Chapter 1: How Could It Be YOU?!

Today was a very, very sad day.

Kima, the once-mighty and awe-inspiring Demon Lord, stood shivering amidst the gooey remains of an eggshell. He stared blankly at the fractured, sticky pieces, finding it remarkably difficult to accept the simple fact of his own death.

If memory served—and a Demon Lord’s memory was flawless—he had prepared a little backup plan forty years ago, right after ascending to the throne. He’d procured a rare and precious egg and woven a reincarnation ritual around it. Should his magnificent original body perish, his soul would be reborn within this very shell.

So… I actually died? Like, for real?

The former Demon Lord closed his eyes, and the memories of his past life flooded back.

Those were days of unparalleled bliss. He had struggled for a solid thirty years to construct his own private harem, a grand palace stuffed with thirty hand-picked maids. He had one of every flavor: mature, seductive onee-sans; cute, innocent lolis; girls in pristine white stockings; girls in alluring black stockings; elegant elves; playful cat-eared girls; sultry succubus; and even exotic, dark-skinned beauties.

Life after the harem's completion was unbelievably comfortable. By day, he would rest his head on a pair of long, shapely legs, eating grapes fed to him by delicate fingers, enjoying full-body massages, and appreciating the private ballet performances of his maids. By night, it was an endless symphony of passion. He rotated through his harem on a weekly schedule, ensuring every day brought a new, delightful experience. It was truly the pinnacle of his existence.

A shame, then, that this pinnacle lasted for less than a month.

That fateful day was a Black Friday. Kima, basking in the tranquil state of post-nut clarity known as "sage time," was struck by a sudden, profound realization: his life was dreadfully dull.

Could it be… that this harem life isn’t what I truly desire?

Kima immediately snuggled deeper into the arms of his Silver Dragon Princess and a buxom blonde bombshell. After some intense reconsideration, he concluded that the problem was the conspicuous lack of a Saintess in his collection.

Mmm, a fallen Saintess. Just my type.

Just as Kima had picked up his greatsword, ready to venture forth and improve his quality of life, a meddlesome Hero by the name of George showed up at his door. With him were two companions, here to vanquish the "debauched and unrestrained" Demon Lord.

Faced with Hero George's righteous condemnation, Demon Lord Kima adopted a grave expression, though his eyes were fixed firmly on the long, slender legs of the female elf Ranger and the beatific, innocent face of the Saintess.

“Demon Lord! Accept the judgment of justice!” George bellowed.

“Huh? Sorry, what was that?” Demon Lord Kima asked, stroking his chin. “By the way, are you a virgin?”

“Yes,” the hero answered, confused.

“Thank you,” Kima said with heartfelt sincerity. “For delivering two such fine specimens to my doorstep. You’ll help fill a critical talent gap in my harem.”

“GO TO HELL!”

The Hero George, predictably, was furious. He drew his sword and charged. Demon Lord Kima, feeling his advantage was overwhelming, charged forward as well, only to be promptly run through the chest by the Hero’s blade. He collapsed into a pool of his own blood and, under the disappointingly cold gazes of his maids, died.

The memory ended.

The reborn Demon Lord opened his eyes. Recalling the fatal blow, he felt a phantom pain throb in his now-frail chest. What pained him even more, however, was that the harem he had worked so tirelessly to build was now gone.

The heartache was so intense that Kima clutched his flat chest. The thought that the virgin Hero would surely disband his harem immediately made him feel as though the one NTR flag on his head had instantly multiplied into thirty. A rage he couldn’t contain surged through him, and he threw a furious punch at the broken eggshell before him.

“I’ll—Ouch!”

His fist smashed against the sharp edge of the shell, and a wave of agony shot up his arm. Demon Lord Kima snatched his hand back, rubbing the small, tender palm, his eyes welling up with tears. “Fuck! My power reset to zero after reincarnation. I’ll have to recover it slowly.”

As Kima spoke, he continued to rub his palm. His fingers were long and slender, the fair, tender skin tinged with a faint, delicate pink.

