Can Someone (Anyone!) Please Turn Off the Auto-Skill Setting?! - Chapter 4
I.
One day, God descended upon a solid rock and spoke,
“Do you think I created you without sleep, just so you could fight and quarrel every day?”
Behind Him, lightning and gales swirled, giving a clear indication of how deep His anger ran. The humans, forcibly gathered at His feet, huddled together and nervously tried to explain themselves.
“We’ll starve if we don’t take from others.”
God, who disliked being contradicted, immediately struck the human with a bolt of lightning. The man disappeared, leaving only a charred mark, causing the remaining humans to tremble in fear and beg for forgiveness.
In response, God smiled and handed out various types of seeds to the humans.
“I will show you a way so that you won’t have to covet what belongs to others.”
The humans, who had no knowledge of farming, were bewildered, but God’s kind smile frightened them into quickly nodding their heads. Thus began the era of agriculture.
Agriculture led humans to gather and live together. Villages grew into cities, and eventually, nations were established, bringing about peaceful prosperity.
If anyone occasionally forgot God’s teachings and stole, the humans themselves would administer severe punishment before God had to show His wrath.
“Good. You are practicing my teachings well.”
God was very pleased.
The peace that seemed it would last forever was shattered in an instant when the demons invaded.
“Let’s take from the humans and feast!”
Although the demons were fewer in number compared to humans, the Demon King’s forces were formidable as all demons, regardless of rank, gathered under her banner.
(T/N: the demon king was deliberately given she/her pronouns)
The humans, who had forgotten how to fight after focusing solely on farming, were defenseless.
“Take it all!”
“Use magic to move everything!”
The Demon King’s army stole every last grain of crops. Then, from the sky, God who had been watching threw a sword towards the solid rock.
“The righteous one shall draw the sword. I will grant them power.”
From the sword embedded in the rock, a terrifying aura emanated. No one dared to step forward, but finally, a brave man approached and grasped the sword.
With incredible strength, the brave man defeated the Four Cardinal Guardians and became known as the hero. But he faced a great challenge.
“Do you think I’m the Demon King for nothing?”
True to her name, the Demon King was incredibly powerful. The hero fought valiantly but eventually had to kneel on one knee before her.
“Uuugh. Is this the end…?”
In that moment of crisis, God’s voice echoed in the hero’s mind.
“Hey.”
With a mixture of threat and encouragement—telling him to get up if he didn’t want to die—the hero found strength and finally succeeded in sealing the Demon King.
The Four Cardinal Guardians, who were loyal to the Demon King, stole the sealed tombstone and barely escaped to the northern lands. They tried to break the seal, but it was too powerful, and they could do nothing at that time.
The Four Cardinal Guardians lay low, waiting for the right moment. As decades passed—10 years, 20 years, 50 years—they began to feel the once-impenetrable seal weakening.
“Now is the time. The old hero is now too weak to even hold a sword. Let’s break the seal of the Demon King and strike the humans again.”
They secretly gathered the necessary materials and funds from the humans.
And how did they gather it?
“Hand it over nicely while you can.”
Claiming it was all for the sake of the demons, they plundered from weaker higher-ranking demons. The higher demons sought out the lower ones, and the lowest-ranking demons were exploited the most. The weaker you were, the more you were extorted.
Despite being severely punished by the hero, the demons turned a deaf ear to God’s teachings about not coveting others’ possessions.
“Are we just supposed to starve to death?”
“Still, if the Demon King really does resurrect…”
At first, they suffered from the extortion but also held onto a glimmer of hope. They never imagined that a new human would draw the sword from the rock and become the second hero.
The Four Cardinal Guardians had their attempt to revive the Demon King thwarted by the second hero. But the demons were not ones to give up. They waited again for the seal to weaken while gathering more funds.
The lower demons had to scrape together whatever they had to contribute to the war funds.
“What if we fail again this time?”
Their fears became a reality.
***
Many long years since the Demon King was first sealed, in a shabby warehouse on the outskirts of the capital city of Verus…
Three Ferrons with shaved heads snarled and threatened an elderly goblin. The goblin was so small that he barely reached the size of an adult’s palm and was so weak in magic that he could hardly cast any spells. He was one of the weakest among the low-ranking demons.
“Elder, did I just hear you wrong? The money was all gathered, but the one in charge of it just happened to run away this morning—the very day we were supposed to meet?”
The leader of the Ferrons snatched the elder up with one hand. As sharp teeth glinted in front of him, the elder squealed and tightly shut his eyes.
“Are you trying to make a fool out of me when you’re not even a mouthful?”
“It’s true! I’m not trying to fool you!”
“If it’s true, then the thief must have a name. Tell me the name.”
