Today sure was a hectic day. After I logged out, I rushed out of the personal gaming capsule and immediately walked towards the elevator. On my way I unfortunately noticed the natural disaster coming out the elevator. This wasn’t the first time I was in this situation so I instantly used one of my special abilities, which I had trained for months in this company, and skillfully hide behind a plant!

 

I’m so grateful that the Disaster Defence Force came up with the idea of adding large plants everywhere inside the company building to enable us to hide fast in case the natural disasters suddenly appear. Right now I really didn’t have any time to deal with them. Still there is always the fear that they would suddenly approach you while you are hiding and notice you. It had already happened twice to me but every time it had happened I pretended to take care of the plant, I’m quite sure that they still aren’t suspicious of me hiding from them.

 

Today it seems as if my plans are successful. They walked in the opposite direction towards one of the many ‘resting areas’ which included a small gym, a room for table tennis and other sports. This one was one of the plainer resting areas… NDC also has some own swimming pools, a huge indoor garden. Hell we even have our own massage area which also includes a sauna. In regards to a luxurious employee life there are no shortcomings, provided we don’t have to work over hours… Which happens way too often.

 

I was silently waiting for them to turn around the corner so that I could rush to the elevator when my back was suddenly poked. Startled, I turned around and saw a grinning Maeda.

“Hiding from your bosses? You sure are cunning~”

I only gave him a cold stare. After all without me noticing, he joined up with me at using the same hiding spot.

“You are one to talk… Are you also joining today’s DDF meeting?”

“Yeah, right now the workload is crazy and I prefer being up to date with the current state of things before we literally get buried under more work.”

“I wonder what the guys in charge of collecting information found out this time. Maeda, do you know if Kyle is participating today?”

 

Out of all of our employees, Kyle is the one who was the number one employee at knowing what the disasters are up to. As Fienjas’ personal secretary, who often got abused as a partner in crime by her, and assistant he was the root of all intel. Once he joins the meeting we can be sure to come up with good countermeasures.

 

“Hmm… I don’t think so. As far as I know he’s taking a day off today. But he might send some intel to someone in advance.”

“Meaning we probably are in a bad situation for this event…”

 

Maeda nodded sadly and while we were talking, we entered the elevator and reached our goal, the canteen, after a few minutes. We instantly rushed over to the sushi packages and looked for the ones with our orders. We found them rather quickly within the huge amount of orders and noticed that some of them had some notes attached to them. Both of us had them attached to our package as well.

Wondering what was written on them I started to read the message addressed to me and shivered while doing so.

 

Keruna, we’ll send a mid-boss for the upcoming event to you and Maeda. Please give us your feedback about this boss within the next two days. Enjoy your food!

Kaje~

 

 

“Urgh… Keruna, will they seriously send us a mid-boss?”

“I already had a chicken boss monster the last time… What will it be this time?!”

“Maybe the chicken overlord?”

“Don’t jinx it! I don’t want to get trampled all over again. I still have a grudge against that monster…”

“But are two people enough for a mid-boss? Even more so for an event mid-boss? If the disasters are the final bosses of that event… how strong are the mid-bosses?”

 

I really don’t want to imagine this so I just kept silent and we headed off to the DDF meeting without delay. Hopefully we can find something out about the mid-bosses there.

At this time I had completely forgotten to ask about Maeda’s note and what was written on it. But I found out only a few hours later…

 

 

 

When we arrived at the crowded meeting room, we sat down immediately. Nearly everyone who was present in todays meeting brought either a lunch box or the ordered sushi packages with them. This alone was a bad sign in itself. As it looks, even now before the event started everyone barely had any time to gulp down some food!

It didn’t even take three minutes for the meeting to finally start.

Both the president and vice-president of our DDF group went to a book rest and instantly started the powerpoint presentation. Because of the rare spare time everyone had, the presentation was completely lacking in design and only had plain black text on white background.

