Hero or Villain, Both

"It seems like the scouts from the Adventurer's Guild are here." I thought to myself when I felt the reactions from my mana sense.

Since Stark had sent me the information that the scouts from the Adventurer's Guild had left, I had been keeping my eyes out for them.

It was hard to keep up the mana senses the entire time, but it was worth it since I found them right away.

As soon as I found them, I made sure to show myself.

It was to make sure that the demons didn't notice the scouts at all and that they would be able to figure out how dangerous this invasion really was.

I wanted to make sure that the Adventurer's Guild at least figured out the danger and evacuated the people.

The demons weren't happy to see that I was here, but there was nothing that they could say since I was the demon king. After all, they knew that I was being sent on this expedition to show my face to the humans and nothing else.

So when they replied, they made sure to say "demon king" to my face.

But of course, the way that they said it was filled with disdain.

Once I thought that I covered for them enough since I sensed the adventurers leaving, I went back to my central tent. Only when I came back, I felt that the adventurers were returning.

It wasn't just that they had returned, they were also surrounding the tent that I was in.

It seemed that they wanted something from me…

"What are these idiots thinking?" I couldn't help thinking to myself, but there wasn't anything that I could do.

In the end, it was even worse than I thought…

"Die, demon king!"

Once they made this commotion, it was hard for them to actually avoid being found out.

At the same time, it wasn't as if I would be taken down by a random adventurer like this.

Even though they were this weak, they had planned on assassinating the demon king.

Was it because they were confident or was it because of something else?

Regardless of what it was, it wasn't as if I would let them take me down.

After they missed this chance, there wasn't anything that they could do as they were surrounded by the demons.

These demons had even watched as the adventurers attacked me at first, as if they were happy to see that I was being attacked like this. But when they saw that the adventurers were just too weak, that was when they stepped in to take care of them.

Since they were demons, they didn't hesitate at all to kill them.

In their final moments, the eyes of the adventurers seemed like they were filled with rage and regret. It seemed that there was something more that had driven them to attack.

But it was a good thing that they weren't the only ones that had come to scout.

There was a group that hadn't accompanied this group in their suicidal attack and returned to town. That group was enough to alert the Adventurer's Guild that we were present.

"There might be others. Search for them and take them all down."

When I heard this, I said, "No, let's move out right away. If we attack the city sooner, it'll all be over. They won't have a chance to prepare anything."

The commanders looked at me with narrowed eyes when they heard this, but they agreed with me in the end.

They didn't want to agree, but the watchers forced them to agree.

After all, the watchers didn't want to follow me any longer than they had to.

At the same time, they didn't think that the humans would be able to do anything to fight back.

So that was why they forced everyone to march towards the city as quickly as possible.

I took one last look at the adventurers that had tried to assassinate me and noticed something hanging from the neck of one of them. It was a pendant that had a picture in it and it was clearly something that had been well taken care of.

This was something that was precious to this person.

This explained why they had chosen to try and assassinate me.

Their hatred for the demons was clear just from this.

It was just that…

"You really are idiots for thinking that you could do something like that."

But after a pause, I added, "I guess it's also my fault for showing them this big bait. If only they knew that I was just a puppet demon king in the eyes of the other demons."

There was no point thinking about dead people, so I focused on what would come next.

When night fell, we hadn't arrived at the city yet.

However, I said, "Let's take a break. I need my rest."

The others weren't happy seeing this, but they really couldn't say anything since I was the demon king.

This was the only thing that I could do to delay the demons and give the adventurers time to report back. Though I doubted that they would be able to do much, at least it was better to give them some time to prepare than to give them no time at all.

Though it was also their own fault for trying to assassinate me that they would lose all this time in the first place.

"If only they had just chosen to scout instead of doing something foolish like this."

Even if I complained, there was nothing that could change the facts, so I could only delay as much as possible.

Even if the other demons seemed angry, I just had to act like the haughty demon king that they thought I was.

There was nothing that they could do since the people behind them still needed this puppet demon king. That was why they had been ordered to keep me alive.