This time, I won't be the devil.

"If I wanted to, I could certainly provide these slaves with ample food and clothing, but what would that do?"

"I have millions of rupees and a shipping company, but what does that mean?"

"Throughout the Great Crusade, tens of thousands of elite soldiers died in battle, hundreds of thousands of civilians and menial servants perished on the front lines, and millions perished from famine. And during the 300-year-long Holy War, the human toll was incalculable."

"All my wealth combined wouldn't even cover the cost of a single day of war. Even if I helped these people, it wouldn't make any sense."

"But fairy tales say that a righteous hero will help those who are suffering, and in the end, he will destroy the evil demon king, allowing everyone to live a happy life."

"Dad, aren't you a brave man?" When reading fairy tales, Ivan always associates the image of a brave man with his father who takes good care of him.

But my father shook his head and said:

"Ivan, remember, we are businessmen."

"Kindness and compassion are the virtues of the brave, but we businessmen do not need such virtues. It is precisely because we are willing to do anything for profit that we can win the competition with other humans and stand above everyone else."

"The war between humans and demons is the same. If you want to defeat the demons, you must transform yourself into a demon. These people are just necessary sacrifices to achieve victory."

Looking at his father in front of him, Ivan suddenly felt very strange and couldn't help but shed tears.

Facing his crying son, the father finally softened his heart and comforted him in a coaxing tone:

"Ivan, this isn't your fault. You don't need to feel guilty. Their suffering is all caused by the demons..."

Before returning to the port that night, the bodies of the dead slaves were thrown into the sea like garbage. Looking at the blue moon rising from the black sea, Ivan felt that this was the end of the world.

In the days that followed, those eyes in the oil often appeared in Ivan's dreams.

Looking back now, the reason why his father took Ivan to see the boatman was probably to let him develop a thick-skinned character from an early age and become a qualified businessman.

But his father miscalculated. After witnessing the suffering of the slaves, Ivan's young mind did not become numb, but instead gave birth to an ignorant wish.

"I want to save them."

After this thought came to his mind, Ivan couldn't help but feel ecstatic.

It feels beautiful and wonderful to regard oneself as a savior.

In this way, Ivan continued to enjoy a life of luxury while thinking about how to save the weak.

In the following years, although reluctant, he learned a lot of knowledge related to business and human resources management under the influence of his father.

Their company's main business is to sell the hungry refugees from the Theocracy to the Free Cities and the Terra Federation to work as laborers.

Time and again he saw refugees board ships full of hope and then be transported to hell.

Ivan had helped these refugees many times. He even secretly participated in the workers' movement organization of the Free City. Relying on his wealth, he once became a leader.

Until one day, one of the workers and refugees he helped reported him to the local government for a reward.

His father spent a lot of money to get him out of prison, and then deprived Ivan of the right to interfere in the company's business and put him under house arrest.

After being betrayed, Ivan fell into confusion. He realized that simply helping the weak could not save the world.

In a trance, he recalled what his father once said to him:

"Their suffering is all caused by the demons..."

Since all the suffering is caused by the demons, then I will destroy the demons!

Later, as stability was restored within the Theocracy and a maritime ban was implemented, the slave transport business became unsustainable, so my father switched to cargo transportation and began transporting and reselling goods between the Free City-State and Bondolium, a newly built artificial island of the Terra Federation.

Three years ago, his father's cargo ship sank in a storm after leaving Bondolim.

As the first heir, Ivan received most of his father's property.

Ivan was already 30 years old at this time. The long period of house arrest did not erase his dream, but made him more determined.

He wants to use the wealth in his hands to join the holy war against the demons.

Now, he is no longer the child with only sympathy. He understands why the old Pope was willing to cause famine in the Theocracy in order to launch the Great Expedition.

The Church's approach is correct. If the demons are not eliminated, humanity will have no future.

The opportunity to fight the demons soon came. At the beginning of 999 in the Aiden calendar, the Church began to form a human coalition to follow the new hero to attack the demon territory.

Ivan then organized a mercenary force at his own expense and joined the coalition forces to fight deep into the demon territory.

While other human coalition forces were still shrinking back, Ivan had already led his troops to attack proactively.

For the future of mankind, he is willing to sacrifice his life!

However, his mercenaries did not think so, and they were unwilling to carry out Ivan's orders.

After coming into contact with the demon army, the mercenaries left him as bait and escaped.

In this way, Ivan became a captive of the demons.

Ivan was so scared after falling into the hands of the demons that he even wanted to commit suicide at one point.

But what awaited him was not the torture and interrogation he had imagined.

"It's rare to meet someone who can read. The humans in this cell will be handed over to you for management." The masked and shriveled demon king, the undead Hakimi, said to him.

"Let me think about it. According to the Geneva Convention, your treatment is as follows..."

Looking at the treaty handed over by the Demon King, Ivan was shocked.

