Chapter 10: The Demon King Who Knocked Someone to the Ground
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Karai?
The last Demon King was known as a ruthless and dark-hearted one.
—By the last Hero
The Hero set out of the village with the fisherman uncle, carrying the fishing gear and nets they had taken out the day before, retracing the same path.
The sun was just peeking from a corner, morning birds chirped, and a faint mist hovered around. Occasionally, some rustling came from the treetops as the Hero walked through the shade beneath the trees.
The fisherman uncle led the way. “Today, don’t go wandering off anywhere else.”
The Hero followed behind, nodding. “Got it, thank you, uncle.”
A bird called out from above. The fisherman uncle said, “Today, just stay behind me.”
The Hero took note of the surroundings. His breath scattered softly as he walked, trying once again to memorize the area. When he spotted something on a tree by the roadside, he paused in surprise. “Thanks, uncle.”
After he recognized it was someone’s small wooden sword stuck there, he carefully took it down. Meanwhile, the fisherman uncle who had been walking ahead turned around, and seeing the Hero a few steps behind, said with a smile, “Back when we used to run outside, we often got lost in lakes or forests around here. But after walking enough, we learned the area well.” He smiled again. “So I told you to stick close just to keep you from getting lost.”
The Hero stepped out from under a tree’s shade and was bathed in the weak morning sunlight. His orange short hair glimmered in the sun, and his brown eyes looked at the fisherman. When the fisherman explained, the Hero realized the earlier distraction had been misunderstood. He ran a few steps over, nodding. “Yeah, I understand now. Thanks, uncle. Staying behind you means I probably won’t get lost today or go hungry either. Thanks again for saving us back then.”
The Hero smiled for a moment, then held up the wooden sword. He explained he had just found the toy on a tree by the roadside. —After getting the sword, he unofficially took on the side quest of finding its owner and asked the fisherman for some clues.
“Last year, we bought some toys from Aiso Town. Dolls for girls, wooden swords for boys.” The fisherman uncle looked through the forest gaps behind the Hero and saw the orange-red morning sun. He saw the Hero’s sincere gaze lit by the sunlight. The Hero nodded repeatedly, memorizing the clues carefully. “Thank you, uncle.”
The orange hair glowed warmly in the sunrise. After recording the information seriously, the Hero looked toward the fisherman uncle who was waiting up ahead after he had asked about the clues.
The Hero, who usually followed in front, said cheerfully, “Let’s keep going. I brought the leftover fruit from yesterday, too. That way, after lunch, we can have a change of taste. If we get on the boat, we might stay there a little longer.”
The fisherman uncle glanced at the things the Hero had brought along again and nodded. So that day, besides their midday lunch, the two of them also ate some of the leftover fruit from yesterday. On the way back, they picked some similar kinds of wild fruit nearby.
The fisherman uncle said as they walked, reminiscing about his younger days, “When I was young, I liked running around and picking wild fruits and flowers too. Now that I’m older, I don’t have the heart for it anymore…”
The Hero, following along quietly, carried half the gear back after another day of recovery. The setting sun spread its afterglow across the land. At the same time, the two people who left heading the same way returned, both intact. The fisherman uncle with orange hair carried the fishing gear and nets, chatting about his youth. The Hero with orange hair carried the fish, smiling as he came back.
On the way back from outside the village to the village chief’s house, the Hero greeted the people he had recently met warmly, trying to recognize them by face and returning their greetings in a friendly manner. He treated everyone with the same warmth and kindness as his bright hair color suggested — radiant and full of life, or like his brown eyes, sincere and smiling.
…
The Hero followed the fisherman uncle back, and when they arrived at the village chief’s house—where a window had been smashed open wide—the Hero faced the scene of the accident directly.
The Demon King stood watching the sunset, his long shadow stretching behind the returning Hero. His whole silhouette shimmered faintly in the sunlight. —He really felt out of place among humans.
The Demon King glanced at the Hero and once again thought about how he had ended up here. The Hero greeted the group and asked, looking at the damaged window, “What happened?”
He glanced at the Demon King, who wearily turned his head away. Instead, the Demon King looked at the village chief. The chief cleared his throat.
He explained to the surprised Hero and the fisherman uncle, “Well, the kids were playing around nearby, and they accidentally broke the window.”
The Hero, hearing it was an accident, looked at the broken spot and asked, “Did the person who broke it come back to fix it?”
“If they could…” The Demon King muttered like a ghost, “…the ones who broke the window were the village’s… children.” He swallowed the words “human kids” and just said “children” instead.
The fisherman uncle asked after the Hero spoke, “What about their parents? The kids can’t fix it themselves, but their parents should be able to.”
