This Kind of Hero Chapter 78

The Demon King’s Stage

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Ordinary people were quite insensitive towards elemental particles: like ignorant animals living in a burning forest, even if the fire had spread to their immediate surroundings, they would blankly ignore the arrival of danger. For them, their understanding of “danger” was as vague and uninformed as their understanding of “bad luck, ” disease,” and “calamity.”

The abundant elemental darkness particles caused sickness among the people, yet the people believed this was some new, infectious disease. Referring to past diseases that had been novel at the time, the people believed it was only normal that deaths would occur, and that a small number of patients would be able overcome the illness. For many, this explanation was good enough. Only a few intelligent humans who possessed foresight saw the disaster brought about by the elemental darkness; however, such people already had too much to do, and had no time to care for such matters.

This was Demon King Rozenke’s line of thinking. This entire journey, he and Ice Lord Weize had been traveling rather slowly, and as such, had been able to see many things. Although he had parted ways with Xu Jun, Rozenke would still subconsciously approach situations from Xu Jun’s point of view — because of this, he increasingly believed that he had been too aloof in the past, and had been unable to see the woes of the common people and demons.

As he was the Demon King, he was akin to a human emperor.

What was wrong with that?

Now, Rozenke was slowly changing his perspective. After all, he had never been as “warm-hearted” as he was now.

Demon King Rozenke and Ice Lord Weize arrived at the Dark Abyss together. They saw the Lord of Fear inside the Demon King’s palace, putting on a show of bossing demons around — whenever the Demon King was not present in the past, she would take up responsibilities regarding the palace. The Fear Lord was a thin-waisted, long-legged, sexy beauty who liked to wear black muslin and high heels. The term ‘sexy beauty’ was something said by Xu Jun that Demon King Rozenke had remembered, and rather deeply at that. . . . From the images that had flashed through his imagination when Xu Jun had mentioned this term, Rozenke believed the term ‘sexy beauty’ implied something rather indecent_(:зゝ∠)_ 

—Truly, Brave Xu Jun’s mind was filled with nothing but wayward thoughts!

—Rozenke really felt like punishing that man and turning him into a proper Brave!

The thoughts above are the current musings of a Demon King who can not stop thinking about Xu Jun, despite having left him many days prior.

For the sake of not startling others, Demon King Rozenke and Ice Lord Weize entered the palace covertly — of course, for demons like them, they did not have to actually slink about, but the effects brought about were similar to that of a human sneaking around— with not even the captain of the Demon King’s Personal Guard discovering their tracks. Demon King Rozenke pondered: although the lack of detection simply demonstrated the strength of his own shadow attribute. . . he should probably dock this month’s salary for the personal guard’s captain.

The captain of his personal guard let out a massive sneeze.

“Your Majesty, after your’s and the Fire Lord’s departures, the Abyss Lord and I left to oversee the frontlines, while the Fear Lord was left behind. Most affairs were handled according to the orders you had left behind. . . .” Throughout their travels, the Ice Lord had been quietly reporting the situation to Rozenke. In passing, Weize was also praising the Lord of Fear, and indirectly expressing to His Majesty: Your Majesty, after your unexplained, lengthy departure, us few subordinates of yours have been working tirelessly, and we would have collapsed had you arrived any later–However, the esteemed you was actually residing within the Brave’s body, and refusing to leave?

Your Majesty, does your conscience not hurt?!

Rozenke naturally understood Ice Lord’s hidden meaning, and he lightly sighed, feeling somewhat wronged.

Rozenke shared an extraordinary relation with his four Lords. Rather than a liege and his subordinates, they were more akin to family. The bonds they shared ran deeper than just being comrades who had spent millions of years together.

Like such, the two appeared within the Demon King’s palace. The two perused the central area of the great hall they were in, which was decorated with obsidian. Their eyes traveled to the Fear Lord, who sat to the side of the Demon King’s throne. They then saw the Fire Lord’s head, held within the Fear Lord’s embrace: the two were happily munching on barbequed chicken drumsticks. Official documents were placed upon the throne, piled up neatly; however, a platter of drumsticks, filled with drumsticks of all sorts of flavors, was also placed right besides said official documents. As the Fire Lord had been completely annihilated by Xu Jun, she had only been able to grow back her head. As she was now, the Fire Lord could only open her mouth and wait for the Fear Lord to feed her. With a practiced motion, the Lord of Fear stripped the chicken meat from the bone, and with the chicken bone gracefully pinched between her fingers as one might while picking a flower, she lightly threw the bone off to the side. With a thud, the bone smacked onto the boots of the Ice Lord, who had just come to a standstill in great hall.

The Fear Lord, who was just about to sprinkle cumin over her chicken drumstick: “. . .”

The Fire Lord, who was waiting for a bite with her mouth wide open: “. . .”

Ice Lord Weize, who had been talking about how hard-working the Fear Lord was working this entire trip, only to be face-slapped minutes later: “. . .”

Obsidian adorned the four walls and the ceiling around them, while the floor was made entirely of dark magic crystals that could gather elemental darkness. Atop the crystal floor were runes written in blood of the Demon King and his four Lords, their coloration such a pure black that the runes were hard to discern. Those with weaker eyesight would be unable to tell how the floor differed from any others.

 Because of these elements, the great hall, which was the color of darkness, was even gloomier. Outside there was light, there was the sun, but nothing shone into into the great hall.

The Fear Lord mused for a bit, before deciding to continue shoving the chicken drumstick, which she had finished seasoning with cumin, into the Fire Lord’s mouth. The Fire Lord’s small, red lips chewed a bit, but found the flavor dissatisfactory. “. . . Doesn’t taste good without red pepper.”