 

“First off, welcome to our DDF meeting. As usual our small strategy meeting is held by our vice-president and me. First off, we have some bad news… The disasters didn’t leave the company as we had previously heard.”

Now everyone’s facial expression turned into something between having a headache and a fear of being discovered. As for me… I already saw them myself and finished my work for today, so I was calm and fully focused on eating.

 

“Instead, they decided on short notice to do a small table tennis showdown between themselves and stay at the resting area two floors above us. To avoid being detected in case they finish their tournament too fast, we have already positioned some employees who’ll keep them busy.”

With this everyone calmed down again with an expression of ‘disaster prevented’ and ‘good that they plan ahead so much’.

 

As usual they went in chronological order of our prevention plan, so I only half-listened to the first part. The first part was the same every time anyway and had only small adjustments. To prevent the disasters from working seriously on the event and thus causing more trouble for us, we always cut down their coffee and cocoa milk supply. It first started with simply getting rid of the canteen’s supply while the event was prepared, and within the event duration with help of the canteen employees.

They just plainly announce that the demand was suddenly so high that they ran out of it. For whatever reason this always worked and the disasters weren’t suspicious. Probably because the demand really does increase like crazy…

 

After the disasters bought some ‘emergency supplies’ in form of a coffee and cocoa machine we had to adjust this plan for the first time. To prevent them from using the machine, we plainly attach an out of order sign in front of it. This also works quite well but made the disasters think that the company behind the machines is building them on purpose to break easily…

 

Of course our superiors didn’t give up that easily either. They knew that we also had small kitchens for cooking and instant coffee brewing. So after they successfully raided the kitchen once, we decided to get rid of all milk and hide our personal instant coffee supplies in our desks drawers.

With the kitchen being unusable, they were unable to get their little drugs to keep themselves in a good working mood. They finally came up with the idea of going to the bakery near the company but…

 

…there is no coffee and cocoa milk there either – from now on.

 

Of course all employees begged the bakery staff not to sell coffee and cocoa milk in these times. We are regular customers and with our plea combined with threats that we won’t come anymore and buy at their place, furthermore bribing them a bit with some extra money…

 

…they complied to our selfish demands quite easily.

 

Of course we, the employees, use the coffee hidden in our drawers for our own supplies and only drink it when the disasters are far away. We have at least one employee observing the disasters movement non-stop on a turn based system during events.

And this sums up one of the first tasks we always discuss as a prevention measure. Another method to prevent them from working is to constantly bombard them with questions and try to involve them with small talk, here, we also take turns. It would be bad if they think that one of us isn’t working and only chit-chatting the whole day.

 

 

While the president reminded us of these tasks with some adjustments to it, as well as the vice-president handing out a time chart of who observes them and who talks to them to everyone, which they also sent via e-mail to make sure that everyone in the DDF gets them, I finally finished eating my sushi and felt a lot better.

 

“This concludes the preparations before the event. Now to the information we collected regarding the event. I have managed to get in contact with Kyle and we set up a video conference with him because he has a day off today.”

 

Now everyone woke up from the boring first part and gave the president full attention. Not long after these words they closed the powerpoint presentation and  switched over to the video conference window where we saw Kyle’s permanent serious and strict face. I swear this was his standard expression and combined with his black hair and sharp gaze, he was a perfect match for one of the top positions in our company. He even gave off an air befitting a true superior. Back when I had applied at the company, it was Kyle who greeted me first and I thought he was my boss… until I met the disasters who are… how they are.

There is no single word that can describe them after all.

 

Kyle pushed up his glasses and as usual didn’t waste any time with unnecessary formalities or informations. He skipped right away to the topic at hand without greeting us.

“As everyone knows the current event will be featuring the lich twins, who will be played by Fienja and Kaje. Furthermore there is a whole army of undead coming.”

Everyone gave a grim nod after hearing this and we nervously waited for the words which would seal our fates.

