“Ulluuuu?!”


  Ullullu, a giant of unprecedented size, tried to crush the mermaids like rats but eventually lost his balance and fell into the water.

  Pshshsh!

  A huge wave immediately engulfed the mermaids and the humans on the shore of the lake, causing the battlefield, where the two races had fought for 2,000 years, to be swept away by a flood.

  Such was the greatness of Ullullu, King of the Lake.

  However, he never got up.

  “Attack him!” A man shouted as he climbed onto Ullullu’s head.

  And, firmly grasping the sword in his hand, he pierced the giant’s eye.

  SHOOK!

  “Ulluuuu?!”


  With a scream that sounded like thunder, the giant began flailing his arms and legs in all directions. However, his strength had abandoned his movements.

  It was all because of his level being reduced to 1.

  Of course, everyone immediately noticed the change.

  “Ullullu has been weakened!”


  “He is!”


  “Attack!”


  Encouraged and regaining their momentum, the mermaids grabbed spears and swords made of fish bones and began stabbing Ullullu’s body.

  As individuals, they were weak against him, but together, they swiftly turned the giant’s body into a needle pillow.

  Total domination!

  There were too many fish for him to handle alone.

  “U-llu… lluu…”


  At level 1, one would need to forget about skills and fight using only their own capabilities.

  In that regard, Ullullu was stronger than mermaids in every way.

  Weight, strength, endurance, combat senses…


  However, the mermaids crushed him with numbers.

  It was like being attacked by hundreds of thousands of piranhas. It was impossible to survive without the power of magic or science.

  And Ullullu lost the magical power of his skills.

  “Sir Hero! I think we should help Ullullu!”


  “Wait! There are too many enemies!”


  Hero E, watching the dying giant from afar, had a heated discussion with Lanuvel.

  “If Ullullu falls, we’ll be next in line!”


  Lanuvel was talking nonsense again.

  Mermaids were a fairly easy race to understand. If they were prevented from mating, they would be out for blood instead.

  Even now, they were only fighting because they were being barred from doing their favorite pastime.

  The Hero’s Party didn’t interest them at all.

  “I agree with her.”


  However, Saintess A supported Lanuvel.

  “Please survive, Hero~?”


  Meanwhile, as soon as Aqua realized that they had lost their advantage, she immediately returned to the side of her people. All the while, her gaze was fixed on the man who pierced Ullullu’s eye.

  It was like witnessing an eagle with its eyes on its prey.

  Fuk! Fuk! Fuk! Fuk!

  Demonstrating her brilliant spear skills, the double-crosser blithely pierced through Ullullu.

  The other mermaid princesses immediately gathered around her.

  “Aqua! Can you smell the scent of that man?”


  “Sister! Not happy to see you at all!”


  “I won’t give you my man, Aqua.”


  “Don’t drool. I was the first to notice him.”


  “Hello everyone~?”


  Although they tried to restrain her, they took Aqua back as if nothing happened.

  That was the essence of their race, after all. Stupid fishheads.

  However, they shouldn’t be underestimated.

  Their smooth skin was so slippery that even arrows fired directly at them couldn’t leave a scratch, and their tail fin was strong enough to kill a powerful enemy a hundred levels higher than them.

  They also had advantages when fighting in bodies of water, like being able to heal quicker.

  Ullullu oxidized soon enough, causing ten days of heavy rain.

  Retreating and watching from afar to not be swept away by the fierce battle and raging waves, Hero E, with his thinning harem, fell into despair at the fall of his ally, Ullullu.

  But not me.

  “So this is where you’ve been enjoying life, huh?”


  I finally found the descendant of the First Hero, who boasted of equal love for all races. The man who pierced Ullullu’s eye was Descendant A. He was also the one who weakened him using Brave.

  He enjoyed the victory surrounded by mermaids, absorbing a huge amount of experience as his reward.

  “Hero! What will you do now?”


  “Oh… I have to retreat.”


  Meanwhile, our Hero E, when asked by Saintess A, expressed his intention to flee.

  The primary education course student who thought he was on the right track was completely confused.

  “Brave? What is up with that fraudulent job?!”


  Blaming Descendant A’s job, he tried to get out of the Holy Kingdom, but Saintess A grabbed him by the ankle and didn’t let him go.

  “Please take responsibility for breaking the lake’s line of defense.”


  As a result…


  “Enough… I can’t take it anymore…”


  Hero E, who bravely fought with all the mermaids that gathered around him like tuna to reproduce with the help of his “Holy Sword,” died of a heart attack.

  ***

  I didn’t regress myself, but whenever the Hero died, the copy I controlled was automatically brought back to the throne, which was essentially no different from regression.

  After restarting, I decided to move on to another copy.

  “Hmm…”


  Complete beginners excluded, getting smartphones from heroes had become more difficult because they had begun avoiding Alex in earnest.

  It would be nice if I could make smartphones myself like chargers, but semiconductors and programming weren’t part of a blacksmith’s arsenal.

  Until I could find an efficient method to do it, I had no choice but to stick with the current one.

  I went through the copies with smartphones in their dimension and, using an honorary teacher privilege, checked the heroes’ location and appearance.

  Black woman, white man, Asian, white woman, Asian…


  Their nationality and race were as diverse as their appearance.

  Alex was able to catch many of them, but some still managed to escape.

