Book 7: The Second: Chapter to Ending the Demon King: The Demon King’s Eyes Open
Child, you can’t continue to sleep. There are still things you must do.
Stop your deep sleep. Wake up.
Wake up!
My eyes suddenly opened. I still couldn’t see anything, yet that actually made me feel a sense of safety. Previously when I had temporarily regained my sight, the things I had seen were all horrific…
“Sun.”
Did someone call me? I was startled and quickly extended my sensing ability; however, I discovered that this action was unexpectedly difficult. Even if I exhausted my strength I was barely able to sense a distance of about a meter around me. It seemed that even without my sensing ability, however, I could tell what my current situation was like; I was lying on a bed, my four limbs shackled to the bed posts, with a wad of cloth stuffed into my mouth.
What is going on right now? Have I been kidnapped again… That can’t be right! I have already died!
My mind was completely confused, and then someone walked to the bedside and sat down. Luckily, he was sitting close enough that I was able to sense his face. It was Lesus Judgment.
Judgment lowered his head to look at me and quietly said, “Sun, you’ve become quieter and quieter. Although your appearance when you struggle terrifies everyone, I would rather you struggle than be quiet… so quiet that it feels as if you’ve already given up on everything.”
Struggle? I wanted to open my mouth to ask him, but my mouth was gagged with a ball of cloth. Even after I “mmphmmphed” for a long while, Judgment remained silent, completely ignoring me. Just what the heck is going on?
Even though I wanted to use magic to chop off the shackles binding my hands and legs, simply maintaining my sensing ability was already very strenuous, not to mention using magic. Could this be the repercussion from using Resurrection?
Did I-Did I lose my ability to use magic?
After a period of silence, Judgment suddenly said, “Sun, just when will you wake up?”
Wake up? I’m clearly awake right now, and my eyes are open. Judgment is it your eyes or your brain that has stopped working?
I tried to say, “Judgment, is your brain damaged?” but all that was left of the words I spoke was, “mmmmmph, mphmmphmmphmmmmph?”
At that moment, a different voice suddenly spoke up, “How is Sun’s condition?”
As the person speaking was standing too far away, I couldn’t sense his appearance. In addition, he seemed to have deliberately lowered his voice, so I wasn’t quite able to identify who he was, but he should be one of the Twelve Holy Knights.
Judgment gave a rare sigh and said, “Same as before.”
What do you mean same as before? Do I normally appear tied to a bed and unable to move, with a ball of cloth stuffed in my mouth?
The other person sighed, saying, “Soon we won’t be able to withstand the pressure anymore.”
Ah, this voice sounds like Stone.
“No matter what, we must hold them back!”
…This voice is definitely Blaze’s. So there is more than one person here. I didn’t realize it at all. Even though people say that the hearing of a blind person is better, apparently only my sensing ability has improved.
“We definitely cannot let them kill Sun!”
These words seemed to be spoken by Leaf… Hold on, who wants to kill me? But when the question left my mouth again it became “mmphmmphmmphmph.”
Leaf said, “Sun seems to want to talk. Shouldn’t we loosen the ball of cloth a bit?”
“Remember to leave a strip of cloth at least, in case he tries to bite his tongue off again to commit suicide.”
… Bite my tongue and commit suicide? Me?
The moment the ball of cloth in my mouth was removed by someone, even though I had a pile of questions I wanted to ask, the most important was…
“Release me!”
In a disappointed tone, Leaf said, “As expected, he’s still the same.”
“Alas! What should we do now? The pressure from the other parties is too much. Soon we won’t be able to hold them back any longer.”
“The Pope suggested that we secretly take Sun and run away.”
“However, if we are discovered, without the Church of the God of Light’s protection, we will really have no choice but to engage the other party in combat…”
So there are actually a lot of people in the room. Seems like my hearing not only didn’t improve, there’s still a lot of room for improvement!
I yelled, “Hey hey, what are you guys doing? Even if you want to chat, you should release me first!”
Everyone paused, and then continued their conversation. No one paid me any attention at all.
There really was something not quite right here. I had just experienced Roland’s betrayal, so maybe I should think along the lines of betrayal, but I had already died, so if they had wanted to betray me, then it would have been better to simply not resurrect me, and leave me dead! There was no need to truss me up again after resurrection, since they would then need to spend money and manpower to look after me. How wasteful!
