Chapter 1: New Rules to the Game

When I finally opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was the bright blue sky. It felt like it had been a very long time since I had last seen the real sky above me. The sounds of birds startled me out of my stupor. I was laying down in some tall grass like stuff.

I took quick inventory of everything I had. To my great displeasure, it appeared that the only things the demon sent with me were the clothes on my back, and I have a feeling that was him being generous to me.

I quickly stood up and looked around at my new environment. Everything looked almost like I thought it should, but there were a few plants here and there that felt almost alien to me. Even paying attention to the birds chirping, I could tell it was something you would never find on Earth.

Well, that made sense, as this isn’t Earth. This was some random planet in some random moment in space and time. The only reason I was here was to try and stop a demon. I have no idea what my first steps should even be. Job prep was rather lacking.

There was a thin forest to my right, the trees spread so far apart that I could easily see the rolling hills behind it. To my right was a grassy meadow with varying shades of green and sparse trees scattered throughout. I could hear running water nearby, but I was unsure if it was directly forwards or backwards as the small hills made the noise echo around.

I could walk in a random direction and try and find a city. People are going to be my best bet for now, at least until I learn how to find demons on my own. My choices were simple at the moment, but I could only guess how that would change once I even found people, if there even were any.

I decided I was going to walk to the top of one of the hills, just to see if there was anything more I could see once I got to higher elevation. Unfortunately, the only thing I found once I made it to the top was more grassy hills in the distance with no water in sight.

The forest was a statistically bad choice as something would be able to sneak up on me a lot easier than in the grass due to the trees blocking line of sight, even though not all that much. To be fair, something could easily sneak up on me in the waist high grass, but I should be able to hear it coming.

I decided that walking over the hills was the best idea for now, at least until I found something more reliable to follow. Hill after hill, there was nothing new to see, only the varying shades of green that the grass offered, and the occasional tree. I had some time to think about what else I had to do here.

I was going to find out if I even spoke the same language or if some mystical power was just going to make it work. Learning new languages is fun and all, but I’m not sure how practical it is to learn an entire new language while trying to save their world, if the even trusted me that much.

Would I even have enough time to fluently learn a language to the point where I could have in depth conversation about geographical locations and whatnot? Who’s to say the demon wouldn’t just destroy the world while I was trying to gather information.

This isn’t a game; I don’t have unlimited free time to just go and do side quests. Sure, I still had to gather information and try my best to be friendly so I could get inside information on things as they happen. However, the threat of destruction was looming, and no amount of procrastinating was going to stop it.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, I happened upon a trail. I couldn’t tell if it was a trail created by humanoids, or animals. I should probably try and learn the difference at some point, but even if it is a trail made by animals, it was sure to lead to something if it looked this well used.

After about ten minutes of walking down this random trail, I finally find the river I had been hearing throughout the day so far. The river was flowing extremely quickly through the path it had carved into the hills. Rough and rocky terrain surrounded both sides of the river, clearly showing that this river was prone to frequent flooding.

Well, at least it probably floods often enough that it drags the top layers of loose soil away. With the speed of the river, getting caught in it can only lead to disaster. I was still at the level where I could very much die still. I was supposedly more resistant than I used to be, but it still wasn’t ideal.

I wasn’t even all that sure I could even swim with a missing arm. Speaking of which, it felt like it was healing more and more with each passing day, slowly lengthening. I wonder if becoming a demon enables me to regrow limbs fully, even if it takes a very long time.

Taking a very long time shouldn’t be an issue as supposedly I can’t die of old age anymore, which seems unreal to me. As long as I feed and water myself, I’ll live as long as I want, so long as nothing else like a disease that affects demons, or something like an angry mob try to kill me.

I would have loved to get a bit more information before I was thrown straight into the fire, but beggars can’t be choosers. I had to work with what I knew, which wasn’t all that much. I knew that demons emanate a certain feeling from them most of the time, unless there is some way to control it that only the demon at the bottom of the floors knew.

I had a feeling that the other demons I encountered knew of this method too, just decided not to use it when facing me because there was no reason to hide the fact that they were different. How does it work, and will I even have to bother with it, being as weak a demon as I am?

The farther I went along the river, the steeper the hills became, and the more trees were starting to block my way. The trail I was following could hardly even be called a path at this point, with only a few places where the grass was pushed to the side by something moving through.

I was beginning to think that maybe I had missed a turn and the path went into the forest on my left. The path was entirely gone after a little while and I was blazing my own path through the grass on the embankment of the river. The fast-flowing river blocking a lot of the noise I made, but that didn’t make me feel better, as I wouldn’t be able to hear anything approaching me either.

That was when I heard a mechanical clicking as I stepped on something hard. I could feel cold sharp metal slide into my leg at high speed. I managed to not scream as the metal pieces, now digging into my flesh, hit the bone and stopped.

A small groan escapes my lips as I faintly hear a bell in the distance over the sound of the flowing water. There was a small string attached to a nearby sapling that I disturbed when I nearly had my leg stolen by what appears to be a bear trap. Why they would use sharpened teeth was beyond me, but it hurt quite a bit have sharp blade press against my bone.

To no surprise, I struggled to get the bear trap off of my leg. Thankfully, there was still feeling in my foot, and the bleeding seemed to be minor for now. That will change once I remove the metal teeth from my leg, but I was more concerned with what I had alerted by entering this trap.

Would it be a local, and how happy would they be to see someone completely unknown in their trap, presumably close to their home. It could even be a poacher and they would try and silence me. I had no idea what to expect, and I wasn’t happy with the idea of just waiting and seeing.

I do my absolute best to pry open the trap with my single arm, but, without a second arm, or the willingness to completely lose the limb, I wasn’t going anywhere until help arrived. I was completely at the mercy of whoever was going to find me.

Not long after my resignation to whatever fate awaited me, I heard something over the sound of the river, which means it was close. I was hoping it was a nicer person, but I really couldn’t be sure. All I could do was hope as the sound of footsteps, what sounded like two pairs, got closer, and soon, I heard voices.

“I’m tellin’ you; it was a false alarm. The hunting party isn’t to be back until three movements from now.”

“I say we check anyways. What’s a little extra prey going to hurt anyways?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“You worry too much.”

For the first time in a couple years, I hear a normal conversation between normal people. I’d say if I wasn’t already tearing up from the pain in my leg, I would have teared up from this moment. I decide that I should probably shout for help or something, so that they don’t just attack me on sight for some reason.

“Help! I’m caught in a trap!” I shout loud enough that they easily should have heard me. The footsteps stopped for a second, only to speed up significantly in my direction, the two men don’t talk anymore, and I hope they aren’t coming to kill me.

As they round the final tree that separated us, I see a worried look on their faces as they look over me. Clearly, they weren’t immediately ill intentioned, as they scanned over my appearance, they looked more shocked than anything. I decided speaking again was going to once again help me.

“Please help me, I lost my right arm already, I’d rather not lose my leg too.” I pulled the pity card as the men hurried over to me.

“How’d a man like you end up like this? You’d normally be kept safe in a village with a missing limb like that.”

“My wife cheated on me with a man who had both his arms and I ran away.” I made up a sob story on the spot.

