Darkness... not the most pleasant thing to see after waking up, I would say. Especially considering that the previous morning was way more casual in contrast. Instead of a comfy bed, it's something hard; an absolute silence with no sign of life had replaced the maid that used to wake me in the morning for a dish others would work their entire life for, and the mere fact of a situation like that happening to me is nothing less than another miracle.

"Skt skt skt skt skt"

'Ah! It really wor...khm khm. So, the loyal servant of mine, have you finally awakened from an eternal dream?' "~Then you shall go on kneeling and start praising the name of the one who brings back the pathetic body of yours from a dusty grave!~"

In the mere moment of my senses finally returning to me, I felt an overwhelming pressure from above, pushing me to the lowest points of the cold-felling floor. I tried to resist, yet I was helpless as the power was too significant for even the slightest move... No! It wasn't just about "power," but the authority of this thing that made me "want" to bring myself down to his knees. Yet, despite how unfortunate it sounded, there was no place for pain nor emotion! And even the ground wasn't as cold as I was imagining. What? Why? Where? So many questions were running over my head. Yet the more I think about them, the more new ones appear.

'Just how long are you going to ignore me for your pointless monologue! If you have any questions, why not just ask the one who might be the cause of the situation.' Weirdly, right after his words, my mind couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t related to him in particular as if it was under a certain lock.

"Skt skt" Wait! What did I even try to say by this?! Wh...

"~Stop!~" As if blocking the pathway of my thoughts to the head of mine, the mysterious person made a statement: 'I know you are a newborn monster. But not being able even to bestow a mind-link? And that was the "last hope" he proudly talked about!? If I had known that this stupid monster was totally useless from the beginning, I wouldn't have even risked my life for a worthless bag of bones and this crap that would be a sin to even call a dungeon! But since there are now not a lot of options, anyway... ~Listen to me!~ If you want to talk, visualize this trash you call thoughts in your mind as a wave and send it to me. Got it?!' This time - despite his usual volume, his tone was not as aggressive as before.

'Yeaah, I got it.' Although what he said baffled me, I agreed with his previous remark of his about asking directly rather than making theories out of thin air - yet it still was hard to follow a conversation in such an unusual atmosphere.

'Good, now... caugh caugh, you probably have plenty of questions, right? Let me quickly answer the most possible ones now. First things first - you're dead.' Said the person as if it were an everyday thing for him.

Yet, quite a lot of things are making way more sense now! So, I probably died, turned into some type of monster that lost his memories, doesn't feel pain nor changes in temperature by that bastard, and is now kneeling to him in the most abandoned "dungeon" in history. So that is how it is. Ha.. aha.. ahahahhahhhh what's the hell even going on!!!

'You are way smarter than what appeared first... I apologize for the previous statement of mine - that's just how my family is used to communicating with other lower beings - but this time, we should probably speak on more of fair rights, at least till we get out of this situation.'

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Wait, so the person in front of me is a mage who can revive the dead and command them just by voice, and also one whose mind can reach monsters similar to me. So that means..."Skt skt skt skt skt" darn, using mind-link is way more complex than I thought.

'Oh, I thought it was obvious I'm not human.'

'The hell should it be obvious in a situation where you pinned me to the ground before I even saw anything!' Yet, despite yelling at him, I somehow didn't feel any sign of rage.

'Are you not a skeleton? Seen your kind before, and they seem to have an even greater lack of emotion than those of the undead, yet they also suffer from imitating some human traits and memories. It is really kind of funny show to watch those bags of bones constantly trying to copy something they've never seen in their "life."' Right after saying that, he laughed so hard that it made the entirety of the cave tremble. 'Ah, since I've come to a conclusion that even though I've lost almost all of my powers, it still doesn't prevent me from controlling you at any of the given times - I'm going to remove the "gift."'

With that said, my body finally got the ability to move freely as it used to (khm, so "imitation" applies to the feelings in monologues as well) - but my moment of happiness wasn't lasting all that long - right after the attemption of my to stand up and look all around the place things got even worse! This cave wasn't JUST "small." In fact, It is way more surprising to me as to how we fit in there! Both of us were not even standing, now thinking about it, the idea of kneeling in this tight space wasn't all that bad, to begin with.

On the other hand, it gave me a certain accessibility of finally seeing the guy behind all this. Yeah, it was far from what we used to call a human, to say the least. Where to even begin? Right! This monster looked two, maybe three meters, with knees and elbows resembling those of a beast with those spike-looking extensions on them - the back of this had around 6 ripped wings, with eyes that looked like traps for its yellow, like field of sunflowers iris and dark red like a river of blood pupil - and all but its sky-like blue hair with that not very fitting crystal flower on them whose looks remind me of an orange lily was as dark as night on the day of the invention including that odd tattoo-like ancient symbols of his skin. If we talk about clothing, it will give you a feeling like he is from some golden spoon in his mouth, of course, if any of those exist among his kind, except that would be the case if only half of his array wasn't completely shattered, which is kinda sad knowing that this one was probably expensive enough to buy a small land part near the capital kingdom with those symbols symbolizing segregation, intelligence, and power.

'So you are not only able to see but to understand at least a mere portion of the greatness of the supreme devil lord that I am as well? Ahahaha.'

That mind-reading without the mind-link ability of his is truly annoying, yet it isn't like we are going to kill others (at least for now) - that's probably something I just should deal with for some time.

'You said devil lord, however - the possibility of this being your actual name is near zero, am I wrong? Also, the devil lord seems dead for a few sanctuaries by now, doesn't he? Perhaps, even if it wasn't the case, you still don't look near as strong to qualify as one.'

'Ah yeah, of course, my dear underling wants to know the name of his master and the strongest among 4 spears.'

And here we go, ignoring most of the questions for the sake of saving name and self-importance. But 4 spears? Knowing that devils aren't used to giving human-like names for their legion hierarchy, this one might be (at least potentially) as powerful as he implies. Also, I heard this name somewhe.... But shall we skip this part for later? I think that starting with names should be better for both of us!

'It might be pretty long, so listen closely, the name of mine is "Larniaus Arconiya Salis Enratren Regalia." But you should use "my lord" or "my master."'

'Ah yeah...Not gonna remember it anyway.'

'Oi!'

'Not my problem that it's that long.'

'You... uh, there's no point in this right now, but before I introduce you to our current circumstances since you forgot everything about your past life, let's make a name for you too.'

'How about Darius Ler...'

'Never! Let's see... Darch sounds similar - so how about it?'

'It's not like my previous attempt was serious, but - yeah, sure.'

'Then, my contract finally finished.'

'Contract?'

'Yeah, I saw you were actually slightly resisting - so I decided to give you a name to guarantee that you would never suddenly betray me.'

"Skt"