At that moment, Leaf couldn’t help saying, “Sun has been crazy for half a year already. Will he truly return to his former self?”
The instant the words left his mouth, everyone fell silent, including me.
Those words, “crazy” and “half a year” were so shocking that my mind turned blank.
“We have to believe that he will recover,” Judgment simply said calmly.
“Everyone listen to me for a bit,” Stone said slowly. “I’ve been watching Sun since a short while ago, and his response today seems rather strange, as if he’s reacting to our conversation.”
Everyone started talking at once.
“Is that so?”
“He looks about the same to me.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to believe that Sun has returned to normal, but there have been many times that he has appeared very normal, yet the moment we released his shackles he w-would start finding ways of harming himself.”
I couldn’t resist asking, “Has it already been half a year since the time of my death? What do you mean when you said that I have gone crazy?”
The entire place fell silent. I didn’t know what was happening, but I could only see Judgment. Since Judgment always has a poker face, it was impossible to read his emotions from his expressions!
“Sun, have you returned to normal?”
Being asked in this manner, I suddenly didn’t know how I should respond. I merely answered, “I should be back to normal.”
Leaf asked, “Sun, are you hungry? Or do you want to go to the toilet? When I fed you just now, you refused to eat anything, so now you should be hungry, right?”
I was truly rather hungry, but I shook my head and said, “I don’t want to eat like this.”
With a pained smile, Leaf said, “We can’t untie you. How about we get you something to eat first?”
“Release him,” Judgment suddenly opened his mouth to say.
“What? But…”
Judgment growled, “I said release him! We are all here. Could his attempts at suicide still succeed? He also has no means of using magic in here. The Pope has already set up restrictions!”
Judgment’s angry growl was so terrifying that the whole place fell silent for a while… Okay, I admit that I can’t see whether the others are terrified or not, but I was truly frightened. Why did Judgment suddenly become so agitated?
Someone walked to my side. It was Leaf. He started to remove the shackles on my wrists, and then he supported me as I sat up; however, the chains on my legs were still intact. It looked like they were not assured of my sanity yet.
When I moved, I realized that my body was outrageously stiff. It seemed to be the aftereffect of lying on the bed for too long.
I couldn’t help blurting out all my questions, “Why did you guys chain me up? Who wants to kill me? What the heck has been happening?”
“You should eat a bowl of porridge first,” Judgment said expressionlessly. “If you don’t eat anything, no one will want to answer your questions.”
I immediately consented, because after I got up I realized that I was really very hungry. I hurriedly nodded, saying, “Remember to help me add the cilantro.”
“…All right.”
Judgment was, as expected, true to his word. From the moment he finished speaking, to the moment someone brought in the porridge, and then later when I slowly ate mouthful after mouthful, taking my time to eat, from start to finish no one spoke a single word. Only Judgment had spoken once to say, “Eat slower.”
Only when I had finished eating the entire bowl of porridge did a sigh of relief come from the room. Even I, with my terrible hearing, could hear it clearly.
“Is everyone here?” I asked, since I could only see the person closest to me, Judgment.
“That’s right.” Judgment finally spoke. “Sun, tell us first what happened on the day you died.”
“What else is there?” I truly didn’t want to remember it, and merely explained in a few simple sentences, “I went to find Pink together with Roland, Roland cut me once from behind with his sword, Pink used psychic magic to restrain me, and in the end I was killed by them. Has it really already been half a year since I was killed?”
“Mm.”
“Is Roland already the demon king?”
“No.”
I froze, and hastily asked, “Why not? There shouldn’t be any other candidates, right?”
Judgment explained, “Ever since you were resurrected, he hasn’t been the only candidate. Have you forgotten? Roland is basically already dead. He is a death knight. Apparently, as long as you still exist in this world in some form, you will still possess the qualifications of a demon king candidate.”
Oh, I see! That’s right, Roland died a long time ago. If death alone caused one to lose qualifications as a candidate, then he would have lost his a long time ago.
All of a sudden, Judgment asked, “While you were crazy, you kept yelling ‘It was me.’ What did you do?”
