Summoned to Another World, but as the Final Boss

During my interrogation of the suspicious man, I managed to discover who had sent him to try and pull off the stunt that he tried to at the girls dorms of the school. Apparently, he was part of some kind of group of Damned that called themselves 'The Acolyte Dusk' or something like that. Now, this group is significant in this scenario for two reasons.

One, because from what I understand from the man, they are actively trying all they can think of to assassinate the future 'Hero — aka Alis — and get rid of her, but the reason for that is not disclosed to anyone other than the highest of the members.

And two, because this group.... Did not exist in the game. Yeah — believe it or not, the game never had a group of Damned called 'The Acolyte Dusk'. It only ever had the Demon Kings army as the 'villains' and a couple of solo Damned who attempted to be nuisances, but failed at it dramatically. So this group that the man was part of.... It could most likely be somewhat of a byproduct from my continued interference with the events of the game so far. However, there was no concrete evidence to support this, so for now I have decided to refer to this Acolyte Dusk group as an 'anomoly' of this world — something new that never existed in the games main story.

Anyways, after draining every little drop of information that the suspicious man had, I managed to gain knowledge of their supposed 'main base of operations' — which I was admittedly very skeptical about being the real deal. However, I needed to know more about this group and get my hands on one of their high ranking members so I could figure out the reason for their continued attempts at assassinating the future Hero.

And so, I did not return to the dorms that evening. Instead, I immediately headed out to find their base and bust it down with my own two arms.

Their base was supposedly located somewhere deep inside of the forest in which I killed the Behemoth a few years prior, which meant that I needed to traverse towards it with care and thought and not just bomb rush through — to not risk potentially being spotted or found out by the sorcerers or guards of the Evelias ranks.

Inside of the forest itself, I was leaping through trees, keeping my concealing spell active the whole way through — making sure to also avoid going anywhere near the sight of the Behemoth corpse, which surely was still there. Yes, it had been a very long time since I put it there, but you'd be surprised on how slowly Behemoth corpses rot. Or really, how slowly any animals or creatures corpses rot around here in this world. The quickest individuals to rot after death were dwarves and even then it could take up to a year or so before they do.

....Don't ask how I know this information.

As moved through the forests treeline, I had a couple close encounters with some guards that were patrolling deeper inside the forest — most likely ensuring that no monsters, especially more Behemoths, were around that could threaten Evelias safety. Eventually, after a small while of leaping through the trees, I reached what I could only assume was the entrance to the Acolyte Dusks secret base. A cave opening, deep inside the woods, with a powerful magic barrier surrounding it, which seemingly served as a way to hide the base from anyone that may come by it.

The cave opening was dimly lit inside and I could spot a set of stairs seemingly leading down into an underground area.

'Looks like this is the perfect chance for me to bring down the whole operation and see what they want.'

I thought, before exhaling and standing up on the tree branch I was on, before stretching out a bit. Even with a skeletal body that I had now thanks to my identity as the Demon King of Sins, I still felt the need to 'warm' myself up so to say, before a major "heist" such as this.

If you can even call it a heist. I leapt out of the trees, before landing onto the ground below and immediately began to move towards the cave entrance. Surprisingly, they did not have a single guard outside the base protecting the entrance, which I suppose showed off the amount of reliance and trust they had in their magical barrier keeping anyone from discovering this place. Well, unfortunately for them, I can see right through it. I immediately began to move in towards the cave entrance, before stopping at the staircase I had managed to get a glimpse of earlier in the treeline. The staircase indeed did lead deep underground, being dimly lit by black flames — which I assume came from their dark magic, considering that the only way to get Black Flames was through the use of Dark Magic.

After taking in a small breath, I began to descend down the staircase — into the base itself. As I did, I felt a slight shiver run down my spine. I don't know why, but even if I knew that I was completely invincible and would not be effected by anything that this group could dish out, I still felt a slight glimmer of fear and hesitation run through my body. I guess that despite my outside look bring of a tyrannical figure of extreme power, I was still just a lowly mortal at heart.

The staircase was a very long one, taking a small while before I finally managed to descend the whole way down to the bottom of it. At the very bottom of the stairs, I was greeted by a long, wide and very brightly lit hallway. The hallway itself also had several statues of what looked like black knights on the left and right side of the hallway, standing in a way that resembled them almost like guarding the hallway.

I carefully took slow steps into the hallway, constantly throwing my gaze over at the black armour statues on both sides of the hallway. If my instinct was right, these statues had a very high chance of suddenly springing to life and attacking me with some very ferocious physical attacks. Not like it matters, since I would be unaffected either way, but I still wished to be careful as I would love to avoid getting into a fight where I am forced to obliterate all the statues in an instant and risk dragging attention to me from anyone who may be lurking inside this base.

As I moved through the hallway, I managed to make it to the middle without any trouble, before suddenly one of the statues moved — leaping off of its pedestal and swinging its sword around, before turning to look at me and charging at me, with the sword in its hands lifted high up.

'There goes a sneaky intrusion.'

I exhaled lightly, before stopping and allowing the Knight to charge up to me before it swung it's sword down at me, with the blade of the sword shattering the instant it came in contact with my body, with the Knights swords hilt hitting the ground and the Knight itself unable to quite process what just happened. I exhaled lightly, before turning around to look at the Knight and then rip off its head with ease, dropping the helmet onto the ground afterwards. The rest of the Knights body immediately fell to the ground after its head was ripped off — sending a pretty loud metal clanging sound through the hallway.

After the first Knight was down, all the rest of the knight statues also sprung to life — each of them leaping off of their pedestals, spinning their swords around and then beginning to approach me with killer intent. It looked like I had started a whole gang fight — only I was all by myself against around 13 Knight Golems.

