The Demon King is Unfathomable

Roan thought that he had a conscience even though he let it slip every now and then.

Touching his heart, he had to concede that the underworld had treated him well over the last eighteen years. The goodwill he had received far outweighed the ill-will he had faced.

While he had hardly any loyalty to His Majesty Demon God, he felt terrible when he saw how ill-treated the Demon God’s people were outside. Through her, he saw what could have become of him if things had turned out slightly differently.

‘The day is going to be over anyway. I’ll just be a good person for the day.’

While the demon king was putting a blanket over the napping little cat, the players, after working hard for the day in the demon king domain, were preparing to go offline.

Orcknight stared at the pitch-black mining shaft when a thought suddenly occurred to him, and he exclaimed in astonishment, “Hey guys! I don’t know if you noticed it yet… but this game isn’t taxing on the eyes at all!”

Autumnleaf looked at Orcknight with a frown. “Is there anything wrong about that?”

“Don’t you find it amazing?!” Orcknight excitedly flailed his arms around.

Autumnleaf: “Not really… I mean, our eyes are closed after booting up the game, right?”

Autumnleaf: “It’s a guess.”

Orcknight: “…”

Autumnleaf: “But I have to admit that this game is plenty weird. Despite it being such a laborious game, it has a surprisingly low impact on our real-world bodies.”

He had been intensely gaming for more than ten hours now, only taking a brief break in between to get some food in, but he was surprisingly not tired at all.

This reinforced his conjecture that the development team was in possession of technology that was ahead of the present era… such as controlling a person’s dreams.

Autumnleaf trembled in excitement at the thought of that.

It was not just because he saw a huge commercial appeal for the game. More than that, he thought that he was watching the birth of a new technological era. He could witness with his own eyes the changes it would bring to their society.

Soon, people might start working in their sleep instead so that they could reserve more waking hours for their private life.

That sounded oddly wonderful.

Bingtanghulu: “That’s good to hear.”

Lambskewers: “Don’t any of you need to work?!”

Twilight: “Don’t use him as an example. I bet he’s a pro player.”

Autumnleaf eyed Twilight with narrowed eyes.

‘Pot calling the kettle black. You’re the real pro player here! I’m just a casual veteran gamer!’

Gulpitdown, “…I’m curious what will happen if we stay online for 24 hours straight.”

Hungryhungry: “We’ll jolt awake from hunger! I’ve already tried it.”

Lambskewers: “Even if not for hunger, I doubt our body can take the burden.”

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Gulpitdown sighed in pity. “Say, is there a chance we might transmigrate here if our body caves in while playing the game?”

The crowd stared at Gulpitdown with speechless faces.

Orcknight: “I’d be okay if it’s a succubus, but to transmigrate as a skeleton soldier… Forget it.”

Autumnleaf: “Are you sure you want to transmigrate here with that username? It’s one thing when it’s just a game, but I doubt you can make any friends if that becomes your real name.”

Seeing that Gulpitdown was already on the verge of a mental breakdown, Twilight quickly interjected with a light cough and patted his shoulder. “…You should go take a rest.”

Gulpitdown staggered to the corner and slumped against the wall.

Autumnleaf and Twilight bade each other farewell as they prepared to go offline.

“You aren’t going to grind more?” Explodingknowledge asked in surprise.

“What’s there to grind? I have already reached max level,” Autumnleaf replied.

The crowd was astounded.

Orcknight: “Holy crap! You are at max level?!”

Autumnleaf: “You’re making it sound like I have reached level 100. The level cap is 3… Ah right, I’m looking for the Demon King. Have any of you seen him?”

Orcknight: “‘fraid not. Why don’t you try attacking that sculpture? He appeared right away the last time I tried.”

Autumnleaf: “Scram! Go scam the newbies instead!”

…

Dogshit was exploring the demon king domain when he bumped into a peculiar sight.

In the corner of a mining shaft, a skeleton soldier was smearing mashed ratman guts onto a wooden plank he had pried out of somewhere to make a garden. However, the garden didn’t look to be for crops or flowers.

At least he had never seen anyone raising plants like that.

Out of curiosity, he went up and asked, “Bro, what are you doing?”

The skeleton soldier raised his head, revealing his profound username—Tablebench.

Dogshit nearly spat out the water that wasn’t in his mouth.

Tablebench: “I’m raising mushrooms.

“Mushrooms?”

Dogshit was perplexed. He leaned closer and saw little mushrooms growing on the ratmen’s corpses, concentrated mainly on their abdomen and around wounded areas.

‘Interesting! I have never seen such mushrooms before!’

But here comes the important question…

“…What are these mushrooms for?” Dogshit asked.

“I don’t know.” Tablebench shook his head with a matter-of-factly attitude.

Dogshit was at a loss for words. “Why are you raising them then?”

