Ragnar Vhagar, newly minted Demon King, Lord of Chaos, and potential future ruler of the world sat on his mighty throne and surveyed his domain.
The throne was a slightly-too-expensive gaming chair he'd bought last year during a summer sale. It was black, faux leather, an it was starting to peel.
His domain was his one-bedroom apartment.
It was still mostly recognizable, unwashed dishes in the sink, a tower of empty pizza boxes in the corner,but now it possessed a strange, ethereal shimmer.
The very air hummed with a low, crackling power, a tangible energy that made the hairs on his arms stand on end and his fillings ache faintly.
It was less 'home sweet home' and more 'home sweet ominous hum.'
Before him, his army stood ready. Or, well, they were sort of… milling about. Occupying the space where his coffee table used to be, was a troop of creatures straight out of a low-budget fantasy B-movie.
A dozen goblins, small, green-skinned creatures with ears point, were currently engaged in a heated argument over a half-eaten bag of cheese puffs they'd unearthed from under his sofa.
Their snarling and grunting sounded less like the fearsome war cries of a demonic legion and more like two particularly grumpy toddlers fighting over the last cookie.
One of them, Ragnar noted with a sigh, was trying to eat the plastic bag.
Across from them, a pack of ten kobolds with and an unhealthy obsession with sniffing things,were busy conducting a thorough investigation of each other's rear ends.
One of them, a particularly enthusiastic specimen whom Ragnar had mentally dubbed 'Gary' due to his uncanny resemblance to a former, equally bewildered-looking intern at his old dead-end job, seemed particularly fascinated by a patch of carpet where Ragnar had spilled a can of soda last week.
Gary was giving it the kind of intense focus usually reserved for deciphering ancient scrolls.
"My legions of darkness," Ragnar muttered to himself, resting his chin on his fist.
The peeling armrest of his throne dug into his elbow. "They're going to conquer the world with the combined might of poor personal hygiene and an almost supernatural ability to find discarded snacks.
Truly, the heroes will tremble."
He sighed again, the sound lost in the ambient hum of chaotic energy, and pulled out his phone. The familiar apps were all there: social media he no longer cared about, a food delivery app that probably wouldn't deliver to a burgeoning demonic nexus, and several unplayed gacha games.
But a new icon had appeared, stark black with a glowing, angry red sigil.
It was simply labeled: [Demon King System].
He tapped it. A status screen, much like one from the video games he used to play to escape his boring life, popped up.
[Ragnar Vhagar]
Title: Demon King of Aethelburg Sector 7
Level: 1
Domain: Small Urban Apartment (Rank F)
Domain Points (DP): 100/100
Creation Points (CP): 50/50
Bonus Points (BP): 20
Stats:
Body: E
Mana: E
Alchemy: E
Creation: E
Knowledge: E
It was a pathetic stat line. All E-ranks. He was basically the video game equivalent of a tutorial slime, the kind you one-shot for 1 experience point and a rusty copper coin.
Except, in this scenario, he was supposed to be the final boss.
This was a serious problem, because the same cosmic entity that had headhunted him for the Demon King position.
Had also casually informed him that "Heroes" ( heavily armed individuals from the Law faction,would soon be kicking down his (metaphorical, since his apartment didn't actually have a door to the outside world anymore) door to invade his domain and enthusiastically kill him.
Apparently, being a Demon King came with a lot of responsibility and an immediate, life-threatening work hazard. No dental plan, either.
"Right then," he said, pushing himself up from his peeling throne. His voice echoed strangely in the apartment, deeper, more resonant, more… commanding than he was used to.
The effect was immediate. The goblins stopped their chip-related squabbling, and the kobolds paused their butt-sniffing symposium.
All twenty-two pairs of beady, variously colored eyes fixed on him with a dumb, instinctual loyalty that was actually a little unsettling. Gary let out a small, confused whimper.
He needed to know what he was capable of. His own body felt… different. there was a thrumming, volatile energy coiled beneath his skin.
He felt… powerful. Potentially explosive, even.
He looked at the wall separating his living room from his kitchen. It was plain, white drywall, the kind that landlords loved and tenants despaired of ever keeping clean.
He had once failed spectacularly to hang a picture frame on it, bending three nails and creating a small, unsightly crater that he'd cleverly hidden with a strategically placed poster of a band he didn't even like.
"Let's see what an 'E' in Body gets you in this new, exciting, and probably very short life," he whispered.
He took a deep, deliberate breath, planting his feet firmly on the magically shimmering carpet.
The air around him seemed to thicken.
He drew his arm back, his hand clenching into a tight, white-knuckled fist.
