Chapter 103
Chapter 103
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 103
Chapter Title: Demon King Worshippers
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Praise him, worship him. Our great Demon King.
Those were the first words we heard in the Citadel Republic.
That single phrase was enough to grasp just how hopeless the situation here was.
People sometimes have a tendency to worship what they fear the most.
“This is... the Citadel Republic? Or rather...”
Roca kept glancing around in every direction. But there was nothing to see before us.
Vague silhouettes that might have been people moving about flickered faintly amid the darkness, but grayish-white ash blanketed everything, blocking out all light.
“It just... feels like the Demon Realm...”
“Worse than that. The Demon Realm would be better.”
Those unfamiliar with the Demon Realm tend to think of it as a living hell where humans can’t survive—and embarrassingly, I used to be one of them. The village elders would scare us kids, saying it was the most horrific place where demons lived, and any human who set foot there would have their soul corrupted.
Well, they’d never been there themselves.
The Demon Realm is just a barren outskirts of the continent, tough for anyone to live in. Demons are living creatures too, after all—they’d never choose a place like this.
“Watch out, Roca. You’re gonna crash.”
Oops, too late. The kid hadn’t seen the tree in the road and smacked her head right into it.
Thanks to her mana training, her skull must’ve been tough enough that it didn’t hurt much, but Roca looked seriously annoyed. At least it hadn’t been worse.
“It’s worse than I thought. If not for the feathers, my lungs would be in trouble.”
Sure enough, coughing echoed throughout the city. Whenever one bout of coughing stopped, someone else would start up again.
The air reeked of sulfur everywhere, so even Roca’s keen nose couldn’t make sense of our surroundings. But closing our eyes and relying on our ears gave us some outline of things. The kid seemed to realize that too—she’d shut her eyes completely. Her ears twitched cutely as she pinpointed sounds.
‘This isn’t just smoke, or fog. Smog, I guess you’d call it.’
“This city has fallen into depravity and earned divine punishment! Soon, the Demon King will purify everything! Fear not death! He comes! Worship him!”
“That’s right! Yes!”
“Let us worship his descent!”
More troubling than the smog was the despair and fear that had taken root in people’s hearts.
For some citizens, that fear had even twisted into faith. But the object of their praise wasn’t a god—it was the greatest of demons. Grimudo.
“What is ‘him’? It is the name forever etched in our longing hearts! The name we have yearned for, wept over, and thirsted after through endless ages. ‘Him’ refers to the primordial Demon King who will burn away this corrupt world and open paradise—Grimudo himself, my brothers and sisters!”
The strongest, oldest, and most terrifying being from the far north was, ironically, the only Demon King who received human worship.
He didn’t go out of his way to gather followers, yet his cult was growing steadily all the same. Their numbers probably matched the number of people who had despaired of the world.
Demon King worshippers were usually the weary and hopeless. People who would rather see the world end than endure its harsh realities any longer.
To them, the primordial Demon King—who could most assuredly bring about that end—was no different from the one true god. That was why the faith in Grimudo kept spreading, no matter how much the Triad Faith persecuted it.
“Idiots. Worshipping him won’t make him grant you power or anything.”
Roca muttered to herself. But faith doesn’t need reasons.
People don’t always require proof of reward to believe. The world is wide, and full of all sorts. Some are ready to worship anything—not just Grimudo.
When such people turn to the Demon King, it’s something that can’t be stopped. No matter the oppression or punishment, believers will always emerge.
Most folks, though, don’t listen to that sort of talk under normal circumstances. Not until something like this happens.
“Yeah! You damn thieves! All you did was take our taxes, and now you’ve slunk away alone—is this a country? Is this a republic?!”
“There’s no ships at the harbor, and the ones that left were stuffed with gold, not people. What about us? We’re just supposed to die? Fine. Great. Let’s really die then. But I’m not going down alone, that’s for sure.”
“Still worshipping that goddess? We’re all gonna die anyway—might as well believe in the Demon King. Then he’ll sweep away those who abandoned us and fled!”
Voices of agreement rose from all over the city. To those already steeped in despair, here was a being who could destroy the world that had forsaken them.
Praising and serving him might just be the greatest act of defiance these abandoned souls in Valles City could muster.
If they had warm hearths, bread within reach for dinner, healthy families, and peaceful lives, such talk of Demon King worship wouldn’t even register. But now?
The number of voices chanting his praises from every direction didn’t sound small at all.
“First things first, we need to deal with this ash somehow.”
Right now, with visibility limited to just Roca right beside me, we couldn’t do a thing. Neither of us had ever been to the Citadel Republic before—we were total strangers to the lay of the land.
