Akuyaku Reijou no Naka no Hito - CH 20.1

Extra Story — What The King of Demons Thinks, Part 1

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

What have we, the Demon Tribe, done? Have we incurred the wrath of God? But what have we, who are alive now, done?

I stand stunned in front of the corpse of my Mother, who was devoured by my Father who went insane, and my Father, who regained his reason and committed suicide after eating my Mother. The sobs of my youngest brother, Klimt, who hugged me and cried, and my younger sister, Misery, who was almost eaten alive by my Father but was saved by my Mother, echoed in my ears.

The other siblings would soon gather around. Quickly… I have to quickly clean up the bodies of my father and mother. Besides, I need to contact my Father… Demon King’s men…

「No… The King Of The Demon Tribe has already become me.」

We no longer have a Father or Mother. There is no parental figure to protect us, no Demon King Felix who rules the Demon Tribe. I… I had to protect them. Even though I was still a young demon, I was almost crushed by grief and anxiety over the sudden loss of my parents in such a way. I can’t let them see that look on my face.

As the one with the heavenly eye, it was my duty to reign as the Demon King with almost no experience or knowledge.

Even though I was a king, there is little politics or factional squabbling in the Demon Realm as we are told from the outside world. Is it correct to say that we can’t afford to do that? There was no time for internal strife in order to confront the threat of「being mad.」

Also, the Demon King has had a「heavenly eye」for generations… Is it also significant that I have the eyes to see through lies? They also say that the child born with the Heavenly Eye is determined to be the next Demon King.

The eternal challenge for the Demon King and the Demon Tribe is one sentence,「How to prevent the madness.」The development of countries and species cannot be managed without solving this problem.

The solution was somewhat easy… You just need to “eat someone.” That’s what my Father did. It is usual to kill one’s own kind who has gone mad, but my father, who as a Demon King had a power that separated him from other demons, his power swelled even more with the madness, and no one could stop him. Even me, the next demon king.

I was in the vanguard, and I was almost killed in the opposite direction, and Misery, who was fighting to kill my Father with me as a sorceress, was almost bitten off the flesh of her body by my Father, who had lost his reason. That’s when my Mother presented herself to save us.

My Father was eating my body, and she used her last ounce of strength to cast a healing spell on my dying body.

My Mother was a skilled healer and was in the battle at this time when my Father went mad. Even my Mother would have wanted to kill him. I knew that my Father, who had killed his family with his own hands while losing his reason, would regret it so much that he would choose death.

The demons who worked under my Father cared for me and my younger siblings, but I had no time to be sad because I was to succeed the Demon King. While being taught what my Father used to do, I only manage to perform the bare minimum of duties with their assistance. Although the number of Demon Tribes is small, the territory that must be governed is large, including an entire continent. When the rising miasma builds up, it creates strong demons and dungeons that take the lives of the people. As one of the strongest forces in the country, I must slaughter the demons of the area before the miasma becomes too thick.

My Father’s death has brought about a reef in his research, which was said to be the difference between the fate of the Demon Tribe. The timing for us demons to go crazy could only be measured empirically until now. If it had wings and horns and this much magic, it wouldn’t go crazy for 200 years, but that was about it. My Father was researching whether it would be possible to determine this more accurately by observing fluctuations in magical power and other factors. Many demons who have lived for many years choose to commit suicide someday, thinking「before I go mad and take the lives of my family and friends.」Death of a Demon Tribe is either becoming maniacal and being killed by family and friends, regaining one’s reason after eating one’s family and friends and committing suicide, or taking one’s life before becoming maniacal. In any case, there is no peaceful death. It is like a life span at the time of going crazy.

My Father had hoped to remedy that, even if only a little.

Misery, who is an excellent magician, was also involved in the research, but the magic used to measure the fluctuation of magical power, which was the key, was something that only our Father could use, and she was in the process of incorporating it into a magic circle to make it general-purpose.

This was just as my Father himself was predicting that he still had another 10 years to go before he would go crazy. Although it was still far from being practical, it was still more accurate than the predictions made based on previous trends. He had thought that if his research continued to bear fruit, he wouldn’t have to live in daily fear of「not knowing if I will go crazy tomorrow,」although he would know the time limit, which could be called his lifespan.

