Discrimination towards the weak is the norm. Demons won't lend a hand to you without ulterior motives, nor do they leave you alone for the same reason. As such, Lothair's experience on Thornar Town was actually not a special case. It's just how demonic society works.
Demons were born vile from the beginning. Lothair was no exception.
The same goes for his exceptional regeneration capability. Quarter of the demon population possessed such a feat, with half of those quarters could even survive with only a sheet of their flesh. Some could even perform mitosis.
In that sense, Lothair was pretty much an ordinary demon. He didn't believe that he was any special either.
"What does it mean to be a demon?"
Lothair was put in deep thought as he drank a barely boiled tea on an improvised wooden cup.
"To be the symbol of evil? To become the embodiment of chaos? To break all written rules? To become stronger than anyone else?"
One of the small spiders fell to the wooden cup. He drank his awful tea along with the spider without care.
"Everyone will do what I hate if they are given the chance. Is that what a demon is supposed to be? To annoy anyone as much as necessary?"
Demons were prideful kin, yet they were willing to go to an extent to make sure that whoever glanced wrong at them would suffer. The reason was the same, because of the golden phrase known as "why not?".
But because they are prideful, in a weird way, they won't target anyone half-heartedly.
Because if it resulted in them dying as the consequences, then the other party would feel relieved in the aftermath. They didn't want that. What they want is an unrecoverable terror.
Despite that conception, demons do indulge in other things like beauty, honor, food, lust, and many other possible hobbies respective to each individual.
Those are the small factors in the bigger picture, however, the main reason why the demon society wasn't in a constant shamble and utter wreck was due to the fact that every demon possessed this abnormally strange pride and predictable sense of ego.
It was a chaotic equilibrium.
The contradiction however, just didn't sit right to Lothair.
"They want to kill the strong and be killed by the great, so that they could brag about it regardless in the world of the living or in hell." Lothair chuckled. "Kinda funny, considering that we are meant to do what other people hate. So why would a demon give others such an honorable death to begin with if they are meant to do the opposite?
"They contradict their own purpose, and break the mold in places where it's unnecessary. It feels irritating…"
Lothair didn't like this conflicting concept. He felt like the mind of a demon was full of flaws.
"Maybe there will be a 'true demon' that will fix this in the future. Maybe they already exist and I just haven't met or heard of them yet. Who knows."
He then choked on his spider-filled tea. Thanks to that, he felt instinctively humbled, reducing his ego before it could lead to an unpleasant mistake in the future.
The kind spider cleared his pressured mind.
"Right, better judge less. Not that it really matters." He inserted his hand to his mouth, extracting the small spider that was still moving around in panic. "After all, I'm just a mere nobody."
After resting through the night together with a colony of thousands of spiders, he went to search for this so-called 'lack of demonpower' job rumor that had been going around. It took a while that the source of such a rumor was a recruitment banner erected by the government.
After some tumble and fumble, he was able to navigate himself to the recruiting office. Thanks to his luck, he managed to get recruited. Although the job was not exactly something he wanted to look forward to.
"I managed to get a contract for 30 years with a salary of one rotten tuna every four months…"
It was some-what of a slave contract.
Apparently, he was forced to take the job. When the interview was in session, two powerful high-ranking demons of the country were standing by near the exit, hanging their scythes at the neck of every interviewee.
The work consisted of building a giant wall on the border of the nether country, and many more facilities to defend the country from the opposing threat. There were a lot of unpleasant things that come with the contract, such as the level of subservience to anything and everything that was given by those from above, along with the mute obligation to never ever complain, unless they want to receive punishments.
There was no insurance nor compensation for incidents in the work environments. There won't be one for death either.
Lothair donned a pained smile. "I wonder if I'm allowed to cry right now." As each of his wrists was bound with a thick cuff of steel.
"Just make sure to not disturb the working environment," said the officer who placed the cuffs.
"I'm asking myself, but thank you for the confirmation, sir."
Male and female demons of all tribes, clan, and kin were brought to the same family connection of forced obligation. The higher ups send them 3 days straight to work before having a half day of rest at the camp. Even then, there was no discrimination amongst demons and so they were grouped up to 50 per camp regardless of genders.
Lothair always thought that his life could get even worse since the destruction of his village. Afterall, many demons were either taught minimally as necessary, only given the important information when they were worthy of their parent's time, or were fully neglected to stimulate them into making initiative to learn how the world runs their gears.
