The chill of Death.

—Vincent de Montfort POV—Location: Kingdom of Aldoria, southwest island to the Devil's lair.—

"That Lucifer has permanently incarnated to the central world, Lord Vincent. Won't that affect our trade if he decides to claim the seas around him as his?" A chubby man voiced his question, a stupid one to be honest.

"Even if he did, we have perfect land options like the Holy Ruberian empire to transport our goods, Minister Alexander." Fool, how could such a brainless creature be human even?

"Ah! Ahahaha." Seeing him laugh with his hand scratching his head like an idiot pisses me off. I should've killed him when I had the chance. Now I will have to put up with this idiot of a minister.

My name is Vincent de Montfort, and I'm from a small merchant family who was banished from the main continent due to my ancestors mistake, currently based on the kingdom of Aldoria.

Kingdom of Aldoria is located on an island southwest of the big island currently claimed by the Demon Lucifer, dubbed the Devil's lair by the human nations. The kingdom of Aldoria had tried to relocate to that island years ago, but talks of there being powerful monsters began to spread, and the Aldorian royal family stopped their ambitions.

Currently, we are in a meeting about rerouting the goods via the southwest from our island instead of going northeast, where the demonic island of Lucifer can attack our shipments. Even though we all know that if that demon decides to capture this worthless island, he could do it in a snap.

Our land is too small to be of any worth to him. That much I understood when he made no attempt even after a week of claiming that island. I am not surprised. Our island is only 1,000,000 foot steps in size. (500 miles)

That island must be at least a hundred times larger than ours.

But still, we need to be alert at all times. I heard that the first thing he did after his summoning to the central world was to destroy the Kingdom of Firewood. It had a much larger military and land area than ours, and it was annihilated by one demon.

Demons are whimsical by nature. There's no telling what a demon would do; they are unpredictable and dangerous.

"We should just send our goods to the Mistharbor of the Ruberian Empire and be done with the route we are currently using. It is too close to the demon's territory," the man next to the minister spoke with worry and bitterness. Marcus, the man, had sharp eyes and an equally sharp jawline, with a small stubble and dark brown hair. He's 6 feet tall and lean.

I can understand his feeling. The Mistharbor port has tolls to dock there, and it's not that affordable in our current conditions. We only sell drugs anyway, medicinal and pleasure-inducing ones.

The high nobility of Farmus and various western nations use the drugs made by the Kingdom of Aldoria. Even a pinch of this high quality of drug costs 10 silvers, which is more than enough for our kingdom. We sell ten large sacks per month.

The kingdom of Farmus has some very foolish people as well. They tried to reverse engineer the product and even attempted to invade us. However, since we had very strong water and wind magic users, their battalion of ground troops was defeated by storms.

Since they didn't want to further damage our relationship, they've been keeping quiet for a while.

"That would be for the best, Minister Alexander. Even though it would bring us less money than before, we can't afford to believe that the demon would remain quiet after seeing our ships pass through the sea around his island," I said with some pressure in my voice. I had developed an art of my own—I could coat my voice with my limited magicule reserves and suggest 'advice' to people with weaker willpower, making them believe they had made the decision themselves.

"Yes, that's exactly what I thought. Well then, Marcus, let's leave." He walked out with a hurried expression. Marcus, being the sharp guy he is, looked at me intently before following his superior.

I was about to relax when an extremely cold feeling assaulted me. The chill of death. My breath got caught in my lungs, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I could feel drops of sweat running down my chin.

"Well, an appropriate reaction when one meets an Arch daemon," the voice said and appeared on the couch next to the window on the right, with his legs crossed, exuding authority.

I saw a man with white-grey hair with a few black strands. He had chilling blue eyes and black sclera. 'No, he could kill me in a second if he wished to.'

The cold feeling disappeared suddenly when it was becoming too unbearable. I took deep breaths and looked at him, scared. But he won't bother coming in front of me if he wanted to kill me.

"Correct," he said, shocking me once again. Can he read my mind? "Yes, beings weaker than me will have no privacy from me," he said with a smug grin, his eyes holding maliciousness.

Before I could open my mouth again, he took out a small bottle, too small to hold any liquid but big enough for powders.

"This is a new drug, and yes, I want you to sell this to the human nations. Charge ten times the amount you currently sell that good-for-nothing drug for," he said, more like ordered me, and put it on top of the table.

"You can take 7% of the earnings from this. The rest must be sent to us via this seal," he said and placed his hand on the desk, which glowed once. Then, a pattern appeared to be established—a minor spatial transfer seal, I noted. It cannot transfer humans but can transfer inanimate objects.

"I will send the rest sometime later. I currently have two large sacks of them in possession. Next month, I can ramp up the production and send you four, increasing every month until it reaches ten sacks."

"I am putting my faith in you. Do not fail me and embarrass me in front of my master. Want to know what happens if you fail me? This island sinks to the bottom of the seas." He walked to the middle of the room and bowed once. "My job here is completed. By being a good dog, you've earned the right to know my name. I am named 'Saturn' by my master, Lord Lucifer," and disappeared.

'I'm Fucked.'

'If I don't do as he says, my family and I, along with this island, will sink to the bottom of the sea. If I do as he says and sell whatever this thing is to the human nations, and they become addicted, they will potentially try to invade this island again.

He ordered me to charge ten times what I currently sell for. Whatever this thing is, to warrant that price, it must be potent.' I took my empty parchment and began writing. 'Whatever the outcome is, it's either going to be the rise of a new drug empire, with me at its 'top,' or I will die.'

Today I understood one thing: Daemons are terrifying, and I should never mess with one of them..

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Short chapter. Anyways, I uploaded pictures of the characters, except for some. I also included the castle of the MC in the auxiliary chapter 3.