I've decided to change this story into mostly first person,

I feel like compared to my other stories this one should be a bit different to challenge myself, so here I am.

Tell me in the comments if you like third person or first person.

“....I’m hungry”

I didn’t say this to anyone in particular, but it really is depressing that I have no one to speak with other than a walking corpse. I flipped the book in my hand around before looking at the title page again, which had by now faded from it’s initial golden print into a dull white print instead.

The hell?

I know that I’m a Demon Lord now, but I can’t know everything all of a sudden just by growing a pair of horns. The skeleton stood there and stared at me while I put the book down onto a table and stretched, all of my bones could be heard cracking, probably because it was technically a newly reborn body.

I glanced at the skeleton, who was just standing there watching.

I wonder if this is awkward for them...

I tugged my horns again just to make sure that they didn’t just pop off like some kind of costume, but no dice. It wasn’t coming off any time soon and I eventually just gave up, it probably didn't even look that bad anyways.

Instead of wasting my time with that I pulled the menu up again and this time clicked SHOP, which brought up a new menu

DEMON LORD SHOP SP:100

RANDOM SUMMON!!! Normal summoning

50 SP = 1x D class Skeleton= 10 SP

150 SP = 1x C class N/A

600 SP = 1x B class N/A

3000 SP = 1x A class N/A

18000 SP= 1x S class N/A

WEAPONS AND ARMOR

Demon Hellblade - Rank A - 1000 SP

Green Viper Dagger - Rank B+ - 850 SP

Helm Of The Red Knight - Rank A - 750 SP

Ebony Shield - Rank C - 300 SP

MISCELLANEOUS

Demon Lord Basics (For Idiots) - 10 SP

Bag Of Holding (0/1000) - 2000 SP

Scroll Of Water Serpents - 300 SP

Tome of Paralysis Gas - 850 SP

This is starting to feel more and more like a Gacha Pay-to-win game by the second

Of course I knew what Gacha was, our generation either had weebs that watched every single anime and played every single JRPG game or was extremely anti-anime, I was obviously the former. However, I was never that big of a gambler in the past so

I was REALLY tempted to go for two random summons but eventually decided against it. I saw the skeleton out of the corner of my eye tilting it's head quizzically at me staring at the screen.

They probably can't see it

I glanced at them before looking back to the task at hand, I don't think it would understand me even if I tried to explain to it anyways.

I could tell that I was low on points for the shop, of which I had no idea how to obtain more.

So what did I do with the points you may ask?

Ka-Ching!

Obtained [Demon Lord Basics (For Idiots)]

Don't judge me.

The book , through some kind of magic, materialized into my hands. Unlike the previous one that I had "absorbed" so to speak, this one had no special color in it's title or anything. It just looked like a normal book. Flipping it over, I was disheartened to realize that the book only had 5 pages.

It wasn't kidding when it said idiots! I think I just got my ass robbed!

I blinked a few times at the shortest book I had ever seen in my life sitting in my hands. I felt like I was really easy to cheat out of money in my past life, if I remember what my past life was that is.

I opened the book and scanned through page by page, it was all extremely random and just described what a Demon Lord was in general and what dungeons were.

It turns out that every Demon Lord lived in an dungeon and use it as their safe space and main base to retreat back to if they're cornered in a fight. Every dungeon was set in a random location, but there will generally be a large city next to the dungeon since there is always a hero that is meant to oppose the Demon Lord. Both Hero and Demon Lord are summoned from deceased souls of multiple different species, often randomly unless the previous Hero or Demon Lord had a final wish for their successor. They lose much of their memory in the process, only remembering the most important aspects of their life and their moment of death.

Every Demon Lord has a specific attribute from which you can draw your power's and soldiers from. This very thing forms your entire kingdom, making it your identity. Once a Demon King dies...their entire dungeon becomes free for the taking. Buy the next edition for more information!?