For a split second, the world went utterly silent, the ambient hum of his domain momentarily suppressed.
He wasn't just throwing a punch; he was pouring every ounce of this new, strange, chaotic energy into it, focusing it like a laser.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ground didn't just tremble; the entire apartment building felt like it had been hit by a small, localized earthquake.
Dust sifted from the ceiling. A sonic boom cracked the air.
The wind itself shrieked around his fist as it flew forward, transforming into an almost invisible blur of motion.
It was as if the very fabric of the air was being ripped apart by his attack.
BOOM!
His fist connected with the innocent drywall.
The impact wasn't a simple crash; it was a visible explosion of force.
A shockwave, white and perfectly circular, blasted outwards from the point of contact like a ripple in a pond, if the pond was made of pure kinetic energy.
Plaster and drywall didn't just break; they vaporized instantly, turning to a fine, choking dust.
The shockwave slammed back into him, a brutal recoil that forced him to take three heavy, staggering steps back, his entire arm numb and ringing from the resultant force.
The remaining parts of the wall groaned and cracked under the strain, and the aforementioned cheap poster of the unliked rock band finally gave up the ghost and fluttered sadly to the floor.
He stared, wide-eyed, at the hole. It was a perfectly round, gaping maw leading straight into his kitchen.
He could see his refrigerator, humming away innocently as if nothing world-shattering had just occurred inches from its door.
The sheer, unadulterated violence of the impact had sent a tremor through the very bones of the building.
His ears were ringing like he'd just stood next to a jet engine.
"Okay," Ragnar said, his voice a little shaky as he stared at his fist. It was completely unharmed, not a scratch or a bruise.
"E-rank is… surprisingly effective. And loud. Very, very loud."
His goblin and kobold minions stared at the hole, then back at him, their expressions a comical mixture of abject terror and newfound, profound awe.
Gary the kobold let out a little whimper and, true to form, promptly peed on the floor.
"Right. No more punching my own house,"
Ragnar decided firmly. This was his fortress, after all. His castle. His Rank F, slightly smelly, demonically-infused apartment.
He couldn't just go around knocking it down, no matter how cathartic it felt. The repair bills in DP would probably be astronomical.
He looked back at his phone. The Demon King System app had a 'Creation' tab.
He could spend his Creation Points (CP) to make more monsters.
He could also, apparently, create traps and even items.
The goal, he figured, was to make his dungeon – which was, again, his apartment – so incredibly dangerous that any invading heroes would die horribly before they even reached his peeling gaming chair.
His actual, real-life survival depended on turning his home into a deathtrap worthy of a final boss.
And speaking of final bosses, where was his weak spot? The 'True Core' of the dungeon?
The app, ever so helpful, offered a hint:
[The True Core is the heart of your Domain. It is located in the coldest part of your residence.]
Ragnar walked through the newly created, perfectly circular hole in his wall and into his kitchen.
He ignored the dust and debris. He had bigger, more existential fish to fry.
Or, in this case, freeze. He opened the freezer. And there, sitting right next to a forgotten bag of frozen peas and a questionable, freezer-burned block of what might have once been mince, was a glowing, black crystal about the size of his fist.
It pulsed with a dark light that seemed to absorb the freezer's anemic bulb.
He stared at it for a long moment.
"So my soul," he said to the frozen peas, "the heart of my demonic power, the nexus of my very being as a Lord of Chaos… is sharing a shelf with a half-eaten Hot Pocket. Fantastic."
This was his new reality. He was a Demon King. His home was a dungeon. He had a small, mostly incompetent army of sniffing, chip-stealing morons at his command, and his only goal was to survive.
The heroes were coming. The world outside, or what was left of it for him, had become a battlefield.
He hadn't asked for this. He hadn't filled out an application or attended a demonic orientation seminar. But here he was.
A slow, wicked grin spread across his face, pulling at lips that now felt like they could accommodate much sharper teeth.
His old life was boring. He had no real friends, no discernible future, and a part-time job that made watching paint dry seem like an extreme sport.
This? This was chaos. This was creation.
This was a chance to be something more than just another forgotten face in the crowd.
"Alright, you useless bags of fur and slime!" he yelled, his newly commanding voice booming through the apartment once more, rattling the remaining intact walls.
"Get your act together! We've got company coming.
First, we secure Aethelburg Sector 7. Then, the world!"
Gary the kobold barked excitedly, did a little spin, and promptly tripped over his own feet, falling face-first into the puddle he'd made earlier.
Ragnar sighed, a long, suffering sound.
World domination was going to be a long, long, and probably very messy process.