Being summoned wasn't something that often happens in general, let alone the same person more than once. This makes Diablo's second time. He heard the call from the interstice between worlds, and the choice to answer hardly needed to be made. The issue is, now he and Klem are in a place they know less than nothing about, and there are too many eyes on them.
Standing in the middle of a throne room, and surrounded by people with clear political power, Diablo could tell he was far out of his depth. Klem was still by his side, luckily, but it felt wrong to ask a demon lord, destroyer of the races, for help getting out of talking. So he scanned the room again, trying to understand the situation.
The king stood out most. Ornate clothing, annoying crown, oversized chair, the whole shebang. There was someone with clear magic power right next to the king too, a woman draped in some fine, red fabric, and she looked in rough shape, hands were trembling, and face was shiny with sweat. On either side of the room between large pillars, flanking Diablo and Klem, was a non-insignificant number of heavily armored nights. No one in the room seemed dangerous enough to be any trouble for him.
What was really starting to stand out was the hesitation to speak. Diablo was infamous for his inability to introduce himself in an acceptable way, so he was really banking on someone else setting the expectations. Klem seemed busy inspecting something Diablo couldn't see, and he doubted she would have the manners someone would need to talk to a king in the first place, so there was certainly no way he could rely on her. The issue he's confronting now is something he has been confronting as long as he's been in this body. What the hell am I supposed to do here? Diablo was lost.
"Name yourself, summoned hero." The woman in red spoke first, much to Diablo's gratitude. However, what she said also presented him with an issue. Claiming to be a demon lord hardly ever worked out to his expectations. Either no one believed him, or people were too scared to speak to him properly. Not to mention he had no clue what this world thought of demon lords.
However, he had changed. Before, he might have failed the social interaction by proclaiming himself a 'Demon Lord from another world!', but now it's different.
"My name is Diablo, a dem– A hero from another world!" Nailed it! Almost, he thought. All things considered, this was a huge leap for his personal development.
"Madam Morgana, this fellow has horns. What do you think the cause is? Perhaps he is a demon?" The king spoke to the woman in red without looking away from Diablo. Klem waved her hand in front of her slowly, like she was dragging it through water. Diablo didn't feel like he had the bandwidth to care about Klem right now, but it stood out so much he couldn't help but notice.
"Perhaps, but his magicule concentration seems too high to be one, from what I understand. He could be some sort of beastfolk, maybe some sort of goat-man?" She was slowly catching her breath, but she didn't look any less stressed. So the demons here don't have face tattoos, then? This must be a different world. Diablo was combing his memory for demons from other media, but was struggling past the basics. He spent the vast majority of his time in Cross Reverie, so he was a bit under-studied on other things.
"What concerns me is the girl next to him. The miasma coming off of her is so heavy I almost feel sick," she continued. Diablo looked to Klem. What the woman in red said got her attention. As she began to speak, Diablo interrupted her.
"She is my familiar, worry not." Klem's mouth snapped shut into an annoyed frown. Sorry Klem, I don't want to cause any more issues than I need to. "Why have you summoned me? For what purpose have you called me here?" Diablo lamented that he couldn't help sounding haughty, but he couldn't help it.
The woman in red spoke, "I am Sorcerress Morgana. On behalf of the King of Astraide, I have summoned you to destroy the vile Demon Lord Rimuru Tempest."
Shit, Demon lords are reviled here. It's a good thing we kept quiet. I wonder about this Rimuru guy, though. Klem seemed to fully lock onto the conversation at the term, however. She looked to Diablo with a glimmer in her eyes. Diablo instinctively understood what she meant.
"I will be doing no such thing."
"Then is your intention to destroy us?"
Diablo started sweating. Shit! I didn't mean to sound so angry, can't you just let me off the hook?
"Diablo, I think it's time we leave." Klem tugged at his sleeve. He looked at her and saw determination in her eyes. He knew there was no getting out of it, at this point.
As Klem spoke, Morgana started casting some sort of spell. She didn't speak, but the flow of magic around her gathered in a way he was familiar with. Diablo was a bit on edge, but he wasn't scared. His ring would reflect magic, and he had a sense it would reflect whatever this was. After Klem taught him the intricacies of magic, he found he could read this world's magic easily, even if some points differed from what he was used to.
Klem started to move for an attack, but Diablo stopped her. She was prepared to kill, but Diablo didn't want anyone to die unnecessarily. This could still be talked through, and he didn't want to escalate.
It took only a moment for the spell to be completed. Before Diablo could make some proclamation, the sorceress called out.