"Is this actually a scam!!!? It doesn't tell me anything useful at all! Give me my 10 SP back!"

I swear, this whole world is out to get me. Mr. Skeleton over there is probably more lucky than I am right now!

Said skeleton was still as a rock, probably confused as all hell but you can never be sure with a corpse that can't make facial expressions. Looking closer, they were somehow completely clean and without any dirt or grime even though they've been here since the previous Demon Lord,

Is this some magic as well, actually, were you never given a name?

I pulled up the skeletons stats again, which did indeed display that the skeleton had no assigned name. It got kind of weird calling the skeleton "Skeleton". It's like calling a dog "Dog". And I may be boring, but not to that extent you hear me!?

"Wow, your master must have really not cared about you to call you skeleton..."

In response, the skeleton shook it's head profusely, making me worried that its head was going to disconnect from it's neck from the movement and plop to the floor. It seemed as if it had a very good memories of it's former master, can skeletons even have memories? Wow, way too much thinking into this!

"Alright my bad, your master was probably just very busy. I'm just going to give you a name anyways hmmm..."

If handed to anyone else, this task would have probably been easy and stress free. However, when it get's handed to me it causes....problems.

Alright so he's a skeleton... so skelly? No wait, what am I, five!? Ummm mythology... death... Thanatos? Nah, I'm not calling him something even CLOSE to Thanos. Anubis doesn't fit. Charon?

"Uhh, how about Charon? Actually, let's shorten it to Char"

[Skeleton 1.] renamed to [Char]

Due to increased familiarity to Master, [Char] has leveled up

Due to difference in rank and potential of Master, [Char] has leveled up exponentially.

[Char] has reached requirements to evolve.

Choose Evolution Path

[Skeleton knight] [ Skeleton Archer] [Skeleton Mage]

The crowd of incoming notifications flood my face like shoppers flooding the entrance of a mall on Black Friday. I just stared, dumbfounded at the amount of notifications just naming a skeleton caused me.

"All I wanted was to give you a name for god's sake!? Am I even allowed to say god!?"

JRPG mechanics always baffled me a bit, like how did naming a monster give it so much power? (I'm looking at you Rimuru). I liked to read manga and watch anime back in my high school days, but after university I got drowned with work and started to ease up on the whole Japan craze. Even back then, the mechanics still made zero sense, just like right now.

While I'm stuck here going through this mental crisis I noticed out of the corner of my eye someone strange going on with Char. There were black particles that were floating around him, glowing and pulsating. He reached out to touch one of them, but it just bounced off of his bony fingers, this didn't exactly deter him since he just continued to poke at the other particles that surrounded him.

While he was doing his thing, I looked at the options that were given for his evolution pathways. I twirled my finger in the air impatiently as I searched for those (i) buttons that always came with new information....except there wasn't one.

"Come on! Who designed this UI!? Fine, let's just take an educated guess here."

I had to consider my options based on my knowledge in fantasy,

A knight generally was generally heavily armored and good at melee, which was something that I wasn't sure about. Sure, protection was extremely important and melee was in most cases inevitable but the fact that it was a skeleton so it's defense wasn't exactly good.

A archer could be useful but arrows weren't unlimited, so unless there was some type of pocket dimension in the skeleton's quiver I wasn't picking it.

Which left me with the final option, being the Skeleton Mage. I didn't know how to use magic at all, though it wasn't like I knew how to swing a sword or shoot a bow either, but this felt like something completely out of my realm of possibility, at least for now. Magic , at least in my memory, felt like it was overpowered and extremely useful. This was probably the best choice for now.

As a tribute to the continuous poking that Char was doing, I stuck my index finger out and thrusted it into the "Skeleton Mage" option like a guy with Middle School Syndrome. If a skeleton could speak Char would probably be asking more than a few questions, but I digress.

The particles around him stopped pulsating, before plunging themselves into Char who absorbed them into his skeletal body. They clearly didn't count as anything physical since the moment he touched them they completely went into his bony frame instead of lingering around despite Char being almost completely see-through.