 

“While working I was able to overhear that the army will be led by five mid-bosses. They will be sent to some of the Hidden GMs for a first testing and depending on their reports the mid-bosses strength and abilities will be adjusted. Unlike the lich twins they seem to be boss monster at an upper level of 65. Despite this they are still boss monster with much higher stats and unknown skills, I advise you to be cautious while testing. Furthermore the knowledge of the bosses level is based on some conversations I overheard by chance so the credibility can be questioned.”

 

Honestly, I doubt that Kyle’s thoughts about their levels is wrong. He usually has a great talent for calculating and planning ahead, not to mention that out of all the employees he knows the disasters the best. I do remember Maeda mentioning once that he was actually an old friend of Fienja and she had a hard time snatching him from another company over to NDC because of his skills. But as persistent as my boss is, in getting good employees with special skills outside of their usual field of duties, she was successful in the end…

One could say that Maeda also belongs to that group in a way but he was easy to pull over to our company. He instantly agreed when he heard the job offer as far as I know…

 

“I could confirm that the mid-bosses seem to have some special skills which are unique to each boss while I was serving some tea last afternoon. One of these bosses’ design was created by the female employees of our company in a specially held meeting with our superiors personally being a part of it. I suggest asking around our female employees for more information on this mid-boss because I can imagine him being the strongest out of them. If I’m not mistaken that mid-boss name is Toriel.”

Only then I noticed that our female employees are all absent from our DDF meeting…

They wouldn’t try to protect said mid-boss or joined the side of evil?

 

The president of the DDF instantly wrote down some notes and the vice-president hurriedly started to type something on his laptop. I bet that he started to write e-mails to our female staff members this very moment.

 

“Around this time there seems to be another meeting for said mid-boss. Fienja and Kaje should join it right after they finished their table tennis tournament.”

As expected of our number one secretary in our company, he even knew about the table tennis tournament despite him having a day off and it suddenly starting….

 

Then we all heard a phone vibrating and Kyle suddenly gave a glance to the side.

“Please excuse me for a bit. I just received another message from Fienja.”

Do you even have any free time?!! Why do you receive messages even when you have a day off?! God he’s probably the worst off from our whole company!

He looked at his phone and after reading a bit his always cold expression suddenly changed to a faint devilish smile. I really wonder what kind of message he received…

 

 

Afterwards, wearing this faint smile which made me shiver, he turned his gaze back to his audience on the other side of the camera.

“They just finished their tournament and are on their way downstairs. I would recommend you to dissolve the meeting as fast as possible because they are looking for you two presidents~”

 

I knew it… I always had that feeling but Kyle indeed seems to be some sort of a sadist. Why does he have to tell us this with such a devilish smile?! And hell…what kind of their tournaments end THAT fast?! Usually they play for at least an hour. Why do they decide on such a crucial time to cut it short and turn it into a twenty minute break from work?!

 

The moment these words of doom where spoken by Kyle, everyone present in the large room froze and paled. While our secretary just pushed up his glasses again and as the only person kept his cool and stayed as calm as a river.

 

“I make it as short as possible, then. The lich twins seem to be very strong and the warning they gave out for lower level players getting wiped out in an instant isn’t just for show. Worse, Fienja and Kaje were discussing about their teamwork for the liches a lot. In my opinion, you can ignore the mid-bosses and the army and better keep out an eye on the lich twins instead. With that being said and knowing that you don’t have any more time, let us conclude todays meeting.”

And with that bomb dropping on us without giving us any information on what exactly the two spoke about he ended the video conference and the screen turned black.

 

That sadist… I bet he did this on purpose to see us panic and suffer even more. Seriously, I shouldn’t forget that he’s actually on the disasters side from now on, despite him having such a serious and reliable work attitude.

 

Knowing that he wouldn’t lie to us, all the employees started rushing out the room as if there would be no tomorrow. We either hurried out of the building to go home or returned to our work. Thanks to this I would probably arrive at home earlier than I had anticipated. I walked half of the way home together with Maeda discussing over the not very helpful additional information and joking that we would probably get the worst out of the mid-bosses, before parting ways and I finally arrived home.

