20 Inner Demon
A gentle breeze glazed over Touma's face and the smell of ocean water entered his nostrils, causing him to open his eyes slowly.
'It seems like I was transported from my toilet to a beach.' Touma concluded as he got up and dusted off the sand.
The beach was filled with people having fun with their families and friends, everyone was spending their time leisurely.
Touma took out his phone but was immediately disappointed by the fact that he didn't have any signal there. So, he walked to the nearest passerby to gather information as it was the only possible and feasible choice.
"Excuse me."
"Yes?" The man said in Japanese and turned around. As soon he met Touma's glowing eyes, his vision turned hazy and his posture became more relaxed.
'It seems like I am still in Japan.' Thought Touma and proceeded to ask the hypnotized civilian. "I only want to ask a simple question, where are we?"
"We are in Odaiba Beach, in Tokyo."
"I see. And do you know where they sell prepaid SIM cards?"
"Yea, if you follow this way…"
The man proceeded to give instructions and Touma memorized them easily.
"Ok, thank you for the help. Now you'll forget what happened in the past 5 minutes." Touma said and dispelled the hypnosis.
"Huh? What was I doing?" The man asked himself confusedly before shrugging his shoulders and walking away.
Meanwhile, Touma had already left the scene and arrived at the metropolitan area of Tokyo.
Touma bought a SIM card without any problem as the currency was the same and the cashier wouldn't be able to distinguish that it was from another world.
"Now what should I do?" Touma felt a sense of freedom as he was going abroad alone for the first time.
'If I remember correctly, there is only one Heretic God here who is keeping others of his kind from descending in Japan, but he isn't that interesting. And I don't want to start a manhunt when I just arrived here, so…"
"Let's explore the city a little bit, it's been years since I have been in Tokyo."
…
Later that day, Touma booked a nice hotel room with the help of minor hypnosis. The room was very spacious for only one person, but he wasn't lacking money.
'England and Norway huh?' While thinking about what Rias said, a coin appeared in between Touma's fingers. "If it ends with head I will go to England and to Norway if it lands on tails."
Touma flicked the coin with his thumb, tossing it high into the air before it fell back on his hand.
"Tails." Touma muttered as he returned the coin to the [Inventory]. "Guess I will go to Norway tomorrow. But since I technically don't exist here, it would be a pain in the ass to mass hypnotize the whole crew as I don't have any valid identification documents on me, not to mention it would be quite boring as well…"
"Should I just fly over to Norway or try my luck in gacha?" Touma pondered. "You know what? I will just do both. If I don't get anything from Gacha, I will just fly."
Touma opened the HUD and opened the gacha window.
" Let's go with a 10 roll with Campione rate-up…which I doubt is real, unlike One Piece."
10 white spheres formed a circle and spun at incredible speed before slowing down and forming a straight line.
[Mumen Rider (OPM)]
[Heretical Ticket Bonus: Campione Special Edition (One-time use)]
[Power Boost Card]
[Essence of Blank (CYOA)]
[Kazuma Sato (Konosuba)]
[Gorgoneion (Campione)]
[Bartolomeo (OP)]
[Shisui Uchiha (Naruto)]
[Status Recovery (SL) (One-time use)]
[Power Boost Card]
"Holy cow, I just got an Essence!" Touma cried in excitement. For him, it was like getting a meta SSR.
'Furthermore, it is the Essence of Blank! It can remove the limits of my being and learn magics, skills or knowledge that I was unable to, which is perfect for someone like me!' Then without any hesitation, Touma claimed the Essence.
Touma didn't feel anything nor there were visible changes, but he didn't mind it. After cooling down a little bit, Touma looked at the rest of what he got.
[Heretical Ticket Bonus: Campione Special Edition]
[Allows you to usurp every Authority possessed by the Heretic God that you have slain. One-time use only.]
'This would be appreciated.' Touma thought as he looked at the characters he got. "Mumen Rider is a good guy, maybe I should summon him once my Garden is finished. Shisui basically gives perfect mind control. but with a long cooldown, Bartolomeo would be helpful in oncoming battles with his barriers and Kazuma…is Kazuma."
Opening his status tab, Touma put Shisui, Bartolomeo and Kazuma on [Character Assimilation], Masayuki was already completely assimilated while Julius was at 70%. Then he used [Weakness Removal Card] to get rid of Sea weakness and later he looked at the [Inventory], where there were several [Power Boost Cards] waiting to be used.
'I was gathering them for later use, but I shouldn't underestimate a god, even if they aren't at their full power.'
Heretic Gods can't descend with their full powers, so they had to manifest while focusing on certain aspects of their myths. Like how Athena had to descend focusing on her aspect as goddess of wisdom and death along with the Medusa aspect.
'Speaking for Athena, I just got her grimoire as they are called. I wonder if it is a copy or if I 'stole' it?' The answer came right away and Touma had indeed 'stolen' from the original owner. 'And I just made myself the target of a goddess.'
Now finally grabbing his [Power Boost Cards], Touma immediately upgraded the Julius card without hesitation.
'Earlier I was skeptical over upgrading Percival or Julius as they are my 'mains', but Time magic was just too versatile and powerful to let it slide, so the answer was obvious.'
As Touma consumed all his [Power Boost Cards] on Julius. Then he summoned his grimoire in its miniature form and a coverless book with countless pages started flipping on its own.
"There are no visual changes, but I am getting a different feeling about it, almost as if it was calling me." Touma muttered, but his instincts were warning him against something. Then a white humanoid figure appeared floating behind him with its arms above Touma's shoulders.
"Laplace, increase my odds of surviving and being victorious!" Touma commanded and his stand did as it was ordered. The young man raised his hand and touched the coverless grimoire. Then his consciousness immediately slipped away as he was brought to a different domain.
…
When Touma came to his senses, he was floating in a black pitch dimension that made it impossible to see anything.
As Touma was assessing his surroundings, a man appeared a few meters away from Touma.
'That is…!' Touma frowned as the man's figure became clearer and clearer as time lapsed.
"Julius Novachrono?" Touma muttered in astonishment.
"No, I am not exactly the man you label as Wizard King." The man replied and Touma finally noticed.
Instead of the blond hair that Julius had, this man had black hair accompanied by a pair of menacing red eyes like a demon and a dark-colored sun tattoo on the right side of his forehead.
Touma's expression hardened and opened his hand, ready to summon his holy spear.
"Who are you?"
"You may refer to me as Lucius Zogratis or Astaroth, at this point there is no difference between us, but regardless, my goal remains the same." Lucius wore a sinister smile as he raised his arm and pointed his index finger at Touma.
"I will take over your body and make humanity reach its 'true' form with me as their sole ruler."
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