episode_0002

I had transmigrated into the body of Hans, the protagonist of *Depraved Hero*.

That was the conclusion I reached after much deliberation.

An unknown message.

Light emanating from the monitor.

Faint, unfamiliar mechanical sounds.

And, my current situation.

The trial version, I wasn’t sure about that part.

Anyway.

That was the only plausible hypothesis that could connect all of these things.

Ah, there was one more thing.

The possibility that I was experiencing hallucinations due to severe game addiction.

I didn’t want to admit it.

But realistically, this seemed more likely.

If that were the case, the bed I was lying on right now would be a mental hospital bed.

“Lord Hans.”

Just then, Laila’s voice, as she clung to my arm, broke my train of thought.

Turning my head to the right, Laila’s blue eyes were staring intently at my face.

“Why, ahem. What’s wrong?”

Since Hans didn’t have a voice in the game, I tried to create his accent as best I could.

Regardless of whether my voice sounded plausible, my acting was, even to me, terrible.

Still, Laila seemed to believe without a doubt that I was Hans.

“Did I… make you feel good enough?”

Her voice was laced with hesitation as she asked.

“Huh? Oh, yes. It felt great. Extremely.”

At my answer, a faint smile formed on Laila’s lips, only for her eyes to quickly shadow over.

“Actually, you haven’t said much since earlier, so I thought you were angry.”

*Flustered.*

“Th-that can’t be. Haha!”

“I didn’t want to disturb your sleep, but thinking about tomorrow’s expedition to the Demon Realm kept me awake.”

“R-right. The Demon Realm Expedition.”

When I opened my eyes, Laila was there, so I didn’t think it was the early part of the game.

The Demon Realm Expedition occurs around the mid-to-late stages of the game.

Is there a reason for this too?

“Lord Hans.”

“Yes?”

Laila’s voice cut short my deduction.

“Will we be able to defeat the Demon Lord?”

Her trembling eyes conveyed her anxiety to me.

Right.

In the game, there was also an event just before the Demon Realm Expedition where Laila snuck into Hans’s room and even had sex with him.

Laila’s question just now matched her question at the very end of that event.

I’d forgotten what Hans’s answer was here.

But anyway, what was important here was to instill strong belief in the anxious Saintess.

“We’ll win.”

I answered her in a calm tone, unlike before.

For your information, Hans and the Hero’s party actually do defeat the Demon Lord.

The final boss after that is the real problem, but there’s no need to mention that.

Laila finally broke into a full smile at my answer, and then buried her face in my chest.

Her lukewarm breath tickled my chest.

Soon, only her comfortable breathing could be heard by my ear.

“Mmm.”

I brushed aside her sweat-soaked bangs, and the corners of her lips curved into a faint smile.

“If this really is a hallucination, then I must be completely insane.”

As I gazed at Laila’s sleeping face, my eyes naturally drifted to her lips.

Thinking that those cherry-like lips had serviced me, my lower half, which I thought had cooled down, began to tingle.

Normally, after one climax, I don’t think about masturbating at all.

So this is what it feels like to have lingering lust even after ejaculating.

If I put my mind to it, a second round wouldn’t be difficult.

“It would be a bit much to wake her up while she’s sleeping, wouldn’t it?”

Confirming that Laila was deeply asleep, I quietly got out of bed.

When I first opened my eyes, I didn’t have the presence of mind to figure out where I was.

“As expected, it was an inn.”

A simple medieval-style interior, featuring wooden furnishings and warm-toned wallpaper, with only a bed and a two-tiered dresser.

The two lanterns hanging on the left and right walls seemed old and weren’t enough to brightly illuminate the entire room.

But the moonlight seeping in from outside the window filled in the gaps.

Getting out of bed, I haphazardly moved the clothes tangled around my feet and took a step.

Creak, went the wooden floor, letting out a mournful sound.

“Mmm.”

I was anxious that Laila might wake up, but she only shifted her body and didn’t open her eyes.

I let out a sigh of relief and stood in place, looking down at my body illuminated by the moonlight.

“Wow.”

An exclamation naturally escaped my lips.

Not only was there no excess fat anywhere on my body from shoulders to feet.

My forearms and thighs were thick and firm, with veins protruding.

My abs were perfectly chiseled like chocolate.

Not to mention the club dangling between my legs.

Above all, I liked that there wasn’t a single painful spot.

“If I could live my whole life with a body like this, I’d have no regrets.”

As I moved my muscular body this way and that, like an old man who had regained his youth.

[Exercising under the moonlight, that phrase perfectly describes you.]

A strange voice brushed past my ear.

Startled, I looked around, but there was still only Laila, who was asleep, and me in the room.

Did I mishear?

As I stood frozen in the middle of the room, naked, my eyes darting frantically.

[Pffft. Over here, over here.]

This time, I clearly registered the voice and the direction it came from.

The bed Laila was lying on, more precisely, next to the headboard at the top of the bed.

A large sword was leaning there.

Why hadn’t I noticed it there until now?

No, from the moment I recognized that I had transmigrated into Hans’s body, I should have thought of its existence first.

The jet-black color, which covered it seamlessly from the hilt to the scabbard encasing the blade, wouldn’t even allow moonlight to penetrate.

The utterly ominous purple gem embedded in its center was reminiscent of a snake’s eye.

This was the very cause, the root of all evil, that led Hans to begin his journey.

