Air, clean and pure, filled my lungs. The coughing woke me.
I stared up as a blue sky stared right back down at me. A blue sky, the first I had ever seen. The place where I lay was soft, so soft. I turned my head and saw the green grass stretching around me, bleeding into a sea of trees. I was in a forest, then. A human forest.
The light that beat down upon me was not scalding, simply soft and warm.
"Finally," I said as something in my chest loosened. I raised a single hand towards the sky, just to reach for it. Just because I could.
I was in the human realm, and that meant that my mad gambit had worked. I laughed. For the first time since I had taken my Role, I laughed. It started as something small and foreign, and then it wouldn't stop. I laughed until my stomach hurt, and only then did I lie there, letting a smile creep across my face.
"You stupid Gods and your stupid rules," I said. "Even us pawns can bite, you bastards."
A warm breeze slowly filtered over the clearing where I lay. It felt pleasant on my skin. Evidently, I was still wearing my battle armor, [The Darkness Binding]. That was convenient, as it would be hard to find its like again in this world.
I finally rose, getting into a sitting position as I glanced around. There was no way to tell where I was, or which part of Enreth my spell had taken me to.
"[Map]!" I said, my right arm extended outwards. My mana whirled within me. I expected a translucent blue screen to pop open in front of me. Instead, nothing happened. I stared at my hand for a second, perplexed. It was like trying to move a limb and having it refuse to move.
"[Status]!" I said again. Nothing happened this time either. My confusion gave way to annoyance.
"[Inventory!]" Nothing again. The annoyance suffocated under the weight of uncertainty.
I turned my head and stared at the nearest tree. "[Inspect!]"
….......
Something cold settled inside me. I was the Demon Queen. If I demanded something, it happened. This was as true of my subordinates as it was for the World itself.
"Fine then," I growled. I decided to use my strongest spell -if subtlety would not work, force would.
"[Oblivion's Decree]!" My mana swirled.
This time, something answered. My mana surged against the world and the world pushed back. A weight settled over me, pressing down on every part of my body at once. My power clawed at the fabric of existence and for the first time, existence refused to tear. My mana settled.
I wiped sweat from my brow, feeling faint tremors in my hands. My heart was beating fast. Was I...out of breath?
"Damn it," I muttered, finally rising to my feet. Mana still coursed when I called it, and it settled in whatever limb I wished. That, at least, seemed to work just as it had before.
I had the tiniest fraction of my power. That was what I had. I hadn't felt like this in a very long time. I did not care to name what this feeling was.
"Well, let's see," I said thoughtfully. Information had to come first.
I channeled mana into my limbs and ran for the tallest tree in sight. It had been a long time since I hadn't used [Flight] for something like this.
I made my way up the tree, my head cresting above the canopy of leaves. My breath caught as I stared in every direction at once.
I had thought the sky beautiful from the ground. Now, I could see it in full. It was blue as far as the eye could see, and a setting sun bled orange into halcyon. The trees stretched all the way over to the horizon.
For a few moments, I forgot the entire reason I had climbed this tree at all. For those moments, all I did was take it in.
"Damn it," I said, reaching to wipe my eyes. It was a sniffle, nothing more.
I saw a reflection of light somewhere to the right, a river that cut through this large forest. That was as good a place to go as any. I made my way down. Mana reinforcement had never been my specialty, since you needed a feel for it I had never possessed.
I landed on cool grass. It was odd that my shoes hadn't transferred with me, but the ground felt pleasant.
"I don't feel them," I finally said, after a few minutes of walking.
The invisible strings that had haunted me for centuries, the burdens of my Role in this world. That was why I did not despair when my mana did not answer my call. That was why the System's absence mattered even less.
As I walked, I occasionally saw a squirrel scamper up a tree, or a rabbit duck and hide from view. Birds flew overhead, cooing and cawing. In the Demon Realm, there was no such thing as an animal that wasn't a Beast. It was odd, to see something living and not have to kill or subjugate it.
"So I wasn't imagining it," I said.
I had been trying to draw ambient mana into my body. I was succeeding, but one thing was clear: even the mana felt different. It was thinner. It filled my core easily enough, but there was less force behind it, like breathing air at the top of a mountain. It was simply lesser.
