Chapter 182: Demon Aspires.

I sat atop a mountain of corpses, that was itself on top of a mountain. I took in the view of the world from here, from the sea of green, to the vivid blue of the sky. So peaceful, so beautiful, as if they hid no horrors at all.I received a sudden alert. A tug. Not but I might want to check it right now.

I shrugged and decided to do so. I wasn’t really doing anything other than brooding. The wormraiders that had infested this mountain and rendered it half as fertile as others were already dead.

I took only a few samples with me to bring back home.

I initiated the teleport, and soon found myself hurtling through space to arrive back at Pandemonium.

“Hey, hey! What’s up?” I asked the house. My loot was just discarded on the ground, and then promptly ‘eaten’ by the floor.

The ceiling wobbled.

“Some people, huh? And asked to meet with them? I don’t think I have any appointments lined up.” I flew out at speed, navigating through the lush, fleshy corridors, and then those that weren’t so extreme. “Oh well. I’m here anyway. Let’s go meet them!”

I arrived outside, and landed in front of Pandemonium’s gates. My guests had at least been let through the well-manned fence, thanks to Granuel’s assistance, apparently.

“Hey. What’s up?” I looked at each of my three guests in turn. One a human, the other an ogre, and then a fountan woman to round out their group. They proudly wore attire that practically screamed ‘ADVENTURER!’

“D-Demon Queen Haell!” the human man announced.

“We’ve come as promised!” the ogre man added.

“Yeah, yeah!” the fountan woman agreed with her companions.

“Aha!” I slammed a fist on my open palm. “You’re those Demon Aspires that I met before!”

“Yes!”

“That’s us!”

“Ooohhh! She actually remembers us!”

“YAY!”

They were that party who had once approached me because they too wanted to be a demon. They even captured a rapist as an offering, for some reason. And then they killed her in front of everyone, after I basically told them to do whatever they wanted. It was an incredibly weird interaction overall, but I couldn’t deny that they were fun.

“That was years ago, though. Why now? I don’t think Pandemonium was that far from where you were.”

“Ah, well… It’s like this…”

“They charged us with a crime for killing Anpa!”

“Who?”

“Anpa! You know, that rapist we caught.”

“Ah.” I didn’t really care about the name of a vile, dead person.

“Yeah, yeah, and hear this! They wanted to imprison us for it and force us to fight on the frontlines!”

“How do you even do that! We can’t fight if we’re locked up!”

“Thankfully, the guild did intercede on our behalf, and we just had to keep helping out for a set period of time.”

“Oh… So that’s what happens when someone tries to do what I always do,” I mused. “But are you fine with that? You just went along with their ruling? Really?”

“Well… It would’ve been very dangerous if we just ran.”

“We didn’t want to bring the trouble here…”

“And it’s not like they don’t have a point… Due process important, and we just executed her.”

“We were right though, and the investigation confirmed that! It’s just… apparently still very illegal to execute someone like that.”

“How can do it just fine?”

“It’s fine though. We didn’t work for free! The guild paid us like normal. So we just basically did what we’ve already been doing anyway. Even if it did delay us in coming here far more than we liked…”

you

I took a deep breath, and wiped the sneer off my face. I wasn’t here to police what it meant to be a demon for anyone else. Certainly, demons were to become a whole species instead of just me, then I could not and impose my own view of our race on everyone else.

“Well, come in, come in! I never even got your names! I just call you the Demon Aspires in my head!”

“Ah! I’m Marcus!” The human man was first to introduce himself, only a little startled. “It’s nice to meet you… again, Demon Queen Haell!”

“I’m Ragnar.” The ogre was even more polite. “It’s a pleasure.”

“And I’m Larah!” the fountan woman finished. “Thank you for inviting us in.”

They stepped inside the manor, stiffening in fear as Pandemonium’s constant aura of curse surely got even worse. But if they couldn’t even take this much, then they should give up on their dreams of becoming a demon right this instant.

“What is this place?” Larah asked once she could finally speak again.

