THFN | Chapter 1

A long time ago, it’s said that the demons descended to the earth from another dimension with ambitions to conquer the world.

However, the demon king who led them died, and with their original Demon Realm burned by humans, the demons were left stranded on earth.

Exiled to the narrow and dark Underground World to avoid humans, they survived by eating dirt for a thousand years.

Facing the collapse of their ever-expanding Underground World, the demons had to make a choice before extinction.

Would they starve or be crushed in a collapsed tunnel?

Or would they come to the surface and fight to the death?

…And somewhere on the outskirts.

Five years after the disappearance of a loved one without a trace, Clara, who had returned home to live a life of farming, met a small demon.

It was clear the demon was on the brink of starvation, so Clara helped a little….

“Sniff, Clara….”

The little winged lizard hid in a sack, snorted, and then suddenly climbed onto Clara’s shoulder, claiming to be his sibling.

“Thank you. Clara, if it weren’t for you….”

The surreal being known as the sea witch clasped her hands and chased after Clara as a routine.

Somehow, Clara ended up becoming a savior of the species, but it wasn’t particularly welcome. He never intended this, and these people kept making strange proposals….

“Why not try being the demon king?”

No way!

“You’re kind, you play well with kids like Deborah and Ravid… and you even have the financial power to support the entire species. Why stick to outdated ideas of power and age like in the old days?”

“It would be great if Clara could be our representative.”

These guys. Do you think compliments will get you anywhere? If you’re grateful, show respect, not attacks!

“Clara.”

And you… were you really a demon?

“…Please quietly become a seedbed.”

⏾⋆ ⏾⋆ ⏾⋆

“…Phew.”

Sitting on the railing, Clara sighed as he thought about how things ended up like this.

Before explaining why it turned out this way, I should talk about what happened.

It was 5 years ago. Clara, who had been wandering around, bought a piece of land without any reason or connection.

It was a cursed land in the territory of Clorentine in the Holy Nation, a place no one sought. It was only a dense forest, but the fertile land was perfect for farming.

He gathered all his money, hired independent mages who needed cash, and brought in architects. Even though he gathered all the people he could, it took half a year just to clear the land.

People thought it was ominous for some eccentric rich person to develop such land and wanted to leave, but Clara persuaded them with gold coins, rushing to complete it in the shortest time possible.

‘It was tough even when I think about it now. Not as much as now, though.’

Could this place become our home? With such meaningless thoughts, the insignificantly named Clara Farm was born.

This land, where money was poured in without hesitation, even using mages, became a vast plain.

For a farm hastily created with just a name and no brand, it was almost the size of seven small villages combined, and the Great Lake was overflowing with water. The flowing water was more like a river than a branch of the lake.

The mansion in the center, though called a mansion, was no less splendid than a royal palace.

So here’s the question. How much would it cost to maintain this land?

“…Hmm.”

Building it wasn’t hard. Muttering with a bored expression, Clara propped his chin on his hand. Outside the window was a transparent Great Lake that seemed to reveal everything underwater.

For reference, there’s an artificial purification system that keeps the lake from ever rotting, so it doesn’t require much maintenance. But someone is needed to manage the land.

Was it a mistake to overlook that part? The vast farm, where not a single person’s presence could be felt, felt particularly chilly today.

“…….”

…This won’t do.

Let me say it again. Clara is the great landowner of a frontier estate surrounding a lake.

As such, he employs over a hundred farmers, and even if the massive five-story mansion is sealed with sealing magic and only the smallest top floor is used, more than ten servants are needed just for cleaning.

But today, there’s no one.

Why? Because they all ran away!

“I was a bit uneasy since I woke up this morning….”

Clara muttered, yawning widely. He had woken up a bit early and was still sleepy.

Precariously balancing on the thin railing at the top of the central hallway, Clara stretched out his arm to remove a piece of paper attached near the stairs. On it, scrawled handwriting contained content he had anticipated someday.

We can’t do this anymore.

