Delightful Demons 1 Chapter 1 (Patreon)

It's a very rough draft, just working out the story for myself.

Blurb

The world was changing, portals have been opening all over the world. Dungeons, that yield great reward and even greater danger were the new normal.

When a global message scrolled across everyone’s vision, I was thrust into the Mana Adaption System in order to survive the changes that were happening to my world.

I got lucky and was given a unique class to survive, only it is a little odd and I just know I’m about to find myself surrounded by demonic ladies.

But it’s my best hope of survival and maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for even in demons.

It isn’t as if the apocalypse is the best time to worry about how it looks. I just need to survive at all costs and level up.

Chapter 1

Staring out of my apartment window, I wasn’t getting much done. Everything felt pointless. Especially since I could see where buildings just disappeared into the brand new forest that replaced them only yesterday.

“Are you really not coming into work today? There’s the big presentation with management and if you aren’t here, then I’m afraid to say you won’t get the visibility you need to move up.” My pushy boss badgered me over the phone.

Looking out of my apartment, I could see the small downtown area that had become a massive green forest. “Yeah… I don’t think I’m going to make it in today.”

There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. “Look, it’s only a small issue. It shouldn’t prevent you from coming into the office.”

“You know I’m pretty sure it is the apocalypse.” I was working from home and my work laptop was shoved to the corner of my desk and the news was muted, playing on my personal computer.

It didn’t take a genius to understand we were fucked. Portals had ripped open across the world and several of them had already inverted dumping a video game world onto our own.

Or at least, that was running theory.

That and sixty-nine million players globally were in Legendary Rule when it happened. All of them were non-responsive in their PIUs now.

I would have been among them if I hadn’t been coming home from visiting my parents. My eyes lingered on the box of junk they had me take home on this visit.

It was just some old stuff from when I went through a brief rebellious goth phase. Mostly just to do the exact opposite of what my religious parents had wanted.

That had been a horrible phase, and that it involved the raging hormones of my teenage years it was more than a little embarrassing.

“Max, are you listening to me?” My manager ended a tirade that I had most certainly not been listening to, but I had caught the gist.

“You know, I think I’m feeling a little sick. Maybe you can present to management yourself.” I coughed into my hand, deliberately not covering the phone receiver.

“Now Max.” My manager did a full one eighty into his ‘best friend’ routine. “You need to be there to display all your hard work. It would just be silly for me to give them the presentation on the new system capabilities. I’d be robbing you of the opportunity.”

Also known as, he has no idea what they do or how they work. Probably couldn’t even give the presentation without me.

You know what? If I can’t say screw you on the verge of the end of the world to my dickhead manager, when would I ever stand up for myself?

“Sorry Boss. I wasn’t coming in and now I don’t think I’m going to participate in the presentation.” I didn’t wait for an answer, hanging up on him and lacing my fingers behind my head as I unmuted my computer.

“… The military liaison has confirmed that there are indeed monsters inside the portal and the civilian group that went in prior has no survivors. If this portal functions like the others that have appeared, we have less than a day before it inverts on our city. So far they are estimating that the northern suburbs will be caught in this one.” The local news anchor, a rather attractive woman, spoke into the over-sized microphone.

Then everything froze as words appeared. I don’t know how to describe it save; it looked just like a video game’s loading screen with my apartment as a backdrop.

[System Initializing…]

[To all who dwell on earth. Your planet is rapidly taking on mana, and each and every person on the planet is going to change because of it. None of you will survive. Well, would have survived. A request has been to create a transitory system for humanity to take on mana and evolve.]

[Initialization Complete. Welcome to the Mana Adaption System.]

Wait, what?

Everything unfroze, and I looked back at the news channel on my computer. The woman had a panicked look on her face. “Tom, did you see that?” Shouts in the background from the camera crew and someone named Tom were evidence that I hadn’t been the only one to see those words.

[Scanning for three appropriate class options.]

“You do you.” I told the system. Out of an abundance of caution, I rolled away from my desk and stood up as if I were worried being next to something was going to throw things off.

My gym bag glowed, and a message rose above it. I realized it was my baseball bat that was glowing.

[Fighter: Common

A skilled warrior specializing in a specific type of weapon.]

Common? Did that mean there were grades to the classes. Shit.

The system said it would find three options, better wait and see if any of them had a better rarity. I just suddenly felt quite a bit of pressure looking around my apartment for what would glow next.

There wasn’t exactly anything that special here.

A book on my bookshelf lit up with green light.

[Scholar: Rare

Those who seek knowledge gain a rare form of power.]

No. That seemed terribly lame. Oh, what if that leads to magic? Yeah, that made sense. You could probably change classes later.

At least that’s what I told myself to calm down as my heart raced, waiting for the next class to become available.

[Unique object found. Generating class based off available templates.]

The message hovered over the box from my parents.

