I’m back at my house with my friends for a small after party. My friends and I aren’t ready to hit the hay as of yet, because the party we were at beforehand was unfortunately broken up by the cops. Underage drinking and all that. But nonetheless, I’m still smiling. Yes, today was a good day.
“Hey, Jullian, what’s with that smile? Hahaha, don’t tell me; you’ve finally gotten into Cindy’s pants. Am’a right?”
“Shut up, man! She’s not that kind of girl.” I reply angrily, but I still can’t get rid of my smile. “But yeah, you could say our relationship has… progressed.” I say nonchalantly, cucumber cool.
“Hahaha, the dog! Details, please!”
“As you know, I’m a gentleman, and as a gentleman, one does not kiss and tell, but I’ll say this… I can die happily now, I’m sure.”
My friends offer their offensive congratulations along with an uproar of loud laughter, which unfortunately woke my parents. Sadly, my friends are forced to go home, cutting my night short. But I don’t mind too much. As I lay in bed as the night ends, I’m still smiling, and those words kept repeating in my head, ‘I can die happily now…’
As such, a flag was raised that I wish was not have raised.
I’m falling, falling fast, but as oppose to the usual dream where falling wakes you up from that dream, instead, I actually landed. But where?
“Ughhoooh, fuck.” I groan and complain. I feel a dull pain. What’s this feeling? I looked towards where I feel the pain and see that my left arm is gone. “Aaaaah! Fuck! Da fuck, man! Shit!” I panick, until I realize that the arm is slowly growing back. I calm down slightly, overlooking the fact that it’s totally impossible for arms to grow back, and also the fact that it’s illogical that I wasn’t sleeping in my bed right now. Yeah, for some reason I’m not thinking straight. I feel extremely light, as if I’d float away any second, so I’m trying to not think in order to feel grounded.
I look around to see that there are numerous bodies lying around me. Shit, I think to myself, da fuck happened?
“Ha ha, shit, looks like you’re not dead.” Says someone who I assumed was dead. I guess its vice versa. “Hey, sorry for killing you a while ago, but you caught me at a bad time. As you can see, I’m dying. But I guess you can forgive me, after all, you just used my expelled mana to finish regenerating your arm.”
I look down and I see that he’s right, my arm’s back. I feel slightly alright, so I force myself up and look down at the other guy. It’s an extremely handsome pink-haired man with two horns poking out of his hair. Is this a demon, I wonder? Even if he was, he looks relatively harmless. After all, he had a sword sticking out of his chest.
“Hey, kid. Want to do me a favor?”
I look at the demon cautiously and raise an eyebrow. Is this the infamous deal with the devil?
“What do you want?” I ask fearlessly. For some reason, that’s just how I feel right now.
“Could you deal the final blow? I can’t stand the thought of that asshole hero getting the XP for killing me. Hahaha, but if you deal the final blow… hahaha, just the thought of the look on his face!” The demon laughs heartily.
“What? I’m not killing anyone, even someone who’s half dead.” I reject firmly.
“Oy, oy, kid, you know that demon lords need a final blow, don’t you? It’s not like a demon lord is going to bleed out, you know? Unless you kill me right now, I’m going definitely going to get better and massacre the human race you know? It’s a matter of survival for all living things, man! Are you really going to pass up this chance for world peace?”
“World peace, you say?” I reply with a raised eyebrow. “Are you really a bad guy?” I ask in suspicion.
“Seriously, kid? I eat babies for breakfast kid, seriously, babies. Do I look like a guy who doesn’t?” The demon responded as if he can’t believe my doubt.
“You do look pretty evil.” I admit to myself. “But I get the feeling that you’re just a funny old man, for some reason.”
When I say that, the demon raises his hand and shoots a black fireball in front of me, and my sense of danger increases to the max. Fortunately all that happens is some dirt gets splattered on my face. The ground continues to burn though, so I stepped away.
I look back up to the demon, and his eyes have turned serious. “Seriously, kid,” he said slowly. “Kill me or die.”
