I was the epilogue

The moment I uttered the name of my skill, Alice’s facial expression changed. She was visibly confused. According to her plan, she should have cut me in half by now but instead, she dropped like a heavy rock as if she lost all her powers.

“A-Alice!” Sophia shouted worriedly while running after Alice.

And fortunately, she managed to catch her.

To be honest, I was amazed to actually see the speed of the heavily armored Sophia.

“So this is my skill…” I muttered astonished as I looked at Alice who was being checked over carefully by Sophia.

In Tales of Tasia, every person possessed a status window that allowed them to see their stats and personal skills.

Stats were a way to evaluate different aspects of an individual, like strength, speed and intelligence. Each one of them was ranked from F to S, with F being the lowest rank and S being the highest. But obviously, only special people like Alice could obtain S-rank stats.

Meanwhile, a skill was basically a power that was akin to a supernatural ability. For example, some people, like Zera, had a skill that allowed them to use certain kinds of magic. Among skills, there was no actual ranking, however, some fans of the novel began to assign fan-made ranks to skills based on their rarity.

After all, some skills seemed more generic and appeared more often than certain other skills. In Zera’s case, her magic skill was considered a B-rank skill by the fandom.

Now in my case… I’d even dare to call myself a die-hard fan of the novel, but I still wasn’t able to recall such a skill in the novel. In other words, could this potentially be an S-rank skill?

That would actually be a saving grace for me, considering how awful my stats looked. I knew that I wasn’t the most athletic kid but seriously… Be it strength, endurance or any other stat, I was an E-rank in all of them…? If the average rank is C, what did that make me?!

Well, at least my intelligence and speed were B-ranks…

“What did you do to me…?” Alice asked with a threatening tone and gaze.

Her attitude did not match her actions as she was struggling to hold her sword properly.

“This is what it feels like to have your S-rank stats turn into F-ranks in a heartbeat.” I answered as I descended carefully.

Signaling her comrades to stay put, the brave and yet frail Alice approached me.

“Hnggg…!” she groaned while she continued to try holding her sword.

My S-rank (self-proclaimed) skill <Hero Slayer> was a skill that was only effective against Alice, the hero.

At first, I hesitated to use that skill just because of the name, but I learned quickly that the skill didn’t literally slay the hero. Apparently, this skill slayed Alice’s stats, rendering her to someone unfit for the role of a hero.

Still, I didn’t expect her stats to become lower than my stats.

“I respect your determination to face me despite your current state.” I said walking towards her as well.

I truly meant those words. But I wondered…

It was clearly a bad decision to face the Demon King while one’s stats were all F-rank. Did she make that choice because her intelligence also suffered from the skill’s effect?

“It would be in your best interest to stop this.”

I raised my hand and formed a fist. The fist was just a few inches away from Alice’s forehead. Usually, she would react to a fist instantly but now, she didn’t move away and just looked confusedly at my fist.

“…”

And then, the previous silence was broken when I gave a flick with my finger on her forehead.

Alice was staggering backwards until she fell on her butt.

“Ugh…” she moaned quietly placing her hand on her forehead.

“It hurts…?” she muttered with her eyes widening.

It must have been her first time experiencing actual pain from such a small thing.

“You…!”

Alice bared her fangs at me once more and tightened her grip on her sword.

“That’s enough for now.”

But she was cut off by the gentle voice of Jean who put his hand on her shoulder.

“The others and I are tired from the fight against the previous Demon King and based on your current state, it would be too risky to fight against him. We don’t even have a clear grasp on his ability yet. So let’s retreat for now.” Jean suggested calmly.

The rest of the party joined them ignoring me in the process.

Wait. Wasn’t that the perfect time to escape?

“?”

I noticed Jean glancing at me shortly before facing the others again. Was I irrelevant now?

Whatever. I won’t miss the chance!

Thus, I spread my wings and took off immediately.

I recognized the screams of Alice faintly as the distance between us increased. It hurt me to end the first encounter with Alice like that but I didn’t want to get myself in any further trouble.

“Finally, I can take a breather…” I sighed in relief.

After a while, Esfar was not in sight anymore, presenting me with the opportunity to let my guard down for the first time since arriving here.

“Arriving here, huh?”

It was then that it dawned upon me: I was reincarnated into my favorite web novel Tales of Tasia as not just some random character but as the new Demon King.

I should have been hit by a truck but instead of feeling pain or being dead, I woke up as the new Demon King in Esfar in front of Alice Ashglade, the protagonist of Tales of Tasia. It sounded like some Isekai story, however, everything felt real.

The way Alice and the others looked and behaved. The description of the city and the people living here. The existence of demons. The concept of skills and stats. Everything was just like in the novel. Even the injuries everyone had from their latest fight!

Hold on. Latest fight?

I remembered Jean saying that they were tired from their fight against the other Demon King. So could it be…?

I wasn’t able to see the dead body but if I connected the dots, then I was reincarnated right after the last chapter I read before leaving school today!

“Haha…!” I chuckled self-deprecatingly.

As a fan of fantasy and isekai stories, I should be overjoyed over this situation but that was not the case. I was given the chance to live in my favorite novel but my favorite character harbored nothing but killing intent for me. After all, I, Kageyama Kai, was the new Demon King.

“Given that I was reincarnated into Tales of Tasia, I hoped that I could at least be at Alice’s side…”

I smiled faintly but my heart ached.

I regained my composure and tried to remember the information I needed in order to reach the place I was looking for: The Demon Castle.

Once I reached it, I should be safe from any danger for a while. I hoped.

Besides that, I could search for ways to help Alice despite being a demon. Her goal was to kill every last demon but if I wanted to help her, then that would also mean that I’d get killed, too, someday. That’s why I needed to find a solution that could quench her desire to kill demons.

“That could be harder than I think…”

Considering her personality as well as her past, saying something like ‘Hey, please don’t kill demons anymore’ was like ‘Please kill yourself’ to her.

Well, did I have another choice in this matter? If I didn’t try anything, then I would end up dead soon enough.

The only tools I had right now were <Hero Slayer> and my knowledge of Tales of Tasia. And even that knowledge was limited as I reached a part that was not in the novel. The story should have ended with the defeat of the previous Demon King.

But here I was, the unexpected element that appeared right after the defeat of the final boss.

“…”

I chuckled like some kind of fool.

This may sound embarrassing, and I could already feel my cheeks warming up, but what if I were reincarnated here to put an end to the whole story? Was I here to put an end to Alice’s journey?

With the main story being over, was I the ending part of the story?