His life’s pursuit was ruined in an instant. Anyone would be dejected. But Kima recovered quickly. This setback was nothing compared to the tragedy he’d endured in his previous life.

In that life, Kima was a standard corporate code monkey. Right after graduation, he began living the “blessed” 9-9-6 life at a large tech company. He became the kind of overachieving tryhard his colleagues despised. After struggling for nearly a decade, he’d lost half his hair but had finally bought a house outright. With a hefty sum of savings left over, he could finally walk into a matchmaking agency with his head held high.

Who would have thought that the enthusiastic matchmaker would introduce him to a professional scammer. She effortlessly stole Kima’s heart, along with his four million in savings. Kima was left deep in debt and lost his house. He begged her, hoping she might leave him a little money to get by out of some shred of affection for their past, but all he received was cruel ridicule.

Despondent, he leaped from the roof of his apartment building, transmigrated to this fantasy world, fought his way up to become the Demon Lord, and finally built his dream harem.

“At least it’s not harder than last time,” Kima muttered, the gloom in his heart evaporating. “I have a cheat system, and I hid a secret treasure vault in advance.” Before starting any grand endeavor, Kima always liked to fantasize about the rewards. It was great for motivation.

“When I become strong again, I’m going to conquer the entire world! Every nation must offer me maids as annual tribute! All royal families—elves, humans, I don’t care—must have their princesses serve in my harem for three years before they come of age!”

The more Kima thought, the more excited he became.

“And that Hero! I’ll break all four of his limbs and make him watch as the elf onee-san and the Saintess who secretly have crushes on him are slowly, exquisitely molded into my shape! Hehehehe.”

Kima couldn’t help but chuckle darkly, rubbing his small hands together. For the first time, his gaze fell upon his own hands. They were far, far too pale.

He frowned. The fingers were long and slender, pale with a pinkish hue. Isn’t this… a bit too effeminate?

He was a man, for crying out loud. A manly man!

Right, I haven’t inspected the new merchandise yet. When he’d used this egg for the reincarnation ritual, he had no idea what it would hatch into. He only knew that it somehow met the ritual’s incredibly demanding requirements.

Kima raised an arm. It was slender and long, the skin as smooth as polished silk, with not a single hair on its pale golden surface.

“This is even more girlish than some twink idol,” Kima complained, resolving to build some magnificent, manly biceps as soon as he got out of here.

His hands moved over his slime-covered abdomen. It was perfectly flat, without a trace of fat. Just as Kima was about to add ‘forge a glorious eight-pack’ to his to-do list, his hand slipped down into the groin area. It was a flat plain. There was no mountain, only a shallow… little… valley.

A little valley?

Kima’s heart seized with panic. He quickly looked down, his eyes stretching wide. A few drops of slime fell from the tips of his hair, passing through the space where his proud mountain should have been and landing with a soft plip on the bottom of the eggshell.

His little brother was gone. Vanished. MIA.

Kima’s hands and feet went ice-cold. He desperately searched with his fingers, hoping against hope, but the facts were laid bare before him. He—no, she—possessed the distinct, undeniable anatomy of a female.

He had actually been gender-bent.

Kima’s grand ambitions of making a comeback instantly collapsed, evaporating into a shallow little stream with a few sad, pink cherry blossom petals floating on top. Her mind went completely blank. Her legs turned to jelly, and she sat down hard on the sticky bottom of the eggshell.

After a good while, Kima’s listless, golden, slit-pupiled eyes slowly regained some semblance of focus. She tried to console herself:

“So what if I became a little girl?”

“It’s the twenty-first century. Women can achieve… grand harmony… with other women. So having a harem should be fine too, right?”

The words ‘having a harem’ gave Kima a tiny spark of courage. But then, an image of two women furiously ‘scissoring’ popped into her mind, and her fighting spirit vanished without a trace.

Even worse, she recalled the revenge fantasy she had just concocted against the Hero.

“The day I make my comeback, defeat the Hero, and corrupt his female companions right in front of him… Is that revenge? That’s clearly giving him free fan service, isn’t it?”

