Zach sat atop the Demon Lord’s throne anxiously, with Hitop kneeling in front of him. The past few days had consisted of Lillithvin handing him piles of paperwork, Zach ignoring said paper work and Lillithvin doing her best not to explode at him. Zach was under the impression that his complete bluff about having amnesia as the Demon Lord was working, and Lillithvin was forced to play along. The vote on how to deal with him had been put at an impasse until Leeper returned from who knows where.

  Zach of course, was entirely unaware of all this and had spent his “recovery days” gallivanting around the castle mostly unrestrained, blissfully unaware that he was being watched like a hawk by the Devil Knights.

  At first anyway, the various devil knights eventually decided that Zach was going to be entirely harmless considering how lazy he was, mostly spending his time in the various restaurants, bars and other entertainment created to keep the soldier morale high, one by one each Devil Knight decided they had better things to do with their time.

  This left Lillithvin with a useless oath who she was stuck doing the requisite paperwork for posthumously, so she had politely informed Zach that he needed to return to his Demon Lord duties, mainly just so she didn’t have to deal with the hassle his unpredictable binges in the Demon Bars were causing.

  And thus brings us to today, where the anxious Zach had taken the Demon Lord’s Throne for the first time. His first subject of many, Hitop, came to officially reintroduce himself.

  “My lord! I heard you took quite a nasty bump to the head. That dreadful sword is causing some memory issues as I understand it! But rest assured, your faithful court mage and researcher; Hitop will assist you for the time being!” Hitop exclaimed, his grin slightly wider than usual as he knelt as best a floating orb with detached gloves and boots could kneel.

  “Yeah, the old memory has been a bit uh, shaky. Nearly died and all that ahaha...” Zach explained with an awkward laugh, this was going to be his second test to see if he could continue deceiving the Devil Knights. Hitop struggled to not burst out into laughter, the presence of Zach was meek, a little pathetic even, the juxtaposition of the awesome might of the Demon Lord with how his body was now being puppeteered by a simpleton was the kind of sick joke that Hitop adored.

  “Oh I’m sure, that hero got an absolutely foul blow on you. Now come, come, how about we reacquaint you with your kingdom? The vast wealth you have access to and the domains we have left to conqueror!” Hitop offered, attempting to appeal to whatever natural greed he believed this soul possessed. Simply showing him the vast wealth at his command would surely indenture him to the Devil Knights servitude.

  Of course, at least until they can get the real Demon Lord back.

  “Maybe later. You said you were the court mage right? I was hoping to uh, practice some magic actually.” Zach asked with a nervous smile. Hitop’s grin shifted slightly to the right in surprise, the imp pondered for a moment.

  “Perhaps this man is some kind of monk, he seeks enlightenment, strength, personal growth? A rejection of wealth or does he fail to understand what I offer? A subject for further study.”

  “I see, well let's head to the range.” Hitop snapped his fingers, hex circles appearing from his gloves and ripping open a portal in the ground just in front of him. The small imp jumped through it as Zach lurched forward in shock and awe. The portal opened from the red throne room and revealed a field of rust red grass.

  “Oh sick, I need to learn how to do that.” Zach thought before he jumped through the portal, landing in the massive field of dark red grass.

  Surrounding the field were giant glowing mushrooms acting as a kind of forest. The area Hitop had teleported them to was a Demon Army training outpost in the Demon Realm. It was just a few tents and supplies, with a handful of lesser demons quickly standing at attention as Hitop and Zach jumped down from the sky.

  “Woah, this is sick.” Zach thought with a smirk as he looked to the Demon soldiers standing fearfully alert at their sudden intrusion, one of them having dropped a pot of hot coffee on themselves due to their sudden arrival.

  Turning back from the tents, Zach looked into what was the shooting range, where several humans had been tied up at various distances away from the tents, with point markers at the various distances. Zach felt his heart drop as he saw the half dead men squirm.

  “Oh god, this is sick.” Zach thought as he felt his stomach lurch. Hitop noticed this and grinned sharply.

  “Not to your pleasure my lord? Do we need more?” Hitop asked quizzically. He wasn’t interested in a pacifist wasting the Demon Lord’s immense strength.

