“Ughhhhh, That was exhausting!!”
I cry out as I let out all my pent up emotions and I flop face first into the bed.
The soft bedding apparently made from a combination of some weird fluffy slime monster and unicorn hair.
Softest damn thing I have ever felt.
Despite having my face buried, I can still see everything around me thanks to my light magic.
That includes Alice’s wry but equally exhausted smile.
“I'm sooo tired… Keeping up the cool composed Hero thing sucks!”
As I complain Alice flops down right next to me and leans softly into my side.
“You know, you don’t have to save the world right? You can just live peacefully with me doing whatever you want.”
Alice presses a hand against my back as she whispers to me.
I grumble a bit as she points that out.
I know I don’t have to do any of this crap, but I just can’t help myself.
Rolling over, I position my face directly in front of hers.
Her long green hair messily hangs over her beautiful face.
A smile that holds everything I care about.
Geez, I could stare at her all day.
“Yeah, I know. But I just can’t stick back doing nothing when I know I can help people.”
Alice smiles at my pouting determined face, then she pulls me close and presses her lips against mine.
Correction, this is the softest thing I have ever felt.
After a short while we break apart and I sigh happily.
“Thanks, I needed that.”
Mumbling more than anything at this point, I pull her close and let my body relax.
The whole kingdom is all over me now that I have basically made myself the center of not only their efforts against the Demon Lord, but The System as well.
I’m not good at this whole facade thing, so I need to figure out a way to ditch everyone for a while before I go crazy.
I know it has only been a single day, but I already want to slip into a short coma considering how dense the last few hours have been.
The city has calmed down for the most part, no new demons have shown up and soldiers are dealing with the general chaos.
To keep them on their toes I am having the occasional kidnapped and disconnected person show up, though only those I determined had not committed enough sinful acts to warrant execution.
The rest of the people I had my demons abduct will be used as test subjects for numerous experiments.
“I need to know more about The System and how it works.”
Mainly because I need to figure out how to ascend to Class 4 myself.
I glare at my self made status sheet hanging in the air.
I have a big list of possible ideas on how to ascend written up in my notes, but nothing has worked so far.
Dammit Lucadon! Where are you?!
Not getting anywhere with my extreme annoyance and complaining, I re-focus back on today’s events.
I actually passed out a few rings to let the researchers look into them.
They won’t find much as the understanding of Mana Cores is incredibly low compared to my own knowledge.
When it comes to the things each Anti-System Ring can do, I managed to replicate the level up function The System uses.
It is a more manual method that requires pressing the ring to the monster’s core and then again to your own, but it works.
This method is far less efficient than the direct method I use, but it also is not traumatically painful.
I am partially glad to be stuck at the Class 4 wall because I am tired of the pain.
“So, what is the plan for tomorrow?”
Alice stares into my eyes which are looking past her into my many invisible floating screens.
She pokes me, which makes me realize that it is probably creepy to be stared at like that.
I take a deep breath before sprawling out further on the bed, my eyes boring a hole in the ceiling.
“I think we need to focus on pushing my agenda in the other kingdoms, primarily The Divine Theocracy and The Dragon Empire, as they are the biggest names on the continent.”
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It will be most effective if I can get all of the border nations on my side as they hold a crazy amount of power over the other nations.
I mainly chose the Alcott kingdom as the first place to test because it was safest.
Though, I also wanted to be near The Oracle to make sure her magic didn’t tell her anything unnecessary.
I feel two long slender arms reach out and hug me as Alice presses herself into me.
“How did they fare against the assault?”
I stare off into space once more as I read off the reports from Prim and the other kids.
“The Dragon Empire fought off the demons but failed to kill them as the emperor didn’t participate as planned. According to the reports it looks like we got all the main targets in the empire but missed a few in the theocracy.”
“How did that happen?”
“It seems that in the capital of the theocracy there was a class 5 who could make powerful barriers and managed to trap the demon… The demon managed to activate the fail-safe in time, but ended up dying to it as well.”
“Well… your fail-safe is terrifying so I can see that happening…”
Her face twists up a bit at the mention of my fail-safe.
I had created a special weapon in case of these situations, the G-EMs as I like to call them.
