What are demon? Demons are, for humans, selfish creatures who seek violence and wreak havoc to all they touch. Demons represent everything that’s bad in the world, the human fault doesn’t exist, only demons that have so much time under their hands to manipulate the mind of the weak, to encourage them to sin for them to go down in hell. Sometimes, people remember that demons were once angels, sometimes they even go as far as to say demons were protecting a lower part of a hash world.

There was some truth in those statements. After all, it was indeed a hash world, where the sun was beneath us and our capacity to adapt was crucial. Cold didn’t exist in this world, only a burning excruciating heat that only our hardened body could support, now as much live. We were all surviving here and helping each other out didn’t really work in those conditions. You should try kindness, when you are at the lowest point, where every fiber wants you to breathe, to get out, to drink or feel anything other than pain, to be complacent, to have empathy, to not let your body numb your feelings of compassion, of anything. The eternity of suffering for a new project of the one above all that couldn’t make mistakes and offered trials to strengthen the bond. What first came to a blessing of them, a gift bestowed upon a selected few quickly became an insufferable poison, all of it to punish humans that couldn’t follow their cryptic rules. Yet, everyone was suffering together before the project of the new life began, the real problem began when they came to us.

Human’s soul lowered the temperature, giving us a nice break. But giving one piece of meat to a horde of starving beasts is doom to end in a massacre. This is where factions started, legions separated in 666 came to life. The weak and greedy were thrown into the lake of lost souls, everyone wanted their piece of land, dominating it to get closer to the cooler air as much as possible and it was, for the most of it, a blood bath. I wasn’t proud of myself, but someone had to do something before no demons would be left to keep the souls inside their punishment chamber. They were tricky creatures, bargaining, manipulating and slithering around as soon as our backs were turned, they even found cracks to their world we never encountered ourselves. Yet, when that fact came to my ear, in fear of receiving worse punishment from the one who abandoned us, I took action.

Decimating as low people as I could, I gathered a little troop of loyal people to the cause and together we reunited the land by a firm and violent hand: me. I retrieved every last soul I could get and separated it evenly around, created a chart for upcoming souls, having them sorted by name and place they had to go. Taking care of the people that help me, I nominated them generals and have the land have a few more souls to be more able to interrogate them. With some organization and a bit less burning sensations, it was a lot easier to focus and build a society based on optimizing the ‘’gift’’ of god. I made the rift secured and guarded. I did so much that time went so fast. If I were mortal, I would be dead millenia ago. So I guess I didn’t properly introduce myself to the world as much as I thought I did. Even if I was the king of the underworld, and my work was renowned and even feared, they never, for the most part, saw my face. Wish made a funny situation.

I got out of my cave to enjoy quietly the landscape, sighting as I thought of taking myself up for a stroll, looking at the nice architecture they were able to build, looking back at all the danger we faced and the work that was always in progress, but the conditions were getting better as more and more people came here and the space began to lower at a nice 60 degree. The air was finally breathable, the world could work and share and even if it wasn’t as pleasant for other lands, we weren’t struggling as much and only greed were stopping us to achieve greater accomplishment and truly make this place feel like a home some of us once longed for.

I watch, to a piece of something we managed to grow after centuries, a leisurely I was happy to see shared with more common people. It was great, yes, we all really did a great job.

- What are you doing as an intern, in THAT attire? Go put this and change quickly, we need to be ready to serve the demon king!

I got thrown some military garments, which granted me some fond memories and accepted the offer. After all, when have I taken a real break since? This could be fun. I executed myself quickly, but my amused smile wasn’t pleasing my ‘’general.’’

- Why are you so happy to recruit? Don’t you know who you’re working for?

- The demon king? I thought he was quite lenient.

The minor general laughed out loud and put a hand on my shoulder in a compassionate manner which made one of my eyebrows raise.

- Didn’t they tell you anything at the training camp? The legend of the bloodthirsty demon king? Let’s just say if you screw up, even a minor fault could get you centuries of torture, or even an eternity in the lake of lost souls.

I pretended to be frightened as I looked right into the eyes of the general. I can understand why Belzebuth or Amon could have spread those rumors about me to keep everyone in check, but the reality was far less thrilling. I just like to talk and know different opinion, I wouldn’t torture anyone if it wasn’t for crucial reason, the lies were… cute and I couldn’t help but decide to play a bit with it.

- Oh no! I am so sorry, because of me you had to bad mouth him in his own castle!

The general turned a bit red and squeezed my shoulder a bit harder. This was a way to… threaten me I think and I hardly retained my composure towards this. But he soon screamed some order toward me that I tried to execute. I kind of like having a new perspective, and this was something I’ve never done before. It has been a while since I’ve done some physical work. Most of the time I am trapped inside my chamber, writing, approving, listening to the same five people or the casual use of magic to obtain some books to far to reach, now I had to put bag after bag of heavy metal like part, then grains, then it was transporting some souls, then, the most shocking, was to accompany beautiful demons toward another room, which cough my attention, how could it not?

- Is it for the King?

- Who else could it be for? I told you, the king is a beast, but at least he has taste.

- I don’t- … I have to go, I’ll be right back.