A Handful of Demon: a litrpg harem fantasy, page 1
A Handful of Demon
Demon Girl Rescues book 1
J Foster Ward
Published by Evil Genius Society
Edited by Bran Sanders
Warning! Please read to the end if you need to be warned about adult content!
Give demon girls the love they deserve!
He started a foundation to rescue wayward demons in a fantasy world.
The Mother of All Demons wants someone who can rescue all her poor, lost demon girls and save her people from being wiped out. That calls for someone ruthless… someone powerful… someone who read the cheat guide…
When a six-armed demon goddess – ummm – ‘hand-picks’ Ryan to be her champion in another world he can’t figure out why. Until he finds out the video game he obsessed over as a kid was actually all based on a real place. Ryan Scully – aka the warlock Rineskull – gets thrown naked into the beginner dungeon that he played through so many times he knows every secret level, easter egg, boss monster and bit of game lore. Only now it’s all real.
All Ryan wants to do is win this real-life version of the game as efficiently as possible… but hot demon girls keep getting in the way.
Get ready for damsels, demonseed, delinquents, decapitations, domination, dungeons and d*ck jokes. Dig it!
WARNING: this book is an adult litrpg adventure fantasy with harem themes. Set in a world where today’s values and morals wouldn’t cut it, the hero has to either save the demon population or make more baby demons. Do not read if you are easily offended by unlocking the desires of an uptight succubus, stealing the virtue of a shapeshifting bear, cuckolding tragic lovelorn ghosts or brutally murdering griefer gamers who think they’re playing Art of Swords Online.
In fact, if that bothers you maybe you should just go back to reading kids books by that guy who writes about magic closets and talking lions… I hear he’s good.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 : Speedrun
Chapter 2 : Not a Bad Gig
Chapter 3 : If the Spirit is Willing
Chapter 4 : Long Live the New Flesh
Chapter 5 : Putting the Hand in Handjob
Chapter 6 : Snakebit
Chapter 7 : Ellsbat
Chapter 8 : Servant
Chapter 9 : The Lost Heir
Chapter 10 : Garden
Chapter 11 : Fool the Newbs
Chapter 12 : In Hot Water
Chapter 13 : Some Days the Bear Eats You
Chapter 14 : Damsels
Chapter 15 : A Quiet Place
Chapter 16 : Suck My Balls
Chapter 17 : New Hires
Chapter 18 : Citrine Egg
Chapter 19 : Betrayed!
Chapter 20 : Watchtower
Chapter 21 : Hostages
Chapter 22 : Part of the World
Chapter 1
: Speedrun
Ryan opened his eyes to see the blurry form of the Herald of Dagon hovering above him, glowing with light. As feeling slowly returned to his limbs his senses settled down like a boiling pot removed from the stove.
“Back for more baby? If you insist, but no tail this time,” he mumbled to the demoness, half awake.
There was no reply. Working his way to consciousness he blinked his eyes open against the light and looking more carefully he saw it wasn’t really Dagonestra over him. He was at the foot of a tall, arched window filled with a stained-glass image of the six-armed snake demon-lord. The window was broken in places, with cracks and chinks missing, but the terrible and somehow beautiful monstrous body that looked down on him was only glass. He took a moment to study the lines of her horns, teeth and claws. The windowmaker had failed to capture her charm, beauty and smile, but the bare breasts were dead on.
“Where the hell am I now?” he groaned.
Was that his voice? It sounded different.
“Wake up, asshole… time to die!” the shout came from behind him.
The whistling sound of something heavy through the air kicked in some sort of reflex in his new body. He wasn’t even awake yet and Ryan rolled, trying to get out of the way. He immediately fell right off some sort of platform and thumped painfully to the floor.
“Fuck!” he winced, slamming chin, elbow and knee into hard stone.
But it saved his life. The sound of cloven air belonged to a huge black sword that slammed into the surface above him where he’d just been laying.
“Shit!” he scrambled, trying to get arms and legs under him to stand up.
The figure holding the giant two-handed sword was standing over him. Head to toe in black plate mail, a black cloak and a black tabard.
Goddam… who ordered the medieval Darth Vader?
He was stuck, trapped between the figure and something heavy and unmoving. Ryan got to his hands and knees and stared in awe as the figure raised the sword overhead for another blow. He was going to die now…
But as the black knight swung the sword up, the massive blade slammed into the ceiling, staggering the dark warrior and Ryan had enough time to scramble up and put the thing at his back between them; it was a big stone altar with a single ragged cloth covering it.
The armored man growled in frustration, changed his stance and instead of swinging overhand, sliced horizontally, aiming to cut Ryan’s head off. Again the cramped space betrayed him, the giant sword hitting the wall halfway through the swing and almost knocking him down.
