Fragmentum Mundi - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

"You know, this might be a stupid question, but how do you eat?" I ask the first thing that comes to mind, and even though his expression doesn't change, I can practically feel the disparaging emotions in the Demon King's eyes. Ignoring them, I touch my own cheeks for reference. "I mean, you don't have anything covering your mouth. Doesn't everything just fall out when you chew?"

"… Is this truly the first thing you wish to ask of me?"

Despite his brutish and terrifying appearance, the tone of the Demon King sounds calm and sophisticated. Almost irritatingly so. He sounds just like one of those fancy nobles with their holier-than-thou attitudes… but then again, he is a Demon King, so eh? Maybe it makes sense.

"What? It's bothering me." I raise a finger to my chin and take a closer look at the huge monster in front of me. "Do you eat like those shark-things in the sea? I've met a seaman once who had this whole chunk missing from his leg. He said a shark did it, and ate it in one go. Are you like that too?"

"… You don't seem to understand the gravity of your current predicament."

I lean even closer, and muse, "On second thought, your teeth are more like one of those croco-somethings I saw in a circus once. They said they were big lizards. Are you a lizard? Do you lay eggs?"

"You're testing my patience, human."

"So what?" I shrug and fold my arms. "I'm dead, and so are you. What are you going to do? Kill me more?"

"You're not dead," the Demon King insists, clearly exasperated, and that gives me a pause.

"Now that you mention it, this is no afterlife I've ever heard of."

"No. This is the…" He pauses, and his eyes look troubled. "You could think of it as a… waiting room, between Cycles. Except something went wrong. You're not supposed to be here. This is the first time something like this happened in thousands of years."

"Can you try to be a bit less cryptic? It's annoying," I point out, and the Demon King glares at me.

"Stop acting so unconcerned. This entire situation is your fault. The Cycle was supposed to end with the Hero of the era slaying me, and starting the next Cycle, as usual. Yet, due to your interference, the gears of destiny have spun awry, and the Cycles of the World may see their celestial order thrown into chaos by the acts of a single pebble on the road."

"Oooh! The gears! Not the gears! Why is a destiny when it spins! Because the higher the better, obviously!" I raise my palms and shake them before rolling my eyes. "See? I can spout profound-sounding bullshit too. It's not hard."

The monster raises his arm, but to my surprise, he only rubs his own temple and lets out a dejected sigh.

"Listen to me, human. You can not even begin to comprehend the severity of the situation."

"Try me," I ask defiantly, and the Demon King looks me over, and then reaches higher.

"Very well." He snaps his huge fingers, and out of the blue, a pair of comically small spectacles appear in them. He places them onto his flat nose, and then extends the same hand towards me, palm up. "This is your world."

As he says so, there is a strange, buzzing sound, and a bubble larger than my head appears, floating over his outstretched hand. Inside that transparent bubble, there's a flat disk with uneven edges, and upon it, there are tiny mountains and plains, rivers running into tiny lakes, and fluffy white clouds hanging over it all.

"Literally?" I ask, and he frowns.

"No, this is just an illustration," he grumbles and spins the bubble around so that we see the bottom of the disk, also covered in similar geographical features. "And this is the Underworld, where I came from."

Another spin later, the disk is upright again, and he continues his explanation, as if what he just said was self-evident.

"This world is but a fragment of a greater one, a so-called 'Planet'. It exists in a precarious balance thanks to the intervention of the Gods, and maintained by the Cycles." With a twitch of his fingers, the bubble and its contents disappear, and replaced by the ghostly image of his ugly mug, and the considerably more attractive face of the Hero. Well, maybe 'slightly more attractive' would've been more accurate, but then again, I might be biased. "Once every hundred or so years, when it's time, I invade the Overworld and face the Hero of the era, chosen by the Gods, in mortal battle. When he defeats me—"

"When? Does that mean you never won?"

"I'm not supposed to," the Demon King hisses at me, and draws a large cross over his own illusionary face above his palm with his index finger. "We fight, and I inevitably fall at his hands. That is how the Cycle is supposed to conclude. Invariably."

