Reborn as a Reluctant Demon Lord

Chapter 2 - Party Time

(A/N: Forewarning, there are a lot of POV changes in this chapter. Just note that the POV swaps calm down after this chapter.)

You've realized by now that the vortex wasn't killing people. If it was, this would be a very short and uninteresting story, and I wouldn't be here to tell it to you now, would I?

Oops. That brings attention to the fact that I am alive and writing this, so it's a minor spoiler. And I'm off on a tangent again. Focus Titus. Focus.

Anyway, what was happening instead of dismemberment by evil vortex was transdimensional quantum hyperplane relocation... You should've seen the look on your face. Sorry. I couldn't help but sneak a quantum pseudoscience term in there after reminiscing about Mr. Monotone last chapter.

The layman's definition for that nonsense term is "we took people from a different universe, and put them over here." And that about sums up what happened, but enough about that. Let's get back to the story.

---

My first thought upon regaining consciousness was that my stomach was in dire need of evacuation. So I immediately puked my guts out. I heard other people doing the same, so at least I wasn't alone in that.

My second thought was that I hurt. Everywhere. Even places that I didn't know it was possible to hurt. Fortunately, that died down quickly as I started moving around and got to my feet unsteadily.

My third thought wasn't much of a thought. A more direct translation would probably be along the lines of internet dial tones.

I was utterly stunned by my surroundings. Instead of an auditorium, we were now in a dome-shaped cave. The room we were in easily dwarfed the auditorium in size. However, instead of a natural cave, it looked mostly like someone copied and pasted the same exact pattern of cave rock over and over again until they had enough area to make up a room.

That being said, there were a few distinguishing features. Our lighting was courtesy of torches placed on the wall at regular intervals around the cave. There was also a platform in the middle of the room with an imposing 30-foot-tall grey obelisk on top. An obelisk that I had spawned in next to. And accidentally puked on. Oops.

As for the people in the room, if you guessed that everyone looked like the character they had created, you would be entirely correct. I saw people with animal ears, graceful elves, sturdy dwarves (who were stumbling around due to the change in height), and boring normal humans. Boring normal humans that were now much more fit, but I digress.

All of us were wearing the same basic adventuring gear with sturdy boots, light brown pants, and a rough green shirt (though it looks like the [Berserker] class forwent that last item. And before you ask, no, the female [Berserkers] were not running around topless as they had on bras made of hide that actually covered up decently well).

As I took my look around the room, I eventually realized that people were staring. Why are they staring? It's not like I.. Oh! Special class and special race! Right, let's see what I got! I looked at my reflection in the obelisk and screamed.

---

Jake's first thought upon waking up was that he really felt like he was going to hurl. Fortunately, he was able to hold it in.

His second thought was that his entire body hurt like it would after a particularly sadistic workout.

His third thought was, What happened? Is everyone okay?

After looking around and seeing the video gamish sights, he quickly concluded that they must have actually been put in the game. But what was that orb thing? Maybe we were already in VR when all that was happening? His thoughts were interrupted by Titus screaming.