(Alaster POV)
When I came to, I found myself lying on one of the softest and most comfortable beds I had ever heard of. The pillowy fuzzy warmth of the blanket acted as my gleipnir, binding my very essence to the comfort that I felt while I lay there.
Despite the fact I had just awoken, I could already feel my consciousness beginning to fade back into the fluffy warmth of the comforter.
"Ahh! This s heaven~" I thought aloud while sighing in a relaxed manner.
"Alaster-kun! Are you up?!" Ramiris yelled as she burst through the door to the room I awoke in. Her harsh voice completely ruined the mood and I was instantly pulled back into the land of the livin- I mean, the awoken.
I sat up, mentally cursing Ramiris from the bottom of my heart as I did so before groggily turning my head to face her with half-opened eyes. "Ramiris... if you gave me a few more minutes then we could have talked in my dream, what's the rush?" I asked, trying to hide my disappointment.
"Eh? Don't be like that! Oh!" Ramiris started to rebuke me before stopping and seemingly having an epiphany about something before her face gave off a smug smirk. "I see! I see! I know that I'm special and a total babe, but you shouldn't be having dreams about me now, Alaster-kun! I don't see you as anything more than a friend you know!"
"Why am I getting friend-zoned by a fairy first thing in the morning?" I thought aloud before throwing the comforter covering me to the side and swinging my legs off the bed.
My entire body was yelling at me that I should reverse my decision and return to the comforting embrace of the bed, however, I ignored its protests and slowly got up out of the bed. It was only then that I noticed that I wasn't wearing my usual clothes and was instead in some kind of silk pajamas.
While I was checking myself out, Ramiris began to speak to me in an excited tone. "Hey, hey! You gave everyone quite the show yesterday when you took out Feldway! It was pretty cool, you know! '[Righteous Lariat]!' " Ramiris made the pose while imitating my voice.
I laughed half-heartedly while I looked around the rather spacious room for something more substantial to wear, as PJs wouldn't exactly make for good business attire. Ramiris seemed to pick up on this and subtly pointed to a table stationed behind me. On it was a pair of clothing with a form-fitting black shirt and black trousers with golden highlights. Additionally, there was a set of white robes along with them.
I turned to Ramiris and nodded in thanks, only for her to acknowledge my remark with a confused face. "Thanks Ramiris, I'll get changed now." I spoke, not turning away from her.
"Oh ok." Ramiris said, not moving from her spot.
"Umm..."
"Yes?"
"Aren't you gonna leave or turn around or something?" I asked her.
"Why would I?" Ramiris asked while tilting her head in confusion.
"Because I'm going to be changing now..." I replied in a tone as to make her understand that it was obvious that she should leave but Ramiris didn't seem to quite understand what I was saying.
It was then that I realized that the current Ramiris was far too nieve and innocent for this world and felt a twinge of guilt at the fact I was going to ask her to leave. I didn't particularly mind having to change in front of her, but it was still a bit embarrassing to be watched by a beautiful woman while stripping naked, and especially one so nieve.
Thankfully, the perfect scapegoat for kicking out Ramiris came from the corner of my eye. In the open doorway, I saw Twilight's upper head peaking around the corner. I felt my earlier embarrassment be blown away by a wave of annoyance and I felt a tick-mark form on my forehead.
"Twilight! A little privacy please!!!" I yelled, scaring Ramiris who quickly turned around.
"Don't mind me-" Twilight said with a monotonous voice.
"I do mind!" I yelled back.
"Don't mind me-" He responded.
Ramiris was a bit confused by our shouting but realized that I didn't want Twilight to watch, so she took the hint and walked out of the room, closing the doors and dragging Twilight along with her as she left the hall.
"Wait! I need to see his muscles more in high definition! It'll be good material for creating a muscle-girl race as my next offspring!" He yelled as his voice faded into the distance.
"Geez, dude... I get that making new races is your job, but staring at another man naked is giving off serious gay vibes..." I said aloud before taking off my clothes to begin changing.
...
