[Archived Short Story] Not So HappyAfter

Kacel’s finger claws drummed against the armrest of his lesser throne that he kept in the smaller of his audience chambers. For the first few days he had waited in his main one, a proper throne room filled with luxuries few could have afforded even within a HappyAfter VR Digizen realm. The only reason he had it was because it would be temporary as he fulfilled the role of Demon King.

See, there was supposed to be a Hero visiting to overthrow him. Real standard stuff. The only reason Kacel was even in this particular realm was because it needed a villain with a little more ability than LAI. After all, a Locked AI will be super limited in creativity so they don’t accidentally develop into a Sapient AI.

Should have been an easy gig. Appear out of a giant portal with an army of demons, conquer most of the continent, and then have other Digizens throw themselves at him one at a time until one of them wins. As his main audience chamber more than showed, he had been doing quite well for himself.

While the mental strain of having to play the role of Evil despite his own leanings being towards Neutral at worst was getting to him, the rewards after his term would be spectacular. Plus, all those being mistreated were just LAIs. All fine and dandy, if the most recent Hero had followed the damn script!

Kacel had been waiting for an entire month! The damn Hero went and bashed in his front gate, only to skedaddle. Not just that, but the idiot was now out doing noob quests. Maybe if they had gone to hunt a dragon or some such, Kacel could have interpreted it as realizing how weak they were.

But no, the Hero was out picking flowers for young peasant LAIs or gathering apples from a “dangerous” orchard where the danger was a cat sized mole that tried to trip you. You know, classic tutorial quests to get you familiar with the local realm. Not quests you do when capable of destroying gates made from a metal that really should have been indestructible.

Kacel leans his head back into the headrest of the throne. This particular throne was much comfier than the big official one, which didn’t even have cushions. The big one was purely for aesthetics, which as a Demon Lord meant more spikes than sane and mostly made of metal and bones.

A soft chime announced another message, which Kacel rushed to check. He had been chatting with an Admin over the issue and was hoping for an answer. Instead, he felt the desire to bash something. It seems the Hero had now started one of those god damned trading quest chains.

You know, the type where person A wants something and to get it you need to complete a chain of trades. Stuff like needing a fish the fisherman has, but the fisherman wants a hat for it and the lady with the hat wants some other innate object and so on. What was the Hero even doing?!

Worse, Kacel wasn’t even allowed to fix his gate! The Hero did the equivalent of kicking in the door of his house and Kacel just had to leave the door hanging off the hinges. It has forced his dignitaries to climb over the rubble ever since.

Another chime sounds and much to Kacel’s relief, this message was from the Admin.

[Admin K: So bad news. He isn’t technically doing anything wrong, per se. The realm is meant for someone to fulfill a power fantasy and allow them to grind as much as needed. Those quests? They are official system provided quests and are technically giving him experience. In theory, we might have something on him, but I wouldn’t keep my hopes up.]

Kacel sighs and decides to try and chat some with the admin to figure out more.

[: There has to be something! I know I signed up for this, but this has been going on for over a month now.

Admin K: That is the problem. You’ve waited years for previous punks and not a peep. Then again, if you had complained, they likely would have sent a ringer your way to find a better fit.

Admin K: Though I will admit, this guy is quite unorthodox, it seems. I’m digging, but the situation is quite unique.

: Don’t give me that! He will hardly have been the first Hero to grief a Demon Lord. Should I be thankful he didn’t entirely destroy my home, leaving me to sleep in the rubble?

Admin K: Of course he isn’t the first to do something like this. Just, most of them have proper reasons. I’ve even seen one that last second remembered a quest to pick flowers for one of those cliche Romeo and Juliet plots. The girl rushed off to finish it because they felt bad about leaving the couple hanging.

: So what are my options?

Admin K: Have you considered getting a bit nastier?

: Don’t play me for a fool! While I am here to have a little fun while earning some resources, this realm isn’t my happily ever after. I’ve conquered everything I’m allowed to and if I crushed the LAIs beneath my heel any harder, I won’t have anyone to rule over.

Admin K: Look, I get it, this is annoying. However, as you pointed out, this is the punk’s story. If he wants it to include an indeterminate amount of noob questing right before the climactic battle, that’s on him.

: Just keep looking and get back to me when you find something

Admin K: Will do]

Kacel carefully massages his temples, making sure not to scratch himself. That was honestly about what he had expected. Yes, he did have protections as well. No torture or similar nonsense. However, they really need to add some kind of scenario pause for situations like this.

He was stuck in his castle, not able to leave by even an inch, because the “final battle” scenario had triggered. So, for the same reason, he can’t repair his gate, so much of what he would usually do to pass the time was stripped away. He couldn’t even browse the net because that gets cut off as well. Can’t have the villain doing an internet search for how to beat certain things mid-fight.

Kacel could only settle in and wait, hoping for a quick resolution. Then another month passed. The admin hadn’t gotten back to him by then so he fired off another message to see if they could at least send him the new chapters to a few stories he was following. All he got in return was silence. Silence that continued until the six-month anniversary of his gate being wrecked.

*Chime*

[Admin K: Hey! Kacel! My man! Sorry about taking so long to get back to you. Anyway, yeah, no, nothing from outside is allowed in right now.

Admin K: And um, yeah, wait a little more? I’ve escalated this issue to my supervisor and he has redirected it to the Villain’s Union.

VUR: Which should have happened much sooner!

Admin K: Oh, hey! Which of the Villain Union Reps are you? And uh, how did you get into this chat?

VUR: I’m supposed to be anonymous.