Demon King Rozenke froze for a split second. “You still want to eat red pepper?”

“Even after someone reduced you to dust, making it so that you were only able to grow back your head recently, instead of learning from your setbacks and self-reflecting, you only think about eating and drinking?”

“. . . I recently met a person who nearly shat out their intestines because of eating too much red pepper hotpot.”

The moment he spoke of occurred at the Sacred Highlands. Under Xu Jun’s “temptation” of trying out new foods, the Holy Light Elf elders, despite the tears streaming from their eyes, continued to do battle with the red pepper hotpot.

The dignified and reserved Demon King Rozenke could not help but go red in the face as he said the verb “shat.” In his heart, he thought: I’ve been led astray by Xu Jun.

“Has anything out of the ordinary occurred recently?” He changed the topic to proper matters. “—Fear Lord, wipe your hands. Next time, don’t be so barbaric as to hold food with your hands. —Do not tell me that no one noticed the abnormalities with the elemental darkness particles recently.”

A black smoke rose from the Fear Lord’s hands like fire, and “burned” off the grease on her hands, before heading to Fire Lord’s hair and cleaning it up. “Indeed, Your Majesty. We have been researching this abnormality and have discovered that these elemental darkness particles do not seem to have released by any person. The particles all seem to originate from. . . the Dark Abyss.”

“A few changes have occurred within the Dark Abyss, and it almost feel as if it has come alive. Of the low-level evil spirits who manage to crawl out of Hell, there are always a few who get swallowed by the Dark Abyss, Your Majesty, disappearing without a trace during their climb. Furthermore, the number of evil spirits who have disappeared is quite significant. For the past tens of thousands of years, nothing like this has ever happened before.”

The Fear Lord grimly made this report. This matter had perplexed her for quite some time now. When she first discovered that the Dark Abyss was “swallowing” evil spirits, she had questioned her own judgement. However, there were records of the number of evil spirits who had made the climb out of Hell. According to reason, besides elderly, weak, and sick evil spirits, they should all be capable of climbing up to the surface. However, quite a few healthy evil spirits had disappeared halfway through the climb, and the number of disappearances was only going up. Last month, the rate of disappearance was one evil spirit out of one hundred; this had now increased to five evil spirits disappearing out of one hundred.

Although this percentage did not seem high, the situation has already escalated by this much within the span of a single month, and no one knew how it would be in the future.

The current Dark Abyss reminded the Fear Lord of a time long ago, when she had just been born, and the Blood-Filled Pitcher Plant she had seen then. The Blood-Filled Pitcher Plant was an ancient, carnivorous plant. Its main body could grow up to ten meters in height, could take the initiative in attacking, and could even utilize the terrain to its advantage—for a plant, it was quite intelligent.

For some reason, the idea of a man-eating plant was much more terrifying than the concept of a man-eating beast. At the time, the world had lacked any intelligent lifeforms. Nearly all creatures, including the ancestors of the Continent of Gods’ Blessing’s intelligent races, acted upon instinct. However, in the moments facing death, they could already feel ‘fear.’

The Blood-Filled Pitcher Plant had driven a furry, monkey-like human into a desperate strait. The plant opened its mouth wide and swallowed the monkey person, who then let out a blood-curdling scream. From this ancient human’s heart erupted the darkness of fear and despair. It was this culmination of negative emotions that awakened the Fear Lord’s awareness for the first time.

And the bloody-mawed Blood-Filled Pitcher Plant, which swallowed up the monkey person with a crunch, also left a deep impression on the Fear Lord.

The current Dark Abyss made the Fear Lord’s hairs stand on end. Although she never explicitly mentioned her horror, Demon King Rozenke and Ice Lord Weize both felt the same fear. The Dark Abyss, was the same as any other place in the world: it was simply a name given to a landmark; the only thing special about it was that it linked Hell to the surface. One could call it an abyss, but one could also call it a tunnel. For other races, perhaps this was a frightening place; however, for demons, they had both love and hatred for this place, like they did for Hell. For demons, this was their burial ground, but it was also their homeland.

However, the Dark Abyss was now consuming demons?

 However, the timing was still too premature to make any final conclusions, and the exact situation had yet to be revealed. Due to the fighting at the frontlines, the Fear Lord could not halt the transportation of evil spirits. All she could do was post more people around the Dark Abyss’ surroundings and do her best to protect the evil spirits climbing up.

Perhaps, during this period of time, the evil spirits climbing up were being treated better than they ever have been _(:зゝ∠)_ 

Demon King Rozenke mused: continuing to ignore the matter of the Dark Abyss consuming evil spirits would not solve the problem. However, the actions he wanted to take next. . . had great implications, and was not something he could make a decision on alone.

At the very least, he needed to connect with the Abyss Lord and ensure that the fighting at the frontlines will not be impacted.

As he mused, this wise and grand Demon King walked out of his gloomy and elegant palace, and in passing, took away the platter of drumsticks that the Fear Lord and Fire Lord had yet to finish.

“In the future, while inside the palace, don’t eat such. . . ,” he paused, before remembering the term Xu Jun often used, “junk food?”

 He then threw the drumsticks out to the sun-bathing, skeletal cat outside the doorway.

Author has something to say:

Fire Lord: As such, from that moment forth, I was never able to eat a drumstick ever again.

Xu Jun: . . . No problem, sister. We should not be content with just this much in life! Come, come, come, let us make some red pepper hotpot!

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