"Question!" I cut in, raising one hand over my head. "It never happened before. This was the first time you ever showed your mug, so what even are you talking about?"

"The Cycle," he insists, and waves his free hand over the image of the Hero I know and not particularly love. "It's the preordained order of things. And then, when I fall, the power we accumulated during our battle mixes, and time is rewound."

"Oh! Okay, now you've got my attention," I say and lean in.

"What did I have until now?"

"My mild interest?" I answer off-handedly and gesture for him to continue. "Come on. Get to the time-rewinding part. It sounds neat."

"It's not 'neat', it's an essential part of the process," he insists, and the images of the Hero a his crossed-out face both disappear. "The power is used to wind back time to before my invasion of the Overworld, while repairing and reinforcing the World itself in the process. I return to my throne in the Underworld, while the Hero returns to his youth, stripped of his divine blessings, but with a boon in exchange for services rendered."

"Ah! And now we even have a boon! Congratulations, big guy; now you have my undivided attention!"

The Demon King eyes me, and lets out another sigh.

"I can't help but feel that you still aren't taking this situation seriously, human."

"Nonsense. I'm giving this whole not-really-afterlife explanation of yours exactly as much sobriety as it deserves. Now, get back to the part with the timey-stuff and the boon I'll get for stabbing you."

"You're quite infuriating."

"I get that a lot. Lesser minds just can't seem to appreciate me," I jest with a smile.

Face twitching, the Demon Lord crosses his arms and stares at me.

"First of all, the time of the World is already being rewound even as we speak. It shall stop at the date the Hero gained his divine blessings. The problem is that you, are not the Hero." All of a sudden, the Demon King's molten-hot eyes narrow and he scrutinizes me closely. "Which brings me to ask; how did you kill me?"

"Stab through the heart. Duh," I tell him with a shrug, but he continued to squint at me.

"You weren't supposed to be able to do that."

"I still did."

"No, you don't understand. Only the Hero has the authority to hurt me, and only by using the Sacred Sword. It's to ensure that the Cycle plays out the way it was meant to be, every time. Yet, you somehow still killed me."

"Because I'm awesome." I grin at the hulk for extra emphasis, but then his face is suddenly hidden from me when a parchment materializes right in front of my nose, blocking my vision. "Ha? What the heck is this?"

I reach over and grab the wide strip of paper, though it feels strange to the touch. It's almost like I'm touching solid air that pushes back against my fingertips.

"It seems that the time of the World is very nearly at its designated state. I believe you are now supposed to choose your boon."

"What does this have to do with that?" I ask while waving the empty parchment.

"It's your Scroll, the means by which you can observe your own existence."

"What does that even mean?" I ask, but then I look at the Scroll, as the Demon King called it, and notice that it's been filled out with letters. "Lemme see… It says something about attributes here…"

I touch the spot on the parchment, and by moving my finger around, the text shifts on its surface. It all feels very intuitive, as if the way how it works was always stored in a corner of my mind, and I just had to dust off the knowledge. How convenient. The wizards of the Amaranth Tower could learn a thing or two from this thing, instead of making magic scrolls that require tongue-twisters to use.

Anyhow, I hone in on those 'attributes', and it says…

"Physical Aptitude: High, Mental Aptitude: High, Magical Affinity: Low, Spiritual Affinity: Low, Charisma: Mid…" I pause and wave the parchment again. "Hey, I think this thing is broken. Can I get another?"

"No," the Demon King tells me flatly. "The Scroll always tells the truth."

"Horsecrap! Look at this face! Does it look 'mid' to you?"

"It must've taken your personality into account."

"All the more reason why it should've been the highest!" I declare, I try to wipe off that part of the Scroll. "Or maybe 'Ultra High'. No, wait. 'Super Ultra High'. That sounds more reasonable."

Despite my best efforts, the attribute remains unchanged. What a nuisance, but oh well. Let's look on the bright side; at least I've learned very early on that I shouldn't trust this thing. Knowing that might save my life one day, or something.

More importantly, I glance at the Demon King again, and ask, "Now what? When do I get my awesome boon?"

