Chapter 293: Episode 293_Descent of the Demon King (2)
2.
Anyone who faithfully followed Han Simin’s streams knew.
Even casual viewers, not just the diehard fans who replayed a single video five tis over, knew.
No matter how many six-hour or thirteen-hour VODs there were, the impact those two had made was impossible to forget.
They were practically the main characters of the Demon World arc.
The Demon King. The Heavenly King.
To the players, they were the final bosses.
The end of Fantastic World.
The raid bosses they might have to face at the end of the world.
Naturally, even if their faces only flashed by for a mont, plenty of people would recognize them. But they had done more than that—they had appeared on video, flaunted their power, and made it clear exactly what kind of beings they were.
The Demon King, Epia, was especially unforgettable.
She had shown up with an appearance that was a direct hit for... well, not all n, but a great many of them.
On top of that, she had a sweet personality.
The overwhelming aura of a Demon King, which contrasted so sharply with her appearance, gave viewers more than enough ti and charm to see themselves in Han Simin’s shoes and fall for Epia right alongside him.
In any case, that was why among those who played Fantastic World and watched Han Simin’s streams, there wasn’t a single user who couldn’t tell the Heavenly King and the Demon King apart.
Even users who couldn’t afford to watch his streams knew.
They couldn’t take screenshots, but they could at least share the paid photos Han Simin had uploaded to his channel.
And even without pictures, if you just stood the two of them side by side, it was easy to distinguish them.
A male body and a female body.
The Heavenly King was male. The Demon King was female.
There was no clearer distinction than that.
Yet in the live stream that suddenly started right after the recorded video of the final episode cut off, a developnt was unfolding that left viewers, who had accepted this simple truth, completely dumbfounded.
It was happening not in the Demon World, but on the continent.
’What is going on?’
’Did they actually succeed in coming to the continent?’
The confusion did not clear up easily.
It was inevitable.
The recorded video had cut off before they crossed over.
—Can soone explain what’s going on?
—Ah, damn it. It cut off right at the good part.
—Sobody go over there and check.
—He’s live right now, so it’s awkward to leave this one too. What do we do?
—I’ll take one for the team. Screw it. I’ll go watch his stream and catch this one later as a VOD. I’m way too curious to sit still.
It was a twist for the ages.
Of course, depending on one’s perspective, it might not seem all that original.
It was a classic “misunderstanding trope” setup, the kind you saw all the ti in novels and dramas.
The Demon King is mistaken for the Heavenly King, and the Heavenly King is mistaken for the Demon King.
Because of that, the protagonist falls into crisis and, in order to set things right, begins a long struggle against the entrenched forces of evil and the vested interests deeply rooted in the continent.
A war against the great powers, against those who hold the continent in their grasp.
And behind them all, standing tall and immovable, is the Demon King disguised as the Heavenly King.
Honestly, stories like that are a bit played out.
But this story had a twist.
The protagonist created the misunderstanding.
Or... it was hard to say if you could really call him a protagonist.
Han Simin was, at the end of the day, just one user, and this was a personal stream. If you really wanted to talk about good and evil, he was a parasite who latched onto the continent’s villains to make a profit.
That was the kind of guy who had taken the lead in swapping the Heavenly King and the Demon King.
From the viewers’ perspective, it was only natural to be dumbfounded.
Viewers who didn’t play the ga and just watched might find it fresh and entertaining, but for users who were actually playing, this wasn’t sothing they could just laugh off.
—What the hell. We’ll have to wait for the advance party to co back to know for sure, but basically, Simin swapped the Demon King and the Heavenly King, and the one who just got dragged to the Great Temple is actually the Heavenly King, right? So the Heavenly King gets captured, the Demon King becos the Heavenly King, and then the Demon King interrogates the Demon King... What am I even saying? This is insane.
—Hey. Is this even sothing we can just sit back and watch? If this goes on, our continent is going to be completely at the Demon King’s rcy.
