Chapter 1
The moment my sword pierced through his body, I heard the system notification chime in my head.
The cold, mechanical voice, a sound I had longed for through three months of brutal, life-or-death combat, was finally a declaration of victory.
[Congratulations. You have defeated the final Demon King, Lord Malachai.]
[Mission Completion: 100%]
[Combat Duration: 47 minutes]
[Damage Dealt: 12,847]
[Returning to the main world.]
I had waited for this moment for so long.
*****
For three solid months, I had clawed my way through this godforsaken game world. No scroll of preservation was granted to me, no token of rebirth, and no mercy shown to the uninitiated.
From the starting village to the Demon King's castle, I had died seventeen times, the kind where your heart stops and your consciousness fades to black.
But each time, the system would drag me back through some incomprehensible means and dump me at the nearest respawn point. Naked, I was back to level one, gearless.
I suffered seventeen cycles of that hell. Each time, it took more courage than the last to get back on my feet.
I had crossed twenty-three snow-capped mountains, where the nights were so cold they could freeze the marrow in your bones. Wrapped in hides stripped from corpses, I huddled in rock crevices, listening to blizzards that howled like a thousand vengeful ghosts.
I told myself, "Just a little longer. Just defeat the Demon King, and it will all be over."
I had slain four dragons. The first one bit off the ring and pinky fingers of my left hand. Their bones were still buried somewhere in the filth of its lair. The second threw me from an altitude of three hundred fathoms.
I crashed into a swamp and spent seven days and nights clawing my way out, my wounds festering with maggots. It was best not to speak of the third and fourth dragons. Some encounters are better left buried in the depths of the tomb.
My companions had all fallen along the way.
They died to cover my escape, to buy me time, and to fulfill some damned "destiny." When the dwarf, Borin Ironbeard, yelled, "Go, hero. Run." His chest was already torn open by a dragon's claw.
The elf, Elara Songleaf, whispered, "Live for me." With only one arrow left, she fired it into a troll's eye before she was ripped to pieces.
And the sweet-faced cleric, the girl who always healed me with a smile, said, "Take care of yourself, my hero." Then she threw her body in front of a forbidden spell meant for me.
They were all dead.
Only I remained.
And now, finally, the Demon King was dead too.
I pulled my sword free. His blood was warm, spattering my face with a sticky, cloying sweetness. The Demon King knelt, and his black crown tumbled from his head, spinning twice on the cold flagstones before coming to a rest.
Beneath the crown was an ordinary face.
His face was far from monstrous. In fact, he possessed a striking, almost regal handsomeness. With bold brows, a sharp-set nose, and thin lips, he looked like the kind of high-Charisma figure who would be sought after by every guild in the realm.
But the skin was a ghastly, translucent white, and his eyes were hollowed out, as if he hadn't slept properly in a very long time.
He looked up at me.
His gaze stopped me cold.
There was no hatred, no resentment, and no sore loser's bitterness in his eyes. He uttered no dark malediction to hurl me into the abyss, nor did his features twist with the promise of a ghost's vengeance.
He simply watched me. His eyes were as flat as a stagnant pool, brimming with untold secrets that would never find their way onto a scroll.
His lips moved, and he coughed up a mouthful of bloody foam.
"Did you know..." he said. His voice was so faint, as if he were speaking to his own shadow from across a vast, unreachable void. "In this world, every hero eventually becomes the next villain."
My grip on my sword tightened. "What do you mean?"
He didn't answer. He just kept his eyes on me, staring for so long that I thought he was already gone. Then, his lips pulled back into a jagged, unsettling smile.
It took me ninety days of crawling through this hell to finally pass the insight check on that look.
It was the crushing weight of regret, the paralysis of a man with no remaining moves, and a silent omen.
His head drooped, and he moved no more.
The system notification chimed again.
[Boss detected as deceased.]
[Teleporting...]
White light consumed me.
In the final moment before my consciousness was pulled into the transport channel, I glanced back at the body slumped before the throne.
He lay there, surrounded by his fallen crown and splatters of blood. The ceiling of the Demon King's castle was high, and a ray of sunlight pierced through a broken stained-glass window, landing on his face.
In that beam of light, his expression looked almost peaceful, as if he were finally free.