After a long silence, I said, “Did I really go crazy? That’s why you tied me up in here, and even set restrictions on magic?”
“Yes,” Judgment replied simply.
At that moment, in a tone as if he couldn’t believe it, Leaf asked, “S-Sun, have you truly recovered?”
“Of course I’ve recovered!” I said incredulously, “Could a lunatic talk so normally like this?”
Judgment shook his head, saying, “Your manner while you were crazy was different from most lunatics. Mostly, you seemed very clear-headed, even able to converse fluently, but the moment we released your shackles you would frantically use any method to kill yourself. If we stopped you, you would even use dark element to attack us.”
“I tried to kill myself? A-And attacked you guys?”
Judgment nodded. “Luckily, while you were crazy, you mostly only used dark elemental magic. You didn’t use other types of magic much at all. Since your ability to attack with the dark element isn’t very strong, it didn’t cause too much harm. However, there was an indication that your ability to use the dark element was growing stronger and stronger, so we had to be careful, do you understand? It was with no other alternative that we tied you up in this confinement chamber, and if possible, I hope you won’t request to leave the confinement chamber.”
Judgment explained this particularly clearly. I think most likely he was worried that I would misunderstand him and think that he had some ill intent, like wanting to seize power and so on.
“Okay, I won’t leave this place.” Even though I felt that I couldn’t be more awake, Judgment had said that I had attacked them, so it was still better to be careful! “First, tell me about the current situation. Where is Roland?”
Judgment nodded, replying, “He’s at the Cathedral of the Shadow God.”
“The Cathedral of the Shadow God?” I laughed coldly, “Have they changed to supporting Roland already?”
“Because they had no choice.” Judgment didn’t appear to blame them at all. On the contrary, he added, “Having gone crazy, you were very dangerous. We could still manage to restrain you at the moment, but if you had become the demon king, then there would no longer be anyone capable of stopping you. The consequences would be inconceivable.”
I understood. Indeed, I couldn’t blame the Cathedral of the Shadow God. If they had allowed a lunatic to become the demon king, this world would truly become insane. “A while ago, you said that someone wanted me dead. Is that person Roland?”
“I don’t know what Roland is thinking, but the people who wanted us to kill you were the Cathedral of Shadow God and the Kingdom of Kissinger. As the demon king was taking a long time to be born, in the past half year, lands of death have been rapidly expanding. The area is already more than five times its previous size, and the rate of expansion has been increasing continuously.”
I see, no wonder they wanted me dead. As long as I died, the demon king would be born, and only then would the lands of death cease their continuous expansion.
“Sun, you can shift the fragment of the demon king to Roland, so long as you go to the Cathedral of the Shadow God to perform the ceremony. However, there was no way to do that at all while you were crazy, so they pressed us to kill you, the better to let Roland become the demon king… Sun? Are you listening to my words? Sun?”
“Sun, h-have you gone crazy again?”
“Sun! Don’t fake being clear-headed again. We can’t take it anymore!”
I was only still for a while, thinking about the various information I had just received, but I had not imagined that everyone would start calling me with panicked, nearly terrified voices. I hastily reassured them, “I’m alright, truly alright! Don’t panic!”
“We th-thought that again… again your clear-headedness was false.”
Hearing how their voices all sounded like they had been startled by my slightest pause, how each and every voice was extremely paranoid, their cautious hope mixed with nervousness, I could fully understand everyone’s feelings, and truly felt extremely sorry. It seemed that I had caused them a lot of worry this past year.
“Sorry, I’ve made you worry. Okay, you don’t have to release me yet, but go and relay a message to the Cathedral of the Shadow God in advance, that I’m now awake, and in three days’ time I will set out on a journey to carry out the ceremony, to prevent them from coming here to stir up trouble.”
When they heard my words, everyone started to create a commotion.
Blaze shouted, “Sun you’re awake! You’re truly awake!”
In a fluster, Leaf said, “I-I will now release you…”
Upon saying this, he moved to undo the shackles on my legs, but paused to turn around and look at everybody, especially Judgment. However, contrary to my expectations, Judgment actually didn’t have any intention of objecting.
“No!” I was forced to refuse myself, “Don’t release me yet. Right now, I-I still don’t fully comprehend the happenings of these past six months. I also don’t remember having gone crazy, so it’s still best not to release me yet.”
