Transformation

One day, I woke from sleep and realized I had become a throwaway succubus mob from the shonen manga I used to love.

Dragon Brave.

A legendary shonen manga, still popular decades ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠after its serialization had ended. I had fallen into that world — though not, strictly speaking, at the start of the original story.

It was the age when the hero's party, the generation who would become masters to the protagonist's own, was hunting the Demon King. I had arrived ten years before the original began.

The moment I grasped all of this, I screamed on pure reflex.

"Fuck. I am so screwed!!!"

The curse tore out of my mouth on its own. Because I had suddenly possessed someone in a manga? No. Because I had become a succubus? No.

What seized me was a pure terror, something close to cosmic horror.

How am I supposed to survive in this dumpster fire of a power-inflation manga?!

Power inflation is inseparable from shonen manga to begin with. But Dragon Brave, true to its standing as a legendary shonen series, had power inflation that was legendary in its own right.

…As I just said, the generation of the protagonist's masters is the very hero's party that felled the Demon King.

They were the mighty ones who struck down Demon King Vadio, the calamity that appeared ten years ago, and earned the reverence of the entire world. Later, when the protagonist's party revealed who their masters were, everyone would burst out in awe — so that's why they're so strong! — and find themselves entirely convinced.

And yet, from the middle of the original onward, these same people are treated as grunts worth less than minnows!

The gap becomes even clearer when you look at Combat Power, the official numerical stat that exists in the setting.

By the official numbers, the hero party's average Combat Power sits around 120. Demon King Vadio, who made the whole world tremble all by himself, is roughly 300.

And then—

32,000.

That is the protagonist's Combat Power at merely the midpoint.

The number doesn't stop there. It only swells the further the story goes, until eventually a mere few tens of thousands gets you dismissed as a nobody.

…Running away wasn't going to save me either.

Even if I hid in some quiet corner and tried to live in peace, one day I would still die, caught in a wide-area finishing move fired off by the protagonist's party or their enemies. In the original, entire cities being blown off the map was hardly rare.

If I want to live, I have to get stronger!

I also had to build a bond with the protagonist's party. So, without a shred of lingering attachment, I left home and fled out into the world.

What I chose, in the end, was to hide and train.

To grow stronger, I intended to follow the training methods that appeared in the original. Technical limits meant I couldn't copy all of them, but I meant to try at least whatever I could manage right away. Realistically, training without a master is a fine way to wreck your body — but this was a manga world. And my body was no ordinary one.

A succubus.

In the original they were a race with barely any presence, showing up only as fanservice. Even so, a demon is still a demon.

Figuring I could grow quite strong if I trained, I kept at it without pause. Sure enough, it went just as I had thought.

"Combat Power over 100!"

A few years later, I measured my Combat Power and found it had risen to a level comparable with the hero's party.

By the late story it would be worth less than garbage, but at this point in time it was strength enough to rank inside the top ten in the world.

I immediately took that power out into the world and went to the hero party's aid.

I tried to help them whenever they fell into crisis, so long as it didn't warp the original too badly, and to build a rapport along the way.

"You traitorous bastard!"

"W-why are you helping us?"

At what I had done, the demons raged, and the hero's party was thrown into confusion.

The original owner of this body… I suppose there had been one? The succubus seemed to have belonged to the Demon King's army, but that was an organization doomed to fall anyway — a place whose importance would later sink lower than the neighborhood thugs.

Clinging to a job with no future is a fool's errand. Betraying them was fine!

"I may be a demon, but I believe what the current Demon King is doing is wrong. That's why I'm helping you."

That was how I glossed it over for the hero's party. An excuse, yes, but not an outright lie.

I genuinely believed that everything the Demon King and the demons were doing was completely wrong.

An age was coming when even a Combat Power of 10,000 would be a nobody — so what was a Combat Power of 300 supposed to accomplish by ruling the world? Better to shatter this empty dream now, for the sake of my own kind. Thinking that, I thrashed the demons and earned the hero party's trust.

"Come with us to the Demon King's Castle! If we add your strength to ours, we can bring down Demon King Vadio too!"

"All right."

I readily accepted the proposal from the hero's party, who had come to trust me. At the time, I was taking the situation far too lightly. Just as they said, if I joined the existing party, a Demon King of Combat Power 300 ought to be easy enough to take down.

And yet—

"Gyaaah!"

"What have you done?!"

