POV: Badigadi
Allow me to speak a little about the past.
I will tell you about a man who thought himself clever. Everyone around him was completely idiotic, so he had deceived himself about that.
His companions, his older sister and even the Empress whom he and his peers were supposed to love and respect. Everyone around him lacked common sense. So it was only natural that he presumed himself intelligent.
You see, everyone in his tribe was — as a general rule — stupid. What set him apart was the fact that he tried to expand his intelligence.
He understood the logic behind certain things, could correctly predict what people were thinking, and was skilled at discovering solutions to problems.
The man's father called him the prodigy of prodigies, born once every ten thousand years. He was even given the epithet Demon King of Wisdom.
No wonder he considered himself intelligent, right?
But think about this for a moment: If a man in a sea of fools is only a little smarter than the others, can you really say he is intelligent? No, you cannot! The fact that he himself failed to notice proves that he was not a genius!
We are getting off track. I am telling a story!
At the time, humans and demons were engaged in a conflict that would later be called the Second Great Human-Demon War.
Our long lifespan makes us, demons, a patient people, therefore our invasions are slow.
We are relaxed even when we lose the most important battles in a war, which gives humans time to recover and unite against us again.
Winning a battle is less important than winning the war.
Our foolish hero joined the Demon King's army, where he was given the position of tactical adviser. He saw how his people were engaging in the war and became disheartened.
Things could not continue like that. If they truly wanted to win, they would need to commit to a more aggressive offensive, seize important locations in enemy territory.
And do you know what happened? No one wanted to listen to him. After all, they were all idiots, incapable of understanding the logic of war! Fwahahaha!
Anyway, on an otherwise ordinary day, the man began to have a recurring dream.
A person appeared in it, someone whose sex was indiscernible, whose very appearance was indistinct and illusory. Just a dream. This person called themself the God-Man. Literally, the god of humans.
The man immediately asked why the god had come to him.
Was it to kill him?
The god said:
"I am a god, you know. Everyone who lives in the world is like a child to me. I would never dream of killing you. In fact, seeing how hard you have worked, I would like to help you."
So, a lunatic.
The man was naturally suspicious of this god, but the god still gave him a small piece of advice before disappearing.
A thoughtless and easy-to-follow piece of advice: he told him to send some troops, even a few would be enough, to the Ruins of Galgau.
Now, our protagonist was too serious for his own good. He knew there was already a Demon King stationed at the ruins with his troops.
He didn't see much need to send extra troops, as it didn't seem to be a vulnerable position, but still followed the advice given and led some of his troops there.
When he arrived with the troops, it was a shocking sight. The Ruins of Galgau had already become a battlefield.
The demons were outnumbered and being defeated, but the humans did not expect the man to arrive with reinforcements.
He hadn't brought many with him, but they were enough to break the enemy formation. The man ended up saving the Demon King who was stationed there. The victory strengthened his influence.
From there, it was a dream.
The man manipulated the Demon King's army from behind the scenes with his cleverness. He took control of human territories at an alarming speed.
He also won the sympathy of the Beast Race, who were considered a subset of demons at the time, and convinced them to join the demons.
The man even managed to bring the Sea Race into his ranks. Together, their armies steadily gained territory.
It was only a matter of time before the humans were completely exterminated. The man was grateful to the god.
Thanks to that god, our protagonist would soon be able to avenge his great and noble father.
That never happened.
I remember it as if it had happened moments ago.
The strategy our protagonist had devised was flawless. There wasn't a single hole in it, I recall now.
Fwahaha! I'm exaggerating a little, my memory is not perfect.
What I can tell you is this: our Demon King's plan was perfect and, if it had succeeded, could have paved a way to the main Human Kingdom.
The humans would have had nowhere left to flee. Victory was certain. That's how perfect it was.
Then, a crucial aspect failed.
It was strange. His army was superior in numbers and brute strength. In fact, he and his troops had a clearer notion of how crucial this battle was. The humans were oblivious.
It was precisely for that reason that the fortress the demons tried to invade had so few people guarding it. These facts assured the man that he could not lose.
And yet, he lost.
It was a massacre. People throw that word around, but I'm serious.
It was not simple, it was not easy, they all died, and each death was the unpleasant kind. There was not a single survivor.
Only those with special characteristics like our protagonist were able to recover after death.