"Is this...is this really the treatment given to prisoners?"

"At least that's what I think." The devil said, scratching his head.

He acted as if he was not familiar with this world yet.

"You need to work eight hours a day. If anyone gets sick, remember to tell me. If all of you die, it will be very difficult for me."

"By the way, besides you, there are other humans imprisoned in other places, so if a stranger appears among the prisoners one day, such as a handsome black-haired man, don't be surprised."

The Demon King gave the captives unimaginable preferential treatment.

At first, Ivan suspected that the devil wanted to win people's hearts and was actually plotting something secretly.

But in the nearly 10 days that followed, he discovered that the Demon King truly regarded them as equals to himself.

Especially when he performed magic tricks and sang nursery rhymes for the children, it was impossible that he was acting.

This huge contrast made Ivan confused. The days in the Demon King's City were like a dream.

Until the brave man reached the demon king's castle.

"Lord Demon King, why don't you tell humans the truth? If humans knew that you were such a great and kind leader, then humans and demons would definitely be able to reconcile!" Ivan pleaded anxiously during their last meeting.

"Humans will not believe that the Demon King is a good person. Or rather, the rulers of humanity will not allow their people to believe it."

Hearing this, Ivan suddenly realized that if he had not seen the Demon King with his own eyes, he would not have changed the idea that "everything is the fault of the demons" that had been instilled in his mind since childhood.

"Ivan, if I lose this battle, these prisoners will be handed over to you. Protect them for me."

After saying this, Demon King Hakimi left the underground cell and headed to the place of the decisive battle with the hero.

……

There were about 500 human captives in the Demon King's Castle. Just as the Demon King had said, there were indeed quite a few guys among them that Ivan had never seen before.

Especially a black-haired man named Frey. Every time Ivan saw him, he felt both familiar and unfamiliar.

Before returning to human territory, they were temporarily taken in by the coalition forces.

Looking at the soldiers celebrating their victory in the barracks, Ivan fell into deep confusion.

If the Demon King is just, then what does it matter if the humans who destroyed him matter?

Everything that had supported Ivan's worldview over the past 30 years collapsed at this moment.

On the night when the demon representatives signed the surrender treaty with the coalition forces, a masked demon found Ivan, who had been in charge of human prisoners, and gave him a ring and a treasure bag.

"This is the Ring of Plenty. It can consume a portion of your life to temporarily gain a little of the Mother Goddess's power."

"As for the treasure bag, when you have completely lost hope in humanity, open it."

In order to prevent these two items from being discovered during a body search, the devil also taught Ivan the ability to hide things inside his body.

At that time, Ivan just passively accepted all this, and he was not prepared to betray humanity.

Until they returned to the Theocracy.

As a hero who organized an army at his own expense to participate in the holy war, what awaited Ivan was not honor and praise.

After more than four months of ideological education, Ivan did not even have the money to return to the Free City because the resettlement fee given by the Holy See was pitifully small.

During his stay in the Vatican, Ivan learned that after he was abandoned in the Demon Territory, several of his distant relatives had divided up all his property.

Now that Ivan was lucky enough to survive, the inheritance that was originally taken away from him naturally had to be returned. Several relatives also wrote to him, asking him to find the local Chamber of Commerce after leaving the Vatican.

The Chamber of Commerce said it would prepare a carriage for Ivan to take him home, but that night, Ivan was assassinated.

Naturally, several relatives were unwilling to return the property to Ivan, as they had already set a trap.

If it weren't for the ring that could burn life, Ivan would have died.

At this point, Ivan definitely can't go back home, and can only stay in the Theocracy.

After that, the once rich young man lived a life like a homeless person.

In the process, he saw the disbanded soldiers, laid-off workers and the clergy in the church who sang praises to the Pope and the grace of God.

He saw a little match girl who starved to death under the portrait of Carol, the fairy tale writer.

Even if the Demon King is eliminated, what awaits mankind is not a happy life. After losing the external enemies, the situation of the lower class people becomes even more difficult.

As a result, no matter when or where, human beings have never changed.

The difference is that now Ivan no longer sympathizes with the suffering of others.

He finally understood that even if he saved one person, ten people, a hundred people, or even ten million people, as long as the essence of human beings did not change, history would continue to repeat itself, and in the end, everything would be meaningless.

To fundamentally change humanity, we must rely on forces beyond humanity.

After figuring everything out, Ivan opened the treasure bag.

That night, the eyes of the boatmen in the dream disappeared, and were replaced by the clown's laughter.

Ivan gained a skill and learned of the plan to destroy the Wind God's Wall at the Wind Feather Festival and let Bondorim be destroyed by the storm.

According to the Masked Demon, if enough chaos is created, the power of the God of Chaos and Pleasure can be strengthened.

The Demon King is the container of the power of the Three Pillars of God. As long as the evil god can be strengthened, the Demon King can be resurrected.