  “H-hey hey, who are those guys?” Zach asked as he saw the several squirming men, they were in stock standard medieval knight armour.

  “Oh they’re the targets we're practicing with my lord! Some men we captured from Perlin I believe, they would’ve been with the Hero’s Guild. That one looks like the leader to me.” Hitop explained sadistically as he pointed his finger towards one of the men, a beam of light charging around the tip of his finger.

  Before he could shoot Zach stepped in front of the blast, it bounced off his shin and hit a mushroom, causing it to collapse on one of the demon men still standing at attention.

  “C-could we not use humans? This is my demand as the Demon Lord. And you guys, you're dismissed, go help him.” Zach requested meekly pointing towards the crushed demon soldier. Hitop struggled to not frown.

  “This is going to be a problem.” Hitop thought angrily.

  “Of course, your highness.” Hitop scowled, turning around to the confused soldiers at the shooting range.

  “YOU HEARD THE MAN, GET SOME MONSTERS IN THERE!”

  “WHAT?! NO! I meant wooden targets!”

  “YOU HEARD THE MAN, GET SOME WOOD IN THERE!”

  Zach gently face palmed realising he was going to need to try and change things around here for the better if he wanted to stay the big bad demon lord.

  Hitop made a mental note deciding this man was entirely unfit to be in control of the Demon Lord’s body and to identify a way to claim it for himself.

  While both the men silently made their respective plans, the targets were replaced with crudely painted wooden targets.

  “So my lord, how about you show me your legendary thunder spell?” Hitop asked with a mischievous grin, would Zach cast the Demon Lord’s “Hell’s Lightning” spell or would he make a farce of himself with a comically loud thunder noise? As far as Hitop had identified, this man was entirely incapable, ignorant of standard spells and was casting off instinct at best.

  Zach gulped, he was hoping for more of a lesson before he’d cast anymore spells. But nevertheless he put his hand out, aiming at one of the closer targets only around 500 meters away.

  Closing his eyes, he tried to copy what had worked with his first spell. It was a visualisation of his desired outcome and a firm command. So Zach imagined watching lightning on a stormy night at the beach, the lights illuminating the ocean waves and the sound they’d make. The cacophony of sound that you could feel roll over your entire body.

  Bang.

  Zach opened his eyes to see that he’d hit the closer target. And the one after that, all of the ones after it actually. And the one next to it, all of the ones next to it actually.

  In fact he’d just doubled the size of the forest clearing, his attack only being stopped by the sheer obsidian cliff face that was in the direction of his attack. Said obsidian cliff face was 50 kilometers away.

  Hitop let out a laugh of shock, logically he understood the Demon Lord was capable of this power, but the Demon Lord would never adopt such unsophisticated and crude magical casting. To put it another way, it was an intimidating display of power and of absolute disregard for anyone's safety including his own.

  Hitop was forced to reconsider his plans to take over the Demon Lord’s body.

  “How’d I do?” Zach asked with a smirk as his strength drained. Before Hitop could answer, Zach was wobbling like he’d drunk 4 bottles of whiskey before falling to the ground. He landed in a fold out chair that was quickly placed to greet his bottom by a particularly proactive demon soldier.

  Hitop nodded.

  “Good.” Hitop replied blankly, it was an absolute waste of magical power, the same kind of spell could’ve been cast for a fraction of the MP and have some form of control on the blast radius.

  “I believe I should be making my leave. Onimaru needs my assistance in researching the sword.” Hitop explained, his smile gone.

  “What sword?” Zach asked blankly, he hadn’t read any reports still.

  “The one that stabbed you.” Hitop explained blankly as he snapped his fingers, pentagrams emerging from his gloves once more and opening another portal in the floor, this one taking significantly longer to draw itself on the ground.

  “Oh right yeah, you go do that. See if you can figure out how to reverse it.” Zach asked casually, tensing up realising what he said, causing Hitop to cackle.

  “Reverse? Why I’d never thought of that.” Hitop smirked as the portal opened.

