Chapter 1: The Demon Lord’s Banquet
The air in the Demon Lord’s throne room tasted of copper and ozone. It was the smell of high-level magic, of decay, and of victory.
"Orion, look out!" a voice screamed.
Orion, the vanguard of the legendary Hero's Party, didn't have time to react. He had just driven his holy blade, Aethelgard, into the chest of the Demon Lord Zerathos. The beast was falling. The world was saved.
So, why was a warning being shouted?
Thwip.
It wasn’t the sound of a monster attacking. It was the sound of a dagger—specifically, the "Phantom Blade" belonging to his best friend, the rogue Silas.
The dagger didn't aim for the Demon Lord. It aimed for the gap in Orion’s armor, right between the neck and the pauldron.
Orion tried to turn, but the poison acted instantly. His muscles locked up. He crumbled to his knees, his holy sword clattering uselessly against the obsidian floor.
"Silas?" Orion choked out. His vision blurred, but he could see the figures stepping forward.
Silas was there, wiping the blood from his dagger with a handkerchief. Beside him stood Elena, the party’s archmage, her staff glowing not with healing light, but with a binding spell. Behind them, the heavy iron doors opened, and a tall, regal figure entered—Dan John. The Kingdom’s Prime Minister. The man who had funded their journey. Chapter 1: The Demon Lord’s Banquet The air
"You missed the artery, Silas," Elena said, her voice cold and clinical. "He’s still conscious."
"I had to make it look like an accident during the heat of battle," Silas replied, not looking Orion in the eye. "A stray shot in the chaos."
Dan John stepped over the dying body of the Demon Lord, his boots crunching on the bone. He smiled—a warm, grandfatherly smile that Orion had trusted for five years.
"Excellent work, all of you," Dan John said. He didn't look at Orion. He looked at the floating jewel above the Demon Lord’s corpse. "The Philosopher’s Heart. It’s finally ours."
"Why?" Orion rasped. He felt the cold spreading. "Dan John... we trusted you. We were... nakama." We were comrades. Orion, the vanguard of the legendary Hero's Party,
Dan John finally looked down. He sighed, as if disappointed by a slow child. "Orion, you are a hero. Heroes are wonderful tools for toppling regimes. But once the regime is toppled, the hero becomes a liability. You would insist on distributing the Heart's power to the poor. You would demand democracy."
Dan John knelt, placing a heavy hand on Orion's shoulder.
"We don't need a hero anymore. We need a ruler. And for that, you must become a martyr. A tragic casualty of the final battle."
"Kill him," Dan John ordered softly.
From the very first splash page, the manga establishes a moody, almost cinematic visual tone. The contrast between the mist‑shrouded village and the neon‑lit cityscape beyond creates a sense of isolation that mirrors Dan’s internal conflict. The use of heavy shading and sharp line work amplifies the feeling of dread, while occasional full‑color panels punctuate moments of revelation. The world was saved
“Gift” follows Dan, a former mercenary turned reluctant hero, who returns to his hometown only to discover that his old comrades have been mysteriously murdered—all while a cryptic message about a “gift” circulates among the survivors. The story’s inciting incident unfolds in John Okuchi, a secluded mountain village that serves as both sanctuary and trap. As Dan begins to piece together the clues, the narrative hints at a deeper conspiracy involving forgotten rituals, government experiments, and a supernatural entity that may be pulling the strings.