The Demonic Sword ‘Seks’.

****

The Demonic Sword Seks is a type of Ego Sword.

The ego residing within the sword acts as a sort of helper, explaining curses and the game’s system.

Its name is ‘Lulu’.

It is the embodiment of curses, the entity that led Hans on his journey.

And the true final boss of this game.

Yes.

The mastermind who tormented countless users, including myself, with its unreasonable patterns in the game.

Immediately after defeating the Demon Lord, it’s revealed that Lulu was actually the first Demon Lord, murdered by the previous generation’s Hero.

And that she was the mastermind who used Hans to plot her own resurrection.

But it’s not really a twist, because the game is so full of foreshadowing that it’s harder *not* to know.

[Hmm? Why that expression?]

Anyway, having experienced the malicious difficulty of the final boss, it was hard for me to feel good about Lulu.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t her fault.

The bastard developers were to blame.

Still, you can’t help how you feel.

As I stared at the demonic sword with a complex emotion that was difficult to describe.

[…Ahaha! So that’s how it is?]

The gem embedded in the demonic sword blinked several times, and a giddy voice echoed.

[You don’t have to be so wary. I’m not the ‘Lulu’ you know.]

“…What?”

What kind of nonsensical talk was that?

Not Lulu?

But the voice was clearly coming from the demonic sword.

Now that I thought about it, when that guy first spoke to me, he said, “Do you like this body?”

As if he knew there was another person inside this body.

Even Laila, with whom I had directly shared my body, hadn’t noticed that I was a different person who had transmigrated into Hans.

But this guy…

[Oh? Was that counterproductive instead?]

“If you’re not Lulu, then who are you?”

[Hmm. Would you understand if I said, ‘The one who will grant your wish’?]

The moment I heard the answer, my brows furrowed.

Like retrieving a memory submerged underwater, a scene flashed through my mind.

[I will grant your wish.]

That means the owner of that voice…!

But the voice was faster than I could open my mouth.

[Oops. Sorry, but there’s no time for a long conversation. Just bear with it a little longer. The trial version will end soon.]

“The trial version ends?”

[You can see it, can’t you? How far the trial version has progressed.]

At the voice’s question, my gaze naturally moved to the phrase still floating in the corner of my vision.

[Trial version proceeding normally.]

[Progress: 50%]

As expected, that voice was the one who transmigrated me.

[Having a romp with the blonde lady accounts for half, so you can roughly guess how to fill the remaining half, right?]

“You, what is your true identity?”

[I told you. The one who will grant your wish.]

“Wish, wish, you keep saying. Are you a genie from a lamp?”

Perhaps enjoying my impatience, the voice giggled.

[This trial version is a stage to test your suitability. And so far, it’s been very satisfactory.]

“Can you explain it to me in an easier-to-understand way instead of just saying things you already know?”

I was starting to get annoyed.

His accent was subtly bratty too.

As if to provoke me further, the voice said.

[Then, do well until the end. I look forward to meeting you again~.]

“Hey!!”

He disappeared after only saying what he wanted to say until the very end.

The light in the gem embedded in the sword extinguished.

Silence returned to the room.

I’ll definitely make sure to see that bastard’s face someday.

I calmed my excitement and gathered what clues I had managed to obtain.

“He said half was left.”

Having sex with Laila accounted for half.

Then I must have to fill the remaining half with sex too.

Should I wake Laila up again?

Or.

“Hmm?”

Suddenly, a sense of unease surged.

Why wasn’t Laila waking up?

Even though voices, both loud and soft, had been exchanged several times, and I had even yelled at the end.

Laila on the bed remained motionless.

The moment an inexplicable sense of ominousness made me turn my gaze to the bed.

“Gah?!”

Suddenly, a chill like entering a cold storage unit enveloped my entire body, raising goosebumps.

The lights on the walls flickered in unison, and a faint vibration traveled up from the soles of my feet.

“What is it this time?”

In the ominous atmosphere, I was about to step towards the bed to check Laila’s condition when.

Crack.

A unpleasant sound, like something cracking, came from behind me, stopping my steps.

Stopping my steps, I cautiously turned my head, and what met my eyes was.

A mysterious phenomenon that could only be described as space tearing apart.

In the empty space between the guest room door and me, less than four steps away.

A single crack appeared in that empty space.

Then, with a strange writhing, it tore open with a rip, like a monster opening its maw.

Inside the rift that had thus formed, black distortions writhed chaotically.

And beyond those distortions.

“I heard you liked playing with girls, but I never expected you to greet me stark naked.”

Click-clack.

A woman walked out along with the click-clack of heels that pierced my heart like a dagger.

Ash-grey hair flowed carelessly from beneath a pressed hood.

Sharp crimson eyes glinted through gaps in her hair.

A voluptuous figure that drew the eye, accentuated by her bronze skin.

A robe unbuttoned at the front that brazenly revealed her figure, and a black slingshot bikini.

I took in every detail of the woman’s entire body and froze on the spot like a stone.

After all, wouldn’t anyone freeze up if they came face to face with their ‘ultimate favorite’ character?

“What’s wrong? Was my visit so unexpected? Adventurer Hans.”

The Demon Lord’s General, Agnella, put the pipe she was holding into her mouth, glaring at me with half-lidded eyes.

****

[A special reward will be given upon trial version clear.]