Prologue:
Before we begin let me ask you a question, have you ever heard the story of the Hero and the Demon Lord? The one we hear as children about the Hero who saves the world from evil. The one where they travel across the plains and mountains, sail through seas and explore the long lost cities of old. Where they save the people from nightmares and monsters, going so far as to even rescue the damsel in distress. Finally they banish the Demon Lord away from the world and what follows is a time of peace and tranquillity. I loved those stories. So innocent and pure with colours that never crept into the murk of grey, where good and evil could be split by a dull knife. This isn't quite one of those tales. This is a story of magic, history and frankly boredom, because that's where it began, on a whim.
Chapter 1: Heroes
Lights spiralled around me and the ground shook but before long I was in an unfamiliar place. Four others stood near me, their clothes were weird, designs I had rarely seen before. They were like military uniforms that had been severely pacified. It was weirder still than the man sitting on a throne in front of us. A golden jewel encrusted crown sat atop his head and I couldn't help feel put off by his gaudiness. Of course I'd never show it on my face because fully armoured knights surrounded the room and magicians lined the front. I was starting to think that this may have been a bad idea even for me. Well, at the very least I'd escape with my life.
"Welcome Heroes," the King stood up and bowed slightly towards us. "We have summoned you in our time of peril in hopes that you can aid us."
"What the hell is going on!?" one of the males with weird clothes yelled. He was quite tall but couldn't be older than eighteen, well in human years at least. The other three with him were about the same age. Two female and two male in total.
"Please calm down," the King replied softly.
"How can we be calm!?" A girl with long black hair yelled clearly shaken, "Where am I? I was walking then..." Her mental state was clearly on the cuff of snapping. Well that would make sense if you were suddenly summoned to another world.
The other two however were calmer. Unlike the two who had already spoken they looked similar to each other and their uniforms were the same. Could they be friends, maybe siblings?
"As I said before we have summoned you to save our world." The king's expression lightened but a strain became visible between his brows. "Please hear our plea."
"He's right, if we freak out now everything is just going to get more confusing," the boy who had remained silent till now spoke.
"How are you so calm?" The first boy looked at him coldly.
"Ah well, it's that situation you know. Being summoned to save another world. I've read it in books and played games with that theme."
"Games? Books?" the first boy grabbed his collar, "Don't screw around with me. Does this look like a game to you?"
There was a slap and the taller boy was pushed away. It was the other girl. She had blonde hair and a strength to her eyes that was quite admirable for the situation.
"Don't grab my brother like that," she glared at the first boy to back down. I couldn't help but smile internally at guessing the pair's relationship.
"Ah sis, you don't need to be so viole-," her brother began but there was another slap and he shut up.
"And you, don't go mentioning weird stuff all of a sudden."
"It wasn't weird," he moped quietly.
She then turned back to the king, "Now start talking."
A knight stepped forward, "Watch your tone!" Though his sword remained sheathed his expression gave away his annoyance.
Undeterred the King held up his hand, "Stand down, the Heroes are obviously quite distraught at the moment. They still need time to adjust."
Well he was right about that. One of them was on her knees sniffling, the first boy was looking really confused, the brother was moping still and the sister was glaring at the king. I could tell these people were going to be fun to be around.
"Then let me continue." The King sat down, "In our land there is a terror that has been rampaging for thousands of years. They are the demons who harbour half of our continent. They attack our people and steal our lands. Every day they take more and more lives."
"And you need us why?" the sister asked haughtily.
"We have summoned you because you are people with extraordinary talent. Individuals who have the potential to stand against the threat that marches towards us as we speak."
"So you want us to what, kill the Demon Lord?" the first boy asked while frowning.
"Simply put yes. There is a Demon Lord who rules over them. If you are able to kill him and his generals peace will return to our lands. Of course we will assist you in every matter. Train you and provide for you, even with all the luxuries we can spare." The King bowed deeply this time. A position no King should take. "Please I implore you all to consider our plea. The lives of my people and the lives of our allied kingdoms are at stake."
The first boy's expression softened, no longer angry, "I'm sorry for my outburst before. I'm still not sure what's going on but if you need help and I can be of use, I'll at least try." I was surprised that he was won over so easily. He certainly had the key characteristics of a standard Hero. The type of guy who would save those in need. Well he also seemed like the most naïve as well.
"Thank you Hero!" the King cried joyfully. "And what of the rest of you?"
"Well I was getting bored at home anyway so I'd like to see how this pans out," the brother said but had his ear pinched by his sister. He flinched in pain.
"Don't just accept it. What about home?" she yelled at him.
"It's just you and me there now anyway. Who cares," his reply was awfully cold and his sister let go.
"Fine I'll listen for now."
With three calm the King turned his gaze towards the final girl kneeling on the ground. She looked up at him with red eyes.
"I want to go home! My family… send me back home!"
The King's expression grew sombre but ignoring her he turned to me, "And what of you? You've stayed silent since the beginning."
I cleared my throat with a cough and began my prepared response, "It is with honour that I humbly accept this chance to become a Hero and help save this land." A clear pleased smile lit the King's face. I smiled as well. There was just one thing however, I was the Demon Lord.
*
Let's rewind a few hours to explain. Why would the Demon Lord try become a Hero? Well mostly curiosity and boredom. Relatively speaking, there aren't many humans I can interact with, so I decided to meet them personally. What better way than to start at the heart of their kingdoms as a Hero.
I'm the 26th Demon Lord, a title that runs only within my family. The title sounds like I'm the super bad guy but it's just the name we give to the ruler. It's like Emperor really. See there's always two sides to a coin. For us it would be Humans and Demons. We number about the same but demons have multiple sub species, like the beastkin, fay and ogres, just to name a few. Personally I'm a high demon, one of the apparent original sources. Our looks are really close to humans, though our hair and eye colour tends to be more vibrant, our ears ever so slightly pointy, and we have a coloured stone in the centre of our chests. Luckily my eyes where already a simple brown, conversely my hair was pale blue. Though it's just an easy matter to dye my hair, cover my ears with it and never take off my shirt. Perfect. Of course if things get dicey I could also cast illusions.
Anyway, even though my family members urged me not to go, I left a note on my throne and decided to go on a journey. It's not like I was skipping on my duties, I just delegated them back to my father who was the 25th Demon Lord. The end result, I found myself hiding in a corner of our castle sitting on top of a magic circuit waiting for the Heroes to be summoned so I could jump in and join them. As the Heroes could only be summoned starting on a certain day and for a certain period of time it wasn't hard to prepare. The circuit I drew would detect the summoning and pull me in to be a part of it.
In this continent where we called home, it wasn't rare to summon Heroes. It was actually relatively common. Pretty much with every new Demon Lord, Heroes would be summoned. We would fight and the result was usually a stale mate. My father managed to hold back their invasion but my grandfather before him lost and the humans took a chunk of our land before he could recover and beat them back. Over the past thousand years it's always been like that, a give and take you may call it.
So with me being the new Demon Lord, there was bound to be new Heroes, to which I wanted in. And finally after nearly a five hour wait and almost being caught by my sister, I was summoned to the human's largest Kingdom, Elsbeth.