The man was horrified when he saw the bloody result. His men numbered over ten thousand, but all were slaughtered. He could not understand how the massacre had happened.
The only clear thing was that it seemed to be almost entirely the work of a single human being.
The man realized that a tremendous monster had been born among the humans, or, from their point of view, a hero, I suppose.
During the First Great Human-Demon War, a similar hero had appeared and expelled the demons with overwhelming force. Our foolish protagonist had already heard the story, and that was how he recognized that the culprit this time was someone similar.
That was the turning point. After that, no matter what the man did, nothing went right. That hero interfered and thwarted all the plans he made. It was all that hero's fault.
Not all the troops were killed in every battle, so he managed to gather information from the survivors.
He discovered that even the humans were not certain who that hero was.
He was a man wearing golden armor who would suddenly appear in battle to lead the humans to victory. That was the only information they had.
People called the man "Golden Knight Aldebaran."
Aldebaran possessed such overwhelming power that he could single-handedly change the tide of battle, giving momentum to the humans.
It was ridiculous. No matter how much our man exercised his intelligence, no matter how complex and well-planned his scheme was, he was always outmatched by the insurmountable strength of the human hero.
People called it the Second Great Human-Demon War, but it would not be an exaggeration to say the war was just between the demons and the man Aldebaran.
The Sea Race, with its powerful guardians, was defeated.
The Beast Race, with its invincible Beast God, was defeated.
In the middle of the conflict, the man even stopped using his armor. Even so, he managed to dominate us.
The demons could not defeat Aldebaran. Our protagonist lost all the great battles after that.
The human army pushed the demon forces back until they were defeated at the demons' last stronghold of defense, Kishirisu Castle.
At that time, our demon hero had a strong sense of duty. He was convinced that it was entirely his fault that they were in the current situation.
They had lost so many brave Demon Kings.
His sister, one of the strongest of all the Demon Kings, was also powerless to defeat the hero. But because she was immortal, she also did not die permanently.
They lost all the territory they had conquered during the war. All of it was his fault. Ah, how presumptuous he had been.
In retrospect, that was not true. There was no need for him to feel responsible for losing to such a powerful opponent.
What he should have done was cut his losses and flee like the rest of the Demon Kings, hiding in his region to live a peaceful life.
The war ended and the demon army fell apart. It was only a matter of time before the humans took all the demons' territory.
It was then that a woman whom our protagonist had always regarded as the most foolish of all said to him:
"This is not your fault. I will take care of the rest, stop worrying."
She was the Empress whom he and the others were supposed to love and respect, a free-spirited, uninhibited person who lived exactly as she pleased.
The man was openly hostile toward her. However, deep down, he was madly in love.
Why did this Demon King of Wisdom overstep his bounds as a tactical adviser? Love, of course! To make this woman — his beloved — happy.
It was only at the very end that he realized this truth. It was then that he prayed to the god.
Please, help this woman. Help us demons. I will do anything in return, I swear.
That very night, after making that prayer, the unsettling being appeared in his dreams once again.
He still could not say whether the being was male or female, nor could he discern any of its features, but the god smiled at him and waved a hand, almost as if it were an old friend signaling to him at the roadside.
"Hello," said the god.
The man was naturally cautious. Why had this god — a human god — come to answer the prayers of a demon like him?
As if answering his doubts, the God-Man said:
"Aldebaran is a terrible Fighter God, as you can see. I am as lost as you about that. At the rate things are going, your beloved queen and the rest of the demons will have a terrible fate."
Thinking back now, there was something strange about that. Why would a human god be concerned with something as trivial as the extinction of the demon race?
Yet the man was too desperate to trust his best judgment. He was clutching at anything to reverse the situation.
"What should I do?" he asked.
The God-Man's lips curved in a smug, complicit smile.
"Follow my instructions exactly."
So, the man set out on a journey.
It may be hard to believe now, but he had no muscles back then, he was just skin and bones. As a strategist, he was not well-versed in combat.
But he was still an Immortal Demon, so he went without rest or sleep.
Pushing through the human army, he passed more than ten forests, crossed five rivers and climbed three whole mountains.
Then, finally, he plunged into the depths of a labyrinth that no longer exists. It was there that he found it: a single purple vial.