We are going back. We will deliver the remaining amount through the inspector, excluding the salary for this month.

Did you think you could operate this vast land without tenants forever? Please reconsider your proposal with this incident.

“Even so, not a single one stayed.”

How disappointing. Muttering, Clara quietly rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and sat on the railing of the central hall.

There’s no one to criticize him for being informal, so he swung one leg lazily.

His relaxed posture and the situation didn’t match, but his sharp double eyelids resembled a cat’s. Like an animal, Clara bent his body flexibly, half-lying down, propping his chin with his hand, and tapped his lips with his fingertips.

On a sunny afternoon, he thought about the vanished employees, the money he had to pay them, and how many years it had been since he hired them.

“One hundred gold per person. Fifty gold as a bonus. One hundred gold for bad weather labor…. One hundred gold for injury insurance. Three hundred gold for death insurance.”

Even counting a few items, the amount was dizzying. Although he had long escaped brainwashing, Clara, still clumsy with calculations, quickly gave up and waved his hand. He’d use a calculator later.

Anyway, the important thing now was that the money he had was disappearing rapidly, and each day felt as long as a year.

So, counting, five years had passed.

“…….”

It didn’t feel real, but the numbers said so. Even if he didn’t want to count the days, renewing the workers’ contracts at the same time each year made it impossible not to know. The sense of reality that had left him was slowly returning.

Was it time to accept it…? Scratching the back of his head, he blinked. In fact, it had passed a long time ago. Just yesterday, he was sighing deeply, flipping through the ledger because he was short on money.

Rubbing his forehead while calculating loan interest, Clara looked up at the stained glass sparkling in the opaque glass dome above the mansion, instead of the temptingly ripe crops in the vast plains that seemed to beckon him to pick them.

…It was an escape from reality.

After moving to a small lakeside far from the city and buying up all the surrounding land to run a farm for five years.

During that time, Clara had to realize desperately. He had no talent for management. Not even a grain of wheat, a strawberry seed, or an ant’s eye. By the way, ants don’t have eyelids, so they don’t have eye crusts.

Nevertheless, the result of five years of effort was this. An empty mansion. A bleak atmosphere. A domain where no one’s presence could be felt.

There had been so many signs that it wasn’t even surprising. It was just that the inevitable had come.

Still, he never imagined that all the employees would conspire and run away overnight.

“Sigh. It’s unbelievable.”

Tapping his fingers on the railing, he fell into thought.

What kind of revenge could he take on the hundreds of former employees who had left him with this polite notice?

Canceling employment contracts, claiming compensation through the central government’s inspector… Should he hire a lawyer first? There must be various ways.

But that thought was brief. A stark sense of futility surged up, making it all seem pointless.

‘…Would doing that really relieve this unbearably gloomy feeling?’

Such emotions sometimes make people feel intimidated or depressed, but they also force them to face reality.

Clara straightened his back to soak up more sunlight and dangled his legs. A simple answer emerged without much thought.

‘Lawsuits and all that just cost money. It would only become more troublesome.’

The answer was that it would never happen.

In fact, Clara’s bad mood wasn’t solely because of the servants.

“Five years….”

This idle time felt so long.

Building this mansion and managing everything was breathlessly busy. Looking back, he really lived diligently.

He waited earnestly. For someone who never came.

“…….”

Even basking in the sunlight that shone warmly through the stained glass didn’t bring back his lost spirit.

That was to be expected. He had spent all that money on this crazy endeavor. Even if not for that, there was no way to restore his mind or life to its previous form.

Clara inherently disliked change. Whether short or long, he had become worn and tired over time.

I can’t do this anymore, just kill me. He grumbled inwardly.

Then, tilting his head slightly, the beautiful stained glass pattern caught his eye.

The ceiling, where the sunlight shone directly, was specially treated to be glossy even on the white parts, so it wouldn’t hurt to look up from inside.

Looking at the colorful tail of the creature engraved on the glass dome, Clara, as he once did, half-opened his mouth and spaced out.