Golden Experience

“Hold on a minute, too much just happened…!”

<<The current action will now be deferred.>>

Rare needed to analyze everything in order. First, the item name. Apparently, its official name was “Greater Philosopher’s Stone.” Nice. Wait, no, that wasn’t important at all. Okay, so “Living Spirit” must be in the same family as high elf, probably one rank above. That would mean “Spirit Lord” was one rank above that, and it needed 3,000 XP in order to get there. That put it in the same ballpark as how much she paid for World Tree, though still cheaper.

Next was “Dark Elf.” Since the rest of the notifications were prefaced with “A special condition has been met,” Rare believed this must be some kind of special reincarnation path or something. She wasn’t sure whether this was triggered from a skill she had learned or due to some other factor, though. As for how the proceeding “Demonic Spirit” and “Demon Lord” were related, she inferred that dark elf corresponded to high elf, demonic spirit with living spirit, and finally demon lord with spirit lord. She could probably assume that one set of races was based around light and the other around dark.

“What should I do…?”

Boiling everything down, there were ultimately only two options: become a spirit lord, or become a demon lord. Whichever she chose to pursue, there was another huge problem to tackle first.

“…Damn, I don’t have enough XP.”

If she had known it would come to this, she would have put off learning all those skills for later. Well, no, even if she didn’t need any of those skills to meet the conditions for unlocking all these options, she still needed to have learned them. For example, it was hard to believe that she would still be allowed to learn [Holy Magic] after reincarnating into a demon lord.

Rare wondered how long she could keep this deferred action on hold. Although, even if she had to abandon the action, all she would lose was a sparkly Philosopher’s Stone—er, a Greater Philosopher’s Stone. It would probably count as her one use for the day, but she should be able to use another one tomorrow. In any case, she would just calmly make the system wait for now, and if that didn’t work then she would figure it out then.

<Yes, Boss.>

“I need everything currently in this forest that’s not one of ours turned into XP. I need as much XP as I can get. Do it as quickly as possible while being as efficient as you can.”

<As you command.>

“Ah, but leave the livestock set aside for breeding alone.”

<Understood.>

This should generate a lot of XP. It would take quite some time to get the farms back up and running again, but it was a necessary sacrifice. Rare sent the same orders over to World Tree. They didn’t have any invaders over there, but there were still a lot of treants that weren’t under their control, so cleaning them up would help speed things along.

She impatiently watched her XP go up while wondering when a system message was going to pop up reminding her of her deferral. The number on the screen increased ever so slowly until finally, after about two hours, it breached 3,000.

“Yes! Reincarnate into ‘Demon Lord’!”

Rare didn’t have any particularly compelling reasons for choosing demon lord. First: because it required a special condition. In other words, it wasn’t a standard reincarnation route. That in itself meant that any players trying to follow in her footsteps should have a harder time since there were additional conditions to fulfill. While there could still be other players with the same race, she predicted that the overall number would be small. People wanted to be “unique,” to some extent, and Rare was no exception. Then there was what she had said to Deas and Sieg, about “establishing a kingdom to unify all the oppressed monsters.” If she were truly going to rule over all the monsters, then there was no role more suitable for her to take than that of a demon lord.

Just like when she became a high elf, Rare’s body was enveloped in light. Last time she hadn’t felt any other changes aside from the light, but this time, her head began to feel itchy. She also felt something squirming around her lower back area. But all that discomfort soon faded as the light surrounding her dispersed.

<Oooh…!>

<Goodness…>

“How sublime…!”

Rare’s followers all cried out in admiration at seeing her new form.

“We don’t have a mirror, do we…? Yeah, that’s a no. How do I look? From your reactions, I seem to have changed quite a bit.”

“Umm, first, your ears are shorter. I think they’re still a little pointier than normal human ears.”

“And you have gold horns now. There are two of them, side by side, on the top of your head, and they point behind you. Like, goat horns. They look kind of metallic.”

<You have wings growing from your back above your waist. Beautiful, pure-white wings. They give you the appearance of a goddess, Boss.>

When she reached for her head where described to check what they told her, she did indeed feel hard, smooth horns. Her wings were soft and flexible enough for her to move in front of her hips, letting her see them for herself. They were extremely white, no blemishes whatsoever. That piqued her curiosity; she was supposed to be a demon lord, after all.

When she checked her status, it did in fact say “Demon Lord.” She also gained a number of additional characteristics.

Racial Characteristic: Wings

You have wings. If you wish it, you will be unaffected by gravity.

