Prologue: I Possessed a Demon
I transmigrated into a demon.
I know exactly how that sounds, but it's true. You see... this demon had apparently tried to summon an Outer God to strike a bargain with, and that Outer God just so happened to be me. Hence the current situation.
To put it more precisely, I transmigrated into a demon from a game.
His name was Marbas. His domains: knowledge of technology and craftsmanship, the power to inflict and cure disease, and the ability to transform humans into animals.
As the final boss of an eroge, my role was to get hunted down by the protagonist's party and their exorcists... Hmm. How do I put this.
Honestly? I didn't want to die.
For one thing, demons don't truly die. At worst, you're sent back to Hell to wait in line for another summoning — trembling and drowning in humiliation the entire time, nothing more.
And this Marbas fellow had already been beaten by demon hunters once and launched back to Hell, where he'd apparently shaken with rage and tried to summon a higher being to strengthen himself...
And that was where yours truly, busy jerking off at the time, got caught in the crosshairs.
And so I ended up stuffed inside this body.
Hmm. Well, I was a higher being, that much was true. I had been watching from beyond the sky, after all.
Arguably worse than Cthulhu, even... At least Cthulhu doesn't jack off while watching people get railed.
Anyway, thanks to all that, I suddenly found myself inside a demon loaded with remarkably useful powers — and Hell, as it turned out, was boring to the point of insanity.
The place was nothing but brimstone flames in every direction, and the only sound was sinners screaming.
After pleading my case until someone finally summoned me, the "reality" I arrived in was none other than three hundred years in the past.
These days? Mm... I'm doing quite well for myself.
Then again, after three hundred years, it would be stranger if I weren't. There I sat on the top floor of a skyscraper, dressed in a suit, leisurely gazing down at the city below.
The body's gift was knowledge of technology and craftsmanship. In other words, where technology was concerned, I knew an overwhelming amount.
That's how I'd managed to earn my keep, one way or another. No — "earning my keep" undersold it.
This was never a matter of peddling wheels and pottery; the man's head had come stocked with the knowledge to build a fusion reactor three hundred years ahead of schedule.
Which brings us to how I ended up like this.
"Ahh, now that's a killer view."
I sank into my chair with a contented smile and looked out the window. The sight of the city, stitched with brilliant light against the black of night, never failed to stir something in me.
Nodding along to my own little mood, I quietly watched the streets below. After all, the entire city was as good as held in the palm of my hand.
The plan had been simple: use the fusion power plant to monopolize electricity, sell it as cheap as possible, and take the city in return.
City A was mine. And on top of that, I paid my taxes diligently and even made regular donations to the cathedral!
After Favorability Farming to that extent, what kind of lunatics would actually come to kill me? To the outside world, I was nothing more than the chairman of a company — a good man who donated at every opportunity.
I was chuckling to myself — since I wasn't going to die of old age in this world anyway, I might as well live to see the space age — when it happened.
Suddenly, there was a rustle behind me.
"Hm?"
Something came lunging at me out of nowhere. Startled despite myself, I leaned back and thrust out a hand.
And something landed squarely in my grip.
"Tch—"
Clicking her tongue, she kicked off the floor and sprang backward.
I could only stare, dumbfounded. There was, after all, a woman in front of me who looked for all the world like a shrine maiden.
Hm. A shrine maiden. A blonde one, at that.
She held some kind of wooden staff in her hand. One look was enough to tell that a hit from that thing would launch me straight to Hell.
"Who the hell are you? How did you even get in here?"
I asked, more incredulous than anything else, and her answer was a masterpiece.
"Marbas... the last demon lurking in City A. I have come to pass judgment upon you today and restore peace to this city!"
"...No, I asked HOW you got in here! This is the eightieth floor!"
"Ah... I cast a spell on the lobby guards and took the elevator up."
"..."
So what she was telling me was that the guards had never even been a speed bump.
"Fine. Message received."
"What...? What exactly did you receive?"
"It means that from this moment on, you're a trespasser, and I'm going to put you down with my own two hands!"
"?!"
She flinched and tried to retreat, and I lunged. My hand clamped around the back of her neck, and I hoisted her clean off the floor.
"Khak—! Urk—!"
While she flailed, I reached out with my free hand and started fishing every last exorcism tool out of the clothes she'd stuffed them into.
Talismans to start with, and all manner of odds and ends besides. Ooh — this one looked expensive.