"I have to admit, I'm unfamiliar with the exact process. Understand that your presence here is highly unnatural. Under the natural circumstances, the Hero would stay in his own 'waiting room', so I never had the opportunity to see them receive their boon, or to talk to them after our final battle." He pauses, and lets out a peculiar huff, that once again makes him sound much more relatable than you'd expect from a towering humanoid monstrosity with way too many teeth. "For once, I wish I could talk to the Hero of this era, and give him a piece of my mind. His bull-headed pacifism caused my job to be considerably more difficult than it was meant to be."

"Yes, yes. Woe is you," I say off-handedly as I keep exploring the Scroll. There are so many fascinating aspects of it, such as the segment that has a diagram of a human body, telling me about whatever ailments or injuries one might have, and then there's another part that list aptitudes and talents one might possess. However, I barely spare a look at those, and keep searching until a finally stumble upon what I was looking for. "Oh. I think I found something."

"Did you now?" the big monster asks sardonically, but I ignore him, and after a stray tap, the parchment abruptly swells to several times its original size, and it presents me with a plethora of options. Once again, I can somehow instinctively understand that these are my possible boons, and I only need to choose one by tapping twice. "Wow! This thing is incredibly convenient. Who made it, anyway?"

"The Gods," my only companion responds off-handedly.

"Really? No wonder. I mean, it's just so handy! Life would be so much simpler if everyone had this thing."

"They did, in one cycle. A thousand or so years ago," he tells me in a disinterested voice. "When everyone could accurately determine the abilities of themselves and others with a single glance, it only took a few short decades for the cultures of the Overworld to unravel, societies to stratify, and for the 'have nots' to be cast down into slavery by those with high attributes, drunk on their own inflated sense of self. It was one of the few times the entire cycle was rewound from the ground up, along with the Scrolls."

"Well, that does sound like something humanity would do," I muse as I keep browsing. "Bunch of bloody narcissists, denigrating others to make themselves feel superior, the lot of them."

"… I admit, I did not expect something like that out of your mouth," the Demon Lord mutters, suddenly looking intrigued.

"Why? It's common sense," I gripe as I keep scrolling. "Being superior to others is, well, all about being superior. You show them that you're the best by being the best, not by making others worse than you so you look better in comparison. That's just cheating."

"Quite a peculiar worldview you have there."

"No, it's just that everyone else is weird, and…" I throw my hands into the air and let out a groan. "Why are there so many useless boons here!? Who in their right mind would pick 'Legendary Farmer III' for their super-special-awesome gift after defeating a Demon King of all things?!"

"Oh, that was once taken by a Hero, a dozen or so generations ago," the Demon King muses, his eyes smiling in place of his missing lips. "He was a nice fellow. We had a good battle, and then he decided to retire, and he turned the Maroon Desert into a farmland along with his companions, and lived a quiet life of self-reflection and domestic bliss."

"Oh, one of those 'slow life' fools, huh?" I grumble as I keep searching for the perfect boon. "I never understood those kinds of people. What's good about living a boring existence like that? Not to mention, if they are powerful enough, trouble would just naturally find them and make their life difficult anyway, so why not just drop the pretenses?"

"Different folks value different things based on what they find significant," he says and looks at my face intently. "Did you find something that fits your preferences yet?"

"I'm working on it," I tell him and scroll even more furiously. "There are literally hundreds of options here, and I have to actively stare at them to get a vague understanding of what they are supposed to do. I wish there was a quick blurb or description instead…" All of a sudden, my fingers stop and my eyes open wide. "Oh? Look what we have here…"

"What did you find?"

"Take a look," I say, but the big monstrous man shakes his head.

"I can see your Scroll, but only you can read it. It's a security feature added after that Cycle I just described." I was too busy focusing on the boon I was about to pick to respond right away, so he leaned in to look at my face behind the Scroll. "So? What did you pick?"

"Crest of Control III," I tell him, and his brows immediately descend into a glare.

"As in, a slave crest?"

I shrug.

"Probably."

"That's not very heroic."

"That's the point." I flash a cheeky smirk at the confused monster. "There are so many stock boons, like 'Divine Swordsmanship II', or 'Nexus of Magic III', or even 'Creation Magic III'."

