Solomon's entire body suddenly tensed up, an instinctive trembling made his eyes open wide as he stared at the cave's entrance.

'This aura...it's him'

The aura emitting from the caves were from none other than the Demon King who had made his life suffer such a terrible turn.

'Why do I have such terrible luck...'

However, he clearly remembered that the Demon King was pushed back by the old Hero and severely wounded.

'He won't be in here, he was very badly wounded and had no choice but to return beyond the walls of the Demon Continent. No wonder the wolves were so full of fear, this entire area is soaked in demonic energy. Still....Why have I been affected only just now?'

He didn't understand why the aura wasn't affecting him, the fear he felt was only mental trauma from the aura and his past experiences; and it didn't exert a pressure on him nor control his decisions.

'To think I would take shelter here...Where the demon that ruined my life lived.'

Solomon couldn't help but laugh inwardly with a feeling of irony. The instinctive fear he felt had long calmed, and as such Solomon decided to venture in. As soon as he stepped in, he could feel an invisible force bearing down on him which quickly dissipated to some degree. It felt as if he were walking through water, or a muddy fields and moved just a tad slower.

There was no need to worry about light inside the cave as the miners had installed a type of cheap gem called "Glowing Stones" that were usually used to brighten caves such as these so there would be no problems working whether day or night.

It was cost effective and as they could be reused after being left in the sun to recharge, it obviously became a tool miners would be in dire need of.

As he walked deeper inside the mine, he noticed that tools were dropped in random places and carts were filled with ore or rough materials. He understood the miners of Greendale Town did not have any plans to return, otherwise after the Demon King was drove back ;they would have already returned. The villagers of Greendale Town were incredibly superstitious and since the Demon King resided here for a time; they would not dare enter here anymore.

Solomon only took a few steps in before he suddenly felt the pressure pressing against his body increase dramatically for a second before it stopped. He abruptly stopped in place after noticing an oozing smell, and recognizing a few silhouettes in the corner of the cave entrance.

Before him lay a few rotting corpses, a wolf, a few bats and surprisingly a human corpse. Shockingly, Solomon was quite calm upon seeing a human corpse.

Had he been a normal child, with a normal past; he would have felt a bit of fear upon seeing a dead body. He, however, was not such a person.

The strange thing about these corpses were that none of them had any physical injuries, neither was there any blood. As if they just dropped dead, this was when he realized that force he felt before that pressed against him probably killed these trespassers.

'..Why did it kill them and not me?'

This was naturally his first thought, why would it kill every other trespasser but himself? He only felt a bit of pressure but everything else was killed. This thought didn't last long, as he grabbed the bodies and threw them outside; not even burying the fellow human.

The wolf corpse was fresh and it had probably only been killed an hour or two ago, so he collected some wood from the forests and started a fire with a survival firestone which was a sharp metallic-like gem capable of producing a tiny flame. A firestone wasn't at all cheap, surprisingly Solomon had possession of one. This was something he had found while out doing a few labor jobs.

He was never a miner, but had some knowledge as he was required to move waste material loaded on a cart out of a mine for a daily wage. Luckily for him one day while moving out his cart, he noticed a red glitter and found the stone. Naturally, he did not turn it in and kept it to himself.

The miners would usually deduct his earnings or rob him some of his pay and as such he did not feel bad at all about concealing some gained wealth.

After roasting a leg from the wolf and devouring it in it's entirety, he quelled his hunger and decided to continue his investigation. Solomon threw out the rest of the meat as he didn't have anywhere to store it and decided to continue his investigative adventure.

Solomon continued deeper and deeper into the caves, the caves seemed to be a network of several caves and one would easily be lost. Fortunately, he had quite an amount of experience with mines and even though everything looked the same he was confident in his ability to find his way around.

Solomon noticed the deeper into the cave he travelled, the heavier the pressure became. Using that to his advantage he was able to navigate further into mines on a correct path.

He noticed there were no earthworms or centipedes around the mines, there were no insects at all which was quite rare and shocking. He was sure now that whatever entered

this cave would be killed by the pressure.

