What he saw was a king eternally tormented. A lone, anguished figure, his heart reaching out to his starving people, but all too incapable of doing anything to help them.
The land had dried and withered, killing off their crops and triggering a massive famine. Just past the border, other nations were still prospering, bountiful. But there was no going there. It was the territory of the demon lord, and setting foot on it would be rebelling against the master of this land himself. No need to wait for starvation to take them then. He would kill them all before that happened.
The land they lived on was surrounded by a great forest and three different territories, each with its own demon lord serving as leader. It would be impossible for a horde of low-caste monsters like them to invade from any direction. Which left only one option.
A little beyond the border, the forest lay undisturbed. It was only natural that the king would turn to it for a chance—any chance—at survival.
I’m starving…
I need something… Anything…
His people fell one by one, screaming their unheard pleas. Their numbers weren’t shrinking—if anything, they were multiplying. The starvation had stoked the people’s natural instinct to protect their species, resulting in a spike in the birth rate. It only made things worse.
They had never seen the king smile, even as he distributed his own rations to the children who needed it most. Still, judging by their frail bodies and lifeless eyes, they would surely be dead the next day.
Then the king committed a truly taboo act. He gave his own flesh, his own blood, to the one child he had left. And who could have prevented him from attempting to fulfill this all-too-fleeting dream? All he wanted was to save, at the very least, his own family.
It was a crime that no one was able to warn him away from such an act. He couldn’t. He saw a world where no one ever ate their fill. And every night, he had the same dream. The king, a gruesome sight on the floor, and a child innocently chewing away at his innards. He wanted someone to help—to deliver them from this layer of hell, one that nobody saw any end to.
That desire was firm in his chest as today, like any other day, began.
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