1.

As always, this was what they called a bad ending.

A heavy silence hung in the air.

Han Simin looked over his party members, who were sprawled on the ground like routed soldiers. All the pets were there, too.

The Rabbits, Sudal, Kardian, Squeaker, Grokile, Aria, Epia, Han Yeori, and Specialists.

A strange mix of sentimentality and emptiness washed over him as he realized that, at some point, this had become a massive family.

’What a piece-of-shit game,’ he thought. ’We had this much firepower and still couldn’t even stop a few million players. BetaGo would take one look at this and laugh in my face.’

He counted the Rabbits and realized some were missing. It seemed a few of them hadn’t made it back from the battlefield.

Considering that Squeaker and Kardian had reverted from their dragon forms to their human ones to rejoin the fight, the losses were painful.

The plan had been simple: Han Simin would draw as much aggro as possible while the others conserved their strength to fight the forces targeting Rich Territory. That plan had gone up in smoke.

Sure, if they had fought longer and pushed harder, the results might have been a bit better, but it was meaningless now.

Fighting any longer would have meant feeding Squeaker gold out of his own pocket. It would have meant Kardian, whose power was currently restricted, transforming into her full adult form and getting focus-fired by every bit of firepower on the field.

He’d had to stop them. Besides, Simin had already drawn a line in the sand. Pushing beyond that line was pointless.

On top of that, things hadn’t gone the way he’d intended.

’Life really is garbage.’

From the start, the army’s objective had been to eliminate him and seize Rich Territory. If they had any brains at all, they would have wanted to take the territory intact and keep its profits, not grind it into dust. That was why he had unleashed the demons to draw their attention and personally appeared on the battlefield.

The idea was to make them forget all about Rich Territory. If, after all that chaos, they still chose to ignore the immediate danger to go after his land, then they were nothing but slaves to money.

But they hadn’t followed.

Well, some had followed, but not all of them. The humans bore a grudge against Simin for siding with the demons, but they still prioritized the demonic threat right in front of them.

In that case, he simply needed to bring the demons along with him.

“Epia, is there really no way? Not even a little?”

“No. Unless I go back to the Demon World and find another way here, it’ll be difficult.”

“Not even a tiny bit? You really can’t show any of your power as the Demon King?”

“I can’t.”

“How does that make any sense? There’s dark mana overflowing everywhere, and there are tens of thousands of demons here. Even if you can’t use dark mana, shouldn’t at least one of them recognize your face? Tell them all to get the hell out of here. At this rate, my territory is going to get blown to smithereens.”

“Hmm. I suppose I could do that,” Epia conceded.

“Then hurry up.”

“If the demons see me now, with my dark mana restricted, they’ll abandon the humans and rush me instead. Are you okay with that?”

Simin was at a loss for words.

That was the problem. It was exactly what Epia had warned him about, so he was rendered speechless.

Still, even if things hadn’t gone according to plan, Rich Territory would be safe for a while. He had piled up enough walls and magic circles, after all.

“Let’s find another way. Damn it.”

He had already seen on the community forums that another few million troops were gathering to kill the demons. And in those same threads, Han Simin was being painted as the villain of the century.

[Ah, got killed by Simin.]

[Wow. I was just surrounded by people, couldn’t see anything but the back of some guy’s head, then suddenly there was a flash and I got logged out.]

[LMAOOOOOOOO I was just zoning out watching Simin’s stream and then I watched myself die in the third person.]

[Seriously, he’s a merciless piece of trash.]

[Still, getting killed by Simin was kinda worth it.]

On top of that, a live broadcast of the siege had gone up, betraying the last bit of hope Simin had clung to.

[Breaking! Rich Territory’s been breached.]

[Holy shit, is Simin even human? How many magic circles did he plaster on that place?]

[The officially tallied casualties are already at 200,000.]

[And that’s with no real resistance, just the troops fighting the demons lol.]

“Are you okay?” Yeseul asked softly.

Simin remained silent.

Simin tried to force a smile, but the corners of his mouth refused to move. He had told himself over and over that it didn’t matter, and he had backed that up with his actions, but facing the reality that his territory—the first thing he had ever built with his own hands—was being taken by someone else was not something he could just shrug off.

For the first time in a long while, Han Simin’s expression hardened as he stood up.

“They’re dead.”

But no matter how tough he acted, the invaders who had entered Rich Territory did not withdraw their troops.

*

Kenji appeared then.

It was a few days later, while the kingdoms that had raised armies were arguing over how Rich Territory should be managed and debating how to deal with the remaining demons.

In a way, his timing was perfect. So perfect, in fact, that it made you wonder if he had been waiting in silence for this exact moment.

At the start of the war, all the unknown variables had been cleared off the board, and even the demons were slowly running out of steam. In that situation, Kenji unveiled a strategy that was blatantly aimed at minimizing his own losses while maximizing his gains. It was a transparent but excellent plan.

It was an idea that would have been impossible if everyone hadn’t already lost faith in Han Simin. Anyone could see this war was a race to be the first to arrive and stake their claim, taking everything. Even the Emperor himself wouldn’t have been able to avoid that struggle for dominance.

In that situation, Kenji had given up on a spot he couldn’t wedge himself into, no matter how strong he was. Instead, he had waited for the right time.