“But…” Leaf said worriedly.
“Sun, we’ll release you first,” Judgment said. “We really need you. The Church of the God of Light proclaimed that you were severely ill, so the common people still don’t know that you are a demon king candidate. However, it’s already been half a year since you have appeared in public, so a lot of people have been wondering whether or not you are dead.”
I pondered for a while, then said, “At least one day, keep me tied for one more day. We’ll discuss it again if nothing truly happens. I also need some time to think.”
“Alright, we’ll do that then! I’ll just ask you one more thing, and then we’ll let you quietly think.”
“Mm? What do you want to ask?”
Judgment lowered his voice as he said, “If you don’t want to answer the question I asked at the beginning, ‘while you were crazy you kept yelling ‘it was me,’ what did you do?’ you can tell me directly, no need to evade the topic.”
…It was just like Judgment, to actually remember the question he had asked at the very beginning!
“Scarlet allowed me to see everything. My meeting with Charlotte, a-and…” I hesitated for a while as I steeled myself for the next line, and said, “Actually, Teacher Neo’s right arm was chopped off by me!”
Sure enough, everyone fell silent. At this time, I was suddenly rather glad that I couldn’t see everyone’s expressions. If they showed expressions of condemnation, I…
“How can this be!” Earth said in complete disbelief, “You can’t even hold a sword well, and you want to say that you chopped off Neo’s arm? To say it was Leaf, this nice guy and archer, who chopped it off, I would be more convinced!”
“…I gathered dark element into a blade and chopped it off,” I explained uncomfortably. “Under the state of the demon king, I chopped off Teacher’s arm. Subsequently, I was knocked out by him, and couldn’t remember it at all after I woke up, until Scarlet allowed me to see that section of my past… Judgment, that time you died, it really wasn’t me who killed you right?”
Judgment was startled, and angrily said, “I’ve already said it wasn’t! Just how many times do you want me to repeat it?”
“As long as I didn’t, it’s fine,” I hastily said. “I was only asking, just asking, you don’t have to get so angry over this, right?”
Judgment softened his expression, and said indifferently, “You should rest. Tomorrow, we’ll come again to untie you.”
I nodded, and after Judgment turned his head and told everyone, “Let’s go,” there were sounds of many footsteps. At that moment, I hurriedly yelled at everyone, “Don’t worry everyone, I won’t run away again. This time, I will definitely resolve this whole affair!”
I couldn’t see everyone’s expressions, only able to see Judgment’s and Leaf’s who were the closest. Leaf let out a smile, and looked a lot more relaxed. Even Judgment’s brows loosened a bit.
“Storm, Metal, and Earth, stay behind and give me some answers to a few matters.” And at the same time keep a close eye on me. Of course, I didn’t say this sentence out loud. “Everyone else, go do whatever you are supposed to do!”
After I heard the sound of the door opening and closing, Storm walked over to me, simply pulled a chair over, sat beside the bed and asked, “What do you want to know? Ask it all in one go!”
“First, all of you need to stand a bit closer. Right now I can only sense about a meter around me.”
The three of them huddled around, but a range of one meter was actually rather harsh. The image of these three grown men squeezed beside the bed was really not a pretty sight.
“Storm, tell me about the Church of the God of Light’s plan to deal with the lands of death, which people know that I am a demon king candidate, and then you can choose whatever else you should report to me.”
“That’s just like Sun. When you’re not spouting nonsense about the God of Light you will go directly to the main point.” Storm nodded and said, “The plan of the Church of the God of Light to deal with the lands of death is to send troops to suppress them. Right now, only a tenth of the clerics and holy knights have remained behind to take care of matters in the Church of the God of Light.”
Feeling a bit doubtful, I asked, “But if the Twelve Holy Knights are all in the Holy Temple, who is responsible for leading the troops?”
He carefully explained, “The former Sun Knight Neo is leading the twelve vice-captains, dispersed in various regions to suppress the undead creatures. Although we announced that the commander of the army was only the former Sun Knight Neo, according to the reports, apparently all the Twelve Holy Knights of the previous generation have volunteered to join in the suppression.”
Teacher… Don’t think about it, now is not the time to be feeling guilty and sad.
