Prologue: The Chief Justice Who Wants to Rest
In every mythology, it is only natural that sinners receive their punishment in Hell.
And the ones charged with that natural duty have always been the beings who dwell there...
"Lord Dantalion, today's docket comes to a total of forty-seven thousand four hundred twenty-one trials—"
"Sitri, unless my ears deceive me, that number has grown since yesterday."
"Don't worry. The other judges are handling even more than this, you know?"
Dantalion was one of the foremost among those demons—a Great Demon who held the rank of Chief Justice. The peculiar thing about him was that he had not been born of Hell. He was a demon of earthly origin.
The canned coffee and cigarettes resting on his desk were proof enough. Why would modern demons drink canned coffee, of all things?
His secretary, Sitri, gave a little shake to the café-mascot cup in her hand.
"Honestly, instead of that canned stuff, why don't you just buy something from a café for once? Every demon these days gets theirs from Starfox. It's not like you're advertising some special-hire program."
"You don't understand that what one is used to is best? And it wasn't a special hire—kidnapping would be the correct term. I never once asked to be seated in this position."
Dantalion cracked open a can of coffee and grumbled.
Who could have predicted that one day he would open his eyes and find himself a demon, of all things, and Chief Justice no less?
Still, it was an honorable post, and he had no lingering attachments to his previous life, so he had continued the work. Hell was a place where people lived, after all; it was not so different from the surface world.
Honestly, it was absurd.
There was no madman who would offer coffee as tribute to a demon.
Hell had its own companies, its own restaurants, and a variety of entertainments that far surpassed anything on Earth. Aside from the fact that a demon's primary duty was the punishment of sinners, Hell was essentially a city.
And yet...
"Creator! Please, just guide those surface-dwellers up to Heaven alreadyyyyy!!!"
"Gyaaaaaaah!! I can't live like this anymooore!!!"
Lately the working conditions had grown rather harsh.
Dantalion rose from his seat and looked down through the window.
A bright afternoon under a black sun that blazed fiercely.
Below, judges were howling as they dealt with the endless flood of sinners pouring in.
Watching the scene, he took a sip of canned coffee. Sitri drew closer.
"You don't even have a mouth, yet you drink so well."
"You do realize that's appearance discrimination? Don't tell me you're boasting to your superior about being born in a humanoid form."
Sitri was a beauty who resembled a dark elf from a novel—the most popular humanoid appearance among demons.
"It's just fascinating. I mean, someone who can form a face whenever he wants... why absorb coffee through your skin?"
"It's convenient."
"If you want convenience, stop pretending to drink and just pour it straight onto your skin."
Dantalion had no face.
His skin resembled cooled lava, and tall horns rose impressively from his head. Of course, by Hell's standards he was rather handsome. The place overflowed with such uniquely shaped creatures that looking even vaguely human counted as good-looking.
Well, minor matters like that could be set aside.
"So, has the proposal to Heaven progressed well?"
Back in his seat, Dantalion asked Sitri.
Hell's role was to punish sinners and purify their souls. The purified souls then drifted through the gaps between dimensions, awaiting reincarnation. Heaven's role, by contrast, was to cradle souls worn down by long suffering and to foster morality in the surface world.
In this way, demons and angels each devoted themselves to the world from their respective positions...
"No. The white-wings seem busy these days too. They don't appear to have much attention left for the surface."
Lately that balance had not been holding.
As if he had expected as much, Dantalion clicked his tongue.
"Tsk tsk tsk. This is what comes of learning only the easy work."
"You know that's angel-bashing, right?"
"Do you not remember what you just said?"
"That was an expression of envy. I'd like an easy job too, but—"
Snap!
Dantalion flicked his fingers. A strip of crimson cloth appeared from thin air and sealed Sitri's mouth. Ignoring her muffled grumbling, he placed a hand upon his chest.
Shrrrrrk!
"Let's see... the visitors to Hell are overflowing again today."
He drew a single book from within his chest.
A crimson tome fashioned from the skin and blood of sinners. Each time its pages fluttered, hundreds of names densely filled them—all the names of sinners awaiting judgment in Hell.
Snap!
He flicked his fingers once more, freeing Sitri's mouth, and spoke.
"Enough play. To the Supreme Court."
"Yes. Shall I prepare the carriage as usual?"
"I doubt we'll have that kind of leisure."
Sitri nodded and laid a hand upon Dantalion's shoulder. Her heterochromatic eyes flashed, and shadow swallowed them both.
A moment later the shadows that had wrapped the two demons vanished.
"We've arrived."
They stood before the largest building in Hell—the Supreme Court.
Yet for all its size, the court was utterly empty. Of course it was. The place had been prepared for Dantalion alone. Thanks to his simple tastes, nothing existed there except a throne.
"Bring in the sinners. From this moment, judgment begins."
"Yes."
