The Demon King Is Just a Chess Piece

by Vali-Sascha

The promise of a self centered Utopia had caught a lot of people in this game ran by witches. It was all fun and smiles at first, however, some were informed what would happen down the line. Eventually people will have to kill to maintain their fantasy, to lay waste to the dreams and aspirations of others so their own doesn't wither. Cruelty is nature's weapon. (OC) (Gamer Fic)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Prologue

Waking up is always an annoying experience, I'm just about the farthest thing from a morning person, even when I wake up hours ahead of schedule I still proceed to sleep in. Though this experience is worse, I can't even open my eyes, or, at least the space in front of me is black. That is when I slowly check on on my other senses and realize:

There is no mattress or blankets—

"Right you Are, Piece"

You have got to be kidding me, I very well recognize this voice, but normally I only ever hear it in Japanese. From a visual novel that I proclaim with no trouble at all to be the greatest piece of fiction ever written. Slowly from the void a shape was made out. Short stature, a dress, a cat tail following behind but no ears. While I might really love her as a character, this is just straight up bad news unless this is a 'game' where she doesn't play the bad guy, in which case I have to worry about her partner in crime who might fill that role. Either way, the blackness that obscured her faded away, exposing the bluish-violet hair, purple eyes, and blank expression.

Bernkastel, Witch of Miracles, and one of the most obscenely overpowered fictional characters ever. If she was here to turn me into a toy or something as simple as torture and kill me, I basically could do nothing.

"Good that you recognize your place, Piece."

Of course she could read my mind, or at least my face from what I was thinking. The mild annoyance in her tone does not help with my current crippling fear. Seeing her pissed is a seldom sight, and one that forebodes danger. Though, from what I can see, her ire isn't directly pointed at me.

"You're scaring him my miko, at least give him some proper time and space to process. And welcome to you, child of man, I know you have many questions."

If Bernkastel being here made me fear like nothing else, then her master appearing has me outright stop breathing, if I still had to breathe of course. If I were still conscious I probably would've had a heart attack. The newcomer was a taller woman, dark hair, pink eastern style dress, and a lot of sashes, the most prominent being a green one with a medallion on it. She also has a floating ring around her head, said to stabilize her mind and memories.

"It's not every day that we meet someone from whose world we merely exist as fiction, though I'm rather glad about how highly you think of our story child of man."

Featherine Augustus Aurora, the end all be all when it comes to powerful fictional characters that I actually care about. Sure she'd probably be matched by one of those ultimate beings from Marvel, but as much as I could pretend I don't care about the actual power debates people would have, I just said whichever character I liked more would win. A simple thought process honestly.

"Before your thoughts go more off track, let's get to the crux of why you are here. I need new entertainment, and I need to punish my miko for a mistake she has recently committed."

So that's why Bernkastel didn't greet me so amicably, even if most of the time she puts on a neutral act, right now she was outright miffed.

"But Auaurora—"

Bernkastel started, but stopped when Featherine did a simple hand wave that quieted her down.

"Now to pick up where I left off, I'm sure you've read the tales of someone being sent to another realm with something called a 'Gamer system'. That is the very reason you're here, I'm tacking a system on you, and sending you to another multiverse to generate a good story. I made sure to pick you out in specific, as I hedged a bet that you will not be boring."

It is a compliment for sure, but also a threat, if I slip up and start presenting a story that's crappy it's basically curtains for me. Other than that, a gamer system huh.. I've read a lot of those recently when it came to fanfiction, started out reading ones where the character was still one from the verse, before slowly veering into self insert focused Gamer tales. They were pretty cool, though a few were kinda fucked up.

"Do not worry about such a thing Child of Man, all stories have their highs and lows, which will include yours. Punishing you for a lack of action would be remiss of me. There needs to be breaks between the crux of what drives the tale, as it sweetens the anticipation of waiting for that climax of the story arc."

I had forgotten how focused Featherine was on entertainment, she's read a literal infinite amount of works, so something like filler is probably something she's just completely used to.

"Right you Are. Also you will not be the only one in a gamer world, we made separate games spaces for others some other Witches of the Senate picked up. Though you being my 'champion' will likely be watched over the most. You have quite the advantages compared to most of the normal ones that get sucked into this 'gamer' role."

