Chapter 19: 19

TL note: To those of you who are confused, the author would write ‘what if’ chapters sometimes, and, instead of putting them in their own separate thing, he’d just put them between chapters. So, although it may not actually connect with the story, this is still chapter 19. The actual story continues on chapter 20.

Author’s note: This chapter is a ‘what if’ supplementary story. Those of you who dislike Bad Endings can skip this chapter.

Ending conditions

1. The average affection of the Jalsen Village adventurer party is above 30. 2. Dantalian’s infamy is below 100

. . .

‘No. There’s no chance of winning.’

I grit my teeth. There was nothing else that I could do. I could only hire 2 goblins at most. No matter how much I tried to struggle with 2 goblins, coming out victorious against 15 adventurers was impossible.

Wouldn’t it be better…… if I pleaded for mercy?

Rather than resisting pointlessly and cutting away at the affection which I barely managed to garner in the first place, that was a much better idea. Now that I think about it, there’s no reason for me to protect this dungeon. My life is more important than anything else. What was so bad about flimsily relying on the other party’s affection to survive?

I raised their affection towards me desperately. Once I saw them let out a cheer as I withdrew more than 500 gold, I knew that, at the very least, I would no longer be killed on the spot. Fortunately, they didn’t kill me and brought me to the city alive. The administrators of the city praised the adventurers and bought me for a high price.

“Excuse me, sir.”

“Hm? What is it?”

“What will happen to the Demon Lord now?”

Riff asked cautiously. I could tell that he was worried about me. For the past few days, the party and I had become quite close. Although they did ultimately sell me for the sake of their own livelihood, he must have had a guilty conscience as he was worried about me.

“Is he perhaps going to receive a public execution?”

“I’m not sure. If his infamy were a little higher, we would have made an example of him.”

The administrator with a sharp mustache looked at me. Both of my arms were firmly bound by cuffs.

“Honestly, even if he’s a Demon Lord, he’s a lesser-known fellow.”

“T-That’s right. Then does that mean he won’t be immediately executed?”

“Probably. Albeit, the mayor will have the final say in the end.”

Riff let out a relieved sigh. I also felt at ease. I had surrendered in order to survive, but if I died anyway, then it would have made my efforts pointless. On the other hand, I felt a little grateful towards Riff who bore the possibility of annoying the administrator in order to ask about my wellbeing. Of course, his party was the very reason I was captured, but, all things considered, the true fault lied behind whoever dropped me into this world and not the members of his party who had dived into a dungeon in order to overcome their difficult lives. How could they have known that I wasn’t actually a Demon Lord anyway?

The party began to file out of the government office. We exchanged brief farewells through our eyes. It was a rather light farewell for people who’ve been together for almost a week now, but we had exchanged our proper farewells over some alcohol last night. Afterward, the administrator ordered a guard to confine me in a cell.

A rough period of three months where I sustained my life with biscuits that were as hard as concrete and some slightly dirty water went by. My stomach got upset for a while, but it soon got better. My recuperative powers increased ever since I became a Demon Lord. Even my right foot that had become a mess got better over time. It was intriguing.

“Hey, come out.”

A guard uttered. I struggled to open my eyes. A dirty face was glaring at me from beyond the iron bars. This was the first time I’ve heard a person’s voice in 3 months. There was a boy who brought me my bread and water every day, but he was a mute.

After staying in this prison for a couple of days, I learned that this was an area where traitors, conspirators, and other criminals who had committed grave crimes were imprisoned. There were a lot of people who were holding secrets which the public should never know about. That was why a mute was specifically given the task of distributing the food here. The kid was no different from a king down here as one’s survival relied completely on whether he gave you food or not. Regardless of one’s status or age, they all had to treat the kid as their master. The inmate in an isolated cell on the other side of the prison, who most likely used to be a noble, belittled the boy and swore at him a bunch at first; however, it didn’t even take 2 days before they started to refer to the boy as ‘Young Master’. In order to not die down here in these eternally damp and wet cells where the sun could never reach, you had to eat those disgustingly hard biscuits.