“I feel for ya man. My wife cheated on me once while I was out huntin’. Ran for the hills to stop myself from raisin’ a fuss.” The second guy who was assessing my leg before he removed the trap also spoke.

“Other than the obvious trap in your leg, you alright man, nearest village is a few days out. You don’t appear to have a thing to your name.” The first man now begins to assess the trap holding onto my leg now too.

“I’ve been drinking out of the river, haven’t eaten in days though.”

“That’s a right way to get sick there, buddy. Alright, now this is gonna hurt, but we gotta get this thing outta your leg.” The second guy gestures to the first and they use all of their strength to pry the jaws of the bear trap open.

As soon as the blades had come out of my leg, very little blood came out, which I was thankful for. Once my boot would fit past the teeth, I used my left arm to slide me across the ground and drag my leg out of the trap. I took a deep breath as the men carefully let the trap close shut and walk back over to my side and crouch down.

“The bleeding doesn’t seem all that bad.”

“Best I seen from someone getting hit by a mule trap. Heard a story of a guy whose skin didn’t even break though.”

“Hopefully I don’t lose the leg.” I almost whimper out as I look at the damage done to my leg. It actually didn’t even look all that bad, just one deep cut on both sides, no tearing or twisting of the skin, and only a little bruising from blood leaking under my skin.

“You’re a lucky man, the leg should be fine, we do gotta get ya back to the village before some animal smells all this blood and gets curious. I’ll leave a sign for the hunters that we went back already, you start walkin’ with him. I’ll catch up.”

“On it.” The other man doesn’t even look at his friend while walks the direction I came through. He offers his left hand to me, and I take it with mine. It was evident he was right-handed from the clumsiness involved, and I appreciated the effort.

Once I am standing on my good left leg, he stared at the stump of and arm. The elbow joint gone, meaning that supporting me from that side would still work, maybe. Even I was skeptical if it would work, but once the man motions for me to try it, I am sure he has something in mind.

“Let me know if this becomes too painful and we can take a break, we just have to get out of here first.” As I put my half a right arm over his shoulder, he grabs on to the stump and holds it in place with his right hand. His left arm sliding under my armpit to provide extra support.

I decide to test putting weight on my right leg, and while the pain is somewhat bearable, I knew better than to put my weight on an injured leg. The man watches me lift my leg back up and put more weight on his shoulder.

“How is it, can you use it at all?”

“I could, but I probably shouldn’t. Those blades went pretty deep into my leg.”

“They sure did.” The man sighed. “Shouldn’t you be more careful when walking on a game trail?”

“I didn’t know it was a game trail.”

“I would’ve though a man like you would have been a hunter, at least before you lost your arm.”

“I sold vegetables, and sometimes helped out the local smith.”

“Understandable then, shame they don’t teach everyone about the dangers of trails in the middle of a forest.”

It seemed like the man was believing everything I said, or at least was believing enough of it not to ask more questions. I understood pretty quickly based on the clothes and the way they spoke; this wasn’t a modern world. Him believing me about helping a smith just helped sell the idea to me that this was a pre machinery world of some kind, the era being uncertain still.

I would wait until I see a town to make my final judgement. Perhaps this was a modern world, and these hunters were just using older methods. The fact that there were blades on a trap, and that they called it a Mule Trap kind of scared me, but I was going to leave that for now.

A minute or two later, the other guy catches up to us with just a light jog, and he isn’t even breaking a sweat. Without even talking, he positions himself under my left arm to support me from the other side. With how much these men were supporting me, I barely needed to even use my good leg.

“Thankfully we aren’t too far from the village, should only be about one movement and we’ll be there.”

“Need a break at all, or ya good to keep goin’?” The second man asked me.

“I’ll be fine, by far not the worst injury I’ve ever had.” I gesture my head towards my right arm and laugh. The other guys laugh with me, as if I just said a funny joke. It isn’t even one of those sad laughs people will do when a situation is awkward.

“Oh, because of the urgency of the situation we forgot to introduce ourselves. My name is Dale.” The first guy, Dale, introduces himself suddenly. His buddy gives him a curious glance and he just shrugs.

“I’m Ale, Dale an’ I are brothers.”

“I go by Logan, thanks for the help, Dale, and Ale. I’m surprised you guys are brothers though, you look nothing alike.” I make a simple observation.

Dale had long blond hair while Ale had short dark brown hair, nearing on black. The rest of their features could be described as below average, but they didn’t share even the same eye color of face structure. Being able to tell that they were somehow related at first glance was impossible.

“We get that a lot.” Dale laughs it off, and it seems like Ale doesn’t care either way.

We walk for the next hour, or ‘movement’ as the locals seem to call it. There is some idle chatting that happens but nothing of real importance is said the entire way to the village. Actually, the one important thing that came up was the name of the village that we were arriving at.

Riverhills village. Supposedly named such because of the nearby river and that the village is on top of a large hill. Very convenient naming, but not out of place considering my inferred time period. As we approached the village, I was almost expecting a wall of some kind because of all the fantasy novels I’ve read, but there wasn’t one.

It was just a small village of maybe fifteen houses made of wood and stone. The houses all looked wildly different, most likely to suit different needs. Some were two stories tall, and others weren’t even rectangular, one having five sides. It looked odd from a modern standpoint, but when you don’t have to worry about space, you can just build whatever you want.

As soon as we passed by the first house, someone comes running from one of the larger buildings looking concerned. The man who ran from the building looks even more concerned as he lays eyes on me but focuses on the two men helping me limp along.

“Ale, Dale, the Magistrate is in this city.”

“Sir, is it an inspection?” Dale asks as we stop walking, focusing on the conversation. “The Magistrate rarely visits villages this far away from the main city.”

“He said he was here on ‘Royal Business’.” The person speaking was a tall and muscular man that looked like he had survived several knife fights where the other fighters fought dirty.

“Sorry, Logan, we have to deal with this. Sir, could you take him to the medicine building. He got a leg stuck in a Mule Trap.” The man winces as he looks from my right arm, then to my leg. However, without hesitating, he picks me up and holds me under his arm. His grip was strong and sturdy, but it didn’t hurt.

“I’m sure it’s quite the story, for now though, let’s get you to the medicine building.” Before he had even finished talking, Ale and Dale had already run off to where this tall man had come from.

“Sure, I am able to walk a little on my own, you don’t have to carry me like this.”

“Nonsense! Even if I don’t know him, how can I possibly let an injured man walk around.”

“I appreciate the concern, but the way you are carrying me is humiliating.”

“Ah, just deal with it. You’re a man, these things happen.” He laughs heartily as I’m carried like luggage under his arm. I don’t resist though; it was a kind gesture in the end.

I was quickly taken into a two-storied building made of stone. Once I was inside, the strong smell of alcohol immediately assaulted my nose as I spotted various different plants hanging from the ceiling and walls. I wasn’t able to recognize any of them, and that made a lot of sense considering the situation.

The walls were also sparsely decorated with paintings, on one of the walls there was a painting of a vaguely horse shaped creature with sharp teeth and drool coming out of its mouth. The horse legs, instead of ending in hooves ended in sharp talons that looked intimidating.

Looking around the main floor, it seemed it was just a general care facility. There were people in beds in a large open room with people going around and checking on them. The straw mats and wooden bedframes made this look really odd to me for a care facility, but the times are different around here.