Perhaps we had pressed him too hard. Demon King Vadio used a technique that had never existed in the original, and the martial artist — a comrade in an extremely important position — turned against us.

"Hey, snap out of it!"

"…Kh! I'll handle him. You focus on Vadio!"

With no other choice I took the martial artist on, and I swear I had no intention of harming him. He was an important character in the original, and a comrade I had grown fond of while we fought side by side.

But the force rolling off him under that control was nothing I could meet while holding back!

In the end I, too, had no choice but to fight desperately — and somewhere in that struggle, I made a fatal mistake.

"…."

"…F-forgive me. In the end, I only weighed you down. The fault isn't yours. Put it from your mind."

Those were the martial artist's last words. His chest shattered by the fist I had thrown on reflex, he left that bitter line behind and collapsed.

…I killed him? A person? An original character, at that?

Staring at him as he ceased to breathe, I fell into shock. This was, in effect, my first murder, and he hadn't even been an enemy.

And worse—

This man is the protagonist's master!

The martial artist was the one who would take in the parentless protagonist, make him a disciple, and raise him. And I had killed that master!

For all practical purposes, the original was ruined. Nothing I did could restore it, which meant the protagonist could no longer grow as he was meant to.

What about the villains he was supposed to defeat? It was no longer just my life on the line. Whether this world itself would go on existing had become uncertain.

Why? Why had this happened? Absolute Brainwashing Magic — nothing like that existed in the original!

Confusion and questions crashed over me, but I had no leisure to stay sunk in them.

"Th-this can't be!"

"D-damn it!"

"To think that guy is dead…."

My comrades' wails reached me first.

"Oho. So the first one was a failure?"

Demon King Vadio's voice followed. I turned my head on reflex and saw him watching the scene with keen interest.

Even in the midst of fighting the rest of the hero's party, he was grinning at me as if something about this delighted him immensely.

"Woman. This is all your fault."

"What?"

"I never originally intended to go this far. I didn't — but because you, wench, betrayed your own kind and sided with them, I had no choice. I prepared a hidden trump card, just in case."

…So now this was all my fault? Because I had barged into the original without thinking, telling myself it would be fine?

A strange sense of understanding settled over me. Shock froze my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠body for an instant, but it didn't last.

"Hahaha!"

Watching me, Vadio laughed as if satisfied and raised his hand. I knew it by instinct. He meant to cast that magic again.

The target was no one else — the Hero, the most important person in the party.

While everyone else was still reeling, I alone moved. I threw myself forward on reflex, cut across the Hero's front, and took the magic in his place.

"Haha! Hahaha!"

"…."

Seeing me silent, Demon King Vadio laughed in sheer delight.

"The wench moved just as I thought she would. Foolish thing — you were the target from the very beginning!"

"…."

"I learned this magic in the first place to force you, the traitor, back into obedience."

Delighted that everything had gone according to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his design, Vadio volunteered answers no one had even asked for. The hero's party shuddered with revulsion as they watched him drunk on his triumph.

"To do something like this…."

"You demonic bastard!"

"You schemed all this just to protect that twisted pride of yours?"

"I will never forgive you!"

The enraged hero's party raised their weapons toward him once more, but Vadio, unafraid, only grinned.

"Kukuku! Before that, you'll have to bring this one down first. Hey. Protect ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me."

At the command, I stepped up beside him as if to guard him.

Rapture bloomed across the Demon King's face. Dismay settled over the hero party's.

"H-hey!"

Unable to bring themselves to attack me, the hero's party could do neither one thing nor the other.

And in the instant Vadio, watching them, let his guard down completely, I darted behind him and seized his body.

"What—?!"

"…The fool here is you."

I said it to the flustered Vadio in a tone that called him pathetic.

"Didn't you know? A succubus who wields Charm has a resistance to brainwashing of the same kind."

"W-what did you say?!"

"I may have been a lowly subordinate, but you might have at least remembered what your subordinate could do. …Now!"

Seizing the opening while I held him, I urged the hero's party to kill.

Vadio resisted, of course, but it did him little good. The hold I had locked onto him in that surprise attack was far too solid, and on top of that I had activated Drain, another succubus ability.

With his strength being siphoned away and the hero party's attacks crashing down besides, even a Demon King had no means to endure.

In the end, the Demon King died.

…He died. But the protagonist's master had died as well, so what was I supposed to do now?!

As I stood there in blank despair, something suddenly appeared before my eyes.

…What is this?