30 Years After Reincarnating, It Turns Out This World Was A Rofan?! novel Chapter 70

The creature before them looked, at a glance, like a troll.

Its appearance and body structure bore a resemblance to the stone trolls that the cadets had battled earlier, suggesting that calling this creature a troll wouldn’t be incorrect.

However...

‘Could a troll of that size even exist?’

It was nearly five times the size of a typical troll, perhaps even larger. Its skin was a dark, blood-like red, and instead of the usual rocky texture of troll skin, it was covered in scales resembling those of a snake.

A massive build, black-and-red-scaled skin, and on top of that...

[[GRRR....]]

A chill ran down their spines.

Its eyes were completely red, as if filled with blood.

“H-hah...”

The wizard managed to resist the aura it emitted, but his legs were trembling uncontrollably out of sheer terror.

And he recalled something.

‘R-right, I... I know what that is....’

He remembered an ancient document he had once read in his master’s library, a tome filled with various myths and legends, including one about a nightmare creature.

“The Demon King...”

A troll.

No, calling it a mere troll would be an understatement. Just speaking its title made him shiver.

With a rush of water, the creature began to rise from the lake.

It was a large, deep lake, but the creature’s body was only half-submerged. As it lifted itself, water flowed off its arms like a flood, creating waves in its wake. The creature moved as though the water provided no resistance at all. Observing it, the wizard found himself retreating step by step.

“The Demon King?”

The knight turned toward the trembling wizard, asking if he knew what it was.

A king...

“A grandiose title for a troll,” he said.

“D-don’t be foolish! The Demon King is no ordinary troll!” the wizard stammered.

While calling such a creature “king” seemed absurd, given what the Demon King was capable of, the wizard’s terror made sense.

“We need to run! Th-that creature isn’t just some monster! It’s the Demon King, the thousand-year-old troll!”

“...?”

“A troll champion that devours ogres, a creature with immortal strength! The kingdom killer!”

About a thousand years ago, there was an incident where a kingdom far more prosperous than Pendragon was annihilated overnight. Since the event existed only in ancient records, nobody knew if it was true, but as artifacts from the fallen kingdom surfaced over time, that record became widely accepted as fact. It was said that the destruction of the kingdom in a single night was caused by none other than...

“A single troll...”

A lone monster was responsible for the disaster.

But it wasn’t just any troll.

A troll that had lived for a thousand years.

As ancient forests, lakes, winds, and volcanoes gain a spiritual presence over time, so, too, had this troll, surviving for a millennium to become a calamity beyond the human understanding of a monster.

“A being that evolved through the mysteries of a thousand years, the king of all trolls and the peak of monsters... that’s what it is.”

Black-scaled skin. A body over twenty times the size of a typical troll. Immortality, with a regenerative power unmatched by sword, fire, magic, or any weapon.

The Demon King.

It could rightly be called a “Devil King,” but it had earned the title “Demon King” for its resemblance to a malevolent spirit. It was a natural disaster in living form, something humanity had no business confronting.

“We need to run, now! Before it’s too late...!”

The wizard’s terror was purely instinctual, a survival mechanism for any living being.

But the knight, having heard everything, simply remarked,

“Twenty times? It doesn’t look like more than five times to me.”

The knight’s indifferent expression wasn’t because he was ignoring or dismissing the wizard’s warning. It wasn’t because he underestimated the creature.

It was simply because, to him... freewebnøvel.coɱ

‘It doesn’t seem that powerful.’

Despite the elaborate description, he saw nothing that looked capable of destroying a kingdom.

While the wizard trembled with fear, the knight narrowed his eyes, sizing up his [enemy].

The knight asked calmly, “It’s larger than an average troll, sure, but doesn’t it seem smaller than the stories suggest?”

“I-I suspect it’s malnourished,” the wizard replied. “The Demon King supposedly spends centuries in hibernation at the far reaches of the continent, where humans never tread. Maintaining such a large body must be inefficient, so it likely remains in hibernation. And now, the Demon King has been forcefully summoned, interrupting its rest. That means...”

[[─GAAAA!!!]]

“...it’s furious from being woken up without enough rest and experiencing severe hunger due to the stress of its interrupted sleep.”

The wizard’s analysis was logical. As a wizard, interpreting the world through magic was his specialty.

And if the wizard’s assessment was correct, it meant the troll required a massive amount of sustenance to regain its strength—and that sustenance would likely come from...

“So, it may have a grand title, but it’s just a troll in the end.”

All monsters ate humans, but trolls, known as flesh-eating fiends, had a particular penchant for them.

“We... we’re all going to be eaten...”

The wizard’s mind, whether he wanted it to or not, calculated the number of humans the Demon King would need to consume to regain its full strength, based on the ancient records.

And the conclusion?

‘The entire capital’s population—!’

The moment that creature escaped the lake, nothing would remain of the city.

“It’s over... the Demon King... a legendary Demon King...”

The wizard was overcome with despair, his quick-thinking mind already accepting the futility of victory.

Unable to summon his magic, he had lost the will to fight.

...But the knight remained unmoved.

“So, it’s incredibly weakened?”

“...?”

“Well, that’s all I needed to know.”

Ignoring the wizard’s despair, the knight walked toward the lake confidently, downing five potions at once and jabbing another syringe directly into his leg.

Crunch!

Normally, the recommended daily potion dosage was two. Exceeding that would cause symptoms of addiction and hallucinations, but the knight didn’t care. Now was not the time to worry about side effects.

Luckily, his body contained troll blood, which would minimize the adverse effects.

In fact...

“Phew, finally, I feel a bit alive.”

The effects were almost too good.

Crack, crack.

He felt his body grow lighter, achieving a forced awakening effect. His broken and battered legs healed, and his skin began to regenerate.

His blood supply was somewhat replenished, and with that, he concluded,

“A troll is still just a troll.”

[[Grrr-!!]]

The Demon King did not understand human language. It couldn’t comprehend what the knight was saying, but one thing became clear.

The Demon King’s sensitive nose caught a scent.

“Oh, this potion? It’s made from your kin’s blood. How’s that? Though I’ll admit, it’s only 30% concentrated—disappointing, right?”

The scent of his own kin on the wind.

Clink.

BAM!

Crunch!

BOOM!