  “G-good, the wisdom of the Demon Lord and… all that.” Zach stammered as Hitop jumped through the portal into Onimaru’s workshop. Zach let out a sigh of relief, still under the impression he’d managed to keep up the illusion of being the Demon Lord.

  On the other side of the Demon Realm, Hitop walked through the workshop where molten lava flowed freely to where the giant 6 armed Oni was delicately finishing a containment unit for the sword.

  “Ah! Long time no see daru!” Onimaru exclaimed as he went to hug the small imp, Hitop quickly slipped through Onimaru’s legs and jumped onto the work bench.

  “Yes yes, skipping the pleasantries I’ve come into some exciting information. The brat inside our lord's mind has just confirmed something for me.” Hitop snapped as he stood next to the containment box, it was only as long as a standard broad sword, and Hitop was still shorter than it.

  “Oh?” Onimaru asked curiously, opening up the black void of his inventory and grabbing a mostly blank piece of paper and a chewed up pencil.

  “The brat seems to think the process is reversible. His knowledge of our world is spotty, but he knows enough to keep up kayfabe as the Demon Lord. Perhaps his world has more knowledge of ours than previously predicted.” Hitop hypothesised as paced around Onimaru’s workbench.

  “Urhh, so you still want the containment unit for the sword?” Onimaru asked blankly, having not taken in any of this as it was far too theoretical for his taste.

  “Yes yes yes…” Hitop groaned, realising he’d picked the wrong Devil Knight to discuss this with.

  Meanwhile, Zach was sitting in his folding chair, feeling like he’d just finished a session of hanging upside down with all the blood still rushing back into the rest of his body.

  “Shit, I have no idea how to get back.” Zach thought suddenly.

  …

  “My lord, there'ssssss some urgent plansssss you need to look at regarding the next Dungeon being built in Ji territories.” Rumuna hissed, her vile and grossly elongated slug body curled like a snake so she could make some approximation of kneeling in front of the Demon Lord.

  “Uh, yeah alright.” Zach replied as he tried to get comfortable on his throne made of weapons. Rumuna quickly planted a massive binder of plans and paper work on Zach’s lap.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Oh Jesus. Alright…” Zach groaned as he quickly flicked through the binder, finding it all written in an unintelligible language made up of densely interconnected squares. Though as he stared at the words, meaning seemed to come to him somehow, though it was so laden with proper nouns and jargon Zach had no hope of understanding.

  “Slip up already, say you can’t even read. If I can convince Leeper to vote to kill you then we can stop this annoying farce.” Rumuna thought with a hiss as Zach flicked through the unreadable document, until landing on floor plans.

  “Hmm, my memory is a bit foggy. Could you explain what this dungeon is for quickly? I’m quite a busy man.” Zach said in his Demon Lord voice, something he’d been getting more comfortable using as of late.

  “Certainly my lord, you sssee thissss is a dungeon to be constructed at a mineral outpost that Titania found 4 months ago, we acquired control of the area last week and-”

  “That’s enough.” Zach waved, his boredom easily interpreted as the intense malice of the prior Demon Lord.

  Rumuna felt her snakey homunculi heart shiver as she’d been reduced to a shivering insect by this false Demon Lord.

  “Y-y-yes my Lordykinsssss~” Rumuna hissed as she grabbed the binder.

  “Never call me that again.” Zach wretched, Rumuna only swooned more.

  …

  “My lord, I'd like to show you my latest creation, daru.” Onimaru proclaimed proudly, using his three reattached arms to point to a large box with the glowing white sword floating within it, it was around the size of a guitar case with a heavily riveted metal frame made of purple metal.

  Zach gave a somewhat confused golf clap from atop his throne.

  “Impressive that it floats…?” Zach said awkwardly, causing the giant red skinned Oni to let out a hearty laugh.

  “Rahrahrah! Yes that was necessary, this thing is leaking enough Godly energy to melt half of the Demon Realm if we are not careful!” Onimaru explained, waving one of his large hands to open up a black void where he shoved the sword case into. Zach's eyes widened.

  “What was that?”

  Onimaru stifled a laugh, he knew he was supposed to pretend that this was still their lord but he was struggling. It was a question an extremely young child would ask.

  “My inventory my lord, that knock to the noggin did some real damage daru?” Onimaru chortled as he moved the black void closer for Zach to see.

  “Oh sick, how do you do that? A-as a test, of course.” Zach asked, sincerely at first before attempting to lower his voice to sound more demon lord-esqe.

  “Rahrahrah, just wave your hand and… think of an inventory!” Onimaru explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, Zach nodded as he attempted to follow his instructions.

  “Inventory, Inventory, well not like warehouse inventory, would it be weird if I thought of a video game inventory? He just had a portal I should try and think of…”

  Zach put his hand out and pulsed magic to his finger tips, suddenly a massive inventory opened up, looking suspiciously similar to a file explorer with meticulously labelled content, weapons, potions, food, armour, materials, etc, etc.

  Zach felt his heart shrink for a moment as he realized he had visualized his pirated content hard drive, upon seeing it Onimaru’s face positively lit up.

  “My lord! What is THIS!?” Onimaru asked running behind Zach to get a better look at the hovering screen, unceremoniously closing his portal with a wave as he ran.

  “Uh, a new… system I’m developing… very advanced.” Zach muttered as he tried to close his inventory, which proved difficult as he had failed to visualize an escape key.

  Onimaru started clicking through the files, first clicking on the weapons folder, then to the swords category, then the common swords where several miscellaneous common swords were, labeled with names and stats which could be filtered through.

  Zach was impressed at his visualisation at the very least, despite how plagiarised it was.

  “No one knows I’ve copied this. I’m claiming it as my own.” Zach thought with a cheeky smirk as Onimaru tapped on a Rusty Rurono Claymore, the item being pulled from the floating screen and into the real world.

  “Remarkable… I must copy these plans my lord! All my blueprints could be perfectly organised now daru! I could find all my half chewed pens!” Onimaru declared excitedly before running off. Zach let out a sigh of relief, believing he’d managed to foil another Devil Knight.

  …

  Zach “clocked off” for the day and walked towards one of the many bars that were dotted around the Demon Lord’s castle, though it was more of a giant mall with slightly more weaponry stalls than food stalls.

  The castle was so huge that each of the 300 floors had the space to include enough facilities to live one's entire life quite comfortably without ever leaving.

  Each floor was split into several districts depending on what was on it, with the 151 having the main 4 districts of barracks, armory, mess hall and portal hall. Additionally as it had the Demon Lord’s throne it had a district just for the Demon Lord, which included a wing for his own bedroom and other creature comforts.

  Though as Zach explored them he quickly found out the Demon Lord apparently didn’t sleep, or have hobbies outside of planning military expeditions.

  Zach had been exploring the various floors of the Demon Lord’s castle, primarily seeing what food was available as he quickly discovered each floor tended to house a specific variety of soldier, who all had their own needs that needed attending to.

  For the most part, as one reached the lower 50s, the soldiers turned more into monsters, where the staff were in charge of maintaining the beasts of burden in simulated versions of their natural habitat, like a zoo for animals bred to kill.

  The upper 50s and lower 100s tended to be the more humanoid grunts of the Demon Lord’s Army, Lesser Demons, Undead Humans, Orcs and other creatures that were more than happy to accept the squalor they lived in.

  The upper 100s to around the 200s were where more trained soldiers who demanded finer things tended to be housed, and thus was where Zach had found himself for however long he’d been the Demon Lord.

  He’d long since lost track of time since there was no day or night within the castle, and he hadn’t been brave enough to venture outside of it just yet.

  As he exited the throne room, he was greeted by the imposing figure of Nuhades standing just outside the doorway.

  “Greetings.” Nuhades growled, staring Zach right in the eye. Nuhades was one of the few creatures that could stare the Demon Lord in the eye, though typically he was not so arrogant as to do so.

  Of course, Nuhades couldn’t see this man as the Demon Lord and refused to honour him as such.

  “Y-yo! Hades right…?” Zach asked awkwardly as he tried to sidestep the intimidating man.

  “Nuhades.”

