A Demon Lord’s Tale: Dungeons, Monster Girls, and Heartwarming Bliss

mited to only that of which one was already, to a certain extent, capable of.
The second way, using a skill scroll, was much more convenient.
It was possible to obtain a skill by mentally duplicating the glyphs carved inside of a skill scroll while also channeling one’s magic through it.
It was a super user friendly tool that basically anyone could use.
The only downside was that you couldn’t ever use the same skill scroll twice, but that didn’t really take away from its utility.
It was still an easy way for one to learn a new skill.

I’d only learned about skill scrolls because I happened to see them while browsing the dungeon’s catalogue.
Needless to say, I instantly bought the ones I felt would be most useful right away.
While it might’ve been possible for me to learn Stealth on my own, I highly doubted that I would be able to do so efficiently and effectively, hence the purchase.
Detect Enemy, on the other hand, was something I highly doubted I would ever be able to pick up on by myself.

My stat page had changed.
It now looked as follows.

***

General Information

Name: Yuki
Species: Archdemon
Class: Demon Lord
Level: 16
HP: 2350/2350
MP: 6960/6960
Strength: 681
Stamina: 710
Agility: 586
Magic: 960
Dexterity: 1290
Luck: 70
Skill Points: 0

Unique Skills
Magic Eye
Translation

Skills
Item Box
Analyze VI
Martial Arts III
Primordial Magic II
Stealth III
Detect Enemy III

Titles
Demon Lord from Another World

DP: 10220

***

My level had risen, but not because I’d slain another monster.
All the experience I’d accrued had come from working out.
Getting lots of exercise was also why my martial arts skill had leveled up.
The analyze skill, on the other hand, had only leveled because I’d pumped all my skill points in it.
It was an extremely useful skill, after all.

Though I’d just gotten them recently, neither Stealth nor Detect Enemy were at level one.
I’d used them whenever I had spare time, so they’d progressed quite a fair bit.

Stealth had absolutely no effect on Lefi.
She could still see me regardless of how hard I tried to hide.
The same, however, couldn’t be said for our little slime friend.
Shii would occasionally lose track of me when I popped the skill.
It would promptly start looking around and trying to find me, only to start happily bouncing around once it finally did.
The way it reacted to our impromptu games of hide and seek was super cute.

Both skills ate away at my mana while they were active.
I couldn’t keep them running forever, but I could at least maintain them for a few hours back to back.
According to Lefi, that, in and of itself, was totally absurd.
There was simply no way any normal demon could do the same, meaning that my ridiculous mana pool instead stemmed from the fact that I was a demon lord.

“Uh… Okay, I should probably not go over there.”

I broke out of my thoughts and stopped moving as I caught a glimpse of a monster that looked kind of like a mix between a tiger and a rhino.
As it was in the midst of consuming freshly killed prey, the creature was distracted, but it was sure to attack me if I got any closer.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle the creature, but rather, that I found it too bothersome, so I decided to back off and choose another route.

As evidenced by the fact that there was a monster, I’d strayed quite far from the dungeon.
I’d gone so far, in fact, that there were actually both animals and monsters wandering about.

I was finally outside Lefi’s domain.

This looks like a pretty good spot.
Alright, let’s add it to the dungeon!

I manipulated the menu and tapped the map a few times before I finally felt the dungeon’s magic flood my surroundings.

“Okay, that’s that.” I nodded, satisfied.
The expansion had eaten away all my DP, but it was well worth it given that it was sure to bolster my daily income.

Well, I’m already here, so I guess I might as well explore a bit more and flesh out the map so I don’t need to venture as far next time.

***

I returned home quite a while after the sun had set.
My stomach was completely empty, so I entered the kitchen, which I’d just bought for a flat 2000 DP just the previous day, and opened the fridge—only to find that it was empty.
It was completely devoid of all semblance of sustenance even though I’d just stocked it with a whole week’s worth of food last night.

It was cheaper to buy an assorted platter of meat than it was to purchase a specific cut, so I’d gone ahead and done that because there weren’t supposed to be any disadvantages.

Turned out, I was wrong.

The food couldn’t have just disappeared on its own, so I immediately raised my voice and shouted to get the attention of the only possible culprit.

“LEFIIIIIIIII!!”

And that was how it had all begun.

***

God damn glutton.
I silently complained as I stared at the now prostrated dragon girl.

There had been far more food in the fridge than it should’ve been possible for her to eat.
Or at least that would’ve been the case had she not been a dragon.
Her true form was much larger than her human form, so she likely had the ability to consume many times her current weight with ease.

Man, I mean, I know she eats a lot, but god damn.
I’ve never even tried serving her anything close to this much before.
Wait, does that mean she’s never actually had a chance to eat her fill? Was she always holding back for my sake? Wait, wait, nonononono.
Get ahold of yourself Yuki, don’t let her fool you.
It doesn’t really matter what she normally does.
This whole binge eating incident’s way too out of hand.