A few oddities with me I could accept. The spell had been a mad gambit. A mad gambit by a genius, perhaps, but still a mad gambit. This was something wrong with the world.
"Serene, a curse upon all you stand for!" I waited.
The Goddess of Peace didn't answer. Or if she did, I did not feel her gaze. The Gods weren't watching me. No, it seemed they could not watch me. My role was truly at an end.
"It's not my problem, then," I said.
I walked for so long I almost wanted to climb another tree and check again, just to make sure I hadn't wandered off course. That's when I finally heard it: the sound of running water, somewhere in the distance.
I ran through the trees and underbrush. Branches broke under my weight and deer startled from my path. A boar bolted when it saw me. The sound grew louder until I finally broke past a line of trees and saw the river before me.
I strode forward and knelt down. The water was pure, and so clean it didn't look like anything at all. I leaned down and drank greedily. Cool liquid drove back the dryness that had been clawing at my throat.
"I never knew it could taste this sweet," I said when I'd finally had my fill. There was no need for mana to keep it from burning my throat.
I stared at my reflection and froze.
My features looked similar, and yet not quite the same. My face was a tad darker, a tad younger than I remembered. My eyes were bright crimson now, with hardly any white to them at all. At least my two jutting horns were the same at first glance. They were much darker, and I could not shake the feeling they were thinner.
I was still a Demon. That much was certain, but this face was close enough to mine to unsettle me in a way a stranger's never could.
"Did I do this?" The spell was meant to reincarnate my body in the future, not change it. Any alteration would and should have destroyed me in the process. Yet here I was, alive and of sound mind.
No answers came, no matter how I turned the problem over. It would have to wait.
My stomach grumbled unhappily, and I winced. Even my near-divine body had still been mortal in the end, and now it was closer still.
Growl.
A sound behind me, one low and guttural, one that vibrated in my chest. I turned.
It stood at the edge of the clearing where the trees thinned. It was a silver wolf, though wolf was too small a word for it. It was as tall as I was and twice as wide, and it had three heads. Each set of jaws was opening and snapping shut, ropes of spittle swinging from teeth as long as my fingers.
It was a cerberus…and yet not. All six eyes were fixed on me, and those eyes were red and angry.
The beast lunged.
"[Balefire]!" The word left me before thought came.
My mana surged to answer and stopped. It swirled inside me, trying to find the familiar shape of the spell, but the spell did not take.
There was only silence where white fire should have been.
The beast crashed into me. My back struck the earth and the air left me. The beast was on top of me before I had finished falling, its mass driving me into the ground and pinning me firmly.
One head lunged for my throat. The other two snapped at my arms, my face, anything they could reach. I caught the central head's jaws with both hands. My fingers sunk into the wet fur of its muzzle as mana flooded my arms and I reinforced them with the rawest form of power.
The other two heads thrashed at my sides. Teeth scraped across the Darkness Binding and found no purchase. At least the armor still did something.
Spittle ran down my forearms in lines. The smell of the beast was sharp and rancid.
"You filthy mongrel," I hissed through my teeth. My arms were shaking. They had never shaken before. "You think a petty cub like you can strike at me?"
The fury boiled within me now, and yet it had no channel, no spell I could use to turn this pup into ash at just a thought. The only thing I had was this body that wasn't even quite mine.
I moved my right hand back and drove my fist into the central throat. It was not a spell. It was not a [Skill]. It was just my fist and a crude, artless blow. It was the kind of mana usage a demon learned before they could walk. I had not needed it in centuries.
Bone or cartilage compressed under my knuckles, hard against my skin. The beast's central head jerked back, and its weight shifted just enough. I shoved with everything I had, and the creature tumbled off me, landing heavy on its side.
I scrambled to my feet. My hand throbbed. That had actually hurt.
The beast was already up. It was faster than I was. All three heads were low, all six eyes were focused on me, and it was already moving forward. Every instinct told me to stand up and fight it -instinct born from centuries of fighting, the kind that demanded I show this beast the difference between predator and prey.
My legs chose for me. I ran. I, Lysanthia, The Strongest Demon Queen who had ever walked Enreth, ran from a petty beast.
I felt it race to catch me, and I could almost feel its breath on my back. I channeled mana into my legs, yet even without looking, I knew this creature was faster than I was.
