5 Short Reprieve

S: Speaking of food though…..

With almost comedic timing, I heard my stomach growl. It seemed dying didn't do much for nutrition.

Oi, you bastard, just what are you trying to pull here?

….

Worth a shot. That said, I had to eat something. I didn't trust the rat meat, and I really didn't want to die of food poisoning, of all things. Hesitantly, I looked over to my corpse. It seemed like a good bit of it was in good condition….

No, I won't do it. I draw the line there.

I may be desperate, but I still have my pride dammit. I am the Almighty Demon Lord Ashtar!

S: You don't have to say it in uppercase every time.

Quiet you.

Anyways, in my honor as a demon lord, I will not stoop to the level of eating my own corpse!

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"Tastes like chicken."

As I held my leg over the blue flame of Korin's Monument to roast it, I began debating where I should go from here. From what I knew, I was near the bottom of some godforsaken dungeon, I only had the hilt of a broken sword, a loin cloth, and a temporary source of food.

Ah, the inhumanity of it all.

S: You're half demon though.

My riches, my powers, my concubines, all gone.

S: A nine-year-old crying over losing concubines. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

I'm not a child, dammit.

And anyways, this is all your fault.

S: What do you mean? I gave you a second chance!

Didn't you reincarnate the hero that defeated me?

S: Firstly, 'defeated' is too generous to describe what happened. Secondly, he chose to do it of his own accord. I just helped the process along!

Shouldn't you be off killing teenagers or something?

S: Well I wanted to hear your thoughts first. What do you think will get more views, "Reincarnated as a Toaster" or "Reincarnated as a Leaf Blower"?

What?

S: Hm right, I keep forgetting you don't know this stuff. Carry on.

Jeez, he acts like he doesn't have any other friends he can talk to. Annoying bastard.

Anyways, I need to work out what I'm going to do next.

I don't know how large this dungeon is, nor where I am. This place seems to have been abandoned a long time ago, considering the state of things, and it's infested with giant rats for some reason. Way to put me in a great starting position, Satou.

S: Well, you can think of it as a tutorial of sorts. I told you these Nariks, er- rats, were some of the weakest monsters in this world. It's not my fault you got too arrogant and died right off the bat.

Whatever. Anyways, usually a dungeon is right beneath a castle. I should know, I had one in mine. But this place is a dump, even for dungeon standards. There's a chance the castle above ground has been long abandoned, in which case I can't count on finding provisions up there. This really sucks.

S: To be fair, there's more out there than just this castle. The world ends with you after all.

That doesn't help.

S: :(

What even is that symbol?

Anyways, I wont find anything by just sitting around. It's time to move on. I finished off my old leg and tossed it to the side, standing up. I probably wouldn't have to come through here again, hopefully. I pulled out my sword hilt and went back through the dark hallway, past the rat corpse. I didn't see any other rats, so it was possible this one had split off from the rest of them. I took some time to inspect the hallway itself while I walked. It was fairly decrepit, moss growing on the stone walls and floor. There seemed to be alcoves where torches used to be.

This reminded me, I probably wouldn't be able to see in the dark if I hadn't been part demon. It made sense why no humans had ventured down here in so long, or at least if they did it probably didn't go well for them. This was of course assuming humans existed in this world, but the dungeon was clearly of man-made design, so it was safe to assume beings of that level of intelligence existed.

I eventually came to a fork in the path, both right and left looking about the same. I knew how to solve this.

���Eenie, meenie, miney, mo, catch a goblin by it's toe, if it screeches let it go, eenie, meenie, miney, mo!"

Right it is.

S: But little did I know, I would soon find myself in a hellish nightmare, cursing my misfortune as-

What was that?

S: Nothing.

You know what, fuck you, I'm going left.

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