Demon King – Chapter 1 – Although she’s a demon king, she likes slacking off!

“So, can’t you try a different approach?”

Inside a certain golden-arched fast-food restaurant, two high school boys argued over a test paper.

The black-haired boy was a bit malnourished, looking somewhat scrawny. While chewing on a french fry, he pointed to the test in the silver-haired boy’s hand.

The black-haired boy was named Eiru, and the silver-haired boy was called Yuki. They weren’t exactly best friends, but were on pretty good terms.

“Just try using a different approach! Cmon, you’re the top student in the whole school—don’t embarrass yourself like this!”

Eiru, a fry hanging from his mouth and his chin resting on his hand, looked exasperated.

“Forget it, let me…” Unable to watch any longer, Eiru snatched the pen from Yuki before quickly writing out the solution on a piece of scratch paper.

“Done.” After finishing, he shoved both the test and scratch paper back in front of Yuki, picked up his bag, and stood up.

“I’ve got work—no time to waste on you! Later!” With a mock martial-arts-style salute, Eiru made a run for it, leaving Yuki stunned.

“Damn it! Eiru, you still owe me money!” They’d agreed to split the bill, and yet he’d just run off.

Resigned, Yuki paid the bill before looking in the direction Eiru had run off to— with no sign of him.

He’d known Eiru for three years now… And his behavior was still always unpredictable.

Scheming, chaotic, and a bit eccentric. But surprisingly dependable when it really mattered.

Yuki often found himself envious of Eiru—he lived freely, unbound, with no external pressure.

At that moment, the fleeing Eiru wasn’t heading to his usual part-time job at the milk tea shop, but instead was sprinting toward his place with his bag in tow.

The reason he’d run off so quickly wasn’t because of work. It was because he’d spotted some classmates nearby…

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Even though they weren’t in the same class, Eiru and Yuki had gone to the same middle and high school.

As the top student of the grade, Yuki’s parents and teachers strongly disapproved of him hanging out with someone like Eiru.

After all, Eiru was known for being a troublemaker. If those gossipy classmates saw them together and tattled to the teachers…

That would definitely mean hearing another lecture: “Don’t drag the other kids down,” “Stop being a bad influence,” and so on—he was sick of hearing it.

Whatever happened to Yuki was none of Eiru’s concern. He was the school’s poster boy—no one would dare mess with him.

That’s right. I, Eiru, am the notorious problem child of Huanghai City’s Seventh High School ¹ The highschools are named First High School, Second High School, etc. until Seventh High School . A legendary delinquent, with bizarre stories floating around among students and teachers alike.

Things like being the boss of other delinquents, getting into fights, extorting classmates for protection money…

Truthfully, most of the time I skip class just to nap on the roof or wander around aimlessly. I don’t even know where those rumors came from.

My grades are consistently near the bottom, so teachers and parents alike have long given up on me. As long as I don’t cause major scandals or break the law, they don’t even bother preaching to me anymore.

Seventh High was a school with a pretty bad reputation. The atmosphere was poor, and there were a lot of delinquents nearby. The average student level lagged far behind both Fifth and Sixth High.

However, their school made an elite class with students like Yuki. Even if you were to compare them to top-tier schools like First High, they were just as good.

Seventh High’s strategy was simple: pour resources into cultivating a handful of elites. Manage the mid-tier students just enough to maintain an average graduation rate.

As for the rest? Hands off. As long as they didn’t commit crimes or beat anyone up, they could do whatever they wanted.

They even set aside two entire classes for the problem students. Eiru stood out among them—he could skip class and hop the fence, and nobody would care.

Eiru lived far from the school, and the administration refused to let someone like him stay in the dorms, so he rented a small apartment off-campus.

Eiru had a younger sister who had just entered middle school. Unlike him, his sister Eiya was a top student at her school.

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Their parents agreed to let Eiru live separately, mostly to prevent him from negatively influencing Eiya.

Though the rent was paid by his parents, they didn’t cover any of his living expenses. They said that as a boy, he should learn to “tough it out”—to understand the meaning of hard work.

So Eiru worked part-time at a milk tea shop, using that meager salary to barely scrape by.

“Yo, good afternoon, Grandpa!” Back at the apartment building, Eiru waved to the landlord, who was watering flowers nearby.

