Win Me Over, Demon King

1 - Glowing Tablet Screen

"All you do is read all day!" The woman's voice echoed across the walls of the hotel room.

The girl remained unbothered on the sofa, arms wrapped around her knees with her tablet. Her eyes stuck to the screen, and her brain went utterly lost in the web novel's world and story.

Hasty footsteps of slippers stomped nearby.

"Get to work right now, or I'm taking that tablet!"

Even then, the girl didn't move an inch. Only when her tablet vanished in her hands did she flinch and look up, wondering where it went.

The woman waved her tablet in front of her. "I'm keeping this until you finish cleaning!"

"If I finish cleaning this room, can I have it back?"

"No. Finish all the rooms you're tasked to clean."

The door slammed.

No more reading until she finished her housekeeping job.

She wrapped the cloth on the table around her shoulder-length blonde hair, grabbed the glossy yellow gloves on the side, and wore them. Quietly and with a small, unbothered smile, she took the cleaning materials and did what she needed to do.

Life was a series of every day going to different hotels and condominiums with a small housekeeping team she was a part of and then dividing work amongst themselves for the rest of the day. After that, she'd get her tablet from her manager and get home. Repeat with seldom day offs and team outings, and that summed up her living.

It wasn't exciting, to say the least. But to Alice Reitzel, it was enough. After all, it wasn't as though this would be how her life would run forever. Something would change eventually.

Because she believed anything was possible.

Little did she know, this simple, easygoing outlook was precisely what made anything possible.

-

"Get back here, Alice, you little-" the woman yelled across the hallway, her voice drifting to the air and onto deaf ears.

Alice sprinted to the rooftop, and when she got there, she locked the door and opened her tablet.

Nothing could beat reading after work.

"Or in between unfinished work," she mumbled with a giggle as she settled by the railing and opened her tablet. "All good, all good!"

Now diving back into the world of Caesare, in chapter 397, Alice briefly shut her eyes and recalled the three years of the web novel's running. The final chapter had arrived earlier, and as she opened it, it appeared that the world of Caesare's leading nation, Jyusora, had succumbed entirely to the antagonist: the unnamed demon king.

Alice stretched her arms past the railings, swiping left for the following pages.

It had always been hinted that Jyusora would be ruled by the exiled demon king residing in his grand palace, Yonaka no Aki. But after a long journey, it had now been the case.

The demon king could claim his throne over Jyusora despite all the odds by the protagonists against him. It was a bold move by the author to mark the ending of such a long-running novel to end in the hero's defeat. But for some reason, Alice felt enthusiastic about it all.

"Anything is possible," Alice read on the last page of the chapter with the author's final notes. It was filled with the author's encouragement for their few readers despite the long run.

Alice squinted and zoomed in a tiny text at the edge of the final page. It said something unclear. Her head tilted as she read it out loud.

"Let's see... 'To my first reader, A.R.'." Alice's mouth turned into the shape of an O. "That's me," she whispered with excitement at the author's recognition of her presence. "'I know how much you loved the demon king. I do, too. As the author of this novel, I bestow upon you my dear demon king's hand in marriage.' That's cute." She smiled at the little demon king doodle with a flower and a ring.

Alice stretched her ring finger and poked it at the little ring from the demon king doodle.

"Boop."

With only one hand holding the tablet, it slipped from her grasp and fell at the roof's edge past the railings.

With a grunt and a determined puff, Alice worked herself over the railing, one arm holding onto the terrace fence while the other reached over her tablet. Her legs and feet trembled as she kept stretching her other arm out.

The door to the rooftop clicked open.

"You better-" The old woman's face turned pale as she ran toward Alice, with a couple of team members following behind. "Alice! What are you doing?"

"My... tablet."

"Leave it be! You're going to fall!"

"I can't."

"Just get a new one!"

"I don't have enough money."

"We'll buy you a new one!" One of the ladies yelled.

Alice turned her head away from them and instinctively let go of the railing when one of the guys reached her and almost caught her arm.

"Alice, you little... Please!" The old woman begged, her face panic-stricken. "Get back here! You're not going to reach it!"

Alice inched closer to the tablet, mumbling, "Nothing is impossible," before finally grabbing the tablet and smiling brightly.

She turned around to show them she got it, but as she did, they turned upside down and the wind carried her feet.

Oh... was this how it was going to end?

Alice watched them above as she fell and let go of her tablet. The tablet's screen glowed pure white, and she couldn't do anything but stare, her brown eyes reflecting a series of blurring flashes from the glow.

Soon, sirens echoed in the vicinity with flashing cameras and cries of those who knew her. But as her blood pooled the cement and the tablet shattered, little did they know, she was gone in more ways than one.