Demon King Isekai Ch. 1 (feedback welcome)

  “I think I’m losing her, man. I think she’s going to break up with me.” Andre stared down at the sandwich in his hands, already looking devastated by a breakup that hadn’t happened yet.

  “You don’t know that,” James said. “I bet she’s just busy. Got caught up with her friends or something.”

  Andre shook his head. “You don’t know Natalie. She hasn’t texted me all day, I just know something’s up.”

  James sighed. Andre had a point. Natalie was up his butt all day long, asking about work and telling him about whatever she was up to — what romance she was reading or what color she painted her nails or what that bitch Cara said about Stephanie’s new haircut.

  James found the whole thing exhausting, and he wasn’t even the one in the relationship. Andre admitted once that he knew she could be “a bit much” — but he loved her.

  That was something James couldn’t argue with. He’d never been in love, so he didn’t understand, though he’d certainly witnessed it often enough to know how foolishly it could make people behave. Love made people do stupid things and tolerate worse.

  An old friend of his had dated a woman who called the cops on him every other week. The guy was harmless as a lamb, but you wouldn’t know it from his arrest record. Even that wasn’t enough to end what was clearly a toxic relationship.

  Andre looked up, still waiting for James to respond. Maybe hoping he’d let him go home early to check on her and save his relationship from the dumpster fire it was headed towards — or at least delay the inevitable.

  But doing that would only reward bad behavior. It would tell Natalie that if she ever wanted Andre home early, all she had to do was not text him and he’d come running.

  Even if it cost him his job.

  James certainly wasn’t going to enable that. “She’s fine,” he said. “Besides, worrying won’t do you any good. Even in the worst case scenario, anxiety won’t help; it just makes you live it twice.”

  Andre sighed. “I guess you’re right. Mind if I give her a call though?”

  James waved him away and took another bite of his own sandwich. It was the best Italian sub he’d had in a while, and the shop was just down the street, which officially made Rosewood Hospital his favorite job site. James had a knack for finding the best restaurants in town, no matter where he went, and he had the belly to show for it.

  He and Andre did acceptance testing on electrical equipment, which mostly meant that they hopped from one construction site to another. Aside from the porta-potties and the consistently terrible parking, it wasn’t too bad.

  In between bites, James pulled up the work schedule up on his phone. They were slated to be at Rosewood for the rest of the week, but they were ahead of schedule, probably enough so that they could cut out early.

  That was by far his favorite aspect of the job: work six hours, charge eight, and as long as the work got done on time, nobody cared.

  Andre returned looking worse than before. He wrapped up the uneaten half of his sandwich and shoved it into the pocket of his tool bag.

  “Everything alright?” James asked, then pushed the last bite of Italian sub into his mouth.

  “I don’t know,” his coworker whined. “She says its fine, but I can tell it isn’t. She’s upset about something, I only wish she would tell me what it is.”

  James grunted. “I’ll tell you what, let’s get one more breaker done and then get out of here.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Andre sagged with relief. “Yes! Thank you, James.”

  James shrugged. “Let’s go.”

  The work itself was simple. They disconnected the breaker from the rest of the switchgear and connected it instead to a machine the size of a desk, which generated a shit-load of current. That current caused the breaker to trip, then spat out some data about how quickly and at what current it tripped. If that was all in spec, they could reconnect the breaker and move on to the next.

  “Ow! Dammit!” James jerked his hand away from the breaker and shook it a little, like that would help disburse the shock. He knew better. Early on in his career he’d lost two fingers to an arc flash, so he considered himself to be an expert.

  “Oh shit, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” James wiggled his fingers. “A little shock is all.”

  Concern twisted Andre’s features. He was still new enough to the trade to be afraid of current. To be fair, it was a healthy enough fear to hold on to. But the training videos said that 30mA was enough to kill a man, and they were regularly working with far, far more than that. A little fear was good, but too much would make it impossible to do the job. After ten years, James knew enough to balance that fear with knowledge. Current and voltage were far less dangerous than, for instance, a distracted coworker.

  “At least go see the site doctor,” Andre fretted.

  “Alright, alright.” James glanced at the data readout. “This breaker is in spec, anyway. Go home, and we’ll finish the rest tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure? I can stay —”

  “Get the fuck out of here.” He said it gently, with enough kindness that Andre knew he wasn’t in trouble. But he was also annoyed by the shock, and by the whining, and it would all just be easier if Andre left.

  With one last, worried glance back, Andre disappeared.

  He was a good kid. He picked things up quickly, and he wasn’t afraid to ask questions. If he kept it up, he’d be ready to work solo soon enough.

  The only thing holding him back was that crazy girlfriend. Distraction could be dangerous, and she was nothing but.

  James rubbed his wrist. He could still feel the tingling, and maybe it would be smart to visit the site doctor.

  He wheeled his equipment cart out of the half-finished building, up plywood ramps and over slabs of concrete, then out onto the dirt parking lot and towards his van.

  A blue truck turned in to the lot just as he stepped out onto the dirt.

  James sped up. It sounded crazy, but he could have sworn that truck had been following him all week. It was small, ancient, and powder blue — hard to miss, not to mention the series of person-sized dents that marred the carriage.

  Surely he was being paranoid. He didn’t exactly have any enemies. Sure, he didn’t have many friends either; people tended not to feel very strongly towards him one way or another. There certainly wasn’t any reason for someone to kill him, and yet, that’s where his mind went whenever he saw the truck. He looked at it and got this overwhelming feeling of murderous intent.

  The truck rushed toward him. It came closer — closer — it really was trying to hit him!

  James let go of the cart and dove forward, between two parked cars. The truck swerved. He heard the crunch of steel and the last thing he saw was the parked car getting pushed by the truck — hard enough to squish him against its neighbor.

  There was a brief, all consuming moment of intense pain, then everything went black.