The Demon Realm still conjured images of savagery and cruelty, but I'd heard all sorts of stories from Lapis Lazuli by now. I knew that even the Demon Realm had its share of sophisticated, civilized cities.
Would Lapis really lead me somewhere dangerous? I was dead set on getting a proper rest this time. Before launching into my vacation in earnest, I decided to give the dungeon's front yard a thorough cleaning.
What do I mean by that?
"Y-Your Greatness! What business brings you to this humble place?"
A white-haired old man prostrated himself on the ground, trembling. Behind him, roughly a hundred more people kowtowed. They were slash-and-burn farmers—people who farmed for a living in the mountains teeming with beasts and monsters, making them stronger and bolder than ordinary humans.
The reason these people knelt before me was simple. Even now, nearly thirty golems stood at attention around them—a monster army I'd scraped together by shaking out every last bit of surplus wealth.
I spoke, with my Acting skill active.
"Unclean? Did you just call this place unclean?"
"Y-yes, Your Greatness."
"Lift your head, human."
The old man raised his face with agonizing slowness. His sun-darkened skin was creased with wrinkles stacked like terrace ridges on a paddy field—a face that bore the imprint of an honest, hard life. I felt a twinge of sympathy, but I used an aggressive tone for the sake of my objective. First impressions define the encounter. I couldn't afford to seem like a pushover right now.
"This is my territory! You dare call my territory unclean—a heavy crime, that."
The old man's face went pale with shock and bewilderment. Understandably so. Some man suddenly shows up with monsters, surrounds the village, and declares, "This was my land all along"—of course his wits would go out the window.
It was a kind of housecleaning.
Around the dungeon, there were several small villages, including the slash-and-burn settlements. Adventure parties would stay in these villages for a few days to rest before marching on my dungeon. The villagers made pocket money by charging the adventurers modest lodging fees, which made them an indirect threat to me. I'd been mulling over what to do for a while now, and as it happened, I intended to lay down the law before heading off to the Demon Realm.
"Your Greatness!"
"Furthermore, you have taken up residence on my territory without permission! The weight of your crime is immeasurable!"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry! We simply didn't know!"
Without being told, the old man slammed his forehead to the ground.
"This is a monster nesting ground, a place all nations avoid. Even the Empire's vampire tax collectors don't come this far. We fled to these mountain ranges to escape their heavy taxes and extortionate levies… please forgive us…"
"Hah. To claim you alone are the victims is utterly repulsive. You must have known that my domain lies nearby and that adventurers were marching towards it. Yet, you still provided lodging to those adventurers. Isn't that correct?"
The village head jerked his head up.
"Th-that is…"
"Speak only the truth!"
"Great one… life in the mountains is unimaginably difficult. Sometimes, if outsiders come and the lodging fees they pay aren't enough, we can't even survive a single season. We, we had no choice to live. Please, have mercy!"
I scoffed.
"So, because your lives are hard, you think it permissible to threaten mine? How dare you? It seems you still don't fully grasp the situation."
I raised my right hand. The golems surrounding the villagers took one step forward. Thirty golems stepping in unison made the ground thud and tremble. The villagers were terrified. Women shrieked.
"Uuugh, please spare us!"
"Forgive us!"
Oh dear. My heart bleeds for them. Well, from a human's perspective, there was no reason for adventurers setting out to subjugate the Demon Lord to be hostile. In the Human Realm, they saw the Demon Lord as the ultimate boss monster, and that wasn't necessarily a wrong perception.
"Please, great one! We are sorry, we will never do it again…"
"Even if I slaughtered you all here, it would not quell my anger!"
I could clearly see sweat streaming down the village head's neck.
I spoke in a voice deliberately filled with rage.
"—I will give you one final chance."
"Oh!"
The village head raised both arms high.
"Thank you! Thank you!"
"Remember this. I am not one who is generous without cause. You have committed an unforgivable sin, and repentance must come first."
"Of course! Naturally! Just give us any command, Your Lordship."
I pulled a blue crystal orb from within my robe and tossed it lightly. The village head caught it in a fluster.
"This is...?"
"Adventuring parties will continue to visit your village from now on. Continue lodging and feeding them as you have been. However, the moment an adventuring party arrives, strike that crystal orb with your hand four times."
I grinned.
"When night falls, my loyal subordinates will infiltrate the village. Work with them to assassinate the adventuring parties. That way, you will lose none of your income, and since you will not have betrayed me, you will not need to atone with your lives."
That was right. Adventuring parties would only keep growing in level and come attacking. By establishing a cooperative system with the villages surrounding the dungeon in advance, there would be far more ways to deal with them. The village head, his face overcome with emotion, praised my generosity again and again.
But I knew better. Without some additional incentive, people would simply break a contract at the drop of a hat. If they judged an adventuring party powerful enough to slay the Demon Lord, the villagers would undoubtedly side with the adventurers.
"This is a contract with me. If you break it, you will die."
They needed a carrot. Some kind of benefit that could only be gained by not betraying me.
"If you uphold the contract, I will provide you with safety as well."
"Ah, safety, you say?"
"I hear that your village is constantly exposed to the threat of monsters."
"Yes, sir. Just this past week, a young man was bitten by a goblin and lost his life."
"As long as you honor the contract with me, I promise that monsters will not target your village."
"R-really!?"
Color bloomed across the old man's face. He had been certain he would die at the hands of a golem, and now he was being promised protection from monsters—it must have felt like a dream.
I furrowed my brow, looking displeased.
"I am the sovereign lord of all monsters. Do you doubt my word?"
"No! Not at all! I—I'm simply overwhelmed by such a generous offer."
"Mark this well from now on. I am fair."
He drew a deep breath and shouted in a booming voice.
