Heroic Chronicle of the Reincarnated Demon General

Chapter 4

It had been seven days since Lucas, now just ‘Luke’, had been reborn as a human.

After confirming that this second life of his was truly real and not some illusion, he'd finally decided on the number one goal he intended to pursue in this life.

“I've got to kill the Demon King.”

It might've sounded outlandish, but Luke genuinely had to kill the Demon King.

The reason behind his decision was not vengeance, but something else that was rather simple. The demons were invading this world with the intention of conquering the territories belonging to its indigenous inhabitants—the humans, elves, beast people, and other smaller races.

Luke was a human now, and sooner or later, his own life would be threatened by the Demon King's invasion of human territories.

As such, if he wanted to enjoy his second life, the Demon King had to leave the stage…permanently.

"However, killing the Demon King is far easier said than done," Luke muttered, and there were several reasons why that was the case.

“Are you seriously still going on about that?"

At the sound of that familiar voice, Luke raised his head from the ground and looked up to see Judith standing in front of him with her arms crossed and a slightly tired expression on her face.

“Over the past few days, you've just been muttering about Heroes and Demon Kings at practically every given moment. Do you miss playing Heroes and Demon Kings like we used to when we were kids that much?"

"I don't miss playing as children," Luke replied, picking up the stick lying on the ground before continuing to trace a rough map of the divisions between territories across the world's continents in the sand.

“I'm talking about killing the actual Demon King."

Hearing his words, Judith raised an eyebrow before exhaling softly and taking a seat beside him, after which she asked, "Okay, sure. You're talking about killing the actual Demon King. Why the hell would you want to do that?

The Demon King isn't a threat, and he hasn't been one for the past fifty years, ever since the last Hero sacrificed themselves to seal him away."

"But you're a Hero now," Luke replied, raising the stick and pointing it at her.

"What?" Judith asked, blinking in confusion.

"The fact that you have the Hero skill means the Demon King is a threat, since the Hero skill only appears when there's a threat to the world."

Judith had nothing to say in response to Luke's words, as his reasoning was entirely correct.

Due to the misunderstanding on the first day of his rebirth, Judith had accidentally let slip the fact that she'd already awakened the Hero skill, something she'd been keeping hidden from everybody.

Now, Luke had used that information to debunk her argument that the Demon King wasn't a threat, leaving her without a reasonable response.

‘And that's problem number one,’ Luke thought, returning the stick to the ground as he continued roughly drawing the maps he could remember. ‘Judith has already awakened the Hero skill.’

Luke had been reborn exactly twelve years into the past, in Solar Year 988.

However, according to what Luke knew, told to him by Judith herself during his previous life, she had awakened the Hero skill in the Year 990.

Luke had momentarily considered the possibility that she'd awakened the Hero skill much earlier and simply kept it hidden until the Church of the Sun god discovered her in the Year 990. However, in his previous life, Judith had explicitly told him that she'd awakened the skill on the day she turned 18, successfully concealing it for six months before the Church of the Sun god finally discovered her.

A few days ago, Luke had questioned Judith about her Hero skill, and she'd eventually revealed that she'd awakened it on her birthday a month earlier, although she fully intended to keep it hidden just as she'd done in his previous life.

‘I did consider the possibility that not everything might turn out the same as my past life, but things are already different from the start.’

For some reason, not only did Judith have a childhood friend called ‘Luke’ who hadn’t existed in her past life, but she had also awakened her Hero skill two years earlier, on her 16th birthday instead of her 18th birthday.

‘Considering that the church possesses an oracle capable of informing them about the Hero and providing her approximate location, we have roughly four to five months before the church's people find her.

The issue now is whether to let that happen or get her away from here before they take her and try to brainwash her.’

"Okay, so let's say the Demon King is a threat to the world," Judith suddenly said, pulling Luke out of his thoughts. “Why would you personally want to kill him? Didn't the option of running away to another continent that hasn't been invaded by the demons ever cross your mind or something?”

"Because the Demon King would eventually reach those continents within just a few years," Luke responded calmly, explaining why running away wouldn't solve the problem.

Judith narrowed her eyes slightly at his response, and Luke immediately realised that he'd spoken with a little too much certainty.

He quickly added another explanation to make his statement sound more reasonable, saying, "I mean, if you look at the historical records, he almost reached the southern continents and only stopped his invasion after being attacked by the former Hero. The man clearly already has plans to head toward those continents, and considering that you've awakened the Hero skill, he's likely already working on putting those plans into action.

Long story short, the fighting is going to reach every continent eventually, so it'd be better to eliminate the root cause of everything."

He raised the stick in his hand and pointed it toward her once more before continuing, "The person with the power to eliminate the root cause of everything is you, the Hero."

Judith lowered her eyes toward the stick he was pointing at her, a small frown appearing on her face.

She was clearly unhappy with the fact that she'd become a Hero, and it wasn't difficult to guess that this was why she'd hidden her newly awakened skill, both in his past life and in this one. After all, she could've used it to get back at everyone who had been calling her and Luke the ‘skillless duo’ for years, since neither of them had awakened any skills long after turning ten, the age when people usually awakened skills.

Luke pursed his lips for a moment before speaking.

“You have the potential to eventually gain the power to kill the Demon King, but as your bestest friend, I'm not going to let you go off and fight a threat to the entire world on your own, so I'm going to follow you. That's why I've got to kill the Demon King too.”

Judith blinked in confusion for a moment before a smile gradually appeared on her face, as she realised that Luke had clearly seen through her discomfort with the Hero skill and was trying to comfort her in his own awkward way.

Leaning closer with a teasing smile, she then asked, "But how are you, my bestest friend, going to be of any real help to me when you haven't even awakened your own skill?"

And that was problem number two with Luke's plans for this life. He currently had no skill.

As mentioned earlier, people usually awakened their skills at the age of ten, although it didn't necessarily have to happen on their tenth birthday. The skills could awaken on any day between their tenth and eleventh birthdays.

However, Luke was already 16 years old, and he still had absolutely zero skills.

"Who knows? Maybe, just like you, I might awaken the Hero skill,” Luke said with a casual shrug.

Hearing him say that, Judith chuckled lightly before spreading her arms and pulling him into a hug.

"Don't worry about it, dear bestest friend," she said, patting Luke's head as if he were a little child. "Even if you don't have any skills, I'll still take you with me on my heroic journey to slay the Demon King."

Luke simply shook his head with a wry smile at her words, allowing her to hug him and pat his head as much as she wanted.

In this second life of his, ‘Luke’ was the person closest to Judith, someone she'd known for as long as she could remember and who'd stayed by her side through everything.

When her father had gone missing a year earlier, ‘Luke’ had been the one to beg the village chief and eventually force the man into a situation where he had no choice but to send a search party into the nearby forest to look for Judith's father.

He'd also stayed by her side and comforted her throughout that difficult period.

In summary, Judith was VERY fond of him.

Luke couldn't help feeling guilty, however, because there was a part of his mind that, in the past few days, had already plotted the most effective way to take advantage of that fondness for him and make her move according to the plan he was developing to take down the Demon King.