Gain skill [Flight].

Racial Characteristic: Horns

You have horns. It is impossible for you to bow to inferior races without horns.

Increased resistance against races without horns when afflicted by [Mental Magic], [Ruler], [Subordinate], and [Contract] (Large).

Success rate increased against races without horns when using [Mental Magic], [Ruler], [Subordinate], and [Contract] (Large).

Racial Characteristic: Demonic Eyes

Your eyes hold power. None can escape from your sight.

Unlock skill [Demonic Eyes].

However, she still had all of her other characteristics as well. Extreme Beauty was there, as well as Poor Eyesight and Albinism—

“Ahh, maybe that’s why my wings are white.”

They should probably have been more like crow wings originally, black and ominous-looking, but Albinism had turned them white. Her hair and skin color were the same white as always, but perhaps reincarnating down the dark elf path was supposed to darken those as well. Because of her innate characteristics, Rare had been reborn as a pure white, angelic demon lord. How amusing.

“I picked up Albinism on a whim because I thought it wouldn’t be that conspicuous as an elf, but as a result I now stick out like a sore thumb… Ehh, I don’t plan to show myself in front of people anyway, so whatever, it’s fine.”

More like she couldn’t carelessly show herself in front of anyone anymore. If a demon lord appeared in town, there would obviously be a huge panic. She wondered what she would do about server-wide events. If she had to go out then she could always wear Yoroizaka, but what would she do about her horns and wings? They would have to add holes into Yoroizaka for them.

Also, she realized this when reconfirming her characteristics, but the innate characteristic Beauty was still there. She thought it would have been automatically combined into Extreme Beauty, but apparently innate characteristics were retained after reincarnation. Did the increase in [Charm]’s success rate against NPCs stack? She hadn’t had an opportunity to use [Charm] on one since way back when, so she had no idea.

“Anyway, looks like my reincarnation went off without a hitch.”

Checking her XP, she had gained a little bit more since getting what she needed before.

“Sugaru, if you haven’t stopped the farming already, then it’s fine to return to the usual routine. Give me a report on the farms later as well.”

<As you command.>

She would let World Tree keep hunting. Since they hadn’t set up any farms over there yet, there was no problem with killing off all the opposing treants. If possible, she wanted to bring in monsters from somewhere for the treants to raise in farms, but that was a plan for later.

<<A special being of calamity, a [Demon Lord], has been born. Due to this exceptional event, this message is being transmitted to all player characters and non-player characters who possess a specific skill.>>

“What was that?” She had just received a system message that felt different from the usual ones.

Only players were supposed to receive system messages. Aside from that, outside of events, only the recipient should be able to hear it. Rare must have gotten this message because the stuff about the demon lord was referring to her. The other stuff, though, meant that every character with some specific skill also received it. These emergency measures were probably taken because of the relatively short amount of time it had taken for Rare to become a demon lord. What skill exactly qualified allowed characters to hear that message? And what the heck was a “being of calamity”? Like Godzilla?

Rare wouldn’t be able to figure anything out no matter how much she ruminated over it. That said, she couldn’t exactly send a support email either. Even if this situation was possibly considered “normal” and she could actually get answers, if she went through the official site then she would publicly reveal that “a player somehow became a special being of calamity, an event worthy of triggering a special admin announcement,” which would only make things harder for her. For now, until she got her hands on more information, she would have to let it go.

“…There are still many things I need to verify, and I’d like to learn the new skills I’ve unlocked. Plus all of you need to reincarnate as well, so we need to focus on earning as much XP as we can. Finding new areas to invade would be the easiest solution, but…”

According to the map, there was a volcanic belt to the south which was monster territory.

“Since it’ll be a hot zone, I don’t think the ice wolves can go there. Should I send someone else instead…?”

<If we are able to evolve as well, it is possible we will be able to handle environments with high temperatures.>

“Oh, Hakuma. You may be right, which means we should hold off on any more expeditions until everyone has reincarnated.”

For the time being, it seemed that the best course of action was to safely earn XP in the Great Liebe Forest and the other, haunted forest. Rare’s job was to devise a way to earn fixed XP from the haunted forest while also using [Alchemy] to craft as many high-rank items as she could to earn XP.

“Let’s steadily build ourselves up. Since I have now become a demon lord, then my forces also need to be worthy of going up against the human kingdoms.”

Links to fan art for the series! An old picture from 1.5 years ago, one from earlier this year, and the author’s Twitter with a neat avatar of Rare!