Chapter 16

Ben, who had lived his entire life in a small town, raised his head to the point where his neck was broken and he looked at the Demon King’s Castle.

The Demon King and the Hero were a combination that seemed fitting but did not fit together. Usually, when a hero killed a demon lord, he returned to the capital without looking back.

Ben immediately asked if his righteous indignation had been heard.

“Why is he still here?”

“I don’t know. He must have a reason.”

He hesitated and opened the main entrance of the Demon King’s Castle. He seemed to have no intention of running away and came in after me. After entering the spacious garden, he walked inside first.

“…?”

At that time, he noticed something and narrowed his eyebrows and glared back, causing Ben to tremble. Where had his confidence gone when he walked around the garden confidently earlier? He was weaker than he looked.

“Why, why? What’s behind it?”

He took out his favorite frying pan from his bag and held it tightly in his hand.

“Tell me quickly! I’ll hit you right away without even looking.”

“No, nothing. Brother, calm down.”

Feeling a little relieved, Ben relaxed his tense, tired shoulders.

Ben let him in first and closed the rest of the room behind himself.

“Be quiet and follow me.”

Abraxas shrugged his shoulders wordlessly. If he surprised Ben like he did me before…

‘It’s scary to even imagine.’

He probably fainted on the spot. He still says it’s scary, but it was lucky that he arrived on the potato before he even met Abraxas.

“Eve…”

“Yeah, I’ll go!”

Ben, who seemed to have relaxed all of a sudden, looked around him. There was no sign of him, but there was one problem.

“Why is the Demon King’s Castle so dirty?”

“Because the devil lives here?”

“I see.”

Behind him, Abraxas looked like he wanted to say something, but he sternly warned him not to show himself in front of Ben, so he crouched behind the pillar. It was a mess because the hero and the demon king were fighting each other, but it was the time of the demon king.

“But there’s no way there isn’t any material in the castle, so why do you have to bring it so heavily?”

He smiled softly. Because there weren’t actually any ingredients. There were only a few ingredients left after going out to the village and the warrior ate them raw.

He ate it raw or picked up old bread and ate it. Because he couldn’t explain in detail the story that couldn’t be told without tears, he just blurted out his words.

“I threw away all the old food ingredients to make a fresh start.”

“I see. But why are you taking the cooking utensils again?”

“I threw it all away to make a fresh start.”

Kitchen tools didn’t even exist in the first place. There was no way the Demon King would cook and eat, but it was half a year ago that he was killed. The hero had not cooked or eaten anything in the Demon King’s Castle for half a year.

‘I definitely know how to cook…’

The problem was that he didn’t have to do it. If he could eat it raw, just eat it. If not, just roughly boil it. It was more like cooking to survive rather than cooking.

‘I’ll raise you a little more preciously’.

He thought that if he died anyway, he just had to reset it, so he raised it to hard mode. Faced with his past mistakes of raising him to be a warrior who slept well on the ground and ate well, he ripped out his head without anyone noticing.

“Oh, can you cook right away?”

“Huh?! Right? I’m not mentally ready yet!”

But just because it’s busy at one o’clock, if he got hungry again, he wouldn’t threaten Abraxas to pick up the bread he threw away and eat it. When he looked at him with a coy smile, Ben unpacked his luggage and started making food.

There was a warm and delicious smell that I had never felt inside the Demon King’s Castle.

* * *

“Hello, warrior!”

Ben stiffened and shouted loudly. He explained it further from the side.

“This is the cook I said I would bring.”

“My name is Ben!”

Adam looked at Ben next to him and narrowed his eyes. Then he said as if he was surprised.

“Already? It doesn’t seem like it’s been long since I left.”

“Thanks for the potatoes!”

When the name of potato came up, Ben frowned. Adam, who was quietly looking at him, shook his head when he shrugged his shoulders.

“That’s worth knowing.”

What did that mean? When he protested with his eyes, Adam quickly changed the subject.

“Have you already made food?”

“Yes! I told you to cook it first so you can taste it. I thought you might be hungry because I took the bread you were eating, so I brought it right away.”

Ben, very nervous, stood in front of Adam, pushing the trolley he had gotten from somewhere. The potato soup in the white bowl gave off a hint of warm steam. It looked delicious at first glance, but Adam’s expression was cautious when he saw it. Adam took a look at Iberis and Ben, who was holding Limo nervously behind him, and took a bite of the soup.

Adam’s eyes widened.

“Of all the dishes I’ve ever eaten…”

Then he spoke in the most reminiscent voice he had ever heard.

“It’s the most delicious.”

“Keuuu, did you see, I’m like this!”

At that moment, Ben’s nose rose as if it could pierce the devil’s castle. His cooking was recognized by that warrior! Today should be designated as an anniversary!

While Ben, behind him, was trembling and dropping to his knees and feeling emotional, he resolutely refuted the warrior’s words.

“That’s right, what you’ve been eating so far wasn’t cooking, but raw food ingredients themselves. How good is it to eat like this?”

“That also created a wall… No. Let me correct you. It would be rude to compare this dish to this.”

Gorum, gorum!

How nice it was to eat so well.

Ben shrugged at his repeated compliments and stormed out of the room, saying he would make more food. When was the last time he was so full of heat? There has never been one.

When he saw him flying around like a fish out of water, he thought it was a good idea to bring him in. He said, sitting down in front of Adam, who was moving the spoon with a clatter.

“I looked at several places, and the inside of the Demon King’s Castle is still clean. Oh, of course, except for the study and the housekeeper’s room where the warrior lives.”

He looked around blatantly. Just like Adam said, even though it hadn’t been long since they left, it’s filled with books they had never seen before. What on earth was he trying to find?

Adam, who must have noticed the gaze, cleared his throat and made an excuse.

“I need some literature to look up, so I brought it. In particular, the Demon King’s study is a bit…”

“It must be very dirty.”

“Yes.”

After looking around the rooms of the Demon King’s castle, it seems that the Demon King was a collector. Various belongings were collected in each room. One room was full of ceramics, and another was full of jewelry. A huge amount of items that would have been difficult to collect in a short period of time were categorized according to the theme of the room.

In his view, it was closer to collecting things rather than organizing them. He heard that gems of different hardness should be stored separately, but they were placed in a box haphazardly. There were dozens of such boxes. And many of the books in the study seemed to be part of the Demon King’s collection.

How did they collect so much?

Just as there were warriors throughout history, there must have been several demon kings until now.

‘Either we had the same taste or not…’

At that time, Adam put the cleaned plate aside and grabbed the book next to him and read it. Seeing as there was no order, it seemed like I was reading at random.

“What book are you looking at like that? Aren’t there books like that in temples and other places?”

“These were books that could not be found anywhere else. They were gathered together as heresy and burned.”

“Omg.”

But why was he reading these heretical books? He was itching to ask, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

“Does it matter much?”

However, he could not contain his curiosity and spoke back. However, Adam, who was immersed in the contents of the book, seemed to have not heard anything, but his expression remained stern. It was my first time seeing a face like that. Is it something that comes out inadvertently when you are concentrating on something else?

“Hero?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just interested.”

The books he read with a serious expression were placed separately on the desk. He wondered what was different, but to his eyes, the content was similar.

“Hmm.”

Pretending not to be interested, he secretly rolled his eyes and scanned the title of the book.

‘<The end of a certain warrior>? Is it like a fairy tale book?’

 

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Translator Note: