Chapter 5.

A week passed by quickly and there hadn’t been any sign of the hero party. It was already late today, I was blankly heading back to my place from the bar as usual with a cigar dangling between my lips while watching the night sky overhead.

When I eventually got home and arrived in front of the door to my room, the instant I opened it, I paused for a moment to allow my eyes to process what was in front of me. The cigar in my mouth fell to the ground when I grasped the situation.

Rustle. Rustle.

Cling. Clang. 

Somebody was in my room digging through a bunch of garbage bags filled with legendary swords. No, that was a bit incorrect, it wasn’t just ‘somebody.’

“Oi, Greater Demon Retard, what do you think you’re doing breaking into my room?”

Yes, the person who’d broken into my place was someone I was all too familiar with. The useless chick who can never kill the hero that I have to clean up for after every fight.

The GDR’s body jolted as her back straightened up, petrified, as she trembled uncontrollably in place.

“W-w-why are you back so soon, NPC69?” She didn’t bother to turn my way.

“It’s obviously my home, I can return whenever I want to. The real question is, what is the final boss in this world doing rummaging through my collection of legendary sword trash?”

“Stop treating legendary swords as clothes hangers and garbage!”

“They’re mine, I can do whatever I want with them. Now, answer my question, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I… I want a legendary sword that will allow me to beat the hero for a change. I’m sick of losing all the time.”

“Ha. So that’s what this is about.” Of course it was that. Was I expecting the most beautiful NPC in this world to suddenly show up in my room and take an interest in me? Haaaaah. To be quite frank, after being at the final boss fight with the hero party every time, the two of us have developed a rather strange relationship. How am I supposed to describe it? It might be a relationship between teacher and student where I’m constantly berating her.

“Why don’t you just go seduce the new hero after he gets a legendary sword then steal it from him? You seemed to get along pretty well with the last hero at the end and even kissed him, didn’t you?”

She turned her head until her chin was in line with her shoulder as she peeked at me and asked, “I only did it to see if you’d show a jealous face at the time, but instead, you just went and outright puked. This is why your charm will forever be negative infinity and you’ll remain a virgin for eternity. You’ll never get a woman to like you with your awful personality.”

“Who asked you, Greater Demon Retard?”

I was slightly caught off guard when I saw her face directly, “Where’s your mask? Didn’t I tell you to always keep it on?”

“I really don’t get why you want me to wear it.”

“Because I don’t like seeing you.” Her amber eyes, combined with her static doll-like complexion and long black hair which draped down behind her wasn’t good for the heart.

“You mean you’re repulsed by my appearance?”

“Yeah, so hurry up and put on your mask.”

“Even if it’s you saying it, I can’t quite accept that when people often say I’m the top beauty in this world.” She allowed her long red dress which loosely clung to her shoulders to slip down and revealed her bare skin hidden beneath.

“How about now? Can you still say you’re repulsed by my appearance?” She asked me without any embarrassment or discernable emotion.

“Tsk. Stop messing around, would you? Haaaah. You know what, whatever, you can have one of those garbage legendary swords. Just take it and be on your way. It’d be a pain in the ass if you’re discovered together with me.”

“Would you be troubled because people would think you have a significant other when you’re just a lonely old fart?”

“Haha. Lonely old fart?” I stepped into my room and walked up to her and stretched her cheeks out.

“Ow ow ow ow! Stop! Seriously, I’m going to die. I’ll really die you know!” Her cool aloof personality suddenly broke down despite her frozen, eternally unchanging face. Whenever I saw her face directly like this I couldn’t help but think it was a shame.

“Heal.”

I continued stretching her cheeks out while repeatedly healing her when her health went from full to 1 HP. She had an innate ability to always survive with at least 1 HP remaining and enter her invulnerable stage so she could always successfully summon her planet-destroying asteroid. Though, as long as she was healed fast enough for over 10% of her health, she wouldn’t enter her final phase and the asteroid wouldn’t be summoned.

“Who’s the lonely old fart? Are you not the lonely old hag who’s constantly pestering me all the time? Hah? Aren’t you essentially the same age as me? Yet why are you so damn weak and incapable of defeating the hero every single time? Well! WELL! Would you like to explain yourself to me?”

“I’m not a hag, and I’m not weak! You’re just too damn strong! OW OW OW! STOP! Please, it hurts! If you’re not careful I might enter my end phase even if you’re healing me!”

“It hurts? I’m just pinching your cheeks though? Can you please explain to me why you have such low max HP? When the developers were handing out stats points, did you go to the line to get ice cream or something, you useless Greater Demon Retard?”

“You’re just a freak! A glitch! A bug! It’s unreasonable why your stats are so broken? And what’s with your charm and luck? Huh? Aren’t you the idiot who forgot to enter those lines when devs were distributing those two?”

“Who asked for your input, useless Greater Demon Retard?”

I let go of her cheeks and she rubbed them woefully.

“It still stings. Have you never been taught how to properly treat a lady, you brute?”

“Don’t tick me off and you wouldn’t have that problem.”

I pulled her dress back up over her shoulders, stood up, then unlocked my closet.

“Seriously, if you want a legendary sword, at least use one that’s clothes hanger worthy instead of the ones I toss in the garbage bags.”

