Change (1)
A Hero.
It was a word made up of merely two syllables, but right now, the sheer weight it pressed onto my shoulders was suffocating. The reason was painfully simple: I was a Demon Lord—the Hero's fated nemesis and mortal enemy—and lying right before my eyes was a girl who was almost certainly that very Hero.
"...I'm losing my mind."
No matter how hard I tried to gather my thoughts and remain calm, nothing but muttered curses managed to slip past my lips. What kind of total braindead idiot was I? Did I really not suspect this girl was a Hero until just now? Having to wait until my soul fragment returned from Pandemonium and merged back into me to finally connect the dots made me seriously question my own intelligence.
To be fair, the past version of me who lacked any intel from Pandemonium had naturally thought it was only right to save her. The real problem was why I had assumed an optimistic future while completely ignoring the worst-case scenario, diving headfirst into rescuing her without giving a single shred of thought to the consequences.
"Haaah..."
I never expected to encounter a Hero this fast. I had heard in Pandemonium that Causality and the Balance were distorting, and I had gleaned plenty of details from Ferma—the user known as 'Retry'—about the traits of Heroes and when they typically appeared, but none of that provided a manual on how to handle the immediate reality unfolding right in front of me. Honestly, how could anyone have predicted that the moment I returned from a meeting in Pandemonium, a presumed Hero would be lying right on my doorstep?
Should I just leave her here and run away right now?
The small silver lining was that she was still unconscious. That meant she knew absolutely nothing about me. There were no visible external wounds or obvious internal injuries either. If I simply abandoned her here and took off, our paths probably wouldn't cross for quite a while. And if I went all out hiding and staying on the run, we might never meet again for the rest of my life.
Frankly, fleeing was practically the most reasonable choice. Cutting off contact with the variable altogether was the simplest way to preemptively eliminate whatever conflicts, entanglements, or emotional bonds might arise around her. Plus, it guaranteed I wouldn't have to clash with whatever organization she belonged to.
And yet...
If she's a controllable variable, shouldn't I keep her close and manage her instead?
If this Hero were vastly stronger than me, I wouldn't have hesitated for a second before running. Unfortunately for the fleeing idea—or perhaps fortunately—this pure-white girl was leagues beneath me in combat prowess. In standard fantasy terms, she was essentially a novice Hero who had barely stepped outside her starter village. In her current state, it was virtually impossible for her to inflict any harm on me, no matter what happened. That drastically diminished the necessity of running away; if anything, staying nearby to keep her monitored and controlled felt like a far more forward-thinking approach.
"Whatever else you make of them, the most terrifying thing about a Hero is their growth curve. Causality grants them an absurd modifier on advancement so they can catch up to Demon Lords who have lived for centuries or millennia. That's why the standard, textbook strategy against a Hero is to locate them early and either execute them on the spot or keep them under tight surveillance and control. The later you find them, the worse your odds get..."
Remembering those words from the fixed nickname 'Retry,' Ferma, made me feel all the more that keeping a Hero where I could see her—or keeping myself stationed right around her—was the right call.
"...Still, there's no clear answer."
It was a maddeningly difficult problem. Deciding how I, as a Demon Lord, should handle a Hero was hard enough on its own, but the decisive barrier was that I simply knew too little about this girl. What kind of past did she have? What kind of emotions drove her? What was her level of education? What was her personality like? Where was she born, and where was she raised? Before being a Hero, she was a human being, and I didn't know the first thing about her. That was why I couldn't make a rash decision.
"Maybe I should have accepted that guy's ability back then."
Decades ago, among the handful of awakened psychics I knew, there was one with a truly unique power: the ability to read someone's emotions and memories through mere physical touch. That was the useless bastard's supernatural gift. While it sounded immensely versatile on paper, he barely accomplished anything in practice because it was completely useless against monsters. What good was reading memories when staring down a beast tearing out of a Gate that could chew through tanks like tin foil? He had spent his days toiling in the rear lines far away from the monsters, and shortly after the world war broke out, all contact with him was severed.
"..."
I still remembered the words he threw at me the last time we met.
"Senior, you have any interest in taking my ability?"
