Dead Reckoning I

In his life before, the being currently known as König Geistdunkelrustung had often found comfort in the dark. The imposed limits on his perception made it easier to focus on his thoughts and forget the troubles of the world.

But he wasn’t simply in the dark now. The darkness of his old apartment, the darkness of the neighborhood around his apartment, the darkness as he slipped the sleep mask over his eyes and nestled into bed, were not as absolute. The nothingness was so utter and undeniable, he had to wonder if he even had a sense of sight at all. And it wasn’t just what he couldn’t see. The stillness was uncompromising as well, like he had become aware of the very sensation the planet’s rotational force that his mind would always filter out, now that it was absent. There was no warmth or chill; he simply existed in a void of nothing where he couldn’t even properly measure the passage of time, if time were even passing.

And yet, it was a comfortable nothingness, calming his emotions. Whether he could ‘see’ or not, the display that had appeared in his vision was still ‘visible’. Rather than just idling his time away, waiting for the resurrection that both Inessa and Lylia were assured would happen eventually, he set to familiarizing himself with what options were available to him.

König Geistdunkelrustung [Legendary] | Race: Greater Demon | Level: 20
Age: ?? | Sex: ?? | Hair: ?? | Eyes: Purple
Height: 206 cm | Weight: 147.27 kg
Likes: Animals, Video Games, Candy
Dislikes: Animal Abuse/Poaching, Manipulators, Karen from next door
Hit Points: 0/628↓ | Mana: 0/555↓ | Stamina: 0/157↓
Strength: 60↓ | Durability: 151↑
Deterity: 62↓ | Evasion: 29
Endurance: 81↓ | Barrier: 191↑
Vitality: 34↓ | Force: 123↓
Intelligence: 139↓ | Precision: 120↓
Wisdom: 85↓ | Arcane: 261↓
Charisma: 67↓ | Faith: 167↓
Traits: Horny, Tailed, Hungry, Dual Mature Magic Cores, Dark Magic Attunement,
Inhuman, Chimeric: Soul Eater
[Equipment]
Armor: Schattenrustung [Legendary]
Shoulders: Undurchfinsternis [Legendary]
Gloves: Zehrgriff [Legendary]
Boots: Verderbnistreter [Legendary]
Main Hand: Verderbnisstreuer [Legendary]
Offhand: Bolzenschläger [Legendary]
Dark Magic Corruption: 7/100

It’s like I’m in a video game or something… but at the same time, these numbers could just be easily digestible representations. Like how we had IQ tests and stuff like that. If I think of my Strength stat as something like that arcade machine that measured my punch force, as long as the same standard is applied universally, then in a world with magic and deities, maybe it makes sense? He knew that, ultimately, it didn’t matter which he decided to believe. Whether this was his new reality or that he was in some highly advanced, sci-fi simulation like in so many stories and movies, if he couldn’t return to his old life, he had to make the best of his current circumstances. But aren’t all of these debuffs a bit excessive? This has to be cheating.

If he focused on a particular value, he could see a simplified formula that showed what was influencing each of his stats. While his equipment and traits gave him some bonuses, he was also burdened with hefty penalties from a multitude of ‘seals’. But most concerning were all the entries in the categories of Magic and Techniques that were shown as “MISSING”. There were dozens of abilities that he didn’t even know what they were, and only a handful of ones he could use.

No wonder those two were able to kill me so easily despite the difference in our levels. I’m pretty sure Inessa’s stats were buffed, too. If it wasn’t for my armor and boots… Looking at the few items he had, each one bound to his very soul, he understood how ridiculously overpowered the combination of effects could be, if not for his debilitated state. The armor used Dark Magic Corruption to bring him back to life, while the boots passively absorbed Dark Magic Corruption from each source around him.

However, since he was properly slain without the necessary amount of Dark Magic Corruption to revive him, he would have to wait for the value to reach 50 before it would cast an even stronger revival spell on him.

It says it’ll only absorb one unit of DMC per year, so why did Lylia make it sound like I’d be back much sooner? He wondered, clearing his ‘vision’ of some of the displays, he contemplated how he’d face the two next, or if it would even be Inessa and Lylia who would come to slay him. Can I even fight against them as I am? Should I? Assuming that all demons and monsters are just misunderstood is too naive, too childish. At the very least, it sounded like Lylia was speaking from experience when she rejected the idea of coexistence. Was she or someone she knows hurt by a demon? I can only assume the people of this world were, at some point, persecuted by demonkind and monsters.

Looking at the oddly, yet fittingly, named traits he had scrutinized earlier, he brought up the detailed explanation of what each did.

Horny - All Demons should have horns! Makes 'em look more Demon-y!
Tailed - Tails too! Big, small, skinny, fat, scaly, furry. Don't care, y'all are gettin' tails!
Hungry - Demons get strong by eatin' people, right? Well, they do now ya twit!
Dual Mature Magic Cores - Increase Mana by 50%, decrease Stamina by 25%.
Dark Magic Attunement - Increase Magic Resistance by +50%, decrease magical healing by 50%.
Inhuman - Increase Hit Points, Mana, Stamina, Durability, Barrier, Force, Precision, Arcane, and Faith by 10%, and Magic Resistance by +10%; decrease EXP gain by 50% and Willpower and Evasion by 10.
Chimeric: Soul Eater - Gain access to Special Skill: Consume Soul. Drain EXP equal to 1% the total EXP of a target when consumed while alive (this EXP is permanently subtracted from the target should they be revived, and can lead to level loss). Do not gain EXP normally.