Who the fuck was this guy? And why did he want to kill Ryan? His armor was covered in spikes, and the closed-face helm had an actual human skull bolted to the front and horns sticking out from the sides. What a fucking edgelord…
But the armored figure had recovered and yelled again. “Quit jumping around, asshole. Sit still while I kill you!”
Finally understanding he couldn’t swing the gigantic sword around indoors, the edgelord did the smart thing and short-gripped the sword with one hand holding the blade midlength. With a clanking of metal armor, he charged Ryan, stabbing.
Ryan ducked low behind the stone block as the sword probed uselessly above him. Then he heard the clanking of the armor and knew the man was coming around the altar. Ryan went the other way and watched the figure clumsily give chase, jabbing the swordpoint after him, always a step behind. For a moment they played tag, Ryan staying just ahead of the man as he chased him round and round the altar, hacking chips out of the stone and presumably blunting the blade.
I’m going to die naked, playing monkey and the weasel!
He heard huffing and puffing as the figure in the armor grew winded fast. You had to be in excellent shape to run in fifty pounds or armor, and if you weren’t careful, you could black out if the inside of your helmet filled up with too much exhaled carbon dioxide.
“Fuggin… ass… hole…” the man gasped.
Stalemate. Ryan could outrun him, but then what? Make a break for the door? What then? He was naked and this guy was in full plate. He had the advantage now… if he could use it.
Ryan made one more circle of the altar, eying the floor to ceiling stained glass window of Dagonestra. The next time he rounded the altar on the window-side, he pretended to trip and fall, going down on one knee. His opponent let out a wordless cry of victory and came at him, charging with sword held low.
Sweeping the altar cloth free, Ryan used it to protect his hands as he blocked the clumsy point of the blade, directing it down into the floor. The point dug into the flagstones, jammed between a crack, and the edgelord staggered, hilt half-torn from his grasp.
Then Ryan leaped up from his crouch, caught the man low in the middle, and using all his weight and momentum, propelled the black knight into the window.
“Hrrruuungh?” the edgelord grunted.
There was a moment when he thought the stained glass would hold. It bent and sagged on the web of lead solder that held the glass together, then it cracked and gave way, leaving the black-armored man balanced precariously on the windowsill, arms and legs windmilling. Ryan kicked once and the heel of his foot ‘bonged’ against the breastplate, sending his opponent over and out into the air with a shower of colored glass.
“Asss-hoooole!” the figure shouted as he vanished from view.
Careful of broken glass, Ryan stepped carefully to the edge and looked out and down. They were, apparently, at the top of a tall tower and maybe fifty feet be
low was the broken rubble of a collapsed stone wall. The bent and broken shape of the armored figure was laying very still at the base of the tower.
“Who’s the asshole now?” he called down, adrenalin making him laugh near hysterically.
He started to shake now that the life-or-death fight was suddenly over. Staggering away from the window he sat with his back to the wall until his hands stopped shaking and he didn’t feel like passing out.
“She fucking did it… she really did it. Crazy demon was right…”
He looked out the broken window at the blue sky and green of forest to the horizon. Smelled sunshine on warm stone, fresh air and clean breeze. The bottom half of the stained-glass was gone, reaving only the upper, human, half of Dagonestra to glare down at him.
“So this is a different world,” he said, looking around.
It seemed a lot like the one he was from, except he was inside a room made from mortared stones instead of sheetrock and plaster. First the underworld web, then Dagonestra’s palace, now this. How many other worlds were there?
He sat up slowly, feeling cold stone under his naked flesh, and looked at his new hands and body to make sure he hadn’t been dreaming that part.
“Not bad, not bad… “
His brand-new body from the demoness was muscular, but no body-builder. Definition, not bulk. Although the six-pack abs were a nice bonus. Hairless except for the patch of sandy pubes. He checked his junk for damage… didn’t want to lose it so soon after getting it. He was already getting attached… like the rest of his body it was impressive but understated. Thick, long, no weird bends or shapes.
He was still a bit sticky and tender from the demoness’ ‘test-run’. But he pushed that pleasant memory aside for the moment; there was too much to discover.
“Welp, no time to sit around, playin with myself,” he declared and stood up.
He was in what looked like a small chapel. The remains of the stained-glass window shone daylight on a plain room with a stone altar draped in a green and gold cloth. But what caught his attention was the circle drawn on the floor around him. It was drawn in glowing paint and had squiggles and slashes of lines and shapes all around the outside, like a trigonometry diagram.
No… not squiggles and shapes… runes and magical glyphs. He could read it and understand the purpose of the geometries of every line. It was a summoning circle. A powerful magic to bring forth a creature from another dimension. A complex bit of magic. How the fuck did he know that?
Then he remembered.
