Demon Lord Gallery

Faced with the scene unfolding before my eyes, I could only stand there stupidly with my mouth open for a moment.

“Uh…”

How should I even describe this? It was too elegant to be called a monster, too wicked to be called a divine beast, and too enormous to be called a living creature.

A wolf that was easily over hundreds of meters tall.

I had to tilt my head back considerably just to see the wolf’s fangs.

“….I’m more than a little startled”

To be honest, when it first appeared, I almost blew this entire area away. I stopped because I thought it might be ‘Wolf Viscount’ who had sent me the message earlier, judging by its appearance, but if it had been a different form, I probably would have acted.

“Are you… Wolf Viscount?”

“Then I’ll go with Viscount.”

As I expected, it was Wolf Viscount. I don’t know where or how he popped out from, but anyway, he was one of the gallery administrators and seemed to be a being with some common sense.

Except that it was too inconvenient to talk like this.

The Viscount’s words seemed to read my thoughts, and simultaneously, the hundreds-meter-tall wolf wavered and then a small flash of light occurred.

“I keep forgetting when meeting humanoid Demon Lords. My apologies.”

What appeared through the flash was a gentleman in a suit with a crow’s head.

“Now, let me introduce myself properly. I am one of the 72 elders of Manmajeon, and active in the Demon Lord Gallery under the name Wolf Viscount— you can call me Amon.”

The unknown gentleman in a black suit with a black crow’s head and holding a white ivory cane was truly worthy of the word ‘Demon Lord’.
If a being that invokes a sense of pressure and fear just by standing still isn’t a Demon Lord, then who could be?

“Ah, I’m Shin Suhyeon. Nice… to meet you.”

It was an awkward greeting and one that could potentially be offensive, but Wolf Viscount—self-proclaimed Amon—laughed heartily as if such things didn’t matter.

“The more I look at you, the more unique you seem. Well, I knew you were extraordinary from the moment I saw your dimension log 111.”

“Thank you.”

Is this what Demon Lords are really like, or is this Amon an unusual Demon Lord?

He was as jovial as any human and even more polite than most humans.

“By the way, how did you get here? Earlier, there was a warning about dimension log exposure or something—”

It was a very important question with the underlying doubt of ‘Can you cross dimensions?’

If beings from other dimensions could cross dimensions so easily, the humanity of this dimension could be in danger of extinction at any time.

“Ah, don’t worry. I’m not crossing dimensions or anything like that. How could that be possible?”

“What?”

“As you’ve probably guessed, the dimension logs in the Demon Lord Gallery are classified according to the depth of the dimension. It’s nearly impossible to come up from a dimension in the 600 range to one in the 100 range… Wait, could it be?”

Amon’s words were cut off for a moment as he observed my expression while speaking.

Soon, I could see him throwing his crow head back and bursting into laughter.

“You, your world has no knowledge of dimensional technology or magic, does it? That’s why you have that expression. What an interesting dimension, hahaha!”

“….How did you know?”

“Your future self told me. Well, let’s put that aside.. Of course, this body is just an illusion. It would be correct to consider it a type of inter-dimensional communication functioning through the gallery’s magic. To put it in terms of this dimension’s knowledge… yes, 3D video call would be about right.”

“I don’t really understand, but I think I get the gist of it.”

“That’s enough. Well, I think we’ve exchanged enough greetings, so let’s quickly get to business. Shin Suhyeon, the newly visiting newborn Demon Lord. Do you have any questions or curiosities about the Demon Lord Gallery? It doesn’t matter if they’re trivial.”

While watching the Viscount swinging his ivory cane and bringing up gallery windows in various places in the air, I asked the question I had been most curious about.

“What exactly is a Demon Lord? Also, why did I get the Demon Lord qualification, and how was I invited to the gallery?”

“Hmm, that’s a question befitting an awakened Demon Lord. Good. First, a Demon Lord is exactly what it sounds like. It used to mean the ruler of demons, absolute evil, and such, but it’s changed too much recently. It’s better to just think of it as a special kind of villain. And as for the Demon Lord qualification—”

The Viscount, who had been manipulating one of the several windows floating in the air by pulling it with his cane, showed me one screen.

“This is one of the materials that only administrators can see, but well, those who know already know, so it doesn’t matter. Take a look. It’s judged differently based on the population, number of species, time units, etc. of each dimension”

[Conditions for Demon Lord Awakening]

[Author: Bangaljuk]

[Summary of conditions for Demon Lord awakening.
-Awakening and gallery access qualification is obtained if any of the following conditions are met
-I personally went back in time to investigate/confirm this, so don’t raise issues or modify the post without permission -Author Baek

Eliminate over 90% of your own kind and survive for ## or more. However, the period of eliminating your own kind must not exceed #.
Eliminate over 50% of your own kind, ## or more of other species, and remain alone for ## or more. However, the period of eliminating your own kind must not exceed #.
Cause the extinction of 90% or more of intelligent species other than your own kind. However, in this case, your own kind must not exceed 25% of the total species ratio.
Eliminate a force equivalent to a 3rd rank figure among celestial beings.
4-1. There is a 10-fold difference between each rank and its lower/upper rank. (e.g., 1st in 3rd rank = 10th angel in 4th rank)
Reduce the proportion of good people in the dimension you reside in to less than 5% of the total population.

….]
The list of conditions I skimmed through exceeded several thousand lines.

The endlessly stretching list of awakening conditions was enough to make me dizzy.

“..Why are there so many conditions?”