"Begone from this place." Magical energy surrounded the two. Full activation took less than a second, but time slowed for Diablo. Magic wrapped around Klem, grabbing her and pulling her away. He didn't understand exactly where, it wasn't in a direction he could point, but he could tell it was away. The same energy tried to encircle him, but the moment it tried to grab him, he could tell it bounced back to the caster. The sorceress was pulled away too, just a fraction of a second after Klem. Diablo thought he was probably the only one in the room who noticed the delay.
The chamber was stunned into silence. Diablo was also shocked, but his mind was racing through escape options. He didn't know anything about where he was, which made him anxious, but he was fairly confident in his strength. The thought of running into an unknown world with an unknown strength level was concerning, but the alternative hardly seemed better. He could stay here to be attacked, or taken prisoner, but the idea of captivity didn't appeal to him.
The guards finally turned to him. "What did you do?" one called out.
"I have done nothing. She cast a spell without considering my own capabilities, and she paid the price."
"Where did you send her? Did you kill her?" A different guard was starting to shout.
Come on man, I told you. Diablo wanted to slump, but that would be un-demon-lordy of him. "I told you, I have done nothing. I do not know what happened to her, as she has done it to herself."
"Lier! Bastard!" The guard who yelled dropped their halberd into a ready stance and leapt towards Diablo. He was fast for a normal warrior, but slow for Diablo. The guard had crossed half the distance between them when Diablo had dropped into his stance. Sword Smite Three. Diablo met him halfway, as if he had teleported, and shock was apparent on the guards face.
He prematurely brought the halberd down, so his foot was bad. Diablo easily deflected it by stepping in and brushing the shaft aside. He was too close for the halberd to be useful. Diablo's fist flew into the guard's stomach like a bullet, collapsing the plate. All the air left the guards body, gluing him in place as Diablo pulled his leg, knocking him on his back.
The one sided thrashing was almost too fast for anyone else to follow, but the knights kept up enough to know it was one-sided.
Before they got their wits about them, Diablo went back on the offensive. He stuck a hand towards the knights.
"Gust." Hurricane force winds tore through the hall. Everything that wasn't nailed down went flying to the entrance. Banners were torn from the walls, windows shattered, the rug came up with the guards and slammed into the door, throwing it open. The king was the only other person in the room at this point.
Diablo looked at him, and their eyes met. "Do not follow me." His hand reached for the wall. "Stone cannon." A bolder the size of a small car came into existence and hurtled through that wall. Daylight bathed the chamber, and Diablo could see where the town ended and the forest began. Unfortunately, there was a bit of distance between there and where he was. Not only was he at the top of the hill, there was probably about 3 miles until he could sneak into the woods. Should I fly? No, I would be an open target for archers, and I don't know how strong their archery is. Better to slink through the streets, I think. Before he could jump to his escape, the knights flooded back into the room. They seemed to hesitate in getting too close, though.
"I'll say this one last time; Don't follow me. Freezia." A white flower bloomed over the center of the crowd, and suddenly everyone was frozen solid. The air seemed to still as they lost their ability to move, and ice formed around them.
Acquisition of Unique Skill: Overlord… Confirmed. A voice resounded in Diablo's mind. He looked around to see where it could be coming from, but everyone he looked at seemed to shrink, even despite being frozen. As he focused on any individual person, though, he started to notice new details. They had names floating above their heads with levels next to them, which were underlined by colors. When he focused more on any particular name, something like a dropdown menu appeared in his vision, telling him about whatever equipment they had, or a skill breakdown. This sealed his lips shut tight.
He didn't know what was happening, but he knew didn't want to stay here.
He finally leapt from the opening, escaping into town. Shouts echoed from the castle as Diablo started his escape through streets and back alleys. He ran into a few groups of knights, but he was more than strong enough to win without killing anyone. Almost every guard he ran into had some shade of green underlining their name, and their levels were about 40 on average. The highest level was 70, but they were all green.
At some point, he stole a generic brown cloak from a stall he passed. That was enough of a disguise to avoid a few conflicts, and he managed to make it to the edge of town. There was a wall in his way, and he didn't want to go to a gate, so he decided to risk flight. Pouring magic into his boots, he glided over the wall.
It took him a couple of hours to reach the wall, so the sun was starting to set. He didn't want to give the knights more time to find him, so he set off immediately into the increasingly dark woods.
"Maybe I should have let Klem kill them." He groaned to himself after some time running. He let himself slow down after 40 minutes of straight sprinting. "Probably not, actually. I don't want to be the enemy of an entire kingdom." He sighed in exhaustion, both mental and physical. It would be a while until he could slow down, he thought, and it would be rough.