At Sitri's gesture, the massive gatekeepers heaved open the enormous doors of the court.
Watching them, Dantalion thought:
It would be far faster and better if Sitri simply opened them herself.
Those giant, slug-like gatekeepers straining and grunting were slower than Sitri yanking the doors open with one hand. Yet for the sake of the Supreme Court's dignity they insisted on using gatekeepers...
Am I simply failing to keep up with the younger generation?
With that old-man thought, Dantalion opened the crimson book. He gently stroked the first page he had received upon becoming Chief Justice.
"By the decree of Chief Justice Dantalion, let the Eye of Hell behold the sinners."
The sky above the roofless court split open, and an eyeball resembling a sun revealed itself. That eye would look back upon each sinner's past in Dantalion's stead and discern their crimes.
"By the decree of Chief Justice Dantalion, let the earth of the Supreme Court rise and defend the sinners."
The soil of this place would scrape together the memories of the soon-to-vanish sinners and plead their grievances. Facing hundreds of earthen advocates, Dantalion turned his gaze to the doors of the court.
Raising a sandstorm, the opened gates admitted thousands of sinners in a surging throng.
Beneath the black sun the gleaming eye looked down upon them, while hundreds of clay figures stared as if they would bore holes through the accused.
"From this moment, the trials begin."
Dantalion's calm voice rang out.
Judging sinners is tedious work.
Even the most heartrending tales lose their power after the first few tellings; keep hearing them and the emotional well eventually runs dry. After listening more than a hundred times to stories of dying for a lover, how could the tear ducts still be stimulated every single time?
Having judged forty-seven thousand four hundred twenty-one such "wronged" sinners, Dantalion...
"If I keep doing this, I'll go mad myself."
...returned to his office and collapsed.
Even a transcendent being could not escape boredom.
Sitri, still noisily sucking on her coffee, looked at him with mild curiosity.
"Lord Dantalion? The one who has held the post of Chief Justice longer than anyone in Hell?"
"Is that meant as praise?"
"Of course it is. Thanks to you, the Great Demons no longer have to play hot-potato every time they need to pick a new Chief Justice."
Sitri spoke with rare respect.
Whenever a great war broke out over selecting a new Chief Justice, Hell turned into chaos. It was a demon's nature to refuse, even unto death, any work one did not wish to do. To exaggerate a little, the leisure activities modern demons enjoyed existed only because Dantalion had occupied the Chief Justice's seat for thousands of years.
The Creator had not brought a human from the distant future and made him a Great Demon for no reason.
"Even empty praise is pleasant to hear."
"It isn't empty..."
"In any case, if this state continues, the problem will not only be disruption of work—the demons themselves will not be able to endure it."
Demons were creatures who loved to play. In the past, when there were fewer sins one could commit, Hell had been far more leisurely. The angels had been busy day and night spreading teachings to foster morality on the surface, after all.
Frankly, if he had not taken pride in the work of a judge, he would have quit long ago.
Come to think of it, this is unfair.
It was all because the angels had abandoned their duties. Their job was to keep the surface world's morality healthy; because they failed, the number of sinners kept rising, did it not?
If they simply sent demons down to the surface instead... wait, what am I even saying?
"What are you doing right now?"
"This? It's a game that's popular among demons lately—Raising Intelligent Beings."
Sitri, playing on her phone, turned the screen toward him.
It resembled a 3-D mobile game from his previous life, except that, like an idle game, it had no control keys at all.
"Developed by Mammon Corp. When demonkin or godkin open a passage connecting to the surface world, you steal that passage, lend power to an intelligent being, and raise them. They're weak, but you can even descend through them."
Whether one called them demonkin or godkin, they were ultimately bound to the surface world. Snatching the passages they used was as easy as twisting a child's wrist.
No—that was not the important part.
"Can I descend through it myself?"
"Uh... well? You're a Great Demon, Lord Dantalion. The passage probably couldn't withstand you."
"Then I'll simply make an avatar."
"Excuse me?"
Living so long must have hardened his brain. The solution had been wandering right under his nose, and he had failed to notice it!
Angels ultimately foster morality by delivering the gospel to intelligent beings.
That meant that if a demon could access the surface world, there was no reason a demon could not foster morality as well!
It was a flawless, airtight piece of logic.
Feeling rather proud of himself, Dantalion issued an order to Sitri.
"Find me a passage I can use."
"What do you intend to do?"
"What else? While the angels are slacking off, I will personally cultivate the surface world's morality."
"......"
Had he forgotten he was a Great Demon? No—demons did not get dementia even after thousands of years.
Has he forgotten why demons never do that work?
One look at a face would tell him. Ah, right—he had no face.
Having reached her own private understanding, Sitri put her phone away. She might be a little lazy, but she was not so incompetent as to neglect the orders of a superior she respected.
Once he tried it even once, he would quickly realize why demons never did such a thing.