With Craig gone, I immediately dropped the act and began pacing around the forge.

  ‘I completely forgot to get Dungeons set up. I also need monsters, or I guess servants in this case, to help run this castle.’ I pondered with my arms crossed as I circled the massive anvil.

  I could obviously just run the entire place myself, but if I was going to go the whole “demon lord” schtick then I needed visitors to come to my awesome castle.

  And by visitors, I mean warriors who will come to raid me and try to kill me. Because turning my castle into a Dungeon and myself into a boss would be cool as hell.

  “Do I tame monsters, or should I… try and make some?” I muttered, slowing my pace as I mulled it over.

  I wasn’t 100% sure how The System made monsters, but since they are so similar to regular animals it was probably just an excess of mana pouring from the Dungeons that made them. But what about the monsters inside the Dungeons?

  How did those work?

  And could I hijack the process?

  I’d have to do some testing.

  \***/

  A couple hours later, and I still wasn’t sure what I was doing. Though I did figure out that I didn’t need to worry about making the monsters myself.

  Every other universe and planet I visited before already had an over abundance of mana and Dungeons, which means that they already had suitable environments for monsters.

  Earth was not like that. At all.

  But mundane animals, minerals, plant life, basically anything not sapient was super sensitive to mana if it had never been exposed to it before.

  That isn’t to say sapient life wasn’t sensitive to it either, but just slightly less so.

  I could go ahead and flood the world with Dungeons or Gates if I really wanted to call them that, but then they would be in places rather unfairly hidden. Or just impossible to get to in general.

  Earth is something like 70% water, which means most of the Dungeons would end up under the ocean. If I upped the amount of Dungeons, then more would appear on land, but even more would pop up on the ocean floor.

  Dungeons can also appear on clouds, and I don’t want a plane to smack into one on accident.

  So I would have to do it manually. Thankfully I can designate a spot for each Dungeon easily enough due to my senses being busted, but that still left the question of where.

  “There should be more open spaces than hidden ones, and they should be very weak. Maybe Level 1 to 3 for the first month.” I hummed as I tapped my foot.

  That should be fine.

  So for the next few hours, I scoped out spots for Dungeons to materialize across all of the continents. In every city, in every country, I wormed my mind around the Earth and found places to put a Dungeon.

  I wasn’t putting them there yet but figuring out where they would go first was best.

  If I used my ability to slow time down, I could have finished in a few seconds or minutes, but I didn’t see a reason to do that. No need to rush this part of the process after all.

  Now that was done, I could move onto a more pressing issue.

  Death.

  Not mine or anyone specific, but merely the ability to die by itself.

  Currently I had The System hold a tight grip on the safety of everyone in its range. So basically just this solar system, which held the Earth and a small collection of space stations.

  The System does not naturally stop people from dying. It makes it harder, sure, but it will not outright stop it from happening.

  I had kind of shown favoritism for my fellow humans by having it stop all deaths. Natural or otherwise.

  While I couldn’t feel negative emotions, making death just something that happens, I really didn’t want to see other humans die.

  Which felt wrong in itself, because I watched and felt plenty of alien species die over the course of the year I spent cleaning up after the faker.

  I had the power to stop all deaths entirely. It would be so easy as well.

  But that would be placing myself as some sort of god above everyone else, to deem who was worthy of life and who was not. I had already killed thousands because I wanted to.

  It was for a good reason, but that does not change the fact that I did it.

  ‘What would my family think? If they knew I allowed people to die when I could save them. Or if they saw my meddling as someone trying to play god?’ I thought to myself, and then tilted my head.

  Does saving them mean forcing people to live without dying? Couldn’t I just… save those who wanted to be saved?

  “...I might be overthinking this.” I exhaled through my nose and decided that I didn’t need to think so hard about it.

  Introducing monsters and Dungeons to Earth would put people in danger. Of course it would.

  Monsters killed people in other universes all the time, and I stopped it when I could. People would get hurt, but I would ultimately make it so they would survive the ordeal.

  So there was no reason to worry about it at all.

  …Except for the fact that I couldn’t sense anything inside the Dungeons, so I wouldn’t be able to help people in them.

  The System should be able to handle them though. Hopefully.

  Now I just needed to make some kind of announcement, and begin this "invasion" for real. Or… fake? For fake?

  Whatever.

  For the announcement, I could totally just hover in the air like I did last time, but that was boring.

  I had a castle, so I might as well use it.

  Heading out of the forge, I looked for a suitable room to make a throne in. Which didn’t take long, since I could use the massive entrance hall as a pointer. At the very end of the hall, stood a large open doorway that led to a massive room. It’ll work nicely.

