Chapter One

  “What the-” Ulbert said and sniffed the air. “Yggdrasil doesn’t have scent data!” He exclaimed as he tilted his head back. “Good thing too.” He mumbled as he thought of the time he caught Peroroncino trying to get around the lewd restrictions after he created Shalltear Bloodfallen.

  Not to mention the smell that would have existed on the many battlefields of the digital game world…

  This wasn’t bad, however. Quite the opposite. More importantly, he recognized it, from a distant memory in childhood, a visit to a museum, he and his siblings had each gotten a moment to smell a real flower. ‘I only got a few seconds because of all my siblings, but I still remember what that was like. And it was exactly like this. Except this…?’ He turned his head to the left and right and continued to sniff at the air.

  ‘This is everywhere.’ He quickly realized why. The smell was everywhere because there were bright yellow and blue flowers everywhere, and beyond them were trees, trees that hadn’t been there a moment ago, in a field he hadn’t been standing in a moment ago.

  “That’s strange… they’re blowing in the breeze… wait…” He stopped himself, his mouth shut tight, ‘I feel a breeze!’ He thought, then shouted, “I feel a breeze!” Ulbert cried out, and inhaled the air as deep into his lungs as he could, then touched his body, everything felt… great. ‘I can feel my heartbeat…’ He began to touch himself, patting his body down as he felt each part of himself and found that all of it was there, even what the game should have prevented. ‘Peroroncino was on a three week ban over that mess with Shalltear… so this shouldn't be possible…’ He scratched his head and felt his nails against his scalp.

  Further contemplation was halted by the sound of a scream… and a beastial roar. Playing the role of the villain, he might have normally been the cause of an NPC’s scream… but that? ‘It sounded way too real…’ He thought and ran in its direction, to his dismay, his body moved faster than it ever had before, the world was a blur as his level one hundred speed came into play, the ground behind him became a cloud of dust, earth, and clods of grass torn up by his stride. The smell of blood and fear reached his nostrils, and to his further disbelief… ‘It’s so…sweet.’ He didn’t act with conscious thought when he saw the cause, a young woman lay on her back, she was clutching her belly where entrails were yanked free and tumbled onto the dirt. Her shaking hands were struggling to grasp the slick organs and stuff them back inside herself, but she could not control the nerves of her fingers, and so she dropped them again and again.

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  The cause of her injury, a lionman of towering size.

  Not far away, screaming villagers were running in every direction, all bonds of family and friendship forgotten in the face of absolute horror. Other beastmen were snatching the humans up and throwing them willy nilly into cages, their dark laugh reminded Ulbert of the utter amused indifference of the high level CEOs who cared nothing for their workers…

  He reacted without thinking. His claws went into the lionman’s chest and killed his roar as he lost the air of his lungs, he had a moment to seem surprised, to look down at the demon, then blood fountained from his chest and as Ulbert drew back his hand, the monstrous creature fell back in a dead heap at the demon’s feet.

  Ulbert was still for a moment, unmoving even to breathe as the realization of what he’d done set in.

  “Demon! Demon!” The beastmen bellowed the alarm to one another, and they attacked, charging with the courage of those who believed themselves strong and found themselves confronted with a dangerous foe. But beastmen were low level enemies, not even level twenty unless they were a champion or higher. Slaying them was routine. “Pathetic! I don’t even need magic for this.” Ulbert said, and backhanded the first beastman to reach him, the jaw of the beast flew away into the dirt where it bounced off into the grass, and the creature’s tongue could barely utter a proper scream, nor did the pain have much time to hit before his punch finished the creature completely.

  They came by the dozen, and died as fast as they came, the bodies piling up until but a handful remained, and the humans, captive and free alike, could only stare as the least likely of rescuers came to their aid out of nowhere.

  It was only when one beastman remained, that Ulbert withheld a mortal wound, grabbing the creature’s wildly swinging ligerman arm and snapping it like a twig. The creature roared and tried to pull away. Ulbert twisted, snapping it twice for good measure, then yanking the creature down, he grabbed the other arm, and snapped it twice just as fast. Again the ligerman tried to pull away, but holding him cost Ulbert no effort.

  “You are the last. So now you will obey me. Go. Return to your kind. Tell them if I see them again, I will bring the tortures of hell to your homeland.”

  With that, he shoved the creature away, it stumbled over the corpse of one of his dead comrades, falling with a hard wet slap into a pool of blood before he rose, stumbled, and began to run away with screams of pain left behind in the air.

  The humans still had not moved. ‘I suppose I am a demon… so… they’re naturally wary.’ He acknowledged, and then seeking some way to show good will, he approached the cages where humans crouched and clung to one another in terror, and ripped the doors off, one by one, saying nothing to the cringing, desperate animal-like humans within, until the last cage was opened. “There. The danger has passed. If you want to show me some gratitude, you can tell me where I am.” Then, seeing that none of them moved yet, his thoughts raced and he chose to add a word of command to his request. “Now.”

  It was finally then that, hat in hand, an old man came to kneel at Ulbert’s feet and speak.