This was it. After years of fighting, the hero’s party managed to breach the Demon’s Lord's castle. Well, it looked like a castle on the exterior, but once inside, it was more like a dungeon than anything else. Numerous tunnels led deeper and deeper into the sinister underground, each floor filled with powerful and grotesque monsters, one nastier than the other. Their eight-member party that started this quest was now down to one, every one of them giving their life fully believing that he’ll be the one to extinguish once and for all, this all-powerful evil looking to bring an end to the world as it’s presently known. And now, here he was, facing the great doors leading to the last chamber of this dungeon, his shoulders heavy not only from the great armor he was wearing, or from all the injuries incurred so far, but also from all the promises and looks full of trust his comrades left him with in their final moments. With one great push, the doors opened revealing…

“A library?” Mouth agape, the hero couldn’t believe his eyes, of all the things he expected to witness while he imagined this last fight this was not it.

“Vinn, you finally made it, what say you, amazing isn’t it? The first and only bastion of knowledge in the whole wide world, every piece of known and I dare say unknown information has been recorded here.”

With a wave of his hand lights began to light up farther and farther in, presenting him with an immense labyrinth of rows and rows of shelves filled with tomes upon tomes of knowledge, where kings and emperors all around the world banned knowledge written in any form that was not sanctioned by them, hoarding not only wealth but also information for them and theirs, here there were probably more books than people alive on the planet.

But more surprising of all was the person who greeted him in the first place. His childhood friend, Nill Samora, even now looked the same as he remembered him, boyish features, small stature, black hair and black eyes, white skin, dressed in a black nobles suit, with a tome under his hand, his first ever friend, the first one to join his party, but also the first one to die when they started their quest to kill the demon lord. That’s when the faces of all his friends who gave their lives for him to get to this moment started to flash in his mind. Brandishing his sword towards him, with fury in his eyes he addressed the impostor.

“How dare you take that form you monster, I won’t let you sully my friends sacrifice a moment’s longer” Readying his stance he was ready to use his final trump card, [Heroic sacrifi - when all of a sudden his body stopped moving, like a puppet with his strings cut, dropping him to a chair that appeared right under him.

“[Armor possession]”

With a flick of his fingers, a chair appeared behind the monster that carried his friend's face, having them seated in front of each other, only however much he tried to, he couldn’t move a single muscle.

“Vinn, I love you to death, but you’ve always been a hot-headed idiot, just who in their right mind would start a fight against someone using their final trump card, I swear if it weren’t for me you would be dead ten times over at least! You idiot, you! What did you think you were gonna achieve by killing me, huh? What if I was just a patsy, huh? You’d have wasted your life for nothing, argh! That’s why I can’t let you out of my sight. I turn my head for one moment and there you are jumping off of a cliff to save a damsel in distress. Who in the first place, what the heck was she doing at the edge of a cliff anyway?!?!

“Mhmmmghmhmm”

“Aaah my bad, sorry for that, there you go, that should take care of it, but bear in mind your spiritual power is locked too, so don’t think you can mouth any skills”

With another snap of his fingers, he was allowed to at the very least move his mouth enough to speak.

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear one more word coming from you Demon! Show me your true face!”

“You are still not getting it, are you? Why do you think you cannot move a muscle right now? Why do you think you are not already dead where you stand? Why do you think that after all the close calls you had with death so far you are still alive? Hero’s luck? Huh! Don’t make me laugh! You are still alive because I wished so! You are alive because every step you took so far was by my design. But most of all you are still alive because this stupid Demon Lord couldn’t bear to kill his only friend in this GOD-FORSAKEN WORLD!”

Vinn couldn’t believe his ears, his tone of voice, what he just said, it could not be true, but he sounded exactly like…

“Nill, is that really you? But..but…why? If you’re really you, why all this? Why kill all of our friends?” Vinn couldn’t handle the truth anymore and burst into crying, all the stress and fears he carried with him so far burst like a dam and he didn’t know what to do with himself anymore.

“Ah, ah, look what you did boss, you broke our little hero.” A guy that suddenly appeared against one of the shelves with his hands crossed in front of him that looked a lot like their assassin Sikar, mocked him.

Another familiar voice from behind him continued.

“I’m telling you now, I’m all out of hugs to give ok, hmm!” A capricious voice, sounding a lot like their ever-moody halfling rogue, Cinne said.

“Not to worry, Kyuu here, won’t mind giving Vinn a warm hug if you won’t.”

If he could turn his head, judging by her bewitching voice, he would most probably see one of their fox-folk members, along with all her nine tails.

“Turn off those damn hellfire flames before you do then, you wicked fox, healing hellfire burns is not easy you know!”

And last but not least their Shaman, Himn, one of the fae folk floated in front of him looking worried at all the wounds that most probably covered his body behind his armor.

“[Greater Healing]"

With a wave of his staff, a healing light covered his body healing most of his wounds.

“What!? Sikar, Cinne, Kyuu, Himn, how could you all be alive? I’ve seen you die with my own eyes, this is too good to be true. Even with all my blessings I must be stuck in an [Illusion] aren’t I?”

