"We have found the most likely location."

The crow brought welcome news.

"There is no one in the forest who might have called you, and living creatures can no longer survive in the false world above. We searched every corner of this diminished land... and concluded that your tomb was the only possibility."

"My tomb?"

"The place known as the evil god's tomb. I understand you once resided there."

"Aha..."

Jio was rather bewildered.

"Why on earth would anyone be there?"

He had assumed they were hiding somewhere in the Black Forest, which he had yet to fully explore, or at most in the false world above. Anywhere in either place would be far more comfortable and safe than the "home" where Arjio had lived.

"Are you certain they're there?"

"We judged that calling you would be impossible from anywhere else."

"I understand."

Then there was a good chance they weren't staying there of their own free will.

"Thank you for your kind answer, Valf."

"... It is an honor."

"Were you unable to visit it yourself?"

Valf answered cautiously.

"It was not a place lowly creatures such as us could dare enter. We will try if you wish, but that would mean making the impossible possible. Though it may displease you, I had no choice but to put the crows' safety first."

"So you fled?"

Wise.

'If you can't do it, run.'

Arjio flashed his usual easy grin.

"Well done."

"... I apologize for bringing results you cannot find very satisfactory."

"I'm not going to eat you over it. There's no need to be so afraid. You've brought me good results, so I shall give you a gift in return. What do you wish for?"

"Might I dare presume upon your mercy to ask a question?"

"Ask anything, my friend."

"..."

After a silence spent seemingly gathering his thoughts, the crow spoke.

"Does this world please you?"

"An unusual question."

Jio stroked his chin.

"It is my homeland. How could it not? I love this place. I have since long ago, and that will not change even after an eternity. Does that answer your question?"

"Then will you become its god once more?"

"My beast friends truly are fearless."

Even while seeing him as an "evil god," they so readily placed their fates in his hands. The wolf folk might do so because once they trusted someone, they trusted them forever, and the fox folk might prostrate themselves because they had been driven to the brink.

But the crow's choice was unexpected.

"Why have you made that choice?"

"My answer is the same as Gargal's, chief of the wolves."

"You want a future? What do you know of how I might treat that future?"

"... You..."

The crow trailed off, then confessed his view.

"You have shown us something very different from the wrath recorded in history."

"It could all be an act."

"All living things put on an act to survive."

To the crow, it mattered little whether the mercy and affection Jio had shown thus far were sincere or feigned. What mattered was whether that embrace was fiction or reality.

And the crows had concluded that the evil god's mercy and affection must be real. He was already far too different from the wrath of history. The mere fact that he could "imitate" such things gave them hope.

"Of all the beasts left in the Black Forest, I remember the longest history. I also know the most about the 'Erased Wrath.' In history, you were an ominous spirit driven mad by hatred, a monster with hundreds of different arms, a calamity that devoured the world with tens of thousands of enormous mouths."

But the evil god he had seen in person was entirely different.

"You are not an evil spirit, but a living being. I see none of those hundreds of arms formed from hatred. Your mouth, as small as a human's, may express cruel amusement, but I have not seen you use it to savagely tear anyone apart and eat them alive."

"My good fellow, I'm sorry, but you wouldn't taste good. What are you talking about, with those scrawny bodies of yours beneath all that thick fluff?"

"That you make such jokes is another departure from the historical record. It may be a sliver of mercy toward a lowly creature, but you wish me to feel at ease with you."

"..."

Jio thought to himself.

'... My beast friends are getting quite good at scolding me too...'

It felt like watching Ju-hyeon and Yu Seongun laugh off his words as though he were saying something utterly absurd. It was a welcome yet strange feeling.

'Were those two not growing alike, but being molded into that shape by me?'

Quite apart from Jio's carefree thoughts, the crow continued.

"You have shown us that you are capable of mercy and affection, and that they truly exist. Thus we all dared say that this was enough for us. We have heard and seen for ourselves that it is possible."

All they needed was for him to be more than an evil god of endless death, pain, and wrath. That alone offered a far more hopeful prospect than the future currently before them.

"So please, rule over us. Return to this barren, grotesquely twisted land of rebellion. Though you came to your homeland because someone spoke a name I cannot even remember... now it is we who beg for your mercy."

"You truly are brave. And clever."

He was so adorable that Jio wanted to stroke his fluffy plumage. He was much larger than Earth's crows, and his feathers were much fuller.

'But I mustn't. Restrain yourself. He's a 114-year-old chief.'

Perhaps because he thought of them so firmly as "my children," Arjio was filled with the urge to dote on them, regardless of age or rank. With miraculous patience, he preserved both their dignity.

"... You wish the evil god this dimension rejected and sealed away to become its chief deity? What an interesting tale. My love for my homeland is profound, so you need not be so afraid."

"Then will you become our god?"

"I already have. You were born through 'my' death."

"..."

Valf, chief of the crow folk, blinked.

"... We were born not from your footsteps, but from your death?"

"Yes."

"You truly were human."

"I was."

"The sin... is great."

