Another step forward

Two weeks had passed since I faced defeat against the giant bird that I now knew to be a roc, which honestly was just a huge bird, just that it was a bigger bird than my birds of prey.

During these two weeks, Gob had started to act more and more as a leader, and somehow he had already started venturing out into the Dead Valley on his own, gaining achievements on his own.

That was why, as I was walking through the now much larger village outside of the tower, there weren't just goblins walking around anymore. No, now the village was also crowded with orcs, as there had been another tribe that hadn't been as stubborn as the one Dregu was the leader of, as well as a large number of wolves that had been domesticated.

Not only that, but he had also managed to convince the mermen to join us, and although there was no way they could live here as there wasn't a lake, the goblins and the orcs were currently trying to create an artificial one by digging a giant hole that the mermen would later fill using water magic.

It did feel a bit bad to realize that Gob was doing a much better job in strengthening our forces than I was, even though I was still diligently creating more goblins, fairies, and birds of prey, which I now referred to as borps as I couldn't be arsed to say the whole names.

Even if I could see in the borps' faces that they didn't enjoy that title much, they still didn't dare to oppose my decision.

"Master!"

Noticing my arrival, a large orc by the name of Dubok took a knee, creating a bit of a wave in his body as his large muscles flexed.

At this point, unbeknownst to me how they went about it, everyone in the village was wearing more normal-looking clothing, with the goblins somehow having been able to make normal linen cloth, which was very surprising as there was literally nothing in the Dead Valley to use as material for it.

Different from the goblins, the orcs were all wearing leather in some way or another, fluffy due to the fur that had not been removed from it.

So, seeing all this, while still not having been able to find something to wear on my upper body was pretty demoralizing. It wasn't demoralizing enough for me to ask the goblins to make something for me though. No matter what, I didn't want to wear anything that their dirty hands had crafted.

To be honest, looking at Dubok now kneeling down in front of me, it was hard not to feel a bit awkward. After all, I was just passing through, having had no intentions of actually interacting with any of my subjects.

Now, however, I felt more or less inclined to say something, as it would otherwise ruin quite a cinematic moment.

"You may rise, Dubok. So, how's the construction going?"

Standing up, he instead pushed his clenched fist into his chest, adamant about showing me respect in some way even if it wasn't by kneeling.

"It is going well, master! Though the ground is a bit rough, there haven't..."

As he was blabbering on about stuff I truly didn't care about, I simply waited for him to be done, zoning out just to the point where I would be aware if he stopped talking.

"... within a week."

Nodding confidently, while spreading my wings wide to make sure everyone around us knew I was about to depart, I made sure to end our conversation quickly and curtly.

"Good."

Before the orc got a chance to open his mouth again, I flapped my wings, which was completely unnecessary as my [Flight] ability just used demonic energy to push me into the air, but it looked a lot cooler to do it like this.

Today was a special day for me, as it would be a day where I would take yet another big step in my journey to become a true demon king. Or at least, I hoped I would.

===Status===

Name: Aldric the Demon King

Race: Fallen Cherubim

Level: 19

Strength: 19

Agility: 19

Stamina: 24

Intelligence: 55

Free stat points: 0

Demonic energy: 275/275

Traits: [Blood of the Patriarch]

Skills: [Demon Claws], [Flight], [Claws of Darkness], [Glow], [Feathers of the Underworld]

Talents: [Light magic - Beginner], [Dark magic - Apprentice]

==========

I had been able to reach level 19 now, and what this meant was that I was only one level away from evolving once more.

Even though I had already chosen my evolutionary path, I was not yet a true fallen angel. Instead, I was simply part of that general race and would evolve further as I raised my level. As one might have suspected, the next breakpoint was at level 20.

It was similar to how elves, dwarfs, and humans picked a class, which would then later evolve into more powerful iterations as their levels increased. The main difference was that all demons carried abilities and characteristics bound to their inherent natures.

For example, a werewolf wouldn't be able to fly almost no matter what it did, or how it increased its stats, but a swordsman could try their hand at magic and become something like a spellblade.

In return, demons were often more powerful and grew at a much faster rate than their mortal counterparts, with the exception of my classmates who had supposedly been blessed to grow extremely fast.

Luckily, Tatiana had told me that in terms of pure stats, my stats would increase more than theirs. Unfortunately, even though I wasn't that good at math, it wasn't hard to deduce that I would have to have 18x their stats to make it an even playing field, as that's how many of them there were.

Also, even though I was supposed to have an incredibly accelerated growth, my choice of race had sort of ruined that a bit. Then again, when thinking about the future, I still felt like having a higher ceiling of power was a lot better than becoming kind of strong quickly, but then still not becoming strong enough to survive.

In essence, what did it matter how quickly I could grow if it still didn't matter in the end?

Passing under the cloudy sky that had now become synonymous with the Dark Lands for me, I couldn't stop myself from getting a bit giddy thinking of the prospects of evolving, thinking about what I could become next.

'First things first, though.'

I still couldn't know for sure that I would be able to level up today, but when taking into consideration how long I had spent at this level, and how many monsters I had killed, it made sense to me that it was time.

It was frankly quite absurd that the monsters that I had been hunting hadn't gone extinct yet, with the only explanation I got being 'They will go back to being part of the cycle of mana.', which made absolutely no sense to me, but who am I to argue with the laws of reality.

More or less, monsters were made to simply reimagine themselves after they died, being spontaneously created at suitable locations. And one of the places that I had found amassed quite a large number of monsters in a very short amount of time was the mine belonging to the kobolds.

Because once again, while gazing over the hole in the mountain wall, they had returned, carrying their pickaxes over their shoulders. I had still no idea what they were even extracting from the mine, and I wasn't about to ask either.

Instead, I sank down towards the ground, making sure that the furry, cave dwellers would catch sight of me.

"Gro?! Groo!"

As one of them pointed a clawed finger toward me, yelling to his many comrades around him, it didn't take long until the exact scene as before played.

All of the kobolds in the area, both inside and outside the mine, started to run to their comrade who had noticed me, conglomerating together, becoming a huge cluster of monsters. If this had been a game, I would have undoubtedly been reported for finding a bug as they simply stood there, baring their teeth in the absence of any attacks that could reach me in the air.

After waiting for a couple of minutes, making sure that all of the kobolds had banded together, I channeled my demonic energy through my wings, making them light up while at the same time starting to mold the dark, misty energy that emerged from them into black feathers.

"GROO?!"

Under the rain of salvation, there was no saving the innocent beings on the ground, having committed no sin except for existing, serving no other purpose than to further my own agenda. Frankly, seeing the furry bodies fall to the ground, I couldn't help but feel like they should be happy, happy that their lives had gotten to serve such a great purpose.

Because they had allowed me to take yet another step forward.