Chapter 5: The Demon God’s Grand Entrance

The morning sky had just begun to brighten.
On the rooftop of a building in Yokohi City, a girl stood, dressed in a black-and-white maid outfit.

Her long red hair was tied into twin ponytails on either side of her head.
The morning breeze brought a slight chill, making her skirt flutter, but a burning passion surged within her heart.
Her purple eyes gazed thousands of meters away, locking onto a small balcony of an apartment building.

“Is that… her home?”

The maid murmured to herself, a faint smile curling her lips as her long-cherished wish was about to come true.
The master she yearned to serve lived in that apartment.
The one destined to bring her salvation, the one she admired, was there—and she wanted nothing more than to rush to her side.

But her smile vanished abruptly.
She spotted something unsettling—a bizarre, black, four-legged creature clinging to the outer wall of the apartment building, crawling along its surface.

“Why is there a filthy bug here?”
The maid’s face twisted in disgust.

The “bug” she referred to was a dangerous creature known in this world as a “monster.”
It shouldn’t have been here, yet there it was, creeping along the apartment’s exterior.
To the maid, a “demon god,” such a lowly, inferior creature was beneath contempt.

How dare such a thing approach her future master?
Murderous intent simmered in her eyes.

Inside the apartment, an ordinary high school girl, Jinzenji Doroshi, had just woken up.
She silenced the beeping alarm and tossed her phone aside.

“What a great day… ugh… ruined the moment I woke up.”
Doroshi reluctantly left the warmth of her blankets.

Half-lidded eyes barely open, she slid open the glass door between her bedroom and balcony, grabbing her school uniform from the drying rack.
Staring blankly at the sky, a cold breeze made her hug herself, shivering.
“So cold, so cold.”

She tossed the uniform onto her bed and shuffled to the bathroom in her slippers.
Looking at her familiar reflection in the mirror, Doroshi scratched her shoulder-length black hair, grimacing as she started her morning routine.
She hated going to school—more than most people hated anything.

“Hm?”
While brushing her teeth, a shadow seemed to flicker past the bathroom window.
She turned to look, but nothing was there.

Brushing it off, she finished washing up, tied her hair, and flashed a goofy smile at the mirror.
“Hehe, still cute as ever today.”

After a moment, she sighed, feeling like an idiot, and left the bathroom.

“I really don’t want to go to school…”
Doroshi shoved a few leftover toast slices from last night into a discounted toaster she’d bought online, then slumped onto the table to wait.

She returned to her bedroom to change into her uniform, but as she reached for her tie, a dark shadow accompanied by a rustling sound darted past the balcony.

“Huh?”
Doroshi glanced toward the balcony, a chill running down her spine.
‘Am I imagining things?’

Her carefree nature kicked in, and she decided to let it go.
“Whatever.”

Back in the living room, the toast was ready.
She grabbed cheap blueberry jam from the fridge and spread it on one slice.
Sandwiching the slices together, she made a blueberry-filled toast and wolfed it down.
It wouldn’t fully satisfy her hunger, but it was enough to keep starvation at bay.

Unbeknownst to her, a pitch-black monster was clinging to the railing of the corridor outside her apartment.
Its four twisted legs gripped the rail, and a eerie, singular eye on its dark body glared at her door, plotting something sinister.

But as the saying goes, the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.

Thousands of meters away, atop the building, the maid—a demon god—watched the scene with a cold expression.
As a being capable of crossing worlds and destroying universes, her exceptional vision easily zeroed in on the monster.

She raised her right hand, forming a “seven” gesture, her index finger aimed at the oblivious creature.
Crimson light gathered at her fingertip, forming a faintly trembling red energy sphere.

This was a technique that condensed her energy into a beam, which she called the “Crimson Cannon.”
The scale and type of the cannon varied depending on the energy gathered.
The one she used now was what she dubbed the “Restrained Type”—a thin, discreet beam no thicker than a girl’s finger.

“Bye-bye, disgusting thing.”

The crimson energy bloomed like a red lotus, and the slender beam shot across thousands of meters in an instant, piercing the monster.

“Skree—?”
The monster let out a shrill cry as the beam tore through its black body, leaving a gaping hole and spraying blood.

Drained of strength, it wobbled on the railing before collapsing forward like a broken puppet, motionless on the corridor floor.

“Honestly,” the demon god girl said, brushing back her wind-tousled red hair.
“If I can’t greet her with my most perfect smile, I’m done for.”

She tapped her leather shoes on the ground twice, smoothed her skirt with both hands, and checked her appearance for flaws.
Nodding in satisfaction, she said, “Good, my look is flawless.”

With a smile, the demon god girl gazed at the apartment building.
“Alright, time to go!”

She leaped from the rooftop, unfurling a pair of black-and-red wings that could only belong to a demon.
Like a bolt of lightning, she soared toward the apartment.

In mere moments, she landed in the corridor, retracting her wings without sparing a glance at the seemingly dead monster on the ground.

Suddenly, she sighed softly.

Without warning, the monster sprang up, lunging toward the maid’s exposed back.
But at that moment, a pitch-black puddle appeared beneath her feet.
From its dark surface, several berry-red tentacles emerged, wrapping around the attacking monster.

Ignoring its struggles, the tentacles, under the maid’s control, smoothly dragged the creature into the puddle.
In seconds, the monster—and even its spilled blood—vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.

Smiling again, the demon god girl lightly knocked on the door, her taps crisp and brief.

“Coming, coming!”
Doroshi’s puzzled voice came from the other side.
She’d just finished her makeshift breakfast of jam-filled toast.

Her confusion stemmed from her lack of friends and small social circle.
No one visited her this early in the morning.
A delivery? Unlikely at this hour. Maybe the building manager?

Without a second thought, Doroshi opened the door.
Standing before her was a red-haired girl in a maid outfit, beaming with a radiant smile.

“…Huh?”
Doroshi’s lingering sleepiness evaporated.

“My name is Ren. From this day forward, I will serve you wholeheartedly, Lady Doroshi, and remain by your side as your maid.”

A demon god who crosses worlds, erodes worlds, destroys worlds—a tentacle monster standing at the pinnacle of existence—introduced herself to Doroshi as a maid.