Now I'm a Demon Lord! Happily Ever After with Monster Girls in My Dungeon: Volume 6 (eBook)

Ryuyu (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
978-1-7183-9057-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Yet again, trouble finds Yuki and disrupts his idyllic life!

Yuki's boisterous new life as a demon lord in a fantasy world continues. One day, while he and his pets are hunting monsters to refill the dungeon's rapidly depleting coffers, he abruptly runs into Lew's father. 'Give me back my daughter!' the man roars angrily, and misunderstandings lead to him challenging Yuki to a duel. How is our antihero supposed to deal with this hairy development?!

In the meantime, Nell, Yuki's second wife, decides to return to the royal capital as part of her duties as a hero. Yuki means to accompany her as her bodyguard, but an unexpected incident disrupts that plan-someone sets a wild stampede in motion against them. On top of that, a sinister presence lurks in the shadows, intent on targeting Nell. Can the two put a stop to these threats?!

Textauszug

“H-Hiding something? From you? I-I don’t think so. I-I’m definitely not hiding the fact that I broke a dish—”

Lew gasped and hurriedly shut herself up. Not what I wanted to know, but I’ll have Leila give her a very stern talking-to about it later.

“To be clear, what I want to know is about your family and your home.”

“Ngh!”

She inhaled sharply and froze. I knew she finally understood what I wanted to discuss, so I kept talking.

“Based on what I’ve been told, it seems you’re currently a runaway. Do I have the right of it, young lady?”

“I-It was Leila, wasn’t it?! She told you, didn’t she?!”

“Correct, but she is not to blame. Do you truly think this is something you should have kept from me?”

“Urk. Um... I-I’m sorry...”

I watched a cold sweat trickle down the dog-eared girl’s face as she apologized to me in a reed-thin voice. When I unthinkingly sighed heavily, she flinched in response.

“Look, I’m happy that you wanna stay here with us. I really, honestly am. But correct me if I’m wrong, you moved in with me after being kidnapped, right? That’s not good, Lew. Although it’s my fault too for not thinking harder about our situation either.”

Up until now, I hadn’t really talked about their families and backgrounds with the rest of the dungeon residents. Part of it had to do with the fact that I considered our little group a family unit in itself, but the biggest reason was Iluna. Since all her relatives had been murdered, I’d been careful not to bring the topic up at all. In hindsight, though, I shouldn’t have been so indifferent about the issue.

Leila was the perfect example. She’d been captured by humans while traveling alone, so I knew that no matter what I said or did, she’d insist on taking responsibility for herself. She was her own woman. Plus, Leila herself had told her little sister that she was just fine living with us when we’d met the girl in the demon world’s capital. In short, I had no problem with how Leila wanted to deal with her problems.

But—and this was a huge “but”—getting kidnapped while running away from home? That was another story entirely. God forbid Iluna ever decided to run away from home and ended up vanishing without a trace. What would I do in that situation? There was only one answer: immediately start a desperate, all-out search for her. And I’d destroy everything that stood in my way to find her, come hell or high water.

You wanna know what else Leila’d confided to me? It turned out that Lew was the daughter of her clan’s patriarch. The first thing that’d popped into my head when I’d found out was, “No way.” Obviously incredibly rude, but I couldn’t be faulted for thinking as much given how Lew behaved. The more I’d thought about it after that, the more things had started to make sense. Her being a sheltered girl explained her astoundingly natural bumbling when it came to chores.

That little tidbit of info also made the current situation even worse. As the head of their clan, her father might’ve immediately mobilized every one of his people to search for his daughter, whose whereabouts remained unknown. He probably wanted to exact painful vengeance on whoever’d kidnapped her too.

Naturally, I’d end up as the most likely target of said vengeance since Lew currently worked for me. From my perspective, she lived with me and everyone else in the dungeon of her own free will because she’d wanted me to employ her after I’d rescued her way back when, but from his perspective... Well, he wouldn’t know any of that, would he? The worst-case scenario had to be the only thing on his mind.

“Ugh... P-Please forgive me. I... The truth is, I didn’t really get along all that well with my family... I don’t think I ever want to go back...”

The hesitation in Lew’s voice and the look on her face clearly conveyed her discomfort over the topic. In response, I exhaled softly.

“Then how ’bout I make the trip to your home with you? If things get dicey or whatever, I’ll take you back with me, even if I have to fight your family to do it. So go home just this once, okay?”

“Huh...? A-Are you serious, my lord? You’ll really go with me?”

Lew jerked her head up, looking at me like an abandoned puppy afraid to believe she’d finally been rescued. I smiled wryly at her.

“Yeah. ’Cause I’d be lonely without you.”

