James stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around. “I’m sorry, I must have misheard you. It sounded like you said you might have been the first Demon King.”
That coaxed a chuckle out of Virgil. “I don’t know, James. I’m remembering things that— they feel so real. It feels like I was there, like I’m the one who did those things. But why would I have done that? How could I have made those choices?”
James closed his eyes and counted to three. When he spoke, he was calm. “Okay. Why don’t you tell me about it? What did you remember?”
Virgil blotted his eyes against his tunic and blew his nose on his sleeve. Even so, he still sounded congested. Inara offered him a bottle of water, and he took it gratefully.
“Every time we battle, I remember a little more. It’s like I’m there, but it’s also like I’m watching someone else’s story unfold, and I don’t—” He clutched his head and rocked. “It’s so confusing.”
“It’s okay. Just tell us what you saw.”
“At first it was like I was back in school. Those memories felt right. I remembered my friends, Cassian and Ren.” His voice broke a little on the second name. “We would sit in the library and have these debates. We all came from different backgrounds, so it was easy to throw different perspectives at each other.”
“And then what happened? You left school?”
“In the room by the shaman, I found Ren’s notebook. When I read it, it was like I was seeing it happen. He accidentally summoned a demon.”
James resisted the powerful urge to interrupt. Since when was it possible to accidentally summon a demon?!
Virgil continued. “Cassian and I were supposed to be there, but we took a wrong turn and we were running late. If we’d gotten there in time maybe we could have saved him, but… The demon killed him. Then he killed Cassian, too.”
“The demon… he killed them right in front of you?”
Virgil nodded.
James winced. What the hell did you say to something like that? He wouldn’t wish something like that on anyone.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re the Demon King,” he said. “It just means you went through something horrible.”
“No, the next part—” Virgil started to hyperventilate.
“Hey, it’s okay, just breathe. Breathe.” James inhaled slowly, counting to four, and repeated the count on the exhale. “Just breathe.”
Several breaths later, Virgil continued. “I accepted a contract with the demon. To save its own life, it offered to take me as its master. I thought I’d just force it to answer my questions and then I would kill it, but I think— I think I let it live. I think it was just the beginning.”
James swallowed hard. What the hell was he supposed to say to that?
“The memories might not be real though, right?” Desiree piped up. “If mom is right that the dungeon is using you as a stand-in for the First Demon King, it could’ve just planted those memories in your head so you’d fit the mold better.”
“Maybe…” but the scholar shook his head, unconvinced. “But I remember this library. I can even… almost… remember the Librarian.”
“You didn’t remember the Warden, though,” Desiree pointed out. “And he was very sure he knew you.” She shrugged. “I’m just saying, when we met you, you didn’t know who you were at all. And you even said that your memories from the dungeon seem more like a story than regular memories, so it could all be pretend.”
James felt a surge of emotion towards the girl. He couldn’t have said it better himself, and he was way more willing to believe in magic mind-fuckery than that his friend and teammate was some reincarnation of Grimora-Hitler.
“And if you do turn out to be the Demon King,” Inara added, “we’re strong enough to kill you.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
James’s jaw dropped.
Virgil laughed — a fully belly laugh this time that made him cry all over again but for a different reason.
When everything seemed to finally calm down, James took the Grimoire out of his inventory and held it out to Virgil.
“Since you haven’t turned evil yet,” he teased, “maybe you can read this for us. The Librarian dropped it when he died.”
Virgil straightened his glasses and his spine. “Now this is interesting,” he said. “The binding is far nicer than what someone would use for their personal writings.”
“What does that mean?” James asked.
The scholar shrugged. “Could be anything. Maybe he was just indulgent and had extra money lying around. Maybe it’s a dungeon construct and not something a real person wrote.”
James blinked. That was one hell of a spectrum. “Okay, well. You read it and let me know.”
Virgil already wasn’t listening. He was busy reading.
