Birth of the Demon Lord (3)

It had been an entirely ordinary day.

Strolling through the ruins beneath the morning sun, stopping by an underground fallout shelter he had scouted two days prior to scavenge a few cans, extending his sensory perception to check for vital signs, and inspecting and stabilizing the Gates scattered across Earth—it was his usual, mundane routine. Everything was normal. An uneventful, repetitive day indistinguishable from the countless others he had lived across the past twenty years.

At least, until he logged into the Demon Lord Gallery.

"Tomato soup again? Couldn't they stock anything else in a survival shelter...?"

Every single tin salvaged from the bunker had been tomato soup. Would it have killed them to stash a few cans of peaches or some decent snacks down there? With a tired sigh, he popped the lid, roughly warmed it with a flick of his energy, and tipped it straight down his throat.

Ah, had you ever tasted tomato soup engineered with such fanatical devotion to nutritional balance that it completely abandoned culinary balance? It tasted horrific. Truly abominable—the sort of taste you could never get used to, not even after a decade of choking it down. The more he dwelt on the awful flavor, the faster what little appetite he possessed withered away. In the end, he discarded the half-eaten can onto the dust-choked floor.

Some might call it a waste, but to him, it didn't matter in the slightest. If you asked an ordinary human about eating, they would call it an indispensable act of taking in vital nutrients. To him, however, eating had become an utter contradiction.

More than twenty years had passed since his body ceased needing nourishment from food. A vessel requiring neither sustenance nor slumber. People had once looked upon him with reverence, tossing around grand titles like 'transcendent' or whispering of Body Reconstruction. Some had even asked if it wasn't convenient. Well, what could he say? Sleep and meals were far more important than one might think.

Even though his body had no physical need for food or rest, he forced himself to repeat these rituals for one simple reason: to retain his humanity, to remember what it felt like to be a living creature. Spend years watching yourself never sleep and never eat, and a profound, hollow skepticism over your own existence begins to gnaw at you. A lingering remorse creeps in. And then there was the insurmountable wall of alienation separating you from other people.

Though currently, of course, not a single living soul existed within a ten-thousand-kilometer radius.

People. Humans. Society. Whenever he let his thoughts wander into idle musings, they invariably dead-ended at 'people.' A cold pang of loneliness washed over him.

"Damn it..."

With his mind crowded with melancholy, regrets, and spiraling worries, he naturally gravitated toward a distraction: the novelty ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that had kept him entertained through the early morning hours. The Demon Lord Gallery.

"...Wait, how do I open it?"

Earlier, touching the floating prompt had granted him instant access, but once closed, he had no idea how to summon it again. There were no text boxes hovering in his field of vision. Don't tell me...

"...Gallery open?"

It sounded so cringe-inducing, so utterly humiliating, that it curled his toes. Fortunately for his dignity, the gallery responded to the verbal command. Before his eyes materialized the familiar community interface, and the very second he scrolled down...

"...What the hell is this?"

It was pure, unadulterated chaos.

Granted, the Demon Lord Gallery hadn't struck him as a particularly sane place at dawn, but this was far beyond the pale. Every time he refreshed, dozens of new threads tagged with "controversy" erupted on the board, and just as magically, dozens of others vanished into thin air in real time.

"What on earth happened?"

He hadn't expected demon lords to run a wholesome, orderly online community, but surely this was ridiculous. He couldn't begin to fathom what had ignited such a massive dumpster fire. He scrolled for a good ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠while, dodging spam threads and mass deletions, trying to unearth the root cause, but no matter how hard he looked, the origin remained buried beneath the avalanche.

"I need to get a grip on what's going on... Wait."

Sighing, he scrolled back to the top of the interface and noticed the category tabs.

At dawn, Arenas 4 and 5 hadn't existed; two more sub-boards had been hastily opened. And then he spotted something he had missed earlier: the Hall of Fame tab.

"What was this again?"

It had been so long since he last surfed an internet forum that he could only guess it collected the upvoted, high-engagement posts. Clicking on the Hall of Fame tab, he finally found what he was looking for.

The summary thread. A breakdown of how this madness erupted was precisely what he needed.

"......."

Wait. This 'newbie'... could it be him? Swallowing down his mounting dread, he tapped an icon located in the upper-left corner of the interface.

Ah. It's me.

The Dimensional Log 111.432.743.674.187 and the temporary handle Anonymous(111.432) stamped under user information proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the newbie in question was none other than himself. All this because of one measly post?

It was practically an open-and-shut case, but just to be certain, he tried to view his previous submission. Unfortunately, what greeted his eyes wasn't the brief lines he had written, but a stark warning banner—a message that clearly indicated it had been quarantined because it had set the entire forum ablaze.

At this point, even an idiot would understand. The entire gallery was burning to the ground, and it was entirely his fault.

"Are these people completely out of their minds...?"

All he wanted was a little entertainment to stave off thirty years of soul-crushing boredom. He never imagined things would go so sideways right out of the gate. No. It's my fault for underestimating beings called 'Demon Lords.'

Even as he sighed in dismay, the gallery continued to burn furiously. The Arena tabs had already blown past 5, with Arena-6 being generated in real time. Wait... they're not going to cross dimensions and cause havoc over here, are they?

The pinned notices explicitly stated a strict Dimension Travel Ban, but knowing that the forum's inhabitants were demon lords made him deeply anxious. In his mind, demon lords were beings who ignored laws and rules entirely to act on whatever whim struck them. The madness he had witnessed at dawn and just now only reinforced that impression.

Should he just close the gallery window and sever all ties right here? Erase all memory of the gallery and endure the next thirty years in isolation, just as he always ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had? He weighed several options, but they were all just forms of denial and escapism. There was really only one viable solution.

He who tied the knot had to untie it. The one who started the fire had to put it out.

He had summoned considerable courage to write it, imbuing the message with sincere politeness. The problem was, he had no idea what kind of reaction it would provoke.

He stared in stunned disbelief as the comment count skyrocketed. Amid the deluge of malice and lunacy, he was fortunate enough to spot one comment that actually offered help.

Marquis Wolf*.

He was one of the assistant managers listed directly beneath the chief administrator, Ban-gal-juk, at the top of the forum. And by Suhyun's standards, one of the few sane individuals in the entire Demon Lord Gallery.

"A private message..."

Finding it proved to be an ordeal in itself. Did these demon lords do nothing all day except stare at this forum? His inbox had blown past 999 and was now sitting well into several thousands. Thankfully, a handy search function existed, allowing him to quickly locate the message sent by the user named Marquis Wolf.

Reading such an exceptionally normal, rational message brought a wave of relief to his frayed nerves.

"I've read the notices, and as for further explanation... it's always better to gather as much intel as possible while I can."

Learning more about this bizarre community was his top priority. Rather than getting entangled with some psychotic demon lord, wasn't it far safer to receive guidance from this seemingly reasonable 'Marquis Wolf'?

Having reached that conclusion, he tapped the link.

What's this?

A strange prompt flashed before his eyes, but before he could ponder it—

"Gah?!"

The gallery interface flared with abnormal intensity. A blinding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠luminescence capable of turning dead of night into broad daylight erupted, only fading after several heart-stopping moments. When he opened his eyes, an absurd, impossible spectacle loomed before him.

Legs towering several times higher than skyscrapers. A pelt and scales that looked impervious to any mortal blade or artillery. Gleaming, razor-sharp fangs radiating an austere, predatory majesty.

What had manifested right before him was a colossal gray wolf.