Hero or Villain, Both

The Ancient Demon Tribe's representative couldn't help narrowing his eyes to look at me when he heard this.

He looked at me as if he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not, but I just calmly looked right back at him with the same expression as before.

When he saw that I was serious, he couldn't help looking at me as if he thought that there was something wrong with me.

Instead of saying anything else to him, I turned to the others that were at this meeting and said, "All of you are my subordinates, so it's only natural that you would follow me."

This time, it wasn't just the Ancient Demon Tribe's representative that looked at me as if he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not. All of the demons that were in this meeting were looking at me as if I was crazy.

After all, even if I had shown my powers in one mission, it wasn't as if I was the true demon king.

The demons followed those that had power and even now, any of the top demon tribes had more power than me. So it wasn't as if I was the real demon king just yet, I was just someone that had the aura of a demon king.

Yet I was acting like I was already the king…

But in the end, there wasn't a single demon that actually did anything to me.

Instead, they looked like they had accepted what I said as they all suddenly revealed smiles. Even those demon tribes that were famous for having bad tempers revealed smiles all of a sudden.

This was more than enough to make anyone suspicious, but I just gave a simple satisfied nod in response.

From this, I could see the traces of disdain that were in their eyes as they looked at me.

They thought that they were hiding it well, but really they weren't hiding it at all.

These demons really were bad at things like this.

But it wasn't as if this was a bad thing.

This was what I had been expecting from them and it was the reason that I had been acting this way to begin with.

They were starting to pay attention to me after what I had done, which was also part of my plan. But it wasn't as if I wanted to draw too much attention that they would actually do something to me.

So what my real goal was…

"He's gotten too big for his britches."

"He doesn't know that we can take him down at any time still, he's drunk on the power of the demon king."

"Then let him be drunk on it. As long as he doesn't bother us, we can take care of the ones that really matter."

"Right, an idiot like this is easy to take care of."

I made them think that I was an idiot that was getting too cocky so that they could afford to ignore me for a while. The infighting within the demon race was still ongoing and it wasn't as if it would suddenly stop.

As such, the demons had to deal with each other first before they could take care of me.

But this also gave me something other than just showing them that I had the demon king's aura.

By showing this off, I made sure that some of the smaller demon tribes knew about this.

These were demon tribes that would try to get any advantage that they could, so they would be approaching me soon.

In short, I had used them to get my face out there.

I knew that these smaller tribes wouldn't be that powerful and they would only be hanging around me because they were trying to gain something, but I had my use for them.

I needed to build up my forces and just slowly building them underground wasn't enough for this.

Since this opportunity came at just the right time, I chose to seize it and use it for myself.

That was why I was planning to recruit several tribes to my side at once.

As for loyalty…that wasn't something that existed when it came to demons.

As long as they had something to gain, I would be able to control them and there were plenty of things that I could give to these smaller demon tribes.

The meeting continued as normal as the top demon tribes discussed things that would benefit them. But the one thing that changed was that the top demon tribes took the time to ask for my opinion.

Of course, they didn't actually expect anything from me with the way that they asked these questions.

At the same time, it wasn't as if I would give them any answers that would actually benefit them. Both sides were playing each other, so of course the answers that I gave were nothing more than answers that a fool would have given.

They looked at me as if they had expected this before continuing on with their discussions, but I could see how some of the smaller demon tribes were looking at me.

It was clear that they were thinking about approaching me because of the top demon tribes asking me for my opinion.

It was clear that they were planning on using me to manipulate things at this meeting since it seemed that the top demon tribes listened to me.

Of course, I wouldn't handle this matter myself.

I would leave this to the people that I had assigned to take care of this matter.

When the meeting finally ended, there were a few representatives from the top demon tribes that came over to talk to me once more. It sounded like they were trying to recruit me to their side, but I rejected all of them.

They didn't seem to mind at all that I rejected them.

After all, they were able to get a result that was satisfactory to them.

But little did they know…everything they did went according to my plan.