I did it! I earned two hundred points!
Racing back to the house where Theo was waiting, I couldn’t contain my delight and kept hopping along. The quest was cleared, and there were no casualties. Only the statue had broken. Everyone was safe. As successes go, this was a resounding one.
On top of that, I got to see Damian, one of my favorite characters, in person. Up close he was much smaller, rounder, and cuter than his game illustration. Less the dignified prince I’d seen on my screen and more a kid you wanted to protect. I’d been so worried the little guy might get hurt that I even told him to be careful. He was so cute that I went and called him “kid,” too... Was that a bit rude, to a prince?
The trouble came after that. When Damian asked why I’d saved him, I was stuck for words. Nothing at all came to mind for an answer, so I threw the question right back at him.
Why do you think?
At which point Damian thought it over for a moment and arrived at the optimal answer entirely on his own.
You’re keeping me alive until I’m fully grown so you can offer my soul to the Demon King when the time comes, aren’t you? Because a mature royal’s soul is worth more...!
No, hold on. That makes me sound like way too much of a bastard. I was at a loss for words again. But thinking about it more... it was a fairly convincing excuse. So I steeled myself, told him he was right, and declared a confident “Correct.”
Damian looked at me the way you’d look at trash beneath dealing with. There was terror in his eyes. Getting a look like that from a character I adored made a corner of my heart throb.
But what can you do? I have to stay true to the villain role. All I did was smirk, exactly like the suspicious slit-eyed character I was.
Sorry, Your Highness, but this means I can save Theo...
I arrived in front of the house, panting hard. Shane lived in a small log cabin set off in an isolated spot. Little foot traffic, not easy to notice. A pretty decent place for a demon corps commander slash spy to live.
I dropped the disguise and rushed straight inside to check on Theo.
He was alive. Alive and breathing in small, rasping puffs. Clinging tight to the blanket, gasping, trying to survive somehow with that tiny body. The sight of it made my heart drop.
I opened the shop and bought the potion. Carefully, I tipped it into the mouth of a Theo hovering at death’s door. The effect came quickly. His labored breathing evened out. His convulsing body settled.
The tension went out of my whole body at once. I dropped into a chair and let out a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness...
Truly, thank goodness.
With the immediate fire out, practical worries rolled in right away.
Now what?
By rights, this role belonged to Rihen. Finding Theo, taking him in, raising him and restoring him as the empire’s hero. But Rihen... I killed him. To be precise, the Shane from before the possession killed him. Either way, the result was the same. In this world, the only person who could fill Rihen’s place now was me.
In short, it meant I had to set Theo as my “companion” and pour the points I earned from quests into raising his stats.
Thinking it over carefully, this wasn’t such a bad deal. The statue breaking was of course a sad thing, but in exchange I’d saved Theo, the empire’s hope and its hero. Me gathering infamy points and using them to strengthen Theo was, from the perspective of the human faction as a whole, a far better trade.
All right. First things first, let’s register Theo as my companion.
No sooner had I thought it than a new system window appeared.
Notice: Only one companion may be registered. Register “Theo” as your companion?
Yes No
I pressed Yes without hesitation.
“Theo” has been registered as your companion.
Nice. Now then, let’s take a look at our hero’s condition.
Theo’s info window opened right away.
Theo (age 27)
Status ailments: curse of regression, amnesia, loss of abilities Current physical/mental age: 12
500p + 1 or more quests cleared → age 15 1,000p + 2 or more quests cleared → age 18 1,500p + 3 quests → age 20 2,000p + 4 quests → age 22 3,000p + 5 quests → age 24 4,000p + 6 quests → age 27
Running the numbers quickly in my head, the total infamy needed to return Theo to twenty-seven came to 12,000 points. On top of that, at least twenty-one quests cleared in all. Not small figures. And I couldn’t dump every point into Theo either. To handle quests that would only get harder from here, I needed to invest in myself as well.
Raise my stats, strengthen my skills, buy items. I had to do all of it in parallel.
How much more evil do I have to do...?
The infamy I’d have to pile up as a demon corps commander in order to raise one single hero of the empire already felt dizzyingly far off.
Cough, cough. A small coughing sound cut my thoughts short. It had to be Theo. I hurried over to the bed. Theo had his eyes open and was looking at me. His small lips moved weakly.
“Who... are you?”
“I, I’m...”
The name Shane rose to the tip of my throat. I swallowed the word back down along with my spit. I couldn’t give him the name of a demon corps commander. Another name popped out without passing through my brain.
“My name’s Rihen.”
For a name that had jumped out reflexively, it was a pretty good pick. It was also the name I’d been called most while playing, and the feel of it in my mouth was familiar.
If I settled on Rihen as my alias, there’d be no split-second delay in my reaction when someone called it. No disaster where I got confused, ignored it, and drew pointless suspicion. And sharing a name with a famous saint might even plant a good first impression.
“You were collapsed in the snow, so I brought you here. I’m really glad you woke up. I was very worried.”
I went on in a gentle voice.
“What’s your name? And how old are you?”
“My name’s Theo, and I’m twelve. But...”
Theo opened his eyes wide and looked down at the clothes he had on. He was wearing adult Theo’s oversized dress uniform. I’d figured it would make explaining the situation easier, so I’d only dried the clothes and put them back on him.