Somehow, Misery and the other demons said they would continue their research, but at this time I was finally getting a little used to my duties as a Demon King, and at the same time I was searching for other solutions. The idea was that if we knew the conditions for going crazy, we could prevent it. But this quickly became a dead end. We found out the cause… it was the miasma. When the miasma builds up in the body and exceeds its respective tolerable amount, rabidness develops. Klimt, who heard from my own experience that when people with the same level of magical power are compared with each other, those who live in areas with dense miasma develop the disease more quickly, drew a statistical conclusion.

But… How do we prevent this?

The miasma is something that springs from this land. There is no place in the demon world that is not infested with miasma.

But at least, the demons born with weak magical power that easily turn into madness are able to live in a place where people live… We missed them on other continents where there was no miasma. Fortunately, Misery, who has the second highest magical power after me, had developed a talent for transfer magic, and because of this, most of those with weak magical power who would normally have gone mad within a few decades could be taken to another continent.

But what does it amount to? It’s just a stopgap measure. As of yet, strong demons, including myself, cannot live among people, and it is useless to discuss it if we cannot use transference in the first place. We can only be taken there by someone with much stronger magical power than us.

…I decided to live my life with a time limit of the age at which my Father went insane. I would have a little more grace because I had grown up and far exceeded my Father’s magical power, but I didn’t want to do something I would regret by estimating it too long.

My three younger siblings who had less magic power were sent to the land of human habitation.

My third sister, Arya, went to another continent and lived and died for 80 years without going mad. It seems that without the madness, we can die in our lifespan, only our lifespan depends on our magical power. It’s about as long as one would expect to live for a person. She couldn’t be known as a demoness, so she lived to send food to the demon world, called a witch, and died quietly and alone in a hut in the woods outside of town.

My fourth brother, Alberic, lost his life in a dungeon when he forced himself to become an adventurer to earn supplies to send to the demon world. Only Alberic’s belongings were sent from the store that the Demon Tribe is secretly opening in the Human World.

Cecilia, my fifth sister, had the weakest magical power among her younger siblings, and even magic was quite unskilled for a Demon Tribe. She had inherited only the characteristics of the Demon Tribe, which is full of beautiful women, and she had sold herself to a human brothel to earn money, although I wasn’t told about it. I didn’t know until Misery told me about her death from the disease and how she died.

My youngest brother, Klimt, made me choose to live as a safeguard, saying,「Brother is a person who is needed by the Demon Tribe.」He lost his Mother and Father when he was still a child, but he was a kind, patient, and proud younger brother who never showed any selfishness.

He supports me and Misery without blaming me for not being ableto be a companion to him because I was afraid that this child would go insane before me.

Everyone seems to be worried that the next Demon King with a Heavenly Eye is not yet in place, but no one says anything, perhaps thinking of my anguish. I was apologetic about that.

However, only the King and his successor know that the Heavenly Eye can be passed on. It’s more unusual to be given something from heaven like me. So rest assured, I’ll take my life before I go crazy, and I’ll gouge out my own eyes along with my will at that time.

The day of the revolution came when I had only about two years left to live before my self-determined life span. I was contacted by a man who had a store in a human country who had a connection to female human who wanted an audience with me. He said that she was the lord of the village where he had been invited to become a resident because she was building a village, and had been reported to have been migrating to see how things were going after checking on the person for whom he was working. I remember praying for success, thinking that if we had a village, we would be able to trade on a slightly larger scale or have fewer people starving.

That the woman was also a renowned sorceress. She didn’t pay that much attention to the fact that I was discovered to be a demon tribe, it wasn’t like I was making a fuss or anything. But if someone says,「I have a way to solve this madness,」I can only be alarmed and say,「How will you do that?」when people should not even know the word.

At first I was going to kill her. There are few demons living in the Human World, but there are some areas where demons and devils are almost considered the same based on circumstantial evidence over the years. But why does this human know both the word “madness” and the relationship between demons and devils? Of course there would have been leaks from the Demon Tribe living in the Human World. But she said to me that,「she can solve it」…There haven’t been anyone who had ever tried to gain an audience with the Demon King of the Demon World.

What was her purpose? I thought I needed to see her face to face to find out. If I meet her in person and question her using the Heavenly Eye, I will know what she was really thinking. Fortunately, the woman herself is able to use transference, and she says she can analyze the coordinates of the transference magic circle that was used to exchange supplies and fly here.

The horror of what is known that humans are not supposed to know makes me more wary. If the Demon Tribe turns into a state of being called demons due to the craziness, it will hinder the demon tribe who now live quietly if it becomes widely known in the Human World. That’s why I was going to kill her. I had to shut her mouth before she could do that.