The old MacBook lay closed on the mahogany desk, its unbranded silver lid reflecting the cold, green light of the terminal screen.
Outside, the autumn storm was taking it out on the floor-to-ceiling windows, blurring the Manhattan skyline into a messy smear of grey and neon.
I just stood there by the glass for a long time, listening to the rain.
It was the only thing making any noise in the whole penthouse.
Three weeks.
Twenty-one days until I legally controlled sixty-five percent of a forty-billion-dollar company.
Twenty-one days until a room full of corporate suits realized the kid they were trying to corner wasn’t an idiot.
I couldn’t help but grin a little.
But as I watched the tiny headlights crawling along Fifth Avenue far below, my newly upgraded brain started doing what it does best.
Thoughts began connecting, snapping into a clean, straight line.
I called up the interface.
The translucent blue screen floated into view right over Central Park.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RIMURU EVOLUTION FRAMEWORK
Current Active Balance: $774,950,000
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
There was something off about this whole setup, and it had been bothering me since the moment the shop unlocked.
“Analyst,” I thought.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Interface Active. Awaiting Query.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I leaned back against the cold glass and folded my arms.
“Why am I only seeing these specific skills?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Clarify.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I rolled my eyes.
“Rimuru had hundreds of skills. Thousands, if you count the whole evolution tree from a baseline slime to a literal god. So why is my shopping catalog this small?”
The white text typed itself out instantly:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Displayed skills are selected according to user preferences, goals, and desires.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A sudden, unpleasant realization hit me.
“You’re reading my mind.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“How?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
The framework is integrated with the user’s soul and cognitive processes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I stared deadpan at the blue light.
The screen stared back.
I pointed an accusing finger at the center of the UI.
“Then why the hell am I even asking questions? If you can read my thoughts, why aren’t you just giving me the answers before I have to say them out loud in my head?”
The screen flickered for a second, almost like it was hesitating.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
User preference.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Elaborate.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
You dislike having your thoughts observed without consent.
User wishes take priority over system efficiency.
Therefore information is normally provided only when requested.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I hated how reasonable that sounded.
It was a neat piece of customer-service compliance hard-coded by that celestial bureaucrat back in the void.
“Fine,” I muttered, dropping onto the couch.
“From now on, let’s keep it that way. I ask, you answer.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Acknowledged.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The screen dimmed a bit, blending into the dark penthouse.
At least I still had some privacy.
But with the cognitive static cleared out, another massive question bubbled up—the one that had been looming over me since I found my dad’s hidden cash.
“Let’s talk about the money,” I thought.
“The cash converted by the framework. Where does it actually go?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Clarify.
“The six hundred and fifty million dollars I just spent on intelligence upgrades,” I countered, tapping a rhythm against the armrest.
“And the remaining balance. When the system takes that money, where does it route the digital cash? It can’t just vanish from a bank ledger without triggering every financial fraud alarm from New York to Switzerland.”
The answer generated instantly, stripping away the my paranoia:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Converted currency is reinvested into the global economy.
Funds used by the framework are redistributed through financial systems.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I frowned.
“Meaning?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
After conversion:
• Ownership records are adjusted.
• Transaction histories are adjusted.
• Tax records are adjusted.
• Financial trails are adjusted.
The converted currency no longer belongs to the user.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I leaned forward.
“So where does it actually go?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Investment funds.
Corporate acquisitions.
Government bonds.
International markets.
Private equity.
Infrastructure projects.
The capital remains within the global economy.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
It was brilliant.
The money wasn’t disappearing into a black hole; it was simply being thrown back into the ocean like a bucket of water.
“Can anyone trace the original ownership back to me or the Sterling estate?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Negative.
All ownership connections are removed during conversion.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A massive weight lifted from my shoulders.
Explaining a sudden, multi-hundred-million-dollar disappearance to a federal investigator or an SEC audit team sounded exhausting.
“So, to financial systems, regulatory agencies, governments, and outside observers, that converted capital was functionally never under my ownership?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
To financial systems, regulatory agencies, governments and observers, converted capital was never under your ownership.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I nodded slowly, letting out a breath.
Great.
The cosmic system doesn’t commit theft; it just commits absolute, untraceable bureaucracy.
One major problem solved.
Now for the actual investment.
I looked back at the floating ledger.
I had roughly seven hundred and seventy-four million dollars left.
It was an obscene amount of money.
Enough to buy a private island, a fleet of hypercars, or a minor European country if that country was having a really bad fiscal quarter.
“Analyst,” I thought, my expression hardening as I stared at the screen.
“Based on my current corporate liabilities, my three-week vulnerability window, and my future plans… what is the single best purchase available to me right now?”
