I Became the Demon Realm Administrator
If you spend enough time idly browsing the internet, you eventually come across a certain kind of keyword.
A place inhabited by demons.
One of the world’s thirteen great demon realms.
The Cliff of Death.
A place you could enter only to die, never to come back out in one piece.
Or, for some reason or another, a place that drove people completely insane.
It was the kind of thing that drew attention from all over the world under the name of the most horrifying place on earth.
And then, about two days ago, there it was in the cheap little novel I read before going to sleep.
Blackmore.
One of the Empire’s three great suicide spots.
A remote wasteland boasting overwhelming danger.
A lawless hellhole where all manner of off-the-charts monsters lurked.
I knew it. It was all a pack of damned nicknames.
But I couldn’t deny a single one of them.
The reason was simple.
“Damn it.”
Because I had become the administrator of that damned demon realm.
****
Unfamiliar ceiling.
An intricately embroidered canopy, curtains tinted with pale gold, and expensive furniture made by a master craftsman.
When I opened my eyes one day, I found myself in a strange place.
The face reflected in the mirror was a stranger’s too.
It wasn’t all that strange, really.
After all, I had transmigrated into the world of a novel.
How did I know? Because as of today, it had been a year since I’d been thrown into a web novel—more specifically, one of those overused transmigration stories.
By now, it was time to admit it.
This wasn’t a dream. It was reality.
If there was any blessing in it, the situation I’d been watching unfold these past months wasn’t nearly as terrible as it could have been.
Good-looking, too.
My face was better than in my previous life.
Not just better—dramatically better.
And I’m younger.
Just turned sixteen.
Bright, fresh youth, exactly the sort I’d always wanted.
Not bad.
If I had to transmigrate, this wasn’t a terrible outcome.
Compared to the trash life I’d lived in my previous world under gambling-addict parents, my fate had at least improved.
And the family isn’t bad either. A count’s house is decent enough.
True, as an illegitimate son I was treated like dirt in the mansion, but I didn’t particularly care.
I could always throw away a family that was no more than a shell and leave.
What kind of attachment could I possibly have to the family of an extra I’d only been reading about for a few days?
What I needed was a plan.
A future plan for how I’d get out of the mansion and live from then on.
What matters most is the job.
How comfortable a life one could live.
You wouldn’t be wrong to say that nine-tenths of that came down to one’s occupation.
So I sat there and dug through the memories of my previous life.
Because of my profession, I’d spent my entire existence holed up in a laboratory, living a thoroughly ruined life.
That was not a life I wanted to repeat.
Besides, I had no desire to get tangled up in the novel’s main storyline.
At the same time, I wasn’t ambitious enough to chase money either.
All I wanted were two things.
A job that would let me leave the mansion right away.
And a profession that guaranteed me a stable retirement.
I went over it again and again, so many times I couldn’t have counted them.
In the end, the conclusion never changed.
Public office.
In other words: civil service.
That very day, I left the mansion and headed for the academy.
I was there to complete the five-year educational course required to enter imperial service.
And so five years passed.
I finished exactly as planned, with excellent marks.
At last, I stepped into the office I had long dreamed of.
“Luke Richter.”
Seated before me was the Empire’s chancellor.
After considerable thought, the position he bestowed upon me was—
“I hereby grant you the office of regional administrator.”
Regional administrator.
A post responsible for overseeing the security and governance of a certain district.
Security and administration, they called it, but really it was just the sort of job where you could coast along comfortably and burn through time without doing much of anything.
At last…!
I’d done it.
Even if I hadn’t been able to achieve my dream of becoming a civil servant in my previous life, I could finally live it here.
“The district you will be dispatched to is…”
I sat quietly and waited for the rest of the sentence.
Surely he would send me somewhere where milk and honey flowed.
I waited, firmly believing that.
And then—
“Blackmore.”
Pardon?
“Did you not hear me? I said Blackmore.”
Blackmore?
Had I heard him wrong?
“Chancellor? As far as I know, there is only one place in the Empire called Blackmore…”
“A pity. It is indeed that place you are thinking of.”
“…Pardon?”
Wait just a minute.
That was a place where crap and diarrhea flowed, not milk and honey.
And this was the first I’d ever heard of there being an administrative post in the first place.
“The position has been vacant for some time, so we’ll be omitting the handover process.”
“No, please, I beg you—reconsider this one more time!!”
“Since this is a management post that has never existed before, do not forget that your conduct will be important.”
“What? Why on earth is that such a grave duty being assigned to me?”
“Hoho. I’ll make sure the specific matters and supply support are explained to you right here and now.”
What the hell was this lunatic talking about?
