Demon's Justice
The Village Chief's desperate screams echoed through the narrow room. His face, smeared with blood and tears, was unspeakably grotesque, twisted in utter misery. But not a shred of pity flickered in my eyes as I listened to his pathetic excuses. I gazed coldly down at the village chief sprawled on the floor, gasping for breath, and spoke.
"So, is that supposed to be your righteous reason for throwing Cecilia and the children to the wolves?"
My icy voice made the village chief's shoulders jolt violently.
"If what you're saying is true, instead of going mad with mana and sacrificing children, you should have begged the royal family or other territories for help and fought back. Isn't it the ruler's duty to resist together somehow, to find a way to protect the village?"
At my sharp rebuke, the village chief let out a hollow laugh. It quickly twisted into a mad cackle laced with a grating metallic rasp.
"Kuhuhu... Uhahaha! Resist? Beg for help? You really know nothing. You have no idea how the world works!"
The village chief glared up at me with bloodshot eyes brimming with resentment and spat venomously.
"The royal family? Other territories? Sure, back in the day, even among those rotten nobles, there was at least some semblance of duty and justice. But... all that ended the moment Izakar, that monstrous bastard, monopolized the royal family's favor!"
Izakar. At that name, a thick wave of demonic mana surged like a tide from the depths of my heart.
"Once that scum claimed the title of Royal Archmage and started pulling the strings of the royal court, this empire rotted to its core! It's sunk into a swamp of corruption so vast we can't even lift a finger against it! Any territory that dares cross Izakar vanishes in flames overnight. And you want us to beg that royal family for help? Smash eggs against a rock? That's dragging the whole village to the pyre!"
The village chief heaved ragged breaths, frantically packaging his cowardice as the era's grand tragedy. He rationalized the village's horrific customs as unavoidable sacrifices. Then, he turned his filthy arrow of rage toward me.
"Don't spout off when you don't even know how the world turns! We were just struggling to survive, to prevent even greater sacrifices, gnashing our teeth in desperation! And you... you mana-less piece of trash dared summon a demon and turn our peaceful village into a bloodbath!"
The village chief jabbed a broken finger at me, screaming in fury.
"You're the calamity on our village! A demon worse than Izakar! Your half-baked thirst for revenge is the root that dragged us all to ruin!!"
His repulsive display—blaming others to the end to hide his hypocrisy and cowardice—turned my stomach. My patience snapped completely at that shameless effrontery. I no longer saw the point in hearing his filthy excuses.
Thwack...!
My brutal fist slammed mercilessly into the village chief's face.
"Gaaack!"
With a single shriek, his head snapped back, and several broken teeth scattered across the floor amid spurts of blood. Rina in the corner screamed and collapsed, but my cold rage didn't stop.
I seized the bloodied village chief's collar again and glared with bulging eyes.
"Calamity? Sacrifice? Don't make me laugh. If I'd been village chief... I wouldn't have run away like a coward the way you did."
My voice dripped with a chill killing intent thicker and colder than any demonic mana.
"A place where kids are sold off to who-knows-where, and the rest discriminate and trample each other over mana or not—that's the peaceful, happy village you claimed to protect? That's no village; it's just a giant livestock pen for Izakar and the mages!"
The village chief coughed up blood, gurgling, but I tightened my grip on his collar.
"If you lacked power, you should have all bled together to find a way to resist. At the very least, you shouldn't have treated fellow humans like trash just for lacking mana. You're nothing but a hypocrite who let the whole village rot to protect your petty power and skin."
At my piercing words, the village chief's eyes trembled. But soon, a wretched, eerie sneer curled his lips.
"Kuhuhu... Cough. Hypocrite... Yeah, I'm a hypocrite. But..."
Blood streaming down his face, he locked eyes with me and bared his teeth in rage.
"Don't you, the most powerless of all, know better than anyone how brutally powerless justice crushes people? What good was your flimsy sense of justice and rage against Izakar? In the end, all you could do was get trampled and spit blood!"