I swear, even though I've seen it a few times now it still doesn't cease to amaze me

Char glanced at his body as a plume of black smoke started to envelope his lower body and started to move upwards, going through his ribcage and heading straight towards his head which eventually covered his entire body. During this whole time, I had no idea what was going on in the smoke since it was so thick.

"....feel...."

Ah Crap

For a moment, I thought something had gone wrong and Char was going to go on a rampage and probably kill my level 1 ass. I wasn't exactly sure if I was becoming delirious as well from sleep deprivation or something because he clearly didn't speak before this moment.

Clack

Clack

Clack

Char stepped out of the smoke as it started to clear. His look had completely changed from the dull and plain white skeleton that I had met just a few hours earlier.

He was now decked out in a set of black robes, although they were a bit tattered it was much better than him just walking around naked (Though it didn't matter much). His head was now partially covered by a matching black hood and even though you could still see most of his face, the hood made his entire presence feel a bit more eerie and dangerous. A purple crystal necklace was drape around his neckbone.

Clutched in his right hand was a short wooden staff, roughly cut in the tradition hook top. It looked like it was cut from a large branch from god knows what. Even though I knew nothing about magic, I could still feel a large difference in Char's strength, it was like a new aura was emanating off of him.

Char inspected his staff, doing some experimental shakes with it. As it swung through the air, small sparks of electricity shot out from the staff and struck the edge of one of the bookshelves which made Char retract the staff. He probably didn't mean to do that, since now he was just clutching the staff with both hands.

I wasn't too bothered with his small testing, he didn't look like he was going to burn the place down anytime soon. As he was looking over the rest of his outfit, I took the time to check out his stats.

[Analyze]

STATUS

Name: Char Level: 15

Species: Skeleton Mage (Summoned) Rank: C

Attribute: Air , Electricity

Description

A skeleton that deviated from a traditional skeleton's purpose. This type of skeleton has been blessed with magic potential and , unlike it's other evolution branches, can actually wield a decent amount of mana.

Due to the necessary intelligence needed to harness magic, this skeleton is now capable of speaking in broken sentences through voice projection magic.

Summoner: Damon

Owner: Damon

Health [60/60]

[/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////]

MP [60/60]

[/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////]

Strength: 5 Vitality:6 Agility:8 Sense:8 Intelligence:12

Effects Active:

The Lord's Domain- As long as it was not killed by a magic attack and it was killed in the Demon Lord's territory, it will rise the next day to serve it's master once again

Dual Attributes - Due to special conditions, this mage can control two attributes instead of one. This can be due to being a rare spawn or something to do with the owner.

Demon Lord's First Familiar - This familiar was the first one that the Demon Lord had officially created. This gives it +20% exp boost from defeating other creatures as well as the ability to teleport to it's Lord at a moment's notice.

I looked at this screen for a moment before glancing at Char, who by now had learned how to control the output of his magic and could now produce small sparks of electricity stably without harming nearby surfaces.

"..Master...magic...look"

Indeed, just as the page had said, Char had gained the ability to somewhat speak. Based off of his stats alone, he could probably take me out right now without breaking a sweat (literally).

So turns out, being a demon lord affects your subordinates greatly. Despite being in a slightly overpowered state, I could still process the fact that Char probably shouldn't be able to level up and evolve that fast.

Even though he was a skeleton, to me he was still the first creature that had actually kept me company other than the three wierdos so watching him playing around with the staff made me smile a bit.

Grumble

"Oh right"

I can't even start to express how much slower and more difficult it is to write this than a third person multi-P.O.V story. It took me the time that it would usually take me to write 5000 words to barely write 2500 words.

Still, it was extremely fun to write this and I feel like I'm actually connecting with my character quite a bit, which I feel is rare.

See you guys tomorrow probably,

-W.O.V