Having read my memories once, he knew the intimate workings of my powers, and he had definitely asked because of that knowledge. He had probably realized his time to die was drawing near. If I had accepted his offer and taken his power back then, it would have been quite handy right about now. But as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I felt pathetic for dredging up the distant past just to indulge in pointless regret.
"...Hah."
A hollow chuckle slipped out. Lately, my thoughts seemed to wander down bizarre rabbit holes far too often. Whether the madness accumulated over twenty solitary years was finally leaking out, or if I had caught something weird from browsing the Demon Lord Gallery, I definitely wasn't in my right mind. Maybe I needed to look into psychiatric counseling somewhere.
Just as I let out a self-deprecating sigh—
Ding.
A short, cheerful chime brushed against my ears. On this desolate Earth, where not a single functional electronic device remained save for a battered military watch, an alert sound like that couldn't have felt more alien. Had it been a month or two ago—hell, even a day or two ago—I would have jumped out of my skin. But now, it was different. It was a chime I had anticipated, one I had been waiting for.
"Right on cue."
User: ㅇㅇ(111.432)
Notification (1)
└ [You have 1 unread message.]
As expected, a message from Solomon had arrived.
The deadline is 100 days by your dimension's standard.
Please review the contract in the attached file.
It was a message so bare-bones it bordered on suspicious. But having already heard Solomon's explanation in advance, it didn't come as much of a surprise.
He did say he'd keep messages as simple as possible because of communication security and all that.
The conversation I had shared with Solomon within stopped time was still burned deep into my mind.
"I require assistance to strike down the Heroes, so let us form a contract."
That was essentially the gist of it. Naturally, the contract contained within the attachment pertained to this very agreement. Perhaps remembering the skepticism I had displayed during our previous encounter, Solomon's contract was exhaustively thorough.
Article 1. Demon Lord Shin Soohyun (hereinafter referred to as Party A) and Solomon (hereinafter referred to as Party B) shall execute an agreement in accordance with the following terms.
Clause 1-1. The standing of Party A and Party B under this contract is absolute. Under no circumstances shall Party B deceive Party A, inflict injury, or cause harm or loss to Party A.
Article 2. [...]
As if mocking my expectation of a brief one- or two-page document, the contract spanned well over ten pages, dense with hundreds of interlocking clauses trailing one after another. Even running my brain at full throttle, it took me nearly an hour just to grasp the rough outline; there was hardly any need to elaborate on how convoluted it was.
The good news is that I still have a hundred days.
Thankfully, I had plenty of time to mull over the terms. For now, I could set the contract aside and focus entirely on the Hero lying before me. Shoving the agreement into the recesses of my mind, I stared back down at the pure-white girl and brooded. A moment later, an idea—or rather, a potential solution—flashed through my head.
"The Demon Lord Gallery is back online! Why am I not using it?"
Maybe it was because the forum had been down for dozens of days, but I had been an utter fool for not immediately thinking of turning to the gallery for answers.
Aside from Ferma, there’s a whole mountain of users I could ask.
I clearly remembered seeing posts in the past from Demon Lords who claimed to have married their Heroes, or Demon Lords who had become drinking buddies with them. There were even those who grew alongside their Heroes like something out of a coming-of-age teen drama, and others whose children had ended up marrying a Hero. The Demon Lord Gallery was surprisingly crawling with people who maintained intimate ties with Heroes.
And on the flip side of those friendly Demon Lords, there were just as many who had spent their entire lives treating Heroes with bitter hostility, plotting counterstrategies day in and day out. In my current predicament, there was practically no better place in the multiverse to seek advice. Neutral opinions, hostile perspectives, friendly insights—if I gathered every scrap of feedback and counsel I could get, finding a conclusion would be vastly easier.
Once the plan took shape, putting it into motion took no time at all. It was childishly simple, after all: pull up the Demon Lord Gallery window for the first time in a while, pass the authentication check, hit the "New Post" button, and submit my question. It should have been that straightforward.
And yet...
"...What the hell is happening now?"
The mood on the gallery was far too grim for me to just casually drop in and ask a question.