“Well, well—looks like I’m late.”

Gill’s voice fell from the sky like a bell over a smoking plain, where embers of resistance still flickered and Daemons swarmed like ants.

He glanced toward the machine-gun nest, where a body lay like a spent shell; the figure stood out like a flag in ash.

“Eh… forget it—faces I don’t remember aren’t worth remembering,” he sighed, the words drifting like dust on a dry wind.

Boredom flattened his pulse like calm water; this field meant nothing. He had a Demon King to find, and people were pebbles beside a mountain.

His pupils slid, a hawk’s sweep over carrion, skimming the battlefield for a presence that felt like thunder bottled in a human shape.

“Oh? Is that you?”

His gaze locked onto a giant who loomed like a stone gate, a hair under nine feet, belly stacked with a ridiculous twenty-six-pack.

Explosive arms bulged like storm-lashed cables, eyes fierce as a starving wolf; no matter how you cut it, that screamed Demon King.

He canceled the spell that held him aloft; gravity caught him like a silent net, and he dropped, landing on a plumb line before the “Demon King.”

“Yo, Mister Demon King, how about a little talk?” His grin spread like spilled ink, smooth and insolent.

The “Demon King” looked at him, pale pupils flaring like struck tinder at the title, anger boiling up like a pot left unattended.

A trunk-thick arm came for Gill’s head like a falling log; the intent was simple and cold—crush the skull, end the noise.

Gill felt the murderous weight like a winter gust; mana pooled in his palm like quicksilver, and he hardened his grip by a notch.

His hand barely wrapped a single finger, like a ring on a pillar, but a grip is a grip when the tide turns.

He borrowed the incoming force like a reed borrows a flood, stepped back half a step, and yanked hard—returning strength with stolen strength.

Thud— the brute’s whole bulk slammed down, and the stonework cracked like ice under a boot, lines spidering outward.

Gill frowned, a wrinkle like a knife-cut; something felt off. He half-squatted like a back-alley punk and lifted the big man’s ear.

“Hey! You, show me your Demon King tricks! Looking down on me, are you?” His voice snapped like a whip.

The giant lay silent, like a bell with no clapper, yet cold sweat ran off his brow like rain from eaves—pure, raw fear.

Fear, huh… so the real Demon King’s nearby. The thought bloomed like a red flower, and pleasure lit his face like sunrise.

He set one foot on the fake king’s head and stomped; splat—like smashing a watermelon at a harvest feast.

“Look, Demon King—wherever you’re hiding. Don’t come out, and you’ll end up just like this,” he called, his taunt ringing like a gong.

Daemons who’d roamed aimless now fixed on Gill like crows on fresh meat; a few stepped, then froze, as if a cold signal knifed them.

Some even bolted, panic scattering them like leaves in a hard wind, and that reaction pleased Gill like a gambler seeing the right card.

“Hey—Demon King, right? Why’re you still tiptoeing? Don’t tell me you’re scared of just me—”

The line cut. A strange force pressed down from above like a mountain shadow, and his world flipped to stone and grit.

His forehead slammed the floor with a hard thud, pain ringing like struck iron, and dust blossomed under his breath.

“What’s with the noise? Brat, why so much yapping? Didn’t anyone teach you manners?” The angry voice cracked beside his ear like lightning.

Gill pushed up slow, pride bruised like a sore rib, and the first thing he saw was a delicate beauty—edges fine as carved jade.

“You… you—” The words stalled like a jammed bolt; for a heartbeat, his mind floated.

“You what? Weren’t you cocky? Come on, this lady’s right here!” Rafi’s glare cut like a blade, all fire and no patience.

For a brat with no manners, Rafi had no soft words; if he weren’t their king, she wouldn’t waste a breath, her temper hot as spice.

“You’re the Demon King?” His tone leveled like a blade’s spine, testing and wary.

Rafi answered with motion, not mouth; when soft fails, you go hard, like hammer after failed chisel.

She leaped, her fist crashing into Gill’s skull like a falling meteor, then landed and stomped his knee—crack—bending it backward like a snapped bow.

“Bastard!” The curse tore out like steam from a valve, anger searing and sure.

Doubt burned away like fog in sun; anyone who could hurt a body warded by magic like that had to be the Demon King.

He seized his warped knee and twisted it back with a wet click, expression calm as still water despite the pain’s knife-edge.

“I think we can still talk this out,” Gill said, voice smoothing like oiled wood; cooperation would speed his small plan like wind in sails.

“What is there to talk about?” Rafi’s reply was flat as a shut door, steel behind silk.

“So there’s no deal?” His eyes cooled like frost forming.

“Of course not.” Her smile curved like a blade, final and bright.

Gill felt his careful plans collapse like a sand tower in tide; this kid of a Demon King knew nothing of the bigger board.

A fatal slip at step one killed the rest like rot in the root; the taste of failure was bitter as old tea.

Still, solutions exist; grab the kid, break her in, then feed her into the plan—dirty work, straight path, storm cleared.

He fished inside his coat like a thief in a midnight stall; a cold gleam flashed in his eyes, hunter-bright.

“You’d better not regret it.” His voice dropped like a guillotine, promise heavy as rain.