“A Demon King? A living Demon King?”
Are you kidding me!
The moment Mylon realized what was happening, his first instinct was to flee.
But just as he lifted his leg, a sudden, massive force slammed him into the wall.
He was wedged so deep into the magic-reinforced bricks that he couldn’t move an inch.
Mylon’s head spun from the impact.
Once he finally regained consciousness, he stiffly turned his head and saw the hulking “demon” clad in heavy black armor.
A member of the Protectorate!
A living member of the Demon Protectorate!
The elite of the elite under Demon King Leah!
In the depths of his heart, Mylon wanted to curse.
What kind of bullshit combat power did these Protectorate soldiers have?
How could a single soldier pin him to the ground and beat him like this?
Originally, when he saw the casualty ratio of 107-to-1, he had grumbled about his own troops being useless.
Now that he saw this, he thought, I’m sorry, I spoke out of turn.
Facing a monster like this, the fact that you didn’t end up with a 1070-to-1 ratio means you guys were truly brave!
“Have you calmed down now?”
“Demon King Leah” stood leisurely beside him, her tone soft, gentle, and relaxed.
“As you know, this city doesn’t welcome me, and I’m in a hurry. That portrait on the wall… that’s your daughter, isn’t it? She’s a beautiful little girl. It would be a shame if she were sent to the Seventh Demon Realm to become a succubus.”
“What… do you… want to know…?”
Mylon finally gave in, struggling to squeeze out the words.
“It’s simple. Who is dealing with the Hero, Jon? I’m looking for her for a little collaboration.”
“No… no one…”
“Demon King Leah” gestured toward the black-armored warrior.
“Jon— cough, Jonas! Give him a little taste of what we do.”
Jonas didn’t move.
He slowly turned his head, and through the slit in his helmet, Leah saw clear confusion and inquiry in his eyes.
“…Do… whatever you think is most cruel.”
Jonas suddenly understood.
He pried Mylon off the wall and began a “punishment game” for boys that was universal across the multiverse — Aluba.
The specifics involved lifting a companion up and slamming their crotch repeatedly against the corner of a wall.
“Enough, enough! Stop trying to humiliate me with such childish tri— Aaaaagggghhhhhh—!!!”
Mylon’s impatient dismissal was cut short by a shrill, agonizing scream.
The piercing pain was so intense it made him shriek like a banshee.
Clearly, Jonas didn’t treat this as a “game.”
He was executing the punishment very seriously, without holding back any strength.
His movements were comparable to swinging a battering ram on a battlefield.
The 50-year-old City Lord Mylon curled up like a shrimp, feeling as if his pelvis were about to shatter.
He sat in a cold sweat for a long time before finally catching his breath.
As he opened his teary, blurred eyes, he saw the two demons leaning in to watch.
“You two are truly evil demons—!!” he wailed.
“Cut the crap and talk. It’ll save you some suffering,” Leah snorted softly.
“Fine… I’ll speak… I’ll speak…”
City Lord Mylon gasped for air.
“It’s Duchess Ghera. It’s her. She was the one who proposed pivoting from agriculture to commerce, and she’s the one leading the Demon Slave Cultivation project. She wanted to collect higher commercial taxes and also wanted to run the business of importing demon slaves. It’s all her fault, it has nothing to do with me…”
Leah became even more puzzled and surprised.
“Why are you importing demon slaves? As mercenaries? To keep fighting the war?”
“Duchess Ghera said that by using demon slaves to replace the Dust People in the fields, we can save the rations needed to keep the peasants alive. That way, we can collect more taxes and convert more grain fields into cash crops. By her calculations, the profit per acre would increase at least nine times. It’s very profita—”
“Huh???”
Leah was stunned by these words.
Honestly, even if she had wracked her brain, she never would have imagined that the human nobility’s passive approach to disaster relief was for such an absurd reason!
Demons… slaves… farming?
