She awoke in a void.

Strangely, it wasn't scary. The void wasn't exactly comforting, but it wasn't exactly discomforting either. Clearly, death wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Really, the scariest thing about it was that she couldn't remember her name. Or any names, come to think of it. It was as if all the names she knew had been carefully scrubbed from her memory.

Or were they? Now that she thought about it, she could still remember the names of celebrities and characters. Really, the only names missing were from people she personally knew. Most of the memories from her previous life were intact, and it was understandable that she didn't remember how she died, but she wished she knew what her name was.

"Maou."

Suddenly a voice came out of the void. Maou? The Japanese word for demon lord? Strange that that of all things came booming out of the void.

"It is your name. That is what you were wondering, is it not? That would be the most glaring hole in your memory."

That... was not her name. It wasn't. She could feel it.

"Well, your old name has been erased. This is your new one."

Maou was a little upset, but that seemed to make sense. Wait...

"Who's speaking to me? How are you reading my mind?"

The voice came again, except this time, instead of booming from the void in all directions, it came from directly behind her, much more quietly.

"I was."

Maou whirled around to face the voice, absently noting that her feet were suddenly touching some sort of ground. She turned to see a gorgeous woman with long, wavy, blonde hair. She wore a shimmering white dress, and her eyes seemed to shine with many colors, shifting like the northern lights. She floated in a reclined position, looking lazily at Maou.

"For the record, I wasn't reading your mind," she drawled with a slight smirk, "It was pretty clear what you wanted to know."

Maou narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"You responded to me earlier. When I thought that Maou wasn't my name."

"Did I now?" she said, "Well, even if it seemed that way to you, I was simply finishing my previous statement."

Maou raised an eyebrow. She didn't really believe this ugly little bitch was telling the truth. Sure enough, as she thought that, the woman's face twitched angrily. Mind reader confirmed.

The woman's smirk faded, but was then replaced by a grin.

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"Clever," she said, turning to face Maou more properly. "I think you'll be a wonderful fit."

Before Maou could wonder what she meant, the woman continued.

"I am the goddess of Alvaria, Libertile. And I would like to have you help me."

Maou was skeptical. "....With what?"

"Well, I would like for you to become the new demon lord there," she began, "hence the new name. You'll be in charge of an army of monsters, and have your own dungeon to manage. Your job is to fend off the heroes that come at you, and generally cause chaos and destruction among the human territories. Burn some villages, kidnap some princesses, all that good stuff. There are-"

"Wait wait wait," said Maou, holding her hands up. "You said you're a goddess, right? The one charged with protecting humanity? Why would you send me there to fight them? Isn't that.... counterproductive or something?"

The goddess shrugged and said, "First of all, I never said I was humanity's guardian. Besides that, humanity needs something to do, or they'll start fighting each other, and I need something to do, or I might start breaking things out of boredom. So... Demon lord! Good ol' fight to keep humanity on its toes."

"I feel like I just heard something dangerous..." Maou muttered.

"I'd say me getting bored is rather dangerous, yes."

"You're not supposed to admit it!" Maou shouted in exasperation.

"Well most people wouldn't want me admitting I could peer into their mind either, but you insisted on cracking that case wide open. I thought you'd prefer honesty."

Maou didn't really have a counter to that, so with a sigh, she simply moved on.

"Alright, so I'm to go around destroying places until some hero defeats me?"

The goddess gave a 'so-so' gesture as she responded, "Kind of, but not really. First of all, you're not really meant to destroy too much. There are other evils out there to really try and wipe out humanity. You're not meant to be the worst threat, just the most consistent one. Your main job is to be their common enemy, so they fight you instead of each other. Frankly, if you could pull that off without destroying anything, I wouldn't stop you, though that would be quite boring for me.

"Besides that, there's a reason I'm giving you a dungeon. You'll be a lot weaker outside of it, though still stronger than most, and while your monsters will be the same as normal, you can't revive them if they die outside of the dungeon. You can travel around, but I suspect you'll spend most of your time inside that dungeon."

Maou pointedly ignored Libertile's second dangerous statement and responded, "So I'm supposed to just sit there and wait for the heroes to arrive?"

The goddess shrigged. "Well, you'll need to be more aggressive than that to keep their attention on you, but for the most part, yes. Going over all the finer details would take way too long, so I'll leave you with a manual when you get there."

"Uh-huh... and what if I refused?"

Libertile's eyes widened, as she blinked at Maou in surprise, then she pasted a smile on her face as she said, "Well in that case, I'd send you off to Limbo."

Maou was confused. "Is that not where we are?"

The goddess burst out in laughter at Maou's response, tumbling through the void as she laughed hysterically.

"Hahahahaha! Ahaha! Ahhh, no. No, Limbo is a much less peaceful place. It's the place in between after all, where all the aberrants go. This place is a subdimension I created to talk with you. Can you imagine? This place! Limbo! Oh, that is too good!"

Given Libertile's reaction, Maou was suddenly very concerned about the casual way she delivered the initial threat. Despite knowing the goddess was reading her mind, Maou forced the fear out of her voice as she said, "Well, it sounds like I don't have much of a choice then. I suppose I accept."

A grin spread across the goddess's face.

"Wonderful."

Then, just as quickly, it vanished, replaced by a small, happy smile.

"Now then, I suppose I should send you off."

She waved her hand, and suddenly Maou felt a hole open up beneath her. As she began to fall, Libertile waved at her and said with a sing-song voice,

"Good luck~"