The Ritual Magic feat he’d asked for… he knew because Dagonestra had given him the ability to understand and cast magic rituals. The crazy cock-slut hadn’t been lying… she’d actually given him a new body and the powers that came with it. He barely believed it. He scowled at the room. Did he trust her? Of course not. Never believe someone selling something too good to be true. He’d trust she kept up her end of the deal when he saw the proof. And the only way to do that was try out his new powers.
He stepped across the cold floor – his body moving easily like it was brand new. With a thankful nod to the stained-glass image of Dagonestra he swept the cloth off the altar and tied it around his waist in a kilt so his dick wasn’t waving in the breeze any more, then moved to the only door in the room. It was handmade, carefully crafted but reminded him of an old pioneer-life farmhouse he’d visited as a kid, before things went to shit with his parents. The door looked… old, weather-worn and cracked. Like the room had been abandoned for years. The door had an iron latch stiff with rust and lifting it, the hinges squealed when it opened. After looking around the corner he crept out into the deserted corridor. It was more of the same… dusty, cold and unlit. Where the stucco had cracked and crumbled he could see bare blocks of stone beneath.
What had the demon said? She’d sent him where he’d feel at home. If this really was Eldwick, where would that be?
No… she couldn’t possible have…
If this place was what he thought it was, there was an easy way to prove it. The corridor was lit only by a single narrow window at the far end, but he saw perfectly well; that was the half-demon heritage, they saw almost like a cat. There were two other doors off the hallway and the spiral stairs that led around the circular tower that would reach the upper and lower levels. He took the next door and had to put his shoulder to the damp-swollen wood. It popped open, letting him tumble into the room beyond.
Ryan gripped the door handle for support as he took in the worn carpet underfoot, the dim light that filtered through ragged curtains over tall narrow windows, and the wooden cabinets displaying books that had seen better centuries. A pair of broken, upholstered chairs were piled in one corner. The air smelled like mustiness and neglect. A breeze rustled the curtains, revealing the room in brightness for a moment before almost shyly hiding it in shadow again. Like the room itself held secrets it was reluctant to share.
His skepticism collided head-on with the eleven-year-old Ryan who would’ve given anything to see this when he was a kid. The wooden cabinets, cracked and peeling with age, stood like helpless witnesses over the written works that had outlasted their authors. The contents had been tossed to the floor, a graveyard of books, scattered pages like unwanted junkmail that piled up on the steps of an abandoned housing development.
Ryan's lips curved with a hint of dry humor. “A library, huh? Because nothing screams 'fantasy come to life' like a room full of old books,” he muttered.
He couldn't escape the irony of his situation, a man who had spent his life trapped behind a desk, now stumbling into a fantasy world with the promise of adventure and the first place he saw as… a library. But under the disbelief, a spark of curiosity urged him to look beyond the mundane place and embrace the reality that stood before him.
Now, if this place was the real-life version of where he thought it was… that meant right around here he should find…
He knelt by the chairs and pausing to wish himself luck he flipped them both over. They were heavy and the horse-hair stuffing had been ripped out to form a nest underneath.
“Fuck me, it’s really real…”
Beneath the chairs in the nest of rags were four eggs. Each was the size of a baby’s skull and striated like polished marble. Lifting one in his hand he could feel by the weight it was not solid stone.
It was the egg of the bellsnake.
There was only one place in Eldwick he’d ever found a bellsnake; a magical creature that lived in the top of the Emerald Princess’ tower of castle Telizart. Telizart was the starting dungeon in the Barony of Gullodosia, the first region of Eldwick that new players spawned into. Ryan had spent dozens… no… hundreds of hours exploring every inch of the tower. Hell… every inch of the barony. He’d known the whole place better than his hometown when he was young.
Still did, apparently.
But if this was the emerald palace… that meant he was on the top floor of the tower – instead of starting on the ground level, Dagonestra had put him on the boss level of the dungeon. For fucksakes... He was naked and alone with an entire dungeon of traps, monsters and enemies between him and the exit.
Okay, Ryan, keep your shit together, he told himself. You know every monster, trap, treasure and secret level in the place. For fun he’d done speedruns through the entire dungeon and even given himself challenges like beating the whole dungeon using only a leg of lamb as a weapon, just to see if he could beat it.
How different could this be?
That was a game… this is real, he reminded himself. In the game there were no rules for fatigue or pain or fear. In the real world he was cold and sore and afraid. This dungeon could kill him. He could think of a dozen horrible deaths at the hands of some truly messed up situations just off the top of his head.
But then again… it was also full of treasure, magic and opportunities to increase his powers.
“Well… with these four bad boys I should have a fighting chance anyway,” he said, lining up the four marble eggs.
He took a moment to right one of the chairs and take a seat. In his head he mentally recalled the layout of the top of the tower. Aside from the chapel and the library on this level was the guard post; top level was the ballroom with the bellsnake, and between them was the temple that took up an entire level…