Unconvinced, I asked, “Why didn’t any of you go?” To allow the previous generation of the Twelve Holy Knights to lead the army, even if he is the former Sun Knight, I’m afraid that still wouldn’t fly.
Storm feigned calmness, but I still noticed that he secretly glanced at me. He said, “There must always be someone left behind to guard the place.”
I suddenly understood. To have such a huge problem, and yet to not even dispatch any of the Twelve Holy Knights, this did not make sense at all. Most likely they stayed behind in the Holy Temple in order to protect me.
“Originally, Adair also wanted to stay behind,” Storm suddenly explained. “We had to spend a lot of effort convincing him to leave with the former Knight-Captain Sun. Although I said that the person leading the troops is the former Knight-Captain Sun, I think the true commander of the current vice-captains of the Twelve Holy Knights and their platoons can only be Adair.”
Indeed, even though Teacher is very strong, if we asked him to command an entire army, I’m afraid he would rather rush up to the enemy alone and kill them all.
“You’ve trained Adair really well. Actually, he should probably be considered the real commander. The former Knight-Captain Sun is only outstanding in his fighting capabilities. He’s really not quite suited to be a commander. It’s just that when we announced it to the public, having the title of the former Sun Knight would more easily set the citizen’s minds at ease.”
Of course, because I passed everything to Adair to do, he is competent at a lot of things! As expected I planned well, training a multi-talented vice-captain in advance, so that no matter what happens he would be able to take care of it immediately. Even if I’m unconscious for half a year, I have no need to be afraid that when I wake up there will be a mountain of work to do!
Storm continued his report, “As for the people who know you are a demon king candidate, they include Silent Eagle and a few of the highest-leveled shadowpriests of the Cathedral of the Shadow God, every kingdom’s royal family, the Son of the God of War, and a few of the high-leveled warpriests in the Monastery of the God of War.”
“Why do so many people know? Did Awaitsun leak it out?” I was furious. With so many people knowing about this, I couldn’t guarantee that it would not become leverage against us later on!
Storm explained, “Concerning this matter, Silent Eagle has previously written a letter to clarify things. It was the royal family who deliberately leaked that information. By the time he found out, there was nothing he could do to stop it.”
The royal family? It was the Kingdom of Kissinger that leaked it?
I was silent for a while, and then said, “Most likely they deliberately leaked this news to make all the kingdoms pressure you together.”
Earth said loudly, “That’s right! In order to protect you, we were so busy our hair will likely turn white like yours! And regardless of what you want to know, couldn’t you wash your face and brush your teeth first. Your mouth stinks!”
Your mouth stinks even more!
Metal also shrieked, “At least shave your beard!”
Shave my beard? Because of the restriction on magic, it was very exhausting for me to use my sensing ability. I really couldn’t do anything about sensing details. Even being able to distinguish main facial features was already an impressive enough feat. I didn’t have the leisure to care about facial hair. I hurriedly touched my face…
“Damn, who is this tramp with a beard covering his face?”
“That’s you!” Storm, Earth, and Metal chorused in reply.
I sniffed my body odor… S-stinks like hell! I couldn’t believe it and asked, “Just how long has it been since I’ve bathed?”
The moment I spoke, their eyes drifted away, looking left and right but not daring to look at me. Finally, Storm summoned up the courage to say, “Your previous condition was so dangerous, there weren’t many people who could help you bathe, and it’s unlikely that you would want us to help you bathe, right?”
That’s true, I would rather stink to death than let a man help bathe me. It’s so disgusting… Hold on! I hurriedly asked, “Then who took me to the toilet?”
“Leaf…”
Leaf, you really are a good person who couldn’t be any nicer!
“You must take responsibility for what you did to him,” Earth patted my shoulder.
Go to hell, if I were to take responsibility, I’m afraid Princess Ann from the neighboring kingdom would take an axe and chop me into itty bitty pieces!
“I am going to take a bath! Metal, go and help me get the largest bucket, carry in ten or so basins, then go to my room and bring all my ingredients for my facial mask!”
“… What sort of ingredients did you say?” Storm pretended to be astonished as he asked.
I hastily corrected myself, “Cough! That is, bring me all the bottles and jars in my room!”
