Chapter 3: The Demon Lord’s Adaptation

I decided to settle in the village. Initially, I remained cautious, sleeping in the open fields, convinced I would eventually be discovered or that some demon would surely find me peculiar.

However, as time passed, a stark truth became apparent. Demons, by nature, disregarded everything that didn’t pique their interest. If something provoked them beyond mere indifference, their first response was always an attack.

A sharp thwack echoed.

A demon’s head, cleanly severed, went soaring. A monster, raised within the village, eagerly darted forward, devouring the fallen corpse until the dead demon vanished without a trace, leaving not a single bone shard behind.

Watching the creature casually roam the village, I initially thought even the pets here were terrifyingly fierce.

‘It was for corpse disposal.’

The moment that nonchalant thought crossed my mind, I realized I had completely adapted to the Demon Realm.

“Oh, you look weak, but your face is quite pretty. From today onward, you’ll be my s*ave.”

They were utterly impulsive, acting purely on whim.

“What, you don’t like it? Do you want to die?”

They adhered strictly to the law of the jungle.

Crunch!

I thoroughly thrashed the demon that lunged at me. After lying sprawled on the ground, they slowly got up, then prostrated themselves.

“I will serve you as my master.”

Without a word, I merely tipped my chin. The demon, looking up at me, cautiously asked, a hint of ‘perhaps…’ in their expression:

“…Should I, uh, disappear?”

When I nodded, the creature fled without a backward glance. Their drawn-out “Thaaank you!” never quite reached me, falling flat halfway.

The astonishing events didn’t end there.

“You defeated the village head, so now you are the master of this village!”

“…….”

Toppling the strongest individual in a village meant becoming its leader. Despite acquiring power this way, not a single demon voiced a complaint. In fact, it was astonishing how enthusiastically they offered their support.

Having taken control of one village, I was satisfied. I finally felt as though I could breathe a sigh of relief. The demon who had guided me clenched both fists.

“A new leader has been born, so there will be new battles!”

“…?”

Had I known these insane, battle-crazed creatures waged war every season, I would have simply continued living as a wild man in the forest.

For demons, war was a type of sport.

It was even seasonal, with precise start and end dates. If no victor emerged within that period, and the leaders of both factions remained alive, victory was awarded to the side that had encroached further into enemy territory.

And I, for my part, had never once lost such a war.

“Hooray! We won!”

“Lord Yenis! Lord Yenis!”

Ten years had passed since I arrived in the Demon Realm.

I had quite successfully made a name for myself. The problem was that somewhere along the line, the message got garbled, and at some point, every demon started calling me ‘A-Won Yenis.’

How ‘Seo Yeowon’ could transform into that, I had no idea, but I was too bothered to correct them, so I let it be.

The countless territorial wars, both large and small, that I had endured were beyond counting. It felt as if three wars had erupted just by my breathing. In that time, I had ascended from village head to city lord, and then from city lord to the master of an entire castle.

‘How does one become a castle lord with nothing but fighting prowess?’

It simply happened. In the Demon Realm, it was a matter of course.

Initially, I refused. I was skilled only in combat; I possessed no talent for governing a territory. While a small village head, whose population could be counted at a glance, might be manageable, becoming a full-fledged castle lord felt overwhelming.

Then, the demon who had once been the former lord’s knight commander—whose head I had severed with my own hands before he became my knight commander—inquired about my reasons.

When I told him the truth, he tilted his head, then returned with a group of demons. They were clearly administrators, looking frail and weak.

“These fellows will handle that.”

The scrawny, sardine-like demons stiffened, introducing themselves one by one.

“I am Winslot.”

“I am Xenon.”

“I am Tula.”

“…….”

Though they were called administrators, they were effectively slaves.

While not comparable to humans, they were among the weakest of demons, and weakness in the Demon Realm was a death sentence. Yet, those who relied on their wits, like these individuals, often managed to survive despite their frailty.

‘Well, it’s far more convenient to keep them alive and exploit them.’

I didn’t understand the inverse correlation, but it seemed the stronger demons were, the more ignorant they tended to be. Consequently, these intelligently weak individuals often had longer lifespans than those who were ambiguously strong.

Of course, one might question if this truly constituted ‘living.’ They were often plagued by daily overtime, frequently pulling all-nighters.

Furthermore, failure to complete tasks properly or on time could result in death. ‘Would they really kill someone just for being bad at their job?’

They would. The Demon Realm was precisely that kind of place.

Thus, it seemed that, on very rare occasions, an administrator would risk their life to escape.

“Winslot isn’t here today.”

I had merely stated the obvious, as Winslot was indeed absent. The faces of the administrators, buried under mountains of paperwork, instantly blanched.

“S-spare us, please!”

“We’ll work even harder!”

“We’ll pull all-nighters for a month, not just a week!”

“…”

I couldn’t bring myself to ask what exactly they thought of me.