The chief sighed, “The adult in charge is me.”
Oh. So the one who needed to compensate was the village chief himself. The fisherman uncle stayed silent for a moment. The Hero, after the chief spoke and kept staring at the hole, looked toward the fisherman uncle who seemed ready to leave. He quickly saw the uncle off and then returned to repair the window. By the time the repair was finished, night had already fallen.
The village chief punished his grandson by not letting him have dinner that night. As the Hero finished checking the window, the Demon King’s face darkened, watching the lively human children once more and hearing the steady clatter of the Hero’s repairs.
…I want to return to the demon realm.
…
The Demon King, deeply longing for his own castle, waited anxiously as the Hero continued recovering and busily chased after the fisherman uncle, the village chief, the nearby chicken farmer, and all the village boys and girls to find the owner of the little wooden sword. Finally, the day of the village event arrived.
On the seventh morning of being woken up, the Demon King opened his eyes. The Hero, as usual, rose early on the seventh day and waited a moment for the Demon King before going out together.
The Hero smiled at the Demon King and pushed the window open, letting the morning sunlight flood the room. The fresh energy outside and the bustling atmosphere of the event poured in as soon as the Demon King woke.
“Good morning. Today’s the day we go to Aiso Town,” the Hero said. He knew he needed to prepare a new map, and after paying double the living expenses to the village chief, he planned, with his injury mostly healed, to get directions and then hurry to find his sword and return to the demon realm.
—Except… He looked at the Demon King, a little troubled, forced to consider the future before leaving. The Demon King listened to the sounds outside and glanced at the sunlight streaming in that seventh morning. …What a beautiful morning. He closed his eyes with a weary sigh.
***
The Demon King believed he never held grudges against anyone. He simply loathed anything that disturbed his rest, anything that was destined to affect his life, or anything that already had a large impact on it.
For example, the Hero, who was fated to kill him or be killed by him. Or that jerk in town who had picked fights with both the Hero and him.
When it came to his grudges with the Hero, the Demon King could recite their entire history—going back hundreds of years, listing all the reasons for hatred. But regarding that particular human who challenged everyone and even him, the scene went like this—
The Demon King, with a headache splitting his head open, got out of bed and went with the crowd to nearby Aiso Town. As villagers went off to buy clothes, he waved some of them off. When they went to pick gifts and decorations, he waved others away. When they carried toys, he waved some off again. When they looked at farming tools, he waved more people off. Then, after accidentally letting slip that he wanted to buy a map, he was tasked with looking after the Hero.
“Just going together to buy a map, then bringing Owen back to the meeting point,” the fisherman uncle, who had grown close to the Hero, asked him to do. The villagers who still lingered, also wanting to get what they needed for their homes, looked at him—the one with a single, simple shopping task that overlapped with the Hero’s plan.
The Demon King wanted to shake his head. He didn’t feel any obligation to help the Hero. But so many eyes were on him. And he knew the Hero really couldn’t make it back alone. So, he nodded. “Alright.”
After asking where the pawnshop or store was, the Demon King led the Hero there first, planning to sell his long boots.
As he thought about what kind of trouble losing the Hero in a moment of impulse would cause, he ran into someone. At first, the Demon King thought this person had potential, but later decided they were a jerk.
—After the Demon King sold his boots and some clothes, swapped into cheaper garments, and stepped outside, that jerk got into a conflict with the Hero.
The Demon King didn’t know the exact cause, but since both were unrelated humans, and the Hero had a higher “hatred value” in his eyes, the Demon King quietly clapped his hands with a sly smile inside the shop doorway, cheering for this self-proclaimed local resident of Aiso Town.
“Fight! Fight!” he cheered in his heart. Then, after the conflict started, the potential talent saw the Demon King and immediately annoyed him even more.
The Demon King, scowling, dragged the Hero away in front of the crowd. Looking back at the jerk who followed, he smiled and led the Hero into a narrow alley. The Demon King paced the alley, and once the Hero was dizzy from the winding path, the Demon King picked up a thick wooden stick. He ambushed and knocked the follower to the ground—completely flattened.
The shocked Hero: =口=
In the sudden turn of events and stunned expression, the Hero heard the Demon King say:
“There are three people here.” Counting himself as one, since he wasn’t ready to attack the Hero yet, he continued, “One is weak and can’t carry heavy things—that’s me. One is the village’s known strong one—that’s you. And one is the knocked-down Aiso Town resident. If others find or learn about this, who do you think would be seen as the victim, the culprit, and the witness?”
The dumbfounded Hero truly felt at that moment what it meant to never know what the next second might bring.
Author’s note:
I adjusted the timeline, changing “eleven days” to “seven days.”
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