A Selfish Man's Guide to Not Dying a Hero

Hero. Hero. Hero.The word echoes hollowly through Kiruba Elvis’s mind as he takes a lethal, ungraceful nosedive straight toward a churning lake of molten lava outside the Demon Lord's castle. As his body shatters mid-air, a delusional crowd screams for him to save the day.But Kiruba’s final thoughts aren’t about glory, self-sacrifice, or saving humanity.They’re bitter, exhausted curses aimed at a lifetime of terrible decisions, one particularly troublesome android named Sen, and the sheer stupidity of how he ended up in this situation.He was a selfish man who cared about money, a warm bed, good food, and keeping himself as far away from responsibility as possible. If something didn’t benefit him, Kiruba generally saw no reason to involve himself in it. Other people’s problems were exactly that: other people’s problems.And he wasn’t simply some harmless scoundrel with a bad attitude. Kiruba had stolen from people, threatened them, manipulated them, and mocked anyone he thought was too weak to fight back. When violence was involved, Kiruba rarely asked himself whether something was right or wrong. He calculated whether it was worth the trouble, how far he could go, and how much he could get away with before someone finally put him behind bars.By any reasonable measure, Kiruba Elvis was not the sort of man anyone should have trusted with a heroic destiny. Which made what happened to him all the more ridiculous.So how did a man like that end up throwing himself into the jaws of death?To understand that, you have to go back to before the Demon Lord, before the lava, and before anyone started calling Kiruba Elvis a hero.Back to when he was still doing what he did best.Looking out for himself.