The God-Man said it was once a common medicine, but the thick mana that permeated the labyrinth had altered it.
It is hard to know how much of that was true thinking back now.
"This is the special elixir of the Anti-Demon Eye. If you drink this, no Demon Eye will be able to see you."
Perhaps this was something originally meant to fall into the hands of another human hero?
It could have created a second Aldebaran.
This elixir would have created a weakness in the leader of the demons, Empress Kishirika Kishirisu.
The effects of this elixir would continue until her death. Knowing this, the man swallowed it all. Then he began to run again.
He passed through infinitely deep valleys, a snowy meadow and, in the end, climbed the tallest mountain in the world.
It was there that he found the second thing he was looking for: a suit of golden armor. It gleamed from head to toe, but did not look ridiculous.
No, this armor was sinister, with the power to bewitch all who beheld it. This fearsome armor was hidden in a very steep mountain, sealed, far from sight.
"Whoever wears this armor will have invincible power," the god told him.
It is worth repeating: the man was an idiot. He did not stop to consider why this armor had been sealed, or why someone had hidden it here.
It was the height of arrogance to call himself the Demon King of Wisdom. The Demon King of Stupidity would have been much better for him.
The man followed the God-Man's instructions and broke the seal that held the armor.
The seal was quite complex, but especially for a self-proclaimed Demon King of Wisdom, removing it was not so difficult. After removing it, he put on the armor… and lost control.
The armor was indeed powerful. Imbued with such an excess of mana that it developed a consciousness of its own.
A sentient weapon.
Not that the man realized this at first.
He was too drunk on the power pouring from the armor into him. He was convinced that, with it, he would be able to bring down Aldebaran.
I'll kill that Aldebaran and then slaughter the rest, he thought.
If it wasn't already obvious, he was immediately expelled from his perfect judgment.
The man was normally useless when it came to battle, but found himself driven by an infinite thirst for battle.
He moved so fast and hard that he covered the same path simply by leaping everywhere.
Then he descended the gigantic mountain, crossed the valley, the snowy meadow, three more mountains, five rivers and ten forests.
Then he defeated the enemy army and finally returned to the side of his beloved.
I did it, he thought. The woman he adored was still alive. She had fought, been beaten nearly to death, but she was alive.
Against whom had she fought? Well, that is a bit difficult to explain, it actually was not a human hero Aldebaran opposing her.
In a certain sense, the opponent was Aldebaran, but not exactly.
The enemy who opposed them was the Dragon God Laplace. Demon Dragon God Laplace, if you want the full title.
Our protagonist knew him.
The Dragon God Laplace lived an isolated life in distant mountains, descending only occasionally to the village below to teach martial arts to people.
He was a gentle-mannered individual whom the Immortal Demons long ago warned their children and grandchildren not to contradict. That was truly all the man knew about Laplace.
This Laplace was trying to kill the Empress our protagonist loved, for some reason.
If the man had been in his right mind, he could have stopped to think about what motivated the Dragon God, or at least demanded an explanation.
He could have used his intellect to convince Laplace to desist, to avoid combat entirely.
Unfortunately, the man's infinite thirst for battle overwhelmed him. When he saw that his beloved was injured, he became furious.
The man let out a roar of a kind that had never escaped his throat, neither before nor after, then lunged at Laplace.
The Dragon God was surprised. Of course he was. His opponent wore the armor he was sure no one would ever find. Worse still, his Demon Eye could not perceive him.
However, the man's title as Demon Dragon God was not just for show.
He was the sole surviving Dragon General of the Ancient Dragon Race, a person whom even the man's own people did not dare oppose.
If our Demon King had faced Laplace with his normal strength, the battle would not have lasted even a few seconds.
Indeed, with the first attack, the Dragon God managed to cut off the man's arms and decapitate him as well.
If the man had not been wearing that armor, it would have ended right then.
If the man were not an Immortal Demon, it would have ended at that very moment.
But those are mere suppositions, because the man was wearing the armor and was an Immortal Demon.
New members rose from what remained of the man's body and the armor automatically repaired itself.
The armor, with its own consciousness, forced the man's body to move and fight, even while his consciousness was half-lost.
It was a fierce battle that shook mountains and meadows, moved rivers and hills.
If Laplace miscalculated something, it was the fact of never imagining that someone could steal the armor he himself had created.
