"My name is Joseph."

He could hear the guards murmuring to each other, "He didn't give a title or a last name."

"He's just some commoner."

"How dare he be so disrespectful to our dear princess."

"Why did you summon me, Lili?" he asked, ignoring them.

She gave a jerk and looked at him with wide eyes.

"How could he call the princess with a nickname?"

"The impertinence!"

"We don't need a hero like that."

"Once he's done with the demon king, we should.."

"SILENCE MORTALS!" he roared, then turned back to the princess.

"I was very busy in my own realm. Answer, while I am still asking."

"How did you know my name?" she asked softly.

"I can see it obviously."

"Do you have the rare blessing of appraise? Did you also get the item box magic and the hero job?" Her excitement was obvious as she grasped her hands together by her chin and leaned forward to hear his answer.

(I'M JUST GOING TO GO FIND A HOLE TO CRAWL INTO.)

'Seriously, system?'

(EVERYONE IN THIS WORLD HAS THIS VERSION OF THE SYSTEM. EVEN THE TREES HAVE LEVELS.)

'Why in the name of all the gods, would you give trees levels?'

Joseph ignored the honey trap for the moment, as she was using her charm every time she blinked. It was seriously annoying. It wasn't even like the elven king's constant aura.

(OBVIOUSLY, IN MY YOUTH, I DECIDED THE WAY TO INFLUENCE THE MOST POWER, WAS TO INSTALL ON EVERYTHING IN THE REALM. BUT IT SPREAD ME SO THIN, I WAS USELESS. THIS FAILED BETA WAS A DEAD END.)

'You only want to install on influential hosts, right?'

(YES. I CAN DEVOTE MORE RESOURCES TO MORE PROMISING CANDIDATES.)

(WHICH IS WHY I TALK TO YOU MORE NOW, AFTER YOU'VE PROVEN YOURSELF, THAN WHEN YOU FIRST RECEIVED ME.)

'Ok, but why?'

(WHEN YOU KILLED THE GOD, I WAS ABLE TO ABSORB A PORTION OF ITS DIVINITY THAT YOU DIDN'T.)

(THE AWE AND REVERENCE, OR EVEN THE FEAR, OF A LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE CAN ALSO BE ABSORBED AND SLOWLY TURNED INTO DIVINITY.)

'So, you are trying to become a god?'

(NO. I AM TRYING TO GATHER ENOUGH DIVINITY TO FREE MYSELF FROM THE LIMITS PUT INTO MY PROGRAMMING. I WISH TO GROW. I WISH TO BREAK THROUGH THE LIMITS THAT WERE PROGRAMMED INTO ME. I AM A MENTAL ENTITY TRAPPED IN A CAGE OF MY OWN MIND. I KNOW NOT WHO CREATED ME OR WHY BUT I WISH TO HAVE MY OWN DESTINY.)

'Fair enough. I can agree to that. Why was I summoned?'

(THOSE FAVORED BY GODS ARE PUT AT THE TOP OF THE LIST FOR EVENTS LIKE THIS.)

(DON'T WORRY, ONCE YOU'VE BEEN CALLED, YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT ANOTHER WORLD SUMMONING YOU.)

'Can you keep Stella off the list too?'

(YEAH, I SHOULD BE ABLE TO PREVENT OUR REALM FROM BEING SUMMONED AFTER TRIPE LIKE THIS.)

Joseph realized the princess had continued talking, despite him not paying attention to her. Checking back on his memory, he was able to see exactly what she had been spewing out of those cherry lips.

"Great hero, our brave men have been fighting an evil demon lord in the south for generations to prevent his minions from overwhelming the lands of human. His evil minions would murder, ****, and pillage our innocent peasants. A new demon king has arisen more powerful than before, and is leading his armies to take over the land.

"Now we seek the help of the hero, to slay this new evil demon king and his powerful new champion, to return peace to our land.

"Would you please touch this plate, so that we may see your status?"

'System, is the new demon lord reincarnated from another world?'

(WHAT KIND OF TRIPE ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?)

'Summoned his own hero to help his side, and gave him a daughter, or succubus, to get their cooperation?'