That's right. Usually the stereotype of who gets picked up by the gamer Systems usually fall into a normal demographic, college students, high schoolers, salarymen. Unlike them I had quite a bit of relevant life experience, with the extra boon coming from military service. No, I was no foot soldier, or pilot. I instead worked for intelligence, and the analytical skills and military knowledge given to me would aid me a lot in best maximizing my strategy.

"Quite right you are. You've seen stories with two others as experienced as you, but not in the same field. Now, I shall give you two boons when selecting your first world."

The woman spoke before manifesting a book in front of me. I tried to reach for it but then I noted, I have no body.

"You finally realized child of man? Good, now we move onto the important part. You will select your new body. While you could design it from the ground up, I found it more interesting to give you choice instead. You will become any fictional or non fictional character you wish, with some adjustments to gender so you'll still be male should you pick a female character."

Now that opened up a lot of avenues for me. I thought for a moment, rummaging through all the possible choices. While I could just pick someone like Ophis per say, it would make things boring too quickly. So I want to pick something in the middle.

"To let you know more, you will start as a highly weakened version of that character. And your memories, experiences, and personality will merge with that character's"

Now that made his choice easier, he immediately threw out all characters whose alignment is too weird, so ones like say Midoriya or ones like Gilgamesh were out. No goody two shoes and no giga assholes. He also threw out almost all evil characters, and characters with backstories so fucked that it would invariably screw him mentally merging with them. Then he narrowed it further by not wanting to be Bipolar, and has come to a decision. Before he could say it, the witch did it for him.

"Oda Nobunaga from the Fate franchise? That is doable."

She stated before tapping the space where my head is supposed to be, which then formed me a new body, and clothing. I now look like archer Nobunaga, or stage one avenger Nobunaga, from what I could tell from the clothes. I felt a bit shorter than I was in real life, but also far more powerful. Suddenly a bunch of 'notifications' and a HUD popped up for me, the notifications then went away just as fast. And before I could do something like check my stats or anything of the sort, suddenly a bunch of memories were crammed into my head. I had to hunch over in the pain, and for a moment I blacked out as I- merged with myself.

"That was fast huh."

Still the same voice as I always had, though with a manlier tint to it. I could get used to this. Nobunaga, or I guess in this case, the other me, had 3 times the life experience my normal self did, so even if our personalities are mildly compatible, it's almost as if my prior likes and personality were swallowed and absorbed, rather than merged. Still, I feel like myself luckily.

"Thank you for this boon, Aurora-sama."

I stated first with a thankful nod and well deserved reverence, which she merely answers with a smile before moving on

"The second boon is to allow slight customization of the world you end up in. And I shall grant you quite a selection."

At that comment a large menu popped up in front of me, this time displaying different fictional universes by their logos. While I'm tempted by others, DxD is the logical choice. Sure it is 'dangerous' with a bunch of high level entities running around, but honestly it gives me the strongest chance at farming weaker entities with all the conflicts that happen. As well as gaining actually significant Allies that I can strengthen. Sure I could go to Code Geass and have a magic advantage aside from having to worry about Geass users, yet it would be a trade off when I take over, sure the Knightmares are strong, and so is FLEIJA, but verses like fate have their most powerful beings bring a modern weapon immunity.

While blessing all the weapons in the arsenal sounds pretty cool it would take too damn long for the building of an army. Plus honestly starting off throwing a rebellion and then slowly taking over one or more of the three superpowers sounds like too much of a leap in my abilities. Even with one half of me being a strategic and tactical genius, and the other being well versed in modern warfare and intelligence analysis, running a rebellion and then a country is too much of a hassle to just hop into.

The other verses to consider that I would want to be in are also off the list, one for a similar reason. Azur Lane is nice and all, but it would likely come after Code Geass. While it has a lot of waifus, the plot is fucked, the world being used like a free Reality TV show by the sirens. So in that case I'd have to tard wrangle all of the world's nations and probably perform a couple coups to make sure that greedy dumbasses don't push the world to war again, form one world alliance/government, and then take care of the sirens using the powers I picked up from other worlds. Sure they're strong, but since this is in a witch game the sirens are basically playdoh if I ever Ascent to the level of a sorcerer like Battler did.

The next verse that was considered and then discarded was Blue Archive. First I would prefer to age a lot of the characters up especially by the time I get to them, as well as to not deal with the setting because I simply can't take it seriously. The place is a bloody comedy, so at most I'd just tear some of the waifus from there and move on. Maybe I won't have to go though, knowing Featherine she likely implemented some gacha, an answer she nods at. Fantastic, by that extension the entirety of the Nasuverse is off my list as well. I may be from there, but I'm not dealing with that shit.

