Now that I have time to write again, I’ve decided to improve my writing skills through this pure action demon lord vs hero story. In my other stories, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of having overcomplicated plots in general.

In this story, I’ll be keeping it as simple as possible and focusing on creating a good story while sacrificing originality, etc.

Beginning and system shamelessly stolen from Kumo Desu Ga, Nani Ka.

If you have any questions, comments, potential enemies, suggestions etc, please leave it in the comments.

But most of all, enjoy.

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The battle between the Demon King and the Hero.

A battle that leaves the earth scarred and the populace cowed is repeated once again.

Whenever the Demon King is slain, another one inevitably rises.

Thus, the Demons are never truly eradicated.

Similarly, a powerful human arises whenever the hero is slain, so the humans are never eradicated.

The entire world rests on this delicate balance.

Although, one could truly argue that the balance is anything but delicate if one were to consider the sheer number of iterations of the earth shattering duels between the Hero and Demon King.

Two magics are unleashed.

The Hero and the Demon King are both annihilated.

This isn't a particularly interesting result, considering the same ending results each time-- one battle, two deaths.

Strangely, when the magics collide, beyond any semblance of luck, they combine and rip through the dimensional bounds and fire into a foreign world.

Perhaps, even luckier, the blast of energy actually hits something in the vast emptiness of space.

Unfortunately, that ‘something’ was earth, and as it hit, a single person was caught in the blast and his soul was dragged back into the first dimension.

Arguably even luckier, the soul was dragged into a dungeon rather than the reincarnation cycle.

As of now, Shiro Hayuata, an eighteen-year-old NEET, was the luckiest unlucky bastard to have ever been born. But luck is mostly dependent on perspective, right?

❦

Ahhgh

I tried to groan.

Every part of me hurt like it was on fire.

Am I in hell?

The pain seemed to subside as quickly as it came.

I looked around and found myself lying on the ground of a rather wide tunnel.

I turned around, and staring at me, was a little green humanoid creature.

Normally, you would call these things ‘goblins.’ Usually used as trash mobs in RPGs for grinding EXP.

As the staring contest continued, it reached behind its back and pulled out a knife.

Nope nope nope NOPE NOPE NOPE

I quickly scrambled to my feet and began sprinting in the opposite direction.

Everyone knows that before a human gets his pointy stick, pretty much anything can kill him.

Looking back, I could see the stupid goblin still chasing me with the knife.

At the side of the tunnel, I spotted a rock about half the size of my head.

Fuck this.

I picked up the rock and flung it at the goblin.

The goblin didn't get out of the way fast enough and the rock caught it on the side of the head.

Immediately, it fell to the ground clutching its head and screaming. The knife clattered as it hit the floor.

I picked up the fallen knife and stabbed it into the goblin repeatedly.

Its screams got louder before a stab to the eye finished it off.

What a piece of shit.

More importantly, though, how did this get here? Or rather, how did I get here?

Did I accidentally go to sleep in the VR gear?

“System Menu!” I called out.

…

“System Menu!!” I yelled a bit louder.

…

Still no response? The system must be buggy.

I heard footsteps approaching in the distance.

Maybe yelling that so loudly wasn’t the best idea…

A group of three goblins showed up in front of me, one of which was holding a rusted sword. Although the quality isn’t the best, a rusted sword is still a sword.

Hearing footsteps behind me, I turned and saw two jumbo goblins behind me, both of which had rather large, but chipped swords.

They were both at least a head taller than me. Considering that I’m 170 cm, that’s pretty large.

The fuck is this difficulty? Not even rust is this hard!

Taking their distance and speed into consideration, I have around 5 seconds to kill these three normal goblins before the two jumbo ones get to me.

I leapt towards the three incoming goblins.

The forward-most goblin began his attack with the rusted sword. It was a slow and extremely projected attack.

Ya know, this may be easier than I thought.

As the sword swung through the air, I blocked it with the flat of the dagger before driving the tip into the lead goblin’s throat.

I passed by the gurgling goblin and I picked it up by the bloody neck, being sure to conserve as much momentum as possible.

My next step planted my foot firmly in place as I transferred all my momentum into the goblin and sent it flying into the next.

I crouched down, picking up the dropped sword and springing at the last goblin in the same motion.

Instead of slashing, I raised the sword in front of me and charged, stabbing the last goblin through the eye and running the blade through its head.

The goblin’s knees went limp and it collapsed on the floor as I pulled the sword out of its bloody face.

I turned my attention back on the fallen goblins.

Two casual pokes put an end to those problems.

《EXP Threshold reached, Human LV1 > LV2》

Yeah, there’s no way this isn’t a game.

I looked up to see two trains headed for me.

Well, no use throwing away free EXP, right?