“Logan, was it? I’ll leave you here with the doctors. Dale and Ale will probably come check on you once they are done with the Magistrate.” The large man says after setting me down in a bed. He waves over a doctor and then leaves.

A gangly woman walks over and looks me over. I couldn’t tell if she knew what she was doing, as she kept looking at my arm instead of the obviously damaged leg. Actually, was this woman even a doctor? Not that she didn’t look the part by at least wearing clean and undamaged clothes, its just she seemed very unfocused.

“Good day, sir. I am Lume, the Doctor. Is there anything other than your leg bothering you?” Her voice was gentle and soothing.

“Just the leg, stepped in a Mule Trap by accident. Name’s Logan.” I do my best not to make any strange motions like nodding my head, as I don’t know the culture, so I don’t want to accidentally offend her. Considering she is the doctor that is helping me.

“Let me grab a few things and we’ll get you patched up right away, Logan. Will you need a rag for when I apply the antiseptic or do the stitches?” Lume asks a dangerous question more casually than I was expecting.

“I’ll be fine.” I say, hoping that I will be and that I’m not going to be making a fool of myself.

“Tough guy, trying to impress the ladies?” A guy laying in the bed beside me speaks up after Lume walks away.

“Have to do what you can when you only got one arm.” I wave the stump around, giving myself a false sense of confidence. I was playing a character here, and the more people I had fooled, the better.

The man laughs but doesn’t say anything else to me. I was expecting to have to once again explain my fake sob story, but it seems people here mind their own business a lot more than I was expecting. This place is so different already from earth that it’s kind of jarring.

Lume quickly returns with a whole bunch of stuff in her arms and sets them on a nearby table and slides it over near the foot of my bed. She preps a whole bunch of tools that I don’t recognize in the slightest. Even if they were modern tools, I wasn’t sure I would recognize them immediately though.

“This should only hurt for a second.” Lume says as she rolls up my pant leg and preps a cloth with the antiseptic, whatever it was, I couldn’t read the bottle from where I was laying.

Lume works quickly, I had to say, and it didn’t even hurt all that much. She spread the wounds open carefully, probably checking for any dirt or debris, and washed it with a small amount of water, probably just making absolutely sure there wasn’t anything inside of the wound.

Lume then used the cloth soaked and cleaned the top layer of skin and a little bit into the wound on both sides. I twitched slightly as the cloth slipped inside my wound at one point, but it was more surprising than painful.

After cleaning everything, Lume grabs a curved needle that already had something threaded through it. She holds my leg down with all her body weight, probably expecting me to kick once the needle entered my skin. I didn’t even twitch, the needle barely leaving any feeling at all.

Lume loosened her posture a bit realizing that my words weren’t hollow when I said I would be fine and gets to work on stitching the wounds shut. After about fifteen minutes, both sides are closed and bandaged. I have to say, she works quick.

“There you go. Rest here for a bit so we can make sure the stitches aren’t too tight and agitating anything then you’ll be good to go.” Lume pats my leg and gives me a smile before walking away with the bottles of stuff she brought over.

“Huh, you really weren’t lying.” The man in the nearby bed speaks up again.

“If you don’t focus on the pain, you barely even notice it.” I chuckled while responding to the man.

“Ain’t those words to live by. You say those shallow things were caused by a Mule Trap though, you got pretty lucky there. Most people lose the leg they stepped into the thing with.”

“So I’ve heard.” I was really starting to wonder what this ‘Mule’ they were speaking of was. I had heard the name a few times now, but I was highly doubtful that it was the same mule I was thinking of.

An animal that needed a hunting party and required such a viscous trap certainly couldn’t be anything I wanted to encounter without a good weapon and a plan. Actually, scratch that, I would like to never encounter one if I can help it. Especially if it was that thing in the painting.

Suddenly I hear loud voices outside of the building, and a lot of shouting from two familiar voices and one completely unknown voice. I heard Dale and Ale shouting things outside the building, and one extremely angry man, the only word I hear through the thick doors is something that worries me greatly, ‘Demon’.

“I mean no insult to you, Sir Magistrate, but I refuse to believe that man is a danger. He has been helpless since I found him caught in a Mule Trap.” I hear Dale speaking loudly as the door to the building slams open.

“Is your brain smaller than that of a fish? I said it is a dangerous creature, so it is one. You are not to treat it like a fellow human, as it is not one of us.” A gravely voice echoes through the building as I lay my eyes upon probably the oldest, most wrinkly old man I had even seen.

“Fine, just look at him for yourself then, then you can tell if they’re going to harm anyone or not.” Dale, who sounded completely fed up with the situation, led the man towards me after spotting me in one of the beds.

The oldest man in history begins to walk towards me while not even trying to hide the victorious smile on their face. They have this smug look that says, ‘I got you now, try to wiggle your way out of this one.’ The smile on his decaying face grew larger when he saw the wound on my leg and the missing part of my right arm.

“This certainly is a Demon.” The man who kept getting called a Magistrate stood at the end of my bed condemned me.

“Is there any proof to that? How can we even tell that he is a Demon?” The man in the bed besides me asks quietly, also skeptical.

“You dare question a Magistrate? I am here on Royal orders to ensure the demon is put to death. Young sir, what village are you from, this one?” The Magistrate’s full attention shifts to the man in the bed next to me.

“Valleycreek village, sir.” He answers hesitantly. “It is the closest village.”

Uh oh.

That’s a big uh oh. My brain screams at me as I see Dale perk up with a possible idea. I could already see the storm coming, I could probably run but I had already seen a few people with weapons around the area and I am sure the Magistrate would have no issues making those people move to kill me.

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“Sir Magistrate, Logan here can’t be a Demon. The man to his side will probably vouch for him since they are from the same village. Logan told me had run away from an unfaithful wife in Valleycreek. This man will have easily seen Logan there before you claim he ‘dropped’ into this world.” Dale looks to the man in the bed beside me. I kept my face calm, as if I knew everything was going to work out.

“Of course, I know Logan here. He lost his right arm in a smithing accident. Logan and I were traveling together right before a Mule separated us. His wife was unfaithful and had slept with the town’s head after Logan here lost his arm, truly a sad story.” The man recounts a false tale with more emotion than I had seen from actors in my original world, as if every moment was spoken truth.

“Alright then, Logan. What does a Mule look like?” The Magistrate turns towards me with a damning question when someone on a bed on the opposite side of the room points to a painting I had seen on my way in here.

“Even though I rarely travelled outside, everyone knows what a Mule is. It has long legs and claws. Its long face filled with sharp teeth will scare any child into not wandering too far from home, even if its just a painting.” I say this while one of the doctors takes down the painting quietly, as to not arouse any suspicion, hopefully.

“Do I… have the wrong person?” The Magistrate starts to question himself. “I was told that there would be someone no one knew appearing in this village. I must have the wrong village, or maybe that old bastard gave me the wrong info again.”

“Sir Magistrate?” Ale talks for the first time in a while.

“I apologize for the misunderstanding then. Logan, take this as token of my apology.” He takes a coin out of his pocket and tosses it towards me.