“As of this moment, the Kenji Guild will be joining the effort to eliminate Simin’s group and the demons who have caused such severe chaos on the continent,” he announced. “Previously, many kingdoms stepped up in the Temple’s stead to attack Rich Territory, and there were many political factors involved, so we did not directly intervene. However, now that a Gate to the Demon World has been summoned, His Majesty the Heavenly King has judged that he can no longer simply watch. On his behalf, we will carry out the sentence.”

His justification was plausible enough. From the beginning, people had been asking why Kenji, who had suffered the most at Han Simin’s hands, wasn’t the first to attack and was instead just running raids and farming items.

’Maybe they had some kind of deal.’

’Maybe they had been colluding from the start.’

’Maybe Han Simin had helped him get to the Celestial Realm in the first place.’

This was his chance to put all those plausible-sounding rumors and speculations to rest. With Rich Territory fallen, Han Simin turning off his stream and vanishing, and Kenji stepping forward to take his place, it was only natural that all eyes would turn to him.

Above all, Kenji was strong.

Even before, among the once-despised adventurers, he had been one of the stronger ones, having built up a power base and commanded NPCs. Now, after going to the Celestial Realm, receiving a Legendary-grade class, and returning with the Heavenly King’s power, he had become someone even NPCs could not ignore. On top of that, the market was flooded with high-end gear, allowing him to flaunt his wealth to the fullest.

’If he had gotten his gear enhanced, it would’ve been perfect,’ Simin thought, relaxed enough to make such a comment.

And Kenji proved it wasn’t just empty bravado by stepping onto the battlefield himself.

If the short, one-hour impact Han Simin had shown over the first week of the war had set the tone, then everything that followed belonged to Kenji.

Kenji didn’t hit hard and fast before disappearing like Simin. He didn’t need to face millions of enemies alone, nor was his party limited to a few dozen members. His guild, the priests and paladins of the Great Temple, and the existing armies were all on his side.

His enemies were few in number but extremely powerful: the demons. And dealing with them was a job perfectly tailored to the new Pope, who held a Legendary-grade class.

As always, when you have a hard counter, the damage dealt is on a completely different level.

The crowd roared.

"A demon’s dead!"

"Holy crap. It usually takes a few hundred people dying just to bring down one of those things."

"That’s our Pope!"

The cheers echoed across the battlefield.

The previous Pope still existed, of course, but a new one had been chosen by the Heavenly King. The former Pope had been thrown into the Temple’s underground prison for the sole crime of choosing the Demon King and the Saintess as allies.

The Pope had changed overnight, yet no one felt the slightest awkwardness as they cheered. The divine power pouring from Kenji’s entire body left no room for nostalgia; it simply moved people.

The demons began to be swept away helplessly.

Of course, Kenji was still lacking in level and didn’t yet have everything he needed to wipe out the demons entirely. However, the demons had already been fighting for over a week and were starting to tire. Kenji’s seasoned ability to slip between the wounded demons and apply just enough force to break the balance, combined with the continent’s all-out offensive and the arrival of fresh troops, was overwhelming.

After that, well, if someone spoon-feeds you and you still can’t eat, that’s your own fault.

Kenji was no such idiot.

The spotlight, which had been on Han Simin—the villain who had shown incredible feats before vanishing—shifted to Kenji.

The war between the two top players’ fanbases raged on.

—This is just temporary lol. Once Simin comes back, it’s over.

—There’s no way he’s just gonna sit still after they stole his stuff.

—I’m curious how he’s gonna flip the table this time.

—I’d pay another $500 to watch, easy. Please come back, Simin.

Those were the reactions from the Han Simin fans who had sprung up in the meantime, but Kenji’s supporters were just as vocal.

—Tsk tsk, serves him right. What else can he do? The guy’s a one-trick pony who just got lucky. Kenji’s ability to strategize is on another level.

—Even if he comes back, what can he do? He’s been exiled from the continent.

After Rich Territory fell, Han Simin had vanished without a trace. Kenji, meanwhile, was solidifying his position by protecting the continent from the demons. With the demons pushed back and scattered, a peace of sorts had returned to the land after several months of bloodshed.

2.

Just as they had with the dark mages, the people of the continent began to hunt down the scattered demons. The difference was that they couldn’t pursue them recklessly. A few dark mages could be handled by a pursuit squad, but the same wasn’t true for the demons. This made things much more complicated.

Still, the atmosphere was different from when millions had charged to their deaths. There was a sense of vitality, of burgeoning hope.

Kenji’s announcement was likely the biggest reason for this shift.

"The Demon World is currently in the process of being conquered by the Heavenly King and the Celestials. If we can eliminate the demons on the continent, we will never have to fear their threat again."

For tens of thousands of years, the continent had never known a moment of safety from the demonic threat. They had lived with the constant anxiety that demons could invade at any time or might already be hiding among them.

But not anymore. They could finally be free.

Although the danger remained for now, if they endured, they could ensure that for future generations, demons would be nothing more than creatures to laugh at in fairy tales. And so, they fought on, all the harder, for the sake of the fallen.

Then, like a welcome rain after a drought, a message appeared for the users.

[Main Quest Completed.]