There wasn’t even a delay.
The interface shifted into a single, glowing notification block:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Recommended Purchase]
Diablo Incarnation Cost: $500,000,000
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I blinked.
Then I leaned in closer, counting the zeroes.
Out of every physical upgrade, every defensive skill, and every elemental magic spark available in the tree, the system was throwing a Primordial Demon at me.
“Why?” I asked.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Highest projected return on investment.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The screen expanded, unrolling a detailed, clinical breakdown of the asset:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Diablo Incarnation] Cost: $500,000,000
Creates a genuine human incarnation of Diablo.
• Memories: Retained
• Loyalty: Absolute
• Devotion: Equivalent to Diablo’s devotion toward Rimuru Tempest.
Starting Capabilities:
• Regeneration
• Super Strength
• Super Agility
• Super Hearing
• Super Reflexes
• Perfect Weapon Learning
• Combat Genius
Combat Assessment: Physically superior to Steve Rogers in all baseline categories.
Capabilities include:
• Greater strength
• Greater speed
• Greater agility
• Greater reflexes
• Superior regeneration
• Superior combat adaptability
Projected Outcome: Extremely high probability of defeating Steve Rogers in direct combat.
Warning: The incarnation lacks magical energy, sorcery, and spiritual abilities available to the original Diablo.
Current power level represents a humanized vessel optimized for physical combat and tactical superiority.
Future Evolutions Available.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The silence of the penthouse returned, heavy and absolute.
I stared at the text blocks, my fingers completely still.
The Primordial Black.
Diablo.
The most terrifying butler in fiction.
A dark, dry laugh bubbled up in my throat.
“The same terrifyingly obsessed demon that spent centuries stalking a blue slime across worlds just to brew his tea and execute his political enemies? But look at that warning line. No magic? So he can’t just snap his fingers and banish my problems to a hell dimension?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Answer]
Correct.
In this reality, the entity will function as a peak-biological human specimen possessing extreme physical enhancements and an autonomous genius-level intellect.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I let out a slow, dry breath, leaning my head back against the cold glass of the window, deeply contemplating the purchase.
Five hundred million dollars.
That was nearly two-thirds of my entire active net worth.
If I hit approve, I was wiping out a massive chunk of my capital liquid cash on a baseline nerf.
No magic.
No reality-warping spells.
No world-ending corruption.
I paused, crossing my arms as a wave of hesitation hit me.
Was it actually worth it?
If I skipped this, five hundred million could easily buy me Superhuman Physique and Enhanced Agility for my own squishy body, or I could unlock half the elemental control tree and start slinging fireballs myself.
Magic was a literal cheat code in a world built on physical physics.
If I was buying a literal primordial demon, I wanted the world-breaking firepower that came with the title.
A human vessel felt like buying a high-end luxury sports car only to find out it had a speed limiter welded to the engine block.
But then I forced myself to stop thinking like an enthusiastic comic book reader and start thinking like a clinical asset manager.
I re-read the combat specs.
Physically superior to Steve Rogers in all baseline categories.
I wasn’t getting Captain America.
I was getting something better.
A body superior to Steve Rogers in every measurable category, wrapped around the mind of a hyper-intelligent, obsessive monster.
Honestly?
From a tactical perspective, that might actually be safer.
If a giant, horned demon manifested in the middle of a Manhattan penthouse casting hellfire circles, it would trigger every mystical radar from Doctor Strange to the Ancient One before the smoke even cleared.
S.H.I.E.L.D.
satellites would lock onto the energy signatures, and Tony Stark would be analyzing the data before morning.
I didn’t need that kind of cosmic heat.
Not yet.
Instead of a super-soldier giving inspiring speeches about freedom while wearing a flag, I was about to drop a shadow operator into New York who would cheerfully break an executive’s collarbone for using the wrong tone of voice with me, adjust his tie, and then ask if I preferred my Earl Grey with or without lemon.
I couldn’t run a forty-billion-dollar empire, fight off boardroom coups, and handle physical security all by myself.
Not if I wanted to stay off the grid.
A combat genius with zero morals, absolute loyalty, and a perfectly mundane human footprint was exactly the kind of force multiplier I needed to shield me from the vultures.
Five hundred million dollars.
One demon.
One decision.
My finger hovered over the confirmation button.
Somehow, that sounded like the best investment I’d ever made
A special thanks to @Ashwani0709 for the awesome review!
I’m really glad you’re enjoying the story so far.
Reviews like yours are a huge motivation to keep writing and improving.
As a thank you for the support, I’ll be uploading an extra chapter today.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I’ll see you all in the next one!