RA-TA-TA!

[SYSTEM]: LEVEL UP! [Haruto Watanabe] is now level 2!

It had taken him many, many missed shots but Watanabe had finally managed to slay enough monsters to level up and, thanks to the level up, also fully regenerate his mana.

“[Create Anything: Assault Rifle That Also Has Instruction Booklet Written in Japanese]!” commanded Watanabe as he created another rifle and handed it to Tangerina.

“Use this Tangerina, I’m gonna need you to level up as well.” said Watanabe.

“But mister, I am a healer, I’m not supposed to-”

“Well, one must take preventative care to make sure that their patients are not hurt, okay?” replied Watanabe. He quickly instructed her on how to use the rifle. “Now, where can we find even stronger monsters?” he asked. It’s been 34 minutes and I’ve only just gotten my first level up.

“There are said to be fearsome dragons up the northern path mister. But I don’t think we can defeat them with our low stats-”

“Don’t be a defeatist Tangerina. Let’s go now. Ahem, [Create Anything: Self-Driving Truck]!”

As if the sun had come down to the earth, the ground in front of Watanabe shone brightly as a pickup truck emerged in front of his eyes.

As for Tangerina, she already was as shaken as one could be. The emergence of the metal beast didn’t shock her anymore.

“Hop on in, we’re gonna ride this baby to the Demon King’s castle!” exclaimed Watanabe who hopped on the front seat.

“Wait, weren’t we going to slay a dragon first?” asked Tangerina while she followed Watanabe into the truck.

“Well, it’s more efficient if we just do our leveling on the road.” replied Watanabe. He took a look at the truck’s navigation system. Thankfully, there’s a map of this world on here. Okay, the Demon King’s Castle of Certain Doom and Gloom. Apparently, it’ll take us only three hours to get there.

“Mister, there are no animals to draw this carriage. How are we going to move?” asked Tangerina.

“Well, this moves on its own. Using… magic.” replied Watanabe. “Hop on the back to the cargo area, I’ll be following you shortly.”

Tangerina hopped on the open cargo area, holding her newly acquired rifle. She had a ton of questions in her mind while she did so. Who the hell was this stranger? Why does he need to defeat the Demon King to apologize to someone? How does he summon all these mysterious items?

You know what, I’m dreaming. That’s it, this is just a fever dream, thought Tangerina. She decided to ignore reality and enjoy this fever dream.

“Alright Tangerina. Here’s what we are going to do. We have three hours until we arrive at the base of the big bad evil guy.” said Watanabe, joining Tangerina in the cargo area after having started up the truck. “We stand here, and shoot anything we see to grind our levels and become strong enough to save the world or something. Got it?”

“I- I don’t get anything right now except for the part where we get to kill monsters.” replied Tangerina.

The truck began its long journey...

[SYSTEM]: LEVEL UP! [Haruto Watanabe] is now level 87! [SYSTEM]: LEVEL UP! [Tangerina Reticulata Sapindales] is now level 88!

Around three hours had passed, and Watanabe and Tangerina had reached levels never before reached by anyone else. Watanabe was feeling like a god, with every level all of his stats had increased. By now, thanks to his absurdly high agility stat, he had achieved 100% accuracy even while laying down automatic fire. Plus, he could reload basically instantly. He had also began holding two rifles at once, recoil had started not affecting him at all at around level 40 thanks to his strength. With his intelligence he was making on-the-fly ballistic calculations to increase his absurd accuracy even further. His high wisdom made sure that he’d never even dare think about putting tomatoes in a fruit salad. Lastly, thanks to his charisma stat, he looked damn cool while he was lighting up some monsters.

The same was true with Tangerina, who had gotten used to mowing down mobs of enemies that’d normally take an entire chapter dedicated to them to beat.

The pair had defeated dragons, giants, golems, hobgoblins, ancient mechanical beasts, eldritch creatures, everything fell to the might of modern small arms and absurdly high levels.

This is kind of fun, isn’t it, thought Tangerina as she killed yet another elder dragon that was tailing them. The pair had halved the global population of elder dragons in just an hour.

“Tangerina, I’d like it if you could stop maniacally laughing, it’s quite distracting.” said Watanabe, watching Tangerina who had in an hour become a god(dess) amongst men.

“Oh, mister, believe me there are some people in the guild that are going to taste sweet justice when I come back!” replied Tangerina while she killed an enormous whale-like monster that was floating in the sky. “By the gods they will regret, oh will they regret calling me a useless healer!”

“Oh... That’s cool. Have fun with that.” replied Watanabe. “Just don’t murder too many people, okay?”

Interrupting their conversation was an ominous, black castle that came into view. The truck stopped in front of the gate and Watanabe and Tangerina got off the truck.

The rest of the view around them was similar to the castle. The land was barren, with ash covering the surface and clouds covering the sun. The scenery would have seemed scary to Watanabe and Tangerina if they didn’t hold the technological and systematic advantage.

“This is the police, you are surrounded! Demon King Whoeveryouare, come out with your hands up!” shouted Watanabe through a megaphone he had just summoned.

“What is a ‘police’ mister?” asked Tangerina.

“It’s nothing important. I just added that in because it sounds cool.” replied Watanabe.

Suddenly, a large cloud of smoke appeared in front of our hero. The smoke slowly materialized into a large figure clad in black armor.