Not long after, Solomon encountered a huge wooden door at the bottom of the mines. The aura was the strongest inside the room, and surprisingly a sense of fear welled up in his heart. However, he was not in any way affected by this fear.

To him, it could only be described as a slight agitation. Even if the Demon King was behind the wooden doors, he would still open them. Solomon understood much about his own psychology, he was forced to adapt to such a state because of his ever punctual nightmares that created his particular condition.

In comparison to someone his age, he was much more mature and intelligent and understood things that children his age would not even begin to fathom. This was why he understood that fear was a natural reaction, to him it was merely an alarm bell and a tool that allowed him to measure how dangerous a situation was.

Understanding this concept was something only warriors who fought countless battles to the death would understand. It was very rare for a child to possess such insight into the mind and with such a philosophy behind it.

Solomon, without preparations or any grand build up - directly push the doors open.

"Hello...Anybody home?"

He called out in a rather calm manner, his face not showing an inkling of his thoughts. He threw a few quick glances around the room, and his eyes suddenly landed on a table inside the room.

Aside from this table, there was a throne-like chair and absolutely nothing else.

On the table, was an opened ancient tome-like book, a black sack the size of a human's palm, a mug-sized jar covererd in black cloth and a black-colored human skull with a candle burning on top of it.

Naturally, the skull with the candle on it's head drew Solomon's attention. This meant that someone was currently living here, and changed the candles regularly. A candle wouldn't burn for more than an hour, naturally, years were out of the question.

The only deduction would be that someone was currently living in this room, and they had probably stepped out.

'It's definitely not that Demon King...He was gravely wounded fighting the Old Hero, there's no way he would come back here especially since he garnered the attention of the Holy Knight Order.'

Thinking up to here, Solomon walked towards the table to inspect it and see what exactly this person had been up to.

"...What sort of intruder are you...?! You ignored the aura bearing down on you that would make any human under the Hero level flee and yet entered the cave, and now you're asking if anyone's home after first pushing open the door..You...Wait how did you survive the energy trap?!"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

" Do you not know when you're not welcomed?! How uninviting does a place have to be for you to turn around and go in the other direction! What's worse is you're not even at the Hero level of power, yet you casually enter the Demon King's hideout?! Why don't I even detect a single strand of fear from you! Were you born on the Devil's back!"

"How rude and impudent of you to enter here! Quickly bow and prostrate yourself on the floor!"

Solomon's thoughts were interrupted by a frantic voice that seemed to be aimed at him, looking around he saw no one. Finally he noticed the candle on the black skull's head burning with a green flame as if the angered to the extreme, it's dark eye sockets lit up with a similar green flame.

"....and what are you supposed to be exactly?"

Solomon calmly asked the black skull, completely ignoring the fact that a skull was speaking endlessly and venting it's anger.

The black skull seemed offended and angrily stared at Solomon, it's eyebrows which weren't really eyebrows twitching.

"You know a normal human's reaction would be shock and fear upon noticing a talking skull and yet here you are as calm as the surface of a lake! Is inside your head broken or something!...Wait a minute...that aura leaking from you...it's master's aura"

The skull seemed shocked as it obserbed the scar on Solomon's head..but before it could continue it's deduction. Solomon calmly approached the skull and picked it up, observing it's angles.

" You! What are you doing?! Put me down this instant! Ahh!! Don't! Stop it!"

The skull demanded in anger it's green flame flickering even more furiously.

Solomon completely ignored this skull's raving, observing it a bit more before shaking it a few times. Suddenly a light flickered in his eyes as he thought of something.

"This strange skull...I wonder if anyone will buy it"

The skull's head, trembled as it heard his muttering.

"Y-You want to sell me?! Absolutely not! Do you know what those humans would do to me! Especially those cursed Light mages!! You absolutely can't sell me!!"

The skull lost it's composure and arrogant tone and started begging Solomon.

"You called that guy master right....?"