So it lastly fell to two choices, and one was immediately discarded. Boku no Hero is great if you want to put up with Highschool drama while Training to become another cog in the grand hero machines that honestly reminds me too much of Hollywood. I'll leave the fanfics up to others, but I'm definitely stealing that dragon hero lady, and maybe Fuyumi Todorki as well. You can't blame me for my greed.

And so I came upon Highschool DxD, ironically I was writing a crossover fanfiction for this one before I ended up here. Not that I mind, I was having some major writer's block. Probably because I treated the story as 'this is something I'd love to read' rather than 'this is something I'd love to write'.

There is quite a difference between those two thought processes.

Anyway DxD is perfect because I'll likely start on my own but can work my way up easily through merit, and eventually use a faction as a boat for greater ambitions. Honestly taking care of DxD would make some other worlds seem more boring, so I might go in between story arcs to lesser dangerous worlds as a sort of 'training'. Either solving the problem they have or just chilling in them. Honestly DxD is a great pick, and it's what a lot of other people also go with and I honestly see why. Ecchi bordering on hentai so sexual situations can easily be escalated. Powers are wide ranging and can be learned in a lot of cases. A lot of motivated powerhouses around to wrest into your pocket, and honestly a good base to start from when it comes to an inter dimensional conquest route. It also helps that there are several worlds compressed into one with the underworld, heaven, and so on.

I could've joined the Shinto faction, were I not the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven. Even if Amaterasu could overlook what I've done to Buddhists, other factions associated with the Shinto pantheon and individuals associated with Buddhism would not. So honestly my best bet is to go for one or two of the christian factions. Considering the church and their behavior and belief, I immediately threw them out. I will help the fallen and devils and only chip in for heaven if it's needed. They're the weak link anyway with most of their weapons and powers being extremely anti devil with a couple dragon slaying swords also thrown in, but then okay against just about everything else.

So I made my choice and mentally selected DxD, which led a bunch of parameters to come up. This is going to be my main world so let's see. Difficulty is set to very easy, so I open that menu and see an option called 'Adaptive' which likely means the difficulty will match my level in most normal fights and situations. I tap on that. So even if I worldhop or something of that sort, when I come back I won't just absolutely style on everything. The next threat will simply become stronger. I then exited the difficulty section and went over to the 'character information' part. This listed out all the attributes including age, gender, and power level of each character. And I decided to immediately make some changes.

I'm not touching the power, or the age, but instead the gender for five characters, Issei, Vali, Sirzechs, Okita, and Saji. Saji and Issei are mainly to eliminate threats to my eventual plans to take some of the girls. I also have a hate boner for Issei, and with the gender switch it would turn into just a normal boner. For Vali, it's to make it easy to convince them to not become a terrorist. If I manage to seduce Vali, a character I'm actually fond of and know how to manipulate, it's a safe bet to prevent some stupid plot points. For Sirzechs, if I seduce them not only does it come with Bustier Sakuya, but also it means a strong sway over devil society. Sure I'm no Zekram, but by the time it gets to the point that I actively would take over, I'll have more than enough wit and power to outmaneuver even him. Lastly I changed Okita because I wanted to see if it would turn them into the fate version of Okita Souji, which would be pretty great not gonna lie. This won't make things any easier, but, it'll provide me different approach avenues aside from y'know, violence. So I'm sticking with it.

Next to pick from is 'starts', and I basically pick an independent start with a well sized home with a couple bedrooms, around 1 year before the start of the main plot. It'll give me enough time to get strong enough and set things up. From what Featherine was hinting at earlier, Bernkastel would likely be forced to come with, and some others will also likely stay over real soon. I also need no sacred gear, I'll just recruit the ones I'm interested in.

"Alright, I'm all done setting up the things I wanted. Is there anything else I need to be aware of or need Aurora-sama?"

I asked the two witches. Bernkastel turned into a cat and walked over to my side, the seeming reluctance gone from her. Meanwhile Featherine nodded her head.

"My miko will give you a couple more things once you 'spawn in', other than that, make sure to check all of your 'statistics' once your feet touch the ground once more. Do not let me down, Child of Man, bring forth a spectacle that will put most fiction to shame."