“Pandemonium,” I simply stated, and they took a moment to truly take in its splendor.

Black grass that stretched on for several fields, trees gnarled and cursed that grew sparsely among them, and finally, bone-white tables and chairs that looked similarly connected to the dead earth.

“It’s beautiful,” commented Marcus.

“Yeah. It’s… it really feels demonic,” Ragnar agreed.

“I think it’s creepy…” Larah admitted. “But in a cool way! Yes.”

I grinned and led them to their seat. The chairs adjusted themselves to suit our different sizes. I began once we were all well-seated around the round table.

“So, you want to be a demon?”

“Oh, fuck yes!”

“Do I ever!”

“PLEASE!”

“Right now!?”

“I’M READY!!!”

I raised a brow at their enthusiasm, but I did not back down. “Look. You don’t… really know what being a demon is, on a physical and practical level. There are some very unique and very very terrible challenges with it.”

“Like what?” Ragnar asked.

“We’ll do anything!” Marcus claimed.

“To become a demon, you will have to risk your life,” I answered. “It is very likely to kill you. I estimate that your chances of succeeding is less than one in a million.”

This time, they shut up. They struggled to process that.

I didn’t think it was wrong, though. An actual change to one’s species was that dangerous. Add to that, Marcus was the only human among these three. How the fuck was I supposed to know if an ogre or a fountan could also become a demon!

“Really?” Marcus finally asked.

I nodded. “Even if you succeed, there is, to my knowledge, a good chance that you will be driven insane. Kind of like… those goblins are a good example. They’re supposed to be sapient, but no one treats them like such. Even I sometimes forget.”

“It gets worse!?” Larah lamented. And it did. I wasn’t trying to be mean. It was the truth.

“But… there must be a way, right?” Ragnar tried. “You succeeded after all.”

“Yeah…!” Marcus searched for the silver lining. “You called us all the way here.”

I winced.

I repeated my exact words from that time. “That’s what I said. chose to come here even with all my qualifiers. So don’t blame me if you’re unsatisfied with the answers I provide.”

“I… That’s not what I meant. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I waved him off. “And Ragnar. Yes, there’s a way to become a demon. Obviously.” I gestured at myself. “I just told you that it’s something that likely has an infinitesimally low chance of working.”

“Likely?” he pounced on my word choice.

I snorted, annoyed. “Yes. I’m the only demon I know. And yes, I was human once.” “That means I transitioned from one species to another. I cannot actually know for certain how likely it is to work, or how anyone else might react at all to the process, because it’s never been tried before. But I do know how many sacrifices were needed to create the fountans and ishkawtans we see today. That is how difficult it is to go from one species to another in general.”

Larah grimaced, for she did know about how humans were put into camps and experimented on to create the fountans and ishkawtans of Varyala. This knowledge was not hidden in the lands outside of Angelore.

“Did you also have to kill that many people to become a demon?” Ragnar asked warily.

“What? No! Of course not!” I glared, offended. “I just told you that it’s never been tried before, didn’t I? So I know I can do some terrible things sometimes, but even I won’t go that far.”

“...I’m sorry. I’m stupid. You’re the Demon Queen Haell Zharignan, and you’ve helped so many people. I shouldn’t have insinuated that you’d do anything those damn angels would do…”

“Alright. That’s quite enough.” I nodded. We all waited for someone to continue the conversation along.

“Then… how you manage to become a demon?” Larah was the first to ask. “You couldn’t have risked it for a one-in-a-million chance, right?”

I did not respond.

“Wait, you did!?” Marcus spat out, his eyes widening.

“I had help,” I defended myself.

“Okay, but the method you used did work the first time, right?”

“Well… yeah. But only after a lot of research!”

“But that research is already done! So shouldn’t it work for us too?”

I paused to think about that, then shook my head, “Magic is You should know this. There are so many factors that might have led to the working exactly

“But you don’t know that for sure! Please tell us the method! We’ll study and refine it! And–and, we’ll give you anything and everything we discover about it! PLEASE!”

