"Y-yes. You're working. Got it. Work is important."
I stuffed my hands into my money pouch, feeling thoroughly awkward about it.
"As a token of appreciation for your hard work, I shall bestow an encouragement fund upon you. Now then, diligent workers who have toiled faithfully—harvest gold coins to your heart's content!"
I scattered a lavish handful of gold coins with a bold laugh. It wasn't mere extravagance. I'd been away for two months, and the workers would surely feel some awkwardness around me. By throwing a small festival of sorts, I hoped to shift the atmosphere and make them feel comfortable approaching me.
*Ching, ching*—the pleasant sound of gold coins raining onto the cavern floor. The moment they heard the sound of money, the goblins and dwarves whipped their heads toward me so fast their necks nearly snapped. They each lifted one foot as though they were about to rush over—
"...Huh?"
They marched in place. The workers, eyes bloodshot, stared ever so cautiously—painfully cautiously—at a single point in the distance. At the very end of all those countless gazes stood none other than Lapis Lazuli. The pink-haired Succubus was there.
"We can afford to have the first floor's central area opened high. There's no need to worry about structural integrity."
Lapis continued issuing instructions to the workers as if the gold coins on the floor weren't even worth a glance.
"Thinking about the distant future, the first floor will house all manner of shops catering to adventurers. A central plaza might even take shape. We have to plan for that as well. Understood?"
"Y-yes. We'll keep that in mind, General Manager."
The workers bowed and scraped before Lapis, craning their necks respectfully. They sneaked sidelong glances at the gold coins scattered on the cavern floor and swallowed hard, but not a single one of them took even half a step away from their position. I realized it.
These guys… every last one of them is reading Lapis's mood!
The most notable names in the Demon Realm's construction industry had all gathered in one place. The majority of them were either office heads or their designated representatives. Yet here they were, completely unable to move an inch under the orders of a lowly half-demon Succubus.
I was stunned. What on earth had she done over these past two months to have them this disciplined—as if they'd been conscripted into military service?
"Oh, and, Lord Dantalion."
Lapis called out to me without even lifting her eyes from the documents in her hand. Her tone was extremely firm. I flinched.
"Wh-what?"
"I appreciate your intention to boost morale, but it is still working hours. There are three hours remaining before clock-out. I would ask that the bonuses be distributed all at once at that time."
"……Understood."
I bent down and picked up the gold coins that had fallen to the floor one by one. It was like being that chairman who shows up unannounced and gets in the way at a construction site in the final stages of a busy project. No — that wasn't even a metaphor. It was literally what was happening.
"Hey, where's Laura?"
"I wouldn't know. She's probably in the Demon Lord's study reading some noble philosophy book."
Instantly, Lapis's gaze turned into one of someone looking at rotting garbage. It was the look of a middle-aged office worker in his fifties who had tasted every bitterness and sweetness the world had to offer, watching the antics of a fresh-faced rookie just entering the workforce.
It was terrifying.
"I-I'll, uh, go check the Demon Lord's study then. Good work."
My instincts told me that leaving this place as quickly as possible would be in my best interest. I waved my right hand at Lapis while backing away. Lapis replied in a flat tone, her face having returned to its expressionless state.
"Yes. I'll continue working hard. Not that I wasn't already, of course."
Lapis's directives and orders resumed. The cave had grown even colder than before I had shown up. Even so, it had been so long since we'd met……
Feeling as though I had committed some kind of sin, I trudged out with my head hanging low.
But with every step I took, surprise and wonder welled up inside me. My dungeon had been completely transformed. The cave that had previously twisted and curved in irregular directions had been entirely reorganized into an orderly and spacious passageway.
"Whoa."
Massive walls flanked both sides of the corridor without a single gap. On the other side of those walls, the monsters' village was slated to be built. Seeing something I had only ever imagined in my mind become reality made me incredibly fascinated, and I wandered around with my mouth agape like a child who'd been invited to an amusement park.
Clang! Clang! Clink!
Workers were active throughout the corridor. Pickaxes moved ceaselessly as they carved into the cave. Masons busied their hands, and goblins who appeared to be wizards shook their heads repeatedly, muttering angrily about something.
"Tch, there's no way I can cast reinforcement magic like this. I told you to start over from the beginning."
"The adamantine stock is running low……"
"The person in charge! Someone get the person in charge over here!"
It was a massive construction project. Everyone was bustling about and chattering away.
I tried to save as much on construction costs as possible by splitting the work among several offices instead of just one. While this did reduce expenses, it meant that all the burden fell overwhelmingly on a single commander-in-chief. I had to give instructions and orders to dozens of offices while simultaneously coordinating their work.
"Uwaaaaa."
Sure enough, Lapis had every right to be irritable.
The stress must have been enormous. The person who should have been the one in charge was strolling around casually with a "Hey, I'm back — missed me?" attitude, so it was no wonder she was exasperated.
After a leisurely two-hour walk, I arrived at the Demon Lord's chamber. It had changed beyond recognition.
First, there was a cliff in front of the chamber. Or should I call it a cliff — or perhaps a very deep moat? A narrow stone bridge had been laid across the moat. You had to cross that bridge to reach the main entrance.
The main entrance… the wooden door that Leaf had once casually chopped apart with a hand axe was completely gone. What lay before my eyes was less a door and closer to a colossal statue.
A truly hideous statue had its maw gaping wide open. The entrance hole itself was the main entrance.
The unmistakable feeling of "this is where the Demon Lord resides" wafted from it. The taste was abysmal. Whatever method had been used, the statue's eyeballs were actually blazing with red fire.
