Chapter 24: The Power of Happy Points (3)
The millstone was hefty.
Which made it inconvenient.
Once an essential item in traditional farming households, the millstone had become a tragic relic, cast aside in favor of the modern blender.
But the millstone was different from a blender.
Anyone who had used one knew.
‘Compared to something ground with a blender, the texture of the particles is completely different.’
Much smoother.
Much more finely ground.
But it was damn inconvenient.
It took up an absurd amount of space.
And because it was so heavy, one had to brace themselves just to move it.
As a result, millstones had virtually — no, practically — gone extinct in modern homes...
‘Ah, you beautiful thing!’
Not for Kim Jangcheol.
The harsh impact from the fall.
The cloud of dust that burst into the air as a result.
Yet even within that thick cloud obscuring his vision, Kim Jangcheol recognized the millstone at once. He reached out. His hand closed around the handle jutting from the top of the millstone — the "mill-handle."
Cheok!
The feel of the handle gripping snugly in his hand was incredibly satisfying. The weight felt just right. He pulled it toward him. The massive — no, immense — millstone body came crashing into his embrace.
Cheolpeok!
‘Judging by the size, the upper and lower stones must both be about 80 centimeters in diameter?’
Even by millstone standards, it was an enormous one.
Which made him like it even more.
Big meant heavy.
And heavy meant—
...thud, thud.
Kim Jangcheol took steps now as heavy as the weight of the millstone itself.
At the end of his stride stood the First Star Lord.
The First Star Lord, now almost entirely crimson. The self-destruction sequence had been initiated, and there was probably just over a minute left until the explosion.
"...Hey."
He called the First Star Lord in a low, heavy tone.
"I get what you're thinking. You’ve already decided it’s over for you, and if you're going down, you're not going alone, right?"
"......"
The First Star Lord said nothing.
He kept speaking toward the bastard.
"So your plan is to drag everyone here down with you? Go out together in a blaze of annihilation?"
"......"
"Fine. Don’t answer. I wasn’t expecting a proper reply from a clingy bastard like you anyway. So—"
Hoo-oof.
He lifted the millstone with all his strength.
It was heavy because it was large.
And the weight made him like it even more.
Because the heavier it was...
‘The more it’s gonna hurt when I hit you with it!’
Kwaaang—!
"...!"
The First Star Lord’s skull took the full brunt of the millstone!
The bastard collapsed like a stunned frog after a single blow.
Kim Jangcheol grabbed him by the hair and lifted him. He pushed the bastard’s head into the grain hole on top of the millstone and shoved it down.
"...Guh! Gagkh! Kahk!"
The First Star Lord flailed.
But Kim Jangcheol didn’t care.
He pushed harder. Forced it in with all his strength. Since the First Star Lord was fundamentally a ghost with no true physical body, his squishy, semi-fluid head started caving in and sinking into the hole.
"...W-Wait!"
Perhaps the bastard finally realized what was happening to him. Or maybe he just sensed the torment that was about to begin. He shouted desperately.
But Kim Jangcheol didn’t respond.
Didn’t even feel like responding.
He just kept pushing.
“S-Stop! I’ll cancel the self-destruction! So please stop!”
The First Star Lord’s voice grew more frantic.
“I’m sorry! No—I apologize!”
"...And you think that’s enough?"
“No, I mean, it’s not, but—!”
“Then cancel the self-destruction first.”
“...!”
“You can’t, can you? Even if you want to, you can’t.”
“That’s...”
“You apologized, but slipped in a lie, huh? Playing with words?”
“Wait! That’s not it!”
“The hell it isn’t. And listen, your self-destruction — I have to stop it, no matter what. I might be able to barely scrape by and escape on my own, but the guys who followed me? That’s not possible for them.”
“You mean... those low-ranking demons?”
“Yeah. The Agricultural Corps guys I brought with me.”
He glared at the First Star Lord.
“They trusted me and took the risk to come this far. But do you know what criteria I used to pick them?”
“How would I possibly...”
“Sure, some were especially big or had a certain kind of crazy in them... but there was one thing more important than all that. Wanna know what it was?”
“I-I don’t know!”
The First Star Lord shrieked, pretending to panic.
But in truth, he wasn’t desperate at all. On the contrary, he welcomed the current situation.
The Demon Lord was stupid enough to waste time talking. Which meant the self-destruction sequence would get a few more seconds to reach completion.
He saw hope now — the hope of dragging everyone to their deaths.
He was thrilled.
He was elated.
Then suddenly, from Kim Jangcheol’s mouth came an unexpected word.
“They’re all dads.”
“...What?”
The First Star Lord thought he’d misheard.
Dads?
Who? Who were?
It was such an absurd thing to say that even the twisted joy he’d been harboring was momentarily forgotten.
“What are you... saying...?”
“Those 300 guys. Every one of them is a dad. Some have wives in their last trimester. Some have babies just starting to babble. Some have crawling daughters. Some ended up with twins out of nowhere. One of them even saw his son take his first steps yesterday and cried his eyes out.”
“......”
“I handpicked only those kinds of guys for the Agricultural Corps. On purpose. Because they’ll work harder than anyone else. No matter what happens, no matter how hard it gets, they won’t give up. Normal people might give up, but dads never do.”
“So, what are you saying...”
“...What I’m saying is, I have to get all 300 heads of those households back home alive!”
Kwaaak!
Kim Jangcheol's hands, forearms, shoulders, and entire body tensed as he shoved the First Star Lord into the millstone. Pretending to converse, he had caught his breath and quietly concentrated his magic power — and now he released it all in an instant.
