[Frieren, A Thousand Years to the Present]
In a dark and damp cave, a young child squatted in the corner staring at the campfire in front of him that occasionally made crackling sounds, yet his eyes were filled with utter despair at life.
If one were to ask what it felt like to be reincarnated as a beast, then the child, Ash, could probably explain it far better than anyone else.
In this unfamiliar otherworld, there was a very cruel race. They had no familial relationships like parents or children. Generally, after being born, they were like beasts. No, aside from a very small number of cases, beasts would at least raise their young, while this race did not raise their offspring at all.
This mode of growth and social structure left them with very little emotion or empathy. Only a handful of individuals ever displayed tendencies toward mutual aid or social behavior.
They did not survive by eating humans, yet from time to time they would still kill humans. Even they themselves had no clear motive for doing so, merely act of instinct.
They would mercilessly trample weaker members of their own kind if they found them displeasing, their sense of kinship so faint that only the strongest at the top barely maintained a weak social order.
They did not inherently harbor hatred or disgust toward humans either, which made their slaughter of humans all the more bizarre. As if they were a race created by "the gods" for the sole purpose of killing people.
To humans, this incomprehensible race was undoubtedly the worst and most brutal of all races, and that race was the demon race.
What made the child feel even more unfortunate was that he himself was a demon. And not just any demon, but the rare hornless type, a demon without horns.
Being born into this savage race meant that from the very start he deeply understood one thing: weakness was the greatest sin.
If an adult demon happened to dislike him, he could be slaughtered at any moment if he was not careful. Precisely because of this, even at just three years old, they had to fend for themselves.
That's right, they.
"I'm saying, Ash, what are you thinking about?", A pink-haired young girl with two pairs of small horns on her forehead leaned against him, hugging her slender knees. She snapped a thin branch in half and tossed it into the fire. When she noticed him spacing out, she frowned, "It's supposed to be your turn to cook today, right? Hurry up and get to it."
"I'm just saying," Ash, who had adopted a new name to better adapt to this world and avoid standing out, let out a long sigh. He reached out and pressed his hand on her head, then said solemnly, "Aura, you shouldn't call me by my name. You should respectfully call me Onii-chan."
"Onii-chan? What's that?", The young girl, Aura, looked at him with eyes full of disbelief.
Feeling exhausted, he really could not be bothered to argue with her, "Hah! Forget it. You hurry up and cook."
"That's not right. It's your turn to cook now."
"Stop nagging. I'm stronger right now, so you cook for me."
"Fine," Aura fell silent for a moment, then still stood up and walked toward the bottles and jars by the cave wall, as well as the half of a wild wolf tossed aside as dinner. She could not help muttering, "Ash really is strange. He clearly said he'd take care of me, but in the end I still have to do the work?"
"...", Ash heard Aura's muttering clearly, yet he selectively chose to ignore it, silently closing his eyes to meditate and practice magic.
Yes, magic.
With inherited memories from the demon race, he understood written language from birth, as well as methods of practicing magic. Even his own name was rooted in his heart like an instinct.
It was precisely because of this that demons, even without parents and capable of speaking and moving from birth, did not end up with entire batches dying off as soon as they were born. Though the mortality rate during childhood was still extremely high.
But no matter what, magic had to be learnt. It was the pride of the demon race and the foundation of their survival. This was part of their inherited instinct, and it instilled in Ash a deep-rooted fanaticism toward magic. Whenever he had free time, he would unconsciously study it.
And just like other demons who would choose one discipline to devote themselves to with obsessive focus, he too had his own goal: gravity magic.
Although his three years as a child had been spent like a primitive, eating raw meat and drinking blood, making his childhood memories utterly unbearable to recall, now, he truly had no choice.
At least today, he managed to obtain a source of fire from a forest fire not far away, so for the time being he did not need to eat raw meat.
———
When night fell and all was silent, after dinner, the two of them sat together at the entrance of the cave, leaning against each other at the opening.
