After Surviving, I Became the Demon King
The smell of blood hung in the air. At first I thought it was my imagination. After all, that’s how it usually goes with the scent of blood. Maybe someone had a nosebleed. Maybe someone bit their lip. Or maybe I was just so tense that I was hallucinating. I ran through those hopeful possibilities one by one, then immediately discarded them. The bright red smear on the corridor wall couldn’t possibly be strawberry jam.
Most of the candles had gone out. The long palace corridor lay half-swallowed in darkness, and blood had spread in long streaks across the black marble floor. Someone had even been kind enough to leave drag marks behind them. One-star cleaning service. Review: “A coup broke out in the royal palace, but the aftermath wasn’t cleaned up. Will not return.”
Thinking stuff like that probably makes me the craziest one here. But what could I do? When people are truly screwed, they start having the most ridiculous thoughts. And right now, I was completely, utterly screwed.
“……”
On both sides of the corridor, demon nobles knelt. Horned ones. Tailed ones. Three-eyed ones. Ones with what looked like a crow—or a crow-like monster—perched on their shoulders. It was the demon realm Pokédex brought to life. All of them had their heads bowed. The military officers stood in silence. The attendants wouldn’t even meet my eyes.
Just moments ago, the way they looked at me had been roughly this: Oh, the useless third prince is still alive. But now it was different. They were afraid. Of me. Or, more precisely, of the damn crown sitting on my head.
I summed up the situation in my head with brutal simplicity.
Screwed.
Truly, royally screwed. Not just personally screwed—kingdom-level screwed.
“Congratulations, Your Majesty.”
An elderly demon minister knelt before me. Black formal robes. Silver beard. An old scar near his eye. He looked like the kind of creature who had spent his entire life devouring politics like it was rice.
I stared down at him blankly.
“……What for?”
The minister bowed his head even lower.
“You have become the Demon King.”
“Fuck.”
The word slipped out. I hadn’t meant to say it. It just came. As natural as a mechanical pencil lead snapping during an exam.
The air in the hall froze. The nobles’ shoulders twitched. The officers’ hands tightened on their sword hilts. One attendant looked like he was about to cry.
Why the hell are they the ones surprised? I was the one who should be shocked. I had never wanted to be king. Conquest? Power? The Demon King’s throne? Bullshit. I just wanted to live. Modestly, even. Eat. Sleep. Not get my throat slit. Not be fed wine laced with poison. Not have nobles look at me like they were wondering whether today was a good day to kill me. That would have been enough.
But the strong in the palace had slaughtered one another. They had drawn swords to claim the throne. They had shed blood. They had cut down their own brother, torn loyal retainers apart, and stabbed daggers into each other’s backs. When the chaos finally ended, the only one left standing was me. Because I was the weakest. Because I was the most useless. Because I was the least dangerous. Because no one had ever seriously considered killing me until the very end.
That was me. Lucion Vergrad. Third prince of the demon royal family. The shame of the bloodline. Weak in magic. Lowborn mother. Spineless personality. The kind of guy who reached for a letter before a sword.
“That one’s not a prince, he’s a priest in the making.”
“It’s not the blood of the Demon King’s line flowing through him—it’s candle wax.”
“If he didn’t have that face, he’d have been stuffed into a border monastery ages ago.”
It had been three months since I possessed this body. I had heard those words until I was sick of them.
For the record, I had no knowledge of the original story. No system. No status window. No possession perks. No future sight. No cheat abilities. Don’t even start. I opened my eyes and found myself in the middle of the demon royal palace. At first, I’ll admit, I was a little excited. I was a prince, after all. The son of the Demon King. Me—the guy who used to worry about rent and wait for convenience store lunchbox discounts—had suddenly become a prince. Back then, I naively thought, Being a prince has to be the best, right?
And three months later, I realized the truth. Not all princes were equal.
My eldest brother had been the heir. People in the palace barely breathed in his presence. Nobles bowed. Officers swore loyalty. My second brother had been a war hero. Dangerous, cruel, and ambitious. The military followed him. Half the demon nobles had aligned themselves with him.
And me? A slightly more expensive political hostage than the servants. Too troublesome to kill because royal blood still ran through my veins, yet too useless to keep around. Pretty enough to stand in a corner at banquets and serve as decoration. The demon realm’s IKEA prince edition. The royal family’s budget-friendly product.
I was mocked for not knowing etiquette.
“Does His Highness the Third Prince still not understand the seating order at meals?”
I was looked down on for being unable to properly draw out my magic.
“That level of flame would make a decent substitute for a candlestick.”
I was ignored by my brothers. Treated like an ornament by the nobles.
“His Highness is better suited to banquets than to politics.”
I was used by the human envoys.
“You’re a good person,” she had said with a smile. “But good people can’t become kings.”
At the time, I thought it was advice. Later, I understood. It wasn’t advice. It was a verdict. You can’t do it. You’re easy to use. You can be discarded.
The demon duke’s daughter had let go of my hand.
“It’s not that I dislike you,” she said in that terribly kind voice. “It’s because you won’t survive.”
The saintess had said she would pray for me. She clasped her white hands together, eyes glistening with tears, looking at me like I was a pitiful soul.
“I will pray for you.”
I had been foolish enough to believe her.
“So please,” she said, “don’t do anything.”
Don’t do anything. Those words were crueler than don’t believe anyone. Gentler than die, yet they meant the same thing: even if you live, don’t interfere with the world.
That was how the three months passed. I learned the language of this world. Memorized etiquette. Learned who wasn’t on my side. I accepted very quickly that most people weren’t.
And then, a few days ago, the coup erupted in the palace. The death of my eldest brother. My second brother branded a traitor. Of the Demon King’s legitimate heirs, only I remained alive.