  “Yeah yeah that’s what I said… I was just uh, going to get a drink.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  “For fucks sake.” Zach groaned, he could deal with the lesser minions with ease since most of them were too scared to call him out on anything he did, a chance for him to relax a little.

  With a Devil Knight following him he’d have to keep up appearances still.

  “Awesome… you have anywhere you’d recommend?” Zach asked with a groan as Nuhades started following him.

  “Floor 278, Restaurant Gun.” Nuhades replied bluntly as he quickly took the lead. Zach groaned, he’d not been able to venture higher than floor 200 as it required him putting in passwords to unlock them.

  “Ah yeah, that’s a good one.” Zach mumbled. The walk was silent and awkward, Nuhades punching in a long password to what was effectively an elevator made of sentient stone, taking them to near the top of the Demon Lord’s castle.

  Floor 278 was a shockingly chic and modern looking floor of the Demon Lord’s Castle, looking more like a 5 star hotel than anything else. The entrance for Restaurant Gun was surrounded by pillars of brimstone with an Upper Rank Demoness standing at the ready.

  “Lord Nuhades and the Demon Lord themselves! To what do we owe the pleasure?” The Demoness hostess asked, her skin a shade of crimson red and eyes bright yellow. Nuhades said nothing and continued walking, Zach following with a shrug.

  “He’s grumpy.” Zach said apologetically, shocking the Demoness hostess as she fell to her knees.

  “He spoke to me…” She thought as her heart threatened to burst out of her chest in excitement, while another hostess led the two men to their tables. The rest of the restaurant was filled with primarily demon dukes and some human vassals to the Demon Army, discussing politics that all went over Zach's head.

  A large booth secluded from the rest of the restaurant had been prepared for the two men, with Nuhades stoically sitting across from Zach who struggled to sit down comfortably in the slightly cramped space.

  “Can I get you two any-”

  “Fetch us the chefs speciality and leave us.” Nuhades ordered, waving away the waitress who nodded. Zach squirmed slightly as he tried to avoid Nuhade’s glowing red eye, which stared uncomfortably at Zach.

  “S-so, crazy battle with the hero huh?” Zach asked as he looked from side to side to try and find somewhere to look that wasn’t an evil glowing red eye.

  “Yes, he snuck through our security, slaughtered thousands of our top guards and got a singular hit on you with that accursed blade. Unfortunately a policy you made has meant we’ve kept the wretched vermin and his party alive for the foreseeable future.” Nuhades said bitterly, resting his elbows on the table as he leaned closer to the sweating Zach.

  “Prettyyyy crazyyyyy.” Zach gulped as he nodded along, leaning away from Nuhades.

  “You know, we’ve been worried that there have been some… Let’s say other changes… besides your lack of memory." Nuhades explained bitterly. Zach felt his heart drop, wondering if he’d been found out. He could probably still run.

  “O-oh? Like what?” Zach asked, panicked, frozen in his seat.

  “Well you’ve been fraternizing with the lesser demons, drinking, eating, sleeping, quite frankly we’re all very concerned that perhaps you won’t be able to continue operating as the Demon Lord.” Nuhades said threateningly.

  “W-well it’s just a reset in perspective. A new age! New ideas! F-for domination…” Zach blustered as the hostess arrived with their drinks, Zach quickly gulping down whatever the concoction it was without even tasting it.

  Nuhades didn’t flinch, still staring intensely into Zach’s eyes.

  “Let me readjust your perspective in case you’ve forgotten. You were created by the manifestation of Death himself for one purpose. A holy war against the vile woman that so many have been subjected to calling God. I joined you in this battle for one reason, because you are the strongest creature on this planet, a position I fully intend to inhabit after defeating you in honourable combat. Something you currently seem incapable of.” Nuhades monologued as Zach could only watch wide eyed.

  “Y-yeah, that. I knew that.” Zach replied blankly as Nuhades stood up as he got a telepathic message of Lillithvin screaming into his ear.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU IDIOT! WE HAVEN’T AGREED ON WHAT TO DO WITH THIS BRAINLET YET!” Lillithvin squealed as Nuhades stared at the confused Zach.