I pulled a millstone from my hand. A salt-grinding millstone. It had been a while since I last used this authority, and needless to say, it didn’t feel good. Ideally, miracles and authorities should never need to be used at all.
“What’s that?”
“You’re not even asking if it’s edible anymore?”
Roca stared in wonder as the millstone appeared in my previously empty hand, as if it had always been there.
It was a millstone, plain and simple. Unlike ordinary ones for grinding grain, though, this one was for making salt—and I didn’t even have to turn it myself.
“A salt-grinding millstone. Just set it down and give the handle a tap...”
And it would rumble to life on its own, like an invisible fairy was gripping the handle and turning it.
The somewhat crude-looking millstone began grinding away with a whirring sound, white salt crystals falling like snowflakes between the upper and lower stones. I scooped some up and scattered it over us—and suddenly, the world brightened. Or rather, light began filtering into the space around us.
Ding!
As the salt absorbed the dust and fell away as black powder, sunlight poured down only on me and Roca. It was as if the sun favored us alone—the black ash had parted precisely there, letting the rays through.
Authority: Salt-Grinding Millstone. Produces salt that repels disasters and evil spirits, purifying contamination.
Scattering it around keeps away pests like flies or mosquitoes, or venomous creatures.
Sprinkle it on polluted land or water to absorb the contamination and cleanse it. Once it hits its limit, it turns black and vanishes.
“Amazing!”
“No, it won’t mean much if the volcano keeps belching smoke. See? It’s only been a minute since we salted it, and the ash is closing in again.”
The brief gap in the ash barrier reformed, blotting out the sky once more. But in that short moment, we’d seen it clearly: the Kalderan Mountains, invisible before through the thick ash at that distance.
The entire range was ablaze, smoke rising in black pillars to prop up the heavens. Even from afar, all I could muster was awe at the might of nature.
Maybe it was a mercy that the thick curtain of smoke hid the full horror. If the citizens saw this clearly, they’d surely plunge into even deeper despair.
But one can’t hide from the truth in darkness forever.
“Who goes there?”
Finally, the figure who’d been bellowing from beyond the ash came into view. Middle-aged, his face smeared with soot made it hard to tell, but he seemed fairly handsome.
He glared at me and bellowed. Beside him, people who’d apparently been swayed by the Grimudo Cult now glared at me too.
“Who dares interrupt our prayers?”
“Right now, we’re just travelers passing through.”
I soothed Roca, who’d been about to yell back from behind me, and tossed more salt around us.
The second sprinkling cleared the street completely. The air was still hazy, but our view was wide open now.
“What the hell is this trickery? What do you think you’re doing?!”
“Want some salt? It absorbs the ash and smoke.”
No matter how much salt I or Roca scattered, two people alone couldn’t brighten the whole city.
But if everyone sprinkled some around their own homes and neighborhoods? That could work.
Brightening the city wouldn’t brighten its future, but it would at least calm people’s agitation.
The effect was already kicking in. A citizen who’d been listening intently to the Grimudo Cult’s doctrine approached me.
“Uh... you said this is salt?”
“Yep. Go ahead and taste it. It’s perfectly edible before it absorbs any ash.”
Seeming skeptical, I set the millstone down again and tapped it to spin. White salt poured out with each turn, and his eyes nearly popped out. He pinched some between his fingers, tasted it, and they went even wider.
“It’s salt! And delicious salt at that!”
“Salt? For real?”
“You’re saying we can really take it?”
“Of course. Take as much as you can carry.”
Then the questions came pouring in.
“Is it free?”
“Naturally.”
“Any strings attached?”
“Nothing like that. Carry as much as you can.”
“They’re giving away free salt here! As much as you want!”
One person called to another, who called to the next, and in an instant, a crowd formed around me. Up on that platform, the middle-aged man shouted.
“Everyone, don’t fall for such nonsense! We’re all gonna die anyway! We’re dead meat! Who cares about some damn salt!”
As people rolled over large oak barrels to fill with salt, even I thought the same.
It didn’t matter how much they took. But this was salt. Salt that purified contamination and repelled impurities—yes, but that was it. Just salt. It couldn’t even heal people.
This authority focused on purification and exorcism over healing. The infinite salt production came at that trade-off. Healing is trickier than it seems.
‘Salt... is valuable. Sure, it’s precious, but...’
If this were an inland grassland with no sea access or rock salt mines, I’d get it. There, a single bag of salt could buy ten bags of wheat.
Even in remote hinterlands where imperial gold barely circulated, salt was valued even more.
I’d bartered with this holy salt a few times, so I knew how pricey it was.
‘Wasn’t the Citadel Republic a coastal nation?’
I recalled hearing they had plenty of salt flats. So why were people going crazy over salt?
It was truly baffling.
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