That’s right, two.

I wasn’t surprised that there were large gaps in the history of the world, as many old civilizations were recent discoveries in our modern era. In a world racked by two demon invasions, it wasn’t at all surprising that some things would be lost and forgotten by the passage of time.

As a result, it wasn’t entirely known what caused the demons to rise. But they came from a continent to the east called Agenor, which was connected to the greater continent we live in of  by a rather long isthmus. Apparently, many of the inhabitants of the lands we inhabit today were migrants from what is now the demon continent.Having left the continent when the demons rose and began to attack humanity. 

Luckily, thanks to a combined effort by human and elven kingdoms led by two great heroes,  the demons advance was halted and they were kept in Agenor. A smaller group led by the heroes wreaked havoc on the demons in Aegenor and greatly reduced their numbers while the grand coalition ensured none of the demons crossed the isthmus. Eventually, the demons were no longer able to advance and an opportunity to completely wipe them out presented itself.

While they had the chance to completely eliminate them, those countries which did not directly border the demons were not too eager in providing assistance to liberate Agenor from the demons, as it would only result in the bordering nations increasing their territory while their gains would be questionable if at all. Thus, with negotiations breaking down, the neighboring countries simply agreed on a defensive pact and began a cooperative agreement to build a wall and have soldiers from many nations guard it, as a way to showcase their goodwill.

Although you would think this would have been a good plan to keep the demons at bay. Especially seeing that the border between the human world and the demon world is still the same today. Boy did things go wrong.

According to the history books, the land known as Bharata used to be home to a large amount of empires and at its height, the combined population of all these empires amounted to 600 million people. Something that I thought was an absolutely ungodly number seeing the technological state in the world.

It appeared that they were able to sustain such populations thanks to the progress they made in magic. As all the great empires and even smaller kingdoms offered free basic education in order to discover those with talent for magic and increase the amount of magicians they possessed. While their main purpose was to aid the armies in war, as those nations essentially entered an arms race against against each others with magicians being the main weapon, it appeared that this had some positive side effects. Not all magicians were capable of fighting in war and worked as engineers, doctors, and a slew of other professions. And during peacetime when the demand for magicians wasn’t as large, many magicians previously employed in the armies also joined these professions, which resulted in these nations to advance at an unprecedented pace compared to the rest of the world.

Despite how great the area was, it appeared that humanity greatly underestimated the demons. Although they were aware of the impending attack, this time around the demons were lead by a proper leader, the Demon Lord, and had an organized command structure. As a result, the rather simplistic defensive plans by humanity failed to contain them and led to one of the greatest tragedies in this world.

Instead of pushing through the wall at the isthmus, the demons either flew or boarded boats through the treacherous waters until they reached a great mountain range far from the coast at the isthmus. From there, they kept amassing enough strength until under the leadership of ten of their twelve demon generals, they began moving for an invasion on the unsuspecting inhabitants of Bharata. At the same time as this was happening, a smaller invasion at the wall took place, which fooled the surrounding nations into believing that the demons were in fact, trying to breakthrough from the same place as last time.

No one suspected that the demons would go around. For indeed, the waters in this world were filled with massive monsters along with the unpredictable sea weather that would lead to massive casualties. And the demons did suffer massive casualties, as countless bodies of dead demons would wash up along the coast for a very long time. Regardless, the demons took these casualties and continued to amass more demons until they had enough for an invasion of Bharata.

It appeared that humanity had build different stop gaps for the invasion, and the great armies of the many nations of Bharata had agreed to act if the demons made it past the first kingdom bordering the wall. However, although they were beginning to prepare and had standing armies, they were not expecting a direct attack upon their lands so soon and were unable to react in time as the land had been relatively peaceful for over 100 years at that point.

Whoever the Demon Lord was, it appeared he was not an idiot. He immediately chose to attack the largest and most powerful concentration of humans with a miraculous surprise attack instead of waiting for them to prepare their defenses and halt their invasion once more. And it really was a miracle that they were able to move so many demons over such a large distance without alarming the surrounding nations, even if the route they took mainly passed through empty land save a few nomadic tribes. Although there are claims of some of these nomads reporting massive numbers of demons. It appears they were not taken seriously until it was too late.

As a result, the greater strength of the Demons began a long and gruesome campaign in Bharata that led to the decimation of that land. However, the large numbers they had employed meant the demons were not able to make much progress on the other front, reaching only to the sacred forest of the Kingdom I was in, before being pushed back after failing to pass through the great barrier employed in the forest. This meant that the demons in Bharata were left to fend for themselves, and were eventually defeated by two great heroes leading a coalition of armies from the surrounding nations. Although their success could mostly be attributed to the massive casualties the demons had already faced and continued to face in their battles against the nations of Bharata. A testament to the fact that if they had properly prepared and chosen the battleground, the nations of Bharata would have undoubtedly repelled and destroyed the demons, instead of having to fight in their cities at the great cost of lives.

Although humanity ended up victorious once more, the result that time around left a chilling mark in humanity's confidence to successfully repel another invasion. Since the overall strength of demon’s was larger than humans, as well as their mana capacity, the demons were able to hold their ground at 10:1 odds and were mostly triumphant at 6:1 odds.

With the disparity in strength, as well as the fact that an area with 600 million people and advanced civilizations had been left in ruins, the remaining nations all agreed that they needed better cooperation in order to defend themselves. From this, the guild and the idea of nurturing powerful humans who would become adventurers was born.

The land surrounding the wall was given to the guild. And all the surrounding nations accepted the presence of the guild after some negotiations were done. At first, it appeared that countries weren’t too pleased in allowing the free movement of adventurers, as it was questionable that spies and other criminals wouldn't take advantage of this and cause a lieu of issues to the nations allowing them free passage.

However, with an increase in monsters and new dangers spreading from the ruins of Bharata, as well as most communication to the area cutting off leaving the surrounding nations in the dark about what was occurring to the millions of survivors, adventurers quickly became useful as a way for countries to fight against such threats and deal with dangerous missions without wasting their precious soldiers. Eventually, even exploring labyrinths and dungeons became the primary duty of adventurers, while soldiers simply barricaded the surroundings in case monsters began pouring out.

After this, I learned about the formation of the Theocracy and the Empire, which were two rather new nations as opposed to the old Kingdom of the Sacred Tree, which had been standing for over a millennia now.

This wasn’t the only thing I learned, as I also learned about the different known monsters in the world and also read a bit about labyrinths and dungeon.

Thus, at the moment, I was now once again headed to the library, to continue my studies once more in order to gain as much knowledge as I could in order to make good use of my abilities. Although after today I would take a break in order to take a quest at the guild to finally increase my levels and gain new skills and abilities.