  “I wish you good meal sir, pray for the swift return of your memory. Forgive my impropriety, it’s just odd seeing you like this.” Nuhades slowly bellowed as he left before the food even arrived.

  “I should probably do something more Demon Lordy before he figures out I’m not the real Demon Lord…” Zach thought with a sigh of relief, still entirely clueless.

  …

  11 Devil Knights sat around their war room as Lillithvin rapidly read and signed as many papers as possible.

  “I am going to kill anyone who votes that we keep this insolent manchild who can’t even so much as read the most simple documents let alone comprehend them! ARGH!" Lillithvin screamed as she finished her pile of paperwork for the hour, tossing the pile to a nearby maid who took it to get properly sorted. Hitop couldn’t help but cackle as he saw the operations director of the Demon Army struggle with directing the operations of the Demon Army.

  “Well now that our dear Leeper has finished his courtesy visit with God, shall we recast our votes on whether to terminate or manage this problem?” Hitop asked as the giant orb at the center of the table flicked onto a camera view of Zach sleeping in the Demon Lord’s bed.

  “Kill him! Kill him!” Lillithvin screamed, slamming her fist into the table. She couldn’t stand dealing with this man for a minute longer.

  “The observations I’ve made make it clear. Death is the only option.” Nuhades growled, arms crossed and head down. He felt a deep disappointment for never truly being able to surpass the Demon Lord.

  “We gotta keep him around! Whatever fancy knowledge is going on in his head is a hoot daru!” Onimaru laughed, playing with his new inventory interface he’d blatantly copied from Zach.

  “I agree, we need to acquire any and all information about the other world from him. I vote to let him live.” Hitop cackled as he slammed his floating gloves onto the table for emphasis.

  “He’sssss an affront to the Demon Lord! Ssstupid sexy Demon Lord… I vote to kill.” Rumuna hissed, still struggling to keep her serpentine body from undulating in an unlady-like manner.

  “It’d be a shame not to use his body, we need to at least get a proper heir to the Demon Lord first. I vote to keep him alive for now.” Anuma said with a smirk, fully intending to make that heir herself.

  “Oh of coursssse you just want to sssleep with him you harlot!” Rumuna hissed as Anuma groaned.

  “Leave your bickering for later. I vote we keep the man. Knowledge of the other side is interesting but that one man represents over a third of our military strength.” Drackura commented plainly.

  “Bah! A new military doctrine can easily compensate for that! I vote we kill him, his unpredictability is too much of a liability." Killophobe asserted, increasing his size in order to emphasize his point.

  “I have to agree, he’s not exactly…. Intelligent as far as I can tell. I think it’s the kinder action to put him down now before he hurts himself.” Titania nodded sympathetically.

  “Belelepeplep.” Ikasan bleeped, projecting his answer through a hologram projector in his eye. The table read Ikasan’s very well developed argument and all nodded along.

  “Urgh, fine Ikasan you make several good points but I’m still voting to kill him.” Lillithvin sighed, slightly calmer after reading the little robots' purely logical and factual argument.

  “So that’s 5 to killing him and 5 to letting the vermin live. It’s all up to you then Leeper.” Nuhades commented as the rest of the table turned to the gaseous form of Leeper, death made manifest.

  The table was silent for a few moments before a skull formed from the noxious vapours that made the god of death's body solidifying into a skull with glowing magenta eyes.

  “He possesses the body of my son, one which I lovingly crafted to be capable of overthrowing the vile wench of my mother from her throne in the Heavenly Realm. But he lacks the spirit of a conqueror, a spirit I crafted from my collection of the most determined souls, honed into a diamond. You ask of me a difficult decision but I have only one choice.”

  “I vote we keep him, he’s just too cute of a boy to kill yet!” Leeper explained with the tone of an overly proud father who’s excusing his baby for having an accident on his co-workers lap.

  It was official, discussions for how they could manage Zach in the Demon Lord’s body were now underway, with Zach none the wiser that he’d been saved by Leeper, the God of Death Himself, finding his antics over the last week ‘cute’.