"My name is Dantalion! The seventy-first ranked Demon Lord, master of all disease and monsters! I shall be generous to my subjects and merciless to my enemies. If you become my faithful subjects, you shall be guaranteed such benefits and safety!"
Did the act actually work?
"No more monster attacks from now on!"
"We're saved!"
"Long live His Majesty Dantalion!"
The slash-and-burn farmers erupted in cheers. But it wasn't over yet.
Over the course of a week, I toured every village near the dungeon. Twelve small villages fell under my dominion. Thirty golems were more than a small village could handle, and above all, the promise of liberation from the monster threat was an enormous draw.
I expected the villages to function as an early-warning system against intruders. For this purpose, I had to visit not only human villages but also monster settlements one by one, warning each group of monsters to "stop attacking these people from now on" — but getting good results always required hard work.
Some monster settlements resisted. Unlike the monsters I had hired, wild monsters were inherently hostile. But what did it matter? The rebellious monsters were swept away cleanly by my golem squad. Perhaps because this was near the dungeon of the seventy-first ranked Demon Lord, not a single high-level monster could be found. At best, there were only low-quality goblin settlements everywhere.
I couldn't help but sigh. No wonder Dantalion's Demon Lord's Castle only showed up as a prologue element in Dungeon Attack.
"Phew, all done!"
After securing pledges from every monster settlement, I stretched out with a long, satisfying yawn. A sense of accomplishment from finishing a great task welled up in my chest. Now I could rest!
Only one question remained.
"Strange… the goblins barely put up any fight."
Even the lowest-level goblin tribes should have resisted as much as they could — or so I expected. But when the fighting started, they couldn't fight back against me at all. They were simply annihilated by the golem squad, utterly helpless.
Well, no harm in that.
I took it as proof that the golem squad's power had grown considerably. The golems under my command now boasted an average level of five. Since each level increase raised a random stat by one, a basic Minion Golem with base stats of 7/5/5 (Health/Attack/Defense) now possessed roughly 7/7/7 worth of stats.
For reference, the adventure party captain of Jalsen Village, Rif, had stats of 6/5/2. Rif was considered one of the top-tier F-rank adventurers, and if even he was only at that level, it meant the golem squad had grown strong enough to handle an E-rank party with ease. On top of that, the fairy squad had also reached an average level of 3, so they could wipe out any ordinary E-rank party without taking a scratch.
'While I'm down in the Demon Realm, even if an E-rank party shows up, Laura should be able to handle it just fine.'
All my worries vanished. It wasn't as though a D-rank or C-rank party would suddenly appear in a dungeon that only drew F-rank parties.
I left all dungeon management to Laura and headed off to the Demon Realm for a vacation. I had no idea yet what kind of ripple effects this incident would set in motion.
Lapis swallowed hard.
Even she — always calm and composed — was feeling nervous. Before her sat a white-haired old gentleman in a wooden chair. His entire body was shrouded in a black cloak, but the old man's pale face all too clearly betrayed his gaunt frame. Something almost morbid emanated from the man. Only his measured tone kept him teetering on the edge of being called a gentleman.
This old man was the apex of the Kunkuska Trading Company.
Ivar Lodbrok.
Among vampires, he was one of the rare True Ancestors — a monster among monsters who had lived for over two thousand years.
"Lapis Lazuli. You must know why you've been summoned to meet with me."
"Yes, Chairman."
Lapis bowed with a crisp upper-body bow.
"I believe it concerns Demon Lord Dantalion."
"Seems you're not entirely devoid of wits."
Whether it was because Lapis had bowed at the precise angle, Ivar's lips curled ever so slightly upward. There was nothing warm or benevolent in that expression. If anything, it was unsettling. Only his mouth moved — the rest of his face didn't so much as twitch.
"Last time, Thorkel was dispatched in person. But he was turned away at the door. Because you said you'd only deal with Miss Lapis here. I suppose even half a penny's worth of night-born is still night-born, as they say."
"......"
Ivar was sneering, implying that Lapis had used her nocturnal arts to seduce the Demon Lord. It was a blatant insult toward the half-succubus Lapis. Yet not a flicker of change crossed Lapis's bowed face. For her, this kind of humiliation was practically a daily occurrence.
A succubus — prostitute of the Demon Realm.
And among them, a mongrel with filthy human blood mixed in.
"Oh, so you know how to keep your emotions in check."
"I am a clerk of the Kunkuska Trading Company."
At that, Ivar laughed.
"Of course you are. A merchant of the Kunkuska should be exactly like that. You pursue profit by any means necessary, yet you must also win the other party's heart. In that sense, you pass. A mere fourth-rank clerk displaying her true abilities and winning the Demon Lord's favor — how could I not praise you for that?"
Something dropped to the floor with a soft thud.
"You may raise your head."
Lapis slowly lifted her face. A heavy pouch had fallen in front of Ivar's feet. It was a money pouch used by the Kunkuska Trading Company. judging by its size, it clearly held over a hundred gold.
"A reward. Take it."
Ivar was currently seated in a chair. The money pouch had been placed beneath his crotch. Telling her to accept it as a reward meant, in other words, that Lapis was to crawl all the way to his crotch to retrieve the money pouch.
Even a street prostitute would not be subjected to such insolence.
The ultimate humiliation.
"Yes."
Yet Lapis answered without a flicker of emotion.
She lay flat on the floor and crawled toward the True Ancestor on all fours like a beast. The black Kunkuska uniform clung tightly to her body, accentuating her hips. Ivar rested his chin on his hand and watched her crawl toward him with leisurely amusement.
Before long, her head appeared between Ivar's legs. She respectfully took hold of the money pouch with both hands, then bowed her head deeply once more — already low as it was.
"Thank you."
The moment Lapis began to pull back, Ivar spoke.
"Take it off."
A frigid voice drifted into her ear.