“Thank you, Sir Magistrate” I say as I catch the coin that appeared to be made of silver. The coin kind of hurt in my hand, but I thought nothing of it as the Magistrate shakes his head and leaves.

There is a long moment of silence in the building as everyone waits for the magistrate to be out of earshot. The doctors quietly look at the others in the beds and the patients barely move around or dare to make any noise.

The noise of a whip cracking reverberates throughout the building, followed by the galloping of horses. The Magistrate must be leaving the town. My thoughts are confirmed when Dale and Ale enter the building. They have a worried look on their face as I set the coin down on the side table.

“Logan, thank goodness you had your buddy here to testify for you. Even if you were a Demon, I wouldn’t think you would harm us.” Dale says with full confidence, and I smile as I look to the man in the bed beside me.

“I’ve never met this man in my life. I don’t even know his name.” I point to him with my only hand.

“Logan, after everything we’ve been through, you say you don’t know me.” The man laughs happily. “I’ve never lied to a Magistrate before, speaking of though, brave of you to catch that coin though.”

“Why, its just a coin, isn’t it?” I say as I look to the coin on the side table. It looked to me like it was just a normal coin.

“He really is a Demon then. Sure is somethin’.” Ale laughs as he grabs the coin from the side table and flips it, showing my both sides. The design on it looked completely unfamiliar, yet at the same time, there was a dangerous feeling to it, something that felt almost demonic.

“That ‘coin’ might have been a normal coin at some point, but the Royal Church has given a few of these coins out to Royal officials saying that it will cause extreme pain to demons if they hold the coin.” The man beside me explains.

“I wouldn’t call that pain ‘extreme’, but it sure isn’t pleasant. I’d say the antiseptic hurt more than holding the coin.” I explain calmly to everyone around, basically confirming that I was a demon. Basically everyone in the room already knew at this point, it was too hard to deny all the facts.

“You barely even flinched with the antiseptic. Sir Logan, what’s it like being a Demon?” Lume came over and asked me with genuine curiosity.

“I don’t really know. It’s been less than a day since I became one. I was a normal human until that happened.”

“What events even lead you to become a demon, and why are you actually so injured?”

“How I became a demon is still confusing to me, but the reason I’m injured is quite simple. A much more powerful demon decided to remove my arm while I was still human. Why or how is something I can’t answer you.” I answer them mostly honestly.

“So, what’s the plan, are you actually here to destroy us… If you are, I mean… just look at you.” Dale gestured towards me laying in a bed looking quite sickly and missing a limb. I completely understood what he meant.

“I wish I had a plan; my first step was to gather some information about this world so I could stop the demon. The end goal is clear, I just have no idea how to do anything in between, I was just thrown in and said good luck.”

“There are good Demons?” Ale asks curiously.

“Very few and far between. Currently, just me and the guy that made me a demon. The goal is to kill all of the demons.” I state plainly to Ale.

“What happens after you kill them all, if you even can. Do you just… kill yourself?” Lume sits down on the edge of my bed and begins inspecting the stitches. Just like a true medical professional from the modern era, can hold a conversation and work at the same time.

“I don’t know I’ll think of it when I get there.”

“Logan, you say stop a demon though. What do you mean, stop them from what?” Dale asks with a grim tone.

“Destroying your world. I don’t know how they do it yet, or how to stop them. I’ve heard there are two ways to do it. Through massive wars that kill a large majority of the population or some other method that is supposedly truly insidious.”

“Are we just here to let you learn, born only to die while you learn a few things then move on after letting the world die?” A man across the room shouts angrily. A different doctor walks over to calm him down.

“I’m going to do as much as I can, but I know basically nothing. I don’t even know how I am going to find this other demon.”

“I’d love to help, but with so little information, the best we can do is give you food, water and a place to sleep. Maybe a weapon too if you’d like.” Dale offers me the only solution he thinks is available to him.

“I’ll take it, it’s better than I was expecting. More than I can give back at the moment anyways.” I take a deep breath as soon as Lume finished inspecting the stitches and I move my legs to get out of the bed. As soon as I put weight on the leg, it hurt a bit, but it wasn’t that bad. I could walk on it easily.

“You already good walking on your own, doesn’t it hurt?” The man still laying in the bed beside me asks.

“A little pain keeps me alive.” I answer with a laugh, but no one laughs along at my joke. Sheesh, everyone’s a critic.

“That aside, Sir Logan, walking on that leg will make it take longer to heal.” Lume warns me.

“I unfortunately don’t have a choice, and it isn’t the largest open wound I’ve walked with. I also didn’t have to cauterize it this time, so the pain was manageable during treatment this time. I have to keep moving, I need to understand what’s going on with this world, and if there is anything I can do to stop it from being destroyed.”

While I walked towards the exit of the building, Ale and Dale followed me. The doctors just let me walk away, I guess they didn’t really know what to say, Lume did say I was free to go after she checked my stitches.

“’ey, Logan. Are you really tryin’ to save our world?” Ale asks me after we exit the building.

“That’s the goal. Like I said though, I have no idea how to do it.” I sigh in resignation.

“Don’t sigh, I was boutta give you some info. A few villages over, there was a lot of reports of missin’ hunters with one even coming all the way to us to ask for help.”

“You have my attention now, do you know what the problem was? Was it some animal or some person or anything at all other than just missing people?” I press Ale for more information.

“All I know is that they need help and asked us to send our best men over to come check it out. Only thing I could get from ‘em was that it was a dangerous area, no mentions of people or animals.” Ale explains to me slowly, giving me time to think.

“Alright, I’ll take a small hand ax, some light leather armor, and a bag to carry a week’s worth of water and food. The shittier the food, the better. I want to feel like I am fighting for my life while eating.” I give a list of the things I will need.

It all kind of felt like preparing for things back when I was in the earlier floors. The reason I asked for bad food was so that I could focus on everything else and bad food is probably the cheapest, at least it really should be.

Hopefully, this will be my first step in the right direction.

Everything went wrong. Everything.

Not only did I not take a step in the right direction, it feels like I backed myself up to a cliff with nowhere else to go but down. I guess it would probably be easier if I explained it from the beginning. It all started when I left Riverhills village.

“Logan, good luck.” Dale says, his eyes bloodshot like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“You alright, Dale, it’s only been one night.” I ask, genuinely concerned for his health. In fact, everyone I interacted with was acting a little off today. It had only been a single night with me sleeping in this town and even those that didn’t interact with me were acting like a normal person wouldn’t.

“I had a headache the entire night, couldn’t really sleep. The wife was complaining as well that something felt wrong.”

‘Something felt wrong.’ Uh oh.

Suddenly, screaming is heard from a building nearby, a specific two-storied medical building made of stone. I rushed with Dale towards the building to find Lume, the doctor who had treated me, lying on the floor as red liquid oozed from every opening on her face. She was still screaming as liquid poured out of her head, staining her blonde hair red.

Suddenly she turns her head towards me and points an uncoordinated hand towards me. She never stops screaming as she loses more and more red liquid. I can’t call it blood, because it isn’t the right color, nor is it the right consistency.

Not long after, the screaming stops as the rest of her head turns into a red tinted liquid. It was a horrific scene, and I had a feeling of dread wash over me as Dale collapsed to the ground while holding his head. He starts crying and drooling as the screaming starts.