  I put up some pillars, got ready to make some tapestries but then remembered the ungodly amount of the things I had from Dungeon treasure rooms sitting in my pockets. So I took them out and put them up on the walls.

  They had some conflicting designs, but I didn’t really give a shit about that. Since I could change it later.

  Forming a throne was easy enough. Extend some stone and ice from the floor into the rough shape of a chair, copy the atomic layout of a soft looking leather couch in a mall somewhere, and boom. Comfy throne.

  Making my way over to the new throne in a quick jaunt, I tossed my butt into the seat and sunk into the material.

  “...I really need to figure out the whole ‘minion’ thing soon. A butler to bring me snacks would be amazing right now.” I chuckled to myself as I imagined it.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  For now, I settled with stealing some chips from a large supermarket chain. The mega corporation won’t miss it I’m sure.

  Popping the bag open, I tossed the crunchy corn chip into my mouth. The dusty cool ranch morsel slipped past Jimmy as he became a liquid to let it in, ripples flowing on my visor like water at the point of contact.

  The silent throne room echoed with my loud crunching as I lazily flicked through The System options.

  I knew there was a way to stream myself to other System windows, which would be my way of announcing my little invasion.

  Then a worry I hadn’t thought about surfaced in my mind.

  ‘This isn’t going to count as me acting like the faker right?’ I stopped poking around The System as I thought about it, pausing in my chewing.

  The System had a main function about introducing Dungeons, since you needed them for magic to work, so surely me playing around and acting like I was the one who created them and not The System wouldn’t back fire… Right?

  …

  “Better play it safe.” I sighed and cancelled the announcement plan.

  The System would still tell people that Dungeons are coming before they materialized, but they would be introduced as more of a training ground to deal with me instead of me making an invading force.

  It was just so… boring though.

  ‘Guess I’ll see what my Quest is.’ I closed The System window and brought up my Quest Menu, resting my head on my hand as I leaned against the arm rest.

  “...What is that?” I sucked in through my teeth as I got a bad feeling about this next Quest.

  Now I really didn’t want to do it. Especially with a name like that.

  “Metamorphasis? What am I, a butterfly?” I scoffed and put another chip in my mouth.

  Ignoring the horrifying implications of what that clearly censored text could be, along with the Quest name, I moved onto making some servants for my castle.

  My idea was simple.

  Intelligent monsters should exist, so I was going to make a custom Dungeon full of highly intelligent creatures and make them work for me.

  Unfortunately for me though, ‘intelligent’ monster meant it learned tricks and not how to brew tea or clean.

  With that idea dead and gone, I moved onto my next one.

  Doing it myself.

  Either by filling the castle with a bunch of my instances, or making ‘rock golems’ to puppet with my Telekinesis.

  That meant doing stuff I didn’t want to do though, so I shelved it.

  Another option would be to just… hire some servants. I could probably do that quite easily, now that I thought about it.

  ‘I’m starting to like that idea.’ I smiled to myself as I thought about finally having some people to order around. To get a bunch of butlers and maids.

  “Do I go with humans or should I try to hire some aliens…” I tapped my helmet's chin as I thought about it.

  Humans would be easiest, since I can just pay them in gold or something. But hiring aliens with Shop Points wouldn’t be that hard either.

  I can’t bring Sally here though, since she’s pretty absorbed in her research about making her sisters sapient. Plus she’s more of a scientist than a head maid.

  “...Why not both?” I raised my eyebrows, then nodded to myself.

  I’d offer positions fairly to anyone who wanted to work. I was such a good boss.

  ‘Now it’s just a question of advertising.’ Tilting my head back and forth, I thought about it.

  Shrugging, I decided to just make a bunch of flyers and put them up on random job boards. Maybe post some positions online that only desperate people would apply to.

  “That sounds like fun~.” I giggled mischievously and got to work.

  \***/

  It took a while, but it was done.

  Little posters with an image of my castle and me posing in front of it with the words “Hiring urgently! Servants wanted! Pay negotiable.” were posted all over the world.

  The aliens were a bit more complicated, since I needed to account for the fact that they would be leaving their universe while they worked. I had no idea what that would do with their System.

  I made it pretty clear that the castle was outside of the universe in the advert, so I wasn’t hiding it. However, based on the looks the aliens who did see the posters seemed to take it as a joke or outright dismissed it. I don’t think I’d get any applicants on this side for a long time.

  There wasn’t a phone number or anything, but there were a bunch of pull tabs on the bottom. All they need to do is take one, go to a secluded spot, audibly say “Ready” then I’d Gate them up to the castle for an interview. It was the same for the humans.

  I was expecting it to take a while, so I thought about what I wanted to do next.

