Global Demon King: Starting as the Abyssal Dragon

get a blueprint or skill, they're not all that beneficial to Zhang Nu at this point anymore.

These are all small villages and tribes nearby.
Generally, they're only around 300-400 in population, with even the biggest not being more than 800.
All in all, they total to only about 8000 or so, so they can only be considered very minor factions.

That said, a journey of a thousand miles takes one step at a time.

Nancilia is also sticking near the Demon King recently.

She was unable to resist asking out of curiosity, “Just what are you after really?”

“Isn't that obvious?” Zhang Nu replied, “I'm currently absorbing all the factions within the area I'm capable of holding!”

Nancilia just scratched her head, “Those tiny tribes and villages are really weak and poor though.
It's not like absorbing them will be of any benefit to you though!”

No benefit?

Not necessarily!

Every place conquered will get the Demon King a treasure chest.

Although it's not much every time, adding them all up, the 18 chests will have gotten him at least 20k gold!

Of course, Zhang Nu can't exactly explain that.

Thus, he instead took another tack, “Even the weakest and most easily overlooked goblin has worth in their existence in this world.”

“I plan on taking in, combining, and reorganizing all these factions and using them to build proper villages or cities.
Then, I'll have them exploit the resources of the forest or work in production to create value.”

“…”

When she heard that, Nancilia was very surprised.

She feels like she's beginning to understand what the Demon King is trying to do.

The Demon Kings' goal is to create a new order in the world.
The meaning to their existences seem to be to destroy the previous order of things and then recreating a new one in its place.

If something like this happened in a civilized world, then the Demon King's conduct would unquestionably be a calamity.
After all, the process of destroying the previous order and creating a new one in its place would cause countless sacrifices and deaths.

No wonder they're known as Demon Kings!

For normal countries and people who live normally under civilized laws, Demon Kings may very well be terrifying or even evil.

However, this Chaos Forest never had any law or order to speak of since ancient times.

This place is squished between three great empires.
For the billions of lives over the past thousands of years, the only law that exists is the most primordial law of the jungle.
It's kill or be killed.
All kinds of battles and wars have never stopped, even as rivers of blood were shed!

If there's a powerful Demon King, though, then he would be able to create order in this lawless place, to create new law and order in this place that never had any.
If that happened, then that may not actually be a bad thing!

While Nancilia was thinking about it, the draconian priest Li Si came up with a report, “My lord, we caught an injured elf nearby.
He seems to be one of the leaders of Giantree City!”

Nancilia was shocked to hear that.

Zhang Nu was also slightly taken aback, “One of the leaders of Giantree City? Why would he appear near Darkness Valley? And injured too? Bring him forth!”

Li Si quickly brought a middle aged elf forth.

That elf was seriously injured.
He lost an arm, apparently having gone through an extremely vicious battle.

“Third Elder!”

“How did this happen to you!”

Nancilia started shouting in surprise.

This middle aged elf is actually the Third Elder of Giantree City's council of elders.
When he saw Nancilia, he was stunned for a moment before lighting up in joy.

“My lady, you're not actually dead.
Thank goodness…”

“Just what happened? Why are you so hurt so badly? What happened to the First Elder? Something happened, didn't it!”

The Third Elder spoke with difficulty, “The First Elder…
Is dead!”

“What?!”

Nancilia was utterly frozen in shock.

The First Elder was like a father to her.
Although he's not actually blood related, he was still practically family to her.
She had a hard time accepting such terrible news right away.

“It was the former guardian elf Jules…”

“He killed the First Elder, conspired with Berserk Beast City, and usurped the position of city lord…
So many of our people were savagely killed by him!”

“My lady, our Giantree City…
Cannot be left in the hands of someone like that.
You must take Giantree City back!”

When Zhang Nu heard this news, the first thing that came to his mind was:

Shit.
Why did that old guy have to die so suddenly? Doesn't that mean that he's not going to be able to get the remaining 3 million gold he's owed anymore? He's still waiting on that money to raise more soldiers here!

Jules is Du Mingfeng.

Jules is his elven name.

That guy really is a black-hearted and vicious person!

TL Notes:

A slight quirk in how certain things translate and then persist in time is the the Chinese term for kobold, 狗头人, literally translate at “dog headed people''.
Thus, in Chinese works (and many Japanese works as well, see Re: Monster), kobolds are dog headed beings, rather than the current western impression of them being small lizard people from D&D.
I think this has to do with how, in earliest edition of D&D, kobolds started off as little dog people monsters, and that the change to a reptilian, semi-draconic, interpretation is something that changed afterwards, but it's been so long since then that few people nowadays remembers that.
That said, when D&D is first imported to places like China or Japan, they probably were renamed to something descriptive in the native language, .i.e.
– “dog headed people ''.
Thus, even as kobold evolved in the western versions, the name probably made it so that eastern audiences still retained the dog form impression of them even now.

Just something I found interesting.