 

 

Finally!!! I’m safe. My safe zone, my haven of no work, no superiors and being able to enjoy the rest of the day~

Sadly… I had to notice that my girlfriend wasn’t home and she only left me a cup of instant noodles for today’s dinner with a note saying that she would visit her parents over the weekend because her mother had an accident. She assured me that her mother is fine and isn’t in a critical condition. Now I was glad that I had ordered some sushi, but why is today’s meal so extremely Japan influenced?

 

I feel a bit lonely but…

…if you see the situation from the bright side. I can fully immerse myself into playing Mirage of Eternity without any disturbance~

With that I left the cup noodles for later and happily entered the capsule ahead of time.

 

 

Not too long ago, at a certain resting area, two people were involved in a hard battle of deciding some crucial parts of life. One intended to drop a certain something right from the start and making it a theme for discussion among NPC’s slowly leading to a certain testing project. While the other one intended to drop a certain something with a transfer magic right onto a certain NPC to go for a grand entrance. Both of them couldn’t agree on which method would be the best. They finally made up their mind to use the good old way of deciding matters with mere power, ending it with a decisive battle and duel each other. Thus another table tennis tournament was born!

 

“Kekeke, Kaje, this will decide everything~ Let it be a fair and epic fight to the end!”

“Yeah, we have to decide it fast too, lest our victim arrives home too fast and prevents us from deciding on this matter beforehand.”

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to go for the grand entrance method?”

“I think we should  do it with stealth this time. Prepare their minds for this and make them think it belongs to the quest instead. Not that I don’t like your method but it’s really hard to decide, Fienja.”

 

Fienja nodded and gave Kaje one of the paddles with the NDC corporation’s logo on it. Afterwards both went to their positions but…

 

“Ah! Fienja! Wait! We have to note down our results for the company’s best table tennis player of the month…”

Fienja instantly halted…and thought about it for a while. Then shrugged and came up with a simple solution.

 

“We’ll just grab the next employee who crosses us as a witness and I will pass our results over to Kyle so he can add it to this months result chart tomorrow when he comes back.”

“Sounds great! I’ll grab our witness and you’ll be the one contacting Kyle in advance that we will do a tournament.”

 

Not long after, the great battle started with one of the cleaning personnel held captive as a witness. It was an intense and heated fight with both parties showing… …amazingly bad skills in table tennis but that was something the prisoner of war didn’t want to tell his superiors.

 

“I have an idea, Kaje!”

While fighting each other the brave warriors also used the time spent on battling on a way for coming up with new ideas aside from random chit-chat.

 

“Why don’t we make a fighting tournament between the best guilds and our company? We could also show off the hidden classes to show all users some of the existing hidden classes?”

“This…!! This is a brilliant idea…ah!”

 

While Kajes attention strayed away from the battle because of the good suggestion of Fienja, she made a tiny mistake, making Fienja grab the last point needed to win and thereby lost the match.

 

“Muhahaha!”

“D-Diversion technique! I can’t believe I fell for this trap…”

“Actually it wasn’t~ But the timing was still good. Nonetheless we should hold such a  tournament in the near future.”

 

“Indeed. I guess we’ll go with the grand entrance version. Let us hurry back to our office room and get the preparations done. Afterwards we have to attend the second meeting regarding the mid-boss Toriels future following the lich event.”

“Yeah, just let me send Kyle a second message before we head over.”

 

 

Kyle~ We concluded our tournament, it was a close call, but I won against Kaje. Hehe. Please note it down tomorrow.

And tell the PR guys that we are planning a tournament between the best guilds and our employees in the future. It’s not too urgent but we need to advertise it well. The more time they have the better. We also have to contact the guilds at some point so as to let the support guys, or whoever you think is the best for this task, find out which guilds to invite for this event and get in contact with their guild masters in the future.

