The Demon King is Unfathomable

On Calamity Online’s forum…

It had only been an hour since the closed beta server opened, but there were already dozens of pages talking about player experience.

Villagegramps: “Brothers, we have tested the game for you! Calamity Online’s developers aren’t bragging at all! This game is out of the world!!!”

Orcknight: “Out of my world, my ass! Where are the succubuses in the promotional video?! (Angry)”

Minowarrior: “Yeah! Why are we skeletons?! (Angry)”

Villagegramps: “All you demanding asses…”

Peerlessbear: “You should be glad you can move at all! This is a full-immersion, virtual reality game, something geeks dreamt about since decades ago! Yet you’re still complaining here…”

Explodingknowledge: “These ingrates!”

Autumnleaf: “You can’t conflate the two together. This development team is amazing; the lighting and sensations are all lifelike! If not for us being turned into skeletons, I would have thought it wasn’t a game but a real otherworld…”

Autumnleaf: “Yeah… What’s with your ID? (Sweats)”

Peerlessdragonemperor: “Tsk, you bunch of good-for-nuthins!”

Unyieldinglife: “Rofl. I’ll do a handstand and eat my shit if it is anywhere as good as you put it out to be!”

Explodingknowledge: “%￥#@!”

“…”

The most popular thread had, on average, five new comments popping in every second!

Staring at his computer screen, Zhao Jinyan was flabbergasted. He couldn’t believe how fast this bunch of people were typing. He dearly regretted moving so slowly that he lost the chance to become a closed beta player.

“Damn… Is the game that incredible?”

Just looking at the ongoing discussion was enough to tempt him. At this instant, he wanted nothing more than to put on his VR goggles and fly into the game.

‘This is ridiculous. I’m feeling like an addict when I haven’t even played the game yet!’

Fleetingpast: “Does anyone know if the developer will open more closed beta slots? T^T”

Dogshit: “Dk. Ask the dogshit developers. (Smirk)”

Fleetingpast: “Damn… Will there be a reset for the closed beta accounts? Else those who go in first will get an unfair advantage.”

Autumnleaf: “Hard to say. The game environment is mostly completed. Think they just need to tweak some minor details. I don’t think the game will be in closed beta for too long.” Ṙ

Fleetingpast: “What do you think about the game? Is it fun?”

Autumnleaf: “I can’t, in good faith, say that the game is fun as it is. The game systems are still rough on the edges. For example, you can get quests from NPCs, but you don’t know what rewards you’ll get. There’s also hardly any guidance for newbies. If you aren’t sharp enough, you might not even know what to do after accessing the game…”

Autumnleaf: “But again, Rome isn’t built in a day. While these problems do exist, they can be easily solved. As I have already said, this game’s hardware foundation is rock solid, to the point where you can think of it as a completely realistic otherworld!”

Autumnleaf: “With its impeccable physics engine, realistic sceneries, object interactions, intelligent NPCs, and a high degree of freedom, even the shortcomings I mentioned can be marketed as the game’s strengths… Of course, I’d prefer the developers improve on the game if they see my comment. It shouldn’t be tough to add a currency and merchant function.”

Orcknight: “Holy… You guys sure he isn’t a shill?”

Minowarrior: “+10086”

Autumnleaf: “…Don’t count on me to write a guide.”

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Peerlessbear: “Nooooo! Bro, you don’t know how much I admire you!”

Explodingknowledge: “Me too! I love to see you brag!”

Autumnleaf: “…”

Hungryhungry: “And the rats! How can those rat monsters be so ugly?! Can the developers redesign them? Ugh, they are so big that I can’t take it T_T”

Soreloser: “What?! Too big that you can’t take it? I am small!”

Hungryhungry: “Scram! （╯‵□

“…”

The person behind Calamity Online secretly peeked as the netizens passionately shared their experience with the game online.

‘Not bad, bro!’

Roan was wondering how he should reward players for completing quests when Autumnleaf’s comment enlightened him.

‘I can always just print money! What? There’s nothing in the shop to spend money on? Ah, that’s because the game is still in development. Perfectly normal, I’d say! You can buy all you want once the merchant function is online!’

“Youyou.”

“Yes, Demon King?” Youyou replied crisply from the mirror.

Roan stroked his lower jaw as he voiced his thoughts, “I want to create a currency—like gold coins or silver coins—to reward players when they complete quests. Is that possible to pull off?”

Taken aback, Youyou hesitantly replied, “You want me to conjure gold and silver? That… might be a little difficult.”

Roan shook his head. “I’m not asking you to conjure gold or silver. I’m asking you to create a virtual currency to coax the players.”

Youyou’s eyes lit up. “As expected of the Demon King! Basically, you just want me to add an adjustable number on the player’s interface, right?”

“Something like that. You can do it however’s convenient for you.”

“No problem! Leave it to me, Demon King! But what should we call the currency? Gold coins? Silver coins? Or should we use both?” Youyou was getting hyped up.

“It’ll be too troublesome to maintain multiple currencies.” Roan thought about it before replying, “Since my domain is called Necropolis, let’s go with hell coins.”

“…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing…” Youyou replied with a strained smile. “It has your flair, Demon King.”

Roan eyed the fellow in the mirror.

‘You think you know my flair when you barely know me for a couple of days?’

As they discussed the details regarding hell coins, the chat on the forum progressed from complaints about the gaming system to its content. This was also what Roan was the most concerned about.

He could rely on Youyou to monitor his demon king domain, but his demon king domain was still small. He didn’t have vision on the other mining shafts and the previous demon king’s labyrinth.

He could only rely on players for information for these ‘fog of war’ blind spots.