The man did not know how to fight, but the armor knew better than anyone.
The armor was trained in all kinds of weapons, could use all martial arts, and could even imitate those it observed in an instant.
Merely using it guaranteed a strength to tear mountains asunder to its wearer, no matter how weak they were.
It possessed a repertoire of more than a thousand invincible Secret Techniques and was able to select the one most suited to the situation.
Among its Secret Techniques were, of course, some that the Demon Dragon God had spent many years creating.
Ironic, isn't it?
I have no idea what Laplace must have thought while developing the Techniques. But he created one that was incredibly lethal to himself.
When used against him, it split Laplace in two.
The man had defeated the most powerful adversary in the world and protected the woman he loved. Wonderful, right? What a happy ending! Fwahahaha!
Well… actually, the story continued, but let a man dream a little.
Why hadn't it ended yet? Because the man had not finished after defeating Laplace.
The armor had taken over his consciousness, turning him into a monster controlled entirely by his own infinite thirst for battle.
When the man came to, he had already plunged a sword into the heart of his beloved Empress. He had no idea why his consciousness had returned.
Perhaps the woman used the remainder of her strength to bring him back to himself, or perhaps the irrevocable act of stabbing her caused a shock so great that he returned on his own.
Regardless of how, it was too late. The man had killed his beloved with his own hands.
"Ah… Ah…" He cried, his voice not even forming coherent words.
All he ever wanted was to protect that woman.
"Fwa… haha…" The woman was different.
She laughed, despite the circumstances, despite having been betrayed by someone she trusted, she laughed.
"You haven't changed… You still have the same wrinkled face as always… What a dull man you are… Laugh."
"Huh?"
"No matter what is happening… just laugh."
"But I… you…"
"I don't care," she assured him. "You are too serious… Too prudish. Always hiding in your room… never drinking beer…! What's so fun… about that? Laugh a little… sleep with some women."
"Women?" He shook his head. "But I… I am in love with you!"
"Fwahaha… what are you saying? Then you should… try to be more cheerful… Do that and… I will marry you."
"Y-yes. I will do my best."
"Alright… then, in our next lives, I will be your bride. Fwahaha… Fwaha…" The woman laughed until the end.
Yes, she let out a lively laugh that echoed around the two.
"Fwahahaha! Fwaha, fwaha, fwahahahaha!"
And he tried to fulfill his promise immediately, laughing oddly.
"Bwa-bwahaha!"
And then a light surrounded the two as their lives disappeared from the world.
Well, that damned Laplace had made his body explode.
That vengeful idiot had thought about what to do if he were killed.
He had prepared a special Reincarnation art to use when he was at the gates of death, a technique that would split the smallest particles of his body after his death — the Laplace factor — which would spread through all the matter of the world, waiting for its moment.
Unfortunately for him, the God-Man had devised a scheme to counter this.
The Secret Technique the armor used against him made his art incomplete.
When his body was split, half the mana intended to execute that technique was missing. So it went out of control, exploding, a terrible destruction, but not totalizing.
The immortal Laplace died.
Ok, ok, it was a bit more complicated than that.
He was split in two: Demon God and God of Technique, respectively, but the being who called himself Demon Dragon God Laplace no longer existed.
Fragments of him lived on, but the complete being as he once existed was dead.
As for our protagonist, even having died, he was an Immortal Demon. It took several years for him to fully recover, but he did.
Until then, however, he remained unconscious, lost in a world of fleeting dreams.
It was there that he met the God-Man once more.
"Hehe… Ahahahahaha!" The God-Man mocked him.
"Demon King of Wisdom? How ridiculous! You danced in the palm of my hand and killed the woman you said you loved! You are nothing but an empty-headed puppet!"
The God-Man knew from the beginning. He knew that, when the man recovered the armor, he would fight Laplace, lose consciousness and kill his beloved.
He persuaded our protagonist to trust him. He had manipulated him. He knew how everything, from the beginning, would end.
"Ah, this is always so pleasant, no matter how many times I do it. It's the best feeling in the world… to see the idiot face you make now. I always wanted that!"
The God-Man humiliated the man.
"Well, until next time. I don't think I'll use you again, but I wish you a long life nonetheless, oh Demon King of Stupidity."
This was the last thing the God-Man said before disappearing.
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