait. In other words, it was prime time for forum lurking.

When I opened the Demon Lord Gallery, this was what greeted me:

"...Did everyone drink crazy juice?"

They were losing their minds again. Seriously, don't they ever get tired of this?

What was I even supposed to call this? Chuunibyou Demon Lords?

Truth be told, calling them chuunibyou wasn't entirely fair—they really were monstrously strong. Their proof photos flaunted absurd feats like cleaving mountain ranges in two, shattering continents, or slicing open the sky. Their confidence was backed by undeniable power. The problem, however, was that this place was the Demon Lord Gallery.

Even setting aside the duel between Moses and the Hero Traitor in the arena—which transcended heaven itself—this board was crawling with Demon Lords who wielded dimensional-scale magic. What did cracking a single continent or planet amount to here? To the ancient regulars and veteran Demon Lords, this was basically toddlers showing off at a kindergarten recital.

Case in point:

It was a thread brutal enough to make you feel genuine pity for the rookies posting their proud updates.

At this rate, isn't it safe to assume every Demon Lord flexing on the forum right now is a dead man walking?

Reading through the replies, the interface before my eyes no longer looked like the Demon Lord Gallery—it looked like the registry of the Underworld. And "Underworld" wasn't even an exaggeration. A quick glance through the comments revealed casual plans to slaughter and resurrect the rookies, drag uppity ones around on necromantic leashes throughout the entire summit, or transmute them into living furniture via flesh-alchemy. The thread was overflowing with casually sadistic, borderline snuff-tier banter.

"...On second thought, maybe avatar projection is for the best."

I had lost count of how many times I had changed my mind today, but right now, I felt profoundly grateful that my real body wouldn't be anywhere near that place.

After offering a silent prayer for the doomed newbies, a minor question crossed my mind, prompting me to write a post.

Perhaps drowned out by the forum's collective frenzy over the upcoming summit, it was an oddity I hadn't thought about until now. If every user attended the conference, the deserted gallery would literally become a ghost town. It was a natural question to ask, and evidently, I wasn't the only curious one.

The Demon Lords attending their first summit harbored the exact same doubts. The only problem was that they were just as clueless as I was.

The one who answered my desperate plea wasn't Odin as usual... but another chronic explainer among the regulars: White Skeleton.

Wait.

Then why had I received an invitation? As an Awakened Demon Lord stranded on a post-apocalyptic Earth, there was no way in hell I belonged to Pandemonium.

No sooner had I fired off the reply than a notification pinged with an answer.

As expected of the gallery's second-string Speedwagon, White Skeleton—or rather, Vassago—delivered reliable performance. Naming him Vassago made him sound a bit like a virtual AI assistant, but whatever.

"Still, where's the One-Eyed Geezer...?"

It was hard to believe that a Demon Lord who practically lived on this board was absent amid such monumental chaos. Just a few hours ago, he had been joyfully posting giveaways for mead, so it couldn't be an emergency.

What on earth could drag away a spirit who haunts the Demon Lord Gallery for thirty hours a day?

Probably nothing serious.

Probably.