I hefted one of the knives and felt for the center of mass, which happened to be just past the handle.

In any game, throwing is quite the vital skill. Being able to maintain ranged supremacy in the early stages of any game is a really easy way to get plenty of free stuff and a good head start.

I’ve killed at least several hundred players simply from wounding or even outright killing them from a distance.

There’s nothing more satisfying than maiming someone with a well-thrown dagger in the first minute of a game.

Effective throwing is how the early human became earth’s apex predator, after all.

I staggered slightly as I let the knife fly.

Huh, I seem to be about as strong as I am in the real world. Now that I think of it, wasn’t I walking on a sidewalk a few minutes ago?

The knife embedded itself into one of the jumbo goblin’s thighs, causing it to stumble and trip.

The other jumbo goblin quickly closed the gap.

I feinted a charge and the jumbo goblin responded with a cleave that caused the air to hum slightly.

I immediately retreated half a step and hit the back of its sword in the direction it was headed, causing it to overshoot much more than it would have.

The impact was immediately followed by the true lunge which tore through the left half of its neck.

Blood instantly poured out of the wound.

What a filthy casual.

The jumbo goblin stumbled backward in surprise.

I rushed again and attempted to decapitate it, but the blade got caught in the spine.

What a shitty blade, I bet the tiles in my bathroom are sharper than this piece of trash.

I pressed the attack and attempted to decapitate it. Sadly, the sword once again got caught in the spinal disks and failed to pass all the way through.

Honestly, this piece of metal is more like a jagged club than an actual sword.

At this point, I stopped caring which is how I found myself bashing the floored monster repeatedly in the head.

《EXP Threshold reached, Human LV2 > LV3》

《EXP Threshold reached, Human LV3 > LV4》

《EXP Threshold reached, Human LV4 > LV5》

Wow, three levels from that kill? Amazing! I need more of these jumbo goblins!

I immediately turned my attention to the jumbo goblin that had unsteadily gotten back onto its feet.

Trying to recover? As if.

I charged it and feigned a chop to its neck.

The goblin weakly raised its arm to block.

I half-considered just going through with the feint, considering how badly the blood loss had already affected the jumbo goblin.

In the end, I opted to just break its wrist with my trusty club sword. My swub.

Now, with my superior physique gained from my levels, I shall cut thy head off!

I swung my swub again and laughed as it entered the jumbo goblin’s neck.

Suckseh- huh?

The blade had once again gotten stuck in the jumbo goblin’s spinal cord.

Wait, did the extra levels even give anything at all?

I've been bamboozled… by this shitty excuse for a game…

What even is the point of levels?

Screw this, I'm out.

“System override, force quit.”

…

“System override, force shutdown!”

…

Yoooo, blocking those functions is highly illegal and supposed to be impossible…

How does this game even exist?

Wait, there is one foolproof method to figure out if I'm in a VR machine.

I walked up to a wall and licked it.

Hmm, tastes like rock.

No.

No.

No.

I licked my arm.

Tastes like arm.

This is most definitely not a game.

The full dive machines work because they communicate with bypass devices connected onto the twelve pairs of cranial nerves that send sensory input.

That being said, there is a device on all but the taste nerves due to early legislation. Thus, the VR taste test is the easiest way to figure out if you are in full dive equipment.

That being said, it is impossible that I am in full dive equipment because the taste bypass machines don't exist in my brain.

Unless some government agency kidnapped me?

But I was on a rather busy street…

Now that I think of it, what happened?

I was on my way to the convenience store and then… there was…

What was there?

God dammit, fuck my memory.

Wait, it was a large explosion!

I saw the sidewalk break apart right before I was swallowed by the blast and killed!

So does this mean I'm dead?

If I take into consideration that I gain nothing from leveling up and the fact that I am indeed an atheist, I can conclude I am probably in hell.

But the real question is, which hell? Which god’s hell am I in? Who was really right? Which one of the thousands of religions was the right one, and which one of potentially hundreds of thousands of branches was correct?

And more importantly, which god was it that did such a shitty job at leaving evidence for his existence?! I demand to see his manager!

But that implies that this is hell. Ara, it is probably best to collect more information before proceeding.

*gurgle*

I look down at the poorly decapitated jumbo goblin and stomp on its head a few times.

《EXP Threshold reached, Human LV5 > LV6》

《EXP Threshold reached, Human LV6 > LV7》

I feel much better. No thanks to the extra levels.

------ end

I originally thought that I should make chapters 10k words long, but I then realized that may cause the line of problems my older attempts (we don’t talk about disappointments 1 and 2) had, which had an overcomplicated plot. By keeping it short, I’ll probably be tempted to make smaller shifts between chapters… but we’ll see.