Valf truly was wise and perceptive. From Jio's few words alone, he seemed to grasp what the humans had done. Then he bowed his head.

"I greet you, Father."

"Yes, my son."

How endearing.

"You may see me as whatever you wish. If you want a friend, that is how I shall appear. If you want a parent, that is how I shall appear. And if you want a god who will remake the world, that, too, is how I shall appear."

This was because Jio was exceptionally gifted. He was versatile enough to earn Ju-hyeon's praise and Yu Seongun's applause. Able to do absolutely everything himself, Jio often presented a different image depending on who was looking.

So it would be the same for them.

"See me as you wish."

"I shall."

The crow saw the greed brimming behind the evil god's amusement. What an avaricious being he was. And how multifaceted. Valf, chief of the crow folk, did not doubt the evil god's omniscience and omnipotence.

"What would you like me to call you?"

"I am Jio."

"...' Jio'?"

The crow tilted his head.

"You call yourself a beast."

"Did you know? I have no name."

He had discarded the name he was born with, and no one had given Arjio a "name" since. He had lived his entire life as a cruel beast, and Jio was quite content with that.

"So whatever you call me will become my name."

This was the very pinnacle of convenience. That uniqueness, found nowhere else in the world, brought Jio considerable pleasure. He loved his own versatility, his ability to become anything.

"Convenient, isn't it?"

"How can a living being have no name?"

"No, you see, the name of anything in the world can be mine."

"I see. You speak in the same vein as before."

"You really are a very clever crow."

"Thank you, Father."

"That works too."

Jio let his imagination soar.

"Yes, if that's how things stand..."

"..."

"... Good."

Then he smiled.

"I like it."

He now had a sense of what to do.

No, in truth, he had made plans for this quite some time ago. His homeland had simply changed in unexpected ways, so adapting and accounting for the new variables had taken a little longer.

"Would you mind if I turned this world upside down however I pleased?"

"I believe it will be better than it is now."

"You don't believe. You know. And I approve of that reason of yours."

"May I ask what you intend to do?"

"I will do what I do best."

It was simple.

"I shall paint, and receive wrath."

Jio intended to turn this place into a dungeon and become its Demon King.

"Do you happen to like amusement parks?"

* * *

"Meow."

When he returned to Arjio's "home," Dana was sitting at the entrance.

"Meow."

"Yes, well done."

At his daughter's coaxing, he cupped her cheeks and gently stroked them.

"How many lost children did you find?"

"Mrrrrrr..."

"That certainly is a lot. Is it because the world ended?"

Deciding what to do with those lost children was now Jio's responsibility as well. Quite a few of the creatures remaining in this narrow, barren land had given him their approval, so it was only right to live up to their expectations.

'Before that, I should see the face of whoever called me.'

Even now that he stood in this land, he could no longer hear the voice of whoever had first called him. He did wonder whether they had died in the meantime, as Ju-hyeon had suggested. But, well, someone who knew the name "Arjio" didn't seem likely to die so easily.

He would have to see for himself what that meant.

"Dana, go on home. There will be far more lost children in here than you think. Many won't be to your liking, either, so there's no need to tire yourself out."

"Mrr-mrow-row..."

"All right. Let's have a lovely meal when I get back."

Jio lifted the hem of his black cloak and opened its shadows, and Dana slipped right inside. She would probably go straight to his father and shower him with affection, then enjoy her meal when Jio set the table.

'What a cutie.'

Perhaps cuteness really was proportional to size: Dana, now as large as a wolf on Earth, was a delight to hug. Burying himself in her fur, made wonderfully fluffy by the Sun God teddy bear's care, brought an indescribable bliss.

Feeling proud of his daughter's fur, Jio called Honey.

"Honey, there's something I'll need you for."

"Grrrgl."

As though it went without saying, Honey popped out of the hood and settled back on Jio's shoulder. Moved anew by that majestic bearing, Jio stepped inside his "home."

"... It really has been a long time. No one could have maintained it all this time, so it's remarkable that it's still standing even after the world ended. I don't think I ever did anything special to look after it..."

Now called the evil god's tomb, this place had become the most dangerous location in the dimension, with all manner of curses, poisons, and traps still lingering within. And yet Jio felt himself filling with nostalgia.

It held memories.

"How nice."

He was happy.

'When I was mad with wrath, even home didn't feel like home.'

An evil Divinity unparalleled in its age, fashioned from people's wrath and screams and the suffering of countless saints. That was the "Arjio" the world knew.

At times it took human form, but more often it wore the forms of monsters and demons. And true to its ominous appearance, nothing remained in it but wrath and hatred; there was nothing one could call reason.

It was only natural, then, that Arjio, having reclaimed everything that was his and overcome what was not, should delight in this newfound nostalgia.

"..."

His "home" was silent.

"...?"

And it was in far worse shape than he remembered.

"What the hell happened to my house?"

"Grr, grr, grr..."

"What vile wretch did this? Did the ground shift here too?"

Why had his home sweet home turned into a den of horrors?

(To be continued)