“This is it.”

“This is what?”

“The final dungeon on this continent.”

Son went inside, followed by me, and finally, Ned, carting my cart full of magic stones in behind me. We walked through the stone arch and came out inside of a coliseum.

“Ladies and gentle demons. More challengers approach!” a mouth with bat wings screams as it buzzes around the stadium. Demons begin to flood into the bleachers. They take their seats and get ready to watch the first match. “Let’s go through the rules for the first-timers. There will be eight battles each getting progressively stronger. If you defeat all eight then you get to fight off against the Lord of all Demons on Earth!” The demon lord enters into his seating area. He has a special area that only seats him. He sits on the throne in it and smirks down at the challengers. His smirk fades when he sees who it is. “These aren’t adventurers! They’re monsters!” He yells. The stadium goes silent.

Hey. I know that guy. He's the one who tried to destroy my dungeon. Looks like it's my turn to destroy his. I rub my bonny fingers together. “Umm actually. We are adventurers.” I touch a stone behind me and use its magic power to pull out an adventuring card from my chest. The big dude from before sits back in his chair. “No, it’s against the rules you can’t challenge my dungeon.”

“No fair. You came to challenge mine! Then Hiro stopped you and you gave me a vague twenty moons time limit.”

That takes the big guy for a loop. While we are standing and staring at each other an idea hits me. A horrible, terrible, rotten idea.

I cast a fireball into his booth. It blows the roof off. The red velvet floors ignite. The wooden throne he sits upon blazes. The big dude sits in the fire without a care in the world. He chuckles then raises a hand. “B̸̬͚̿͠l̶̛͖͊a̷͉͗̇ẕ̸̕e̵̛͖̬̭̔ ̵̜̇͛b̵̺̱͆͛̊a̷͚̥͝l̴͔̕ḷ̴͓́͘!” A fireball of black fire comes towards my team. It moves faster than I can react. There is a brief feeling of immense heat. The world goes black.

For a second I feel my soul leaving my body. Then nothing. Then a rush like being dragged along a pitch-black water slide. I hit a wall. It crumbles and I fly out, covered in slime. I shake myself off.

“Where the fuck am I?” I’m in a dirt room. It’s bare except for the goblin corpses and a broken clay jar. “This is the first dungeon we conquered.” I briefly ponder what happened before realizing it. It’s the clone spell I tested back then. I have been reborn in a copy of my own body.

“I died?” Obviously, I died. The second time came as more of a surprise. I didn’t expect myself to be taken down by one spell.

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The crowd is silent as Hiro takes the stage. He smiles at the group as he puts his head in the noose. Mann waits off stage. Tring to look anywhere but at the gallows. The crowd made up of more people than the entirety of the small town that Mann fled from. You can hear the sudden hitching of breath as the executioner's hands touch the lever to release the wood out from below Hiro. “Any last words?” The executioner asks.

Hiro bites his lips. “I’ll let you know later.”

The executioner shrugs and pulls the lever. The wood falls out from Hiro’s feet and he falls ten feet before the rope clinches around his neck. He bounces a few times then hangs there limp. The executioner cuts the rope and hangs the next noose over the gallows. Two men push Mann to center stage. The crowd has started to disperse. Mann pushes back against the two guards escorting him to the gallows.

Hiro stands up. “One star, they didn't even hype up my crimes before hanging me. No final meal this whole experience sucks.”

The executioner looks through the trapdoor in the gallows. Down at Hiro who is massaging his neck and taking the noose off. Mann looks down. “How are you alive?” He yells.

“How many levels do you think until a noose becomes ineffective?”

Mann shrugs at the man's weird words.

“Well, shall we move on to the prison break?”

“Yes! Please get me out of here before they kill me!”

Mann got to witness something special that day. The seven girls appearing out of nowhere wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was how quickly and efficiently they were able to kill anyone who stood in their way. Highclass guards, knights, magicians. Nothing the Kingdom could supply was enough to stop them. It was then he realized that this was a man who truly did let himself get captured. Someone so strong that even the king was at his mercy.

Eventually, Hiro made it back to the adventurer’s guild. He sat down at his usual table. Mann sat down across from him. Guards rushed them, but Hiro’s mage just casts a barrier to block their advances.

“You’re strong.” Mann comments.

Hiro nods.

“World changing strong.”

Hiro nods again.

Mann’s admirations turns to anger. “How come you’re that strong and haven't changed the world for the better?”

“Because I’ve read that manga.”

“What?!”

“I already know what happens. When I was back on Earth I read every isekai manga I could find. I know all the tropes every plotline. Of course, I dropped half of them. They are all formulaic and I hate repeating patterns. I know how changing the world would play out. It’d be just like a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court mixed with 8th Son mixed with re:monster. Two of those were good books but I don’t want to deal with working my way up through the noble ranks. It’s like three years of dealing with pricks to even get the rank of count.”

Mann is at a loss for words. In front of him was someone who could change the world. “You could kill the king and take his place, start your own country.”

“Boring. Then it’s just me forcing modern western values on a group of people who are illiterate and stupid. Do you know how long it’d take for the average person to understand John Locke or The Constitution?”

“Who? The what?”

“Exactly. It’d take two generations or more! Half the people in my time don't even know who John Locke is."

Mann was slowly realising that he was dealing with a sociopath. This was a person only concerned about themselves. It was almost a noble goal. The pursuit of new entertainment, but Mann could not allow himself to feel that way. This Hiro had the power to change the world. He only didn’t use it because it was boring. Mann devised the most devious plan of his life. If saving the world was boring. Then he'd have to give Hiro something to be invested in.