Birth of the Otherworldly Blond Delinquent Incubus
Birth of the Otherworldly Blond Delinquent Incubus
Twenty-one years since I'd opened my eyes in this other world.
The wailing-infant-in-swaddling-clothes days were long behind me,
and the orphanage childhood of scraping by on charity was over too.
On a continent crawling with countless demi-human races,
once I finally came of age, I could accept the truth.
I had been born a race lower than vermin.
*
"I heard you're recruiting for a goblin-hunting party. Saw the notice at the Adventurer's Guild."
The city in early dawn, birds twittering.
By the gate leading outside the walls, I was talking to some adventurers.
Adventurers putting together a party for a goblin hunt.
A young woman who seemed to be their leader welcomed me right away.
"That's right, we're the goblin-hunting party. I'm the party leader, Neria. What's your name? And do you have any particular skills?"
"I'm Luke. I can handle a crossbow. I've also got a sharp sense for reading presence, so I can act as a scout. I'm confident I can fill the ranger role for the party. And I know my way around monsters too..."
The woman asked for my specs straight off.
I launched into listing my qualifications, practically foaming at the mouth. My gift of gab must not have been half bad, because her expression gradually softened.
"So you can handle a crossbow and set basic traps. Those are fairly useful skills. You're a candidate worth bringing in."
She was practically eating up my pitch.
All that's left now is to join the party and enjoy a productive, profitable hunt.
That's what I was thinking, relief washing over me.
"Huh?"
The woman's voice suddenly turned puzzled.
Her eyes were fixed above my head.
At the goat horns sprouting from my skull, to be precise.
"W-wait a second. Luke. What exactly is your race?"
A bewildered stare, and a voice laced with fear.
I swallowed hard at her abruptly icy attitude.
"I'm an incubus. Is there a problem?"
"A-an incubus?! That perverted race known for being depraved from birth...?"
"...I'm not a pervert."
"I-I've heard all the rumors. Incubi go around assaulting women for fun. They say you should never, ever get close to one if you want to keep your chastity."
"How could anyone turn assault into a hobby? That's all baseless rumor and prejudice. It's anti-incubus hate speech."
"How can I tell whether it's prejudice or not? To verify it firsthand — your appearance doesn't inspire any trust at all."
"What's wrong with my appearance?!"
"That's exactly the problem — the blonde hair, the tanned skin... Just being in the same space as you is suffocating."
"......."
I fell silent.
I had no choice but to fall silent.
My outward appearance was far too striking for me to push back any further.
The delinquent-blond hair, skin bronzed like I lived in the sun.
And the pièce de résistance — the horns on my head that marked me as an incubus.
The ultimate male, capable of impregnating anything that breathed.
A Gold-Tanned Incubus ripped straight from the pages of a hentai.
That was me — Luke.
It wasn't that I couldn't understand why this female adventurer was wary of me. I opened my mouth to clear up the misunderstanding, keeping my voice even.
Don't startle her.
That was the plan.
"Rest assured. I'm a harmless incubus. So harmless I'm still a virgin. Never even had a girlfriend."
"Don't bullshit me. Where in the world is there a virgin incubus?"
"Right here. Ta-da—."
"Bullshit."
"Excuse me... what?"
The female adventurer spat on the ground and spoke.
"I said, stop bullshitting me."
Shhhing!
Before I knew it, she'd drawn the sword from her hip. Its tip was aimed squarely between my eyes. Her stance made it clear she'd skewer my skull the moment I made a suspicious move.
"Wh-why are you drawing your sword?"
"You think I've never met an incubus before? I know exactly what depraved thoughts fill your heads. Incubi, every last one of you, can't be trusted. Go into a dungeon with your kind and two go in, three come out. You filthy breeding stallions!"
"P-please calm down. I have no intention of assaulting you."
By this point, I was feeling pretty damn wronged myself.
This Neria woman wasn't even my type anyway.
The racial barrier was simply too high to clear through conversation.
"Shut up...! You're planning to jump me! Just like in those lewd erotic pictures they sell on the streets!"
Neria screamed at the top of her lungs on the open road before the city gate.
At her high-pitched shriek, the fellow adventurers gathered nearby started casting glances our way.
"What's going on, Neria?"
"Who's trying to jump you?"
"There's an incubus here!! He's trying to assault me!!"
With Neria's riling, the mood among the adventurers flipped to hostile in an instant.
Breaking out in a cold sweat, I began backing away.
My gut told me if I stayed still, I'd get beaten to a pulp. I've always had a knack for reading the room. In these kinds of incidents, the man is automatically the villain no matter what, right? And if his race is incubus, it's a foregone conclusion.
Time to run.
Of course, if I'm leaving, I've got a few things to say first.
I took a deep breath and opened my mouth.
"Go fuck yourself, you crazy bitch."
"Wh-what did you say?!"
"When I first looked at you, I couldn't even tell you were a woman, you ugly menace. Even an incubus won't touch a hag. Fucking hell, just looking at you — you'd pair up perfectly with a male orc."
A grinding sound.
I heard Neria gnashing her teeth.
"You fucking asshole! AAAARGH!!"
Looked like the stream of insults I'd blurted out had really hit a nerve. Leaving the shrieking Neria behind, I spun on my heel and fled. With the pounding footsteps of the adventurers chasing me from behind, I ran for a long time.