“Haaaaah. I seriously hate how you use these to hang your clothes and as carpet. No matter how many times I see it, I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”

“Once you’ve seen one legendary sword, you’ve seen them all. They’re seriously nothing special. A brick does more damage than some of these useless things that have preset damage.”

“In your hands maybe.”

“Want to learn the great art of Brickwondo that I created?”

“No thanks... I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself, your loss.”

“Let’s see, which one of my clothes hangers do you want?”

“You’re actually letting me choose?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

“I feel a bit giddy like a child in a candy shop.”

“You’re not?”

“Are you a strange uncle trying to kidnap me by locking me away in your closet so you can have your way with my body?” She looked at me warily.

I rolled my eyes, “You’re not even my type. By the way, your expiration date on childhood has long past the best before date, so even if I lock you in this closet it would be great-grandmanapping, not kidnapping.”

“You have a type? What’s your ideal woman?” She blatantly ignored my ruthless jab at her age and acted like she heard nothing.

“What does that matter?”

“I was just a bit curious was all.”

She stepped into my closet, then moved a bit further in until she came to a stop in front of one of my clothes hangers with an old legendary robe I wore in the past that hung from the tip of the blade. There were a lot more than just legendary swords in here, there was actually quite the assortment of weapons and armors I’d collected over the years.

“Oh? So that’s the sword you’re after? That’s probably the second strongest clothes hanger I have.”

She leaned forward slightly as she turned her head in my direction. For a brief moment I was stunned, I thought I’d seen an impossible smile on her static unchanging face, but the next second it vanished as though it were nothing more than an illusion. I’d never seen this woman smile, she’d even confirmed she was incapable of such an action as the devs apparently deemed such a feature useless for her character type. What was it that I saw then? Was it just the angle she tilted her head just now? 

With her face directly in front of my old robe, she slowly toon in a long breath before she said, “I’ll take this one. I’m also taking the robe, it looks strong. It’s also a bit nostalgic.” 

“Nostalgic? What do you mean?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“It’s the robe you wore when we talked to each other for the first time. Even back then I was jealous of this robe. You stopped wearing it at some point as well. I always wanted to ask you if I could have it if you no longer wanted to wear it.”

“It’s intended for men though.”

“That’s fine. People often mistake me for a man when I’m in my Demon God attire and have my mask on anyway.”

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, your actions would lead me to think you’re into me.”

“Haha. Into you? You sure know how to say funny things. Aren’t you actually the one who’s secretly into the girl you call the Greater Demon Retard, but you can’t bring yourself to admit it because of your terrible luck and charm stats? They often say boys like to bully the girl they’re interested in, don’t they?”

“Did you need to be reeducated, little miss Greater Demon Retard?”

“Haha. I’ll… pass on that.” She averted her eyes then rubbed her right cheek while remembering the pain of nearly dying a humiliating death from pinched and stretched out cheeks.

“You’re honestly scary when you get mad. These days I’m just glad I never actually have to fight you and it’s just the heroes instead.”

“You better win this time if you’re borrowing these from me.”

“I really do want to win. I’m sick of repeating the same fate of having to fall at the hands of the heroes. I wish I could just defeat every hero and never have to experience death again. I’m… tired of dying just because some devs programmed this role for me. If only I had your unreasonable power.”

“Not dying isn’t any better you know. When you’re strong to the point that there is no balance, the only thing you begin to seek is a way to die you know. In all honesty, I’m actually a bit envious of you. Even though you always respawn after your death, you’re able to die and feel things. I can’t even die if I want to. With my stats set so high, I can’t even feel anything. It’s the pain you feel that lets you know you’re still alive.”

“I see. If it’s like that, then I’d at the very minimum like to be just strong enough that the annoying heroes who come barking at my door can never beat me.”

“You know, you’re supposed to be the most feared existence in this world who supposedly wants to destroy the world and kill everyone, right? Should you really be saying this?”

“Haha. You’re right, but when there’s a glitch like you around, what am I supposed to do? I long gave up on that. Once you casually kill all the heroes, you just go and destroy the asteroid every time after it’s lost its immunity to attacks. If I was given the option to not bother summoning that stupid asteroid, I’d naturally do so, but it’s a scripted event so there is nothing I can do about it.”

“Haaaah. Scripted events really suck.”

“Yeah.”

“NPC world problems.”

She covered her lips with one hand and giggled, “Hahaha. Right?” 

“Now that you got what you came for, hurry up and scram.”

“Can I at least visit you every now and then?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then, can you at least pay me a visit at my castle every now and then?”

“Never.”

“Haaaah. You’re as antisocial as ever.”

“Just leave already. I want to go to sleep. The next time we see each other should be when the hero fights you.”

“By the way, did this hero also learn that Charm skill from you?”

“Haaaaaaah. You don’t even need to ask, they always pick that one for some reason.”

“It’s too bad for them that I'm immune to that skill.”

“Yeah, but they’ll never find that out, now will they?”

She took the robe off of the clothes hanger and put it on over her red dress. She opened up a rift in space and stored the clothes hanger, the legendary sword she came for, inside it.

Another rift opened up beside her and she turned away from me and stepped inside. Before she disappeared, she said one last thing, “If you do find yourself around my castle, at least consider dropping by for a cup of tea. After all, I’m just a pitiful lonely old hag.”