English or Spanish?

“Hey, stop being a cringy chuunibyou. That’s my role.”

[‘Serious Story’ has been activated.]

Suddenly, Bartholomew felt a chilling presence as an illusory voice rang out into the air. Besides that, one of his main magical abilities had been forcibly activated, one which hadn't been properly explained in order to avoid unnecessary yap, causing the story to become a little more serious.

He recognised that voice, that chilling, grating voice reminiscent of a bird. It had been one of the last voices he had ever heard on Earth. Just then, he became acutely aware of the mimicking noises he had heard the moment he had awoken.

They weren’t ringing out into the air, but in his own head!

“DemontheDemon, am I hallucinating you now?” Bartholomew grimaced slightly. His usual attitude was washed over with a calculating personality, as if after the ability had activated, he had become someone entirely new.

“I’m inside of you, fool. I’m in spectator mode right now!” That familiarly shrill and deluded laugh echoed inside of Bartholomew’s mind, maddening and annoying.

“Can you get out of my head?”

“I don’t think I can do that, no.”

“Why are you even in my head?”

DemontheDemon let out an audible ‘tsk’ inside Bartholomew’s head. “After I killed you, I was wracked with such guilt that I took my own blade and drove it into my own stomach. However, I didn’t receive a buff from this. It was truly strange.”

“Dirty Souls player…”

DemontheDemon then chuckled. “I thought that I would reincarnate into my own body, but it seems I made my way inside of you…”

“Pause.” Bartholomew said quietly, staring down at the ground. DemontheDemon and Bartholomew both fell into an awkward silence. This remained for several minutes, before both had recovered from their own sheer stupidity. DemontheDemon was the first to break this silence.

“Of course, I was thinking of apologising to you if we were to reincarnate in the same world, but it seems karma has already cursed me with misfortune. There’s no need to lower myself to embodying ‘shame’ or ‘guilt’.”

“You really are a Demon.”

[‘Serious Story’ has been deactivated.]

Bartholomew let out a sigh. ‘Thank God… I didn’t think I could stand being a blank-slate character any longer. My indomitable swagger just can’t be held back by the facets of this world. I am God and I cannot be caged.’

Suddenly, a bright flash of silver shot towards Bartholomew. He instinctively raised the metal sheath of the katana, blocking the strange strike that hurtled towards his head.

[‘Plot Armour’ has been activated.]

[‘Unnecessarily Masterful Sword Skills’ has been activated.]

[Your abilities will be automatically activated in times of crisis. You will not need to use your single braincell to survive. You cannot be trusted with your own life.]

Right before him, a man appeared in midair, cloaked in strange, worn garb. Eyes peered over a cowl, obscuring the attacker’s face, and he wielded a curved silver sword, as sharp Bartholomew’s memory when it came to World of Warcraft leveling routes.

“A bandit!” DemontheDemon shouted out with excitement.

Bartholomew stumbled forward, kicking the attacker in the side. The sheer heft of his size caused the bandit’s ribs to instantly shatter into a million pieces, crippling him beyond repair. He went flying in the opposite direction of the kick, crashing through a row of titanic trees, tearing them to the ground in the process. While this kick didn’t cause him to instantly explode, the sheer pain killed him on the spot.

Bartholomew stared at the now-lifeless body in the distance, his eyes shimmering with a mixture of guilt, sadness, elation, and lust for a chicken sandwich.

Had he just killed a real, living person?

[‘Grey Morality’ has been activated.]

[You can’t be allowed to have any meaningful character moments. That would be an antithesis to what this entire thing is about.]

Bartholomew sighed, his feelings immediately returning to normal. He pointed towards the body in the distance, and smiling, asked, “is it possible for you to inhabit more than just my body? Now this, of all things, would be very sugoi.”

“I don’t know, I’ve never tried such a thing.”

Bartholomew pointed towards the body. “Then try it.”

“But what if I die when I leave your body? That’s too scary to think about.”

“You’re a surface-level forum user. If you don’t try it now, I’ll start thinking about all the liveleak footage I’ve seen over the years and mentally ruin you.”

At the thought of this, DemontheDemon became intensely more horrified than any other fears he had previously. Without fail, he shot out of Bartholomew, hurtling like an illusory spirit towards the broken and battered bandit body.

When he collided with it, his pure indomitable aura radiated throughout the forest grove, filling every broken crevice within the bandit’s lifeless corpse. His jaw snapped back into place, his rib bones trying to return to their origin, and flesh that had been torn away by tree trunks twisting and writhing on the surface of the body.

“Wow, you really are a freak. Papa Frank warned us about people like you..”

As DemontheDemon stood up, the cowl slipped off of his face, revealing an intensely handsome personage. His cheeks were thin and gaunt, and he definitely had a positive canthal tilt. This sight sent shivers down Bartholomew’s spine, causing him to have to actively resist the natural homoerotic tendencies of all males, because of course, all men are slightly gay. Even the Ancient Romans knew this.

“Don’t you mean Joji?”

“That’s not a real person. Joji is an industry-planted robot that sings AI-generated lyrics in order to please an audience of copy-pasted personalities.” Bartholomew chided, looking away.

Grimacing, he replied, “fair enough.”

Taking a few steps in the battered body, stumbling a few times, DemontheDemon asked, “so, what will we do now? Where will we go?”

“I will definitely try and find myself a petite, slender, submissive, breed-able, loving, caring, attractive catgirl. However, I can’t have you following me on this endeavour. With that new face of yours, I would definitely be outclassed. Of course, I know I’m intensely attractive. This is just my natural aura. But you might be able to slightly outdo me in this regard.”

“Well, of course we want the same things. This is also one of my goals. But how exactly are you going to stop me?”

When DemontheDemon had fully inhabited this broken, crippled, yet handsome body, Bartholomew spoke out.

“English or Spanish?”

DemontheDemon’s new eyes widened with horror. “You bastard…”

He was now frozen in place, unable to follow. Smirking, Bartholomew turned around, beginning to walk into the distant and vast forest with giant King-Kong-esque steps.

He would go about this journey alone.