She sniffled tearfully.

“Th-Thank you so much, my lord! I-I had no idea you cared so much for me!”

“I mean, who else in the dungeon am I supposed to dunk on?”

“That’s the only purpose I serve?!”

“Hey, don’t knock it. You’re a walking treasure trove of jokes and stories just waiting to happen. You’ve got a real knack for it, y’know. So yeah, I’d totes be sad without you.”

“How can you say such awful things with such a refreshing smile on your face, my lord?!”

She whacked my shoulders repeatedly with her fists, then started yelling.

“Y-You’re so mean! Give me back my feelings of gratitude!”

Of course, all I did was cackle hysterically. Laughed so hard I almost pissed my pants.

Folks, that talk took place yesterday.

“Hmm...?”

Maps suddenly opened with a whoosh while I was out on a hunt with my dungeon’s pets. As usual, it indicated the presence of intruders. I went to check how many and learned that it was a group of people this time.

“Ah, dammit!”

“What is it, Mr. Yuki?”

I’d scowled without thinking and Nell questioned me, her voice puzzled. She’d tagged along with us because she’d wanted to check out the forest.

“Weeell...we’ve got intruders.”

“Intruders? In the dungeon?”

“Oh, yeah, I never told you. I’ll tell you now, then. Thanks to a dungeon feature, I know right away whenever people enter its territory.”

“Wooow... Aha! So that’s how you knew about me the first time I came.”

“Yeppers peppers.”

While chatting with her, I opened another frame on the Maps screen and watched the images transmitted by the Evil Eye, my golem-type summon, of the intruders. The group that’d set off the flashing red dots on Maps weren’t humans. As it turned out, they were actually therianthropes. Specifically, werewolves. The same race as Lew. They numbered more than fifty but less than a hundred. Any way I analyzed the situation, these people were definitely related to our family’s klutzy maid.

She’d begged me to “P-Please, just give me some time to prepare myself emotionally!” so I’d postponed the trip for a bit. If I’d known shit was gonna hit the fan anyway, I would’ve just dragged her ass home sooner rather than later. Or maybe not, because then we would’ve missed them entirely, what with us going there and them heading here. Actually, their timing was perfect. Them coming to us might’ve actually been a godsend.

“Uh-oh, spaghetti-o. This is not good. They’re totally under attack.”

Unlike the humans who’d tramped their way into the forest before, these guys didn’t have a magical device that kept monsters away. From the looks of it, they’d stumbled into my dungeon’s territory almost by accident in their efforts to escape the monsters relentlessly chasing them through the Demonic Forest. And it looked like the monsters had been after them for a while. Still, the members of the werewolf clan seemed to be outstanding specimens, judging by their well-coordinated counterattacks. They were fighting back while avoiding any fatalities on their end. That said, based on what I could see from the images sent by the Evil Eye, the number of wounded seemed to be slowly but steadily growing.

I can’t just ignore this. They’d be annihilated if I did. My conscience definitely wouldn’t let me rest if I let Lew’s people die without even trying to help. Besides, rescuing them means they’ll be in my debt, which might give me a chance to discuss Lew’s situation with them peacefully. Despite having a bit of an ulterior motive, I realized that my only real option was to save them.

“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, I guess... You lot head out first and kill the monsters trying to devour the beast folks. Oh, but wait. They’ll probably try to attack you because they won’t know you’re the good guys, so run away as soon as you take care of the monsters, then wait for me nearby.”

Orochi the red snake, Yata the crow, Byaku the bakeneko, and Seimi the water sprite acknowledged my instructions and immediately went to work. Within moments, they’d disappeared from our sight.

“Rir, you take Nell home. Sorry, Nell, the monster hunt’s over. Wait for me back in the dungeon.”

“Grr.”

“Okay, understood. Be safe. We’ll all be there when you return.”

She smiled at me, then turned to Rir. With a “Please and thank you, Rir,” she jumped on his back. I watched them race toward the cave that hosted my dungeon’s entrance.

“Guess that means it’s time for me to play the part of the mysterious guide.”

◇ ◇ ◇

I found the werewolves in a slightly open space. Their wounded were...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 16.10.2023
• Reihe/Serie: Now I'm a Demon Lord! Happily Ever After with Monster Girls in My Dungeon
• Reihe/Serie: Now I'm a Demon Lord! Happily Ever After with Monster Girls in My Dungeon
• Illustrationen: Daburyu
• Übersetzer: Kashi Kamitoma
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: Game elements • Harem • Isekai • Light Novel • Magic • Overpowered • Reincarnation
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-9057-2 / 1718390572
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-9057-7 / 9781718390577