Demon King Orloss. Or, how many knew her, Meredith.

In truth, her avatar had no gender. Another World’s Demon King was supposed to be the “genderless beauty” type, just like the angels themselves.

Indeed, Another World had a backstory in which the Demon King was the ruler of the non-humanoid species which had unspeakable desires, such as for each other’s’ flesh or for the death of others.

Characters with such impulses were designed as villains and dangerous, self-and-other-harming creatures.

Demon King Orloss was supposed to be their master and unshakable ruler, cast aside from the heavens because it tried to devour the gods in order to become one of them.

Meredith.

Her true personality and character were the one of a gentle and carrying woman. In fact, one could say she was like that because she was just too innocent and pure.

Indeed, it was true that people could become gentle and carrying even after seeing the cruelty of the world - there were plenty of people like that. If there weren’t, how to explain those who put themselves in danger truly for the sake of others?

In fact, for them to become capable of feeling happiness again, many seniors in suffering corp. had to get happiness by taking care of someone or something - be it a daughter, a husband or even a goldfish.

Seeing life grow, flourish and mature without the need to resort to violence or die in pain was soothing for the heart.

But there were those who didn’t go through pain and suffering, which couldn’t truly understand cruelty and were prone to become cruel themselves. Sometimes they were the product of someone who had survived pain and committed a big error, shielding their children from the world, creating someone who was just too ignorant for its own well-being.

Meredith was this kind of person. Someone who was carrying because, truly, didn’t want to leave home. Someone who liked to help others because it was the only thing it knew how to do in order to avoid getting insane in the real world.

Of course, she was innocent - the kind of fake innocent person, who were on the verge of breaking - but not stupid.

Coming to Another World, her levels of denial increased several folds, but she still had power and ways to avoid being bothered.

So, as not to have to deal with NPCs trying to start Quests, she just wiped out all she could find and imprisoned those deemed as immortals.

Since this was the Demon Kings’ castle, the dungeons and cells were specially tormenting - immortal NPCs wouldn’t be simply imprisoned. They would be kept on lava lakes, cut up and stored in small stone cells, drowned on tanks with magical acid and so on.

Still, a branch doesn’t fall far from the tree.

As players came seeking her help, Meredith established safe routes to reach her kingdom, as well as a player village.

For a kind off long time, she was like a mother and a father for these players - giving them items, helping them in all ways, managing them like a gentle Queen with a golden hearth. Shielding them from the world.

But, as they came in with talks of the “heavenly gaze” and how NPCs were being “possessed” by the minds (some even called them the “spirits”) of the dead and never-born, she denied it.

Indeed, from there on, she became more and more reclusive.

Her dungeons became a forbidden place for her, and the wails of those player minds stuck on the immortal NPCs’ flesh and bones were left for deaf ears to listen.

It was then that a certain man approached her.

He called himself Timoty at first, but his knowledge about the outside world seemed to be too believable to be the knowledge of someone who was stuck inside the game just like them.

New players popped up eventually, and the information they brought from the outside always coincided with what Timoty would casually say once in a while.

However, the greatest proof of his connection to the outside was that, once every few hours, his avatar would disappear.

Meredith didn’t discover it immediately, but bit by bit.

In fact, Carlos had been on this “Timoty” avatar for a while, and his “neuromancer priests” list was way bigger than it was in the beginning.

Being one himself, he could easily spot those who had the ability to make others exit the system, and Demon King village soon became the place anyone who had a way into Another World, but not a way out, would head to.

In fact, little by little, even those who had committed suicide to come to Another World begun to notice something odd about Demon King Village, but that was only over a year after Carlos took the Dungeon Master hole.

At that time, Meredith was already in the palm of his hands.

- It’s almost in time. Just a little more, and you will be able to return to earth.

- Are you sure?

- Yes. We have found a suitable host already. A young lady, no memories of her past.

- Then, what do we need to do?! You have everything you needed already, right?

Meredith’s eyes were bloodshot. Her angel-like face was distorted and her hands twitching uncontrollably.

Carlos had promised a new chance for her. A chance to return to earth!

- We can begin today. You just need to be ready. I will need for you to get rid of all of your mana.

The Code. It was powerful, but not almighty. Another World was made to be a great experience as a game, but Shabe expected for it to become something akin to a new world since the beginning.

Were there ways for someone to change the Code? Delete characters or things like that?

Or even permaban players?

Yes.

But ones’ level of access to do so would need to be gigantic. Not to mention, even if ones’ character was destroyed, their minds would still remain in Another World.

Someone on the level of Jack or Meredith herself could access such levels, but it would be impossible for someone on Carlos’ level to do so.

Besides, the Automated Repair functions of the Core Code, which no one, even Admins could access, pervaded everything. It would seek to repair any parts of the Code that were damaged, and this could lead to unpredictable and chaotic pieces of code being rewritten all around and all the time.

In order to keep the Automated Repair from interfering with Deep Code manipulations one had to be able to suppress it, usually by denying access to the part of the code that was being manipulated.

Dealing with the Code as a player was something weird. One could see it, and mess with it. But one wouldn’t have the regular administrative or moderation credentials unless they managed to change their own code in order to do so.

So, they had to suppress the Automated Repair function with their own minds, by focusing on it and deleting all treads that came from there.

The deeper into the code one went to, faster would the analysis be completed, and faster would the Automated Repair function both begin and end repairing the code by deleting the previous changes and pasting the original code over.

To get to the level where he could actually change a characters’ avatar from someone to someone else would require Administration powers, and Carlos had no way to achieve that level yet.

Indeed, what he wanted to do was something totally different. He had a neuroset plugged into a comatose girl back on earth and had managed to found her in midst of the hundreds of non-avatar-connected headsets.

It wasn’t truly difficult, since her mind was totally stagnant and, henceforth, didn’t move from the Tutorial Field at all. What he wanted to do next was to create a bridge between Merediths’ mind and the avatar-less girls’ mind. And then, swap both.

In the process he would need to change just a few lines of command, but that would require for her to be exhausted of fairy dust, on her weakest state. Indeed, the best thing would be for her to not even have a body anymore - as long as the amount of fairy dust on her body diminished, her mind would become unprotected and the connection between it and the body would weaken.

At that moment, the Swap would be possible.

- Okay. Let’s go then. I will just pour everything on the dungeon and keep doing so, okay?

- That’s perfect.

Carlos’s smile was evil beyond measure. He didn’t even bother hiding the second intentions behind his plan.

He didn’t need to. Meredith was so entranced on the possibility of returning to earth, she wouldn’t understand it, no matter how many clues were plastered on her face.