  “...Guess I’ll just hang out.” I muttered with a shrug, leaning back into my comfy chair.

  …

  —------ Craig The Jester —------

  The bag was torn off of my head and I found myself in a small metal room, chained to the table.

  It was the typical interrogation scene you’d see in movies and shows. Except I was seeing it in a new light, considering I was getting some not so nice glares from my captors.

  “So? What’s up?” My mouth spoke without my input, and I wasn’t sure if I should be thankful or not.

  If I was being honest, I’m scared shitless right now. My hands nervously clasped around each other as my eyes darted around the blank featureless room.

  “How did you summon The Dark Lord? And why can’t we take down the video?” A man close to my height but maybe double my weight in muscle sitting across from me asked evenly. His bald head reflected the light almost perfectly into my eyes.

  “I wouldn’t say that I summoned him as it’s more like he just showed up. I don’t know why you can’t take the video down.” I replied just as calmly, but I did not feel like it.

  “Hm.” He grunted, and just stared at me.

  ‘They can’t take down the video? Why would they want to do that anyway?’

  “So he just ‘showed up’ huh… Like he was humoring you?” He asked and I shrugged.

  “I guess. It’s not like the ritual I did had any real significance.”

  He continued to look me in the eye, just really laying on the pressure.

  I’m so glad my mouth isn’t listening to me right now, I’d be visibly cracking under the tension. Now I can do it entirely within my mind. Yay.

  “What is your affiliation with The Dark Lord?” He asked, steepling his fingers together.

  “Victim, I guess? It seemed like he was messing with me most of the time.” I replied, and we went back to staring at each other.

  ‘Please just let me go.’ I begged internally.

  “What do you know about the Dungeons that will open next week?” He asked and my mind drew a blank.

  “Pardon? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I spoke slowly and he raised an eyebrow.

  “You didn’t get an alert?” He asked.

  “Must’ve slept through it.” I replied, but I was still thinking about what he meant.

  ‘Dungeons opening next week? What? …Does it have something to do with what the Dark Lord said?’

  “Well that’s fine, I’ll just explain it to you now. The grace period will be ending in a week, and then the Tutorial will begin. Dungeons will open across the globe and monsters will start spawning. Whatever that means.” The man explained briefly and all I could do was just nod.

  “I didn’t know anything about that.” I replied.

  “Well maybe you know something about this.” The man put a suitcase on the table and retrieved a piece of paper from inside.

  Sliding it over, it displayed the castle I saw on Neptune and The Dark Lord posing in front of it.

  “A job poster?” My brow furrowed as I read it, confused.

  “Indeed. You don’t work for him?” He asked rather accusatoryly.

  “No. Can I leave now?”

  “Why the rush?”

  We went right back to staring at each other.

  ‘I want to go home…’

  \***/

  After what felt like an eternity, I was finally dropped back off at my house.

  The bells on my hat jingling a sad tune as I tiredly sauntered my way up the driveway. I felt exhausted.

  "Maybe I'll take a nap or something..." I sighed as I closed the door behind me.

  Then I remembered that I had some testing to do with my throwing knives and the scepter, since I was so rudely interrupted earlier today.

  With the sun setting, this should be a good time to give it a try. If I'm not being watched by the FBI that is.

  "...Whatever, I'll just some small tests." I shook off the negativity and dug a hand into my bag.

  When the window popped up, I selected Create Throwing Knife.

  'So I have enough to make four total? How do I get more materials?' I held a knife in my hands that I seemingly withdrew from my bag but actually made through some unknown means.

  I really wanted to try out the Auto Throwing, but I also didn't want to ruin my walls...

  Confetti Bomb also sounded too destructive, so I tossed the knife back into the bag.

  Where it was stored and the materials remained the same. So the knife wasn't magically deconstructed when I put it away.

  Retrieving the scepter from the bag, I looked it over.

  "...Yep. It's a stick with a smiling face on it." I mumbled as I looked into its tiny eyes.

  It was in fact weightless, so it felt like wielding air, but I didn't see a reason to make it like that. Since it looked very light to begin with.

  The Reversal trait also didn't make any sense. If I hit someone with it, would it make them go inside out?

  "Better not try it." My face paled as I shook my head, my bells jingling.

  Besides, if the Tutorial was going to start soon I would be getting lots of chances to test things out on monsters in a somewhat safe environment.

  'Am I really going to fight monsters? Me?' I asked myself, feeling apprehensive about the idea.

  While I had some gear that was broken and should let me survive basically anything not too terrible, none of this felt real. At least not real enough to settle in my mind.

  "I should have never become a content creator." I sighed, my head drooping along with my hat.