Before them stretched an endless starry sky, and a spectacular meteor shower was unfolding right in front of their eyes.
Stars wove across the heavens, streaking through the night sky and leaving behind brilliant trails. It was so beautiful it made his heart tremble, making him feel grateful for being born in these mountains and forests for the first time.
"It's really beautiful."
"Beautiful? I don't really get it," Aura, still wiping her hands with wild grass, looked far less interested than he was.
"That's because you're still a kid."
"We're the same age, aren't we?"
"I'm talking about mental age."
"You ate more hearts?"
"Let's just change the topic," Ash was so speechless he did not want to deal with her. She, however, turned to look at him seriously, "Perfect timing, Ash. I actually want to eat beef tomorrow. That bull head meat we picked up last time was really tasty!"
"The wolf we picked up the day before yesterday isn't even finished yet. Don't waste it. And where do you expect me to find beef for you?"
"I believe Ash will have a way," Seeing his complete lack of motivation, Aura instead tried to encourage him.
But her tone was utterly flat, so bland that he could not feel even the slightest sense of pride. He just nodded tiredly, "Yes, yes, I'll do my best. But for now, behave yourself and at least let me finish watching the meteors."
"That wolf already stinks. It tastes awful."
"Don't be picky."
"Ash is so annoying."
"That's my line."
While casually dealing with Aura, he gazed at the increasingly dense meteors in the sky. Remembering something he had heard somewhere, that wishing on shooting stars was very effective, he unconsciously made a wish to the stars.
'When I grow up, I absolutely never want to watch meteors together with Aura again.'
It was right as he was silently making this vow that a series of words suddenly appeared in his vision. Words he clearly did not recognize, yet somehow could immediately understand.
[Chosen demon king candidate, Ash, accept the gift of the Ancient Demon God. Become the king of the demon race, sacrifice the world to ascend as a new god, kill the goddess, and open a new cycle on this planet.]
This string of words left him completely dumbfounded, because according to the inherited memories, only the legendary Creator Goddess should exist. Since when was there an extra Demon God? And such a deranged one at that? Wanting to sacrifice the world?
He really could not make sense of it, and there were many suspicious points. But, from that so-called Demon God's gift, the Demon King Growth System, he learned that this system was quite different from what he had imagined.
Because the Demon God was actually the self-proclaimed title of a deceased great demon from the mythic age, someone who had stepped halfway into godhood. Apparently even the strongest Demon King of that era.
The reason he had been chosen was entirely because his emotions were extremely special. He possessed a degree of sociality and various emotions that were exceedingly rare among demons, even stronger than those of past Demon Kings.
This system seemed to have evaluated his potential extremely highly because of that. Though whether it was a misjudgment was another matter.
After all, it was not a true god, and the system's abilities were quite limited. It had no absurdly overpowered functions. The only thing that could help him was this: by plundering the souls of one thousand humans, or intelligent beings with an equivalent amount of soul energy, he could exchange them through the system for a divine miracle.
More precisely, these were replicas of the goddess's miracles recreated by the Demon God. This system that carried the ability to release miracles was created by the Demon God stripping these replicated miracles from himself.
The upper limit of the miracle's power depended entirely on how many souls he paid. According to the system's own explanation, if enough souls were used as fuel, there would be almost no difference from a true divine miracle.
In other words, each time he could make a wish using a minimum of one thousand souls, with no upper limit, and a single wish could consume all accumulated souls at once.
Although the conditions sounded extremely harsh, the benefit was that demons had extraordinarily long lifespans. Even working at a slaughterhouse, one could eventually find an opportunity to make a wish.
And the entire system was overly simple. It only had this single function.
After an initial burst of excitement, he quickly returned to scrambling just to survive.
After all, he was only a three-year-old child right now. Where was he supposed to get one thousand souls to make a wish?
———
In the thirteenth year after his rebirth, by a forest lake—
A biting cold wind swept across the water's surface, stirring ripples while constantly stealing Ash's body heat.