With one jump landing on his shoulder, heavy as a feather, Cinne, replied:

“Sorry to disappoint you buddy, but no Illusion here, just a bad play that’s been going on for too long if you ask me. Boss, will you please do the honors of bringing our guile [Hero] up to date please, before he loses it all.”

“I was about to, before you all rudely interrupted me,” Nill said, staring at all of them.

“But, yes, for all intents and purposes, I believe their presence more than answers your last question. Nobody is dead, apart from the moles of course, and that leads me to why we are all gathered here."

“What do you mean moles? Is that why Angie and Rome are not here? What’s going on anymore? Are you telling me that all my life so far was a lie!? What’s real anymore then? What do you want me to believe? That the ones I’ve called my friends so far, and promised to fight till death with, were my enemies all along!? Who do you think can accept that so easily, huh!?!

“No, not enemies. I’m sorry Vinn, I truly am, if you can believe anything, please believe this, we are and always have been friends.”

“Wait, why have we been fighting then?” Vinn stared incredulously at all of them, his mind not knowing up from down anymore.

“Well, for one, if I wanted for both of us to remain alive at the end of all this then I am afraid this charade had to be played till the finale. If the Emperors found out that their [Hero] was in fact best buddies with the very Demon Lord they are trying to get rid of, what do you think would have happened?

“They would have taken control of the armor just like you did, and either forced me to kill you or if that didn’t work, they would have most probably used the armor to boil me alive,” Vinn replied in a despondent manner

“Exactly and then they would have cleaned your bits and pieces off the armor and then look for another patsy they could control, someone worthy enough of the armor to gain the Hero Class. While people like that can’t be found at every street corner, getting rid of you when you came to tell me the “good news” would have been child’s play, allowing me to build my power while they looked for another [Hero] they could control, but when I saw how happy you were, from the street urchin that you were, to becoming this valorous [Hero], I knew I couldn’t take that away from you, just as much as I couldn’t bear to kill my very best friend.” Nill confessed, looking at me with a self-deprecating smile.

“And that’s when you decided to make me just another actor in your play. What about the others?” Vinn said, looking at the other party members who all gathered around the two.

“We are his friends, comrades in arms and subalterns of course, just as you’ve been saved or perhaps should I say spared, hehe, so did we. Faith allowed us to cross paths with our now master and had our lives changed for the better.” Kyuu took upon answering my question, as always with an always infuriating smirk on her whiskers.

“They have all decided to make a pact of servitude with me after hearing my story, promising to help me correct a great wrong. It might be a bit late, but I hope that you too after hearing my motives will join us again, and fight for what’s truly right.”

“And since when does a Demon Lord fight for what’s right?”

“Since always! Nill replied, hitting the armrest with his fist. Since humans decided that all the “demonic races” deserve to be enslaved. Since all records of life before the “great demonic wars” have been wiped and all unsanctioned literature has been burned to hide away the horrific history of how entire races have been enslaved, helping to build what now you call the great empires of humanity, all built on top of the blood and bones of my ancestors!

Getting up from the chair and pacing back and forward, Nill continued.

"Humans like to call them “lesser races” to make themselves feel superior and hide away the guilt of what they’ve done to my people, after all, who cares what happens to them when you put them in the same rank as the animals you slaughter for meat? They’re all just animals to you after all. Even though these "animals" have a soul, can thiNK AND SPEAK!

“Boss you’re scaring me,” Cinne said, jumping on Nill's shoulder and placing a hand on his head, calming him down only as she knows.

“I’m sorry Cinne, you’re right, I’ve lost my temper for a second there.”

After patting Cinne on the hand a few times and giving her a reassuring smile to show her he was fine, he sat back down on the chair and posed a question to Vinn.

“Vinn, do you know what a Demon lord is?”

“A being of great power and hate sent by the Demon Gods to destroy the world?”

“Yes, yes, that’s what the propaganda that you’ve been fed by the church would like you to believe, but if you were to ask any of the Demon Gods as you like to call them, and if they were to be still alive to answer you, you’d find that the truth is completely different. A Demon Lord is a savior, someone not sent by the Gods since none of my people remember their names to be able to pray to them anymore. A Demon Lord is nothing but a champion of the people, someone with enough royal blood in their veins to awaken the power of our ancestors who fought and unfortunately lost in the “Great Madness War” as it should have been called. A Demon Lord is one that every other generation or so awakens their blood and receives the memories of our ancestors letting them find out what great injustice has been carried against us. Unfortunately, all the demon lords so far when they found out the truth, had been driven to madness, too far gone to let our people know of what happened. Until now that is, for my blood, being mixed with a human's, resonates just enough that I was able to learn of the truth, sparing me from being driven to madness. And no matter how hard the human rulers have tried to hide the truth, going so far as to even kill or wipe the memories of their own citizens who would dare speak of what happened, who would dare let others know of how they committed mass murder, killing hundreds of millions, going so far as to even kill not only all of the adults but the children old enough to remember what they did too, leaving alive only the ones not yet old enough to realize what happened, so all that they will know growing up is servitude, so that our people's history be left forgotten by the unforgiving passage of time, leaving us be slaves unto eternity, that’s the great injustice that’s been done to my people, now what say you, great hero, after hearing all this? What are you, friend or enemy?

With tears in his eyes and with no hesitation whatsoever, Vinn answered.

“Friend, always a friend!”