After changing into the robes and commenting on how much I looked like Merlin while looking into a mirror provided to me, two angels arrived to take me to a meeting with Veldanava. Coincidentally, one of the two was Dino but this was seemingly before he awoke an ego, as his face was expressionless. I thought about how, with him like this, I'm probably still pretty far out from the timeline's canon, but also didn't fail to notice him blankly looking at the comfortable bed I slept in earlier.
'So he already has that lazy demeanor even before becoming self aware huh? Staring longingly at the bed like that...' I thought before brushing it aside and following the Angels to my destination.
As we walked, I looked out of the windows of the palace I was seemingly staying at with a hint of wonder. Each window looked out onto a different landscape or different world. Some were barren deserts with three suns in the sky, others were tropical rainforests so dense the foliage blocked out even the sunlight, only letting small rays peer through the canopy. The next was of a peaceful medow with a huge moon rising from the distance and blocking out at least 10% of the sky, while another was a world with floating islands int he distance.
"What the heck? Are these all TVs?" I asked aloud.
"No, each of those places are different worlds that are parallel to this one!" Twilight said, appearing out of nowhere and wrapping his arm around my shoulder like we were close friends.
"Parallel Worlds?" I asked in astonishment. I had already known about the fact there was a multiverse out there, however, seeing every window leading to a different world was something I hadn't expected to see.
"Yup! This is the Heavenly Star Palace! It's where Veldanava-sama lives most of the time and where he created the world from!" He began to explain to me as we arrived at the door to what could only be described as the largest library in existence. When we walked inside, I could see hundreds of rows of books and paper stretching far into the distance and well outside of my own visual and sensory range.
"This place is huge!" I exclaimed surprised.
"Well it should be, it contains all of the information in the multiverse after all." A voice called out from behind me where the door to the library was supposed to have been.
I turned around, expecting to see Veldanava in the doorway, however, all I saw were more bookshelves stretching on into infinity and a large table with about a dozen books stacked neatly on top of it. Sitting there, reading a book was Veldanava. The book was a deep purple in color and had the words 'Cardinal World Soul Archieve' in golden text emblazoned on the cover.
"Uh... hi," I said, looking around. I noticed that the Angels had disappeared but Twilight was still with me, standing only a few feet to my left.
"Where are we... exactly?" I asked with hesitation.
"Welcome to Star Palace Library!" Veldanava said, closing his book and placing it gently on the table. "When I gave up my omnipotence and omniscience when creating the world, I knew there was some information that I'd eventually need from time to time that I'd given up, so I created this place to store all the data I'd need." He explained.
"You mean in here is the answer to like- everything?" I asked in slight disbelief.
"Well, not EVERYTHING. I kept information about the future out of the records so as to not accidentally come across anything that might spoil what the future holds for this reality, but enough talk about that, let's talk about you!" Veldanava stated as he waved his arm and a chair materialized itself in front of me.
I sat down in the seat after a moment while Twilight remained standing behind me. It was only then that I realized that he was actually acting as my escort this entire time and wasn't just here for the thrill of it.
Or maybe he was here for the thrill so he took the escort job when the opportunity came along.
"So then... god. You wanted to see me?" I asked, a bit nervous.
'To be honest it's a little late to be doing the whole 'ROB' thing NOW after all these years.' I thought to myself.
"Yes, I've got a proposition for you." He stated bluntly.
"What's that? I know Ramiris wanted to talk to me about something. Is it related to that?" I asked.
"Yes. As you may know, the world you've been living in, I call it the Cardinal World, since its my favorite, has undergone something rather... interesting of late."
"Interesting?"
"Yes. The Demon Rouge was summoned recently and activated a long-dormant system of the world I had created for fun when first attempting to balance out the power of the different races there." Veldanava said before raising his hand.
A magical image of Rouge appeared to hover above the table in front of us. It was a type of illusion magic, my senses told me, but I'd never thought of using it for holograms like he had.
"When I first created the world, I created the Angels to be my servants and subordinates out of the Great Spirit of Light. However, this was after I had given up my omniscience, so I didn't realize at the time that Light and Dark had to balance each other out." He started.
"I created Seven Angels originally and in turn, the Great Spirit of Darkness created Seven Beings of roughly equal power to them in retaliation. These beings, the Daemons, as I named them, were the exact opposite of my Angels. The Angels didn't have any egos but the Daemons had strong egos from the moment they were born. Additionally, their lust for battle was the exact opposite of the angels, who I created to aid in my construction of the universe.