Overwhelmed, I carefully stepped forward. At the top of the main entrance — specifically, at the part of the statue corresponding to the philtrum between the nose and the mouth — a line had been carved with a chisel. The inscription, written in the language of the ancient empire, read:
— Let go of all hope, you who have crossed into the beyond.
"Uuuueeeek."
It was truly committed. Devoutly, authentically demonic. It was like stumbling into a boss mob hunting ground straight out of an RPG.
So this was the image Lapis had been harboring about what a "Demon Lord" was? For someone who was a demonkin that had lived nearly two hundred years, that was way too childish!
Well, then again, Barbatos called his own Demon Lord's Castle something like the "Sanctuary of All the Dead," so… perhaps the design aesthetic for Demon Lord's castles was universally this over-the-top. After all, Demonkin had truly abysmal taste. Didn't they enjoy wearing pink suits as formal wear to masquerade balls?
With a sense of half-resigned defeat, I trudged into the Demon Lord's chamber. Surprisingly, the inside was sparse. It didn't look like any construction work had begun yet.
"Laura? Dantalion has arrived. The Dantalion that Laura loves has returned."
My voice echoed through the chamber. In response, something poked its head out from a bed across the room. Golden hair. It was Laura de Farnese.
"My lord… is it really you, my lord?"
Laura gazed at me with trembling eyes. For some reason, her face looked utterly haggard. Even her golden hair, which had always been radiant like spring sunlight, had lost its luster and looked dry and lifeless.
"Isn't it an illusion magic spell designed to lure young maidens? Is it really you?"
"I-Illusion magic spell?"
I was shaken to my core. What on earth had happened in my absence?
Laura was terrified. I approached her with a gentle smile, the way one might approach a frightened kitten.
"Laura, it's real. It's not illusion magic or anything of the sort — I'm the real Dantalion."
"So you really are the lord who, despite putting on a dignified front at all times, completely falls apart the moment he feels even a shred of pressure — laughing one moment, crestfallen the next, then laughing again, making everyone around you anxious? That lord?"
"…Yes, that's the one. That Dantalion."
Laura poked her head out from behind the bed, her voice still edged with unease.
"And you really are the lord who runs around proclaiming himself the most upright and virtuous person in the world while secretly being an absolute lecher the moment any opportunity presents itself — making him, in that one specific regard, genuinely the most dedicated and diligent person alive? The lord who refuses to see any woman as anything more than a girl once she turns seventeen?"
"…I now have a very clear picture of what Laura thinks of me on a daily basis."
My lips trembled.
"I am Dantalion — neither a lecher nor a pedophile. I simply happened, at one point, to become involved with a woman whose average age was… slightly on the younger side."
"Oh, seeing that brazen, shameless face of yours, there is absolutely no doubt — you are indeed my lord!"
Laura sprang to her feet. She came bounding over like a pet dog welcoming its master home from years of war,
"My lord! My lord! I've missed you! I truly, sincerely missed you!"
and leaped at me, wrapping her entire body around me in a hug.
I stared blankly ahead and muttered,
"…What is this feeling? It's clearly a touching reunion, yet there's a cold little ache in the corner of my heart. What on earth is this emotion?"
"Oh, what a wretched, petty face you have!"
Laura was moved to tears. She was, in fact, already crying.
"The hunched spine and those narrow shoulders! Hair that hasn't been trimmed in two or three months, sprouting wildly like a jungle! The corners of your mouth steeped in a vivid concentration of baseness! Ah, this is the genuine article. You are undoubtedly my true and authentic master!"
"……Ah, yes. I see."
"My master may well be the cheapest, most bargain-bin Demon Lord in all the world, but it is precisely because you are such a bargain-bin master that this maiden loves you!"
Laura spread both hands and grabbed my head. Then she kissed me deeply. As if a single kiss weren't enough, she unleashed ten, twenty more kisses in a frenzied barrage. Naturally, on my end, I felt nothing at all.
"All right. That's enough for a welcome."
I said, peeling Laura off me.
"But honestly, what is this state you're in? Before you go calling me dirty, you might want to take a look at yourself first. Your hair is a tangled mess, your skin is completely ruined…… I can't believe this is the appearance of a former ducal lady and a seventeen-year-old girl. Have you even been bathing?"
"It's just that, it's just that……*sniff*."
Laura wiped her tears. To be perfectly honest, this was the worst she had ever looked in all the time I'd known her. This was absolutely not because I was still sore from getting an earful of insults. It was an objective observation.
"Lady Lapis, she told me……"
"……Lady Lapis?"
"Ah, no. That's not it. Big Sister Lapis gave me way too much work to handle!"
Laura quickly corrected herself.
The verbal slip was far too shocking to simply let slide like a snake over a fence, but being the kind-hearted soul that I am, I graciously let it go. I could more or less guess what the situation was.
"This maiden doesn't know a thing about laws or village customs. Isn't it enough to just get things done in the most efficient way? But Big Sister Lapis keeps…… and on top of that, that man Parsi or whatever he's called has been ganging up on me too……"
"Blow your nose first."
I handed her a handkerchief. No matter how radiant a seventeen-year-old girl might be, her snot certainly wouldn't be radiant. Absolutely not.
Laura blew her nose with a loud honk.
"You're looking down on me like I'm some naive little child who doesn't know anything about the world!"
"……Ah. Understood. There's no need to explain further. I understand the situation perfectly."
It seems that Laura de Farnese, the iron-blooded Chancellor whose name was renowned as the greatest tactician of her era, was dejected by the fact that her political skills were, quite frankly, terrible.
A sigh escaped my lips of its own accord. I had a distinct premonition that the management of the Demon Lord's Castle and the domain would be extremely arduous.