With absolute dread, I dove on the box, pulling out what I already knew would be the object. “No. No. No…” As if those words would do me any good.

I trailed off as I picked up the leather clad book with a pentagram burned into the front.

The system’s message was still floating overhead, and I tried to pry the book open, but it wouldn’t budge.

Fuck. If this was unique, then that meant it was going to be the best option, but why did it have to be this book.

You see, when I was going through my rebellious phase, I had left this book out on the kitchen table before I left to go work my summer job between junior and senior year.

When I got home two and a half months later, the book was still exactly where I left it, covered in dust with a thin ring of dust around it.

My mother had been so spooked by the book she hadn’t even touched it with a duster. That was saying something considering the Book of Demons had laying on the table they ate at every night.

But that only encouraged me to transform the book. You see, in my formative years my parents had done the total lockdown on my devices.

However, teenagers were still horny, and we all kept a stash of a certain variety. Only mine was physical. Cutouts from magazines, the front of a game box or even something printed from the web. Given how scared my mother was of this book, it became the perfect place for me to hide my own. The one place she wouldn’t even touch.

[Unique class generation complete.]

I pinched my eyes closed in dread.

My teenage porn stash just became my best option.

Because let’s be real, whatever just happened to the world was going to change everything. Most importantly, it seemed like it was going to be about my very survival.

Meaning, this book and the unique class it generated just became my best shot.

[Okay… hold up. This is just too good.]

“What? Did the system just talk to me?”

[I’m not a fucking system you dolt, I’m a system fairy. This book’s unique class generation requires a little personal intervention…]

Not sure if I liked the sound of that or not, I let the grumpy system fairy work. Because I knew better than to piss off someone who was working for me.

[There we go. It might need some personal attention from here on out, but that should be enough to get you started.]

With that, I felt as if a presence had left my room. Guess they must be busy though, if everyone in the world was getting the same treatment.

I looked at the book more closely.

[Demonist of Delight

He who has the finest tastes plunges into the greatest reward. A class like no other in both opportunity and power. A demonist is a highly specialized summoning class, and it has been specialized further, you are locked to only summon demons of the lust aspect.]

I wanted to go put my head in the sand. My teenage porn stash, really?

My gamer instincts knew I had to pick this class. After all, in a game, when given three options, two being low grade and a third being unique, the choice was obvious.

I was just terrified about what was going to be inside it.

When I tried to open it up again, this time it opened.

[Class chosen.

Setting starting stats for your new class.]

Information filled my head as a glowing character menu popped up in front of me and a blinding light surrounded me as I finally opened the book.

[Quest complete. Chosen Class.]

[Leveled up.]

Of course, like any game, the first level was practically a giveaway.

Time to see what I’m dealing with.

[Max Moore

Demonist of Delight Lvl 2…]

I couldn’t believe this was real. A freaking character sheet. My stats were low, with a slight uptick in charisma. That seemed to be connected to my magic and my summoning.

At least it seemed I was slightly above average physically and mentally. Though my health wasn’t quantified like everything else just a vague bar.

Then again, that was sort of the deal with summoner classes in games.

Let’s see then, spells.

It looked like I had three from the start.

Hex Blast: A simple magical attack, forming a hex on the target and detonating with dark energies.

Okay, that sounds basic and very lovely. Even if it was cool to go running into battle with a sword, I had zero combat experience and was more than happy to just lob spells from the back.

It was also the safest option. Don’t think I’m going to be getting any restarts in this game, only one big bloody game over.

The idea sent chills down my back and my heart hammering in my chest.

Shit. This is real.

I slapped my cheeks. Freaking out did nothing.

Two more system messages popped up, but I pushed them aside, can’t get distracted.

Second spell. Summon Demon: The book contains what you need to alter this spell and select your demon. Note that your demon once summoned is permanent and you may only select a new demon at the appropriate levels.

Okay, so a pet class. I can do that.

The third spell was grayed out. Metamorphosis: Take on the aspects of demons you have formed a powerful bond with. This spell will strain a users will and mana.

On that note I looked back at the sheet and my mana was the same as my health, an unlabeled bar. I closed my character sheet.

That put away, I probably needed to select my first demon, but I really didn’t want to look in that book again.

So I distracted myself with the two system messages.

[The space you were occupying has been overridden by the integration of mana to your world. Your location has been set as your nexus. Your current level has a restriction of one hour a day in your nexus. You will be ejected if it is exceeded.]

Oh shit.

If my space has been overridden, then where the hell am I?

The second prompt filled in that small detail.

[Upon exiting your home base you’ll be placed in an instanced low level dungeon to help acclimate you to the system. Please be advised that the danger is as real. But with great danger comes greater reward. The Mana Adaption System will allow you to customize how your body evolves as it is exposed to mana.]

So the only way out is through a dungeon.

Yeah, no problem. Best pull out this summoning book and see what my options are.

I sighed, cracking open the book.