The incredibly satisfying revenge scene she had imagined was instantly transformed into a lewd giveaway. Just because she had become a woman, the entire revenge plot had taken on a completely different, and much more humiliating, flavor!

“I’m so pissed!”

Kima angrily punched the eggshell again. The pain forced an involuntary, high-pitched whimper from her lips. A chill ran down her spine. To think that she, the great Demon Lord Kima, would one day be whimpering like a little girl.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm her frayed nerves. “No matter what, I have to regain my strength and get my revenge.”

As for the harem… women can have harems too, right? It’s just… not as satisfying…

Her spirits deflated once more.

Kima consoled herself again, “Well, at least nothing worse than turning into a woman can possibly happen now.”

As if on cue, she felt a cold, slithering touch on her calf, like a snake dancing around her leg.

Kima, befitting a former Demon Lord, wasn’t scared in the slightest. She didn’t scream and jump up like a stereotypical little girl. She simply lowered her head and saw a delicate, fleshy tendril dangling between her legs, swaying as if trying to burrow into her rear.

Is that… an alien face-hugger?

Kima lifted her foot and decisively stomped on the slimy strip of flesh. A jolt of pure agony shot up her spine, so intense it made her scream and leap into the air, tears instantly welling in her eyes.

“That’s my tail! Ouch! Ouch, ouch, ouch!”

She suddenly froze, a terrifying thought dawning on her—something infinitely worse than simply becoming a woman.

Kima raised her trembling hands and felt her head. Sure enough, nestled amidst her hair, she felt a pair of horns. Based on their shape, they were small, goat-like horns. Her heart sank like a stone. She quickly reached behind her back and found a pair of tender, leathery little wings.

In that instant, a coldness bloomed from the depths of Kima’s heart, and her limbs went icy with dread.

Kima was certain. She had become a succubus. A demon that fed on lust, a born nymphomaniac whose very nature was lewdness itself. What was more terrifying was that if she wanted to regain her strength and walk the path to power, she couldn’t suppress her succubus nature. On the contrary, she would have to embrace it, cultivate it, master it…

Which meant that even if she clawed her way back to the top and became a Demon Lord again, the world would likely gain a powerful, terrifying… and incredibly horny superweapon.

Kima felt a wave of dizziness and had to place a hand on the edge of the eggshell to keep from collapsing.

When she was setting up the reincarnation ritual, she’d managed to buy this qualifying egg from a shady planar merchant. The situation had been urgent; there was no time to get the egg properly appraised.

She never, ever expected it to be such a cosmic prank!

From a certain point of view, she had actually profited. A succubus egg was incredibly precious, far beyond what she could have afforded at the time. After all, back then, she wasn't the Demon Lord yet, but was on the path to challenging the current one.

So…

“IT’S ALL THAT DAMN VIRGIN HERO’S FAULT!” Kima ground her small teeth until they made a sharp kaka sound. “If it weren’t for him, would I have ended up like this?! One day, I’ll make his death excruciatingly, unbelievably painful!”

The angrier Kima got, the more she hammered her small, pink fist against the edge of the eggshell.

“AH! Ouch!”

A single, fat tear rolled down her cheek as Kima clutched her stinging hand, continuing to creatively curse a certain virgin Hero. “Sooner or later, I’ll rip that dog George’s head clean off and kick it around like a damn ball!”

Just as the words left her mouth, the heavy door to the secret chamber creaked open. A sliver of brilliant light bloomed in the darkness, falling upon Kima’s lovely, tear-streaked face. She raised her wide, watery eyes and squinted, shielding them with a slender, pale arm while still muttering curses.

“You damn dogs! Took you long enough to open the door—”

The door opening just as she "hatched" could only be the work of her loyal, sworn retainers. They were bound by unbreakable soul contracts and could not defy her will.

But the figure that appeared in the doorway was a tall, straight silhouette. A suit of polished silver armor glowed like the rising sun, a radiant sun emblem enameled on its chest.

Kima’s expression froze instantly. She slowly lowered her arm, staring dumbly at the uninvited guest.

The newcomer was none other than the virgin Hero she had just been cursing—George.