Ale comes rushing over before collapsing himself. Soon after, everyone that came into close contact with me starts to collapse. The cacophony of screaming was enough to drive me mad, what was even happening?

“It’s you, the Demon! You’re doing this! Don’t kill them!” The crazy man who yelled randomly yesterday once again yelled at from his bed.

“I don’t know what’s happening to them.” I shout back at the man. “Do you have any bright ideas?”

“Leave! Monster!” The man rolls around in his bed as he screams and grabs his head. “DEMON, BEGONE!”

I left the building as fast as I could, the screams of the villagers playing an eerie song to send me off. They had gotten me everything I asked for, and then died. What even happened here? It didn’t seem to make any sense; I couldn’t wrap my head around it at the moment.

I would need to clear my mind. I would walk towards the location Ale told me about and see what happens after that. There was nothing else I really could do, as the only people I could ask about the world around me either are dead or will soon want me dead when they find so many people have died presumably by my fault.

I was walking down a well marked path, and was making sure to stay vigilant this time, as I knew Mule Traps were a serious danger to me. More so that I struggled to get the open rather than the pain and damaged the caused to the limb that stepped in them.

My injured leg was good enough to walk on by morning, the wound at least mostly closed. I guess demons really do heal from damage faster, even when they are as weak as I am. I really do need to figure out what was happening to the villagers though.

It looked like their heads were liquifying. The last time I encountered something that did that was back in the earlier floors, I think it was the Shade Paradox Corrector back on floor nine. However, when the Shade went through things, they were instantly turned into liquid, it wasn’t the slow and clearly painful process that I saw.

Was it really me that caused that though, they seemed to be acting so nice to me and everything. Wait. They were extremely nice, almost too much so. Distant memories came to mind of time and time again people being skeptical. Even in the distant past in history there was a large precedent of them just killing people that they couldn’t understand or were too different from them.

Perhaps the Magistrate was right, and I was truly just a monster. What caused it though? Even in the case that it was me that made their heads liquify, I have no idea what even would cause it… maybe it could be caused by me being a demon.

The mental effect and strain when I first met a demon while I was on those floors. The feeling of something being wrong followed by the mental fatigue, and it was only a short encounter, relatively speaking. Plus, my mental resistances were already much higher than that of a normal person because of the many floors before it.

Was the mental strain from meeting a demon really make people act friendly like that? I know I was agitated and combative. However, I don’t think my head was going to liquefy itself if I spent too much time in the presence of a demon.

Even when I encountered the powerful demon on floor thirty-four when I had completely enraged her, the pressure from being near her was intense, but I never once thought I was going to die from it. Maybe the closest experience was floor thirty when I encountered that hive mind and it tried to destroy my brain.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that their deaths were completely my fault. However, I wasn’t going to get hung up on it. Sure, their deaths might have been preventable, I just don’t have the right tools. At least not yet.

What even were the right tools?

I have to imagine that it has to do with the new feeling inside of me, but it somehow feels wrong. Somehow, I am missing information on something, yet again. I say ‘somehow’ like I missed something, I wasn’t given anything to work with.

It has to do with the feeling of wrongness though, my new power. I could figure this much out on my own, but anything past this point was beyond me. After I came to this world, I could no longer feel any of that power from myself or that sense of wrongness. It was almost as if there was nothing there to begin with.

Nothing I could do about it for now, I just had to focus on finding whatever was at this location I was going to. I didn’t have a map, but I was told to follow this marked path until the blue cloth, the head towards the river, following that for several hours, then I will arrive at the site where they think the hunters have continually gone missing.

The sound of the raging river in the distance helped me keep a cool head by giving me something to focus on other than my own thoughts. My own thoughts were fun and all, but I had spent long enough by myself to know that listening to only my thoughts for a while can lead to making some pretty bad decisions.

Eventually, I find myself facing an intersection and turn towards the easily spotted river after seeing the blue cloth tied around the tree. There was no longer any trail to follow, I had to push my way through tall grass and twist and turn to avoid tree roots that were exposed from previous flooding.

The trees in this area all looked like they were standing on the ends of their toes. I would normally be concerned about this, but as long as there wasn’t any rain here, there shouldn’t be any flooding. I had a long way to go still, according to the information I received, but it won’t hurt to look around and make sure I’m not missing anything.

The scenery was odd looking, the bare roots of trees, the smooth rocks. The rocks showed a story of a river that continuously runs over the rocks, eroding the edges off of them. The water marks on the roots of the trees shows that even when the river does flood, it would only reach my knees.

I’d rather not have to walk through such fast-flowing water, but if I do, it won’t be the end of the world. Normally, if I walked through a forest like this, I would mark the trees with my hand ax so I could easily return through this way. I don’t think I want to return to that village though, considering the deaths there.

I also have to avoid the Magistrate. They seemed to have had multiple ways to detect Demons, and if they have that, its not too hard to imagine they have weapons or tools that are effective against Demons as well. I would lover to get my hands on one of them, just to see what about it was so special.

The coin that caused pain, I wonder why it only causes pain to demons, and how they even tested it. How high in society is this demon here. How long have they been in this world ahead of me? I was hoping that maybe I was just getting unlucky, and this world had some measure of defense against Demons, but it seemed unlikely that would be the case.

The Demon that was here had probably weaseled their way into either the royalty, or a religion. I was doomed from the start, I just had to somehow out them, or get them to out themselves. That and stop whatever it was they were doing.

So much I had to do while not knowing enough information, and I should avoid towns for now, at least until I figure out why people being near me kills them. Ah, I just realized that hunting party is going to find a lot of dead people when they get back to the village.

This sucks man, I worked so hard for all this and all I get is the uncontrollable power to melt everyone’s heads. Oh well, I just have to keep pressing on, eventually things will have to change, whether I do it myself, or the world around me changes.

I took a small break after a few hours of walking to check my leg. The healing was coming along nicely, and it didn’t seem like there was any sign of infection. I do feel bad about this, I really do, but I stole a bottle of antiseptic on my way out of the medical building.

A bunch of corpses can’t really use it anymore, so I can’t be blamed. I don’t really feel bad about stealing from them, I’m just upset they died before I could get any truly useful information. I guess that’s why I’m making my way towards the location Ale talked about. To learn something, anything at all.

With that in mind, I stood up and continued my journey through the odd-looking forest. The farther I went into the forest, the rockier the terrain got, and the more roots were exposed on the trees. It was beginning to look rather eerie. The tall erratic root growth was beginning to block my way, forcing me to walk under the trees occasionally.

I can admit to hitting my head more times than I would have liked while walking through the forest. I feel a cold breeze from behind me, looking to see that nothing was there, but a large number of dark clouds were rolling in, rain.

Remembering what I told myself a few hours ago, I start to look for somewhere that wasn’t covered in the rocky terrain showing where the river had previously flooded to. There was nothing around that I could see, which felt strange to me. Sure, this was a pretty dense forest, but I had been walking for a few hours and all I saw was this samey terrain.

Then it hit me, this was exactly like the floors. The terrain itself would repeat, making everything look identical. Some floors were only the same thing, over and over, and over. Floor five was a perfect example of this, the rivers that just kept flowing down through the concrete channels.