 

We’ll go to the meeting for mid-boss Toriel now~

See you tomorrow in the office!

 

Thus another very important decision for the superiors came to a conclusion and the cleaning personnel was finally freed from his newly acquired part-time job as a witness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I finally returned to the world of Mirage of Eternity, I was way too early. I still had twenty minutes left until the previously appointed time. But before I could waste even one thought about how to spend my time waiting for Emeralda and Sion, I was instantly tackled by something and fell to the ground due to the sudden impact.

“Lord Keruna!! You finally came back! I was so worried that something happened and your highness wouldn’t return.”

 

Urgh, I completely forgot about him.

 

I had a hard time pushing that whiny demon – who clung to me like some leech – away from me. This guy is so annoying! Moreover why is it so hard to shove him away in the first place? It couldn’t be that his stats are better than my character’s?!

After I struggled for a few minutes I finally was able to free myself from that whiny, dog like creature and was able to stand back up. Scowling I looked at him and made up my mind to scold him a bit.

 

“Tian, I was not even away for one hour. Moreover didn’t you listen to the group conversation? We clearly spoke about us returning within an hour. Moreover don’t cling to me like a leech or some kind of glue. Also don’t dare tackle me again like this!”

 

Gosh, I even lost some HP because of this!! This would be bad if I get hit by that tackle when we fight against this quest demons.

 

Tian also finally stood and then suddenly saluted for whatever reason.

“Understood, Sir! I won’t do this in the future. But I really was worried. I did hear your highness talking with his companions but it was hard to understand because you used some words I didn’t know the meaning of. Then you used some magic and disappeared without a trace.”

 

Ups, I forgot that he is an NPC and I have to tell him when I log out.

 

Of course for the NPCs it looks as if we players use some kind of transfer magic to change location when we log out. And in case we die they explain our revival at the church with being blessed by one of the gods and thus being able to revive again to fulfill our destinies given by the gods of Mirage of Eternity. Every race is devoted to a specific god, aside from the gods of creation, Fienja and Kaje. For my race it’s the God of Chaos, Kemuel, who blesses all demon players. From the guys writing the lore and stories of this world I heard that the gods even appear later on in the game. It’s possible to meet them and receive special quests. I have yet to spot Kemuel though.

 

That being said, poor Tian probably got a heartattack when we suddenly all disappeared without a trace and it’s actually my fault for not telling him. No wonder  he clung to me as if his life depends on it. Actually, his life does depends on us reappearing because he probably gets spotted by the demons who betrayed the previous demon lord and killed if he stays alone here for days. Despite this, after getting tackled and crushed by that iron hug and struggling for minutes to get rid of Tian, there’s no way I’ll apologize!

 

“I’ll inform you the next time I log out.”

“Log out?”

He instantly tilted his head in question, not understanding what I was saying.

“Ehm… I mean I use teleportation magic. We refer to that magic as ‘log out’, so memorise that word at least, okay?”

 

Tian nodded eagerly and his behaviour reminded me of a happy dog, wagging his tail after getting taught an amazing trick and being able to receive treats if he performs it from now on.

No, wait, he does have a tail as a demon…and he already swings it from one side to the other right now. Seriously? Are you actually a dog?!

 

I’d better decide to change the topic before the dog image gets stuck to my mind and  overlaps with Tian’s appearance every time I spot him somewhere…

 

“Tian? Are you a tank, a damage dealer, a healer or a supporter?”

“Is your highness referring to my occupation?”

 

Instead of an immediate answer I received a question instead. This was a bit annoying but I instantly nodded my head to find out what he will be capable off in the upcoming battles.

“I’m a Dark Knight.”

 

Tch… Even a regular NPCs like Tian has a specialized class? While players have to work hard to receive them? Isn’t that kinda unfair? Actually, if I remember correctly didn’t Tian  even have a very low status back when the previous demon lord was ruling over these lands?