VUR: And as for how I got in here? Well, I’m also now Kacel’s legal representative.

: While having a lawyer sounds like a good idea at this point, I don’t remember joining the Villain’s Union.

Admin K: Yeah, I checked his file at the start of this. Guys a freelancer.

VUR: Which is part of the problem! Even if he is not a card-carrying member, he is doing the job and thus falls under our jurisdiction. Just because you’re using non-union guys to fill the role of Demon Lord, doesn’t mean they aren’t protected. It is for things exactly like this that we cover anyone taking on a villain’s role.

: Sounds good, what are my options? The Hero has been at it for half a year now.

Admin K: Wait a second, shouldn’t we get a rep from the Union for Heroics?

: Hah! I always loved that kerfuffle over their name. Surprised they settled for UH reps as it isn’t much better than HUR.

VUR: Yes, the curse of acronyms. Anyway, no, we don’t need a UHR here. This isn’t about them yet.

VUR: Anyway, Kacel, you have a few options. We could just pull you out, but you lose everything. Now, some might take it, but in the history of the Villain’s Union, no one ever has.

VUR: Now there are a ton of other options, but they all come down to waiting.

: How long?

VUR: Likely at least another month or so. This scenario was never meant for a sapient villain. They just retrofitted it to fit the new trend. The good news is that the longer you have to stick it out, the bigger a multiplier you will have on the scenario reward. Obviously there is a limit to that, but you’ll come out richly rewarded for putting up with this nonsense.

Admin K: I don’t think you can promise him that?

VUR: I don’t have to personally promise anything. This is all in the contract people have to agree to when using villains in their HappyAfter realms.]

At that point, the admin and rep really started going at it and Kacel dipped out of the conversation. His biggest takeaway was that despite the nonsense, it might end up having been worth his time.

Then another six months pass. The union rep has been chatting with Kacel on and off the entire time, keeping him up to date, though the legal problems seem almost worse than the scenario problems. At least the rep was able to get him signed up for the union fully as that finally allowed them to pass along some media from outside.

Of course it was all gone over with a fine-toothed comb, but something was better than nothing. All the while, the Hero was clearing all the quests. At this point, even the dumb as a bag of bricks LAIs were noticing.

Well, noticing as much as their locked software could. They would push for the Hero to ignore them and their quests. To go out and save the day by slaying the Demon Lord. And while they couldn’t stop giving quests, what they did give was becoming worse.

Quests to clean a city’s sewers, to find stuff in a fetid swamp, and so much more. All terrible and yet the Hero bulldozed through them as his class abilities included something to do with purity. They did not originally mean it for cleaning or deodorizing, but the Hero found a way.

In the end, the breaking point came a couple weeks after the one-year anniversary of the gate’s destruction. It wasn’t anything done by the Admin, they were still “looking into the problem”. Neither was it the union rep as legal issues can take quite a while when less than straightforward.

No, it was the Hero making a mistake that freed Kacel. The Hero had gotten too close to Kacel’s castle. Because while the scenario forced the Demon King to stay in his home, there were a few conditions that allowed them to stretch their wings. In this case, it was a matter of the villain being allowed to chase the heros if they escaped.

So, after a year of sitting on a throne, Kacel stood up. It was finally time for him to play his final card. And no, it wasn’t some method to fight the hero. After all, the guy had wrecked an indestructible gate. Demon spies had been keeping an eye on the Hero and Kacel had to admit that he stood no chance.

Instead, he was going to force the Hero to complete the main storyline. His solution to this? A sort of reverse wolf in sheep’s clothing gambit.

Kacel dressed up in blocky wooden armor and had one of his agents create a quest to take care of a monster. One which, after getting the details, was determined to be a weak wood golem. Just right for the Hero to meddle with.

And it worked! The Hero took up the challenge and finished the “wood golem” in one strike.

Then Kacel was standing in a courtroom. It was clear that some time had passed between the last event and this one. A little skeezy to not respawn a person right away, but going by the people front and center of this circus, everyone got involved. The Union of Heroics, the Villain’s Union, the admins, and maybe a couple other miscellaneous groups that stuck their fingers in for fun.

“Kacel, you have been called as a witness and the truth will be known. Do you confirm that you were the Demon Lord for {Hero}?”

Kacel sighed, full anonymizer protocols were in place. “Yes”

“Do you confirm that you raised your issue with {Admin K} only after at least a {week} had passed?”

Kacel nods, “That is correct.”

“Do you confirm that {VUR} inducted you into the Villain’s Union?”

Kacel, “Yes”

“Describe your plan and last moments in {Challenge Realm: Demon Lord’s Conquest ID#4s737a199_du44269692}”

A light flashes before Kacel can answer, and a new voice speaks. “Objection, his plan is irrelevant. Only the results and how they affected {Hero} matter.”

“Objection overruled. Plans do not always go as desired and thus an idea of what the intent was is needed.”

Kacel waits for a moment before explaining what went down. How he wasn’t going to soft ball the Hero nor was he going to ditch things. The fact that he did plan to fight the Hero properly and they had just been so powerful that the first attack had simply killed them without a chance to do so.

After that Kacel can tell he was despawned. Not that he was going to complain too much. This was clearly a very sticky legal issue. After all, in theory, whatever the Hero did was perfectly okay. It was their EverAfter experience, after all. However, it was also true that within a shared realm, even if the other person is more like a paid actor, that other person should still be protected.

In the end, Kacel ended up respawning in his home realm with a ton of resources and an NDA to sign if he wanted even more. And well, you’re reading this so clearly they didn’t offer enough for him to not spread the story around.