Chapter 455: King’s Road (4)
Boooom!
The residents gasped as they stared through the hole in the ceiling.
“…”
It was such a beautiful sight. The sun was shining through the hole in the ceiling and created a beautiful scene as it pierced through the cloud of dust and illuminated the dark cavern. No words were necessary. The residents, who had long gotten accustomed to the darkness of the caverns, were momentarily blinded by the light.
However, none of them closed their eyes.
While shedding tears, they kept on staring at the sky.
“Sniff! Sniff!”
Tess tried to hold his tears back by biting his lips, but he couldn’t stop his tears from flowing down his cheeks. He wasn't crying because the sun was too bright and was painful to look at.
'Mother, Father.'
It was all because the sky that they really wanted to show him turned out to be even more beautiful than what they had described. It was late, but he could finally understand their feelings.
"Aaaargh!"
Boooom!
Gravity finally brought the king down.
The king opened his eyes with difficulty, and he instantly realized his outcome.
‘It's... It's over.’
Most of his bones had shattered, and the sword technique had lacerated his flesh, causing an incessant flow of blood from his body. He was still alive because of his willpower, but it wouldn’t be strange for him to die any time soon.
"Cough!"
The king spat a mouthful of blood and forced himself to stand up.
"My goodness... He’s still trying to get up?"
"He’s a cockroach!"
"You scum! Bring my father back!"
Tap, tap. Crack.
The residents started throwing stones at him. The stones struck him all over, including his head. In response, the king glared at the residents, but the only response he received from them was a slight flinch.
“Haha…" The people who previously wouldn’t dare to even look at his feet were now making eye contact with him. The king chuckled hollowly because it seemed that his end would be a miserable and bitter one.
"If you people dared to look me in the eyes like this before, then there was no way that things would have come—”
"Bullshit,” someone interrupted him.
"I’m sure the people here are thinking that I’m the villain, and I’m sure that’s what you think as well, right?" the king calmly stared at Seo Jun-Ho, who was slowly approaching him and said, "…I’m a mutant, so I have never felt welcomed or accepted anywhere."
"So what?"
"The world that rejected me first."
No one wanted him, and no one would accept him. He was shunned the moment he was born. The king revealed an anguished look and cried out. "Who would dare to blame me for what I had done?!"
When his words fell, a stone struck his forehead.
The stone was a hundred times more than the stones that struck him earlier.
The king felt like his forehead had shattered.
"I will.” Seo Jun-Ho, who had thrown the stone, responded as he started looking for another shiny stone. "It’s been a long time since someone played the victim card in front of me, but it seems that it never gets old."
Of course, this wasn’t Seo Jun-Ho’s first time encountering someone who was prepared to play the victim card. After all, he had dealt with tens of thousands of fiends before, and there were quite a few of them who had played the same card in front of him.
"The world abandoned me first. The world shunned me. The world left me alone." Those fiends had their own reasons, but no justification would be enough for them to be pardoned for the sins that they had committed.
"The sadness you’re experiencing—could it be heavier than the lives you have taken so far?"
“…”
"The sadness you’re experiencing—could it be heavier than the sadness of those whose relatives and friends died at your hands?”
“…” The king couldn't answer, but his anguished expression disappeared and was replaced by calmness.
At the sight, Seo Jun-Ho couldn’t help but remark. "I know guys like you well."
They were a selfish bunch, and they were too self-centered that they would trample on others for their benefit.
“You were born to be shunned.”
And Seo Jun-Ho was born to be the reaper who would reap their lives.
The king stared indifferently at Seo Jun-Ho and asked, "That's strange. Humans should be vulnerable to this kind of emotion."
"I've seen worse trash than you."
The king stared at the open ceiling.
"…Do you know what you have done?"
"I simply took out the trash."
"So you really don't know anything.” The king sighed and went on. “I tried to go up there once. Only once."
It was when he thought that his true family was the demons.
"The first ones that appeared were the demonic creatures."
Kieeecck!
The residents stared at the ceiling.