I couldn’t exactly let her off for emptying out the entire fridge the very day I’d warned her about it just because I felt apologetic.
It was true that she was the source of all my DP.
Without her, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to supply all that food in the first place, but that didn’t mean she was entitled to it.
The deal was that she would be allowed to stay in exchange for a bed and three daily meals.
It was a fair trade, even if she didn’t get to eat ‘till she was stuffed.

“Well…” I grumbled.
“I guess I just won’t have dinner tonight then.”

There wasn’t really any other choice.
It was too late for me to go foraging, I was flat broke because I’d just spent all my DP on expanding the dungeon. Man, I really should’ve stored a bit of food in my item box.
Leaving it all in the fridge was a terrible idea.
Never would’ve done it if I knew this was going to happen.
On the bright side, I should have enough DP to eat once I wake up.

“W-Wait, I understand, so you need not react with such despondence.” Lefi stuttered as she responded to my idle remark.
Her voice was filled with guilt.
“You require the bizarre currency that you call ‘poynts,’ correct?” [5]
“Pretty much.”
“W-Worry not, I shall return in a mere thirty minutes!”
“…Wait, what?”

My response fell on deaf ears; Lefi had already charged out of the throne room before I’d raised my voice.

***

As promised, Lefi returned after exactly thirty minutes.
Next to her was a ridiculously tall pile of corpses belonging to monsters and animals alike.

“This is way too god damn many, you idiot!”
“Whargh!?” The dragon girl made a weird sound as I smacked her upside the head.
“Nrgh… That is the first time that anyone has done that to me in the span of the past several hundred years.”

She flashed me a reproachful glare.

“Colour me honoured then, I guess.” I shrugged.
“I care not about your honour.
Answer me this, why did you hit me? Is it not better for you to have more ‘poynts’? I made sure to herd the creatures to the dungeon before butchering them to maximize your gain!”

Did she just say herd? I’m pretty sure you don’t just treat monsters like you do cattle or sheep.

“Well, yeah, but there’s a limit to everything, and you just broke the hell out of it.
Look, you stupid dragon, look at all that blood! There’s literally a fucking pool of it, I could go swimming in that! I’m pretty sure that’s going to leave a huge, permanent, red stain.
Plus, I don’t even know what to do with all these god damn corpses!” And then it hit me.
“Oh, wait, actually, I do.
I can just convert them all to DP.”

That’s exactly what I did to that one stupid dog, after all.

“Does that not mean that I did nothing wrong!?” shouted the dragon, indignantly.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Then why did you hit me!?”
“Well, to be honest, because I was kinda going with the flow.
I kinda had this whole angry boss vibe going, y’see.”
“What kind of ridiculous excuse is that!? Were you not just criticizing my lack of responsibility? The claim holds little weight if you do not hold yourself to it!”

Lefi glared at me in a mix of anger and shock.

“Yeah, yeah, my bad.
Here, I’ll give your head a pat to make it all better.” I started stroking her hair as I recited a common phrase from my childhood.
“Pain, pain, go away.”
“Yay! I’m so..
Unhappy.” Lefi rolled her eyes as she smacked my hand away.
“I refuse to play along with your idiocy.”

Yeah, I figured.

With all that said and done, I manipulated the dungeon’s menu and turned the stack of corpses into a stack of DP.
The whole artificially constructed mountain began to sink into the floor as it slowly melted away.
Even the bloodstains disappeared, leaving naught but the bare rock and dirt.

“What a peculiar sight that was.”
“I know, right?’ I raised a hand to my chin.
“Anyway, that’s more than enough for dinner, so I guess we can call it even.
But, look.
I know that your real body is kinda big, and that you might not really be able to eat ‘til you’re satisfied, but could you please like, you know, try your best to hold back a bit? There’s a limit to how much food I can make, and I can tell you right now that it’s not going to be enough for me to fully satisfy you.”
“Grrrh.” Lefi groaned.
“Fine.
But if I do desire food, then I merely need to supply you with ‘poynts,’ correct?”
“Yeah, but uh, let’s be real here.
You probably shouldn’t overhunt either.”

Please no eradicating all nearby life.
I literally just expanded the dungeon so I could farm it for DP…

“V-Very well.
I will endeavour not to repeat the incident.”
“Please and thanks.
Anyway, I’mma go eat.
You want some sweets or something while I’m at it?”
“That I do! I would like a portion of cookies!”

And so, Lefi and I returned to the dungeon, conversing along the way.

***

[1] Tamagotchi.
These are digital pets that, iirc, doubled as pedometers.
And I don’t mean meters that measure how much of a lolicon you are.
We’re talkin’ how much you walk ‘n shit.

[2] SECOM.
This is a Japanese security company that’s grown large enough to start spilling overseas.

[3] This is one of those obscure references that’s really hard to get unless you’re a certain type of person, but the MC is basically describing a level editor.

[4] Anor Londo from Dark Souls.

[5] Lefi is saying poynts rather than points because she doesn’t know what they are.
In Japanese, she was using Hiragana instead of Katakana.

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