Running Away From The Hero! (Remake)

< Evade the Hero and Flee! 198 #23. Policy Meant for My Dream! (5) >

#4 Their circumstance: the demon race’s circumstance

A noble king blessed by the Demon God herself was born. And after that monumental event, many changes began taking place on the demon continent.

First of all, three factions constantly locked in the contest of strength were finally dissolved. Lady Belegrea’s faction chose to serve the new king.

Aggreahrt, who dared to go against the Demon God’s will, got his head chopped off in less than one day, which left his subordinates with no choice but to admit defeat and wait for the great king’s punishment.

However, the noble king was a follower of the benevolent Demon God and proved to be a different breed to his predecessors.

Other demon kings would’ve demanded compensation and executed the chieftains involved, but our new king chose to warmly embrace them while saying that they were being deceived by the false voice in their heads.

Was that all?

It wouldn’t have been strange to see Aggreahrt’s severed head put on display on a spike for a month in front of the demon king’s castle. But our king acknowledged all the service Aggreahrt performed for the demon race and gave the late general a wonderful funeral.

As expected of a demon king that followed the Demon God’s will!

All demons watching on were moved to tears at our demon king’s generosity and began exalting the Demon God.

And our noble demon king didn’t want to become a dictator. He respected the opinions of all the tribes, saying that this was also a part of the great, noble Demon God’s will.

How shocking that was.

Our great, noble Demon God respected the opinions and words of someone as insignificant as us! Thanks to that, we were able to choose the king that would rule over us with our own hands.

That’s how Lady Belegrea could become the demon king.

After her ascension, Lady Belegrea swore that she’d usher in a new era of peace for the demons as per the Demon God’s wishes. She then made a great speech that signalled the change in the demon race’s history.

The speech’s name was the Declaration of Communism!

Not for the sake of tribes, but for the entire demon race! Not for individuals, but for the many!

The Demon God’s noble wish for individuals to let go of their vested interests and pursue a world where everyone is equal!

Lady Belegrea declared that she’d follow that wish – and everything changed ever since then.

Starting from insignificant little tribes in the rural outskirts, various locations of the demon continent saw buildings and roads getting built in great numbers, signalling the dawn of a society where everyone’s equal!

And after that…

***

“Stop! That’s it for today’s lesson!”

Tap!

The teacher slapped the desk to signal the end of the lesson. We cautiously put the sacred textbook inside our own school bags.

“We’ll end today’s lesson here. Our great king has said that students will get bored if classes are too long!”

Our great king is indeed a great person. To think that he even thinks about students like us!

“Well, then. We shall also conclude today’s lesson with a prayer for our noble and great Demon God and the demon king!”

“Yes! We profess our belief in the Demon God, the creator of the demon continent, and her faithful servant, demon king Marx…”

We began reciting the wonderful teachings found on the first page of the textbook. Of course, I had no need to take the book out of my bag. I had already fully memorised it a long time ago, you see!

This teaching was directly from the Demon God, handed to us through our great and noble king. Of course I’d memorise it as soon as the textbooks were distributed to us.

“De-men.” [1]

It will be so, according to the Demon God’s commands.

The end of our prayer also heralded the end of our lesson.

“Do not forget to be watchful of the false voice today as well! And continue to think about our great and noble king and the Demon God’s will!”

“Yes!”

Apparently, there was this evil voice trying to scam unsuspecting demons by telling lies about our current demon king being a fake. Some idiot was fooled by that voice and even tried to attack our great king while declaring that they were the true apostle of the Demon God.

However, our great king was the real apostle chosen by the Demon God herself. That idiot received the Demon God’s blessing and quickly realised the error of their ways.

I heard that our great king implored the idiot shedding tears of repentance that they should start following the will of our great and noble Demon God.

Ah, aaaah! How warm-hearted is our king!

Back then with Aggreahrt, and even with the self-proclaimed Demon God’s apostle this time, too! To think that he’d graciously forgive them while saying that they were merely fooled by the false voice!