It was a cruel retort digging into my old wounds from being crushed and mocked by Izakar and the mages. The old me might have despaired and hung my head. But not anymore.
Now, an overwhelming abyss of power and a seething hatred to burn the world dwelled within me. I roughly shoved the village chief's collar away in disgust and declared with unprecedented arrogance and conviction.
"Yeah, I know it full well. That's why... from now on, I'll change it all myself, starting with Izakar."
My overwhelming confidence and declaration of war left the village chief cowed, lips quivering silently. I had no more business with this rotten hypocrite or his fake village.
Leaving Rina frozen in terror and the village chief sprawled on the floor, I kicked the door open without a backward glance.
Cold night air enveloped me, washing away the metallic tang of blood. It was the moment I severed my toxic past and took my first step toward true vengeance.
I turned my back on the village and entered the dark forest path. The rain had eased, but each brush of damp night air against my cheek echoed with the village chief's wretched screams.
'Do you know their pain, my feelings!'
Memories flashed: villagers torn apart by my hands in the square, the village chief's bloodied face. His tearful confession that unavoidable sacrifices were needed to protect the village under a great territory's oppression.
I paused briefly, pondering. Was the village chief truly an irredeemable villain? Had I become a monster slaughtering the powerless?
But that shallow pity didn't last. Memories of brutal discrimination and violence in this village flashed like a lantern show.
Villagers treating me like vermin for lacking mana. Mages in the Training Forest using me as a sandbag, their disgusting laughter. Above all, the bone-deep humiliation before Izakar, who ravaged Cecilia and crushed my soul.
No, the village chief's words are just a coward's excuse, cloaked in the weak's skin.
Trash who conformed to the rotten system despising the mana-less, passing down oppression from above for sick thrills.
Cold certainty and killing intent filled my eyes again. This village was wrong from the root. A den of hypocrisy deserving destruction.
Shaking off doubt, I hurried through the night forest.
How long had I walked? I'd crossed the village border into the outskirts forest of the nearest, largest territory.
Then it hit—a acrid burning smell piercing the damp earth scent. I narrowed my eyes and silently moved toward the source.
Parting dense trees, I saw the forest heart engulfed in raging crimson flames.
Crackle, pop! Amid the blaze, frantic footsteps shattered the silence. Someone fled through the underbrush, escaping the fire.
As I watched from the shadows, a dull thud—and a soft body slammed into my arms.
"Hah!"
She tumbled ass-first onto the wet dirt before me: a stunning beauty gasping as if on the verge of death. Chased through rough woods by powerful flame magic, her high-grade silk dress—fit for a noble lady—was scorched and torn in tatters.
Yet that wretched state exuded a perverse sensuality. The charred, precariously melted top fluttered dizzyingly with each ragged breath, baring the deep valley and soft curves of her ample breasts. Sweat-mingled soot clung to her smooth collarbone, the ragged fabric dangling like molten gold—far more provocatively explicit than nudity.
Her skirt hem burned away, savagely ripped up to her ass and deep inner thighs. Soot-accented pale inner thighs and dirt-smeared calves gleamed lewdly in the moonlight.
Terror-brimmed teary eyes, flushed cheeks from the chase, quivering moist red lips gasping. The desperate fragility of the trembling woman in mortal fear contrasted her vulnerably exposed, heated flesh—stirring not protective instinct, but suppressed sadism and thick taboo lust first and foremost.
I simply stood motionless, gazing down at the pitiful woman. But she, gripped by utter terror, mistook me for a savior and clutched my pant leg desperately with trembling hands.
"P-please... save me...! Please, help me...!"
As she begged through teary eyes, burning bushes crashed—unwelcome guests emerged.
"Kuhuhu, the little rat sure scurried fast."
Three or four mages stepped through flickering flames, crimson fireballs clutched in both hands. Their gazes locked hungrily on the woman's precariously exposed flesh.
Like predators moments from ravaging trapped prey, their eyes gleamed with sticky, lecherous lust.