Rising over the wasteland, the sun’s first light revealed an eerie scene. A group of a hundred-odd demons, their faces covered in scratches and bruises, prostrated themselves on the cold ground.
“We’re terribly sorry!”
“We’ll never act in such a foolish manner again!”
“Please forgive us, Lord Anima!”
Even the air itself trembled as the bruised demons begged for their lives. Forced to listen to their woeful pleas after getting caught up in a fistfight first thing in the morning, he let out an annoyed sigh.
“Forgiveness?” The wrathful voice sent shivers down their spines. “You want forgiveness?”
Some of them tried to steal glances at the source of that voice, but the moment they did, all the color drained from their faces. Their eyes were filled with terror, their instincts screamed at them to run for their lives, but the chains of their overwhelming fear were not easily broken.
The source of their paralyzing fright was standing above them, wearing black robes and a hood that concealed his face.
“Let me ask you this: how would you react if someone did the same to you? Would you forgive them?” He—Anima—glared at the horde with his crimson eyes and asked a simple but powerful question.
The demons huddled together even tighter under the immense pressure, exchanging glances in an attempt to pass the blame to one another, until at last, a silver-tongued yet feeble man answered.
“F-Forgive them? No. If anyone dared to attack our group, which includes the head of the Jullal Knights, the bishop of the Church of Mostor, the Elite Ten of the Oracles, and the chief of Clan Baroon, they would face certain death!” He boasted about the elite force they’d amassed for their operation.
Unfortunately for him, Anima had no idea who those people were.
Not only was he out of the loop, as he’d retired ages ago, but none of those supposedly intimidating enemies even posed a threat. In fact, he hadn’t even had to resort to using magic; his trusty fists were enough to dispatch their forces, and as such, he found no reason to care about their names. But their combat prowess aside, the frail man’s answer was correct. Such a sin as theirs could only be atoned for with death.
Their sin was attempting to assassinate Anima in his sleep. They had surrounded his house under the cover of the night and used a powerful spell to carve a deep, gaping hole around it. The house itself hadn’t been damaged, as its walls had been enhanced with defensive spells, but the tranquil scenery he’d loved so very much had been ruined. They may not have landed a single blow on Anima himself, but that hadn’t changed anything.
“You came here to murder me,” Anima stated. “I suppose that means you were ready to lose your lives in doing so?”
“No, not at all!”
“I’m begging you, show mercy!”
“Please don’t kill me!”
And he thought they were desperate during their battle.
He probably didn’t have to worry about them coming after his life again, but unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones who wanted him dead. He was the ultimate evil and wielded the powers of legends, after all; that there were countless wannabe heroes after his head was par for the course.
Some would challenge him alone; others would gather entire armies. Some would attack in broad daylight; others would wait until the dead of the night. Regardless of their methods, however, all who dared oppose him had their hopes crushed. None of them even possessed enough power to clip his nails, let alone kill him.
Even so, the fools too proud to believe the rumors of his power were innumerable. This was simply another day he had to teach a group of those fools the harsh truth of the world.
“I could’ve sent you to your graves at any point during our battle,” Anima stated matter-of-factly, “yet I held back as much as I possibly could. Why do you think that is?”
“B-Because you enjoy torturing your victims slowly and thoroughly?”
Anima furrowed his brow.
“Not even close. Listen, you have families, don’t you? That’s the reason I held back; if you fell here, your families would grieve.”
They all seemed to be from a bunch of different organizations. Even if some of them didn’t have families, they must have had friends waiting for them back home. As someone who was all too familiar with the excruciating pain of loneliness, Anima couldn’t bring himself to kill them. If he were to do so, he would be dooming others to his fate. Then again, he would quickly change his mind when faced with peskier foes.
“Now leave. Go back home before I change my mind.”
Their wills shattered, they scattered like a bunch of baby spiders. Anima watched them grow smaller and smaller with a lonesome gaze.