In particular, it was the first three, Horny, Tailed, and Hungry, that felt off to him. The other four read very formally and directly influenced the system of power and development that this new world operated on.

It’s like someone came along and wrote in someone else’s notes for their own amusement or something. But if demons really can get stronger by eating people… should I really be defending them? Or is it not an obligatory thing? Like, I didn’t feel the urge to eat Inessa or Lylia when they first showed up. He couldn’t wrap his head around the juxtaposition of how those traits were explained to him. If he assumed all the information he was given was written by the Goddess Seepu, an entity that in all other aspects had been formal and orderly, those three traits were just too… chaotic. Is there another deity who can alter Seepu’s information, or could she be a Goddess with contradictory aspects? That wouldn’t be too uncommon.

For what felt like an eternity that could have just as easily been only a brief moment, Geist contemplated the contradiction and what it could possibly mean for demons and monsters. But as his thoughts began to drift and he no longer had concerns he could focus on and devote concentrated effort to, an alien sensation washed over him.

A wave of emotions that weren’t his own washed over him, and his sense of lived experience stretched far, far longer than he had lived. He became aware of memories that he knew were not his own, but were intimately familiar. However, what he had come to recognize as the ‘system’ of Facide that was overseen by Seepu, seemingly, had no influence over these fuzzy, indistinct records of events that others had lived before him.

It was an odd feeling. A disorienting feeling. One that threatened to overwhelm the ‘him’ who he was with the ‘us’ that all the Demon Monarchs who came before him were. What the hell? Was I just… ignoring all of that until now? He wondered, unable to visualize the sheer amount of information being kept from overwhelming him— thousands upon thousands of years of lived experiences that remained mainly out of comprehension.

He wasn’t able to gauge the age of each memory by the weight of emotions behind it. Most were devoid of any passion or drive, as he could sense the quiet resignation of his predecessors' resignation and acceptance of the futility of their circumstances. But some burned with an intense passion and held the unyielding determination of Demon Monarch’s past.

As if in response to his doubts about whether demons and monsters deserved to exist, hundreds of scenes from the perspective of the past lives he was connected to flashed through his mind. Wars fought between those like Inessa and Lylia, the ‘Pure’, and the creatures he was meant to lead and protect, the ‘Corrupted’. Back and forth, the odds favoring one, then the other, demons and monsters killing and eating humans, and humans hunting demons and monsters for materials and sport. But then, the odds tipped in favor of the Pure, and the Corrupted couldn’t defend themselves. Getting pushed further and further from lands claimed by the humans, slaughtered by armies and parties of adventurers.

The rush of barely organized, raw, emotional information began slowly to come into focus at a particular set of memories from what felt to be millennia old, but carried the undying passion of the one who lived it. The comfortable, unending void surrounding Geist was slowly replaced by the imposing stone masonry of an uncannily familiar, vacuous throne room, bearing the scars of battle. His perception was from the point of view of the defeated of the fight, as four human figures stood over him, bloodied but victorious. He recognized the golden sword and glowing shield that the one closest to him wielded, but other than that, there was nothing about the group that connected them to Inessa or Lylia. Men and women with vibrant hair colors that seemed unnatural to Geist’s preconceptions from the world he knew, in armor and robes, looking down at him with thinly-veiled contempt.

“Why? Why get in my way, Champion Leopollis?” The hoarse voice of his connection to these past events asked, angery and sorrowful, bloodstained strands of pure white hair obscuring his vision as he struggled to breathe. His vision turned to a small menagerie of assorted demons and monsters gathered behind a grand throne that had been partially destroyed in the fight. Disintegrating bodies of the demons and monsters who had fought to protect the others lay strewn across the ground as the fearful creatures could only watch helplessly. “Did you not want peace? Did you not want the Corrupted removed from your lands? Then why stand in my way?!” The being demanded. “Do those Corrupted not deserve peace as well?”

“And allow you to go terrorize another world, Chrysaor? Not a chance.” The young, orange-haired man wielding what would become Inessa’s shield said, straightening up and pointing his blade at him. “Even if we were too late to prevent most of your Corrupted minions from invading that other world, I can only hope that, without their leader, those demons and monsters will not cause too much pain and suffering before that world’s forces can exterminate them.”

“Invade? Why would I send those wishing for peace to war?” Chrysaor asked incredulously. “But this changes nothing. Next time… Next time I shall–”

“There shall be no ‘next time’, foul Demon Monarch!” The young man in robes that looked to be earthly, inferior imitations of the divinely immaculate regalia that Lylia wore, said, stepping forward. Producing a shining, translucent crystal of gold from seemingly thin air, he threw it at the defeated Demon Monarch, and a bright flash of light blinded Chrysaor, and Geist by extension.

“Wh-What is this light?!” Chrysaor cried out, his voice pained and panicked as the memory didn’t fade so much as grow distant.

Within the realm absent of any external sensations or stimuli, Geist was being pulled away from the tranquil serenity of absolute darkness. Huh? Has it been 50 years already? He wondered, checking his displayed statistics.

[Dark Magic Corruption: 50/100]

That felt fast. He thought, though he had no true frame of reference for the passage of time in a realm devoid of anything that would allow him to track it. …too fast.