The old man didn’t respond—Eiru’s reputation preceded him, and people weren’t exactly friendly.

Just renting this place had taken lots of pleading from his parents to convince the landlord to agree.

Smiling awkwardly, Eiru climbed to the seventh floor and reached his apartment door…

He unlocked it. Inside was a basic one-bedroom unit—small, but fully furnished.

Ventilation was poor, and sunlight was scarce. But it was more than enough for a first-year high school student…

He walked in, locked the door, and tossed his bag on the couch before stretching.

Suddenly, a blue light spread from behind him, enveloping his entire body. In the next second, the blue glow vanished entirely. The black-haired boy was gone—and in his place, a cute little girl in a school uniform with a ponytail, still stretching.

She walked to a full-length mirror near the entrance and examined her reflection, shrugging with a helpless expression.

Now, Eiru stood just over 140cm tall. Her long silver hair was tied in a lively ponytail, and her sapphire eyes were sprinkled with white stars, adding a mischievous charm to her.

But anyone seeing her now would probably be scared speechless.

Two bluish-purple horns protruded from her head. She also sprouted a pair of purple fork-shaped demon wings. Lastly, a thin blue tail, ending in a complex hollow triangle.

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A floating ring of spikes hovered around the tip of her tail, unattached, yet suspended by an unknown force.

She looked like one of those demons from legends—but without the malice.

“It’s been two years since I turned into this weird thing… I’ve totally gotten used to living as a girl now but… oh well, whatever.”

Originally, Eiru was just a normal boy. Then one day in eighth grade, he suddenly turned into this.

And this form—he recognized it. It was a character he played in a niche online game: a cute and cool loli demon lord.

But it wasn’t exactly the same. Along with the transformation came new knowledge about her new body.

For starters, her silver hair was even paler than in-game. And her voice was also a bit different…

But then again, the voice from inside the game was by a professional VA—her voice in reality was bound to be different. And besides, she isn’t exactly the same person…

Still, she really was a demon lord now. But unlike the game’s version, she didn’t have any powers like summoning or soul-manipulation.

The only ability she had was a mysterious energy called mana. But by experimenting, Eiru realized that mana was super versatile.

She could enhance her physical strength and speed, boost her fragile body’s defense, create a blue energy shield to block attacks, and even use offensive magic. She could also convert mana into other types of energy, like wind or electricity.

At first, she feared that her inhuman appearance would ruin her life. But she discovered she could temporarily revert to her male form by using mana to cast transformation magic.

That was a relief. Thanks to that power, her life hadn’t changed too drastically over the past two years.

But her mana reserves were limited, and recovering mana was hard. Sleeping could restore some, but not much.

Food, however, replenished quite a bit—so eating became her primary source of mana.

Luckily, her taste buds didn’t change too much. Her personality and habits were altered slightly, mainly having a new fondness for sweets and cute things.

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The problem was, her small stomach limited how much food she could eat—she couldn’t recover enough mana to maintain her male form.

Fortunately, she could absorb other types of energy and convert it into mana by filtering it.

She considered using electricity to do this—until she saw her power bill and had to give up on that idea.

Thankfully, she’d always liked sunbathing. By converting solar energy, she finally solved the mana shortage problem… behold, a solar-powered demon lord!

As a demon, Eiru’s body differed greatly from that of a human’s. If her mana dropped too low, it would affect her mental state.

In a mana-deprived state, she would fall into a deep sleep and forcibly absorb nearby energy to restore mana.

But unfiltered mana was harmful—it contained impurities that damaged her body.

Back then, she used too much mana trying to test her abilities. Once, she even passed out in the back of an alley for half a day.

Since then, Eiru became frugal with her mana—treating it like their meager paycheck.

Truly pitiful for a so-called demon lord…

To conserve mana, she usually returned to her loli form when no one was around.

Lying on the sofa, Eiru hugged a pillow and hummed a little tune. Her slim legs kicking gently in the air.

Two years had passed. She was now completely used to this body. Though she had resisted at first, she gradually accepted the girlish behavior that came with it.

“Ah… The milk tea shop’s closed today. Nice. I wish every day could be a day off…”

Lounging casually on the sofa, her tail swayed behind her. The Demon Lord, with her cutest voice, said the laziest thing imaginable.