Larah and Ragnar nodded rapidly and resolutely behind him.

If only they knew. But I couldn’t just reveal to them my many secrets, and the things that made me .

I sighed. “Look. I would love to help and tell you everything I know. But this is extremely dangerous information, and I don’t trust you.”

“WHAT!?” They gaped, open-mouthed. The three were surprised, completely and utterly.

“What do you mean ‘WHAT!?’” I boggled. “We met twice! TWICE! Why the fuck would you assume I trusted you in any way!?”

“But, but…”

“We’re you’re biggest fans!”

“YEAH!”

“We won’t let you down!”

I massaged my forehead. I did feel bad, because I was pretty convinced that they meant it. “Well, I don’t know you. So that’s naive. NAIVE!!”

“Oh no…”

“I began, and they instantly perked up. I just barreled through. “Here’s what you can do: Earn my trust.”

“Oh!”

“Okay!”

“Yeah, I can do that!”

“Quick, quick! Trust fall!”

They crouched with their arms outstretched, ready to catch me.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. It pretty funny. But I knew these idiots were dead serious.

“NOT LIKE THAT!” I bellowed. “Sit down!” They obeyed. “Now. Here’s how you can actually earn my trust. you really want to. Stay ” I stomped on Pandemonium’s ground, “and help out.”

“Okay!”

“Got it!”

“Done!”

“Not just for a little while,” I clarified. “It’ll take years. I… do not trust easy. And as you can see, Pandemonium can be a difficult place to live in.” The table rumbled in protest. “You know it’s true.” The manor… could also tell me if they were being genuine or not. Fuck. It felt incredibly bad to spy on people like this, but there were out there who wanted to learn how to make demons so they could make of these uncontrollable forces an army. It was stupid. But they didn’t know that, and I didn’t want to reveal anything either.

“Okay.”

“Years then!”

“We’ll do it!”

Their enthusiasm was not broken, so I moved on to my next point. “SECOND. You’ll have to open yourself up to certain training. I mentioned that the process might drive you mad. It is also incredibly painful.”

“Alright!”

“We’re willing to put in the work!”

“YEAH!”

“I don’t just mean any training!” I had to clarify again. These idiots should really hear everything out first before agreeing! “I mean torture. Literal torture. That’s how painful becoming a demon is.” I really wish I could just tell them that, but it was a weakness that might be exploited somehow if stated so plainly.

“Ummm…”

“It’s alright!”

“Nothing good ever comes easy!”

“Let’s do this!”

I took off my armguards, until the whole arm was exposed. And then I chopped it off wholesale!

“WHAT!?”

“What the fuck!?”

“Holy shit Haell!”

“THIS IS NOTHING!” I shouted over them as my left arm rapidly regrew. Large amounts of blood spilled all over the place, and they watched in both horror and astonishment. “The method to become a demon is a thousand times worse! If you can’t handle this pain, then you will lose yourself in the process.”

I let out my aura. Cursed fog rose from the ground beneath their feet. I taunted them with my evil eyes.

The adventurers fell for it and clambered over the white table to grab me,

I punched each of them in turn. I beat them until they could no longer move. Gradually, the intensity of mine and Pandemonium’s curses lowered until my guests finally calmed.

“If you can’t control yourself your mind breaks, then it doesn’t matter if you succeed and become a demon.” My voice drilled into their skulls while they were still confused and groggy. “I will kill you myself, rather than let loose a goblin wearing my same skin.”

They gulped.

“Now,” I gestured to the gate leading outside. “Choose. , and maybe become a demon if are able to pull off a miracle. Or , and forget this ever happened.” The ground split open, and a massive mouth disgorged literal bars of gold. “I’ll even throw in a bonus. A prize for going through all the effort. Remember your days of wanting to be a demon as nothing more than a flight of youthful fancy, and you may live out the rest of your lives in luxury”

With fear in their eyes… and lips, and nose, and ears… their really; with their bodies quivering like an ice dragon had breathed in their direction; The Demon Aspires all individually chose to stay and die for the slim chance to become a demon.