A large-nosed green-skinned man sat atop a throne. He twirled his sceptre in circles and had a sneer of arrogance trapped on his face.
Bowing before this green-skinned man was a man with a gaunt sunken face and deep dark circles around his eyes. His hair was slicked back and greasy.
"B. O. B. Be. On. Bearing. For the sake of that acronym, I changed my name to Bob." Said the green-skinned man from atop his throne.
"Now tell me the information we need to know. So I can make sure we're on bearing."
The gaunt man bowed a bit deeper. Then he raised his face to look up at the king.
"King. The war against the new species has been a resounding loss." He said
Bob's bushy brows rose at that.
"Why are we losing?" Asked Bob
"They have sticks that launch spectres of death at us at imperceptible speeds. They can summon canisters from the sky that unleash hellish infernos of fire and brimstone. They unleash gases that disintegrate our people's skin. And they have no moral limits. Murder, Rape, torture. They have no qualms about commuting actions meant to be resigned only to the monsters."
Bob put his hand on his chin and leaned forward. Deep contemplation was on his face.
The ability to summon fire. Poison gasses. Special sticks. That could only mean one thing
"So they are wizards then? Just start using the anti-magic stones. Cut off all their power."
The greasy green-skinned being shook his head.
"No. That's not possible. They don't use magic."
Bob's jaw dropped.
"What do you mean they don't use magic?"
"It's exactly as I said. They can do all this without a hint of magic."
Bob leaned back in his throne.
"Do we know their language?" Asked Bob.
"No. They have many languages that are all unknown to us. But all of them have cognates to devilish. I've already got a team linguists working on translating them."
Bob sighed.
"Let me guess. It'll take them a decade for the linguists to translate them all." Bob said
The greasy alien nodded.
"Yes. As things are going, it looks like it will take that long." He said
"Move all their effort to just translating one language. They would obviously know each other's languages. They can translate what we say between themselves. Also, send the mechs, the bred soldiers, the system heroes and the dragons. We can't pull any punches."
He nodded.
"Alright. I'll go contact them.
The king slumped in his throne.
~We may have just discovered another demon race….. Oh god, I hope that's not true. But…. No moral qualms. The ability to summon fire and brimstones without magic. They're starting to sound more and more like demons.~
...…
John grinned. Surrounding him was ash and ruined buildings. That's not what he was grinning about though. As a consequence of this ash, many charred corpses were on the ground.
Most of the bodies were human. But John could tell that the ones with especially large noses were the bodies of aliens.
As he looked down at those bodies he licked his lips.
"It's precooked food."
He bent down and lifted up one of the aliens. He unhinged his jaw and dropped the alien into his throat. He gyrated his neck and chest until he slid the alien down his throat.
John smiled as he felt his stomach expand. A feeling of fullness filled him.
"I'll eat again in a few hours."
John sat on the ground. He only sat and did not lay. He feared he would not be able to stand back up if he were to lay.
Moving would burn calories. Which would mean less increase to his stat points. So John did the intelligent thing and sat around.
....
Everything had been destroyed by the bombing. So John had absolutely nothing to do. There were no board games, no phones, no computers, no books. And most importantly for John.
No sitcoms.
So then what could John do to entertain himself? What could John do to pass the time?
I'm sure different people would think of different methods. But this is the one John thought of.
"I take my horse to the old town road and!….. What are the lyrics again? Bob Ban groan or something. Yeah, that sounds right. I take my horse to the old town road and Bob ban groan with my four-wheel drive!"
~Jesus!~ John thought to himself. ~I'm a musical genius!~
And so that's how John's day went. Singing and swallowing. Signing and swallowing.
He spent all day doing that. Non-stop.
He ate a total of three aliens.
Which netted him one stat point.
Which was strange because it should have given him three based on the requirements And the calories the aliens had given him before. John guessed it was because the aliens were burnt. So they had fewer available calories.
Then came time for John to sleep.
He found a pile of rubble that he could lay his back against and closed his eyes.
Quietly, he started to drift off to sleep.
Or at least that's how it was supposed to have gone. But there was one problem with the act of quietly drifting off to sleep. And that was the quiet part.
As the silence seeped in old memories began to crinkle at the back of John's mind. The envelope began to unfold. The trumpets began to play.
Blood seeped into John's hands.
"NO!"
John's eyes snapped open. His exclamation banished the crinkling and all that came with it was as if it was just no more than a puff of mist all along.
John shot to his feet.
Ordinarily, he would have a sitcom playing in the background while he slept. That noise would banish the crinkling.
But now John didn't have that.
"I. I can't sleep."
To sleep right now would be to suffer a fate worse than death. John knew he could not endure that.
"The system said something about training right? Something about how training could enhance your strength."
Instantly John knew what he had to do.
He stepped forward and began to run.
Of Course, his version of a run was an ordinary person's version of a quick shuffle.
But regardless John chose to shuffle in Lieu of sleep.
He shuffled and shuffled and shuffled some more. Until the sun rose once more