“I’m certain it will be a good experience for you.”
The chancellor in front of me finished speaking and immediately began rattling off my work schedule.
Maybe he had been waiting for this day from the very beginning.
And with the chancellor’s nonsense finally over, I became the Empire’s one and only suicide-spot administrator.
And then.
On my first day at work—
…
After getting out of the carriage the imperial family had personally prepared for me, I surveyed my surroundings as always.
Forest ahead.
Forest behind.
Odd noises drifted from somewhere in the distance, and trees towered overhead to blot out the sunlight, while creepy, grotesque plants lurked in every direction.
“Shit.”
I scowled at the atmosphere, which made it feel like someone could keel over and die at any moment.
It was damned depressing.
And now that I really had become the administrator of this place, the situation was even worse.
“I’m supposed to live here from now on…?”
I stared blankly around me and sank into despair.
That was how hopeless the situation was.
Blackmore was exactly as it had been described in the novel: grim and miserable.
To put it bluntly, this was absolutely not a place where a normal person could live.
Is there even a house?
Thankfully, there was an office.
Apparently the imperial family had at least put some effort into it.
There’s enough food, at least.
Supplies were adequate, too.
Clothes and all the necessities of daily life would be provided monthly by the imperial family.
…Maybe this is more livable than I thought?
Food, clothing, and shelter were covered.
But only food, clothing, and shelter.
What kind of place was Blackmore?
A remote wasteland worthy of its notorious reputation.
Named villains hiding here and there.
And on top of that, would-be suicides crawling in every year, hoping to end their lives.
You could tell as much just from the descriptions of Blackmore in the original story.
And now they wanted me to manage that damned place?
Alone?
This den of monsters?
With what, exactly?
After roughly assessing my situation, I came to one conclusion.
“There’s no damn answer.”
No, seriously—did this make any sense at all?
They didn’t want to add personnel, but they also couldn’t disobey the emperor’s command.
So the solution they came up with was to plop me down in the middle of the demon realm and call it a management post.
“Haaaah—”
I’m dizzy.
Still, I suppose it’s nice that no one’s coming to bother me.
As I lay there and complained about my lot in life, I got up from my seat.
In any case, the imperial court had officially appointed me administrator of Blackmore.
And since that was the case, I couldn’t just throw a tantrum and defy the imperial will because I didn’t feel like doing it.
“At this point, I don’t even know anymore.”
Blackmore was a demon realm located on the border between the Empire and the Grand Duchy of Winfred.
Since it was a remote wilderness among remote wildernesses, the pay was good, and no one came around to make trouble.
In other words—
if I kept my head down and handled things with a little finesse, I could probably live a fairly peaceful life.
Well, whatever happens, happens.
Maybe I’d adapt more easily than I thought.
And then, a few days later—
…
Today, too, I spent my time shut up in the office.
Just staring out the window at the same scenery as always.
Of course, I couldn’t keep killing time like this forever.
At least when I reported to the imperial court, I had to make it look like I was actually doing something.
“Guess I should get moving.”
I took out the map the chancellor had given me.
Blackmore, divided into a total of five districts, spread out before my eyes.
Today’s inspection target was Calbaron, located in the northernmost part of Blackmore.
It carried the somewhat intimidating nickname the Cliff of Death.
The reason I’d chosen Calbaron was simple.
It was the closest district of all.
What was there to administration and supervision, really?
I just had to wander around and check whether anything was wrong.
Honestly, it wouldn’t take long.
I planned to sweep the area a little and head back.
“What a gloomy atmosphere.”
With that brief assessment, I started walking.
It had only been a few days, but this nightmarish scenery was already beginning to feel familiar.
The road was rough, but there were no serious problems.
I had already taken some time to learn the terrain around here.
How long had I been walking?
Passing through the thick blanket of fog, I eventually reached my destination.
“Hoo.”
Calbaron.
I had finally arrived.
But there was a problem.
…?
Silver hair, as though spun from melted sugar.
Gray eyes that reminded me of volcanic ash.
An impossible beauty in her features, and a face that looked as though it had collapsed under the weight of having lost the world itself.
“A woman…?”
What?
I couldn’t make any sense of it.
Something that should never have been there stood at the edge of the cliff.
“Why is there a woman here…?”
Her clothes were plainly those of a noble lady from a well-off house.
And this was the Empire’s most notorious demon realm.
It was an utterly impossible combination.
There was only one explanation I could think of.
“Huh?”
Wait.
Don’t tell me she’s…!
!!
Before the thought could even finish, the girl who had been standing there motionless began to move.
“W-Wait—what—?”
Her direction was the edge of the cliff.
The drop.