Demon King – Chapter 814 – The Truth of the Chuunibyou Hero

‘Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing…’

Right off the bat it was the classic triple existential combo. Xixia’s entire brain was currently in a daze.

‘I’m a real man, okay? A legit one. My parents call me their son. My ID and all my official records say male. And I’m not some kind of freak in that area either. How could I possibly not even be able to tell my own gender?’

Even though these arguments kept looping in her head to comfort herself, the more Xixia tried to recall things, the more she could spot what was wrong with herself.

Her parents had never allowed her to stay overnight anywhere. Not at a classmate’s place, not at a good brother’s house. They did not even agree to let her live in the school dorms. They insisted on her commuting every single day.

The school physical exams were the same. They never let her participate. Every time, they went through the trouble of taking their kid to a hospital instead, then directly submitted the hospital’s medical report to the school afterward.

There was no need to even mention interpersonal relationships. It always seemed like whenever she interacted with male classmates, the two of them would get even more nervous. But if she brought a loli home, they had absolutely no reaction at all.

And after going through this wave of memories, although the outrageous situation of her having always been a girl had no direct evidence in her recollections… At the same time, there was also no evidence in her mind that proved she had always been a boy either.

Most importantly, even without doing anything, whether she had the equipment to commit the crime or not was something a certain hero could clearly sense herself. That was the most direct and powerful proof right now.

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“That pendant of hers, it basically makes other people unable to notice her existence. It achieves concealment by interfering with the subconscious and making others instinctively ignore her. But the core ability of that thing is subconscious interference. That effect is just one of its manifestations.”

Not long ago, on the day the Little Demon Lord used a clone to visit Yuki’s house, during their idle chatting and teasing, the topic had coincidentally drifted to the issue of that certain chuunibyou hero.

It just so happened that Eiru had finished researching Xixia’s pendant at the time, so she casually gossiped with Yuki about the unlucky girl’s situation.

“Actually, aside from when she actively uses it and it shows the effect I mentioned earlier, there’s another layer of subconscious interference. And the target of that interference is that idiot herself.”

“So that’s why you said that day…”

Yuki came to the realization as well. At the beginning, he had made many guesses about this issue. Now it seemed the answer was very magical.

“Bingo. Under the effect of that pendant, she is fundamentally unable to realize that she is a girl. The moment there’s even the slightest sign of her becoming aware of her own gender, the pendant interferes with her subconscious and makes her directly ignore the matter.”

So whether it was bathing or going to the restroom, whenever Xixia encountered situations that could allow her to notice her true biological sex, the pendant would activate. She would muddle through that period in a daze, and afterward she would have no memory of it at all.

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On top of that, with her parents’ cooperation and secrecy, this unlucky hero girl, who actually had quite decent natural talent, had always been treated by the people around her as a somewhat effeminate young boy. Even she herself was no exception.

“But why would her family do something like that?”

Although the Little Demon Lord did not explain too much, Yuki could guess that this was her family’s doing. Since her body had always been female, how could her parents, who lived with her day and night, possibly not notice?

So after hearing his girlfriend’s explanation, Yuki could not figure it out. What kind of strange family was this?

This was also raising a daughter as a son, yet the situation of this hero girl and that certain Demon Lord was completely reversed.

In Eiru’s case, she had hidden everything herself. Her family did not know she was a girl, so they raised her as a boy.

But Xixia was different. Her family knew full well that she was a girl. And then they deliberately concealed this fact from her, raising her as their son.

“How should I put it? She’s not just a simple chuunibyou…”

The Little Demon Lord rubbed her cheek against Yuki’s face and dropped a bombshell.

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“She’s not acting or bragging. She truly is a genuine hero. Yeah, the kind of hero from the stories I told you about before.”

Yuki’s expression changed when he heard that. Although he had not paid too much attention to the stories about heroes, he clearly remembered… Those heroes were all tragic figures who fought the Demon Lord to the death because they carried a short lifespan debuff over their heads.

“Yeah, it’s exactly what you’re thinking. That’s precisely why her family is hiding it from her.”

“Heroes, because they overdraw their future, possess strength and intelligence beyond ordinary people. The fact that she looks kind of not too bright is actually the result of the hero’s curse not taking effect.”

At the time, the Little Demon Lord had only had a half-baked understanding of the situation. But now, within the subconscious space, after fully hearing Belonia’s story, she had more or less figured out Xixia’s case.

It was most likely her daughter’s handiwork. That predecessor who simultaneously possessed the dual powers of Hero and Demon Lord. Although it sounded absurd that a problem that had plagued heroes and Demon Lords for countless generations was suddenly resolved, thinking about it carefully, it was not that strange.

After all, in that life and death stalemate, the Demon Lord and the Hero had no way to sit down calmly and truly understand each other. But now had there not appeared an existence who bore both identities at the same time?

Using the knowledge accumulated and passed down through generations of Demon Lords, combined with her own situation, it was not surprising that she could research a method to solve the problem.

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Otherwise, if they had simply tossed the Abyssal Amber away, then yes, the Demon Lord would indeed be gone. But if those heroes failed to complete their mission, they would only be waiting for death. Previously, at least if the subjugation succeeded, one might survive. Now it would turn into none of them surviving at all.

Since the curse of overdrawing targeted the hero themself, then as long as a state could be created where the hero was not entirely themselves, that would satisfy the condition of “I am not me” and exploit a bug, temporarily preventing the curse from taking effect.

A wildly ambitious Chaotic Evil Demon Lord had run off together with the Abyssal Amber. That certain extremely filial daughter could not possibly be so irresponsible as to let other worlds carry such a ticking time bomb for no reason.

Although she did not quite believe that her awful mother could truly break through the world’s interference and survive, it was always better to leave an extra safeguard.

And so, under the interference of that extremely filial Demon Lord daughter, the bloodline of heroes also attached itself to the humans of this world. However, unlike the heroes of that other world, the heroes of this world had already possessed a method to restrain the curse early on.

It could be gender, or it could be a certain emotion. When a hero developed a cognitive error regarding some aspect of themselves, that satisfied the condition of “I am not me.”

And so, the cognitive price that our unlucky hero girl Xixia had to pay in order to suppress the curse was her awareness of her own gender.