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

with a stutter.

She pointed towards a nearby building, one that looked like a typical western-styled boarding house with a fairly modern design.
There really wasn’t anything special about it.
In fact, you could say that it’s only real feature was how average it was.

On an unrelated note, Agent McHoodface was living up to her namesake.
She had once again donned her hood.
It seemed that, as a member of the secret service, she didn’t exactly like having her face exposed in public.

“There, huh? Looks pretty average.”
“That it does, My Lord.”
“U-Uhm, sorry.” Haloria shrank back as she spoke, probably because she seemed to think that I wasn’t satisfied with the overly average hotel.
“We don’t really want our facilities to stand out, so we tried our best to make them as average as we could.”

I reflected upon our plans as I looked at the place.
The time we spent travelling was supposed to span three days, during which we would stop in a total of two cities along the way and spend a night in each.
We would spend our third night at our destination, Regighihegg, the capital of the demon realm.
First day aside, we would be travelling via coach.
And although we were planning to stop overnight, we weren’t actually switching lines or anything like that after reaching the second city.
The coach we were taking was one that regularly provided service between the city we were currently in and the capital.
The overnight stop was just another standard part of the trip, one that had to happen given the distance between the initial pick up location and the final destination.

Using Enne as an engine and jetting my way between my house and the capital probably would have shortened the three-day journey down to just a few hours, but unfortunately, it wasn’t an option.
The other two wouldn’t have been able to keep up. Actually, on second thought I don’t even know where the capital is, so I wouldn’t have been able to go even if I was all by myself.
Kinda would’ve needed to learn a bit more about the demon realm’s geography first.

In games, the term “demon realm” often referred to a place in another dimension, a plane of existence completely separate from the human world.
However, that wasn’t the case here.
In this world, the demon realm was just another piece of the same landmass.
The only difference was that it was ruled by demons.
And that was it.
The coach we were about to get on wasn’t one capable of transcending dimensions.

“Don’t sweat it, it doesn’t matter,” I said.
“A bed’s a bed.
Now let’s go.”

With Haloria as our guide, we entered the inn and got ourselves set up to spend the night in town.

***

Like everything else about the inn, the food it served was just… average.
It wasn’t particularly good, but it wasn’t particularly bad either.
Dinner alone had made me miss Leila’s cooking.
And breakfast the next day hadn’t helped much to resolve the issue either.
Like dinner, it had been about as average as average could be.

Haloria showed us to the coach that would take us to the capital shortly after we finished our mediocre morning meal.

“Wait. This is the coach?” Seeing the vehicle caused me to freeze up.
It was just… wrong.

The carriage part of it was fine.
It was a bit on the larger side, which wasn’t even all that abnormal given the distance it had to travel, but that was more or less it.
The problem lay with the… “horse.”

A coach, as literally specified by most dictionaries, was a vehicle drawn by a horse.
Specifically a horse.
This coach, however, was not.
In the horse’s place was a giant mammoth with a hard-looking shell.
The creature breathed with such force that you could almost see the air puff out each time it exhaled.

The easiest way to describe it was to take a quick look at Monster Hunter and call it a popo with a rhenoplos’ shell. Errr, actually I guess all that does is make it even harder to understand, huh?

It was a creature that I had encountered before, the kind that was really annoying not because it was strong, but instead because of how much noise it made.

“Can you really even call this stupid thing a coach…?”

To reiterate, there was no horse.
Having a horse was literally part of the definition of a coach, alternative definitions aside of course.
And that was only one of the problems I had with it.
The other was the fact that the mammoth-like creature was undoubtedly a monster, albeit one of a more tame variety.
Of course, the first thing I did as the question crossed my mind was turn towards Leila and ask her about it.

“I believe coaches used horses in the past,” she said.
“But as the times changed, demons stopped holing themselves in small tribal communities and began living in cities.
One tribe brought Delmell Marmeaux with them as they moved, and they soon became quite popular.
They’re used often enough for you to see them in towns like this all the time.”
“Wow… That’s neat,” said Enne with a look of fascination.
“Does that mean you’re interested in history?” I asked.
“Mhm.
Leila’s lectures are always really interesting.”
“Why thank you,” giggled the maid.
“Then how about I teach you a bit more on the way? I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to talk.”
“Yes please,” said Enne.
“I can’t wait.”

Though she normally seemed completely and utterly devoid of emotion, Enne was visibly excited by the prospect of having Leila continue to educate her.
The sight brought a smile to my face.
It was picturesque. Seeing kids smile sure does soothe the weary soul, huh? I wonder why that is?

The agent we were travelling with returned from speaking with reception right as I finished basking in the happy aura radiating off of the small child.

“I’m sorry for the delay.
Everything is in order now.
We’re free to board,” she said.
“Alright then, leggo.
Up you go, Enne.” The entrance to the so-called coach was a bit far off the ground, so I lifted Enne onto it.
“Thanks Master.”
“No problem.”

After getting the little one onboard, I took Leila’s hand and helped her climb in as well.

“Thank you very much, My Lord.”
“Don’t sweat it.”

Only after that did I finally board with Enne’s real body in tow.

“Oh, hey!” I was greeted by a familiar face the moment I climbed into the cabin.
“I’m pretty pawsitive I recognize you, you’re the guy that was meowggling me! I remember you getting real furantic because both the kid and busty girl you were with got really mad at you!”
“Could you not put it like that?” I replied.
“You’re making me sound like some sort of deplorable degenerate.”

As I entered, I realized that the cat-eared beastkin I had spotted last night was sitting right there beside us in the coach’s cabin.

***

Editor’s note (Joker): Hey, guys! Joker here.
I know, I know, it’s been forever, but I have a good reason.
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers released a couple weeks ago and I’ve been playing through that.
Got the main story done, and my character geared up with the best current gear, so I’m doing pretty well.
Patch 5.01 should be releasing the 15th-16th of July, which should release the current set of 8 player raids, Eden, so I’m looking forward to that.
It was such an amazing game, I was in so much awe of the skill that the developers had.
Definitely a must play for any JRPG fan, even if you’re not an MMO fan.
Many headpats to me and Nirvash, for some godforsaken reason… and thanks to CaTastrophy427, Anime Dragon, John Watson, Mischa, and kx for your questions.
And if you have a question for me, leave it below with the hashtag #AskJoker and I’ll reply.
See y’all in the next chapter! (Maybe)

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