Years went by after Simon obtained the Fearless skill, and in the blink of an eye, he became fifteen years old.
And in the fifteen years he spent in the demon realm, he realized just how terrible it was to live in the demon realm.
Or to be more precise, how terrible it was to live at the bottom rung of the demon society.
It was worse than anything he expected, and at some point, Simon wondered if he had any hope of attaining a mere fraction of the strength he possessed in his past life.
The demon realm was divided into tribes, clans, and kingdoms.
There were six main tribes, six main clans, and six main kingdoms in the entire demon realm.
The six main tribes were like the leaders of the bottom ladder of the demon society. The six main clans were the leaders of the middle ladder of the demon society. And the six main kingdoms were the leaders of the upper echelons of the demon society.
These eighteen groups were not the only groups that existed in the vast demon realm. There were many other groups that existed in the tribes, clans, and kingdoms. But they were all minor groups that someday wished to overthrow one of the main groups in hopes of attaining the powers and resources they once had.
Simon and his mother were commoners of a minor tribe in the Wildlands.
The Wildands was a place where the tribes lived and it was also one of the harshest places to survive.
The weather was extremely terrible and unforgiving. It was extremely dry and scorching. Water was like gold. The ground was dry and broken like that of a desert. Powerful storms that could destroy people’s homes were a norm, and the worst was the lack of food and resources to get stronger.
Simon belonged to a minor tribe known as Duskfang Tribe, and the Duskfang Tribe was one of the many subordinate tribes of the Ashborn Tribe- one of the six main tribes.
Before knowing anything about the demon realm, Simon planned on finding ways to quickly get stronger even if it meant risking his life at a young age to fight demonic beasts, but he could not even do such a thing.
Why?
Because the Ashborn Tribe forbade it.
The Ashborn Tribe set a rule that only the hunters of the Ashborn Tribe could hunt for demonic beasts in their region, and if anyone who was not a hunter of the Ashborn Tribe was found hunting demonic beasts in their region, their death would not be swift and quick but slow and gruesome.
At first, Simon thought he could find a way to sneak into the wildlands and find a demonic beast to kill and consume so that he could get stronger, he later realized that such a thing was not possible without the Ashborn Tribe knowing.
The first obstacle was knowing where the demonic beasts even resided. Venturing in to the Wildlands was not like going into a forest or into wildlife and expecting to find beasts or animals so easily.
The Wildlands was unimaginably vast, and due to the unfavourable conditions of the wildlands, the weather and environment could kill one before a demonic beast got its chance to sink its fangs into the unfortunate demon.
Only those who were familiar with the wildlands like the Ashborn Hunters could hunt with reduced danger for their lives, but even they took lose their lives at times because the wildlands was not a safe place in the slightest.
It was a place so dangerous that it could kill even a clan lord, let alone a tribal chief or an average demonic warrior.
Simon had seen how a demonic warrior of their tribe tried to sneak into the wildlands, and two weeks later, hunters of the Ashborn Tribe brought his corpse back to the tribe.
They could see the brutal torture he had gone through at the hands of the Ashborn hunters, and in front of everybody in their tribe, they beheaded one of their warriors and even fined their tribe to the point that it affected them for six whole years.
Because of the fine, the entire tribe suffered because food became exceedingly scarce, money became more difficult to obtain, and everything became absurdly expensive.
Some chose to migrate to nearby tribes, but such a decision was a risky one.
The distance from their tribe to even the nearest tribe to them was not a day’s journey, but an entire week on foot.
And there was also the danger of running into a demonic beast or the environment becoming extremely harsh out of nowhere. However, these two scenarios were rare occurrences.
Regardless, even if one got to the Hollowclaw Tribe which was the nearest tribe to the Duskfang Tribe, the two tribes were not on good terms, and skirmishes and battles between the two tribes was not rare.
If one chose to go to the Hollowclaw Tribe, it was almost guaranteed that one would be treated as a slave or an outcast.
Their lives would not be much better, but for some, it was more bearable than living in the Duskfang Tribe after the fine.
And Simon also agreed with those that left the tribe.
The fine occurred when he was seven, and now that he was fifteen years old, two years had passed since they paid the entire fine. However, the situation of the tribe had not gotten better.
In fact, to Simon, it had gotten worse. The fine had damaged the economic foundations of their tribe in a way that many could not imagine.
With his experience as a king in his past life, he could see how the migrations of some of their strongest warriors, talented tailors and artisans severely affected their tribe... and his family.
His mother had gotten considerably thin, and the previous smile she used to have was no more.
He could always see the sadness, anxiety, frustration, confusion, and anger in her eyes.
Although he never considered her his true mother since he had one as a human, he cared for her and he found himself growing genuinely attached to her due to how she took care of him and loved him unconditionally.