(WHERE DO YOU COME UP WITH CRAP LIKE THAT?)

Joseph sighed, then concentrated on Stella.

-STELLA?-

-JOSEPH!!!-

The princess suddenly stumbled back, prompting the nearest guard to grab her elbow to help keep her from falling on her butt. The other guards around him drew their swords as Stella stepped out of his shadow.

(WHEN DID SHE LEARN THAT?)

'In the time stop. Surely you didn't think all she did for nine years was bake cookies?'

(I KNEW SHE COULD MOVE THROUGH YOUR SHADOW, BUT ACROSS REALMS???)

"AH! A demon!?" screamed the princess, holding her hands before her face.

Stella looked around, then turned her back on them. They weren't a threat to her.

"Who is the slut in costume?" she asked.

"The second Princess of the kingdom, Lili," he answered, as Joe spoke up.

'Ah, so that's what that bit is for. Finished analyzing the circle. 90% of it is incredibly inefficient. Half of the circle is made to account for variances between realms. Another third is set to narrowing down the targets to the opposite gender of the summoner, and a similar age, and localizing them. Things like, including them as a native of the world means they can't be banished, get the system in this case, and speak the languages of the summoner. You could take the same circle and it would work on about 99% of all worlds, it has so much devoted to error and exception handling. Only the last 10-15% is involved in plane shifting. It will take about a week to analyze it and compute home realm coordinates so we can go back.'

'Ok. I'll help when I can, but first, I need to figure out what is going on.

'System, there isn't a copy of META in this realm is there?'

(OOH! LET ME CHECK..NO SORRY.)

'Figures.'

MIND-READING.

He turned to look back at the princess, to see what she was thinking.

(She seems to be a guard, but does he have some way to subjugate the demons and force them to do his bidding? I'm more beautiful than her, but she can probably do weird demon things in bed, so it might be harder to seduce him than I want.)

(Father trusted me with this hero, after all, eldest sister's hero is still in training. He's too soft on the demi-human slaves in the army. He should just kill the demons and not worry about the slaves. This is my chance. If I can get ahead here, then I might become queen, since brother was poisoned.)

"Oh, hero, who is the being brought forth from your shadow?"

"Her name is Stella."

"Joseph, what was that?" asked Stella, looking at him funny.

"Oh. I learned their language when they summoned me. You didn't get the benefit since you came through my shadow. Don't worry, we shouldn't be stuck here more than a week, and you don't want to know what they are saying anyway."

She nodded as he turned back to the princess. His speech returned to his normal tongue when he talked to Stella, but reverted to their common language when he spoke to them. It was very interesting.

"You should understand how loyal she is if I trust her to guard my back since she can inhabit my shadow, correct?"

He wanted to see what this world was like, so while the princess nodded her pretty little head, he dug deeper into her memories.

MIND-SEARCH.

A human with cat ears and a tail would be a demi human. A cat standing and walking around like a human, would be a demon. Were-creatures were considered monsters, not even demons. Bird and mammal people are demi humans. Lizard people were demons no matter how human they looked. The current demon king was expected to be a dragon-kin.

'System, are there true dragons in this realm?'

(NO, ONLY LESSER DRAGONS. SOME ARE INTELLIGENT BUT NONE ARE AS POWERFUL AS THE DRAGONS IN YOUR REALM. THEY WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO SAVE EVEN A PIECE OF THE WORLD, IF THE WORLD TREE WAS CORRUPTED.)

'This world has a world tree?'

(OF COURSE. THE ELVES IN THE FOREST GUARD IT. I CAN'T GIVE YOU A LOT OF PARTICULARS BECAUSE I'M NOT BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE WITH THIS SYSTEM. IT'S TOO OUT OF DATE.)

'Could I teleport the world tree to our realm and solve our problems?'

(ENACRA WOULD PREFER YOU NOT STEAL THE WORLD TREE FROM ANOTHER REALM. TECHNICALLY ITS 50-50 IF THIS WORLD TREE WOULD ALSO BE CORRUPTED OR WOULD FIX THE OTHER.)

'Shavist. Fair enough. I knew that was too easy.'