How did you even connect those three completely unrelated terms? The imagination of these “intelligent” humans was truly something else!
Clearly, the humans did not have a deep enough understanding of demons.
To be fair, Leah had always felt that the reason the demons hadn’t made themselves extinct was purely thanks to the fact that they were born in the Demon Realm and had racial advantages that prevented them from starving.
From the First Demon Realm to the Seventh Demon Realm, the demon race produced all sorts of “talents.” They had every personality and fetish imaginable.
It was a collection of eccentrics, ranging from the young to the old.
But if you had to name a common trait, it would be these two points:
First, they were born rebels.
They refused to stay under someone else’s thumb for long.
Their spirit of resistance and their instinct for backstabbing were extremely strong.
Someone like Lu Bu would be considered a moral paragon among demons.
Even the spineless succubi didn’t serve as slaves out of “loyalty” or “obedience,” but rather for pleasure and to satisfy their own desires.
Second, they absolutely refused to farm or perform any mechanical, repetitive labor.
They loathed long-term planning and favored instant gratification.
If they had money, they would rather gamble it away than save it.
Earning a steady salary?
Where was the thrill in that compared to a high-stakes gamble to get rich overnight?
This was also why Leah’s industrial revolution in the Demon Realm had failed to take off.
Even with the power of capital, she couldn’t suppress the inherent evil nature in a demon’s bones.
And yet, the Empire actually had the audacity to think they could make such a group of demons farm.
Leah didn’t know how to describe her current mood.
She felt like laughing, but she was also strangely looking forward to it — looking forward to the moment when the Imperial nobles brought back a large number of demon slaves, only to be driven insane by these unruly demon citizens.
In contrast to Leah, who was barely suppressing a smirk, Jonas was filled with pure rage.
His armored gauntlets creaked as he clenched his fists.
If he didn’t know he couldn’t speak, he probably would have thrown a punch and roared at him by now.
‘Just for this reason?’
‘Just for nine times the profit?’
‘Human life… something so precious… just what do you think it is?!’
“Switching from farming to commerce, Demon Slave Cultivation… using fully automated ‘beasts of burden’ from the pits of the Demon Realm to weed out the Dust People who need to eat and have emotional needs… You guys really came up with something special,” Leah whistled, her tone playful and mocking.
“You even felt the natural selection wasn’t fast enough, so you wanted to use a natural disaster to weed out even more in one go. Tsk, compared to us demons, you people are the real demons.”
“You’re a Demon King, so why are you so biased toward the Dust People?”
Mylon couldn’t save face any longer.
He argued with a flushed face, “We didn’t really do anything! The flood was a natural disaster. It’s their own fault if they fell into the water and couldn’t swim! We just didn’t go to save them. We didn’t throw our golden kullen into the river for them!”
“What does it have to do with us? It’s clearly their own fault! If they had worked a little harder, they could have swum out. Or if their ancestors had worked harder and moved into the city earlier, wouldn’t they be fine?”
Perhaps because his fear had reached its limit, City Lord Mylon let out a tirade of pent-up frustration.
“Well said!” Leah snapped her fingers.
“It’s all because you didn’t work hard enough that you fell into my hands today. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your wife and children.”
“You—!”
Mylon’s eyes widened.
Leah signaled for Jonas to finish him.
Just as his wrist was halfway raised, a slightly youthful female voice drifted leisurely from behind the door, catching their attention.
“Greetings, Demon King Leah. My master invites you to the manor for a chat.”
Leah and Jonas looked up simultaneously toward the slowly opening door.
At the same time, the cold, elegant face of a noble young woman in a floor-length black dress emerged from the shadows of the study.
“Who is your master?”
Leah asked, knowing the answer.
The Crow Spirit Envoy smiled faintly.
“The Governor of the Thousand Rivers Territory, a Crown-rank Shadow Archmage, and the Nightingale Duchess — Lady Ghera Servis, of course.”
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