The old man chewed his dried roll to the bitter end, smoke curling through rotten teeth, and finally muttered, "Maybe you're fortunate. Since you're already a blank slate, I'll tell it from the start."
Alain tilted his head, careful to keep interest flat. "Really?"
"Lucky, brat. Stories like this don't just fall into ears these days. Only fossils like me remember. Used to shuffle parchment in a government office, so I saw more than peasants normally would." The chuckle that followed dripped with self-importance. He puffed another cloud, then started.
"Five hundred years back, everything began with the Demon King. The lunatic who stitched beasts into monstrosities. That war chewed through lives like fire through hay. Records claim half of humanity died. Half."
Alain's expression barely shifted, but inside anger coiled. Half of humanity. Lies fattened by historians looking to spice their tales. Yet he knew truth well enough. Whole kingdoms burned, yes. But "half of humanity"? Pathetic exaggeration made for propaganda and bedtime fear.
The old man scratched his nose. "Exaggerated or not, fact remains. That bastard held half of the eastern lands, and every soul inside them was wiped. It was humanity's darkest era. Life-or-death for our species. And then—"
He leaned forward, theatrically.
"The Demon King disappeared."
Alain's pupils contracted.
"Gone. No blade in his chest, no head on a pike. Castle crumbling, yes. But him? Vanished. Some whisper an assassination squad got lucky, slit his throat while he slept. Others say a plague struck his body. No proof either way."
Alain's jaw tensed. No hero mentioned. No golden liar with his sanctimonious smile. No truth. Humanity's so-called savior, scrubbed from history. Erased by time or buried by design. Rage threatened to spill across his face, but he tightened his mask.
The old man droned on, blind. "People cheered. Terrified, confused, but cheering's easy when your boogeyman drops dead. Scouts brought word the Dark Forest fortress had collapsed, black stone sinking into the dirt. Everyone swore it was over."
"…And then?" Alain asked, forcing his voice low.
"Knights pushed in. All men back then, more fool them. Brave, desperate, they launched assaults into the eastern lands to reclaim everything. But what they found…"
The man drew the moment out, staring into the smoke curling above them.
Alain's throat tightened. "What?"
"They found nothing. No demons. Vanished. In the span of a week. Poof. Gone as if shadows swallowed them. Even the monsters with them vanished too."
Alain's body jerked before he mastered it. Inside, his pulse roared like thunder. Vanished. Not destroyed. Not slaughtered. Vanished.
Alive.
The possibility struck like lightning. His soldiers. His generals. His people. Margarita's kin. Somewhere, somehow, they might still exist. Hidden, retreated, escaped. The thought bloomed sharp joy in his chest, hot enough he almost betrayed it. He strangled it fast, smothered it under the cold mask. Not here. Not yet.
The old man sucked on his teeth, grumbling. "Humans crept back into the ruins. The east had bled, but demon work left structures. Forts, roads, settlements. Easier to squat there than rebuild from scrap."
Alain said nothing, though bile rose in him at the thought of humans roosting in his strongholds like maggots in a corpse.
The man waved his hand. "For a while, peace. Ten years maybe. But monsters… those weren't gone. Bastards came back. At first, no one could explain it. Thought they'd been wiped out with the demons. But then they spawned. Multiplied too. Didn't take a general's brain to see something rotten. These weren't rare anymore. They were everywhere."
His voice cracked under the weight of memory, and he hawked smoke out the side of his mouth.
Alain suppressed a sneer. He knew the truth behind it. Monsters didn't breed like rabbits without a core. Without the Demon King's systems, they should have hardened, grown scarce, reverted to inert husks. Yet five hundred years later, humanity still choked under their presence.
It meant his creations lingered. His work had lasted where his name had not.
And somehow, hatred and pride found equal footing in his chest.