"Yes, and any one of those would be more fitting that… what was it again?"

"Crest of Control III," I respond. "It lets me place a mark on people, and I can use it to give them orders and manipulate them. It sounds waaay more interesting than something that only makes me more powerful." I pause, and poke the scroll again. "I'm gonna pick it."

"Wait. You don't seem to fully understand how this works." The Demon King puts his huge hand over the scroll to block my finger. "You may not be a Hero, but you have to use your boon heroically. It's a failsafe, to stop Heroes from destabilizing the Overworld with their powers."

"Oooh? So it also comes with a conditional demerit? I like the sound of that."

"Why? Any of the other boons you mentioned would be much more beneficial to you."

"Yes, but those are all boring."

"You're wasting your boon!"

"No, it's a challenge!" I declare defiantly, and lock eyes with the Demon King. We stare daggers at each other for a while, until I grin and add, "Not to mention, I already have a couple of ideas of how to use this 'heroically'."

"Do you?"

"Sure!" I let out a low chuckle and cross my arms. "Think about it; there are so many villains out there. I don't mean you, but people like the Monster Duchess who massacred her entire family and destabilized the northern regions of the Empire, or the Vampire Scourge of the East terrorizing the countryside. Ah, there was also the infamous Crimson Warchief of the mountain people, and the Mad Swordswoman who crippled a whole bunch of the Empire's swordmasters in revenge over his father or something, and the list goes on."

Now that I think about it, all of the people who came to mind were enemies that the Hero encountered, fought, and defeated during his journey before the Demon King showed up. They also all had sobriquets with two words. Would I have one by the time I subjugate all of them, I wonder.

"So, you plan to enslave the great villains of your era to do your bidding? And then what?"

"And then I'll reform them!" I proclaim with conviction. "I turn them into my very own Hero's Party, and then go around to beat up even more villains as they crop up, and once I'll be famous as their leader, nobody could dare tell me that my charisma is 'Mid'! You'll see!"

The Demon King keeps staring at me, his expression inscrutable. Then, he lets out a low huff. That turns into a subdued chuckle. Then, before long, it becomes a hearty laugh as he slaps his knee with delight.

"You really are an odd human, aren't you?"

"Says the oversized horny land-shark," I tell him in return, but even that only elicits another chortle.

"Your plan is as far-fetched as it is strange, but I have to admit, it does sound much more amusing that what the average Hero would choose. In my long life, I've only met maybe one or two Heroes who were as interesting as you are."

"Are you damning me with faint praise?" I ask, and he shakes his head.

"No, I find you genuinely fascinating… but are you sure you want to choose that boon? It will definitely make your life much harder than picking any of those 'boring' options you mentioned."

"I know. That's half the fun."

He nods, and gestures for me to go ahead. I do so, and tap the Scroll again. There's a message, but it only shows up for a split-second before the parchment completely disappears… and I feel a sudden and unexpected impact on my chest.

Looking down, I see one of the Demon King's clawed fingers piercing my sternum. There's no blood, nor any pain. If anything, despite it looking like a mortal wound, it only itches a little.

"Care to explain what this is meant to be?" I ask as I gesture at the huge finger impaling me, and the Demon King's eyes seems to smile once more.

"Consider it a parting gift," he says, and I can't detect any sarcasm in his voice. "It should make your second lease at life more interesting for both of us."

"And now you're being cryptic again," I groan as I do my best to resist the urge to scratch my chest. "You are such a… You… What's your name, anyway?"

The unexpected question makes the Demon King's face go slack for a second, then he answers, "My true name would be hard to pronounce for you, but you may call me Kal'rakdosh."

"Kal, then," I tell him with a grin. "Harlan Denholm, not particularly pleased to meet you. I hope I'll never have to see your ugly mug again."

"Don't worry, Harlan. You won't see me again."

With that, he pulls back his hand with a squelching sound that gives me goosebumps, but it's quickly overwhelmed by the primal irritation rising from the pit of my stomach.

"Oh, you just had to get the last word," I groan, and roll my eyes. "Cryptic bastard."

And then everything gets swallowed up by pure white darkness, for the second time today.