—But why is the Heavenly King getting mistaken for the Demon King and dragged off? He was crazy strong in the Demon World. His wings are gone and sothing’s off.
—You can see it at a glance. It’s that penalty demons get when they invade the continent. Looks like that.
The fate of the continent was on the line.
Most people wouldn’t feel much difference in their lives whether the Emperor ruled the continent or the Demon King, disguised as the Heavenly King, did. But for users watching the truth unfold on the stream, it was impossible not to feel unease.
And envy.
—Is Simin basically taking over the continent?
—Wow. How much more money is he going to make?
—I’m a priest, and just skimming the Temple’s money alone would literally let you buy like thirty buildings in real life.
Even without thinking too hard about Han Simin’s personality, if you imagined yourself in his shoes, your mind would automatically start racing with ideas about how much and in what ways you could milk this for all it was worth.
And it wasn’t as if this hadn’t already been proven in reality, not just in the ga.
—If he was already handling enough money to live off for life just by manipulating a single kingdom, how much would it be if he got the whole continent dancing in his hand?
And so, as this blew up into a massive issue, the viewer count in Kenji’s channel was rapidly dropping.
*
The underground prison beneath the Great Temple.
The Heavenly King and the upper-rank angels had been imprisoned.
And then, they had been left there.
He remained silent.
It wouldn’t have been strange if the interrogation had started imdiately.
After all, he was being mistaken for none other than the Demon King.
The Demon King had descended upon the continent.
They could have executed him on the spot without an interrogation.
Yet they were leaving him like this.
The neglect was more infuriating than the misunderstanding itself.
But there was nothing he could do.
“Husband!”
“Oh. You doing okay?”
“What on earth happened! I was worried sick!”
The princess who had once been cursed was nowhere to be seen. In her place was an Imperial Princess head over heels in love, her affection for him now second nature, and her attention was focused solely on Han Simin.
“Dad! Dad!”
“Yeah. You doing okay too, Hyegi? Looks like you’ve been doing great, spending that 300,000 Gold. Your skin looks better.”
The Saintess, too, had no interest in anyone but Han Simin.
And while he had been in the Demon World, Hyegi had unintentionally won over the people of the Great Temple, and even the Pope had ended up in their camp.
Right now, Hyegi was the one who had used the Heavenly Gate to rescue Han Simin, and at the Imperial Princess’s request, she had been granted full authority over the investigation.
The two won who were supposed to interrogate the Heavenly King, who was mistaken for the Demon King, were pouring all their attention into one man, so of course he was left alone.
Of course, the two of them were people who drew a clear line between public and private matters.
They did their jobs.
Their interest in Han Simin was important, but they were not neglecting their duties.
“Husband, I am sorry. But could you give us a more precise explanation of the circumstances?”
“Sure. Of course. I’ll explain everything from start to finish.”
The problem was that their “public duty” was starting to take on a different aning entirely.
*
The Princess had also heard a rough outline of Han Simin’s movents from the adventurers.
It was inconvenient that she had to hear it secondhand, but for her, that inconvenience was nothing compared to the benefit of knowing how he was doing.
If she offered rewards and asked, there were enough users lining up, eager to tell her, to circle the training field twice over. She had been able to gather that much information and maintain a fairly reliable picture of the situation.
’The Demon King was definitely a succubus...’
She knew everything she needed to know.
She hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, but she had heard it from the mouths of hundreds of adventurers.
Because the information ca from people with no connection to each other, it was all the more trustworthy.
And yet, that trust had just been shattered.
What the Princess was seeing in reality was the exact opposite.
The girl standing next to Han Simin.
“She’s the Heavenly King.”
He was saying that girl was the Heavenly King.
It was only natural for her to be confused.
“You trust , right?”
She remained silent.
She did trust him.
If she didn’t, she would never have co this far.
And Han Simin had no reason to lie to her.
To her, Han Simin was the savior of her life and, at the sa ti, the lover she intended to spend the rest of her life with.