But then again... Do numbers really matter? I sighed before snapping my right hands fingers, causing a wave of dark purple energy to surge from me and stop the Knights in place. Immediately after this, I created two small orbs of purple flames in the palms of my hands before throwing one to the Knights infront of me and then throwing the other to the Knights behind me. The two orbs flew towards the frozen Knights, before erupting into a giant sphere of purple flames, incinerating all of the Knight Golems in an instant, not leaving even ashes behind of them.

Once the two spheres of flames subdued, I turned to look back down the hallway, before resuming my march down it and towards the door at its end. Destroying those Knights most definitely alerted anyone inside of this base — So I most likely will be met with quite the assortment of individuals giving me a nice welcoming party in the form of trying to kill me.

That means I should be prepared to well — tank literally all of it, as it doesn't do jackshit to me as well as prepare to cast a LOT of spells against them to get them out of my way. I was here to speak to and interrogate the high ranking members, not deal with the foot soldiers they deploy to try and slow me down. Actually — now that I think about it, perhaps switching my appearance could help.

I quickly cast a quick changing spell onto me, changing my entire outfit from my usual Demon King of Sins one into the one that I would wear whenever I went to meet Alis — aka the one that belonged to my persona of 'Valor'.

With the new outfit, I quickly closed the remaining distance between me and the door at the end of the hallway, before placing my left hand onto it and pushing the door open — as it had no door handle on it. Once the door was open, I was greeted by yet another staircase, which led even deeper underground — which I guess is where the actual base was located in. Jesus Christ... How deep did they feel the need to make this base? Surely this deep was already enough to discourage anyone with intentions to harm them from coming to get them?

I mean, really. 14 Knight Golems, that would usually be quite a formidable foe for most individuals, with only really Gilgamesh and Lancelot being able to tear through them, guarding the doorway was already one hell of a security measure. Do you need to make your base any deeper underground?

I sighed lightly, before moving through the doorway and beginning to scale the staircase down, with the door swinging closed behind me, engulfing me in the darkness of the unlit staircase.

• • • • • •

Summoned to Another World, but as the Final Boss

• • • • • •

I reached the end of the staircase much faster than the first one — with the second set of stairs being a lot smaller and not going as deep, but also leading down into a rather long hallway. The difference this time around was that the hallway didn't have any Knight Golems standing around and that there were several rooms lined out across the entire hallway, before leading up to a single pair of giant doors. The architecture inside of this base and the way the rooms were spaced out and placed...

None of it screamed the way the game looked. Even the highly advanced Kingdoms such as the Dwarven one and the Dragon-born one didn't have this kind of architecture and room layout. The whole place felt eerily modern and familiar, being something I would usually have seen back in my 'old life' — inside of hotels and hospitals.

Walking down the hallway, I managed to peep inside the rooms that were lined out, by looking in through the small keyhole that the doors to the rooms had. Through the key holes, I managed to see into the rooms just enough to spot sleeping people inside of them. There were literally 10s of people sleeping in each room, sleeping in what looked a lot like beds you would find in military quarters where the soldiers would sleep. All of this literally screamed of my old world and I was starting to suspect that perhaps the Acolyte Dusk wasn't just a byproduct of my continued interference with the way the games story has to go.

No — I was beginning to suspect that perhaps this whole organisation or whatever it was, was the creation of someone who was potentially just like me and awoke in this world as a citizen of it or something. Now — can I confirm this suspicion?....

No — No not really, but, I CAN continue exploring to see whether I am right or not.

With that in the back of my head, I kept moving down the hallway, eventually reaching the end and peaking inside the door at the very end. It led to a rather spacious and large room, which appeared to be reminiscent of a large office or a center at which everything was being controlled — think of those giant control centers where everything is controlled from in prisons. Luckily for me, I didn't spot anyone inside the room, which meant I was completely clean to enter it.

However, I did not just use the door. No, instead I used my intangible magical spell to make myself... Well, intangible. That simple. Once I did so, I simply moved into the room through the wall, before cancelling the spell on myself and throwing a look around. The room was way bigger looking once I was inside it, compared to when I was peaking inside of it through a keyhole. Moving deeper into it, I approached what looked like a desk at the opposite side of the room, before looking down at the papers and documents on it.

The papers mostly seemed to be records of events that had been happening around Evelia, with the Behemoth Killing event being the oldest one mentioned in these documents. This meant that the Acolyte Dusk was not something new that popped up recently, but instead, was an organisation that has been sitting in the shadows for several years now. I continued to read through the documentation and papers on the desk, grasping more and more information on the stuff that this organisation was keeping track of, before hearing a loud bang — signifying the door behind me closing.

Freezing slightly, I exhaled before placing the papers I had in my hands back down onto the table and slowly turning to look at the individual who had just entered the room.

Directly across the room, just infront of the doorway into this large room, stood a single individual, dressed in a long flowing coat, which was primarily black in colour as well as had white accents to it. The individual also seemed to not have even a single piece of their skin shown, with even their neck and face hidden under a mask. Lastly, the individual was holding a crossbow in their left hand, with their arm extended infront of them and aimed dead straight at me, with the crossbow also being fully loaded.

I was caught red handed — and I assume that the individual who did so, was one of the high ranking members of this organisation.

Strange Person: "Don't try anything funny. This crossbow is loaded with arrows that are inlaid with high density poison that can even kill a Behemoth with ease."

The individual stated, their voice distorted and deep, seemingly having gone through what seemed like a voice changer — most likely built into the mask they were wearing. Yeah, all evidence was right infront of me — the Acolyte Dusk was not started by anyone from this world...

This kind of technology — is one that only someone from the same world as me could come up with.

• Next Time •

[ (21.) The Hand of Time. ]