“Who would want to help you get your things!” After Metal finished protesting not so poisonously, he left to get them obediently.
Earth’s face froze, and he turned his head to ask Storm, “Do I have to be here to watch him bathe?”
“Captain Judgment wanted us to watch over Sun,” Storm quietly assessed. “So you have two options. Number one, violate Knight-Captain Judgment’s orders. Number two, see Sun’s naked body.”
“…F***!”
F*** what? In any case, I am actually a fair and beautiful man, with a head of long blond hair, and now because of sleeping for half a year I am malnourished and too thin. Simply by looking at my figure from behind, I might actually look very much like a lady…Wait a minute! Come to think of it, later on when I bathe, there will be three men staring at me?
F***!
Bathing almost tired me to death.
As expected, a body that has slept for half a year is so stiff that it can’t move about freely in such a short while. All the actions that I did were ten times more difficult than they previously were, and upon movement all my joints in my body would creak, like rusty door locks.
In the corner, there were two people currently facing the wall. They were Storm and Metal. Only Earth had to face me, because he had to watch me closely, to prevent me from going crazy and hurting myself or them. However, I had insisted that he stand outside the range of my sensing ability, since as long as I couldn’t see him, I could treat him as nonexistent!
After battling for half an hour, I finally managed to remove my clothes, and he blurted out, “Do you want Leaf to come and help you? He’s already taken you to the toilet before, so he shouldn’t mind helping you bathe.”
“I mind a lot!”
After a while, he spoke again, “You should eat more, you are really outrageously thin, the likeness of a skeleton. It’s super unsightly.”
“Then you don’t have to look!”
“You think I want to watch a skeleton bath? But if I don’t watch, and Judgment finds out that I disobeyed his orders, his expression will be even more unsightly!”
“Then would you die if you shut up?”
“Don’t tell me you want me to quietly observe you bathing? Isn’t that even more perverted?”
I angrily roared, “Storm, it’s your turn to watch. Tell Earth to turn around and face the wall for me!”
However, the person who replied was Metal. “Storm has already fallen asleep.”
“…”
“In consideration of Storm sleeping, I will be quieter and not disturb his sleep,” Earth coldly said. “In this past half of a year, he and Judgment worked so hard that it wouldn’t be strange at all if one day they just collapsed and died.”
“… I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need for that. The fact that you’ve awoken is the best apology, so in short don’t go crazy again.” Earth grumbled quietly, “In the past, I never saw you do much at all. Didn’t you always push all your work onto Storm and Adair? But it’s so strange, it’s truly quite troublesome without you, and we kept being harassed from morning till night…”
I was stunned, and then roared furiously, “Who has been harassing you?”
“There are so many!” Earth started listing, “His Majesty the king used the excuse that the demon king candidate is the Sun Knight, so he wouldn’t give any money for the army expenditures. Even if it’s to suppress undead creatures in the Kingdom of Forgotten Sound, he’s still the same. During this period, the expression on the Pope’s face has been as unsightly as an undead creature. He said if it wasn’t for the secret stash of money that he had saved in the past, the expeditionary army would have run out of food a long time ago. However, if we continued fighting for another three months, completely without any other aid, then he would be forced to tell the expeditionary army to simply go and eat all the undead creatures.”
Your Majesty… Even if you are a good king, you must still spit out the expenses for the army!
“There’s also the Monastery of the God of War. They demanded a group of clerics from us to get rid of undead creatures in the Kingdom of Moon Orchid, but also wouldn’t assist us with any money. Even the traveling expenses had to be paid for by the clerics themselves!”
“Did you guys agree to it?” I couldn’t believe it as I said, “The Pope also agreed?” That money-grabbing Pope actually agreed to send out clerics without payment in this crucial, money-taxing time period?
Metal shouted, “It’s because they used your identity as a demon king candidate to threaten us, we couldn’t argue at all!”
So it’s like that. I laughed coldly. Very well! Since they see me as a demon king candidate, then I will act like one for a while!
Earth muttered, satisfied, “As expected, it feels pretty good to tattle to Sun. Simply by looking at his expression, I feel great! It’s like I’ve already gotten revenge, no, three times the revenge. Sweet!”
What Earth said was right. I would definitely make them cough up thrice the amount of money!