Humans are weird!
Written by Author Pseudonym Melas D, and available on scribblehub
, the story follows the exploits of the Demon Salvos who began life as a demon larva in the netherworld, hunted for "recruitment" by Demon King Regnorex, but through a twist of fate, and the whims of a particularly petty Greater Demon, she finds herself in the Mortal Realm and has to struggle to fit in, in a society where Demons are inherently feared and hated, rightly so. Through her wit, charm, bluntness, and Endearingly Dorky antics, she goes on to become a genuine hero, just because she likes it, helping the helpless, protecting the innocent, and woe be unto they who dare to so much as threaten harm to her True Companions.Associated tropes found within:
- Crapsack World: Every plane in the Nexxius is a constant struggle for survival. The Nether Realm, where the story begins, has demons fighting for their lives, starting at infancy. The Mortal Realm is filled with monsters, feudalism is the governing norm, the countries dare not meddle too much in wars between adventurer companies because the last country to try had their army beaten and lost 4 generals, and of-course, there are despicable people everywhere who will do anything for money and power. The spirit realm hasn't been shown yet, as of the mid 100's chapters, but the fact that spirits have levels, and contract with human summoners to gain more, means they have to fight and kill to live too.
- Fantastic Racism: In just about every flavor.
- Humans rightly fear and loathe Demons because the vast, vast majority of the time, they're summoned to the Mortal Realm to do despicable things, which brings Salvos a lot of grief because she was dragged into the Mortal Realm against her will and is a genuinely heroic character who is childishly innocent and likes to help people and make friends.
- Kobold cultists are genocidal, believing in some ancient prophecy that states having humans simply exist is causing their native dimension to unravel, and it's made worse every time humans summon demons, spirits, or [Heroes] from another world. It doesn't help that the first time Kobolds made contact with humans, they didn't try to talk things out, but instead launched an armed invasion and murdered every man, woman, and child they came across, leading humans to label Kobolds as mindless monsters to be exterminated on sight. The only reason there's no armed conflict now is because the border between the two countries is filled with high-level undead.
- The demons themselves, aside from Salvos, are either all mindless Wild Demons that attack everything around them, or for some unstated reason think it's inherently praiseworthy and virtuous to attack and slaughter the residents of the Mortal Realm, just because they are mortals. Especially the fanatical followers of Regnorex, the demon king, simply because the demons believe they are simply in the way of his majesty and deserve to be exterminated.
- Had to Be Sharp: The netherworld is a very, very harsh place. From infancy, demons have to be very careful who they trust as "wild" demons attack on sight mindlessly, other demons try to exploit their brethren for levels, and Regnorex has given a royal command that all the survivors are to be brought to him by force. Salvos gets to see an Archdemon (later revealed to be at least level 100) killing some level 5 larva for daring to flee in the face of Lesser Demons who are at least level 20!
- Humans Are Special: According to the doctrine of a cultist's log book, humans have inherently higher [Wisdom] scores than all the known sapient races, and Demons find them especially tasty as sacrifices for summoning rituals.
- Human Sacrifice: According to a cultist's log book found by Salvos and crew, Demons can be summoned to the mortal world by sacrificing monsters, but humans are far more effective sacrifices.
- Job System: In the Mortal Realm, all the sapient species have [Classes], and demons earn them at becoming level 100, with humans earning a second class at that level. [Classes] come with powerful skills that help in surviving day to day.
- Limited Move Arsenal: While it is possible to have an insane number of magical skills, there is a max number of skills you can actually have in your skill inventory to train, and discarding a skill means it's pretty much lost forever.
- Morality Kitchen Sink: Just about every flavor of morality known to sapient beings can be found in the tale, and as long as they don't try to threaten her and hers, Salvo tries to make friends of them all. We have Salvos herself as an Ideal Hero despite being a demon, the idealistic Valiant Dreamers company, which has idealism as its founding precept, the cruel and ruthless profiteering Iron Champions company, moral pragmatists like Alan the [Trader], misguided bigots like Edithe, murderous cultists, and utterly heinous assassin companies like the Harried Vindicators who will do anything, no matter how vile, to fulfill their contract, not even sparing helpless children, just to get at their target. And, of course, people doing things that are very morally questionable, just trying to survive in a monster filled world.
- Moral Myopia: All of Salvos's enemies, whether they be demon, human, kobold, etc., do terrible things, use every dirty trick they can, flee from or grovel towards those stronger than themselves, while gloating as they beat up the weak and helpless, yet when Salvos or her allies use their very own tactics against them, gain the upper hand, or try to disengage from a losing fight, said enemies always cry foul and accuse Salvos and crew of being despicable, shameless, cowards and villains.
- RPG Mechanicsverse: In the dimension of Nexxius, all races, even monsters, have levels, subspecies and/or classes and get stronger by gaining experience and leveling up.
