Demon King of the Royal Class-Chapter 451

The Edina Archipelago was an isolated island nation, and was even outside the regular warp gate system that spanned the entire continent.

There were small warp gates that connected the different islands of the archipelago, but they only linked the islands together and did not reach the continent.

Because of the nature of the Gate Incident, where larger gates produced larger monsters, the monsters that emerged from the warp gates of the Edina Archipelago were relatively smaller, and the scale of the invasion was smaller compared to other regions. However, that was only in a relative sense.

Grrrr...

We could handle the familiar-looking monsters that resembled small wild dogs.

Kirik, Kiriririk...

But there were also grotesque creatures with dozens of arms, each arm adorned with dozens of eyes. Just seeing such monsters was horrifying, and ordinary people and soldiers alike fled in horror when they saw those monsters use their many arms to tear apart everyone they touched.

When such bizarre monsters began pouring out of the warp gates, people, whether soldiers or civilians, had no choice but to run. The area around the warp gates quickly turned into a sea of blood while fire-breathing monsters set buildings ablaze.

In an instant, the main port city of the Edina Archipelago, Rajak, was engulfed in chaos and screams.

Slash! Slash!

“What on earth...!”

Airi, the Succubus Queen, gritted her teeth as she stabbed and killed the monsters around her with an iron spear and observed the still-crowded streets and the increasing number of monsters that were appearing.

She had no reason to carry any weapons with her, and the iron spear she held was a weapon taken from a dead guard.

Because there were many different races of demons that coexisted, Airi had seen many monsters and beasts. However, the monsters appearing in Rajak seemed to be a mix of creatures that resembled beasts from her world and other grotesque monsters that could hardly be considered living beings.

The terrifying forms of these monsters had drained the guards of their will to fight. Although she had lost her horns, Airi still had combat experience, and the other succubi under her command were somehow managing to fight off the swarming monsters, gritting their teeth and holding on because Airi was maintaining her composure.

Airi, who had started out as the owner of a tavern and was now being accused of sucking away people’s lifeblood as a loan shark, her and her employees of Angel Capital, were the only ones holding onto their sanity in this situation, clutching weapons and fighting back even while the city guards were fleeing.

Airi’s Angel Capital, a massive temple-like structure, had become a temporary refuge for people who couldn’t find anywhere else to escape.

People hid behind the succubi, watching as the pink-haired chief loan shark stabbed, beat, and even tore apart monsters with her bare hands.

—Could Miss Airi always fight this well?

—She’s like a monster...

The many people huddled inside the entrance of Angel Capital, looking on in a daze as Airi somehow managed to kill the monsters that even the guards had fled from in fear.

Despite her broken horns, Airi was still the descendant of a great demon, and so her physical abilities were far beyond any ordinary human. This sudden disaster that had befallen the Edina Archipelago had thrown her into a situation in which she was being forced to protect her clients and long-term sources of sustenance.

Rumble...

Airi watched in shock as a burning building collapsed, crushing fleeing people beneath the debris.

“What are the soldiers in the castle doing?” Airi muttered irritably, but even she was becoming overwhelmed just by the sight of these grotesque monsters.

The Edina Archipelago was a backwater of backwaters, and those with exceptional skills or talents left for the continent with big dreams.

While not everyone who remained on the islands was insignificant, it was hard to expect them to grit their teeth and protect others in the face of such a sudden disaster.

How many soldiers could there actually be on this small archipelago? How many knights? Among them, how many could perform Mana Reinforcement, the threshold that defined superhuman ability?

How many mages were there? Anyone capable of Mana Reinforcement would be considered the elite of the archipelago, and if they were young, they would have left for the continent in the pursuit of greater dreams.

Airi did not know the origins of this disaster. She only heard from the people who were fleeing that monsters were emerging from the warp gates.

No one knew if this was happening only in Rajak, only on the archipelago, or across the entire continent. No one could know unless they had heard about it directly from the Demon King.

With a gasp, Airi stabbed her spear through one of the jaws of a two-headed bear while drawing the longsword at her waist and plunging its blade into the bear’s other head, killing it instantly.

She was panting heavily. She had no idea how long the monsters would keep pouring out. She looked at the bodies piling up in the streets as she pulled her spear from the corpse of the bear-shaped monster.

She hated humans and wished for their downfall, but...

Growl!