The name is not a real acronym, but it looks cool when written down so I couldn’t help but let my inner edge lord out a bit.
The G-EMs are basically Mana Cores modified to be a diamond shaped shell enchanted with light magic.
The enchantments generate powerful mirrors inside using the remaining soul of the core as the battery.
Since these are Class 3 cores they can last a very long time.
Now, the “terrifying” part as Alice put it, is the obscene amount of gamma rays I channeled inside of the little containment unit.
All a demon needs to do is shatter the core and the spell should form a large dome around them before releasing the gamma rays, turning everything to dust.
Alice was rather disgusted when I first explained to her how they worked.
Which is understandable, they are something I vaguely regret inventing myself.
Regardless, the demon ended up dying before it could finish its list.
The people who had trapped it are now dead too, obviously.
But, there were no other mid-demons in the area to pick up the work in time.
I could only create so many in the three months since I started working towards this plan.
And there was a lot of ground to cover, and many cities to infiltrate.
In the end things didn’t go perfectly to plan, but the main part here in the Alcott kingdom is going swimmingly.
“Let’s see… Oh, it seems the demons captured a few of the Class 4s on our list. That should help with learning about ascension.”
I have a barrier set up around the room to prevent eavesdropping, so I feel perfectly fine speaking such dangerous things out loud.
As I read out the report I hold a hand out to the sky and mess around with the floating motes of light making up my little network.
“I am not sure how much help that will be though, I am in a super weird position with the whole Hero and Demon Lord thing.”
Suddenly I see a new message pass by.
“Timmy apparently has made it past The Great Divide.”
“Oh? So he got in contact with Johann then?”
“Yep, and our resident buff elven scientist seems interested in helping out with my plans.”
“That’s good to hear. Though, did you consider asking him about ascension?”
I immediately face palm at Alice's rather casual question.
“Ughhh, why didn’t I think of that!”
I grab a nearby pillow and slam my face into it.
Of course, Johann would know more about ascension Pre-System.
That crazy elf has undoubtedly lived long enough to have at least some information on the process.
He should even know about the previous Demon Lord now that I think about it!
I hear a light chuckle at my antics come from the side, but I ignore it and immediately start sending Timmy messages to corral Johann into using my light network so we can speak directly.
[Please help my Johann, you’re my only hope!]
[What?]
I keep forgetting that my pop culture references will always go over these people’s heads.
A shame.
Linking Alice into the whole situation as well, we both stare up at the floating chat room I connected us to.
[Well, you see. I am trying to ascend to Class 4 but have absolutely no Idea how to do that with being both the Hero and Demon Lord.]
Before I can explain further, Alice sends a message of her own.
[What Lua means to say is “Hi, Johann. Good to hear from you again, we hope you are doing well.”]
I awkwardly chuckle to myself as I realize I should have started with a proper introduction like that.
Scratching my cheek I send my greetings and we get some light chit chat out of the way before circling back around to the discussion I had started.
[Hahaha, you becoming the Hero was unexpected and completely ridiculous. But yes, I do believe I can help you with your ascension.]
Hearing, or I guess reading, those words is enough to make my heart soar.
And then it immediately plummets when I think about how painful this is probably going to be.
Pain, pain, why does it always have to be pain.
[Let me guess, this is going to hurt a lot.]
[Oh yeah, most definitely.]
[Great…]
With that little exchange getting the ball rolling, Johann begins to explain what he knows of ascension.
It turns out that because of my status as Hero and Demon Lord, that I need to complete a grand heroic feat recognized by the universe as well as a Demon Lord style counterpart.
I feel like what I did today should count for both, and when I explained that to Johann he agreed that while I should have the Demon Lord part down from my recent actions, I am not quite there on the Hero front.
Then I remember the message box that appeared when I had killed a demon for the first time.
You have slain a demon for the first time!
You can now use the ability: Hero’s Hand
I don’t understand what exactly that means so I try to investigate further when the blue and white screen glitches out.
The colors start to blend and melt as a deep blood red encroaches on the display.
After a few moments the window has shattered and turned into a starry night sky with the words made of shining constellations.
New Ability Discovered!
Akashic Records
…
I can’t even be bothered to react anymore.