There were literally too many. It was incomprehensible why I was such a rare newbie.
With so many conditions, why hadn’t there been any new newbie influx?

“There are just many on the list, but in today’s world, there are only a few conditions that can actually be achieved. At most, maybe up to number 4 is possible”

“Number 4?”

“The rest are nearly impossible due to causality and balance, but subjugating a 3rd rank angel is possible, that’s why. Well, even so, to catch a 3rd rank angel, a couple of dimensions would probably be destroyed”

“….”

It was hard to keep up with the conversation that suddenly became too large in scale.

Causality? Balance? Dimensions being destroyed?

“…If I may ask, what level are you, Viscount?”

“Not much. It’s faster to count from the bottom in Manmajeon. As a moderate peace faction, I’m just sitting around doing nothing, so at most I can manipulate about a dozen dimensions?”

The moment I heard those words, I had to drastically revise my evaluation of beings called Demon Lords.

If manipulating about a dozen dimensions is considered ‘just’ for a Demon Lord, how powerful must those considered strong among the Demon Lords residing in that gallery be?

I, who was struggling at most with one species, one planet, seemed so weak in comparison.

Perhaps the Viscount read my confused thoughts. He added words that were close to comfort.

“Don’t be disheartened. You’re certainly not weak. The fact that the phenomenon of supernatural abilities has manifested in a dimension of this depth and that you’ve reached this level is quite remarkable.”

“…Thank you”

To think there would come a day when I’d be comforted by a Demon Lord. It was something to see after living for so long.

“Well, let’s get back to the main point. You probably fulfilled condition number 2 among these Demon Lord qualifications. Looking at your past actions, 1 and 3 seemed impossible.”

“Even to me, anything other than 2 seems impossible.”

Killing 90% of humanity didn’t make sense, and there were no intelligent species in this world other than humans.

“But those parts covered with # in that condition since earlier—”

“Ah, the values covered with # are values that change depending on the observer, that’s why. It seems there was an error because both you and I were recognized as observers. I’ll look elsewhere, so try looking at it again.”

After confirming that the Viscount had turned his head away, I looked at the contents of the ‘Demon Lord Awakening Conditions’ again, and surprisingly, all the parts that were covered with # were revealed.

The interpreted number 2 was as follows:

[2. Eliminate over 50% of your own kind, over 100 million individuals of other species, and remain alone for over 20 years. However, the period of eliminating your own kind must not exceed 1 year]

I must have fulfilled the first condition by killing a little over half of humanity, and the other species probably referred to the monsters that popped out of the gates.

I was a bit surprised that I had killed 100 million individuals, but it was an understandable number anyway, and the 20-year period was undoubtedly fulfilled as the gallery message popped up exactly at midnight when it became 20 years.

Clearly and undoubtedly, unfortunately and damn it, I was a being too fitting for the word Demon Lord.

“Then do you have any other questions?”

“I still have quite a few. First, what changes when you awaken as a Demon Lord……”

There was no time to be lost in thought. There were still many questions left to ask.

“─Then you should be able to find the rest in the gallery. You can ask directly sometimes, but remember that excessive fraternization is prohibited.”

“Yes, Viscount.”

“As I told you in the message, refer to the posts written by One-eyed… no, [One-eyed Grandpa] for details. Everything from the history of the gallery to the current situation is summarized there, so it should feel like a fantasy novel and be good.”

“Thank you.”

As soon as we finished our brief greetings, the Viscount who had been my conversation partner for several dozen minutes had disappeared without a trace.

It’s natural, given that he said it was a communication method close to a hologram.

“Well then….”

I had finished eating a while ago, I had slept a little during the day, and I didn’t really need to sleep.

This meant that I had time to spare until sunrise, and now was the time for community activities – using a word I had just learned from the Viscount, [galling] – to enjoyably spend the long night.

There was no need to utter embarrassing phrases like earlier to open the gallery anymore.

Thanks to the kind guidance of my friendly neighbor, *Sub-manager Wolf Viscount, my thoughts and gallery control were now synchronized.

<*Sub-manager: Unlike users who use temporary IPs (ㅇㅇ), users who use fixed nicknames (e.g., One-eyed Grandpa) and voluntarily take on the management and maintenance of the gallery are administrators commonly called armband wearers, sub-managers, or deputy managers─this was usually known, but in the case of the Demon Gallery, they were forcibly assigned the job by the gallery manager ‘Bangaljuk’.
In other words, it’s a position close to an unpaid life tenure.>

The first thing I looked at was the concept posts.

The Viscount had clearly said earlier that the discord within the gallery would be suppressed with the help of other deputy managers and some fixed nickname users, so I shouldn’t worry.

If that was true, the concept posts should be somewhat normal.

With that expectation, I opened the concept posts page.

[Notice][Temporary notice regarding newbie influx][14]
[Thumbs up if you think the armbands are doing a good job][281]
[The thrill of betting against the arena][39]
[Main Manager…. We don’t miss you at all][73]
[Look at these gays asking where the main manager went< (reposted)][142]
[Posting my 81st day of Demon Lord survival now that the gallery has calmed down][51]

What greeted me was a somewhat cleanly organized page.

The gallery that was overflowing with madness, shouting chaos, destruction, and annihilation was no longer there.

Ah, there was still some madness left, but it didn’t matter. I was slowly realizing that this was natural for a Demon Lord Gallery.

“Well then…”

It was time to properly participate in these Demon Lords’ entertainment.

As a Demon Lord, not an intruder.