 

Nonetheless this makes Tian a tank! I really love tanks, they are very convenient for me. While they play the meatshield for me I can fully concentrate on dealing damage. Who would have thought that Tian would be useful? Without delay I had to find out more.

 

“That’d great! Tian, do you also have some skills for supporting me? And what level do you have?”

“Of course I have some! As a loyal servant I have to support my lord to the best of my abilities, I learned a few skills to increase the damage my lord can cause and I can also increase your speed and defence by a bit. If my lord needs an emergency heal I can cast a strong one once every day. I’m naturally not as strong as your highness, but I should still be able to support you. My current level is 65.”

 

Ohhh!!! Tian you’re actually this amazing?! I can fully count on you as a meat shield then! As long as I don’t let you die it should be fine. With Emeralda around to heal you back up we can add you as a second tank on this quest.

 

I suddenly saw Tian in a new light and wondered if I could level him up some more to take him along to quest when none of my friends or guild members are online and I have to play solo. From what I read about the demon lord status, as a future subordinate it’s possible to order him around freely, so forcing him to accompany me on quests shouldn’t be a problem.

 

“Tian…”

“Yes?”

“…once we retrieve the castle and when I travel around the world in the future, do you want to accompany me?”

First Tian was shocked over the sudden question but then he once more began to happily wag his tail and instantly nodded vigorously.

“It would be my honour to accompany you everywhere!”

 

And thus I got my free meat shield aside from Sion to accompany me everywhere! Due to boredom I chatted some more with Tian, mainly about the demon race’s territory and about the other demon lords near my future territory. While doing so, I checked my own stats which I hadn’t looked at for a while. Despite being at level 75, compared to other games they look quite low but this was purposefully planned. After all where shall we end if players reach levels over 200? The numbers would end up being way too high at some point. I also didn’t display my rare title, I just recently received because that would be too embarrassing…

 

 

 

Name: Keruna

Race: Demon

Class: Twilight Assassin

Guild: Emissaries of the Abyss

Title: –

Level: 75

 

Fame: 1500

NDC Status: Hidden GM

 

 

Attribute¹

Str    71        Agi    60

Phy    40        Dex    51

Wiz    17        Dura    28

 

Attribute Points left for free distribution: 0

Additional Attribute Points granted by the hidden class “Twilight Assassin”: 15

Note: The distribution of the attribute points will affect your stats. Please take great care while distributing. At level 1 you receive 5 points for every attribute as your base regardless of class. You’ll receive 3 attribute points every level for free distribution. 

// Additional attribute points granted by special and hidden classes will get automatically and randomly distributed by the system. Every 5 levels hidden classes get granted 2 additional points while special classes will receive 1 additional point all 8 levels. //

 

 

Stats

Max HP: 3520

Max MP: 692

 

Attack            455        Magic Attack            35

Defence        52        Magic Defence        24

Evasion        109        Magic Evasion        87

Accuracy        97        Magic Accuracy        17

Critical Attack    11

 

 

Elemental Resistances

Water        8

Fire        15

Earth        8

Air        10

Light        3 (-100)*

Darkness    30 (+100)*

 

*Note: Due to the effect of the Sunken Moons Minstrel’s song your light and darkness resistances will be majorly affected until the event ends!

 

 

Other Stats

Evilness        350

Charm        80

Fashion Sense    25

Shamelessness    220

Luck            30 (-10)*

 

*Note: Due to the effect of the Sunken Moons Minstrel’s song, your luck will be decreased until the event ends!

 

 

Available titles to display

Killed By A Chicken (rare)

Game Master (NDC title)*

 

*Note from the NDC CEOs:

To all Hidden GMs, only show it for events or other official business after using a racial transform scroll!

---

 

¹ Str=Strength; Phy=Physique; Wis=Wisdom; Agi=Agility; Dex=Dexterity; Dura=Durability

---

 

Translator: Estoriel

Proofreader: ATK-49

Special Thanks to B.W. and G.S. for supporting us!

---

 

Previous Chapter  – Table of Contents –   Next Chapter