“Why...?”
Why did cowardly savages who snuck up on others and assaulted them with violent magic have friends and family while he was all alone? Anima asked this question of himself countless times, and he always reached the same conclusion: because uttering his very name struck fear in people’s hearts.
“It’s all that bastard’s fault!” Anima groaned to himself.
“That bastard” was his woman-crazed father. He boasted a harem of numerous concubines, and they gave him countless offspring. His family was so large that he’d expected to have at least one person he could call a friend, but his naturally menacing looks pushed everyone away—his own mother wouldn’t even share her name with him.
That loneliness chipped away at him until he’d reached his breaking point. In pursuit of human contact, he left to find a wife and settle down with a happy, cozy little family. Being damned to solitude in his early years had left his people skills nonexistent, however. He didn’t have the courage to talk to a woman, let alone woo her.
Desperate for help, he gave in to his shame and asked for advice from his father, who told him one thing: “women flock to the strong.” The young, impressionable Anima admired the wisdom gifted to him by his old man. He was a strong, battle-hardened man with a flock of women attending to his every whim, after all.
If being strong means I can build a happy family, then becoming the strongest in the world means I can build the happiest family in the world! Driven by that thought, Anima set down the path of death and destruction.
He challenged the most elite warriors throughout the land. When humans could no longer stand up to him, he began battling demons, and at the end of his hundred-year journey, he was the most powerful being in the world.
Over the course of his innumerable battles, Anima sustained injury after injury until he no longer felt pain. His body became as hard as a rock; his muscles were ripped and damaged every day, only to heal and get stronger. He became so powerful that he could forgo magic, using only his bare fists to claim victory over his enemies.
With his power having long surpassed that of a normal human, he became known only as the Demon Lord. Bestowed with the title given only to the strongest of all nonhumans, surely building the world’s happiest family was within his reach. Anima was elated that he could finally realize his dream.
The rest of the world, on the other hand, was less so. Any woman he came across was either paralyzed with fear or ran away screaming. No matter what corner of the world he traveled to, no matter what country he traversed, women—no, mankind itself dreaded his very existence. To them, “Demon Lord” was not the title given to the one who ruled over the demons, but to the leader of the savage beasts who terrorized them. The grim tales and haunting rumors of Anima’s battles spread far and wide; his name became synonymous with death and destruction.
Cast out by mankind, Anima was not only categorized as a demihuman, but also branded the demons’ leader. He was treated with fear and disdain by humans, which made building a happy family a near-impossible feat. After all, what sort of woman would choose to wed a monster?
Yet he didn’t give up. Even if he couldn’t start a family, he believed he could surely make at least one friend. None were willing to befriend the lord of the demons, however. There were some who reached their hands out to him, but as someone despised by the entire world, Anima learned to read the true intentions of strangers with a single glance. They may have approached him with a friendly smile and honeyed words, but it was all a farce to kill him.
The world saw him as an enemy. His father’s advice damned him to eternal loneliness.
“I don’t want to be the womanizer my father was; I just want a family. If just one person loved me, that would be enough to make me happy.”
Demons lived for about three hundred years, meaning Anima was cursed to over a hundred fifty more years in solitude. Being branded the Demon Lord was a fate worse than death, but it also came with one more major repercussion: having a loved one by his side would mean they supported the destruction of mankind as well.
His partner would be punished in much the same way he was. They would be assaulted every day, being treated like a monster wherever they went. The chances of anyone willfully taking the risk of falling in love with him were practically zero.
Anima’s last glimmer of hope at ever finding love was being eroded by the dark thoughts clouding his mind, when suddenly, a crimson circle appeared at his feet.
“Hm? What’s this?”
The light it emitted enveloped his body from all directions and rapidly grew brighter, dyeing his vision red. He felt as though his stomach was doing somersaults.
When the strange phenomenon finally subsided, Demon Lord Anima met the love of his life.