Mistaken for the Maddest Demon King in the World
The moment our eyes met, the old man hurried toward me as if he'd been waiting all along.
Not that it made much difference — he was very, very slow.
The longer I watched the old man laboriously trudge along on a Stamina stat of barely 2, the more complicated my feelings grew.
*He was nearby this whole time? Since when?*
Suddenly, a face I'd seen right as I opened my eyes came back to me.
Beneath eyelids sagging under the weight of the years, a pair of red eyes had barely been visible.
White hair long enough to reach his waist.
The one who had politely asked me, upon waking, whether I had risen — that had been this old man.
*I forgot about him because he vanished the second the massacre started.*
Whether he'd been blown away by the lunatics brawling for their lives right in front of him, or whether he'd used his seasoned judgment to read the battlefield and clear out on his own, I couldn't say.
But after that greeting of his — "Have you awakened, Your Majesty?" — Ause had been astonishingly absent from my field of vision.
Not even once.
That was how little presence he had.
*Why him, of all people.*
While I was sinking into disappointment, Ause, who'd been diligently making his way over, lowered his head.
"I offer you my formal greetings, Demon King. I am called Ause."
"Mm."
With a perfunctory reply, I closed the status window of Ause — the one I'd been studying this whole time — and opened my own.
I'd assumed my Forces might have hit 2, since it had been 1 when it was just Kira and me, but both my Level and my Forces still sat at 1.
*I guess Forces aren't counted by headcount.*
That made sense.
One day of training didn't raise Stamina by 1, and reading a single book didn't automatically bump Wisdom.
"You must still be tired. Shall I escort you to your chambers?"
High Wisdom apparently came with sharp instincts too.
I, who wanted nothing more than to escape this place crawling with demons as soon as possible, snapped back an answer.
"Do so."
"Ah — but the welcoming feast—!"
Kira, standing beside me, cried out.
Now that I thought about it, there had been some talk of a welcome ceremony earlier.
But there was no way in hell I had the composure to sit through a dinner wedged between demons who reveled in slaughter.
Demons, schmemons — even before I got transmigrated here, I'd practically always eaten alone.
No one wanted to eat with me, and there was no one I wanted to eat with.
That had been comfortable. Frankly, it had been happiness.
"I'm fine. You lot enjoy the banquet among yourselves."
"B-but..."
I refused while doing my best to imitate a Demon King's imperious tone, but Kira fidgeted with her hands, as if she were sorry to see me go.
Just how far did the power of my Forces extend?
Once someone joined my Forces, would they stay on my side even if I told them to get lost?
Even as I mulled over such things, I found myself unable to speak, staring into those wide eyes that put me in mind of Puss in Boots — and then:
"See to it around now, Kira."
"Lady Lzerbe!"
Kira went scurrying over to greet the woman who had appeared out of nowhere.
The woman called Lzerbe had long white hair tied up neatly, and a tall, statuesque figure that her fitted uniform showed off to stunning effect.
The type who looked jaw-droppingly powerful even with your eyes closed.
Lzerbe, who had come over with Kira dangling at her side like a doll, bowed her head to me.
"I am Lzerbe, one of the Four Heavenly Kings. It is an honor to serve you, Demon King."
*Ding.*
A status window floated up above the woman's bowed head.
Jackpot!
I barely managed to swallow the cheer that came bursting up the moment I saw Lzerbe's status window.
*A demon whose Combat Power exceeds her Magic — that means she's combat-class rather than a mage, right?*
I didn't know what the maximum was, but the number 99 combined with the title of Four Heavenly King told me just how strong she was.
I quietly studied Lzerbe kneeling before me.
Dazzling white hair, red eyes, fangs and all.
*So she's vampire stock.*
I'd never actually met a vampire, but this much had to be the genre standard.
And as the vampiric traits surfaced in my mind while I looked at her, an odd sense of déjà vu washed over me.
As if I'd seen someone with these exact traits somewhere before.
*What is this? Where on earth...*
That was when it happened.
"It's been a while, Lzerbe."
"Have you been well, Grandfather?"
Ause, who had been standing with his back bent beside me, stepped toward Lzerbe and offered a warm greeting.
At his words, Lzerbe's stiff face softened.
*Come to think of it, her relatively high Magic and her unusually high Wisdom — she takes after him there, too.*
Appearance-wise, though, I couldn't find a single resemblance.
Lzerbe had two legs, and that orc earlier had two legs as well, but nobody would call the two of them lookalikes on that basis.
If Lzerbe had shown up just one minute earlier.
Then *she* could have become part of my Forces.
No guarantee, sure — but the regret was maddening.