This is not ideal then, this probably means that once the rain starts, its going to flood even if it doesn’t rain that much, and I have no idea for how long. I quickly throw open the bag I was wearing to see what I was working with, praying I had some kind of rope, either to make myself an elevated platform in the tree, or even just enough to tie myself in up high so I could sleep without worrying about falling out of the tree.

All that was in my bag was all I had requested, not a thing less, but not a thing more. One day I will remember to be more prepared ahead of strange circumstances. I should make a list of things that I should acquire as quickly as possible once I get to every world. That is assuming I have to start with nothing every time.

For now, I want to see if there was maybe some tree that was better for climbing in than the others. Nearly every tree was identical, and while some were thicker than others, there was still an alarming lack of extra limbs on the trees. Just as the sun disappeared behind a dark cloud, I found a tree that had a few branches a good way up.

I got to climbing as the sky continued to darken with the clouds rolling in. It was a bit of a hassle climbing with one arm. It involved a lot of leg strength and slowly shimmying my way up the tree, grabbing onto anything that was grabbable.

I could hear thunder in the distance, this was going to be quite the storm. I hope being a demon kept me warmer while I was getting soaked in the rain. At least it should protect me from dying a little bit, I hope. Once I made it to the branches I had scouted, I could already hear the rain in the distance.

The way the branches were positioned, I could actually wedge myself quite conveniently with one over and two under so that I wouldn’t move at all when I slept. Hopefully, this flood, when it happens will pass quickly, otherwise I’m going to be stuck here for a few days.

I had some food and drinkable water in leather bottles. I wasn’t going to die for at least a week, but I wasn’t going to be happy if I was forced to stay up here for an entire week. I would rather keep exploring in this area to see if I can find anything weird, or if I’m just completely lost.

The rain finally started to fall, and for now, the leaves on the tree I was in was blocking the majority of the light rainfall, but I was expecting that it wouldn’t last very long. The layer of rocks on the ground already had a thin layer of water flowing through it. The incline wasn’t actually all that steep, so it felt unnatural to see such a small amount of water moving so quickly.

That’s when I felt the same wrongness I had become well acquainted with. It wasn’t the same wrongness that came from encountering a powerful demon, it was more like a residual effect of something that isn’t quite right.

The feeling itself felt twisted, like something was wrong, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I hadn’t felt this exact type before, it was entirely unique, but it was very similar to what I would sometimes experience long after meeting an entity changed by Demons. Like the thing from the first boss floor, floor fourteen.

Actually, I just realized that my memory was a lot clearer than it ever had been before. I was able to remember obscure facts that I would struggle with previously. It was helpful, let’s just hope that I don’t remember anything incorrectly.

The water level was continuously rising as the rain continued to fall harder and harder. I was soaking wet, but I wasn’t too bothered by it, the water wasn’t cold. The sound of the water below could be heard over the falling rain. It sounded almost like a waterfall going over rocks.

I tried to think back, just to see if there was anything I could do to stop this odd feeling of wrongness I was currently dealing with. I was trying to remember everything I could about destroyed worlds and demons. Demons were beings that compared themselves time and time again to gods, but I didn’t feel any of that.

Is it an upbringing thing? Perhaps, but I was more thinking that if this mass terraforming was caused by a demon, them being able to play as a god wouldn’t be too far off. Demons can terraform using their powers then. It would make sense, considering some of the things I had seen from them, but it felt wrong somehow.

I was missing an important piece in all of this big puzzle. It was something that would connect it all together, but I couldn’t find it. I knew what it was supposed to look like, I had the surrounding pieces. It all has to do with the power of demons, and how they destroy worlds.

This was going to be stupid, but what if I tried using the powers I was given. There was clearly more than a passive effect, but I couldn’t even feel that odd sense of power from within myself anymore. The feeling was so intense when that demon from floor forty made me what I am.

I haven’t felt it since then, but the feeling was still fresh in my mind. Thinking about it did nothing to change the situation I was in. I felt like a fish out of water. This wasn’t my element. I was used to more straight forward solutions. Walk forwards, escape.

Now here I am, sitting in a tree hoping a terraformed area doesn’t kill me in some supernatural way. The feeling of power was completely gone, and I had no idea what I was doing wrong, or if maybe I somehow fucked it up?

Most likely, but nothing had changed since when I started, it was just plain failure. Three hours of thinking and trying to feel for anything within myself like an idiot, I came up with nothing. No power, no extra amount of wrongness.

The rain had now stopped, and the sky was starting to clear up. The water below me had turned into raging torrents. I would have to wait as long as it took for them to clear up. If I got caught in that, I would be dragged with the flow through tree roots and end up getting caught in them, drowning.

The water almost whistled as it moved over the rocks and between the tree roots. It was a noise that once upon a time would put me to sleep, but all it did was fill me with an eerie sense of dread. What was this noise covering? I had absolutely zero faith that this insanely loud current wasn’t hiding something.

Coming from upstream, I saw them. Creatures that were probably double my own height that looked vaguely like a horse. Mules. Their claw feet making the rocks under the water move oddly, changing the flow of the water, making it flow faster than it should in sections.

The Mules wandered through the forest standing side by side, almost sweeping the area. Some of them looked around and other focused on moving forwards. It was a solid row of the unnaturally moving through the forest, as if trying to find me.

I was triple their height above them, and thankfully not a single one of them looked up at me. I couldn’t see too far to the sides to see if this line continued because of the trees, but I figure its better if I don’t know how many of these creatures just passed through in a line.

As the hours pass, two more lines of Mules pass by, searching the environment. As far as I heard and saw, they weren’t able to find anything. I decided that sleeping in the tree was going to be my only option for the night. Despite the water starting to recede, it wasn’t enough for me to want to walk in as the sun was starting to set.

I carefully position myself so that I am as comfortable as possible while wedged into the tree branches and undo the leather straps on my bag. I loop them around the branch and reattach them. I really didn’t want to lose my bag because of a stupid reason. With the warm breeze blowing through the wet leaves, I went to sleep.

…

With the morning light peeking through the trees, I figured it was safe top climb down and try to leave this place. The longer I stayed in it, the more wrong it felt to be here. This place now felt dead, despite nothing changing visually, and I didn’t like it.

This place is clearly what happens after a Demon gets involved, but how they do this is something I can’t figure out simply by just observing the result. I was going to need some more input on this. There was one thing I did have to start thinking about though, and that was where I was going to go now.

I was going to have to find this other demon and… well, I’ll figure that part out later. For now, I just need to find this other demon. I figure if I go to some large population center, I will either find them, or they will come find me. It was a flawless strategy with not a single flaw…

Anyways, I just needed to start walking. The rocks below my feet weren’t dry yet, but the water had fully receded. I also hadn’t heard any more Mules walking by. Honestly, I was probably more scared of the massive creatures than drowning in the fast-moving water.

Walking through the same terrain for hours with little to no change was mind numbing, but after travelling for a very long time, I managed to find something that wasn’t the forest, it was a hilly plains area. I was tempted to kiss the ground like someone that had been at sea for months, but I would like to think I am better than that.

Once I near the top of the first hill in front of me, I hear the walking of two Mules. The strides sounded shorter, but I could clearly tell the sound of those claws digging into dirt and rock. I carefully crested the top of the hill on my hands and knees, with my head just barely peeking above the waist height grass.