I hadn’t become king because I was strong. I survived because no one saw me as a king. And because I survived, I became king.
What a dogshit logic. But the world had always run on dogshit logic.
I walked through the blood-soaked corridor and stood before the throne where the still-warm corpses had yet to be cleared away.
“Your Majesty.”
The elderly minister spoke again. His voice was soft—the sound of silk wrapped around a blade.
“The palace is in chaos right now. With the passing of the First Prince and the rebellion of the Second Prince, the nobles are unsettled and the military has lost its chain of command.”
I didn’t answer. I felt I shouldn’t. Opening my mouth without understanding the situation was the fastest way to stamp my own certificate of idiocy.
The minister continued.
“Therefore, Your Majesty need only remain seated upon the throne.”
A noble beside him quickly added,
“We will handle the affairs of state.”
Another bowed his head.
“The Demon King’s authority comes from blood, while governance comes from experience.”
The words were polite, but what they really meant was: Just sit there. We’ll use your blood. Step out of line and we’ll kill you.
Only then did I understand.
Ah.
Even after becoming king, I was still prey. Wearing the crown hadn’t removed my chains. It had only replaced them with more expensive ones. The moment I sat on the throne, they would divide the leash around my neck among themselves.
The one standing at the very front was Kalen Drak. A high-ranking demon noble. He had sided with the Second Prince. The moment the coup failed, he had dropped to his knees faster than anyone. If betrayal had a speed ranking, he would have had LTE.
Still wearing bloodstained gloves, he bowed.
“Your Majesty. This is not the time to shed more blood.”
Several nobles nodded at his words.
“For the stability of the kingdom, it would be right to entrust temporary full authority to me.”
I looked at him. Temporary full authority. A nice phrase. Power that came with the word “temporary” was usually permanent. Same family of sentences as “I’ll start my diet tomorrow.”
“I have served the kingdom for many long years. Since Your Majesty has yet to learn the ways of governance, for the time being I—”
In that moment, my mind went strangely quiet. I was terrified. Truly terrified. My mouth went dry. My heart pounded like it had gone mad. My fingertips grew cold. I hated killing people. I wasn’t used to violence. The cruelest thing I had ever done in the modern world was leave a three-star review on a delivery app—and even then I felt so guilty after reading the owner’s reply that I changed it to five stars the next day like an idiot.
And now I might have to kill someone. Well, not a person—a demon. But did that really matter? A single word from me could send someone’s head flying. I felt like I was going to throw up.
But I knew one thing. If I nodded here, I would die. If I handed over full authority, I would die. He would issue orders in my name, build legitimacy with my blood, deceive the kingdom with my face, and then quietly dispose of me the day I was no longer needed. Poison. Assassination. Accident. Bedroom fire. Drowning in the bath. The full demon-realm death package. I wanted to avoid that at all costs. I wanted to live. Even if it meant being a coward. Even if it meant getting my hands dirty.
Fuck it.
If I had to get them dirty, then so be it.
I slowly opened my mouth.
“Kalen.”
He raised his head.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“You,” I said, “were on the Second Prince’s side.”
Silence fell over the corridor. Kalen’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
“Your Majesty, that is a misunderstanding. I have only ever acted for the stability of the Demon Kingdom—”
“Stability.” I laughed. My lips curved upward, but it wasn’t a smile. “The bastard who talks about stability after turning the palace into a sea of blood is one of two things.”
I raised one finger.
“A real lunatic.”
I raised a second.
“Or the one who made the sea of blood.”
The color drained from Kalen’s face. So demons could go pale too. Learned something new today. Fuck.
“Your Majesty!” he cried out desperately. “I swore my loyalty!”
“Too late,” I said. “Your loyalty came too late.”
I looked at the officers lined up on both sides of the corridor. None of them moved. They were all watching, waiting to see what would happen. Their eyes told me everything. In this moment, they were deciding whether I was truly the king—or just a decoration wearing a crown. Whether I could actually give orders.
I drew in a breath. The smell of blood filled my lungs. It was nauseating.
“The rebellion is over,” I said. “Cut off his head.”
Kalen froze. The nobles swallowed their breath. The elderly minister’s eyebrows twitched.
“……Your Majesty?”
Kalen stared at me in disbelief. I didn’t look away. I wanted to. I really wanted to. But if I looked away now, it would be over. So I spoke again.
“Start with the one who laid hands on my crown.”
This time, one of the officers moved. A demon general in black armor. Without a word, he walked behind Kalen. Kalen tried to rise too late.
“Wait—! Your Majesty! This is a mistake! I did it for the kingdom—”
The sword flashed. Something heavy hit the floor. I watched it all the way through. I felt I had to. It was my order, after all.
Kalen’s body collapsed forward. Blood gushed from the headless torso, drawing a new red line across the black marble. The smell of blood that had lingered in the palace corridor grew even thicker.
No one spoke. The nobles looked at me properly for the first time. Until now they had only seen the crown. Now they saw the blood. They saw the legitimacy.
Now you’re finally looking at my face.
Lucion Vergrad. The shame of the royal family. The weak third prince. The one who reached for letters before swords. That same man had just given his first order and taken a noble’s head.
I sat expressionlessly on the throne. At least on the outside. Inside, it was a mess. I felt like throwing up. My fingertips trembled. My heart was still pounding like crazy. What the hell had I just done? Had I really ordered someone’s death? Had someone died because of my words? Those thoughts crawled through my mind like insects.
But I didn’t lower my head. I didn’t cry. I didn’t break. If I broke now, they would come for me. I gripped the armrests of the throne to hide the shaking of my hands.
“Next,” I said.
My voice still didn’t tremble. Strangely enough. The orders came easily. Only my hands shook.
That day, I became the Demon King.
And the women I once loved would finally realize what they had thrown away.