Demon Lord's Reincarnation

Sora looked at the smiling Kretos wary of him. He was already at level five hundred twenty, yet despite that, he still felt extremely threatened by the defenseless looking Kretos. The fear Sora was feeling at the moment made him unable to think properly, his whole body was telling him he couldn't fight Kretos, well he didn't want to fight in the first place and that was the truth. 

Sora stored his sword Masamune back into his inventory. When Kretos saw that Sora storing his sword away Kretos started to frown. Noticing the change in Kretos's expression Sora felt like he had done something wrong, but he couldn't understand what. The ever-changing expressions Kretos was showing caught Sora off guard. As he was getting distracted by his thoughts Sora shook his head, and Despite the dread, he was feeling, he looked straight at Kretos's eyes and asked. 

"Demon Lord Kretos, I am the summoned hero of the Sliral Kingdom, Takafumi Sora." 

"A hero? Do you mean like the ones in those fairy tales told by humans? Also, a summoned hero, does that mean you're not from around here? Are you as strong as those heroes found in ancient human scriptures, or perhaps are stronger than them?" Kretos was surprised by the new information he heard and became quite curious in the supposed hero in front of him. As his excitement rose so did his battle intent. 

Sora was once again surprised by the sudden change in Kretos. The supposed Evil Demon Lord now looked quite excited and was filled with curiosity the same as a young child. 

"I don't know much about this world's fairy tales, and I'm not sure how strong those ancient heroes were, but I guess in some respects I'm the same as the heroes in those stories." Sora scratched his head looking a bit embarrassed as he said that he was similar to the ancient heroes. 

"Hmm, this world? So you really are not from around here." Sora nodded his head and answered. 

"Yeah, I came from a place far far far away from here, it's basically another world. I was summoned to this place with the sole purpose of defeating the evil Demon Lord, Kretos... That's you, right?" When Kretos heard what Sora said he started laughing his laugh echoed throughout the mountains. Soar looked at Kretos dumbfounded, as Kretos continued to laugh heartily a tiny bit of his mana flew out. 

When Sora felt Kretos's mana he was once again surprised. His hands started to sweat and his heart was beating faster. The mana Kretos was emitting was encroaching his body. This was the first time Sora had felt such aggressive mana. 

His current MP was over fifty thousand, and his INT was above twenty thousand. A normal mage in the Kingdom would only have, around a few hundred MP and there INT barely reaches a hundred. Even Jeter the strongest mage in the Kingdom has around ten thousand MP and six thousand INT. Compared to them the other humans his mana was monstrous. Yet despite that, he felt that Kretos's mana was so much greater than his. Sora wondered what those that called his mana monstrous, what would they think if they felt Kretos's mana? The surprised Sora looked at Kretos confused and wary as to why he was laughing. 

"Hahaha, that's nice to hear. I don't know about me being evil as I never truly thought of my actions in the terms of good or evil... As for your purpose, so you've come to defeat me, that means you came to have a life and death battle with me." 

After saying those words Kretos's smile became even more vicious as he summoned a large sword from his shadow. 

"Since you came to battle, then let's have ourselves a fun battle!" 

When Sora heard Kretos's excited voice, he finally understood what kind of person he was talking to. There were a lot of people like this in battle manga and anime. The so called battle junkies, those characters who find joy in battle. Usually, this kind of character would be a rival character or a mid-stage boss, but seldom were they final boss material. 

"Bring out your weapon and let's get started!" As Sora was still thinking about the different battle junkie characters he has read about, he was jolted awake by Kretos's voice. Sora immediately raised his hands.

"I didn't come here to fight, I came here to talk to you." Kretos once again frowned when he heard Sora's reply. Kretos really wanted to fight this unknown human who called himself a hero. Since time immemorial the demons had their demon lords, and the equivalent of that to the humans were the heroes. In fact, some tales say that heroes were almost always stronger than their counterparts the demon lords. Kretos really wanted to test if that old story was true. 

Yet here he was, so excited to have a fight between demon lord and hero, yet the hero in this story doesn't want to fight him. Kretos had no wish to fight someone unwilling to face him, but just to make sure. 

...

Sora waited to see Kretos's response. As he was waiting Sora saw Kretos gripping his sword tightly and in the next second the blade of Kretos's sword was nearing Sora's neck. Sora was about to instinctively block the strike, but he held himself back. If what he knew of the battle junkie type character was correct then this blade would stop before touching him or perhaps barely touch him. Sora didn't move a muscle and waited for the blade to stop, if it didn't he believed that his defensive skills would activate and protect from a fatal strike. 

As the blade was nearing him it grazed him a bit but it stopped in the end. Kretos glared at Sora looking irritated. 

"What the heck! You didn't even defend yourself!" Even as the blade was placed near his neck, Sora remained calm, as he felt relieved that Kretos did as he predicted. 

"Like I said I didn't come here to fight, I came here to talk." 

"Tsk, how boring." Kretos clicked his tongue and placed his sword back into his shadow. Seeing the weapon gone Sora sighed in relief. 

"So what do you want to talk about? Talk fast as I'm needed elsewhere." Hearing Kretos's question Sora nodded his head.

"Alright then, I'll ask you straight, do you plan to invade the human kingdoms?" 

"Huh? Why would I do that? Aside from heroes, humans aren't worthy opponents."

Looking at the contempt in Kretos's eyes, it doesn't seem like he's lying. 'To this battle junkie, humans weren't worth his attention.' Based on what Sora saw of the strength of the humans in this world, it was true they weren't really a worthy challenge for someone like Kretos. It was like comparing a handgun to a nuclear weapon, Kretos was simply out of their league. 

'That must mean my guess was correct.' Sora sat on the ground took out one of the few remaining cigarettes in his pack and lit it. He started smoking right in front of Kretos who was now looking at the cigarette curiously.

"What's that?"

"It's a cig, wanna try one." Sora checked his pack and saw that there was only one left. 'Well, I guess giving my last cig to a demon lord would be a cool thing to do.' Sora handed Kretos his remaining cigarette and lit it up. 

Kretos took the cigarette and copied what Sora was doing, he found that it tasted funny. Seeing Kretos smoking the cigarette with pure curiosity made Sora smile. This demon lord was very different from the demon lord the king of the Sliral Kingdom described. 

Kretos was indeed a battle junkie, but he wasn't bloodthirsty. Sora started thinking about what he would do next, now that he knows the demon lord he was supposed to defeat wasn't the evil overlord he expected him to be.

While Sora was thinking about his next course of action, Kretos stood up and was about ready to leave. Seeing Kretos standing up Sora spoke. 

"Why are you in such a hurry demon lord?" When Kretos heard Sora's question he looked at the human hero in a weird way. 

"Are you telling me that you don't know?..." Sora tilted his head a bit confused as to what Kretos was talking about. "The kingdom that summoned you is the closest human kingdom to the demon lands, correct?"

"Yes, what of it?" Hearing Sora's answer, Kretos looked at Sora's face for a while and shrugged his shoulders. 

"Hmm, it seems like you really don't know... The human Kingdom that summoned you has sent an army of fifty thousand to my lands. I'm going to meet them and have a little bit of fun." 

Sora showed a shocked expression when he heard Kretos say that the Sliral Kingdom had sent an army to the demons lands. Even though it was as he suspected, hearing it actually happening was another thing. As Sora was still trying to digest what was just said, he heard Kretos say the other line. 

'The only thing a battle junkie would call fun is fighting and maybe killing his opponents.' Seeing as Kretos was about to leave Sora shouted at him. 

"Stop!" Kretos halted and looked at Sora. 

"What else do you want?" 

"Please take me with you."