Her eyes widened as she watched a giant lizard, its body so wide it almost filled the alley, swung its tail and sent people flying apart like broken wooden dolls.

She hated humans.

In the long run, she wished for humanity’s extinction.

But was it supposed to happen this way? Not because of war or anything else, but an inexplicable disaster? Should civilians, who had lived their lives without knowing battle, die such miserable deaths?

Though she lived by squeezing others dry, Airi had come to realize that there were humans among them who were worthy of love.

Some squandered their family fortunes in a single night of gambling, then borrowed money from Angel Capital not to build a fleet, but to gamble. Some even blatantly said they couldn’t repay their debts and dared her to cut them open, and she actually did.

However, she had seen those who truly needed money, although the amounts they needed were so insignificant.

She had seen people too poor to become her clients.

She had seen a boy begging, asking for ten silver coins for his sick mother and promising that he would repay her tenfold when he grew up.

She had seen little children begging for food because their siblings were starving at home.

There were countless sailors who went hungry because they couldn’t afford a meal.

She never thought of it as sympathy. It was because their insignificance was so insignificant, so trivial.

She had rummaged through her pockets and lent these people a few silver coins, with a playful remark to remember to pay her back.

She had seen such trivial amounts of money, forgotten as soon as it had been given out, actually repaid a few days later. With bright smiles, they would knock on the door of Angel Capital and declare that they would repay their debt without waiting until they grew up, then hand over twice the amount of silver coins. She had found that small child so adorable that she had hugged him tightly without even realizing it.

There had indeed been times like that, although to her, it was just a small act of kindness. She never believed that humans should have to endure such things. To her, who dealt with such large sums of money, it was a trivial matter.

In reality, she also recognized that the public’s perception of them as a group of money-crazed demons could one day turn against her. And so, as a proactive political strategy to improve public relations, she had launched an interest-free loan program to support starving children and families who had lost their fathers to storms.

Though she had labeled it as a loan, Airi had no intention of getting that money back, so it was essentially a donation. Lending money to those who had no ability to repay it was no different from a donation, unless she intended to tie a leash to them.

To the adults of Rajak, Airi was a demon. But to the children, Airi was an angel.

Like the name of her business, Angel Capital, which had been built with malicious intent, Airi was a demon to some but an angel to others. An angel who partook in small acts of charity, unable to bear the insignificance of those around her.

Snap! Crack!

Those insignificant children were dying insignificant deaths in the streets, their screams short as they were bitten, torn apart, and broken.

“Oh... Ohh...”

If she left her post, the people behind her would all die. She couldn’t leave, not for her employees, the people in the shelter, or the children.

Therefore, Airi could only watch, wide-eyed, as the insignificant struggles died out.

Airi had only shed tears of blood only once in her life, when the Demon King’s Castle had fallen and she had been dragged away by the humans in chains. Back then, it felt like her whole world had collapsed.

This time, though, Airi was feeling once again what it was like to shed tears of blood, while she watched not demons but human children die.

Monsters were pouring into the streets. There were small ones that looked like wild dogs, but there were also giant lizard-like monsters that were approaching down the main road.

Her broken horns had always brought her sorrow, but never had she felt such anguish over her broken horns as at that moment.

‘If only I had power. If only I had power,’ she thought.

—Noona! Help!

‘I can run to that child calling out to me desperately as he runs down the street, and protect him from the giant lizard that is about to pounce on him. That boy who once needed money to buy medicine for his mother.’

Airi couldn’t turn away.

“Boss!”

“You can’t go!”

Airi, having lost her composure, leaped down the stairs and ran toward the boy.

After the fall of the Demon Realm, Airi had lived her life with a singular purpose: to destroy something. However, to achieve that, she first needed power, and she would acquire it through one of the fundamental pillars that held up society: capital.

However, faced with a situation in which the very foundations of society were collapsing, where all the rules were breaking down, capital, a form of power based on rules, could not protect anything.

No matter how much capital she had, it could not overcome the violence in front of her eyes.

Only with her body, only with action, could she destroy or protect.

Airi ran and roughly gathered the boy running down the street with her left arm.

“Noona! Noona...!” the boy sobbed.

“Noona is going to... protect you...”

Holding the boy tightly, Airi stared at the giant lizard that was at least three meters tall, approaching them with its jaws wide open.

The iron spear in Airi’s right hand was shorter than the gaping maw of the monster.