Curse this body!
I could hear it behind me. Its breathing was getting closer and closer with each second that passed.
More mana poured into my legs. I was still not fast enough.
Damn it.
The ground dropped into a slope. It was steep enough and sudden enough that my feet went out from under me. I slid down it on my back and hit the flat ground hard. I was on my feet the moment I hit the bottom.
I had made the calculation during the slide.
If I kept running, it would catch me in the open. Here, on lower ground, it would have to come down to me. It would have to lunge. A predictable motion, and one that I could dodge.
The beast crested the slope. All three heads looked down at me. I set my feet and bared my teeth right back. The stupid mongrel lunged. Its body drove forward, and the three maws spread wide for the kill.
I stepped left. The beast's mass thundered past me, just wide enough to miss.
Before it could turn, I was on its back with my arms locked around the central neck. The other two heads whipped toward me, jaws snapping, but the angle made it impossible for them. Two heads would have been better than three.
I squeezed. I pushed every scrap of mana I had into my arms and squeezed. The muscles in my forearms screamed first, then my biceps.
The beast bucked and twisted. It slammed its body sideways into the ground, and I went with it. The armor took most of the impact. I held on as it rolled, and I rolled with it, and the world became a blur of fur and dirt.
Once, my grip slipped, just for an instant. I screamed, and it was not the battle cry of a warrior. It was hardly the righteous roar of a queen. It came from my throat anyway as I redoubled my grip.
To kill a cerberus, you killed the central head. I staked my life on this thing being close enough to the real thing for that to hold true. The beast's howls had changed: they were higher and more frantic now. It knew.
I did not let go. Something inside the beast gave. I felt it through my arms. It was a wet snap that traveled up through the beast's neck and into my bones. The thrashing slowed.
Another snap came, this one softer. The beast's central head went slack against my forearm.
A third, and the body spasmed. A tremor ran through its limbs, one long shudder, and then it collapsed against the earth, not moving at all. I held on for five more breaths. Only when the silence had lasted long enough did I let go.
My arms fell to my sides. I could not close my hands. I rose slowly, so as not to fall.
That had been far harder than it should have been. Ten thousand of these beasts should have died at a thought, once. It was the measure of what I had lost. My body was shaking, and not just from exhaustion.
I waited for the frustration to come. It didn't.
I stood over the corpse of something I had nearly failed to kill, in a body I barely recognized. My arms ached. How long had it been since they'd ached?
I smiled, a rarer sight in this world than Wraithsteel. It was odd that effort should taste sweet.
My stomach growled again. There was no use waiting. Other races might balk at this, but demons simply ate.
I leaned down and sank my teeth into the beast's flesh. The meat tore easily under my teeth. Warm blood flowed down my throat, and the chewy, raw meat tasted perfect to my starved self. I bit past bone and ate muscle, fat, and organs alike. When I was done, there was a large hole in the beast's back. There was still plenty of meat left. I licked more blood off my fingers, finally feeling satiated.
There was blood on my uncovered skin, which was hardly a surprise. There was also blood covering my battle dress, which was a surprise.
"Tsk," I grunted and moved over towards the stream, sinking down into it.
Water slid off the [Darkness Binding], taking the blood right with it. It didn't turn damp as any other piece of clothing would have. That was the least of its powers but the most useful now. It was also, I couldn't help but suspect, the only use it still had besides its base durability.
The water felt cool on my skin. In the Demon Realm, water was always either scalding or poisoned. Neither of the two had mattered to me, but this freshness was still something I had never felt before. I found myself basking in it as I stared up at the sun.
Questions lingered, but for now they didn't matter a bit. Tomorrow, I would have to try and find something that could speak, and I would wring the answers right out of them.
"Eek!"
I froze and turned, staring at the person who had just wandered in behind me.
She had long golden hair, a heart-shaped face, bright blue eyes, and a fit body. She was covered in resplendent green armor, the kind that bore markings I knew well.
The girl stared at me. I stared right back at her. She pointed.
"You Demon!" The girl roared. "Who are you? Where am I?" Her hand was already on her broadsword, the [Hero's Sword].
What? Why? How?
Why was the Hero who had killed me also here?