The longer I stared at the status window floating beside Lzerbe, the worse it got.
All I could do, watching Ause and Lzerbe exchange their quiet words, was salivate over my own disappointment.
*A single ray of light... for my pathetic status window...*
But when I opened my status window, brooding over the wretched numbers next to Lzerbe's—
*Huh?*
The status window I'd opened without thinking had changed. A lot.
*Forces 31? There wasn't even a ding?*
My Forces had shot up out of nowhere.
While I stood there equal parts delighted and bewildered, Lzerbe approached me.
"In place of my grandfather, I shall escort you to your chambers, Demon King."
At her utterly deferential greeting, it finally clicked.
*So this is another way to absorb Forces.*
Lzerbe and Ause were a firmly bonded faction tied by blood. Ause had become mine, and so Lzerbe had come along with him, naturally.
*And the jump in Forces was no joke, either.*
When Ause joined earlier, I'd already confirmed that Forces didn't match headcount.
Considering that Lzerbe joining mine added a full 30 points, I could draw a conclusion: Forces was an abstract metric calculating just how much strength each incorporated person brought me.
*I learned quite a lot.*
Just from sitting there, I'd gathered more information than expected.
It finally felt like a bright light was shining into the previously blank canvas of my life in the Demon Realm—
"Die, you blockhead!!"
Before the thought could even finish, a hulking demon came flying in and slammed another demon's head straight into the ground.
*Thwack—*
With a sickening crunch, the head burst open like a walnut shell. Blood, brains, and assorted viscera sprayed in every direction.
*Bright light, my ass.*
Keep hanging around these lunatics and my own head might go next.
Which meant I needed to escape this place as fast as humanly — or demonly — possible.
***
*A low murmur.*
The spot where the Demon King had stood.
The scene there was rather different from what Yu-hyeon had imagined.
The demons, who had frozen mid-brawl the moment they were left alone, wasted no time spewing out everything they'd been holding back, no one needing to go first.
"I thought I was going to stop breathing, I was so scared..."
"Did you see him just stand there and watch while we were beating each other bloody? Like he was nostalgic for the smell of blood or something..."
"Any normal demon would've jumped right in, right? How do you just *watch* something that fun?"
"Whether we fight among ourselves or we die — it's all just boring to him, isn't it? He had no expression the whole time, then the second Bielon spoke to him, he glared like he was about to kill him."
"And then Bielon just went and bragged about winning anyway. I swear that idiot has a death wish."
The orc who had so proudly touted his victory to Yu-hyeon earlier now shuddered, belatedly realizing his peril.
"I have bad eyesight, okay?! I didn't see him! If I'd known he looked like that, would I have gone over there? The moment our eyes met I thought my head was leaving my body — I nearly died of fright."
"Insane. Wasn't he supposed to be asleep from being sealed? How does he get *scarier*?"
"His face is different from the portraits, for one. When our eyes met earlier, I almost wet myself."
"Exactly! What the hell happened to his face!?"
Yu-hyeon's face was, in truth, the perfectly ordinary face of a person from Earth.
Two eyes, one nose, one mouth. No horns, no fangs, no hulking muscles.
And that — precisely that — had terrified the demons.
"First time in my life seeing a demon with hair on his head who looks exactly like a human."
"Did you see his skin? Smoother than my newborn son's bottom."
"He looks just like a human... Just thinking about it is so horrifying I can barely breathe."
Vampires, orcs, succubi, and more.
With so many different races mixed together, demons came in every shape and hue imaginable.
There were even more demons born of chaotic, hodgepodge mixing than those belonging to proper, officially named races.
Some had white hair and long tongues but no fangs; orc-faced ones with wings were a dime a dozen.
And yet they all shared one single trait.
The stronger a demon was, the fewer demonic features it showed.
With every one of them looking different, gauging strength by appearance wasn't as simple as one might think — but.
"Seriously... not a single demonic trait..."
Yu-hyeon's appearance, indistinguishable from a human's, was more than enough to plant terror in the demons' hearts.
"A thousand years of growing stronger... He must have grown stronger still, out of rage at the humans who sealed Our Lord away..."
"Even a thousand years ago, he was feared by the entire world, they say."
"Then how strong is he *now*...?"
Whatever angle you argued it from, there was only one conclusion.
The Demon King had returned stronger than before. So crawl and grovel accordingly.
Demons who had reached the same conclusion exchanged silent glances.
"Ha. Believing in that silly superstition."
Someone who had been listening to the demons' chatter from the side suddenly spoke up.
His name was Kirion, one of the Four Heavenly Kings.
The very bastard who had locked eyes with Yu-hyeon moments ago.