**
James, Inara and Desiree stepped away from Virgil and decided, in an unspoken agreement, not to talk about it. Virgil was going to read the grimoire, and they could all deal with it later.
“Desiree. Let’s see your status.”
“Let’s see your status,” she snapped back. But a second later, her screen appeared.
Name: Desiree
Race: Human
Class: Demon Slayer
Level: 25
HP: 175/175
MP: 120/200
EXP: 5,000/49,500
Stat Points Available: 0
STR: 30
AGI: 46
INT: 20
WIS: 20
CON: 25
Skill Points Available: 0
Skills: Holy Imbuement, Mana Cycle, Dip, Dive, Dodge, Duck, Sanctified Bolt
Holy Affinity: 7
James nodded, approving. “I still wish you’d gotten a healing spell, but I understand why in the moment it was better to go offensive. And it’s good you got the Four D’s of D-Not Dying; agility is useful for everyone.”
“Yeah, and it makes me super fast,” Desiree agreed. “Also, did you know you could use the Four D’s to go really fast? Watch!”
Without waiting for an answer, the girl took off running. She still had her boots off, so she slipped a little on the slick floor, but then she yelled, “Dip!” and ducked into a moving squat that carried her into a smooth slide. Just before it ended, she twisted her body and yelled, “Dive!”
She landed on her belly. James winced, anticipating the screech of armor sliding across the floor, but either the leather was soft enough or the skill had a smoothing bonus, because she continued to sail down the hall.
After about ten feet, she called out, “Dodge!” and leapt to her feet, where she struck a pose.
James whistled and clapped.
“You didn’t use Duck,” Inara said when her daughter returned.
Desiree stuck out her tongue.
“That’s really neat,” James said. “I wonder what other ways we can be using our skills that we haven’t considered. You’re really creative with yours.”
Desiree shrugged, blushing. “It’s just fun, is all,” she said.
Her answer surprised James. When he’d first come to Grimora, he’d been stunned by how like a video game the place was. With status sheets and skills and experience points and quests, it was just like the kind of role-playing games his brother had liked back in high school.
But even though it was like a game, he hadn’t been treating it like one, not really. How could he, when there were real people who needed his help? Who would die if he didn’t put his own life on the line and defend them against the monsters which besieged their towns?
The absolute realism overwhelmed the gaming aspects, and even though he was so willing to help these people, regardless of the cost, it was hard — impossible, really — to feel like he was playing.
But maybe… maybe he had to treat it like a game. Maybe the only way to win was to treat it like a puzzle to be solved.
And there was a big puzzle right in front of him: Who was Virgil?
The previous Hero immediately treated Virgil like a threat (or at the very least, a liability) and killed him before he could get in the way. James’s approach had been different. They’d integrated the scholar into their team and encouraged him to recall the memories that trickled back to him after every fight.
From the beginning, Inara had presented the possibility that Virgil was not a real person at all, but a creature created by the dungeon for the sole purpose of telling the story of the First Demon King. If Virgil’s returning memories were to be trusted, all signs were pointing towards him being a simulacrum of the Demon King.
The first question, then, was if those memories should be trusted. Virgil didn’t seem like a homicidal maniac bent on destroying the world, but it also seemed farfetched that the dungeon would plant fake memories on a real person, rather than just creating an entire fake person.
Or was it more farfetched that the dungeon would create an entire fake person?
James’s head was starting to spin. Maybe the real question was: did it matter?
If the purpose of the dungeon was to teach him the lore of the First Demon King, then he should focus on learning the lore of the First Demon King.
That meant keeping Virgil around, even if it did seem dangerous to do so. That meant asking him more probing questions about his latest memories, about the strengths and weaknesses of demons and everything he knew about infernal magic.
James grinned. Those points of INT were finally starting to pay off. Or…
“James? Are you ok?”
“Hey, does INT actually make you smarter?”
“Uh… no. It just makes spells easier to learn, and more powerful.”
“Damn. That explains a lot, though.