“Where.”

I tried to speak, but only a raspy groan managed to come out. My throat felt weird because I was trying to speak for the first time in several months. I had to cough a couple of times and clear my throat before I could properly form any of my words.

“Where am I being taken……?”

“Where you’re going has nothing to do with me. Just hurry up and come out. Though, you can stay if you prefer to stay here and rot for the rest of your life.”

I mustered some strength into my knees as I stood up. My knees almost gave out a couple of times, but I managed to hold out. I’ve never experienced Hell before, but I believed it wasn’t as bad as this underground prison. The guard dragged me out. I spoke to the guard before we left the prison area.

“The boy who delivers the prisoners their bread and water, he seems to embezzle them whenever he desires.”

“What?”

“He purposely does not give some of the prisoners their bread and water. Quite often at that. That Frank fellow who passed away last week died because of this.”

The guard’s face contorted into a great scowl. I was loaded onto a carriage after I was taken out of the prison. As I was boarding the carriage that was painted entirely black and had no windows, I silently celebrated the fact that I got my revenge on the mute boy. Since he had personally embezzled the government office’s provisions, he will, at the very least, lose both of his eyes. Without a doubt, the boy will have to live the rest of his life as both a mute and a blind person, making his life no different from those imprisoned in cells.

I arrived at a slave market. As the trading of slaves was legal in this country, the bourgeoisie and nobles who had lost a lot of their servants due to the recent epidemic were busy purchasing new slaves every day. The slave market here was booming thanks to this. Once the demand became higher than the supply, the price of slaves went up by twice the amount. Among these slave markets, this market was an auction that specialized in rare slaves meant specifically for nobility.

“Is this scrawny guy some animal? When’s the last time he was washed?”

The person in charge of the auction frowned.

“This is no good. Those nobles may know what goes for a high price, but they don’t know how much effort we have to put in to make our products reach that value. Those ignorant people. Hey, make this guy a little more presentable within a month.”

From that day forth, I continued to receive good meals for the sake of raising my value as a product. If I were to explain how I felt, I felt like a goose who had no other choice but to eat despite knowing that it was going to become Froie gras soon. Regardless, as someone who had been surviving off of only rotten biscuits until now, this was a whole new world. A month went by like this. The auction manager gave a satisfied nod once he saw that I had gained an appropriate amount of weight.

“The slave we wish to introduce to you today is, surprisingly, the second successor of the House of Farnese that boasts immense authority within the Kingdom of Sardinia!”

This auction house used to be a ruined opera but it had been bought and refurbished. Nobles watched the stage from the audience seats and theatre boxes. If you excluded the two facts that slaves were being sold on the stage and that all of the customers had masks on, then this auction house was no different from an opera.

“Her Ladyship, Duchess Laura De Farnese!”

There was a blonde girl in the middle of the stage. Even though she was only wearing a rag that revealed almost all of her pure, white skin, she remained bold. If anything, she held her head high and gazed into the eyes of all the nobles who were evaluating her from a distance. I could hear the nobles muttering to each other from even behind the stage where I was waiting.

“From the previous Crysanthemum War…….”

“As I thought, an excommunication order from the temple is terrifying. The peerless House of Farnese has…….”

“She’s a lot prettier than the rumors had portrayed her.”

Laura De Farnese.

It was a name that I remembered. She was a major character of the opposing human faction that was hostile towards the protagonist in Dungeon Attack. The protagonist of Dungeon Attack had to fight demons and also go to war with fellow humans. She appeared as a soldier of the Kingdom of Britanny which was on bad terms with the Empire of the Franks which the protagonist belonged to. A lot of players bore a grudge against her because of how often she would torment the protagonist, but she succeeded in receiving a small group of very active fans because of her pretty looks and tragic family story.