In the distance, I was able to spot a small carriage being pulled by two Mules. They were much smaller than the ones I saw in the forest, this was probably a domesticated variety. It was actually kind of interesting to see a Mule that didn’t look hungry just walking around like the ones in the forest or even the painting.

Through the window of the carriage, I spot the Magistrate. He was looking incredibly ill, and I knew it was most likely my fault. If I approached the carriage, I would be signing the man’s death warrant, but if I went to him, he could potentially take me to a larger city more easily.

I made the decision and called out to the cart with a loud shout that even to me didn’t sound like words. Now, their reactions to pull weapons out like crossbows and swords was incredibly warranted. I was even more of a mess than the last time I had met people. My clothes warn down and dirtier than before, my hair was probably a matted mess as well.

I’m amazed they actually managed to hold off for long enough to allow me to approach. I know I would have shot at something that looked like me long before it could even get in range to talk. I might also have a trigger finger because of recent circumstance though.

“Speak, before we attack you.” One of the men dressed in armor shouts while pointing a crossbow at me. There were three men outside the carriage, and I could see one inside with the Magistrate as well.

“I just wanted to know if you guys had any space to the next town, or if you could point me in the direction of the Royal castle.” I calmly explain to the men as me and the Magistrate make eye contact.

“HIM!” I hear the Magistrate shout from inside the carriage. He throws the guard protecting him to the side and slams the carriage door open. “You! What is happening in this area!”

I was shocked by what he says. The guards, or knights, or whatever they are, try to stop him from approaching me. They completely fail to stop the old man as he limps towards me. I guess he didn’t suspect me to be a demon still, was his sickness not caused by me though.

“Sir Magistrate, I have no idea. I just wandered through from the forest, and it looks nothing like I remember.” I lied, but I had a feeling that it might be the truth.

“Not two days before the road was smooth, now, it’s rocky terrain that our carriage struggles to drive over. I’ve had to get out and walk sections because of how sick I was getting inside the carriage. Your name was Logan, correct?” The Magistrate sounds nothing like his former self and his dignified appearance is completely gone.

“Yes, Sir Magistrate.” I try my best to act proper, but it is clear that the old man has gone insane. Most likely due to my fault.

“Good, I need a local to convince the King that something is very wrong. He has yet to believe any of my claims, and all the locals are dying. I’m thankful that you somehow survived.” He starts walking back to the carriage, and seeing that I’m not following, her raises his hand and gesture me to follow him into the carriage. “Come, come.”

“Yes.” I say and follow him into the carriage. The guards don’t say anything else and sheathe their weapons. They no longer saw me as a threat since the magistrate himself addressed me by name and told me to follow him. What well trained men.

I sit down across from the Magistrate. It felt rather awkward, and I knew that even this much contact on the way to the city had marked him and all these men as dead. They would have their heads melt by the next day, if the thing that happened back in Riverhills village even was my fault.

“Tell me Logan, why did you leave Riverhills Village?” The Magistrate tries to make small talk for some reason, it worries me, but it couldn’t hurt to humor him on his final day.

“They all died; heads melted clean off their shoulders. My head was hurting when I saw them, and though the same was going to happen to me, so I ran for the hills despite my injuries.” I lift my pant leg to show him the stitches.

“Are you sure? Are you absolutely, positively sure that is what you saw?” The Magistrate leans in and whispers to me in a serious tone.

“Of course.” I nod my head in affirmation.

“A Demon really must have passed through. I must have missed them then, since the Demon Sickness usually takes a while to set in from a demonic presence.” The Magistrate sighs as he leans back in his seat, sounding almost frustrated, he let out yet another sigh, but doesn’t say anything more.

The magistrate and I sit in silence inside of the carriage. I don’t let it bother me and let the day pass on quietly. I was rather bored from the low amount of action, but at least I had a little bit more to think about now.

This world seemed to call it Demon Sickness, whatever the head melting was. It meant that the other demon that was here, was here a long time before I was. I was fighting a losing battle in every sense, why even bother sending me to this world, if it is clearly doomed to die anyways?

Was there some purpose in sending me to an almost dead world when I didn’t know anything? Was it to help me with a list of questions to ask? If so, that seems abnormally cruel to not just me, but the people of this world that might have had some chance of living otherwise.

I was frustrated. I sat in the carriage with a frown on my face until we pulled up to a city as the sky was getting dark. Again, there was no wall, but this time, there were clear watch towers. I look out the sides of the carriage and actually see a castle in the center of the city.

“First time seeing the castle?” The magistrate smugly asks me.

“Of course it is.” I state bluntly, I didn’t really care if I was outed at this point, all that mattered was that I was now in this city. If the Demon was here, I would find them, or they would find me soon enough especially since I will easily blow their cover.

Just as I had finally sat back down properly in the carriage, it suddenly comes to a halt, throwing the Magistrate out of his seat. He quickly puts himself back, and one of the guards comes in the carriage, hopefully to explain what was happening.

“Sir Magistrate, the road is blocked to the castle.”

“What do you mean it’s blocked?” The Magistrate asks confused.

“They’ve closed the gate, no one can enter. It appears there aren’t even any Royal Guards on the inside. Everyone appears to be confused.” The guard quickly explains information as he hears it from another guard observing everything.

“What a strange situation.” The Magistrate huffs and sits back down, giving me an apologetic shrug, but I haven’t come this far to stop now. This all seemed rather fishy.

I get out of the carriage and take a look at the front gate that was closed. It honestly looked climbable, even with one arm and a stub. It was a wooden lattice that didn’t even have an overhang above it. I could easily just go up and over, especially since there wasn’t anyone inside to stop me.

The Magistrate tries to stop me as I ditch my bag and make a run for the gate. A few Royal Guards try to stop me, but most just let me pass by, as they are genuinely confused about why they’ve been locked out. Once I make it to the gate, I can see a man eyeing up the climb, but I already did that and just start going for it.

The wood lattice was actually wide enough for me to put my stub in, so I used it to help me climb faster. Sure, it wasn’t a fast climb, but I was fast enough to get above some grabby people before they even realized what I was trying to do.

Once I was at the top, I looked around the city, only to notice the forest was spreading further, a lot quicker than I could have even imagined. About two hundred meters from the city, I could see trees growing unnaturally quick, and dirt changing into jagged rock.

I quickly climb down the other side of the gate and run towards the castle. The main door was open, as if it was calling for me to enter. There was o no one else inside the walls here, and no one else was even attempting to climb the gate and enter the castle with me.

I could hear the rumbling of thunder in the distance as I entered the castle door. A large storm was approaching, and it couldn’t mean anything good. I run as fast as I can through the castle, attempting to find someone, anything that could explain this all to me.

“You’re too late, I’ve already taken this world as mine.” A deep and ethereal voice speaks from the other side of a large room.

I had entered into what I can only describe as a throne room. Ornate suits of armor, stained glass and a massive throne set atop a set of stairs. Red carpet everywhere and purple drapes adorned from pillars made of a white stone that wasn’t quite marble.

“Who?” I shout, surprised to actually hear another voice.