As expected of our Demon God! As expected of our great, noble king!

-N-no, that’s wrong! That punk is a fraud! A fraud! You mustn’t get fooled!

“Ah, ah…”

As I was heading home, I also began hearing the voice of the fake god.

-W-what do you mean, the fake god?! I’m the real deal! Hey, I’m telling you, I’m the real Demon God!

“Well, it sure does sound like a god’s voice…”

The voice made me want to follow its commands. The voice oozing with so much sacred aura made me let out a gasp of admiration without being aware.

Now I understood why some people would go against our great king even though he served the Demon God’s will.

-No, I’m the real god here… I’m your real Demon God!

The voice sounded urgent, desperate even, but my teacher told me this before. The evil creature pretending to be the Demon God… the false god would appeal to a person’s sympathy and blind you from the truth!

However, our great and noble king told us this!

‘Our great, noble Demon God is always an aloof existence. She respects your opinions and words, but she will never lower herself to you.’

That’s right. Our god, Demon God, was given life by the Creator God to manage this world. And in place of the absent Creator God, our Demon God protects this world.

So, how can someone that magnificent and powerful be pleading with mere mortals like us? There’s just no way that our great Demon God would do that.

-I’m doing this because you don’t believe me at all!

The voice sounded so wronged and unhappy. Maybe she was getting desperate now that I didn’t fall for her tricks.

-N-no, that’s wrong…

Indeed, as expected of the fake. Unlike the great, noble Demon God, this voice kept nagging at me and tried to cling to me. My teacher told me to say this out loud in a situation like this one.

“Begone, you evil creature!”

-Kuwaaaahk! I hate you all!

The fake god beat a hasty retreat while screaming.

Hmph! What does it matter if a fake god hates me?

We only believed in the great, noble Demon God. She always looked after us. Our great king served such a god’s will.

The road I was walking on was constructed according to that divine will. My tribe originally was a small, weak one that others didn’t even bother with, but the great Demon God was different from them. She was watching over us and lamented our circumstances.

That’s why she commanded us to create roads for us demons to walk on and for carriages to pass through so that we could reach other villages much faster.

Our great king called this road the ‘highway’. This amazing road where ten carriages could pass through side by side! All tribes were quickly being connected through a single road network.

And the ones responsible for constructing these roads are the tribes near the roads in question! Although the work often got tiresome, we received appropriate compensations, which led to a steady improvement in the tribes’ overall situation.

People with no money and dying of starvation gradually disappeared. And with the roads nearing completion, merchants began visiting villages like ours located on the far outskirts, too.

Not only that but even schools were being built so that kids like me received a compulsory education on the will of our great, noble Demon God. Meanwhile, our old, run-down houses were changing to newer, shinier ones.

And all we did for these improvements was to work. We simply followed the great, noble Demon God’s will and lent our strengths. And as a reward, our great king gave us money, food, homes and even opportunities to learn!

Ah, aaah… Oh, the great and noble Demon God! And your wonderful servant, our great king!

There will never be another demon on this land that suspects you. No one will be foolish enough to fall for the voice of the fake god ever again!

#5 Their circumstance: the Demon God’s circumstance

“Aaaaaaahk!”

All I could do was hold my head and scream at the top of my lungs.

That guy called me an evil creature. My own children are actually calling me an evil creature!

“You’re being scammed! All of you got scammed!”

No matter how desperately I pleaded with them, my voice was failing to reach my children.

It’s over. The demon continent… it’s all over!

The demon continent I inherited from the Creator Gods, my parents basically, was lost to the seeds of evil!

“N-no, wait. I shouldn’t be doing this…”

The current situation was seriously bad. The people’s faith in me was diminishing with every passing day. However, if you solely judged the level of faith among the populace, then it was at its historic high. Mortals were looking up to ‘me’ and praising ‘me’ far more often than when they were fighting against the humans, after all!