I see. I knew that her backstory involved her being sold at a slave market somewhere in Sardinia during her childhood. So this was that very slave market……. Memories related to Dungeon Attack started to flow through my head. I snickered at the timing. What was the point of being well-versed with the events that happen in the game when I can’t even do anything?

Laura was sold off at a high price. A whole 2,000 gold. If you consider how even the best quality sex slaves struggle to sell for more than 500 gold, it should be easy to grasp how amazing that price is.

If there’s one thing I learned after being sold to a bunch of humans, it was the fact that the monsters I could hire in my dungeon were stupidly expensive. How could an insignificant goblin be 250 gold? If this world also had a difficulty setting like the game, then the game developer who created this difficulty setting should bite their tongue and jump into the Incheon sea. If they don’t want to take the leap, then I would more than gladly give them a helping push.

Even as she left the stage, Laura maintained her haughty posture. Laura probably doesn’t know this, but she was just now sold to a Count Palatine of the Kingdom of Britanny. For the next decade, she will be violated by that Count endlessly. The Count Palatine will use her politically since she used to be the second successor of the House of Farnese, and as he invades the territories previously owned by the Farnese Household, he will continuously lust after Laura’s beautiful body. Albeit, he’ll ultimately die in a ditch after being betrayed by Laura who had been sharpening her blade of revenge for a decade.

‘Please torment that hero bastard.’

The hero had become my greatest enemy after I became a Demon Lord. Funnily enough, Laura was pretty much an ally as she would make that very hero suffer till the very end of the game. I watched her back for as long as I could as she left.

“Now then, ladies and gentlemen.”

The presenter spoke in an excited voice. He rubbed his hands together like a housefly. His voice which was appropriately amplified because of a magic tool reached the corners of the opera house.

“Finally, we’ve reached the highlight of tonight’s auction. Some of you may already know because of the rumors. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that many of you are only here for this product alone. That’s right. That is how unprecedentedly rare this product is. Please give a large round of applause!”

One of the keepers smacked my back. I let out a small groan as I went out onto the stage. Blazing applause from all 3,500 people present resonated throughout the opera.

“One of the Great Devils that has caused the human world to descend into an abyss of fear! The terrifying being who boldly holds rank 71st, Demon Lord Dantalian⎯⎯⎯!”

My memory after this moment was fragmentary. The presenter said whatever they could in order to raise my price endlessly and the nobles clamored like a bunch of moths to a flame in order to purchase me.

“The starting price will be set to 10,000 gold!”

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10,000 gold. I felt nauseous. I wouldn’t be here if I had that much money. I wouldn’t have had to eat biscuits by softening them with my saliva for an entire month while inside a basement prison and I wouldn’t have been raised like livestock in a slave market. While I was busy being remorseful, my price tag skyrocketed. 20,000 gold, 25,000 gold, 40,000 gold…….. Finally, once someone shouted 100,000 gold, the madness came to an end. The presenter shouted 100,000 gold over and over again in a worked up tone. 100,000 gold! Are there no more bids? 100,000 gold! All right! Sold!…….

The people that had purchased me were from the imperial family of the Habsburg Empire. The Habsburg imperial family used me to entertain their precious guests and make their balls more enjoyable. A permanent magic seal was imprinted on my back. It was a slave seal.

“Uhaha! Wine poured by His Highness Demon Lord is very special indeed!”

“Much obliged, Your Highness!”

“Your Highness, please forgive this one’s discourtesy!”

A clown.

A toy.

And at times, a sex slave.

Time flowed by. People realized that Demon Lords didn’t age. My face remained the same no matter how much time passed. It seems the people of the imperial family found this characteristic of mine to be charming. It was like they had found a toy that wouldn’t break no matter how much they played with it.

The Imperial House didn’t only have luxurious and bright balls. There was a different kind of ball that took place behind the curtains. Different from the court maids that consisted of the daughters of noble families, the balls held in the shadows were served by other races and elves that were brought here from all over.

