Chapter 00020: The Demon King's Key
# The Demon King's Key
Chapter 20
Novel: AFK Game: Portal to Another World
Chapter 20: The Demon King's Key
As the clamor of battle and shouting faded from the canyon, the sun began its slow descent toward the western horizon.
The soldiers entered what had once been the mountain bandits' camp and began the work of setting up their own.
They planned to spend the night here before heading back down the mountain.
The wounded had to be treated, the dead burned, prisoners detained, and a thorough search for loot conducted.
They also had to confirm whether any bandits had escaped.
By the time all this was done, twilight had settled over the land.
Compared with the risk of leading a convoy of captives down the mountain in the dark, they figured it was safer to camp in place and head down come morning.
Viola found a relatively straight wooden club and planted it into the ground.
Then she removed the holy emblem hanging around her neck, wrapped it on the stick, creating a makeshift altar, and knelt before it in prayer.
Prayer was no small matter.
It was of paramount importance both to the faithful and to the gods themselves.
Even though Viola’s hands and sword were still stained with blood she hadn’t had time to clean off, she nonetheless immediately found a quiet place for her devotions as soon as the time came.
Shelly approached from behind with a document clipboard.
When she saw that Viola was in the middle of prayer, she too knelt quietly behind her.
Neither spoke a word until half an hour passed and Viola opened her eyes and stood up.
“Have the tallies been completed?”
“Preliminary count is finished, Your Highness,” Shelly replied.
She glanced down at the numbers on the clipboard and said:
“No fatalities on our side. Fifty-five people wounded. Of them, ten were seriously hurt, but have stabilized under your healing. The enemy suffered 175 dead, 323 wounded, and 488 captured. About thirty managed to escape during the chaos. Hill has taken a squad to pursue them.”
A group of twenty or thirty people, without cover or supplies, surviving in the wild was no easy matter—especially in the Spine of the World Mountains.
At night, there weren’t just feral beasts lurking— occasional sightings of monsters weren’t unheard of either.
And none of them were friendly herbivores.
Strictly speaking, whether to pursue or not didn't matter much, but to ensure they wouldn't become a future threat to nearby villages, they would need to be brought in dead or alive.
“What about the spoils?”
“In the warehouse, we found thirty bolts of cotton cloth, five cubic meters of glass, twelve crates of spices. There were 2,300 gold coins, and 82 gemstones. There was also a large quantity of silver, copper, and iron coins; no exact count yet, but we estimate their combined value exceeds 1,000 gold coins.”
Upon hearing this, Viola furrowed her brow.
“That’s not normal. That’s way too much.”
One gold coin had enough purchasing power to keep an ordinary family of three well-fed and clothed for over two weeks.
That meant this hoard was no small sum of wealth.
And the Leon Territory was neither prosperous nor strategic.
Even though Lord Leon treated it like a lifeline, in truth this land was so barren you could strike sparks off its soil and still find no oil to draw.
For a mountain bandit gang scraping by here to accumulate such wealth made no sense.
And they hadn’t committed any major raids before today.
Then there was that man named Roy.
Also not normal.
With swordsmanship capable of matching a Royal Guard knight, if a man like him sought the backing of a local lord, he could’ve easily secured a respectable position.
There was no need to live a life of danger as a lawless thief.
Viola concluded that this man might be a plant—some spy or agent sent here by another nation or faction, embedded in Leon Territory for some unknown mission.
That would also explain why the warehouse had so much wealth—it was likely funds passed to him from whoever sent him.
“How’s Roy’s condition?”
“The army doctor applied emergency treatment. He likely won't die, but he remains unconscious. He’s under heavy watch.”
“When he wakes up, hand him over to Hill’s team for interrogation. We must dig up everything he knows!”
The main reason Viola had come to eliminate the remaining bandits was because she believed the Demon God was guiding her here.
With that in mind, she naturally took it as further confirmation that it was the Demon God’s will that she should discover Roy as well.
To think—what she had believed to be a secure region had hidden such a dangerous sleeper agent.
Thankfully, they had discovered him early.
All of this was within the Lord’s plan!
Viola’s faith in the Demon God’s omniscience and wisdom was beyond words.
If she were asked to leap off a cliff for Him, she’d likely do so without hesitation.
While she was thinking all this, she noticed something was amiss with Shelly’s mood.
“What’s troubling you?”
“It’s nothing, Your Highness. I just…”
After hesitating a moment, she finally said:
“I just feel... even with the help of Lord Demon God, I still disappointed you.”
Viola knew well that now was not the time to say something like “Roy was just too strong, it’s okay”—that’d only make things worse.
So instead, she placed a hand on Shelly’s shoulder.
“It’s exactly because the Lord has granted you divine arts that you must continue striving harder in the days ahead—to live up to both His and my expectations.”
The art of commanding others was not about constant criticism and pressure.
It was about uncovering the potential of each subordinate.
Viola clearly understood that.
“Yes, Your Highness! I’ll never disappoint you or our Lord again. Please allow me to continue with my report.”
“Go ahead.”
“Other than the warehouse loot, we found a large number of letters and notebooks in Roy’s personal quarters. However, the writing appears to be encrypted. The court mages are working to decode them. Additionally, in a hidden compartment in his room… we found this.”
Reaching into the pouch at her back, Shelly took out a small box and handed it to Viola.
Viola opened it and saw a key—palm-sized.
The key looked to be made of brass, but its design was bizarre.
Its teeth were thin, fragile, and complex like twisted branches without any discernible pattern.
The key’s hilt featured a rotating knob; when turned, the key itself transformed into a cross shape, rendering it even more intricate.
It was difficult to imagine how precise a lock would need to be to suit such a key.
At the end of the key, where the ring usually was, there sat a brass structure shaped like an eye.
Vertical and single-lidded, the eye was terrifyingly lifelike—as though it were watching whomever lifted the key.
As Viola examined the key, Shelly explained:
“When we were searching the room, the hidden compartment opened on its own. I believe… it may have been guided by the Lord.”
“Yes, that’s very possible. But... what does this key mean?”
The Demon God's guidance, Roy’s identity, his reason for gathering a bandit gang there—these clues stirred chaotically in Viola’s mind, but no clear thread had yet emerged.
“Did the court mages take a look?”
“They did. They said the key is extremely ancient—likely dating back to the mythic era. It’s also imbued with extraordinarily powerful enchantments. But their abilities are limited… they couldn’t see anything more specific. There are no records of it in any books.”
The mythic era referred to a time even before the earliest written history—a distant, untamed age known only through scattered legends passed down by word of mouth.
As Viola listened to Shelly’s explanation, a thought suddenly struck her—the Demon God first emerged during that mythic era as well.
After that, He faded into legend, remembered only in doctrine and prayer until this day.
That being so… could this key be connected to the Demon God Himself?
(End of Chapter)