Solomon asked a strange light flickering in his eyes, the skull didn't know what he was thinking but knew it couldn't be anything good. The skull saw an opportunity to strike some fear in Solomon, hoping it could regain an upper-hand. It was quite displeased when Solomon called it's master "That guy" and didn't hold back in his praises so as to let him know just how powerful he was.

"Yes! My master the great Agathodaemon Fortuna! The Great Demon King of Luck and Misfortune! It is him that I serve! Now you should obey me before he returns to reclaim me, his most prized possession! You human should know the terrifying ability of my great master and you should know he is a human's worst nightmare! Now obey me and prostrate yourself!"

Faced with this skull's useless rambling, and blatant threats; Solomon merely laughed at it as he found it amusing.

"...Yes, your master is indeed my worst nightmare. I dream of him every night and every day. Everytime I close my eyes, he's the first thing I see when I wake up and the last thing I see when I go to sleep."

The skull suddenly trembled as it looked inside Solomon's eyes, all it could see was a pitch black darkness. It seemed darker than the night without the moon, a shadow so dark it reflected an absolute nothingness.

"...But, I've gotten used to that nightmare. You know people usually wonder, what is a human's greatest ability. Some say courage, the ability to stand before a demon army and wield a blade even knowing it would be your demise.

Some say our kindness and generosity, the ability to understand the feelings of other humans and lend them a helping hand.

Some are even arrogant enough to say it's our intelligence, that it allows us to make the smartest decisions and continously improve and expand on our current abilities and standard of living"

The darkness in Solomon's eyes intensified as he looked at the skull, making it shiver and remain silent.

"However, I disagree. I've seen too many cowards to count, selfish men are as common as they come and I've seen idiots who are unable to understand a simple train of thought"

Solomon laughed as begun rubbing the skull's forehead as if it were a little kitten, he took out a rag from his pocket and begun to clear the dust from it making it shine. The black skull remained incredibly quiet, and no longer spoke. It was only now it realized that this human boy before him, was absolutely insane!

" In my opinion, It's our ability to adapt. We adapt to everything. Though some adapt differently than others, in the end we all do it. We adapt to become courageous, we adapt to put our needs before anyone else and we become smarter because we simply have no other choice.

It's the same thing with fear, have you ever felt so much fear or been drowned in so much despair that eventually the feeling is absolutely gone? Your body reacts the same way, it alerts you when you are in danger and it tries very hard to overcome the mind. Haha, but once it's broken Mr. skull, do you believe that there is no going back? A new world opens up to you, you see things differently and nothing is ever the same.."

The black skull still retained it's silence, a feeling it had only felt when dealing with it's master appeared. Usually in front of it's master, the Demon King, it would retain silence as if it weren't alive and it would only speak when spoken to. Now this feeling had once more appeared and it felt nothing but absolute fear!

It had seen cursed humans before, it's master had cursed many humans for a various amount of experiments but never before had it ever met a "specimen" such as Solomon.

'Master...Did you predict this human would turn out this abnormal? Master, do you know what you've created? Is he a "finished product" ...or is he an "abomination"...?'

The black skull had a million questions, but he had a feeling. A feeling he would never get the answers to them. The black skull had always accompanied the Demon King, he had no idea who he was or how old he was - but he was sure of one thing.

The human in front of him was a complete and utter madman. Being an object of ancient dark magic, it sensed a deep and boundless hatred within Solomon. A peerless malice of unrivalled standard, it was so resolute and pure in quality that it gave him clarity.

It felt as though beyond those eyes was a savage beast as old as time, a beast that understood everything, hated everything and cared for nothing. The most frightening part, was that no one would ever be able to tell.

Being an object of ancient dark magic, the skull was able to notice the boundless resentment. The process of binding a soul to an object was extremely dark magic, and resentment was a major factor played in doing this process.

This was the reason why the black skull was so sensitive to resentment and it recognized this feeling almost immediately.

Although Solomon's voice was calm, and his face was by no means distorted, just by merely speaking with him it had come to identify the level of hatred and it was unable to measure it completely!

"Haven't I told you Mr. Black skull? Everytime you speak, you suddenly start looking more and more expensive"