The problem with this was that the subject of their worship was not me, but the fake Demon God cooked up by the seed of evil!

I travelled through multiple dimensions to arrive at my destination, a divine realm where other gods were gathered. As soon as stepping foot inside, I roared out with all the dignity of the top god in this pantheon

that I could muster. “Hey, you lot! Do something about this, will ya?!”

Others gods loitering around here – more specifically, gods overseeing the demon continent – heard my roar and began replying one by one.

“We’re screwed, ma’am.”

“I’ve given up already.”

“The demon continent is already finished…”

“Eh?”

I became utterly speechless from their way-too powerless replies.

When I stood there in dumbfounded silence, the God of Emptiness standing nearest to me said something. “Dear Demon God, ma’am. We’re also gods overseeing the demon continent. Did you really think we’d not do anything while those seeds of evil were rampaging around?”

Yup.

I almost blurted that out aloud.

To think that the one explaining things to me was the God of Emptiness.

If it had been the God of Fulfilment that oversaw the human continent, I’d not have a problem. But this punk? He might have actually incited other gods while saying they should abandon all hope now.

“Oh, so you were doing something, then?”

“We also mobilised the champions and saints of our temples, ma’am.”

The champions from the demon continent temples performed the same role as the human continent’s heroes. In other words, the temples’ champions and saints were the same as apostles personally chosen by the various gods of the demon continent.

Mobilising them meant the gods had done everything they could within the permitted range of actions.

“But ma’am, do you know what the result was?”

“I think I already know…”

Even my apostle, the first one I’ve chosen in centuries… no, in several millennia, fell into the hands of the seeds of evil on the same day they reached the Demon God’s temple. An apostle couldn’t resign that easily once chosen – unless they died, obviously – so I’ve been trying to convince them at least one hour every day, but my words were no longer getting through to them.

The one calling himself Marx sounded so sincere and trustworthy that my own apostle became his servant and was following every one of his commands. Thanks to that, I was called an evil creature by my own apostle three times today.

“Yes, that’s exactly it, ma’am. All of them got smacked around and started acknowledging that man instead.”

“Ah, ahhh…”

I did expect that reply but directly hearing it caused this shock that defied my imagination.

We’re screwed.

The demon continent and the demon race fell into the hands of those seeds of evil.

“N-no, this can’t be…”

The great Creator Gods entrusted me with the demon continent, you know! But to think that I lost it to those bastards!

“I, I can’t accept this!”

Just as I began letting out a despair-filled scream…

Tap, tap…

Someone lightly tapped me on my shoulder.

C-could it be… there’s a way out of this?!

“…Ah, ah… No…”

But when I turned my head to look, I instantly fell into an even deeper pit of despair. That’s because a pair of male and female gods were standing there, smiling brightly at me.

“It’s already too late.”

“Giving up will make it easier.”

They were none other than the God of Despair and the God of Resignation!

“Why is every single god on our side like this?! God of Hope! Yes, somebody go and fetch the God of Hope, right now!”

“But, uh, aren’t the human side also really busy right now? I mean, the seed of evil is supposed to be waking up in the human continent, after all.”

“Man, these seeds of evil are working their butts off, aren’t they?”

“Hahaha! Well, we’re already finished over here, but at the very least, that side should still try to survive, right?”

“You’re right. One side needs to survive so we won’t get too embarrassed to face the Creator Gods.”

Haha! Hoho~!

Watching these already-resigned gods made me despair even more. The gods supposed to rule the demon continent were beyond help at this stage. And then…

“Our great Demon God, hooray!”

“Our great king, hooray!”

“Glory to our Demon God and her faithful servant, Marx!”

Listening to the voices of the demon race exalting me more than ever made me realise that maybe, they also were beyond saving now.

“Ah, ah…”

Fine. Now that things have gotten to this stage…

“You. You just be my apostle, then.”

…I’ll also just resign myself.

[1]: No, that’s not a typo. It’s a riff on “Amen”, except now, with “de-”