Hideous monsters that they had never seen before flooded in through the gap in the ceiling.
"Hart."
Hart stepped onto the wooden railings and made his way up to cut the demonic creatures down.
The king grinned at the sight and said, "Once you’re done killing those Lesser demonic creatures, the demons would appear next—Low, Common, and High. They will appear in that order.”
Of course, Hart and Seo Jun-Ho would be able to beat those demons.
"And do you want to know what will happen if you somehow managed to defeat those demons? Of course, an Arch demon will show up."
"I'll cut them down, then."
"And that wouldn’t be the end of it. Cutting down an Arch demon is tantamount to summoning the nobles of the Underworld."
"Then, I’ll cut them down as well."
The king frowned at Seo Jun-Ho's resolute answer.
“Just what do you believe in for you to have so much confidence?”
The king couldn’t help but think that Seo Jun-Ho was just bluffing. After all, he had done the same as well back then.
‘Unfortunately, I couldn’t become an Arch demon.’
He had once come face-to-face with an Arch demon, but he directly abandoned his arrogance and crawled like a worm. He immediately started begging for his life. It couldn’t be helped. An Arch demon was simply too strong compared to a High demon.
“I'll rot in a cave for the rest of my life. So please spare my life.”
"It's not because I believe in something."
Seo Jun-Ho closed his eyes. The king was right. He knew nothing.
‘He’s definitely not lying. The Lesser demonic creatures are the first wave of enemies, and the demons will come next.’’
Low, Common, and High demons. If he successfully cut those demons down, then Arch demons would appear. He had never seen even a single Arch demon before, so it would definitely be an unprecedented fight.
If he managed to beat the Arch demons, then the Underworld nobility would come next.
‘I have to do it. Otherwise, everyone here will die.’
Therefore, it wasn't a question of whether he could do it or not.
"I just have to do it, no matter what."
“Do not betray those who trust and follow you. That is how every monarch should be.”
The Frost Queen kept on saying those words to him.
“…” The king shut his mouth. He couldn't understand it at all. However, there was still one thing that he managed to grasp from their conversation.
"You're… not like me.”
"I am not like you."
The king and Seo Jun-Ho weren’t similar at all.
With that being said, Seo Jun-Ho approached the king.
"Ugh?!”
The king’s demonic energy slipped out of him.
Once he was done absorbing the king’s demonic energy, Seo Jun-Ho whispered into the king’s ear. "I'll give your Farm back to you."
Craackle!
A huge round staircase manifested, and it was high enough to reach the ceiling.
Seo Jun-Ho was the first to get on the stairs.
"I think this kind of death suits you the best," said Seo Jun-Ho to the king one last time.
The residents of the Farm started following Seo Jun-Ho up to the ground one by one.
The king couldn’t move, so he was forced to watch the entire process.
“…”
The Farm and the home that the king had built up from scratch felt small and insignificant upon the residents’ departure.
‘Was my imagination lacking?’
He was about to die—yes, but it was in a way that he could have never expected. It wouldn’t be a death amidst a glorious battle, nor would it be a miserable death that came to be after betrayal.
Ruuumble.
The cave vibrated, and the ceiling seemed like it could no longer hold on.
Boom, boom!
The king slowly closed his eyes. He was about to die a lonesome death.
"How cruel..."
Smash!
Those were the king’s last words before he was crushed to death by the rocks.
***
"Oh, wow…!”
"So this is the outside world."
"It's grass! The grass is growing so thick on the ground! I think we can eat it!”
"I-it definitely tastes much better than moss!"
The residents frolicked on the grass like children. It wasn’t really strange because it was their first time seeing the outside world. Of course, there were others who felt too awkward to do anything.
"Khmm."
"Uh, ahem."
They were the nobles, soldiers, and knights who had long become trash by borrowing the king’s power.
"Sonny-nim, what are you going to do about them?” Tess asked carefully.
Seo Jun-Ho glanced at them and said, “Nothing."