Man, couldn’t he look more clichéd, thought Watanabe when he observed his adversary, who looked pissed beyond description.

“Alright. Suddenly, two of you show up. You kill some of my finest underlings. Then you kill all of my generals without even hearing their monologues or noticing their existence. Now, you come into my house uninvited. Who the hell are you?!” shouted the Demon King.

“I’m Watanabe, Haruto Watanabe. It’s nothing personal, but I need to kill you.”

“And I’m Tangerina Reticulata Sapindales, the one whose family was murdered by your forces!”

“Okay, first off. There are many people who need to kill me. Second off, my forces have killed many people’s families. Your introductions don’t help me identify you at all!” said the Demon King. “Thirdly, I didn’t ask ‘Who are you’ in a literal manner, I don’t care about your names!”

“Well, if you need to know. I just borrowed a cheat skill from the TIA.” replied Watanabe. “I’m running on equally borrowed time here, so I’d be grateful if we could conclude fighting asap.”

“The TIA?! They have been trying to get me for years, are you one of their assassins?” exclaimed the Demon King. “Well, before we fight, I want to tell you why I have done all the things I have done. For you see, this world has been corru-”

“Don’t care about your evil guy motivations. Tangerina, could you stop him from moving?”

“Yes mister!” replied Tangerina as she cast [Bind] on the Demon King. Since she was much, much higher levelled than him, the Demon King couldn’t resist the spell as he completely lost his ability to move.

“Alright. [Create Anything: Remote Detonated Nuclear Bomb]!” Suddenly, a nuclear missile thrice the height of Watanabe appeared behind the Demon King, along with the remote to detonate it.

“[Create Anything: Sunglasses]! [Create Anything: Sunglasses]!” continued Watanabe while he summoned two sunglasses. He handed one over to Tangerina.

“Wait! Don’t you want to hear about why I want to plunge this world into eternal darkness?! I have been waiting for centuries for a worthy hero! I have this long monologue prepared just for this occasion!” shouted the Demon King, frozen in place.

“Yeah yeah, you villains are so boring. I don’t care if you have a tragic backstory or whatnot.” replied Watanabe. He hopped back on the truck with Tangerina.

“Wait, don’t leave me! I really want to tell you about…”

The Demon King’s voice got fainter as the truck quickly began driving away from the castle, towards the capital of the generic kingdom that Tangerina hailed from.

“Alright, now. Look away from the castle Tangerina.” He readied the remote for the nuclear bomb.

“Why? Are you not going to kill him after coming all this way?” wondered Tangerina, who was trying to fathom why they were leaving.

“Kind of. Just don’t look back no matter what happens.” He handed the remote over to Tangerina. “You should be the one to press the button.”

Tangerina pressed the button. Suddenly, an explosion that could be heard for miles engulfed the Demon King’s castle. The mushroom cloud resulting from the explosion was so enormous that, if they were looking back, Watanabe and Tangerina would be able to see it from kilometers (for the American readers using the inferior system of measurement, a kilometer is about ten soccer fields right next to each other) away.

[SYSTEM]: LEVEL UP! [Tangerina Reticulate Sapindales] is now level 99! [GLOBAL NOTICE]: [Tangerina Reticulata Sapindales] has reached the level cap! [GLOBAL NOTICE]: [Tangerin Reticulate Sapindales] has defeated the [Demon King]!

“What the- He is dead!” shouted Tangerina hearing the notifications coming back-to-back.

“Yeah, no need to shout. I can already hear the system and that giant nuclear bomb going off.” replied Watanabe.

World saved in three hours, forty-four minutes and thirty-seven seconds, thought Watanabe as he checked his chronometer with great satisfaction. Most singleplayer RPGs take about thirty hours, I’d say this is a pretty good time for a speedrun with what are essentially cheat codes enabled.

“What are we going to do now, mister? We can do anything we want!” said Tangerina in celebration.

“Oh, I’d like to live in luxury now. Really, I do, but I’ve got things… People that are much more important.” replied Watanabe. I think I’ve satisfied my need to slay some big bad evil guy.

“I remember you said something about apologizing to someone?” asked Tangerina. “It’s not like you’re going away forever, right?”

“Oh, actually, I am going away forever. You see, I came here when I died. Made an agreement that I could go back if I save this world. So, I’m probably going to disappear in a moment.” replied Watanabe. He then slowly felt gravity disappearing. Our hero was getting used to this feeling of being transported across dimensions so he didn’t panic at all. “Yep, I think that moment is now. Enjoy being a hero, Tangerina!”

“What the- See- See you, mister! Good luck on your… apology!” replied Tangerina before Watanabe suddenly popped out of existence.

…Alright, this has to be a dream. Now I pinch myself and wake up, I’ve slept enough!

Despite pinching herself (those pinches now being strong enough to obliterate a castle and dissolve it into its individual atoms), Tangerina was as awake as she ever was. She could hear the hum of the truck, the whistle of the wind in the (former) Demon Realm and the voice coming from the system still trying to catch up to her numerous level-ups.

Everything was too vivid to be a dream.

So, I really just defeated the Demon Lord? Just like this, in a couple of hours? I am now the highest leveled being in the entire world, comparable to a god?

…Really? Really.

Tangerina had only kept sane thinking that she was having an overly lucid dream. Now realizing that everything that had happened the past three and a half hours was real, she could only think and mutter one thing:

“What. The. Fu-”