I simply went off to wage war. With my axe, I cleaved the head of a wolf-troll, a creature with a lupine upper body. Then, extending my hand, I spread ‘Void’ across the ground beneath the rushing horde of enemies.

It was an attribute I hadn’t even known I possessed while in Baekdam, but after several transformations, as my body filled with demonic energy instead of mana, it had naturally manifested. Those whose ankles were snared by the Void stumbled, disrupting their formation.

Not stopping there, I clenched my hand tightly. The now-annihilated Void swallowed their ankles along with it.

“Aargh! Aaack!”

I plunged my axe once more into the heads of the screaming, writhing creatures.

As I silently cut through the battlefield, the skirmishes would inevitably end. After several such battles, the war itself would draw to a close.

Even the chants of my name now faded into an indifferent murmur.

‘How peaceful.’

This was a tranquil thought, born of my ignorance of the stark despair that would soon descend upon me.

Though I was a lord, the territory I governed lay at the fringes of the Demon Realm. My domain was backed by towering cliffs that even birds could not cross, and the environment facing the other three sides was equally harsh.

One side was a plain teeming with poisonous herbs.

This, in itself, posed no significant issue. The Demon Realm was saturated with even more potent demonic energy, so only the weakest individuals would perish from accidentally stepping into such a place. Demons even brewed a unique tea from these poisonous herbs.

The real problem was that these ‘herbs’ were actually parasitic monsters disguised as plants. Winslot, who was now gone, had described them as being akin to *Cordyceps*.

The difference, apparently, was that unlike the parasitic creatures of the human realm that become insects in winter and plants in summer, these entities could transform between plant and insect forms at will.

They were about the size of a thumbnail, possessing extremely low, almost nonexistent, intelligence, yet brimming with instinct. They primarily parasitized beast-type monsters, siphoning demonic energy and nutrients. When the host monster died, they would then sprout again from the corpse as poisonous herbs.

Though I had never tasted it, judging by the knight commander, who smacked his lips, claiming its pungent taste was addictive, it didn’t seem too bad.

“But sometimes, a demon with insufficient magical power might drink it unknowingly.”

The reason demons could consume the poisonous herb tea without harm was that the parasites couldn’t withstand their potent magical energy and would perish. This implied that as long as one’s magical power was strong enough, eating monsters was of no concern.

Conversely, a weak demon would find their body overtaken by the parasite, much like that bastard currently brandishing a blade.

“Kuaaah!”

“Th-this son of a… Aaack!”

The victim was a knight apprentice. Observing the symptoms, the knight commander clicked his tongue and confirmed it was indeed a parasite.

“Parasitic monsters suppress reason and maximize the host’s desires.”

This implied that the indiscriminate slaughter was that demon’s own desire. ‘Should I really call them a demon, or is it precisely because they are a demon?’

“In that state, it’s already too late. It has already infiltrated the brain. It’s fortunate we discovered it now, rather than later. If left alone, it would eventually merge completely, making the host appear perfectly normal on the surface.”

“The solution?”

“Just kill it.”

“Right.”

I immediately rushed forward and split its head in two. The soldiers dragged the corpse away and vanished. I issued an order for restraint and then burned the edges of the poisonous herb plain adjacent to the castle.

However, new sprouts emerged within days, and within a week, it had returned to its original state. True to the Demon Realm’s flora, its vitality was terrifying.

Another side of the territory led to the Ancient Forest. This was also the very forest where I had first awakened. Lush trees thrived, sustained by the warm geothermal heat of a lava region, and it harbored an equally vast number of monsters and magical beasts. Consequently, even demons dared not venture deep within.

The once-feeble boy, now a lord, returned to that place. My intention was to visit the exact spot where I had initially fallen. However, the dense forest made every part indistinguishable from the next. Just as I was about to give up and turn back, something luminous caught my eye.

“?”

It was a piece of glass, glowing faintly. I picked it up without much thought, then flinched. The shard was bone-chillingly cold.

‘I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before…’

“Oh. You found something good.”

The knight who accompanied me spoke abruptly. Though I was bewildered, my perpetually indifferent expression prevented it from showing.

“Want it?”

“Really?”

Without answering, I offered the mysterious shard, which he accepted with a bow. Then, he hurled the fragment towards a herd of deer-like monsters grazing in the distance.

“…”

‘What is he doing after I just gave it to him? Is he picking a fight? Unless that guy’s insane, there’s no way…’

Crunch.

A sound of something twisting seized my ears. When I looked back, the deer-shaped monsters that had been grouped together were gone. Only the shard the knight had thrown lay conspicuously on the ground.

A chill ran down my spine.

“Oh, my Lord?”

I picked up the shard from the ground again.

Kiiiiii.

A faint, ear-splitting scream, like that of a deer-shaped monster, echoed. Inside the swirling blue orb, the struggling figure of a monster and a familiar cityscape briefly appeared, then vanished.

“Insane.”

I instinctively understood. This was the true nature of the Gate.

But that shock paled in comparison to the realization that followed.

‘…I swallowed this when I came to the Demon Realm?’