The First Star Lord couldn't withstand the sudden surge of pressure.
“......!”
His head, which had barely managed to stay halfway lodged in the opening, was now completely crushed and forced through the hole of the millstone, body and all — waist and lower half included.
It all happened in the blink of an eye.
‘Damn it...’
Only then did the First Star Lord realize.
That he had made a mistake by secretly welcoming the brief conversation between them. He had assumed he was buying time through dialogue, when in fact, the Demon Lord had been building up the power to end it all.
“No, stop!”
The First Star Lord shouted from within the millstone, now completely crammed inside.
But at that moment, Kim Jangcheol gripped the mill-handle tightly and gave a cold rebuke.
“Like hell I’ll stop.”
“......Huh?”
“Goodbye.”
...Tok!
Kim Jangcheol dropped a single drop of his blood into the millstone. The Demon Lord’s blood infused the entire millstone with a crimson thunderstorm.
Immediately after, his hands, gripping the handle and the stone itself — his arms, shoulders, and entire body — surged with explosive strength. His muscles burst with overwhelming power.
The millstone spun.
With the force to grind anything and everything.
Kwa-gwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwa—!
“......!”
The First Star Lord’s entire being began to be torn apart inside the millstone.
He didn’t even get a chance to beg.
Couldn’t even scream.
That was the end.
Just three seconds short of completing the self-destruct sequence, the First Star Lord was completely ground away at the mana level, vanishing without a trace from the world.
...Hoo-oof.
The violently spinning millstone came to a halt.
A quiet breath escaped from Kim Jangcheol’s mouth.
The 300 members of the Agricultural Corps, watching him, swallowed dryly. And they understood.
Their Demon Lord.
The commander of the Agricultural Corps, the chairman of the Demon Lord’s Castle Youth Association—
Had defeated the First Star Lord. He had conquered the Cliffs of the Dead, once deemed unassailable, without losing a single soul.
“......Uwoooaaaah!”
No one knew who cheered first.
But the roar exploded from everyone at once.
And in their cheers, they all felt it — conviction.
‘We survived...’
‘My baby, Flute! Just wait a little longer. Daddy’s coming home soon.’
The truth was, they had been scared.
Honestly, they were terrified.
The Cliffs of the Dead were a brutal battlefield. And when they first heard the plan to conquer it with only 300 men, their hearts sank. They wondered if the Demon Lord had gone mad. Could they really come back alive? They weren’t sure.
But they endured it.
Because the Demon Lord was with them?
Because they trusted him?
No.
It was for their children.
When the day came that they truly began to farm, when they finally entered a real season of harvest — when that day came, the Demon Lord had promised to give the first and most plentiful potatoes to the families of the Agricultural Corps members.
That single promise was enough.
If it could be kept—
If it became real—
Then maybe their children would never have to starve again. That hope alone was why they had joined the Agricultural Corps. It was why they’d shouted silly slogans without shame. Why they’d practiced digging while putting on and taking off their underwear in that humiliating routine.
Because for their children, there was no such thing as hardship, shame, or embarrassment.
And it was the same even now.
‘Farming… maybe now, really…’
It felt possible. The Demon Lord’s promise might actually come true. They prayed it would.
They all looked at Kim Jangcheol with the same feeling.
But then—
Ding-dong!
‘Hmm?’
Just as Kim Jangcheol was catching his breath after his intense millstone performance, an unexpected message appeared before his eyes.
[You have achieved the feat of conquering the Cliffs of the Dead and its boss character, ‘First Star Lord Sartul’, 20 times.]
‘...What?’
Twenty times?
Conquering Sartul?
Kim Jangcheol flinched.
Because he understood what the message meant.
‘Wait a second. “20 times”? That means… all 19 runs I cleared in the game back in Korea — those are being inherited by me here, in this reality?’
That seemed to be the case.
Kim Jangcheol, who had once lived in South Korea.
Kim Jangcheol, now living as the Demon Lord.
It seemed this world viewed those two as not separate, but one and the same.
‘Yeah… that must be it.’
Only then would this message make sense.
How should he take this?
He didn’t have time to think.
Ding-dong-dong!
[First Star Lord – 20 Time Clear Reward]
[Hidden Event Triggered]
[Artifact, ‘Heart of the Ice Spirit,’ reveals its true form before you.]
Clack! Clatter! Clack-clack!
The moment the message appeared—
From the Heart of the Ice Spirit, which had been left with Baal during the fight, strange metallic sounds began to ring out in succession.
“Uh? Uh uh uh?! This thing! It’s acting weird!”
Baal panicked in confusion.
Kim Jangcheol took the Heart of the Ice Spirit back from him.
Even as he did, the artifact didn’t stop. It even began to absorb the cold air it had been emitting.
Clack! Clatter! Clunk!
Was something mechanical moving inside?
It looked like the lid (?) was about to pop open.
And soon, that guess became reality.
...Click!
With a clear sound, the top of the Heart of the Ice Spirit suddenly sprang open.
Revealing its interior.
Inside was…
“Huh?”
Kim Jangcheol’s eyes widened.
“A dra...gon?”
Surrounded by frost—
Most likely the source of the cold—
A small, snow-white, frozen form.
About the size of a Maltese dog, maybe.
A curled-up baby dragon.
Above its head, finely etched letters were carved in relief. Thinking it was probably the name, Kim Jangcheol read the letters slowly.
“...Tyrannus.”
It was the first meeting with Tyrannus, the Solar Dragon King — a legendary, demigod-level dragon who would one day grow in Kim Jangcheol’s arms to become the father of the Dragon King Verkis.