His still youthful body dragged along a ferocious beast that resembled a tiger but was about the size of a small car with one hand, while the other hand pulled Aura by the horn. Like this, he headed toward their cave dwelling without looking back, saying, "Maybe you should stop researching mental-type magic and switch to something practical. You restrained that thing's movements, but you exhausted yourself too. It's really useless."
"Don't point fingers at me, Ash. My magic is my own choice. Even if we were born in the same cave, you have no right to interfere."
"You're really cold, you know that? Even though you have such a warm Onii-chan like me," Ash shrugged as he lightened Aura's and the prey's weight with gravity magic.
"If dragging me around like an object counts as enthusiasm, then once I recover tomorrow, you should lie down underneath me too," Covered in dirt and utterly drained, the pink-haired girl Aura kept her eyes closed as she let herself be dragged by the horn through the muddy ground. Her mouth, however, did not hold back in delivering sharp counterattacks.
"By the way, will you even be able to get up later? Will dinner be ready in time?"
"Why do I have to do that again?"
"Isn't this a very democratic and fair division? I drag you home, you cook."
"I clearly contributed way more in the fight."
"Between siblings, don't be so calculating."
Taking advantage of the fact that he still had some strength left, he shut Aura down with a single sentence, making the pink-haired girl click her tongue behind him.
Though unwilling, once they returned to the cave, she still lit the campfire, dyeing the surrounding stone walls orange.
Ash sat cross-legged nearby, using the firelight to stare at Aura's profile, unconsciously examining her carefully.
Even though she was a strange one personality-wise and still just a girl, she was unexpectedly good-looking. A delicate face with two pairs of demon-like horns, which were also extremely convenient to use. For dragging, that is.
Hardworking and capable, and although she talked back, she was otherwise quite decent. Her only flaw was probably—
"If only she were a bit more obedient and soft."
"What are you muttering to yourself about?", Aura, who was cooking, turned her head when she heard his voice and broke into a mischievous grin, "You're not thinking about something weird again, are you?"
"I'm thinking maybe I should find a chance to leave this forest."
"Go to a human city and start eating people?"
"No, no, I'm not interested in human flesh at all. Just look at me," He pointed at his own head.
"A smooth-headed oddball. If we hadn't grown up together, I'd think you were a stupid human pretending to be a demon and failing miserably. Even your demon aura is very weak. If you went outside and someone wasn't careful, you'd probably be mistaken for a human and killed, right?"
Even though it was not exactly a happy topic, Aura tilted her head, closed one eye, and smiled happily.
"Think about it carefully. What would it feel like to eat someone exactly like yourself? If you were told to eat someone like me, how would you feel?"
"That's true. A guy like you is probably better off being killed directly."
"Hey."
"Just kidding. We've worked together for so long. Once my magic is fully mastered, I'll make you my servant. You'll take care of my daily life, cook, make meals, hunt. Oh right, I hate cold foot-washing water at night, so you can warm my toes with your mouth and then lick my feet clean, okay?" [T/N: Not another one, man!]
Seemingly already imagining that future, Aura raised the corner of her mouth and snickered in excitement.
Ash did not really care about her brazen words. He simply lowered his head, pressing a hand to his forehead, pondering why the child who had grown up with him had turned out so bizarre.
This action only led to yet another misunderstanding from Aura, "What? Ash, are you already so happy that you're too embarrassed to look at me?"
"It's your face that makes me mad just looking at it. I'm worried I might accidentally kill you, and then there'd be no one left to cook for me."
"??", Aura blinked blankly, then pressed his head and shook it vigorously, laughing happily, "You're really shy, Ash. You're clearly very happy, right?"
'Good grief, she is completely incapable of listening to others now. Is this mental distortion caused by a miserable childhood, or 8s it simply the nature of demons? Or is it influenced by me? Hm, it should have nothing to do with me. Definitely the first two,' Enduring the discomfort of being shaken, Ash could not for the life of him understand how she had concluded that he was being shy.
He even seriously considered whether giving her head a solid smack might fix what was wrong with it.