Just how long, how far did I run?
By the time the sun hung high in the sky and noon arrived, I'd finally succeeded in shaking off the adventurers.
"Ha..."
My body was completely drained of energy for nothing.
Sweat poured down my back like rain.
Honestly, I was exhausted.
Not from the physical exertion.
This wasn't the first time I'd been booted from a party for being an incubus. Two years had already passed since I threw myself into the adventurer industry. And over those two years, I'd suffered every flavor of scorn and persecution from people in the field.
— You're an incubus, right? Just look at you. You're seriously sleazy.
— I'm sorry, but an incubus can't join our party. We'd prefer not to associate with someone who uses party members as wank material.
— Your arm muscles look decent. But that's just wanker's muscle anyway. Ever actually swung a sword?
Every time I dredged up the past, a sigh slipped out.
"Citizens of this world."
I muttered, my voice tinged with a sob.
"Please. Stop the incubus hate."
Of course, even if I prayed with desperate sincerity, no miracle would come. Though gods truly did exist in this world, none were merciful enough to lend an ear to the voice of an inferior existence like mine.
An incubus remains an incubus forever.
Adventurer Party Employment Rate: five percent.
The miracle race, rejected from parties without a second glance or a single question.
Acknowledging that reality, I had no choice today but to set out on the hunt alone.
Hunting monsters solo is dangerous, but there's no helping it.
I didn't even have money for food — if I didn't earn something today, I was in danger of starving to death.
An adventurer living hand to mouth, day to day, is always strapped for cash anyway.
*
Near the city I used as my base, there were several hunting grounds where goblins dwelled.
Morris Forest.
A hunting ground not so far away you couldn't reach it on foot.
A while later, I arrived at Morris Forest, crossbow in hand, and concealed myself in the undergrowth.
A weapon with just enough power to take down weakling monsters like goblins.
After staying alert for a stretch, a tiny green monster eventually crept into my vision.
Kshhhh.
A green monster strolling leisurely through the forest, letting out its distinctive cry.
A goblin had finally appeared before my eyes.
"Hngh."
I held my breath and drew a bead on the goblin.
As luck would have it, the goblin was wandering the forest alone, separated from its pack. By the looks of it — picking up fallen nuts and such — it was probably on food-gathering duty.
The moment my prey was isolated and alone was my chance to snipe.
Right when the goblin stopped to pick up a nut.
Calmly, I squeezed the trigger.
THWACK!
A direct hit.
The bolt, slicing through the wind, punched through the goblin's belly. The goblin crumpled to the ground, dying instantly before it could even scream.
That was one.
I approached the corpse, extracted the goblin's fang, and tucked it away.
The fang is the only thing on a goblin worth any money, after all.
Their fangs are supposedly used as alchemy reagents or something.
The hunt continued after that.
I'd luckily managed to snuff out the first goblin, but monster hunting is inherently dangerous work. Before I could even finish off the ten goblins I'd targeted, a crisis was upon me.
Kshhhhhhh!!
KSHHHHHHHHH!!
The cries of goblins echoed through the forest.
The goblins, realizing one of their kin had been killed, had begun a search. The goblins who burst out of their nest scoured the woods for me, eyes ablaze.
I tried to move while staying as hidden as possible, but there was no way I could handle that many goblins alone.
I was discovered.
The culprit, as luck would have it, was a fallen branch snapping underfoot.
"I'm fucked."
With a bitter smile, I ran without looking back.
Kshiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!
Over twenty goblins had locked onto my location and begun their pursuit.
If I got caught, I'd be dragged back to their nest and turned into tonight's meal. I had no desire to meet such an end, getting eaten by mere goblins.
Thankfully, I had some confidence in my fleeing skills.
Before the sun went down, I barely managed to shake off the goblins and slip out of the forest's edge.
"One-on-one, you bastards aren't even a handful—."
As I slumped down by the roadside to recover my stamina, I realized anew just how miserable my situation was.
If I'd joined a party and gone hunting, I wouldn't have had to flee at all.
With party members watching my back, no matter how many goblins swarmed me, I had the confidence to stomp them dead.
But an adventurer who works alone can't afford to take goblins lightly, no matter the circumstance. You could catch a rock to the back of the skull thrown by a goblin and lose your life.
"Why the hell was I born an incubus?"
I lamented in a subdued voice.
"It would've been nice to just be born human. Then I wouldn't get shunned by parties because of my race, and I could date women normally..."
I resented the horns perched on my head.
Horns so thick they were hard to even cover up and travel with.
Such distinct physical traits made it impossible to cosplay as a human, so living as an incubus only piled on the sighs.
After some time had passed and my stamina had recovered to a passable degree.
I was walking aimlessly along the highway leading back to the city.
"Hm?"
I spotted a peddler approaching from the opposite direction.
An old man with a bundle strapped to his back.
I figured we'd just be passersby, crossing paths as we went our separate ways, but for some reason, the old man stopped in his tracks the moment he saw me.
The light was dim, so visibility was poor.
But even in the darkness, I realized the old man was staring intently at my face.
"Wouldn't you be needing a certain item?"
The old man spoke to me out of nowhere.
"An item that could turn your whole unlucky life on its head."