But trust was trust, and as the future Emperor who would lead the next era of the continent, she couldn’t help but feel a flicker of doubt.
“But the other adventurers...”
She couldn’t help but be confused.
She hadn’t seen it herself.
In the end, what the adventurers said was, in fact, the words of third parties who had watched Han Simin’s journey.
So she decided to hear him out.
To hear it from his own mouth, and if it made sense, the Princess was ready to believe him at any ti.
Knowing that, Han Simin spoke with a serious expression.
“I’ll explain everything from start to finish, so listen carefully.”
In truth, the way he had turned the Heavenly King into the Demon King had been sothing he had blurted out on the spot, a slip of the tongue that had popped out before he even realized it.
He hadn’t had the slightest intention of doing that, and he had not even imagined that the Heavenly King would actually co to the continent.
Hadn’t Epia told him?
That both the Demon King and the Heavenly King might be annihilated if they went there.
The more soone had, the less they wanted to give it up.
And yet he had co.
And in order to survive, Han Simin had just thrown the line out.
He had thrown it out, and then, by a stroke of sheer luck, he had learned that the Heavenly King, like Epia, had lost his power.
Luck and quick thinking had overlapped to create an opportunity, and all that was left was to sell the story.
He had thoroughly prepared his script on the way to the Great Temple.
What remained was persuasion.
Han Simin was confident.
“I actually did it on purpose.”
She looked at him in confusion.
“It’s just how things work for adventurers. We resolve a crisis on the continent and get rewarded for it. But I got a secret quest from the Heavenly King, and if I shared it with the other adventurers, I’d be losing out. So I had no choice but to pretend I was on the Demon King’s side.”
“...Ah.”
“I’m sorry for being selfish.”
“No, no, not at all!”
He had his ultimate weapon.
A deeply bowed head.
A long sigh.
And a pained expression, as if he alone were carrying all the hardships of the world on his shoulders.
The Imperial Princess was startled by his performance.
Then she hurriedly pulled him into her arms.
“Of course I believe you. I believe you.”
“No, it’s all my fault.”
“No, it’s my fault for misunderstanding.”
The fact that the story made no logical sense whatsoever did not matter.
What mattered was that the trust between the two of them was absolute.
“Still, I’ll prove what I said.”
And Han Simin intended to seal the deal.
*
There was nothing special to it.
Even if the Imperial Princess hadn’t believed him, Han Simin had already prepared thoroughly to turn her heart around.
That was why he could confidently suggest a three-way confrontation.
The underground prison.
He went there with the Princess to see the Heavenly King, who had been shunned and left alone.
Epia ca along as well.
A strange tension filled the air.
“That woman is the Succubus Queen, and the current ruler of the Demon World. Don’t let her seduce you; listen to what I say.”
The Heavenly King was the first to break the silence.
Even though he was a prisoner, his voice was solemn.
His power had been sealed, but the dignity in his words was so great that even the Imperial Princess couldn’t easily dismiss them.
Anyone listening might have thought it was true.
On top of that, though his clothes were soaked in blood, there was sothing about them that felt similar to priestly vestnts.
You couldn’t identify it with certainty, but at the very least, they looked out of place on a demon.
Normally, when you listened to both sides, judgnt becos murky.
Because each side has its own position.
In the end, subjectivity would inevitably creep in.
Then an objective judgnt would be difficult, and the whole point of a three-way confrontation would be lost.
So Han Simin pulled out sothing else.
Objective evidence that would force them to believe him.
“Show them,” Han Simin said to Epia politely.
Hyegi, also known as Squeaker, stood behind Epia, dressed in Saintess robes, as if assisting her.
And Epia herself, now changed into holy vestnts and looking every bit the part of a divine angel—the very image of what one would expect the Heavenly King to be—reached into her bosom and took sothing out.
Along with it, a torrent of divine power poured forth.
He gasped.
The Heavenly King’s eyes widened.
A divine relic. That was what had just erged from Epia’s embrace.
*
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