Now, the Shadow Demon summoned from the ritual lay within the shadows beneath Aiwass's feet.
He sat in a wheelchair, not because his legs were paralyzed due to the sacrifice, but because if he stepped on his own shadow, he would immediately rouse the Shadow Demon, causing it to materialize.
This wheelchair was what Aiwass asked for from the old butler upon waking.
Because now, his Shadow Affinity level was too low.
The Shadow Demon belonged to the Upper-Level Demons, and to control a Shadow Demon, one had to at least level up Shadow Affinity to level three, and to merge with the Shadow Demon, level five was necessary. Until then, he could only extract part of the Shadow Demon's strength to use "special abilities." Although the Shadow Demon would not harm him and would even protect Aiwass based on their pact, he had no way to bind the Shadow Demon's actions.
From this perspective, a Demon Scholar who contracts lower-level demons is like walking a dog; whereas in Aiwass's case, it's more like the dog walking the person.
How to seal the Shadow Demon was not part of "Aiwass's" knowledge. Instead, it came from memories of another world.
Aiwass Moriarty, Path, Demon Scholar, Kingdom of Avalon... This was the world within an MMORPG game called "Ring of Ouroboros."
Their company, "No-Face God Studio," developed and operated this game.
Saying "their company," however, it was irrelevant to Aiwass's output since he wasn't a development staff. He was the new HR Manager of this game studio, commonly known as HR.
Three years ago, Aiwass resigned from his previous company and became unemployed. He felt lost in life and had a decent amount of savings, so he decided to take a long vacation. That's how his best buddy dragged him into this pit.
This buddy was the game's narrative designer, constantly promoting it by talking about the various easter eggs he had designed.
Eventually, Aiwass gave in to the nagging and also happened to be in a gaming lull, so he got into it and played for a while, finding it indeed a good game. The downside was that it was quite grindy—but it was a decent way to pass the time while unemployed at home.
Later, when he heard that "No-Face God Studio" was hiring, just as he got past the non-compete period, he directly submitted his resume and came for the interview. He was fed up with HR work and thought of trying to be a scriptwriter, yet it turns out it was his talent for HR that was recognized. But he also reconciled with it—HR it was then. At the end of the day, a corporate drone is a corporate drone, all the same.
While he was still transitioning jobs, he got transported to this world because he was replying to his boss's message while crossing the street and was hit by a dump truck.
...If only he had known he would transmigrate into this world, he would've asked for more internal information from the company or read more plot discussion threads on the forums!
This was his biggest mistake.
Because fundamentally, Aiwass was the kind of player who didn't pay much attention to the storyline or characters, and was more of a hardcore grinder.
Although he knew a bunch of secret settings, character backgrounds, and future main quests that ordinary players were unaware of through chats with friends and some early plot leaks from the group, he never cared much for the main storyline; side quests related to various characters interested him much more.
Aiwass got into the game from the 3.0 era, just after clearing the first raid boss. He used the main quest book to automatically complete all previous main quests up to the start of 3.0. Not only that, he skipped through cutscenes he could during leveling and at the start of dungeons. For those cutscenes that couldn't be skipped, it was just rapid clicking through to the end.
As a result, now, Aiwass couldn't remember what the early main storyline was. However, he retained a more vivid memory of the later story, as the storyline performances of the main raid bosses were quite impressive. Even without paying close attention to the earlier storyline, he could guess the gist through the unskippable raid cutscenes.
At the very beginning of the main story, "Aiwass" made his appearance.
He was kidnapped in the year 1898 of the Scale Calendar and brought to an altar for a ritual. A "player" accidentally lifted the barrier set up to drive away passersby and witnessed the brutal sacrifice. In the nick of time, he pretended he had already reported the matter to the Supervisory Bureau and was leading the Gryphon Knights there, scaring away the two people present.
Aiwass was saved by the "player" from the sacrificial altar, and then he offered hospitality to the player, who had nowhere to go after having their wallet and identity stolen, inviting them to his home for food and rest.
Afterward, Aiwass would join the player in their studies, grow together, and continue to investigate the case. As they delved deeper, the case grew increasingly complicated, even involving the upper echelons of the kingdom...
It was because Aiwass fell into mortal peril that his sister, Yulia, suddenly lost control—with the catalyst of the Blood Crystal Stone, she transformed into "Phantom Demon · Defiant Flame Butterfly," the first eight-person raid boss.
That was also the first Phantom Demon that the players encountered in the game.
Her real body was curled up, encased in an amber-like transparent butterfly thorax, protected by wings made of Flame Spirits. Because the dungeon was of a low level, this eight-person raid was the easiest to match in daily random dungeons, meaning one had to fight Yulia three to four times a week on average.
Since Yulia didn't want to harm Aiwass, the boss had no intricate mechanics or desire to attack, turning it into a classic entry-level boss where you hit what comes and dodge what comes. With high enough levels, one could even get by without worrying about mechanics and just keep hitting the main body. If you defeated Yulia and then read the main quest book, you could get some rewards in terms of appearance.