Then I burned them one by one right in front of her, and the sight of her eyes going round as saucers was priceless.
"No, stop! Those cost eighty bucks apiece!"
Wow, they really were pricey. Which, from where I stood, meant absolutely nothing.
I snapped my fingers, and as the talisman went up in a roar of flame, her shriek of "NOOOOO!" was honestly quite the show.
By the time I'd torched everything that could pass for a weapon, she was a limp, deflated wreck.
"No... this can't be... why..."
Anyone walking in would have thought the world had ended.
Ha. I let out a disbelieving laugh and dumped her unceremoniously onto the floor.
She hit the ground with a thud, sprawled face-down, and immediately began glaring up at me with sharp, venomous eyes. I really had to wonder who was glaring at whom here.
"Hey, you... one look and I can tell you're an exorcist. Did you come here alone?"
"Ghh... How dare a demon bastard—!"
"Oh my, 'demon bastard,' is it? Anyway, one thing's been bugging me. You live in this city, don't you?"
I settled back into my chair, looking down at the woman glaring up at me like she wanted to devour me whole. With every potential weapon reduced to ash, there wasn't much she could do.
Phew... that had been a close call with Hell. Rotting away in that mind-numbingly boring pit for another few centuries — the mere thought made my skin crawl.
You couldn't set foot in the mortal world until someone summoned you, and to get summoned you had to stand in line and wait your turn, of all things...
Ahem. Anyway, the point was this: if I'd slipped up just now, I'd have been dumped back into that pit of fire, sucking my thumb for another few centuries.
And no way in Hell was I letting this slide.
"Th-that's right... You devoured City A and turned it into a mess!"
"A mess, huh...? And how, specifically, did I make a mess of it?"
"Huh...? Uh, w-well, you see..."
I asked her exactly how I'd ruined the city, and she couldn't answer. Naturally. I hadn't actually done anything.
Specifically, I'd made generous donations, paid my taxes on the dot, shipped food off to orphanages, and used the fusion plant to slash everyone's electricity bills.
That was the price of not getting dragged back to Hell. Not that a demon dreams of heaven — I'd simply hoped the exorcists would never come chop off my head.
After farming favorability that hard, surely no one would come to kill me!
Ah. Thinking that, as it turned out, was the problem.
These lunatics had actually come to kill me. Incredible, truly...
"Hey. Do you know what happens if I go to Hell? Hm?"
"Th-then, obviously, City A will be freed from the demon's—"
"Ah, right, lovely. Yes, 'a city freed from a demon's grasp' — sounds great. But tell me, how much do you pay for electricity every month?"
"Huh...? L-like four bucks a month?"
"Exactly. And why do you suppose the bills are that cheap here and nowhere else? The answer, class, is that the fusion power plant I built has been flooding this city with dirt-cheap electricity!"
I left out the part where I'd done it all to avoid getting slaughtered by people like her. The way her eyes wavered at my words was, should we say, rather amusing.
"Now, what happens if I die? The company keeping City A fed and lit is mine, you see. And it has no shareholders — it was never listed on the stock exchange in the first place. I am the owner. That's what I'm telling you."
"Uh, that..."
"And in that state, I die? Then some new CEO steps in, and a private equity firm comes running with dollar signs in its eyes. First thing on the chopping block? Your electricity bill."
"B-but..."
"And all those 'pointless' donations? Canceled, every one. Their goal is squeezing money out — they'll suck the marrow dry and not spare a glance for what happens to City A."
"Th..."
"So. Now you understand what you were about to do, yes?"
Growling, I stepped up to her, looked down, and rested a hand on my hip. Then, holding her in a long, level stare, I said:
"Apologize."
"N-no, but why would I apologize to a demon—"
"Apologize!"
I had nearly been tossed back into Hell, and she thought I'd just watch this display and let it go?!
"I-I'm sorry."
"There we go. You thought that was the end of it?"
I had no intention of letting her off that easy. Maybe, if she'd never come at all — but having come this far, she was going to see exactly what I wanted her to see.
"Kneel. And strip. Everything."
"What...? You dare, you demon bas—"
"Ah-ah!"
At my mild show of temper, she flinched and, little by little, actually began to undress.
At last she exhaled the breath she'd been holding, and there she stood before me in nothing but her underwear, fidgeting.
Hm... though how should I put this.
She really was kind of hot. Genuinely.