“I do better on my own? What the hell was I thinking?” I sat atop a cliff face, looking down upon the mass of gathering adventurers below. 

What was I supposed to do by myself? I need to somehow stop this raid, reset the gameboard for a time. If Vi wins here, she’ll start to march against the Demon Lord, and I can’t allow her to win this game. I don’t want Beelzebub to win either, but Vi… Vi just can’t get her way.   

“Most of those adventurers are probably well over level 10… what am I supposed to do, go fight all of them?” I scratched my chin, looking at the group with only one eye open.

“Master, what are we going to do?” my sword spoke to me, as the fire spirit within was one to do from time to time. 

“Hmmm…” I crossed my arms, looking at the crowd below. “Beelzebub needs me to get Vi to surrender, and has clearly led me towards this conflict. He knows I can’t ignore a raid on my own race, so he wants me to defend them.”

But this doesn’t make sense. If Vi surrenders, then Beelzebub wins, but she’d never surrender normally. I have to make her pawns surrender, and slaughtering them doesn’t do anything but let Vi add more pieces to her side of the board, as I understood the rules.

I stood up, brushed off the dirt from my legs, and made a decision. I jumped off the cliff, letting myself fall to the ground at the base of the elevated land. With a loud thud I landed at the base of the small cliff face, directly in the middle of the adventurer’s camp. 

Instantly, the adventurers took notice of me, the men and women closest to me drawing their weapons. But they didn’t move, probably recognizing me from the rumors I caused which had created this mess in the first place. 

“O-Oi, it’s that goblin, the overpowered one!” one of them cried out, drawing a pair of daggers from his belt. 

“That’s me, the one who’s been killing all your friends.” I held my hand out and let Incindra leap from my back into my grip. “Broke that Cobalt Knight of yours in half too.”

“Hiii!” A young half elven woman made a strange noise, running from me as soon as I mentioned that fact. 

“Vile little creature, do you really think you can beat all of us?!” One of them roared in anger, preparing to attack me. He was a half orc, I think, based on his greenish skin and tusks. 

The half orc charged me with a large spiked mace, not giving me a chance to respond to him at all. I felt a pang of guilt for what I was about to do, but I had no choice but to do it.

He was just a non player piece, he wasn’t really even part of their sick game. None of the adventurers around me were. 

I won’t fall to a mook, regardless of how high level they were compared to me. Because there’s absolutely no way…

That Beelzebub would allow his piece to be taken so easily!

The blue sky turned red, and a crack of thunder roared across the hills. A genuine act of god, a bolt of lightning struck the ground mere inches from me. The half orc’s charge was stopped, the force of the lightning’s impact throwing him backwards. 

-

Beelzebub sat on his throne, the same throne he had claimed hundreds of years before from the previous ruler of this outer realm. His hands deftly shuffled his deck of fate, the form that was given to his divine powers. Each card offered endless possibilities, and the deck never ran dry. But at the same time, his control was limited, and chance ruled over the deck.

That was the limitation placed upon him, or else the game would not be remotely fair. And playing a game you can’t lose was no fun at all. 

“I’m playing a new card, Vi.” He said, drawing from the deck. “Enough turns have passed without adding to the board, so unless you wish to object?” 

The white haired witch, heavy bags under her eyes, did not respond. Had she slept poorly, or was this a side effect of inserting herself back into the board for a brief period? The shimmering purple eyes that normally cast intense leers towards the god before her were dull and unfocused. 

“It’s not against the rules, there’s nothing I can say.” she finally replied, listlessly running her finger across the table edge. 

Beelzebub nodded, placing his drawn card face down on the board, then lightly flipping it over. Atop the board now rested a single card. A bright red sword held within the hands of a brave warrior was depicted on the card’s face, and the corners displayed the letter K.

“Oh ho? What do we have here? Quite a strong card to pull, wouldn’t you say?” he asked her opponent as the King transformed into a red marble figurine. 

But Vi did not reply. 

“Someone feeling down?” he tried to goad her on, prodding at her like he usually did. “Where’s your bombastic, over the top counter play where you think you’ve finally won?” 

Vi slowly stood up, her chair loudly scraping against the wooden panel flooring. She took a long look at the table, then turned away from it and started to leave the parlor room. 

“You know, I don’t really feel like playing today.” she said, aimlessly looking at the ceiling. “If you get tired of waiting for me to come back you can go die from boredom, I guess.”

“Are you abandoning this game, Vi?!” Beelzebub, generally the calmer of the pair, raised his voice in a rare showing. His fist clenched tightly as he watched the woman leave the room. “If you forfeit this game now...”

“Who’s forfeiting?” she answered, her hand curling around the orange bronze door knob that closed off the rest of the mansion from them. “I’ll be back to beat your skull into paste, I just can’t be bothered right now. You don’t want to fight a half assed opponent either, right?”