Devouring the Hero's Family - Chapter 3: Consuming The Succubus Goddess

...[Inside an underground basement]“You are going to die for nothing, hahahaha,” the old man's voice thundered through the room, sending chills down my spine.Step.With a swift and ruthless motion, he lunged forward, his sword slicing through the air and slashing my throat, crimson droplets staining the darkness.“We'll see,” I whispered defiantly, my final words escaping as a mere breath against the impending darkness.Slowly, inexorably, my consciousness slipped away, and I descended into a deep, unfathomable slumber.“Huh!?” My eyes fluttered open, and I found myself seated in a bustling tavern, the air thick with laughter and the clinking of glasses.In front of me stood a captivating lady, her beauty juxtaposed with an angry furrow upon her brow, threatening to shatter the harmony of the jovial scene.“Don't follow me around!” Her words pierced the air like shards of ice, the intensity of her emotions palpable as she cast a resentful glare in my direction, before swiftly departing from the tavern....Am I trapped within the confines of a game? The fragments of my shattered common sense scattered before me, leaving me to question the very fabric of my reality.

I was stuck in a dungeon explosion while working so hard that I actually died.

But when I opened my eyes, I was back to the time of 3 years ago!

Well, I will live differently in this life. Salary is goodbye to s*ave life. I quit immediately and set up a cafe in the store my grandmother left behind.

There are no customers because she is right in front of a dungeon, but it doesn’t matter. All I want is to work two days and play five days. But.

Also, the attractive regular customer who keeps bothering me is somehow unusual.

It doesn’t feel good. Isn’t it like the story of the main character of the RPG, who was just trying to run an errand, and ends up fighting the devil after getting caught up in something annoying?

Yes, I will not. I can not. I have no intention of playing more than the role of a novice innkeeper.”

Zhuang Xian was abducted when she was three years old and lived in an orphanage until she was sixteen when the Zhuang family adopted her. From then on, she jumped from being an orphan with nothing to a little princess. But she wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to find her birth parents and get their love, but she didn’t expect to instead find a family of jackals and snakes. They took advantage of her trust to annex her adoptive parents’ company and forced them to their deaths.

Her three brothers fled abroad, while Zhuang Xian was beaten and scolded by everyone. Locked in a warehouse, she was forced to endure torture for the whole month with a clear mind thanks to drugs. In the end, she died miserably due to her fiance and her sister’s plotting against her. That cheating scumbag and prostitute! Zhuang Xian swore before her death that if there was a next life, she would be willing to do anything for the Zhuang family, and she wouldn’t let these people deceive her like this again! She would make sure that those who treated her well would have a good life! Zhuang Xian didn’t get the next life, but she did return to the first three years of her adoption. For three years, she stayed under the radar and created multiple identities for herself.

When three years were up, she returned to the Zhuang family and beat up those scumbags, while her three brothers doted on her as though she was a treasure! Outsiders say that the Zhuang family’s adopted daughter didn’t learn well when she was younger, that she was completely illiterate, and that she was stubborn. The reason she was rejected by her previous adoptive family was that she was prone to stealing.

However… She was the Chess Saint, the Gold Medalist Designer, and also the world’s best doctor! All of them were her! There was also the crazy slave-like man who loved to spoil her and loved to show off his wife, “Zhuang Xian is beautiful, right? She’s my wife!”

Warning This fiction contains:

Graphic Violence Profanity Sensitive Content

Summary – Level 1:

Delve is an isekai litrpg that follows an average guy who just happened to wake up in a forest one day. He wasn’t summoned to defeat the demon lord or to save the world or anything like that, at least as far as he can tell. The only creature there to greet him was a regular old squirrel.

Soon enough, he meets other people, only to discover that he can’t speak the language, and that not everybody immediately trusts random pajama-wearing strangers they met in the middle of the wilderness. Things generally go downhill from there, at least until the blue boxes start appearing.

Delve is a story about finding your way in a new, strange, and dangerous world. It’s about avoiding death, figuring out what the heck is going on, and trying to make some friends along the way. It’s not about getting home, so much as finding a new one.

Did I mention that there will be math?

Summary – Level 2:

Okay, but what are you in for, really?

Well, this story is supposed to be realistic, or at least, as realistic as a fantasy litrpg can be. The main character doesn’t instantly become an all-powerful god and murder-hobo his way across the universe. Delve is, at its heart, a progression fantasy, but that progression is meant to feel earned. The numbers in this story actually mean something. Everything is calculated, and if you find a rounding error, I expect you to tell me about it. That said, if math isn’t your cup of tea, there is plenty more that the story has to offer. Characters are meant to feel real, and progression isn’t only about personal power; it’s also about allies, connections, and above all, knowledge. Figuring out how the system works is a significant theme.

...

What, you want more details? Okay, fine, but this is going to get a bit spoiler-y. Are you sure?

Yes!

Really sure? I mean, this summary is practically half as long as the first chap–

Now!

Okay, okay!

The main character becomes a magic user, but he takes a route that is not very popular in adventurer culture, namely that of a support. There is a full magic system with various spells, skills, and abilities, but our MC decides that aura magic is the way to go, and that the only stat worth investing in is mana regeneration. Most people at the Adventurer’s Guild think that this makes him a bit of a dumbass, but he’s playing the long game. We’ll see how that works out for him, won’t we?

Because of his build, the MC levels up fast, at least compared to normal people. There are no cheats, though, and he is limited in other ways. There are some clear and pretty obvious downsides to his build. That’s what makes it fun, no?

Morals? Our MC has them. Again, we’ll see how that works out for him. Realism, remember? Would you be okay with killing someone and looting their body? I sure hope not.

POV? The focus is on the main character, but there will be occasional varying perspectives from people around him, or involved in the events related to the main plot. It isn’t going to jump all over the place.

Tech is standard medieval stasis. No smartphones, but the MC does have a technical background. Computers and their programming might be involved. There might even be a bit of uplifting down the road, who knows? Anyway, it isn’t the focus. He isn’t going to invent the gun in chapter 1 and change the face of warfare.

Romance is not a major focus. Friendships are more the name of the game, though there will be some characters in romantic relationships.

There is exploration, though not as much of the geographical nature as you might expect. It is more about exploration of the system and the culture.

The pace is slow and detailed, sometimes verging on slice-of-life. The action is meant to be realistic and grounded in the numbers, and it is intended to have meaning beyond simply punching things until they stop moving.

The general tone of the story is grey, and some parts can get quite dark. People die. Sometimes, people with names, but not anywhere near GoT level. There is plenty of light, too, though, to balance the darkness. The world is dangerous, but overcoming that danger is why we’re all here, isn’t it?

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far through the summary, you clearly like words. I hope you enjoy the story!