However, I let them be since they mostly kept to and fought amongst themselves, but as time went on, more and more of the world we all inhabited was destroyed. At some point, I gave up on that world and sealed it way and it eventually became known as the Demon World, or hell as you know it, however, I felt bad about shackling one to a hellscape like that forever, so I created a system in my next world that allowed for their kin to be summoned, though at a greatly reduced strength." He explained.
"Oh I see, so that's why the highest level a Demon can be in my world is an Arch Demon before being named or given a body." I deduced.
"Yes, however, I also created a way for the daemon race to remove their limiters in the Cardinal World since it would be unfair for only them to be unable to awaken right?" Veldanava said, a bit hesitantly.
"Yeah, so your saying Rouge broke his limiter in this world then?" I asked, vaguely recalling this story from the webnovel where Guy was summoned as an Arch Demon but became a Demon Peer after naming himself Guy and becoming a Demon Lord.
"You're pretty smart. Yes. He was the one who killed the entire High Human Empire and a good chunk of the Ultra Sorcery Kingdom's population. I was told you were also there at the time." Veldanava explained.
"I see... so that's what happened then." I clenched my fists hard. 'I'm definitely going to get stronger and beat Guy senseless for killing my friends.' I thought.
Veldanava dismissed the image of Guy from in front of us and looked straight at me. He was still wearing his blindfold, but I could tell he was intensely looking at me.
"Rouge is only one of many beings in this world that love to rampage about and trample on those weaker than themselves. An example of that would be the 'Earthquake' Dagruel who is rampaging in the west right now and destroying countless civilizations." Veldanava started but Twilight continued his statement.
"Ever hear of Tieflings or High Tieflings?" Twilight asked somberly.
"I mean, I've heard the name, but I've never heard about anyone who's ever met or seen one before," I responded.
"Yeah, that's because Dagruel crushed their settlements a few decades back and now there are only about a dozen left. If they even survive, it's possible they'll degenerate into monsters." Twilight said with a bit of pain in his voice. They were his descendants after all.
"They aren't the only ones, either. What I am trying to say is that the world is extremely dangerous right now for any race, regardless of their numbers and I plan to do something about that." Veldanava declared.
"Who do you want me to kill then?" I asked seriously.
Veldanava smiled. "That's why you humans are my favorite" he whispered to himself before addressing me directly.
"I want you to train under me and to take on the role of Humanity's Guardian, to secure their survival by aiding me and my forces to pacify the world of the mindless beasts which will wreak havoc on it and to help subdue or seal those with minds full of destruction like Dagruel." Veldanava declared.
"I see. So you want me to be Humanity's first Hero then?" I asked, a bit of excitement welling up from inside me.
"Hero~" Veldanava repeated the word to himself before smiling. "What a lovely word. It has such a nice ring to it... Yes, that's right. I want you to be humanity's Hero. What do you say?" Veldanava asked, reaching his hand across the table towards me.
"Heh. Alright then, getting training directly from god and getting to kick the ass of Rouge while I'm at it. I'm game!" I responded shaking Veldanava's hand.
'Sorry Rudra, but I'm taking your title as the first Hero for myself.' I thought.
.~.~.~.
A/N: I tried to be as accurate with the lore of the world as possible in this chapter with regards to the primordial Angels and Daemons since, in the LN now, it's said that the daemons were created in response to Veldanava creating the Angels. Something along the lines of 'in their shadows' or something.
Furthermore, when reading it back, there was a significant gap in time between when Guy was summoned and when he met Veldanava and for the most part, in between that gap is where our MC is going to get OP. Get ready for a time-skip next chapter.
.~.~.~.
Lore Bit: I created the example of the Tieflings being wiped out as to WHY a Hero was needed to balance out Demon Lords and to show how dire the straights are for squishy weak little humans are at the moment, especially after Guy destroyed the only (high)human kingdom in the world right now.
I was originally going to create a whole sub-arc based on the consequences of the MC's actions in saving the Tieflings which led to changes down the line, such as a Tiefling Demon Lord instead of Carrion or Frey. What are your thoughts on this?