Before I could activate my skill and save myself with the last remaining bits of my extreme mental fortitude, my hand was caught by the young woman. With an impressive showcase of strength, she yanked me upwards, throwing me across the grass and causing me to slam against the trunk of a tree.

“Ugh… Fuck…” I muttered, rubbing my back and shooting upwards as the woman’s footsteps quickly approached me. But before I could even get a good look at her, her entire body flashed with the silhouette of an all-powerful being, the mana in her body practically exuding like the explosion of a mana nuke.

I couldn’t move. The pressure coming off of her was so intense that I nearly pissed my pants. And with each step that she took toward me, I felt my already weakened bones creak… and then they snapped. Every single one of my limbs snapped in half, forcing me to unleash a blood-curdling scream.

Beezlebub’s Authority reigns supreme

“Huff… huff… huff… you asshole demon lord…” I muttered, too exhausted to even get up. Even as the dirt below me pressed into my face and the grass tickled my skin, I didn’t get up. My bones had been completely shattered and although the insane pressure from before was gone, my body had no choice but to shut down. “Shit… I’m going to… faint again…”

…

My head twitched as if I had a nightmare that I couldn’t remember. As soon as it had finished ravaging my mind, it disappeared like a coward with its tail between its legs. And as those thoughts slowly faded from my memory, I took a look around, gathering as much information as possible.

A wooden cabin. It had to be as big as a small apartment with the necessities. A small wooden chair, a wooden desk, a small fireplace, and a simple bed with a surprisingly high-quality mattress. The pillows on the other hand… I couldn’t say the same.

Tup… Tup… Tup… Tup…

Suddenly, footsteps echoed from outside the wooden door. I could hardly see who it was through the small diamond shape holes engraved into the wood, but I didn’t need to wait much longer as a young woman with long blue hair and pupils like that of the sun entered the cabin.

“Oh, you’re awake,” her eyes brightened.

My entire body instinctively tensed as if preparing for a wave of pressure but thankfully, it seems Beezlebub interfered, allowing me to withstand the overwhelming amount of mana coming from this woman.

“Sorry… but who are you? And… where am I?” I asked, my hand stretching out as if intending to stop the woman before she could get any closer. She immediately understood and stopped just before the foot of the bed and walked over to the desk, laying down the basket of vegetables she had collected.

The crashing of a heavy storm knocked against the sturdy wooden roof, echoing through the wooden box around me. My heartbeat seemingly resonated with the pittering and pattering of this tiny natural disaster. By catching a glimpse outside both of the two thick panes of glass perpendicular to both sides of my bed, I could see the swaying of trees and the tearing of branches and leaves coming off of them.

“My name is Noah. And I’m nothing but a hermit,” The young woman smiled, sitting down on the wooden chair. Her hand was placed against her dress that had been soaked from head to toe and then in the blink of an eye, all of the water evaporated. No, you couldn’t call it evaporation. It was more like it just disappeared from the weavings of her fabric.

“Yeah, right. The amount of mana overflowing from you is something of an entirely different level. And that skill you just used… that’s not something just any hermit can do.”

“Hmmmm… Smart boy. I am proficient in magic, but I’m nothing special… also, you’re kind of weak, aren’t you? Maybe it’s because you’re still in your early twenties, but- no, you’re basically on the level of a toddler. What have you been doing with your life?” She smiled calmly while those insulting words tore me down.

“I’m not the one who’s weak here. You all are just **ing strong… and where am I? I just washed up on this beach and I don’t remember much from before,” I muttered, gripping my head, mixing a few truths into a few lies in order to protect myself from any lie-detecting skills.

And it seems my hunch was right about her having something that could detect a lie as her expression became troubled. Her eyes scanned me up and down, up and down, up and down, for what seemed like a couple of minutes.

“How about we warm you up? You’re still cold under the blanket,” She chuckled, losing the suspicion and giving me room to be comfortable with where she stood, allowing me to shift out of bed and… 𝔬𝒱𝗅xt.𝐜𝒐𝗆

“Damn, you’re hella tall,” I muttered, sweating as the young woman approached me, her height essentially being as tall as mine. Well, actually, my hair that kind of stood up gave me an inch so honestly she might just straight up be taller than me.

“No, you’re just short,” She chuckled, quickly crouching down to light the fireplace with a snap of her fingers.

From those slender white fingers of hers, a smark appeared. It wasn’t much, but it still landed on the pile of wood coated with a layer of wood shavings. With this much fuel, the spark couldn’t help but set alight, blowing across the entire fireplace and warming up the cabin an instant.

I didn’t want to admit it, but the fireplace was comforting. Almost a bit too comforting as if she wanted me to let my guard down. I had no clue how the kind of people here acted and where exactly we were in the first place, so I made sure to keep my guard up and withstand the feeling of drowsiness washing through my body.