Minute Mage: A Time-Traveling LitRPG Progression Fantasy

Chapter 204: Welcome to Hell. Goodbye, and Thanks for Nothing.

A Devil sat at a desk in a damp, dark room.

He wanted to leave.

The Devil wanted more than anything for something to happen. Ever since he’d gotten that one visit from his superior, it’d been nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nobody came through the hall he monitored, there were no more meetings, no more excitement, not even a passing footstep heard through one of the doors.

He was completely isolated. From people, stimulation, purpose. Nothing existed in that room. Absolutely nothing.

He needed to leave.

Some indeterminate amount of time passed. He’d already been there an indeterminate amount of time, and now it had been some amount longer. Days? Definitely. Weeks? It was likely. Months? Who knew? He didn’t have any idea how long it’d been from his perspective, and he certainly had no idea how much time had passed in the Overworld. Maybe he didn’t need to know anymore, though. He was really just living out his torment from now on, right? The only deadline that mattered now was how much time he needed to wait through until he died.

Sitting perfectly still, staring straight ahead, back begging to be popped, neck waiting to be cracked, mouth just dying to let out a guttural scream, the Devil sat in agonizing silence.

The Devil lifted up his hands and brought them down in an intensely powerful motion, bashing them into his desk and cracking it into pieces. The shards plinked against the floor as the two halves crashed down as well. It was completely broken.

“Holy fuck!” the Devil shouted. That was the most cathartic thing he’d ever done in his life.

He smiled. A wild, untamed grin, spreading across his face. In the gray room, his red mouth tainted with a tinge of glowing blue blood, come from biting his tongue too many times, was a splash of much-needed color.

“Well,” he said to himself with a sigh, “that’s that. The end, I guess.”

He had no idea why he’d broken his desk. It had almost happened automatically, as though there was no thought process that came before. He just…did it. He wanted to do it. And now…

He heard the sound of the doors around him locking. Each door, once connecting the Devil’s hub to the near-infinite sprawl of hallways around him, had been sealed off in an instant. No doubt a countermeasure manually triggered by whoever was watching him in this room. The security force, using Divination magic to spy on every part of the Seventh Circle to ensure compliance, wasn’t something the Devil had put much thought to in the past. They simply kept the peace; no reason to worry about them if you were a normal, productive member of society. But the Devil had stopped being that, at this point. He’d long since stopped.

Well, that time he’d have to wait out until the end of his life had been severely shortened. No doubt he’d be executed for what he’d just done. At least, death was what he hoped would happen. If it was some other, even more severe punishment…

Not much he could do about that. What had been done had been done. Though, realistically, his superior knew he just wanted to be free of existence at this point. She would obviously not grant him that wish. And she could still extract a tiny bit of value from him yet, considering he still held valuable experience with and information about the Overworld. Well, valuable up until the moment the Seventh Circle inevitably pulled their forces out of that place. When their job was done or when they finally wisened up and just cut their losses. Maybe that would be when they finally just killed him.

But that day wouldn’t be this day. This day, they would…Well, the Devil had no idea, really. But it would almost certainly be fewer freedoms, more control, more abject torture for him to live through. Maybe they’d resort to actual bodily torture, at this point—a practice that had long since been abandoned by now. At least, for the most part.

The Devil stood and walked over to one of the doors, testing it. Yep. Locked. Trying the others, they were locked, too. Ugh, why couldn’t the enforcement officers just get in here already? They’d probably just send in some random Nefariors or something, not like those things had anything better to do.

“Fuck,” the Devil muttered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why is this place like this? Why would anyone willingly live here?! What the fuck?!”

A door behind the Devil slammed open. He turned around to see, as he expected, a handful of Nefariors marching inside wordlessly. One of them looked over at the broken desk, then to the Devil. It almost looked tired. All of them did.

“C’mon,” the Devil groaned. “You don’t want to do this. You’re probably bored out of your minds, too, right?! You have nothing against me, and yet here you are, coming after me just because some random superior who doesn’t know shit told you to! Just leave! Walk away!”

The lead Nefarior sighed and lumbered forward, grabbing the Devil’s hands and wrenching them behind his back, then walked him out of the room, through the hallways once again.

At least now the Devil could actually look at something that wasn’t the same damn walls of the same damn room.

Eventually, the Devil was walked into a room. A wide room full of desks and office grunts working away. For a moment, the Devil didn’t even recognize what it was. But then he realized—this was his old territory. Over there, on the far wall, was the door that led to what used to be his office. Now, it belonged to that Gargoyle, Plindakin…something or other. He’d forgotten that one’s name, by this point. Regardless, this office complex filled the Devil with disgust the moment he realized where he was.

And that wasn’t to mention the person who was standing inside, waiting for him.

“Greeting, Devil,” his superior said with a sigh. Her hair was somewhat frazzled, her eyes carrying a look of stress and exhaustion that the Devil knew all too well. She stared at him for a while, then closed her eyes and gave her head a tiny shake, muttering, “I don’t even know what to do with you.”

“Then kill me,” the Devil said. “You don’t want me around. I don’t want to be around, either. Just get rid of me.”