Autumnleaf: “…I received a mission from the demon king to explore the labyrinth, so I went in to take a look. It is shocking! Unlike the narrow mining shafts, the labyrinth is a vast underground space that requires stone pillars to support its ceiling. The problem is that it is filled with spiders around half the height of a human, and many spider eggs are lying around.”

Autumnleaf: “They didn’t seem interested in me, a skeleton, but I feel the warning in their gaze. They will attack me if I proceed any closer.”

Hungryhungry: “Why is it all rats and spiders? T^T”

Orcknight: “Maybe we’ll get massive cockroaches next (Snicker)”

Villagegramps: “Did you attack them?”

Autumnleaf: “Are you out of your mind? That’s obviously not an enemy that new players like us can deal with! I bet they are at least level 10 to 20!”

Explodingknowledge: “A vast space, huh? That would have made a better beginner village than a mining shaft.”

Autumnleaf: “Indeed. I thought that the developers should move the beginner village over since the labyrinth looks much more impressive than the mining shaft, but on second thought, I wondered if that’s part of the gaming experience.

Villagegramps: “What you mean? (Confused)”

Autumnleaf: “Think about it. The game’s high degree of freedom, its extreme realism, and the absence of a tutorial… All these suggest that the developers hope that we can forge our own gaming experience and create our unique demon king domain!”

Minowarrior: “Huh? You sure you’re not a paid shill?”

Autumnleaf: “Were you paid? (Rolls eyes)”

Minowarrior: “The only thing I’m shilling for is my succubus!”

Dogshit: “Hey hey, look at it from another perspective. If there are already giant spiders on the first floor of the labyrinth, you might just encounter succubuses in the deeper levels. (Chuckles)”

Minowarrior: “Brothers, let’s login now!”

Orcknight: “ORAHHHHH!!!”

Roan, who was peeking through the mirror, was taken aback.

‘Wow, my pawns are moving on their own accord.’

…

The following day…

After staying up till midnight to surf the forums last night, Roan slept in till the following afternoon. Alarmed at how late it was, he quickly got up and meditated.

It seemed like his Calamity system had completely assimilated the demon king domain and all its functions that usually required complicated rituals to unlock.

‘The Machine God might be subpar at fighting, but it is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to technology. To think that a thousand-year-old virus could still hack into a modern-day system.’

An idea suddenly surfaced in Roan’s head.

‘Hold on… Could the demon king domain’s core actually be a divine persona? I heard the third-generation Demon God Bayeris used to be a demon king… Is this the netherworld’s way to mass-produce gods?!’

What was even more coincidental was the Calamity system he received from the Machine God happened to be a divine persona too, resulting in the fusion of the two…

The more Roan thought about it, the more he felt like he had inadvertently stumbled upon a massive secret.

Though it was still all speculation at this stage. He didn’t have enough information to verify it.

Roan immersed his consciousness into his mind to inspect the changes in the Calamity system.

The biggest change was in his ‘Faith’ section. It used to show a single number, but there were now two additional figures.

【Faith: 277

Daily Revenue：101~120

Daily Expenditure：100】

“My faith dropped from 377 to 277… Does this mean that summoning a skeleton soldier consumes a point of faith?”

Maintaining skeleton soldiers summoned through the demon king domain consumed faith too. The maintenance fee was not high, but it added up over time.

The faith stored in the demon king domain’s core was usually not quantified. A demon king could only rely on the crystal’s brightness and their own experience to determine how much faith they had available for usage.

However, the Calamity system quantified the amount for him.

“This is a convenient feature… but isn’t my daily faith revenue too low?”

Thunderbuzz City was at least a major city with over a million people. Was its populace really that loyal to their fief lord?

Roan refused to believe that there was no traitorous person in their midst. He heard quite a few people ‘paying their respect’ to Saint Sisto yesterday in the tavern, after all.

“Those actions should be considered as selling their souls to the Demon God… How bizarre.”

While Roan was confused about the situation, an ink-green notification popped out.

【Mission: Maintain an average player daily in-game time of at least five hours for three consecutive days (Current average online time: 2 hours 33 minutes)】

【Reward: 400 closed beta slots】

“Youyou.”

“Yes?”

“Stop issuing missions to me.”

As if knowing Roan would misunderstand it, Youyou anxiously explained, “No, Demon King. I didn’t issue that mission!”

“What do you mean? Is there another divine persona in my head?!”

“That’s not it. That is coded at a lower level than my programming… You can interpret it as a default mission encoded into the Calamity system,” Youyou anxiously explained.

However, Roan felt that it was just bullshitting him. In the end, he sighed. “All right, assuming that’s the case, what is the condition triggering those missions?”

“I don’t know either…” Youyou timidly replied. “I suspect it serves a pushing force when the system thinks that you’re progressing too slowly…”

Roan: “…”

‘This is considered slow?! I was still dining in the Demon King Academy 24 hours ago!”

“Raising the players’ online time… In gist, I just have to give the players more work, right?”

While he could cheat by producing and giving out hell coins, he knew it would be wiser not to screw around too much for the sake of long-term development.

“I think the players are rather fond of you. You can try matching their expectations and find things for them to do.”

“All right.”

‘Finding work for the players? Easy. Those who are free should dig some ores and help me clear my daily tasks.’

Roan got up from his bed and tidied himself in front of the mirror before heading down the mining shaft.

There was an awful blood stench lingering in the mining shaft, likely belonging to the ratmen.

He made his way to the deepest area in the mining shaft, to where he planted the demon king domain’s core, imprisoned the adventurers, and conjured the skeleton players.

Upon arriving at his destination, he froze at what he saw.

Somehow, the sculpture containing the demon king domain’s core transformed into a dashing human instead of Demon God Bayeris.

Roan couldn’t believe his eyes. He rushed forward to take a closer look.

It was his face!

‘Shit! Why is my face up there?!’