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

Enhancing the Dungeon’s Defenses — Phase Two: Acquiring New Subordinates

“There you are.” I waved at Rir as he emerged from the forest. The wolf had done as ordered and visited the dungeon the day after I almost accidentally committed the felony known as arson.

He returned my greeting with a bark, so I did as any pet owner would and started playing around with his fur. Oh man, this stuff feels great. I remember sleeping in it when we were coming back from the capital. As far as pillows go, Rir’s second only to Lefi. Fur is love, fur is life, and anyone that says otherwise is wrong.

“Oh yeah, right, I just realized I totally forgot to mention why I wanted you to come over today.” Only after playing with Rir’s fur to my heart’s content did I finally get down to business. “I was finally going to get around to getting the dungeon a few new hires. I’m going to be counting on you to show them the ropes, alright?”

My canine friend nodded, so I reluctantly took my hands off his fur and opened up the menu. Today was the first time I would increase the number of monsters the dungeon had since the time I summoned the three wraith girls. I had been thinking about it for quite some time, but I kept putting it off. Until today.

Procrastination wasn’t without its benefits. Not choosing immediately provided me with a long period of time to contemplate the many different possibilities I had to pick from. I was long locked in; I knew exactly what I wanted and why. Heh. Summoning these four is basically going to double our forces. It’ll take me one step closer to making my dungeon the most absurdly difficult dungeon that there ever was.

“Now come, my pets! Heed your new owner’s summons!”

I popped open the dungeon catalogue, scrolled over to where the monsters were listed, and selected the four that I had marked in advance. My vision was suddenly flooded by a vast number of glowing particles the moment I hit the confirm button. The literal bundles of light began to gather and settle, forming four silhouettes before slowly melding away and revealing the creatures they had created.

The first was a crimson snake covered from head to toe with beautiful, glossy scales. The second was a jet black bird with a sharp glint in its eyes. The third was a cat with a forked tail and sleek white fur. And the last was a blob of water that floated about in the air. Their species were Giant Blood Serpent, Dark Crow, Demonic Cat, and Water Spirit respectively. The spirit was a bit smaller than me, but the crow and the cat were both as big as Rir. The snake was even bigger. It was so large that it could swallow me whole with ease. In fact, it was so large that I wouldn’t be surprised if it proved itself capable of devouring Rir. Whew. Thankfully, none of them turned out to be little girls this time. I would’ve been in for a baaaad time.

Most of their stats sat around somewhere in the six hundred range, with health and mana as the exceptions. Their HP values varied between one and a half and two thousand, while their mana values sat at about double that. Of course, as each of the monsters belonged to a different species, they didn’t actually share stat distributions. They all had their own unique splits, but overall, their numbers were indicative of the fact that they were all just about equally valuable in a fight.

The catalogue labelled all four as monsters with high potential. Their final evolutions fell in the same tier as those classified as legendary or mythical. I think the proper term for them was supposed to be Calamity Class or something like that.

In fact, their final evolutions were so powerful that some had even caused Lefi a great deal of trouble in the past. Heh. Raising and training them is gunna be fun. Soon, I’ll have myself the most powerful monster-based military that this world has to offer. Heh. I can’t wait.

“Listen up, maggots. The name’s Yuki, and I’m your new boss.”

Hearing my words caused all four of my new pets to bow their heads. Sweet. It looks like they’re all already nice and obedient.

“Alright, now I’m going to name you. From left to right, it’s going to be Orochi, Yata, Byakku, and Wsprit.”

I quickly analyzed them in order to confirm that the right names had applied to the right monsters. Summarizing the results produced the following:

***

Pet #1

Name: Orochi

Race: Giant Blood Serpent

Unique Skill: Poison Fang

Pet #2

Name: Yata

Race: Dark Crow

Unique Skill: Farsight

Pet #3

Name: Byakku

Race: Demonic Cat

Unique Skill: Illusion

Pet #4

Name: Wsprit

Race: Water Spirit

Unique Skill: Current Control

***

Looking them over once again prompted me to think that, Wsprit aside, they were absolutely massive. And yet, they remained obedient. The way they were listening to me almost made me think that they were kind of cute. Yup. Ain’t nothing out there as cute as an obedient pet.

Size wasn’t the only thing that made the water spirit stand out amongst its peers. There were two types of spirits. The first was well, actual spirits, whereas the second was a group of non-spiritual monsters referred to as spirits. Wsprit fell in the latter category and thus was not technically an actual spirit. Yeah, confusing, I know.

“I want you guys to live in the forest around these parts. Your job will be to hunt monsters. Be careful though, the monsters around here are pretty tough, and there are traps all over the place. Let Rir over here know if you run into any problems or need help. He’s been around for a while, and he’ll be showing you the ropes.” I gave the reliable wolf a pat on the back. “Well, Rir, it’s all you now. Good luck getting them up to par.”

Oh man, I am one shitty boss. I basically just piled all my work on him without even bothering to help. In my defence, Rir’s probably a better fighter than me anyway. I’d probably only get in his way even if I did try helping. More importantly, the canine seemed quite interested in the task. It seemed like something that he knew he would enjoy. Well, I’ll check in every once in a while, but otherwise, I guess I’ll just leave you to it.

Rir had turned out pretty strong himself. Analyzing him produced the following results:

***

General Information

Name: Fluffrir

Race: Fenrir

Class: Lord of Wolves

Level: 94

HP: 12030/12030

MP: 19004/19004

Strength: 2351

Vitality: 2902

Agility: 3277

Magic: 3004

Dexterity: 2995

Luck: 149

Unique Skills

Extreme Speed

Everchanging Chains

Transformation

Skills

Claw Mastery VII

Ice Magic VI

Lightning Magic VI

Crisis Detection V

Fang Mastery III

Command III

Titles

Demon Lord’s Kin

King of the Monsters

Worn Out Wolf

***

My stats were still higher than his, but only because I was a higher level. I was pretty sure that our numbers would be about equal once he caught up to me even though both the dungeon’s growth and my evolution had boosted my stats. Goddamn, Rir, you’re a man.

His skills had levelled up since I last saw him, and he’d even gained two that I didn’t recall him having, Fang Mastery and Command. He probably got Command from issuing orders to all his underlings, huh?

He’d also gained a few titles, King of the Monsters, and Worn Out Wolf. Wait, Worn Out Wolf? Lemme analyze that real quick.