“What are these clothes?”
“I don’t know either. You had them on when I found you.”
Theo tilted his head, then felt around the uniform’s inner pocket. His hand closed on a pocket watch. He read the flow of the stars engraved on it and froze.
“January 25th, Imperial Year 677.”
His golden eyes went round.
“Year 677? Not 662? Then... I should be twenty-seven.”
His alarm showed plainly on his face. Theo, at a total loss, started breathing fast and shallow. I hurried to the kitchen and brought back warm milk.
“Drink this first. It’s okay.”
After helping him cup the glass in both hands, I broached it carefully.
“I think you’ve been hit with a curse.”
“Then do I have to live looking this young for the rest of my life?”
Theo’s voice shook. I patted his back gently.
“No. If you eat well and sleep well, you’ll go back to the way you were.”
I’ll work hard to gather points and get you back. That promise I kept to myself.
“Do you remember anything about your family?”
Of course I knew the answer. Still, I had to check.
“No. I’m an orphan. My parents were killed by demons when I was nine.”
“Ah...”
A short sigh escaped me. Reading it as a passing line in a game and hearing it spoken aloud carried different weight. The fact that I had demon blood in me felt uniquely heavy in that moment.
I made the offer carefully.
“If you’re okay with it, do you want to live with me? Until the curse breaks, I’d like to look after you. I don’t have family either. And saving you like this feels like fate.”
That part was real. The me from my original world had no family. Separate from my confusion over the possession itself, that was also why I felt no desperation about getting back.
My friends might be looking for me, maybe. I had no family, but there were always plenty of friends around me. Still, there wasn’t a single person I’d truly given my heart to.
“You must have been lonely too, Rihen...”
Theo sipped his milk, thought it over carefully, then gave a firm little nod.
“Yes. Let’s live together. Thank you so much. I’m counting on you from now on!”
“I’m counting on you too.”
I laid a hand on that small head. Soft blond hair spilled between my fingers.
Cute little thing. Right, for the time being I’m your temporary guardian. I’m going to raise you properly.
Just then, the communication orb hidden in my pocket gave a faint hum and vibrated. A call from Kairos.
“Sleep well, then. Sweet dreams.”
I pulled the blanket up to Theo’s chin and slipped quietly out into the next room. Just in case, I locked the door tight before taking out the orb. When I tapped it with a fingertip, the pearl-like surface rippled and an image formed in the air.
It was Kairos, the First Corps Commander and Shane’s half-brother.
“Quite the flashy job you pulled off.”
He twisted one corner of his mouth into a smile.
“You’ve got an unexpected talent for stirring people up. The prince in particular was thoroughly frightened.”
Damian... so he was scared. I thought I spoke pretty kindly to him, but it must not have helped. I’m sorry. I offered an apology that would never reach him, somewhere inside my head.
Kairos changed the subject out of nowhere.
“You do know why it’s important to shake the humans and plant fear in them, don’t you?”
I produced the prepared answer smoothly.
“Of course. For the Demon King to awaken, a sufficient quantity of souls must be offered. If a human is driven to the very brink of physical death, or if their mental fortitude is weakened to the extreme, it becomes possible to draw the soul out and offer it up. That’s why it’s important to plant everyday fear in humans and shake their minds.”
What came out of my mouth was word for word the explanation I’d seen countless times in the game’s tutorial. Kairos nodded, apparently satisfied.
I rather liked this “soul offering” worldbuilding. Once the awakened Demon King is sealed again, the souls offered up until then return to the bodies that had been left behind as empty shells. In other words, even if someone lost a loved one, winning the final chapter could bring them back. You’d have to store the husk carefully so it didn’t get ruined, mind you.
Even if a day came when, as a demon corps commander, I unavoidably had to offer up an innocent soul... as long as I raised Theo properly and brought down the Demon King, everything would return to the way it was.
Not offering any souls at all would be best, obviously, but there might be cases where there’s simply no other choice.
Back when I played the evil route, you could earn anywhere from 10p to 500p of infamy depending on the value of the soul. If that system applied in this world too, it would come in handy when I needed points in a hurry. Not that I had the slightest intention of offering up innocent citizens’ souls left and right.
“Then I’ll give you your next assignment.”
“Yes. Just say the word, hyung.”
I smiled amiably and waited for Kairos’s order.
“Burn down the Temple of Repinal.”
A familiar quest window surfaced in front of me.
〈MAIN QUEST〉 Arson at the Temple of Repinal Time limit: within 72 hours On success: Infamy +700p On failure: Kairos’s irritation
I smashed the statue today and now you want me to burn the temple too? Do you have some kind of blood feud with the goddess?
Of course I couldn’t let any of that out of my mouth. I kept beaming away. My facial muscles just twitched a little.
Seven hundred points, so...
The calculator in my head spun busily.
I’d spend 500 on Theo to get him up to fifteen first, and invest the remaining 200 in myself. With my current stats, the ceiling was far too obvious.
The problem was how. I had to get all the clerics out, then burn the temple and nothing else. No casualties. It looked like I’d have to use much the same trick as before. Induce fear and make them run on their own.
So then, what should I do...?
The answer came surprisingly fast. Maybe I actually had a talent for playing the villain? The thought was ridiculous, and it crossed my mind anyway.