  I looked closely at the fugitives.

  “Oh?”


  “What’s the matter, cowardly hubby? You look like you just saw the face of an enemy.”


  “Well, you’re not wrong.”


  I found Classmate A.

  My mother treated me like a fantasy redneck because this bastard I met at the Festival of Heroes returned to Earth and spat some nonsense.

  My resentment was as great and deep as the universe.

  “Are you going to go?”


  “Yes, but there’s no need for disguises this time.”


  I had met several heroes, but none of them realized that I was the Demon Lord for as long as I was hiding my stats.

  They were oblivious to the Demon Lord’s appearance, after all.

  Today, the faces of most villains, including my father-in-law, were well known on Earth since art graduates painted their portraits.

  But that didn’t apply to me.

  So far, only one Hero has seen my face.

  If my cowardly wife manipulated the system to hide her job, then our identities could forever remain hidden.

  “Wow! Kang Han Soo!”


  “Oh? It’s you! Long time no see!”


  I acted as if our meeting was just by chance.

  “Han Soo…”


  “What?”


  “Say my name.”


  “Glad to meet you, my friend!”


  “If you’re going to pretend to be close friends, at least remember my name!”


  Classmate A hadn’t changed much after all this time.

  Yellow-dyed hair, a miserable face, and a skinny body…


  If his ears were sharp and his hair was dyed green, he could be mistaken for an elf.

  “So you still haven’t graduated.”


  “I’m working on it now. Didn’t you take 1st place at the Festival of Heroes and got into the secondary education course? What are you doing here?”


  Good observation.

  But I had already prepared an answer for that specific question.”


  “I’m conducting research.”


  “What?”


  “I came here for a while because of my homework researching the ecosystem of primary students.”


  “Wow… Secondary students need to do really weird things.”


  Classmate A, who had no idea about the course of secondary education, naively believed me.

  “Greetings. I am Ssosia, his wife.”


  Ssosia, who looked at me as if I had said something stupid, introduced herself, pride accompanying her voice.

  “It is nothing of the sort! What you heard is regret!”


  “My cowardly wife, don’t you know how lucky you are to be with me?”


  “Isn’t it the other way around?”


  “Heehee! My niece is so—”


  “Don’t even try to continue what you want to say, auntie!”


  Classmate A looked grim as he watched us.

  “Is there a problem, my friend?”


  “Yes. More than one.”


  “I’m listening.”


  I usually didn’t allow interviews until the Hero reached the Demon Lord’s castle, but it wouldn’t hurt to make an exception.

  The gracious MAX-Class Demon Lord was ready to hear what he had to say.

  “Where did you get such a perfect wife, Han Soo?”


  What was that nonsense?

  “Ah! Your friend has a trained eye. Unfortunately, my husband can’t even understand how lucky he is.”


  “He’s been like that for as long as I can remember, madam.”


  “Please tell us about those times.”


  “Well, back then, he— Kh?!”


  I amiably grabbed my Classmate A’s neck between his 6th and 7th vertebrae.

  In our friendship, the past was irrelevant.

  I had a question that I wanted to ask myself.

  “My dear friend! Where’s Lanuvel?”


  “Well…”


  Classmate A looked away, not daring to answer.

  I tried to soothe him.

  “Young Hero, on behalf of Mollan, I convey to you that getting rid of Lanuvel is not a sin. Mollan.”


  “Huh…”


  “There is no need to hide anything in front of me.”


  “Is this some kind of a pseudo-religion confession?”


  Ha! This was far from being a pseudo-religion! Mollan’s teachings were the only truth and salvation. This world began with Mollan and would end with Mollan. Mollan.

  “Tell me already.”


  “I confessed my love to Lanuvel, but she refused me.”


  “Tsk! Lying is bad, my friend. It shames me to speak of this shameful memory of mine, but I know that is far from the truth, for I, too, confessed to Lanuvel myself in the 1st round and got rejected. However, that bitch still didn’t leave me.”


  “Well, it’s just…”


  I didn’t even need to listen.

  Classmate A’s head was already filled with thoughts about it.

  “I can’t admit that I made Lanuvel drink a lot of alcohol and tried to hit on her!”


  ‘Relax. Your soul has told me everything, my friend.’


  That plan of his was already a complete failure from the very beginning because that alcoholic pretender could drink alcohol like water.

  She didn’t die even when her alcohol content exceeded 4.5 ppm.

  That bitch was not human.

  “Lanuvel suddenly left, saying that she was very disappointed in me.”


  “Forget about her. May Mollan’s blessing be with you. Mollan.”


  “Hey, how did you meet your wife?”


  My cowardly wife?

  “While I was spreading the greatness of Master Mollan on the Northern Continent, Ssosia confessed to me by shaking her mean breasts at me.”


  “That can’t be any farther from the truth! Stop making things up!

  Make things up? I wasn’t trying to, even though I had a ZZ-ranked Fabrication skill.

  “Hey, Han Soo…”


  “Don’t be shy. Speak up, my friend.”


  “If I join Mollan’s teachings, will I be able to get a girl as beautiful as your wife? After the incident with the Ice Princess, I lost confidence in myself…”


  “Of course. He is fair to everyone.”


  “Mollan?”


  Even now, Master Mollan remained modest, displaying feigned ignorance.