Betrayed, I Met The Demon Lord

Chapter 2 - Choices

A weird silence hung in the air, thick enough to cut through, not that I could; considering how utterly weak I was.

Oh, he was well aware. And he definitely knew that I was onto him.

He was going to make good use of those passive skills, especially the harem-related ones. That was a given.. Well, at least he wasn't the type to mistreat women.

As for me, I had to nail down my own role in this place. They were... Nice enough to let us choose our path.

Choices, choices: summon spirits, wield magic, stealth as an assassin, make everyone submit as a holy paladin, aim as an archer, command beasts, or craft runes.

Magus, with his countless charms, blessings, and favorable passives, could choose anything. Hell, he could even choose everything at once. Most people I mentioned earlier encouraged him to. And thanks to his harem-oriented skills, I've witnessed this firsthand—several beauties fighting over who gets to teach him, while the male instructors could only gnaw their fingernails in jealousy... and bubbling hatred. But I wasn't too worried. The Queen herself favored him, which protected him from the bastards plotting to kill him. (Though, I get their frustration.)

Either way, with all the glamour and luxurious paths out there, you'd think I'd have something going for me. But nope, no such luck.

Armed with my Hard Swing skill, zero talents or passives in the arcane arts, and armor and weapons tied to my Resistance and Strength stats, becoming a simple sword-fighting warrior was my only option. In this world, that path is considered the weakest among all the races.

But, even paired up with someone as exceptional as my friend, I had my own trump card.

It was the Dark Soul skill. Essentially, I was immortal, reviving after every death.

At that moment, hope sparked within me again. I thought, maybe, just maybe, I'd be taken to some secret training program—perhaps a hidden league of assassins that would teach me to conquer death. Something grandiose like that.

But reality couldn't have been farther from that dream.

Thanks to my Untrusted passive skill, not a single instructor wanted to teach me. Not one. I was left to sit in the Holy Church beside the Royal Academy where we had been summoned, subjected to mocking stares from the very teachers who rejected me. All the while, I watched as Magus was ushered into the Academy, trained alongside other children our age, who envied him. Naturally, all the girls flocked to him, and from what I heard, he had a great time.

Meanwhile, I wasn't even allowed to leave. They debated what to do with me. Before long, the king himself came to see me. His gaze wasn't kind, and I was too nervous to meet his eyes—or anyone's for that matter—especially after the humiliation of being rejected by everyone.

Then, the king had an idea. He summoned the leader of the Royal Knights' First Battalion, a man named Sir Nickelson.

Nickelson wore bright, gleaming armor and had long, vibrant hair—but that was the extent of his charm. When he saw my skillset, he came up with a plan: train me relentlessly, push me to my limits—and sometimes beyond. Occasionally, they'd have me tortured under his watchful eye. He justified it by claiming his knights were frustrated with Magus, and they needed someone to take it out on. In this way, he killed two birds with one stone—letting his knights vent while 'training' me; so he claimed.

I won't go into the details of what they did, or how far they went. I'll just say this: I died. A lot.

And this was all before Magus and I set out on our grand journey. While he honed his skills with the mages, paladins, summoners, beast tamers, and runemasters—enjoying the company of female instructors and living the dream at the Academy with tournaments he dominated, harems that flocked to him, and a seemingly effortless rise to power—I spent my days in the barracks, peeing blood.