(Author's Intro +) Wanted: The Demon King

---- Author's Intro ----

...it's been a long time, huh? 

Truth be told, even putting aside the fact the COVID pandemic happened in between the last update to Half-Paid Heroes by [the author] in 2019 and this story in 2024, a lot happened in the 5 years [the author] was gone from Honeyfeed. 

For example, you'll notice many of [the author's] previous stories involve jobs as a plot point because when [the author] was consistently producing chapters in 2017 - 9, [the author] was a (mostly) happy but broke student. Now, [the author] is a Working Adult who is neither broke nor happy, so they ended up going back to the things that made them happy in the past...including Kimi ni XOXO, an obscure shoujo manga, Ore-tachi no Party wa Machigatteiru, an obscure shonen manga, and revisiting an old story or two which was originally intended to be a visual novel.

The main story which comprises the current iteration of Familiar of Forty was, as a placeholder, called Extra-Ore-Dinary (after the TV trope), but after some reworking, it happened to fit into the slot where Familiar of Forty was meant to be. (Sidenote: One Wish... is inspired by Kimi ni XOXO in a much more overt manner.)

The original synopsis to Familiar of Forty, as it was envisioned by Kris and Fumika, goes like this:

As of the writing of these author notes in mid-October 2024, [the author] is obsessed with epistolary/multimedia novels such as Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple and Four Seasons in Japan and The Cat and the City, both by Nick Bradley (they recommend all of them...except maybe the last one). [The author] wanted to try writing one of their own while also throwing in some tropes inspired by current simulcasts Demon Lord 2099 and Dandadan, so that will inevitably shape the trajectory of this story going forward.

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WANTED

"The Demon King" (real name unknown)

For the crime of: Creating artificial life

[There is a coloured illustration of a youthful, delicate-looking man with long blonde hair covering his face that would make him look like a ghost if the illustration were monochrome. Underneath the curtain of hair, you can see he is wearing what appears to be armour, black as night but extremely worn down by countless battles. He has striking violet eyes that seem to pierce the viewer and his skin is so pale, it looks like it was made of fine china.]

Bounty: A million coins

- Astarea Main Guildmaster's Office

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...the wandering NPC sighed, rolled up his starchy mud-covered sleeves and absent-mindedly scratched at the mousy brown hair that framed his face as he plucked another flyer advertising the million-coin bounty off the ground. His dark (almost black, but really brown) eyes darted across the ground to check more flyers weren't where they shouldn't be. 

Yep, all clear.

Sure, defeating the Demon King would be nice for the peace and all, but the fact the Demon King might've been sighted around here recently was seriously cutting into sales, and he could only travel so far before hitting the boundaries of his designated path.

Speaking of the so-called Demon King (not that the NPC believed it for a second - it's possible this blonde-haired individual could just be framed by the Guildmaster's Office to give them something to do), there was oddly a lot of tourism related to him in this bucolic area, including yellowed documents from the days when he wasn't being vilified and was instead known as "Forty", named thus because he created forty extremely lifelike golems he had dubbed "familiars". However, over time, no one had identified what - or heck, maybe even who - the golems were and eventually, Forty was treated as a legend (albeit a very profitable one).

The NPC balled up the poster and wandered into a tiny thatched-roof building that passed as a makeshift museum to the magician, simultaneously tossing the unnecessary paper into a nearby bin without looking. He was almost done with the switch potion he'd been diligently recreating from a recipe being displayed in the museum...

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Switch Potion

In another world, this potion was very valuable for changing one's guise to another "player character". However, there is a rare chance this potion will change one's guise to that of an animal...

[The rest is omitted for brevity.]

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In an even tinier hut which the NPC called home, he completed the potion with the final ingredient and then downed it...

...at first, it seemed like nothing happened, but then he glanced down at himself and saw his dull brown shirt and trousers intact, but as he raised his arms, he spotted the pinkish tones of his skin, flesh and bone turning into particles and falling downward. The entire process made it appear, for all intents and purposes, like he was melting into a puddle on the floor and then reconfiguring into...something else.

No, someone else. 

Before he could take in more of this bizarre sight, excruciating pain hit him, causing what was left of him to double over. A garbled scream escaped his throat and a blood-curdling snap resounded through the air, as if all his bones reshaped themselves at the same time...

The last thing he knew that day was how violently and suddenly his consciousness faded to black.