She opened her eyes, staring at the Devil once again. “You know, I’d love to do that. Killing you would be a treat.”

“Then—”

“But we both know I won’t do that. You need a punishment, not a reward. Clearly, what we gave you was too good. Too much freedom for a louse like you. You need something that will actually make you suffer.”

The Devil took a breath, giving a pleading look at the woman. It was barely even for his own sake. “Listen. You said you don’t want me alive. You said it’d make you happy to just kill me. Who cares if you’re supposed to punish me more? It doesn’t solve any of your problems to do that. Just do what you—”

“No, Devil, I will not. Unlike some filth I have to deal with, I have a sense of duty. I have an obligation to help my fellow Demons. If I just did what I wanted all day, every day, without ever considering how my actions affected others, then I would be a scum-sucking, worthless thing that wasted the very air I breathed, the very space I took up with my own body. I, unfortunately, will continue to help the people I work alongside, instead of actively harming them with my ignorant, selfish actions. So no, I will not kill you, Devil. As to do that would go against what I am to do. Instead, I think I have a perfect idea for what to do with you. A perfect example to make of you. A perfect incentive you can create to ensure no other Demon ever falls down the path you have taken.”

The Devil subtly tugged against the grip of the Nefarior holding him. It was holding onto his left wrist, a force so strong there was no chance of slipping out. Nothing could get the Nefarior to let go of his arm.

“I think there is something we can learn from the Humans,” his superior continued. “The concept of ‘entertainment’ was alien to me at first, but I will admit, after seeing how they’ve employed it, I believe it could be extraordinarily useful to us.”

The Devil frowned, still trying to find a way to wrench his wrist free from the Nefarior. “Really? I wouldn’t have taken you for someone in support of something like that. I’d have thought you would think it a waste of time.”

“Oh, normally it is. But there is value to be found there nevertheless. I, for example, would be absolutely thrilled to see you suffer day in and day out. And I am sure other Demons would be, as well. So, I was thinking, maybe we could imprison you here. In this room. Allow the working Demons to take turns torturing you during a short break every now and then. That would, in my opinion, impress into their minds the consequences of disobedience much more effectively than simply telling them what will happen.”

The Devil grit his teeth. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh? Why? Out of the kindness of my heart? Because I want to repay you for all that you’ve contributed to our society?”

“There’s no way you could get the approval for that.”

“You have no idea. You know, more and more higher-ups have been getting word of this Arlan Nota case. With your removal from power due to the bout of insanity you went through—insanity caused by the stress of the job—it’s gotten a few people talking. More Demons asking about what this Human could possibly be doing to cause such a thing to happen to you. If I say I’ve come up with a solution to prevent this from happening in the future…”

“So, what, you’ll put me in a cage? Stick me with some knives? Pelt me with hot coals?”

“Nothing so primitive. I’ve been doing some brainstorming, you see—helps me with some of the stress your breakdown has caused—and I’ve come up with plenty of activities to keep you occupied. Subdermal Fleshwurms, melting your skin off by means of intense climate control, perhaps we could inject molten steel into your veins and see what happens.”

The Devil shook his head. “I’m not going to let you do that to me.”

“Oh? How? Through the authority that has long since been stripped away from you? Tell me, how does that feel? Does it eat at your heart, knowing we’ve ripped your identity from you? I hope it hurts.”

“I won’t lie, it’s pretty bad,” the Devil said. “But I also won’t lie when I tell you, I’m not all that upset.”

Her face morphed into a snarl. “And why’s that?”

“I’ve thought about it for a while now—you gave me plenty of time. And I’ve decided, this place shaped me. It made me who I am. And in return, I’m okay with you taking as many parts of me as you want. But I’m not letting you get the whole.”

With a grunt of both exertion and pain, the Devil yanked as hard as he could, pulling on the Nefarior’s grip around his wrist. All of his body’s strength went into fighting against the Nefarior fingers, pulling, pulling, until—

Snap.

You have been dismembered.

The Devil’s arm came clean off, ripping off at the shoulder, and he stumbled away from the massive beast that still had its hand wrapped around his arm. His arm that was no longer attached to his body.

“Where are you even going?” his superior asked, gazing unamused at the massive wound leaking bioluminescent blue blood where his arm used to be. “You think you can somehow escape? Sure, why don’t you run off somewhere? Maybe this can be our first bout of entertainment. We can all watch your pathetic escape attempt.”

The Devil ignored her words, gasping for air as he half sprinted, half limped to his goal. The one place that would offer him escape.

He heard the lumbering footfalls of the Nefariors walking after him, taking a leisurely pace compared to the Devil’s panicked bounds. He used his remaining arm to steady himself on the random desks of the copiers as he passed, ignoring their shouts of protest and confusion as he no doubt ruined countless papers with his blood.

“Seriously, where are you going?” his superior called after him.

He continued to ignore her, stumbling, running, step after step, until…

“Wait,” his superior said to herself as he neared his goal. Then with a shout, “Wait! Stop him!”

The Nefariors’ footsteps quickened, sprinting in pursuit of the Devil. But they were too late. He reached out, opened door 999—the execution door—and stepped through.