And with a final nod I gave her, suddenly the deep blackness returned, until I and the cat reappeared in what seems to be a living room, Bernkastel immediately chose to go lounge on a nearby couch, her tail swaying back and forth. Meanwhile I checked my info. It was split into a couple sections, mainly 'Stats', 'Skills', 'Inventory', 'Noble Phantasms/Sacred Gears/Other', 'Quests', 'Achievements', 'BGM', and 'Encyclopedia & Help'

First I went to stats and boy, was there a lot to look at.

Oda Nobunaga

Class: Avenger

Race: Demon King

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Power Rank: Low Class Devil

Thank god there are no numbers, I always sucked at math so dealing with that would've been a pain. This might be more of a skill based game, kind of like God of War, but I gotta look into the race modifiers for Demon King and see what that is about.

Demon King:

A demon king is one of the demon monarchs that watch over a level of Heaven within Buddhism. This makes them different from normal demons, and doesn't come with the same weaknesses a devil for example would have. It comes with more bonuses, and for all intents and purposes you are a deity in all but aura and power. (Race will upgrade to Demon King of the Sixth Heaven once enough power is accrued)

Fancy, and useful down the line, seems like I won't have to worry about increasing my lifespan through another method, shit comes bundled with a bunch of other boosts. Well at least I know why my stats are so high, and it's because I don't start as human. I'm several times as strong as a normal person, and then the amount of mana I have really eclipses what a normal person probably has in store.

Wait, I gotta check and see if I can summon my arq- you know what fuck it I'll just call them matchlocks. I gotta check if I can still summon them. With an outstretched hand and minimum concentration, voila, there it appears in my hand. Awesome. Now onto checking the skills tab.

Gamer's Mind EX: Allows the player to always think clearly and calmly even in extremely dire circumstances. Also grants protection against mental effects both conscious and subconscious.

Gamer's Body EX: No need to eat, use the restroom, sleep, or even breathe. Can still do all of the above for the hell of it. Sleep might be necessary so you can rest your mind.

Observation EX: Displays information about the target. Base viewing skill, others can be gained through unlocking them by maxing affection or other means

Dungeon Creation and Travel EX: Allows for the creation of entrances and exits of dungeons. Allows you to take others with you into dungeons.

Magic Resistance E: Minor resistance against magic and magecraft based attacks, reduces effectiveness of spells by 10%. Can manually allow certain spells to still affect one self.

Independent Action E: Reduces Mana Consumption of all magic based attacks by 10%.

Avenger E: Skill of the Avenger class, representing the state of an Avenger as one that gathers people's hatreds and grudges onto oneself. It is easier for one to accumulate hatred and resentment. The rate of mana generation becomes higher when receiving damage.

Oblivion Correction E: People are creatures that forget many things, but an Avenger never forgets. The critical effect of Avengers who attack from beyond one's memory is strengthened.

Mana Regeneration E: One's Magical Energy endlessly surges until their revenge is accomplished. Recovers a minuscule amount of magical energy over time.

Strategy B: The Ability to seize things in the broader perspective, such as diplomacy and logistics, in order to decide victory before the fighting even begins.

Charisma D: Composite Skill consisting of a person's charm as well as the natural talent to command or unify an army or country. Increases the ability of allies during group battles.

Demon King A: An ability "similar to but dissimilar to Innocent Monster" that affects those who were called a monster in life, later twisted to be different than they were in life. Distorts your abilities and appearance without any demerits and activates or deactivates of your own choosing. You can alter your appearance from being a small child to appearing as an adult.

Tenka Fubu E: It is a conceptual revolution of subjecting the old with the new. It grants modifiers leaning more in one's favor the higher the opponent's rank in Divinity or Mystery or the more that opponent is a guardian of the establishment. Thanks to it, Nobunaga boasts an absolute advantage over Heroic Spirits and Noble Phantasms with Divinity and Mystery. However, it has no power over Entities of the modern era with little Mystery. And not only that, but the effects of her other Skills and Noble Phantasms drop accordingly.

Zehi mo Nashi E: A double-edged sword that burns oneself in exchange for the release of powerful magical energy.

Yumemaboroshi no Gotoku E: Due to being an entity that isn't supposed to exist here, your presence feels faint to those trying to seek it out.

Foolish Killing Method A: Originally granted through skill in pranking, upgrades close combat prowess. Gives a boost to quickly hatched plots and plans conceived out of nowhere.