Baffled by the dumb question, Tablebench turned his head over and asked, “Why do you game then?”

Dogshit was floored. He couldn’t retort against that.

‘That makes so much sense!’

“…Bro, I think you’re a prodigy. Let’s add each other as friends and hang out together!”

“Anything.” Tablebench casually waved his hand in agreement before turning his attention back to tending his mushroom garden. “Just don’t disturb me.”

…

Roan woke up early the following morning.

He wanted to kickstart the day with some lava eggs, but he belatedly remembered that there were no firebird eggs or lava here. So, he could only make do with some bread.

After a quick breakfast, he fetched some water from the well in the inn’s courtyard to wash up. Following that, he went to check up on the stray kitten.

Sara was soundly asleep. She was curled up under the blanket, taking in stable breaths like an adorable kitten.

But Roan could tell she wasn’t deeply asleep—the slightest movement could jolt her awake.

Perhaps due to his approaching footsteps, her snoring gradually stopped. A little slit opened up in the blanket, revealing an amber eye beneath.

“What do you want for breakfast?”

That question spurred the lethargic Sara to sit up with overflowing energy.

“Skewers! Rat tails!”

“We can have that for dinner.” Roan passed a slice of bread to her. “You should have something lighter for breakfast.”

“Bread!”

Sara’s eyes lit up as she took in the appetizing fragrance of wheat. She bit down on the bread with so much fervor that she nearly chomped her own fingers off.

Seeing the way she wolfed down her food made Roan, despite having just eaten, hungry again. So, he turned away from her, grabbed the wooden board he pried out of the neighboring room, and drew on it with his magic crystal brush.

‘Yesterday’s player activity level was not bad. I should be able to complete the Calamity system’s quest without any issues.’

‘There will be a huge influx of new players once I complete the quest. I should put some signs around the mining shafts to indicate the places where they should go, lest they wander around like a bunch of headless flies.’

‘Ugh, the directionally-challenged ones are an issue too. I need to solve that problem as well.’

Soon, Sara was finally chowing down her bread, and she made sure to lick her fingers clean. Only then did she notice that Roan was up to something, so she walked over and leaned in out of curiosity.

“What’s that?”

Her fluffy ears tickled Roan’s nose. He pushed her aside before lifting up the wooden board.

“Today is the opening of our demon king domain’s provision shop, so I decided to personally draw our banner.”

“Provision shop? Banner?”

Sara had no idea what those phrases meant, but her raised ears reflected her curiosity.

“Think of it as a store. You promised to work for me last night, don’t you remember?” Roan explained.

Sara stared at Roan in confusion. Those words sounded oddly familiar, though she didn’t remember making that promise. Nevertheless, she still asked, “What do you need Sara to do?”

“It’s simple. My servants will buy items from you, and you just have to hand the goods to them. Don’t worry, I’ll run you through the procedure,” Roan replied.

Youyou could handle the specifics of the transaction through the ‘game rules’.

If gamers had sufficient hell coins to purchase their selected items, they would receive a notification informing them 【Transaction Successful】. Otherwise, they would be informed that they had insufficient hell coins.

If they tried to force the trade despite not having enough money, they would invoke the ‘Demon King’s Punishment’.

Even though Sara was the storekeeper, she didn’t need to deal with money.

If the players tried to engage her, she could reply with a ‘Meow’ if she was in a good mood. Otherwise, she could just outright ignore them.

The players would be excited either way.

“Leave it to me!” Sara thought the job sounded interesting and excitedly nodded . “Sara can do work!”

“Mm! Do well, all right? You will be paid for your work.” Roan patted her shoulders before handing the wooden board into her hands.

Written on the wooden board was ‘No feeding’, but Sara couldn’t read it as it was written in squarish characters.

Roan brought Sara into the mining shaft to introduce her to the players.

As soon as he stepped into the demon king domain, he encountered a skeleton who respectfully dropped to one knee upon seeing him.

“O’ great Demon King, I am your most loyal servant, Autumnleaf. I have reached a thousand contribution points. This should testify to the undying loyalty I have for you…”

‘This fellow has a way with words.’

But Roan didn’t want to waste his time with pleasantries when he had much to do.

“You want to level up, right? Permitted.”

He grandly waved his wand and tapped it on the skeleton soldier’s head. At the same time, he telepathically called for his assistant, ‘Youyou, I’ll leave this fellow to you.’

‘Got it!’

An ink-green light shone down on Autumnleaf.

It sparked an incredible feeling in him, like his soul was being elevated, like he was an impoverished desert nourished by a rich spring… In gist, he felt amazing!

Autumnleaf spent a long time savoring this sensation.

By the time he snapped out of his daze to give his thank you speech, he realized that the demon king was no longer around.

“…?”

‘Did the NPC skip my cutscene?!’