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

’t the time for that.
Stop being dumb and get to work.

Still half panicked, I immediately used primordial magic to create an unreasonable amount of water and dumped it on top of the flame.
I had thought that it would promptly eliminate the cause of my concern, but apparently, I was wrong.
I had only caused even more problems.
The combination of the forest fire and the flash flood had shocked the local monsters and caused them to turn tail and start running for their lives. My bad guys.
But you know, this is just… another one of them days.
The wyvern flying overhead turns into a series of fireballs, and then suddenly a river appears in midair even though there’s barely a cloud in sight.
Unfortunate, but totally normal.

…

Oh who am I kidding? Normal, my ass.

Completely flooding the area had managed to remedy the fire problem.
The Wicked Forest was no longer in any danger of turning into a giant matchstick.
If you could even still call it a forest.
The raging tides I had created had toppled about as many trees as they had saved.
It was over.
But as much as I wanted to heave a sigh of relief, I couldn’t.
The day’s problems had only just begun.

One of the sounds I found my ears greeted by once the water and fire had both abated was one that sent shivers down my spine: a familiar, insect-like chirping.
And there was more than just one.
I could hear a countless number of bugs bustling and buzzing about.

I slowly turned my head towards the sound’s source, only to find exactly what I had been expecting: a “friendly” reunion with a literal army of ants.
We were quite a fair distance from the anthill that Rir and I had retreated from back when I had first encountered the six-legged freaks, which meant that the term reunion wasn’t all that accurate.
This group of ants most likely belonged to a different colony than the first. Wait.
What the fuck!? Why the hell does this stupid forest have so many fucking ants in it!? Where the hell did these damned things come from anyway!? God damn it! They probably had a god damn community right where I dumped all the water, didn’t they!?

The moment the dog-sized insects saw me was the moment they spread their wings and made straight for me.

“Nononononono!” The sight of the horde was enough to make me scream like a wimp under extreme duress.

While I couldn’t exactly discern an insect’s emotions from its features, I could tell that the ants were angry. The way they flew at me oozed with rage and a thirst for my blood. That “destroyed their anthill” theory is looking pretty accurate right about now.

“Mr.
Ant sure has lots of friends” said Enne as she watched one of the god-forsaken creatures lead the charge.
“Friends? All I see is a bunch of bloodthirsty maniacs!” I complained.

There were way too many of them.
I had the sneaking suspicion that they would probably suck every last bit of liquid right out of me and turn me into a mummy the moment they managed to catch me.
Not even my bone marrow would be spared. Actually, with jaws that big, they’d probably be more likely to grind up my bones and eat them whole.

Another shiver ran up my spine as the disgusting scene before me prompted me to imagine a future I could only label undesirable.
I took it as a signal to turn around and immediately begin flying away.
A part of me felt as if I could have probably taken the entire army down given my current power level, but I wasn’t about to go through the trouble.
I wasn’t about to dirty Enne’s blade with their disgusting body fluids.
In fact, I didn’t want to be anywhere near them at all.
Both my mind and body had already been conditioned to reject their very existence.

The bees Lefi had stolen honey from had been a forced encounter.
I only fought them because I hadn’t been able to run away.
This scenario was different.
The run button wasn’t greyed out this time, so I mashed it with all my might.

“A-Alright, Enne,” I stuttered, “let’s show these things just how much we’ve learned today!”
“Okay.”

I wrapped Enne’s blade as she activated wind magic.
A moment later, we found ourselves launched through the skies.
The flames ejected by the maneuver burnt a part of the incoming group to ashes.
But of course, it wasn’t anywhere near enough to so much as even stall the tenacious bastards.
Those that we hadn’t killed began chasing us with even more vigour, but they soon shrank into tiny dots off in the distance nonetheless.

***

“Ugh… that was terrible,” I complained as Enne and I finally reached the cave.
The ants were fast, so fast that not even Rir could shake them off.
Fortunately, our newly labbed techniques had proven that there was no longer any need for us to engage them in a death race.
Speaking of Rir, I had used Farspeak in order to dismiss him and tell him that we had already retreated.
I had also told him to stop by the cave tomorrow afternoon because there was still something I wanted him to help me with.
Today’s farewell had been abrupt, but we would see each other soon. You know, now that I think about it, Rir might just be our dungeon’s hardest worker.
I probably need to somehow figure something out as far as overtime pay goes.
Wouldn’t want him going on strike.

“You seemed to enjoy most of it though, Master.”
“Well, yeah.
I can’t say you’re wrong.”

Honestly, me enjoying it was probably a big part of the problem. All the fun I had was a major contributor to me getting as carried away as I did.
I highly doubted that I would have paid so little attention had I not enjoyed myself.
Enne was right, one hundred percent.

“I was too.” The sword girl whispered something under her breath, but I couldn’t exactly make out what it was.
She was sitting on my shoulders, so I craned my head up in order to look at her.
“Sorry, what? I didn’t catch that.”
“I was having fun being with you too, Master,” she said in an embarrassed whisper.

Wow.
Enne’s such a good kid.
Actually, now that I think about it, all our girls are pretty honest and well behaved.
As one of their guardians, I can’t help but be happy that they’re all growing up to be good people.

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