There were still more horrible things that a demon could do today. To Lothair, this enslavement was nothing more than a trial and an opportunity for him to see how far a demon can act as a demon. Call him naive or ignorant, he would still insist on looking forward to the next day, no matter how horrible the present he received.
But as mature as he was, he wasn't ready for the 30 years of hell ahead of him.
Everyday as he woke up from his cell, there were so many things that could go wrong that managed to go wrong.
"This place is cramped, and utterly disgusting." Lothair gazed to the concrete ceiling, before the demon beside him crushed his ribcage in their sleep. "... And heavily nauseating."
There were also a lot of demons who got tricked into the contract. Thus, the amount of forced labor enacted by the demonic bureaucracy was so immense that it would be a pain in the rectum to feed every single one of them.
For each and single day, Lothair hoped for the least edible food to be served on the giant pot given by the officers. He also hoped that the giant pot wouldn't fall over because of the conflict done by crazed demons whose sense had lost since the first day. Of course, there won't be any second pot if there were still some people who haven't got their share.
The frustration and despair of the forced workers led to numerous irrational acts. The fact that both male and female were put in the same camp without borders didn't help the situation either.
Tiresome work, hellish housing environments. With no energy intake to support the brutal labor, many demons began to collapse day by day.
At the same time, new demons were introduced to the camp everyday.
People come and go like it was nothing. Meanwhile, those who still breathe had no expectation of the future due to the painful activity that kept churning and never stopped.
Conflict amongst workers and camps only made things more bothersome to live in. The abusive relationship with power hungry supervisors made things worse than it already was.
He couldn't even remember how many times where he was grasping for dirt with no strength left, both mentally and physically. The amount of piling despair that he acquired was too many to count with his fingers. This was also the time where he learned that having a beautiful appearance is not a merit, for numerous degrading implications.
If trauma was calories, Lothair would go obese. Sadly, he couldn't get fat even if he wanted to as there were little to no calories to consume. Although, he was strictly lucky with how his regeneration works regardless of the materials that were infused with his blood and flesh. So while his body didn't really grow in strength, it didn't deteriorate because of the amount of dirt and stone he ate.
Despite how harsh his life had gotten, he carried on like usual. If it was necessary to endure all of this to understand what it meant to be a demon, he was willing to endure it all.
As a demon, he also possessed his own pride.
Eventually, the 30 years of hell passed by.
He couldn't be much happier than having the thick and heavy metal of cuffs being released from his arms. To his surprise for surviving all of that, he still had some bits of his rationality intact.
"On the dark side, I think my muscles are tenfold stronger than I was before!" He flexed his muscles as he left the slave headquarters. There was no significant change in his physic whatsoever. It was also how he found out that his magus bloodline prevented him from gaining any significant muscle of his dream.
So the result was, he still looked as slender and non-menacing as he was before.
The only change he got was that he became a little bit taller.
"Ha ha ha ha ha."
And also in a constant psychological reminder that the world needs to burn brighter than the sun.
"At least they didn't break their end of the deal, or else I don't know when I will see the light of day."
Even though he was no longer a slave, Lothair couldn't force himself to sleep. The last thing he wanted to do was to willingly go unconscious and become utterly vulnerable. As such, he became solely reliant on his regeneration to prevent his brain from deactivating due to severe insomnia from all of the lack of rest.
The same mental deprivation had engraved an everlasting hint of insanity in his gaze. He didn't mind much. In fact, he thought that it was interesting how a demon psyche could be broken to such an extent.
His screw got looser every second he was alive.
Then again, every demon carries not the slightest of sanity when they are born.
And not like it impedes their decision-making in any way.
A couple of months after he regained freedom, he was notified that the nether country had built a Magus Academy near the heart of its territory. Lothair decided to apply because he had nothing to aim for, considering that all love and hope that he had in the world had been dissipated in his time as a slave.
Of course, not before putting an effort on researching some 'subject' like a true delinquent. He was too engrossed in this research of his, that he was already 9 months late to finally applying for scholarship.
To his surprise, however.
"I got in." He put on his usual smile. But if he were to compare the smile he had back then when he was innocent and pure, his current smile felt emptier. "I got a bad feeling about this."
The Magus Academy could be described in one sentence.
A free-for-all brawl.