There was an elf couple among those slaves. The husband couldn’t endure it any longer once his wife got raped, thus he started to plan an escape. He held back at first since he understood what sort of position they were in; however, it wasn’t a simple rape…… Once his wife’s body was sullied through all sorts of means, the husband couldn’t hold back any longer. In the first place, a ball rule like ‘you can’t wear clothes’ was already a great insult to an honorable race like elves.

“Don’t run away.”

I advised them. Before I knew it, I had become like a spokesperson for the palace slaves. This may have been a natural course of events since I was the slave who had ‘survived’ for the longest. The average life span of slaves here was barely 50 days.

“Thank you for the advice, but I cannot take this any longer.”

“Despite their antics, do you think they do not know about your people’s nature? They are doing this on purpose. They are awaiting the day you try to escape. I bet my life on it.”

“I know.”

“And yet you’ll still try to escape?”

The elf nodded.

“There are things in the world that are more valuable than life.”

“……Absolutely do not run to the south. If possible, go north. I will tell you about a way out.”

The elf couple ran away.

They were captured in less than 6 hours.

Should I be in awe that they were able to get through the Imperial Household’s strict guards and run away for 6 hours or should I feel bad that they were captured in only 6 hours despite having prepared themselves for death? I didn’t know the answer. The wife was publically raped in the behind-the-curtains ball. The husband was killed there. The wife naturally bit her tongue and committed suicide once she witnessed his death.

I was also blamed. I was in charge of managing the sex slaves, after all. There’s no way that I could avoid responsibility when a couple of slaves had escaped. Furthermore, they started to suspect that I was the one who had told them about a way out. I firmly insisted that I had absolutely nothing to do with their escape, but there was no way that they would believe me. It wasn’t surprising since I wouldn’t have trusted me either if I were in their shoes.

“How appalling.”

I heard a voice. How many days has it been since I heard someone’s voice? I struggled to open my eyes. My eyelids didn’t seem to go up so easily since the blood in my face had become rigid over time. My vision only lit up faintly.

“You most likely will not listen even if I were to apologize. This is a rotten country and rotten Imperial Household. However,”

I couldn’t see the other person’s face. I could only tell that she was female by her voice and that, through my hazy vision, she had silver hair. Silver hair was a symbol of the Imperial Household of Habsburg.

“Although I also possess that same rotten blood, even I can, at the very least, carry out the duty of taking someone’s life.”

I see.

This girl is⎯⎯⎯.

“I had personally disposed of a slave that was discourteous to myself.  No one should be able to complain if I were to say this.”

“……Thank, you.”

“I have not done anything that deserves your gratitude. Demon Lord, do you have any last words?”

Last words.

If, just if.

If I didn’t surrender to those adventurers back then.

If I had taken the risks and fought back, then things might have turned out differently.

“……Be wary of Margrave Novgorod. He is the one who had assassinated His Majesty the late Emperor.”

“……!? How do you know of the late Emperor’s assassination? No, more importantly.”

“That is all.”

The other party went silent.

She let out a low sigh of grief.

“I was foolish. I should have saved you sooner.”

I heard the sound of a sword being unsheathed.

“May you hopefully rest peacefully on the other side.”

The other side, huh?

What will happen once I die?

Will I go back to my original world? Or perhaps, will I truly⎯⎯⎯.

***

My consciousness was cut.

***

─ Ending no.01 (Dead Ending):

─ An ending has been added to your album.

─ Would you like to replay the game?

Author’ Afterword

I’m thinking about occasionally writing endings like this.

It might be because this is the first ending, but it feels rather weak. Referentially, bad endings should give off a tearing, stabbing, confining, and penetrating feeling…

TL note: Thanks for reading the chapter, or to those of you who skipped, uh, thanks for skipping ending no.01? It’s sort of interesting to know how things would have turned out if Dant took another course of action. We got a glimpse at both Laura and Elizabeth pretty early into the WN.

In any case, the next chapter may take a while before it comes out since I’ll be working on another chapter of Handholding first. I’ll see you guys when I see you.

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