She would be swallowed the moment she tried to stab it.

It was too late to retreat.

Her goal had been to destroy humanity, yet here she was, about to be devoured by an unknown monster while protecting a human, a mere boy.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freeweɓnovēl.coɱ.

This wasn’t what Baalier would have wanted.

Holding the trembling boy in her arms, Airi pointed her spear at the charging monster.

‘Baalier.’

To her childhood friend who wasn’t here... To the boy she acknowledged as her lord...

Was she ultimately of no help at all?

‘I’m sorry,’ she thought, as she prepared to thrust her spear forward.

Flash!

It was as if time had slowed down. A girl with twin ponytails appeared in front of her. She glowed, as if she had glowing blue tattoos all over her body.

The girl extended her hands forward.

Thud!

Rooooar!

The lizard let out a monstrous cry as its face collided with a blue barrier, and it staggered backwards a few steps.

What was going on?

An unknown mage had appeared and saved her.

“Are you okay?”

Before Airi could respond to the question from the girl with twin tails, she saw it. She saw Baalier, in human form, descending from the sky.

Thud!

And then, she saw him drive the sword belonging to the God of War, Alsbringer, precisely into the monster’s head.

Rumble!

The jewel hanging from Baalier’s neck glowed red, and the lizard was engulfed in flames.

Airi saw it all.

“Baalier?”

***

Her shock at seeing Baalier in human form suddenly appear was brief.

She was treated to an even more astonishing sight.

Rumble! Rumble!

Darkness suddenly covered the sky, and lightning began to pour down.

Flash! Flash!

Dozens of times per second.

Crack!

Lightning rained down from the sky as if targeting the monsters filling the streets, striking them down or causing them to explode.

“What is... this...?”

It was as if divine salvation had descended to the earth to counter this incomprehensible disaster. The lightning swept away the monsters that were overflowing the streets.

Turning her head, Airi saw a girl with short blonde hair, blue electricity sparking from her entire body.

Boom!

The echo of a fierce explosion from far away reached her ears.

“It seems Eleris took care of the gate.”

Having dealt with the lizard that was about to attack Airi, Baalier pulled out his sword and walked towards Airi and the girl with twin ponytails.

“Baalier...? How did you...?”

“Let’s talk after we clean up here.”

Airi was dumbfounded, and the boy she had just saved was equally bewildered. The disaster that seemed to herald the end of the world was being completely neutralized by someone wielding lightning.

“Harriet, I’ll leave rescuing the Duchess to you. You remember the location, right?”

“Yes.”

“Since it’s on the outskirts of the city, there shouldn’t be any monsters there yet, but it’s best to hurry. Riana and the Vampire Lords will handle things here.”

“Got it.”

The girl called Harriet activated the blue tattoos on her body again and headed off, teleporting herself across the distance in short hops as Airi watched her in a daze.

Baalier looked at Airi, who was holding the boy in her arms, and she froze.

The reconstruction of the Demon Realm, taking revenge against humanity... She was supposed to be working with him to achieve his plan. Wasn’t she disqualified from being Baalier’s subordinate for acting to save a single boy?

‘He would surely be disappointed,’ she thought.

As Airi stood there, frozen, clinging to the boy and unable to do anything, Baalier wordlessly ruffled the boy’s hair.

He seemed relieved that the boy was alive.

He didn’t smile, and his face was expressionless, but he did not seem disappointed in the boy’s survival or Airi’s actions.

Baalier pointed to the girl who was still surrounded by blue electricity, summoning lightning.

“See that girl over there?”

“Huh? Ah...”

“She’ll take care of everything around here.”

It seemed Baalier was going to deal with the situation in areas beyond the girl’s vision. He summoned Alsbringer to his right hand.

Sizzle!

He looked over at the monsters pouring in from a corner of the alley. Flames erupted and instantly incinerated the monsters.

Gasp!

Thud!

In a distant alleyway, Airi saw a flash of divine white light.

“We’ll talk later. I have to go.”

“Uh, okay...”

Airi sat down in the street as she watched Baalier leap away and disappear down the street, still holding onto the boy.

“Noona... are we... are we alive?”

As the terrified boy clung to her neck, trembling, Airi, still in a daze, gently patted his back.

“Y-yes... i-it seems so...”

It was hard enough to understand Baalier’s sudden appearance. But he hadn’t come alone; he had brought people who could resolve this crisis.