Pyromancer E: Have control over the power and concept of flames, allows you to use basic fire attacks and grants some temperature resistance.

Firearm Mastery C++: Both versions of yourself have ample skill with firearms old and modern, and so it accrued into one skill, you'll be able to take any human made firearm and use it with skill.

Riding C+: The ability to utilize a vehicle or a mount to a certain degree of skill. The other half was skilled in riding cars and motorcycles before Featherine kidnapped him.

That's a lot, but hey, it's good to have a mix of what was Nobus's archer and non archer skills. It'll make upgrading them all quite the experience. Then there are also the gaming specific skills that will come in handy.

Next to check was Quests, now let's see what I've got to do.

Cat Taming:

Get Bernkastel to like you, the girl is too stiff shouldered at times.

Reward—Featherine's favor, +50 reputation with witches

Bonus: Manage to Seduce/Romance Bernkastel. Her concept of love has rotted with time, and Lambda the useless lesbian doesn't help that by disemboweling eachother each time they meet, remind her of the true definition.

Bonus Reward—Gain 'Witch of Miracle's Favor' Skill, Max Reputation with Witches

I blink slowly as I read the text, Bernkastel in the background seemed to have been startled and fell off the couch. Way to make things awkward, thanks Featherine. I then check the quest below.

Back Again

Both versions of yourself have graduated from schooling already, but if you want to make good connections here, going to Kuoh will help you massively. You have around two hours to get dressed in the uniform of your choosing and get to the school.

Reward—+5 Reputation with Student Council. Gain 'Student' Skill.

Cool, a more reasonable quest line. I look around the house for the uniform. What happened is that I ran into three different sets, one male, one female, and a smaller version of the female's.

Another quest popped up at that.

Girls Get It Done

Wear the Kuoh Girl's uniform and see how long it takes for others to realize you're a boy.

Reward—A rank in Presence Concealment depending how long you went without being spotted, the boys of the school won't be annoying idiots even when you do get a harem.

Honestly, did I have any reason not to take that quest? It's all bonuses, though it made me think that Featherine might be into watching crossdressers. Either way, I pick up the girl's uniform, and 'equip' it. Putting my servant clothes into the inventory.

I still look good, as expected honestly. Honestly I feel far more tame than usual probably because the personality merge is still sorting itself out? Eh, probably by the time I get to school will I get back to my chaotic self.

"Wait, what's the other spare uniform for, it's a bit, wait, I'm guessing this one's for you!"

I said with a bit of a mock smile, and tossed it to the cat form Bernkastel who turned back to her normal self and caught it. She has quite the poker face, but from how her brows are dressed, it seems that the one quest still upset her a bit. Hopefully she'll get over it, I mean it took me off guard too.

She donned it with a sigh and then walked to the front door.

"Let's get this over with, you better buy me some plums after this."

Wait, let me observe her real quick to see what her stats are!

Bernkastel

Witch of Miracles, The Other Gamer

Low Spellcaster

Damn, Featherine really clapped her down into a weakling to the point I could probably defeat her. She must've really fucked up for her master to punish her this harshly.

I merely shrug and follow along, once I get to the front door, Bernkastel drops some crystals into my hand.

"Use these once school is over, they're for the gacha. I'll show you where it is once we get the day over with."

I hummed in satisfaction before we made our way out the door. I then realized I didn't fucking know where Kuoh was. Bernkastel seems to have read my mind as she tugs my sleeve to just follow her lead. It can't be helped I suppose. This is how my new life starts, following a cat around.

Now that I'm outside with the sun shining, again, I just take it all in. I never even thought about refusing this, I had no reason to, this is the sort of Heaven I would want, A heaven I can make my own domain.

---

New story before I even get to the chapter of the next one? That's just how it is. This is a partial self insert, though obviously, the protag was mixed in with Nobu, so in the end they will act more 'Nobunaga like'. It does help that I sort of based my personality off of her when I was going through a rough patch and now I'm stuck with the mindset she holds. They are still acting tame since the personality merge does mentally drain one a bit, so Nobu is not being as boisterous and loud as usual. For now though this will do, for those familiar with the When They Cry series, Dab me up my dawg, for those who are not, I recommend reading Umineko first since this fic will spoil some bits of it.

Either way, peace, I look forward to seeing what you all think.