“I see…”
Tess and the residents had suffered a lot under the tyranny of those unscrupulous people, but they didn't say anything. Seo Jun-Ho had just rescued them from the Farm and brought them outside, so how could they beg for more?
"So he really wasn’t lying…” murmured Seo Jun-Ho while looking somewhere.
The others couldn’t feel it, but there was no way that they could escape Seo Jun-Ho’s detection.
'They’re coming...’
There were only three Low demons, so it seemed that the king also wasn’t lying about how the demons would come sequentially in ascending order rather than at once.
'Good for me.’
He had to consume them all and restore his magic. However, he had to do something first before anything else.
‘Yeon…’
Seo Jun-Ho injected magic into his Vita and sent a message. If there were spaceships or civilizations in the nearby universe that could receive his signal, he should get a reply sooner rather than later.
"S-Sonny-nim! Look over there!" Tess pointed at the sky in surprise.
The three Low demons had finally arrived.
They frowned upon seeing people outside the Farm.
"What? Wasn't this Farm that’s being ruled by that half?"
"I don’t see him. Did the humans kill him, perhaps?"
"No way. He’s a Half, but I heard that he is apparently comparable to a Common demon.”
They started muttering to themselves as questions filled their minds, but what they had to do remained the same. They descended and started hunting the humans down.
"Hart.” Sir Hart was comfortable with fighting demons, so Seo Jun-Ho didn’t even have to explain as the former moved as though he could read the latter’s thoughts.
"Ugh!?Wh-what’s up with that hunk of ice?!”
One of the three Low demons suffered a horrible death, causing the other two demons to flee into the sky.
"I think that guy killed the half."
"Damn it! If that's the case, then a High demon has to come here.”
"I'll send a message, but running away...”
"No way. They will still kill you for cowardice."
They would die if they ran away, and they would also die if they remained. Since both options had the same outcome, the demons decided to take action. With dark faces, they mustered as much demonic energy as they could and hurled them at the humans.
"Aaaah!"
"S-save me!"
The demonic energy that descended like a deluge killed many people, but Seo Jun-Ho didn't even blink at the sight of it.
"H-help me…!” someone exclaimed and waved at Seo Jun-Ho, asking for help. Their eyes definitely met, but Seo Jun-Ho decide to ignore them.
"D-don't tell me...” Tess trembled upon realizing it.
“What are you going to do about them?”
“Nothing.”
Tess had just realized what Seo Jun-Ho meant when he said that he would do nothing for the unscrupulous bunch of people who managed to escape from the cave with them.
Once more, Tess was reminded that Seo Jun-Ho was necessary for their survival.
"Argh!"
"Why, why aren’t you helping? We’re like you! We’re humans, too!"
"Fuck! We're not even a half! We’re a hundred percent human!"
"Well..." Seo Jun-Ho muttered while looking at the dissatisfied nobles, knights, and soldiers. "I'm not sure if there’s any difference between you and those demons up there. I mean, you joined hands with a demon.”
They joined hands with a demon and had been abusing the Farm’s slaves and residents as if the latter were mere animals. They hadn’t drunk the blood of the demons, but they could already be considered fully-fledged fiends.
Seo Jun-Ho had no plans of getting their blood on his hands, but he had no intentions of helping them in their moment of crisis.
“…”
When the fiends finally died, Seo Jun-Ho whistled.
Whistle~
'Freedom Blade.’
The Freedom Blade’s four blades neatly disposed of the two remaining demons.
"Hoh. It seems like you got yourself a pretty good weapon while I wasn’t looking at you.”
“…!” Seo Jun-Ho’s eyes shot wide open at the voice that suddenly came from behind him. Strangely enough, despite being a pseudo-transcendent, Seo Jun-Ho didn’t notice the presence behind him until they spoke.
‘They’re a true transcendent!’
They were definitely a real transcendent rather than the pseudo kind.
He hurriedly turned around, and Seo Jun-Ho’s expression turned odd at the sight.
"…Reiji?"
Why was he hallucinating all of a sudden?
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