I stare down the demon, but he doesn’t back down. Fuck, is today the day I commit murder? All I can say, god, is that he asked for it.
“Fine,” I say, giving in.
“You have to promise me kid, I mean it.” The demon says with determination.
I look at the demon’s no nonsense eyes again and I thought, damn, he really wants this. “I promise.” I say solemnly. “Even murderers get to choose their last meal, right?” I say, trying to justify the situation. “Should I just cut your head off with that sword?” I ask frankly.
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The demon bursts out into laughter. “Hahaha, kid, if it was possible for you to lift this sword I would have forced you to take it out and save me, but alas, you are but a weak child.” The demon explains. “Can you see my HP?” He asks.
“HP? Where?” I asked in confusion.
“What?” The demon exclaims. “Are you an idiot? Don’t you even know how to turn your interface on? Just say ‘Interface: On.’ Simple right?”
“Ugh, OK.” I respond dully. “Interface: On.” When I say that a sort of game screen appears in my vision. It has a mini map, a hot bar, a log box and several other game features. “Whaa?” I exclaim in surprise. And just like the demon says, a health bar appears above the demon. His health was dangerously low, and it continues to deplete. It seems that he would be dead in a couple minutes.
“Good, you see it. Now then, I’m going to cancel my passive physical resistance skill, and when you see that my health has dropped down to 1, you punch me as hard as you can, okay?” The demon said weakly. It seems like he was coming to terms with the end.
“Okay.” I respond submissively, not wanting to disturb the demon’s thoughts. I simply wait in silence until his health drops enough. A couple minutes later, his health began to count down from ten, so I approached the demon.
Then, eventually, his health dropped to 3, 2… The demon let out a final sigh, and my fist came down hard on the demon’s hard abdomen muscles, dropping the demon’s health by one, ultimately killing the demon lord.
Fortunately, there was no climactic explosion at this time, or flash of bright light, like you’d expect from the defeat of a demon lord, but I did begin to hear several ding sounds. I looked and several messages popped up in the log box.
You have defeated Demon Lord Oeflahr. You have gained 20880 XP.
First XP bonus, +XP *100.
First kill bonus, +XP *100.
First killing blow bonus, +XP *100.
First boss kill bonus, +XP *10.
First ultimate boss kill bonus, +XP * 10.
Level difference bonus, Total XP * 20.
Demon lord defeated, hero bonus, Total XP *10.
Total experience gain, 201074400 XP.
Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 198!
That’s not all. As I look solemnly at the dead demon lord, a transparent version of the demon lord suddenly rises from the dead body and starts chasing after me!
“Aaah!” I yell, running away. Unfortunately, I trip. I turn around and watch as the demon lord’s apparition merged with my body. Ah, fuck! I thought to myself. The demon lord’s going to possess me!
I feel a sharp pain all over my body, but I don’t lose my mind as I think I would. Instead some more things pop up in the log box.
Ability: Inherit Will activated.
Inheriting Demon Lord Oeflahr’s will…
Inheritance Compatibility…100%
Skill merging… 100%
Ability merging… 100%
Inventory merging… 100%
Memory merging… 100%Experience merging… 100%
Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 229!
Shit, what happened? I wonder. For some reason I could feel that my mind was filled with a bunch of unknown memories. Were they the demon lord’s memories?
When I check again, there was also another set of memories apart from mine and the demon lord’s. They were the memories of some boy who went to watch the fight between demon lord and the hero, and died when he went to get a closer look. I assume I had transmigrated into this dead boy’s body.
When I check, the first things in the log were me acquiring several abilities, including ‘Inherit Will,’ ‘Superior Health Regeneration,’ and ‘Mana Steal.’ Both ‘Superior Health Regeneration’ and ‘Mana Steal’ were abilities that I needed to survive as I was merely Level 1 at that time with a cut off arm, and ‘Inherit Will’ is sort of necessary to familiarize myself with this world. I wonder if it was fate or pure dumb luck, but I guess they were sort of my starter abilities. Maybe starter abilities were based on necessity.