“What, have you not come to try and claim this world?” The speaker finally decided to show themselves, appearing seated in the throne. It was a muscular gentleman wearing royal looking clothes and a gold crown on his head.

“I’ve come to try and save it.” I shout angrily. “You must be the Demon I was looking for that is causing all of this.”

“Are you a new Demon or what? Actually, no need to answer, I can tell that you are.” The man stands up, using his arms to make his cape flap theatrically behind him as he starts to walk down the stairs in front of the throne.

“Why don’t you feel like a demon, it just feels like you’re a normal person.”

“Why should I even answer you? You are an idiot if you think a demon needs to go around saving worlds. You have an illusion in your mind, you want to be ‘one of the good guys’.” The Demon cockily starts to walk towards me. I don’t back down and walk towards them as well.

“Of course not. I have no fucking clue what I am doing here.” I shout with full confidence, throwing the other Demon completely off guard.

“You wished to stop me from corrupting the world, and you have no idea what you are doing? You don’t know how any of this works, like at all, do you?” The Demon shakes his head, completely thrown off his royalty act.

“Ah, so it does have a term. Corrupting the world.” I do my best to continue throwing him off in an attempt to get some information about this. I was hoping it would work if he was dumb, but if he had any intelligence at all, he should try and kill me now.

“How did you even become a demon, did you not ask any questions at all, did you seriously just jump right in. The Demon who made you one of us should have explained something, anything at all to you.” The Demon begins to ramble, more upset at the person who turned me into a demon than me for suggesting I was here to stop him. Let’s see what mental damage I can cause here.

“Someone made me a Demon? I thought I died in my world, then just woke up here with the knowledge that I was a demon, and nothing more than that.” I use the most convincing confused voice I possibly could.

“You’re either dead serious or you’re trying to fuck with me. Both make me angry.” The Demon suddenly regains their composure. I think I fucked up.

The Demon lunges for me as I start to feel the familiar sense of wrongness. They were somehow hiding it, at least right until this moment. I dodge their first punch only to take a boot to the side of my head that I wasn’t ready for, nor did I see coming. I am sent sprawling across the floor as my brain rattles against my skull, causing my vision to blur.

Before I can even get up and fight back the Demon walks over and kicks my side, cause me to flop over onto my back. Now my vision is blurry, and I am gasping for air. This is a losing fight. As soon as the demon raises their boot to stomp on my head, thunder cracks and my vision goes completely black.

Was I dead?

Did I lose so fast, just to die miserably?

“You aren’t dead, stand up.” A familiar demonic voice soothes my ears, but also makes me angry.

“I could have come back from that.” I croak out as I stand up, my entire body hurting, especially my head and all of the ribs on my left side.

“Ok buddy.” The Demon says in a flat tone, making me forget my pain and just be angry. “First things first, I do believe I owe you an apology.”

“Oh really?” I say sarcastically to the man who had turned me into a demon. I was back in the floors, albeit this was the final floor. I wasn’t happy to be back here, even if it did mean I was going to survive for another day.

“Yes, all your behaviour aside, I’m sorry. I didn’t give you enough information, and I forgot to give you your own tools that you were used to using.” He explains calmly. All I can do is sigh and let my anger dissolve, with an honest apology, and not letting me die, I can’t really stay all that mad.

“So, can I ask some questions then?”

“Yes, that is the main reason I brought you back here instead of sending you straight to the next world.”

“Alright, I have a list. What is it that demons do to destroy worlds, how can I stop it? Why do they do it? How do I hide the fact I am a demon? How do I not kill people by being near them? Why the fuck did you not explain literally anything to me?” I ramble everything out without taking a single breath.

“Wow, I really did forget a lot, so let’s do this in order. First off, a demon can destroy worlds in two ways. Kill every living being on the planet, or by corrupting it. Killing everything is hard and takes a very long time, but it is worth it for demons, and I’ll explain that in a bit.

Corruption is a bit more complicated. How do I explain this without… how do you put it… ‘sounding cringe’? Eh, whatever, doesn’t matter how it sounds if it is the truth. There are two universal fundamentals that you need to understand if you actually want to make it far as a demon.

The spirit and soul are real and important, and are different things, and everything has a True name. For now, I’ll keep it simple and say every world has a True name. This doesn’t mean something like Earth’s True name would be Earth. That isn’t how it works.

How a demon will corrupt a world is by twisting that true name. Why it does what it does after that is something I have never spent time trying to understand. A demon doesn’t need to know the True name in order to twist it. As for how to stop it, I don’t know, I’ve never tried. I also won’t teach you how to twist it, just in case it taints your ability to fix it.”

“That… is more complicated than I thought it was going to be. I was expecting a simple, ‘Use your demon powers’ or something like that. I also don’t understand the reasoning for not teaching it to me. I don’t see how learning to do it would stop me from fixing it, wouldn’t it help?”

“Trust me on this one, Logan, it would hurt more than help in this case. Let’s continue for now. Demons destroy worlds in order to grow in power. For every world they kill, a Demon will grow more powerful. For now, that’s all you need to know on this topic.

As for hiding from other Demons, and not killing the people around you by accident, they are the same method. You need to contain your power, not letting it leak out passively. It sounds complicated, but it should feel almost similar to holding your breath.

At first, it’ll be hard, and you’ll need to let it out every now and again, but the more you do it, the easier it gets, and the amount of power you have doesn’t affect this in the slightest. Before you even ask, half the struggle is feeling the power in yourself. It is a bit tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, it isn’t that bad.”

“So, I just need to hold it in, and it hides me perfectly and stops people’s heads from melting?”

“Yup, it really is that simple.” The Demon just shrugs his shoulders, and then no longer feels like a demon. If I saw him for the first time, I would just assume he is some random guy.

I try to think about holding my breath, but with the feeling of power. I couldn’t feel anything at first, but slowly, the feeling of power started to show itself. It felt familiar. Demonic power sure was a strange concept. I felt like I was in some sort of fantasy novel right now.

Slowly, the more I could feel the power inside of myself, the more I realized that it felt like blood flowing through me. It was so natural yet felt like something I shouldn’t interact with. First of all, people rarely feel blood flowing through themselves. Nonetheless, I was able to feel it and when I tried to impart the feeling of holding my breath, it stopped flowing.

“Well, I guess the bootcamp really did speed things up a bit. Normally that takes an entire day to do that. However, I can not stress enough that you should have been able to learn that by yourself, as many other demons do. You may be a fast learner, but you rarely do anything unprompted.

Regardless, it is still impressive that you managed to do it so quickly. Having you forcefully exposed to large amounts of that power really does help when you go to feel for it inside yourself.” The Demon, sounding kind of impressed pats me on the back.

“So, the final question I asked?”

“I just simply forgot.” The Demon laughs as he hands me the ax that I had gotten familiar with while I was in the floors, still barely damaged. “Hold onto this when I move you to the next world, want your bag?”

“Won’t it stand out in other worlds?” I ask, looking at the very modern hiking bag.

“I guess it would. Alright, off to the next world with you, we’ve already wasted enough time. This time, the other Demon won’t have as much of a head start.”

“Oh, thank goodness, this will give me more time to get killed then.”

“Or save the world, now off with you.” The Demon gives me a little shove as my visions shifts for the second time in a short while.