Fuck, I think, what is happening right now? I crouch down and cover my face with my hands, soaking in this whole event. I pinch myself to feel the pain, and confirm that this wasn’t a dream. So… I think, was I in a different world now?
“Aaaaah!!” I yell out, expressing my anguish.
But there was no use fighting reality. As I’ve learned from all my hippy friends, ‘go with the flow.’
So first I try to figure out where I am. There was a large, creepy looking castle in the distance, but I assume it was the demon lord’s lair. I didn’t want to get caught in there and assumed to be the demon lord’s follower or anything.
I check the demon lord’s memories for human cities. It’s good to have a goal after all. The demon knew of several human cities, but how do I get there, I wonder.
I think about it and since there was a game interface, I assumed there would be game magic. I open the skills and abilities tab, and look through what I inherited from the demon lord. After skimming through the high leveled skills and abilities I found what I was looking for, the skill ‘Space Magic.’
I think about returning to the boy who’s body I stole’s family, but I realize that would be too awkward. Though, I do choose to go somewhere within the same kingdom. I wanted to repay the boy after all, for leaving me his body. I’ll find his family when the time is right.
I wonder, should I take the sword? But when I look around I see that the supposed hero is still alive, just knocked unconscious. I think, shit, better leave before I get sucked into something I shouldn’t be involved in. That sword could very well get me into some unnecessary trouble.
I figure out how to cast the ‘Teleport’ spell from the demon lord’s memories, and began to chant some words, adjusting the words to direct me towards exactly where I want to go, outside the capital city of Igedron, of the kingdom Vazia. The dead boy, Allan’s, family was relatively close; a few towns away.
I finished the chant and a blue light envelops my body. When the light fades I was about a kilometer away from the gates of Igedron.
I took a moment to let it in before I burst out into a loud laughter. “Hahahah!” I think, magic! Bloody brilliant! Whether it’s good or bad, at least it’s entertaining!
I look around after laughing maniacally. Whew, I think, wiping the nonexistent sweat off my brow. Thank god no one’s around.
I began to walk towards the distant gates before I stop. I think, wait a minute, aren’t I like level 200 something right now? Won’t that attract some attention? Other people probably have an interface too, right?
I search through demon lord Oeflahr’s memories and see that he did indeed have a skill for this situation. Oeflahr would often infiltrate human cities to drink and bed random women. So far, no one had seen through his Level 100 ‘Camouflage’ ability. The ability could change both appearance and displayed stats, and according to the demon lord, it was much better than simple illusion magic. As long as no high-leveled people with abnormal sensing skills come by, I should be fine.
I check my inventory and look for some of the demon lord’s clothes. I find some neat, comfortable robes and put them on before changing my displayed stats to a Level 30 Mage. According to my inherited memories, this level was about right for strong within the range of relatively common.
With my preparations ready, I head to the gates of the city.
When I arrive there, the guard asks for identification, to which I smile wryly.
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “Unfortunately I don’t have identification.”
“No ID, huh? One of those wandering mages, I assume. Well, if you want to sign up as a citizen of Igedron, Vazia, you have to pay 1 silver.”
“Right,” I reply. “I’d like to sign up then, please.”
“Follow me.” The guard says, leading me to a building just inside the walls of the city. “She’ll get you set up.” The guard says, gesturing to a lady behind the desk he lead me to. After exchanging some words with the lady and seeing that his duty was done, the guard left. If there was any funny business, there were soldiers within the building anyway.
I stood before the lady and see in the log that she used the ability ‘View General Information’ on me before beginning to write something down on a scroll. She then uses the ability ‘Capture Image’ and my picture magically appears on the scroll.
I pay the lady the silver from the demon lord’s stash in exchange for the temporary ID scroll. The lady instructs me to always keep it in my inventory, and to pick up the actual ID tomorrow.
I leave the building and began looking for an inn. I desperately wanted to sleep.
After finding one, I pay for it and go directly to sleep, still not able to quite believe my situation.