The first thing I did the next morning was to take a more in-depth look at my dungeon's features. As a demon lord, my purpose was to manage the dungeon and ensure that it was safe from invaders. Despite that, I had refrained from inspecting the defense mechanisms. I understood that procrastinating wasn't something I could do forever, so I made up my mind, got off my ass, and began acting on the responsibility that I put off for so long.
Unlike Lefi, I wasn't a freeloader. I had to pull my own weight. Speaking of Lefi, the Supreme Dragon turned out to be the type of girl that left me wanting to voice a thousand retorts. She had pestered me for a futon the moment she saw mine and persistently nagged until I gave in to her demands. Much to my surprise, she fell asleep the moment she plopped her body onto the soft mattress and had yet to awaken. The fact that she was still passed out served to evidence that she'd taken one hell of a liking to her new bed.
My first real act as dungeon master was to increase the amount of area the dungeon covered. The dungeon's expansion function required me to denote a specific space, so I began by selecting the cave right outside my dungeon. A strange energy pulsed through the cave the moment I hit the confirm button.
"Woah! So that's what Lefi meant by the dungeon's magic."
The cave hadn't gone through any sort of visual change; it still looked exactly as it had just a few seconds prior. But the same couldn't be said for its ambience. All the cool, relaxing air had suddenly vanished. In its place was a sense of warmth and coziness. Though the change felt rather drastic, I knew that I wouldn't have noticed it had I not been standing in the cave as it happened.
I quickly opened my map and gave it a look. Through it, I confirmed that the cave really had become a part of the dungeon. The fact that my territory had expanded caused a shot of excitement to rush through my system. I immediately felt the urge to continue growing the dungeon by increasing both its size and the number of floors it contained. But as I was lacking in DP, I found myself unable. As such, I temporarily shelved the idea and made a mental note to revisit it at a later date.
Speaking of DP, I had gained an incredible amount of it. I ended the night with a value somewhere under the 500 mark, but I now had over 2000. The source of my income was obviously none other than the dragon lazing around in the throne room. As she wasn't one of my subordinates, the dungeon treated her as an intruder, and therefore, a source of DP.
At first, I'd thought that her presence would result in a net DP loss. I was worried that she would continue eating chocolate nonstop and slowly drain me of all my resources, but I'd failed to consider the amount of DP that she would generate. I now understood that I benefited greatly from having her around. The effective tenancy agreement we established was just as sweet for me as it was for her. Keeping her in the dungeon meant dealing with her and entertaining her, but the sheer amount of DP she generated was more than enough to convince me to do it all with a smile.
"Anyway, enough thinking. I should probably summon something," I muttered. To be honest, I didn't need to summon anything. The Supreme Dragon's presence rendered my dungeon effectively immortal. I was sure that nothing would be able to threaten it so long as she remained. Still, I felt that, as a dungeon master, I was at least obligated to summon something. I needed to play around with the system and figure it out, so I opened up the monster catalogue and scrolled until I found the cheapest thing on the list. It was sorted by price, so all I needed to do was navigate to the list's bottom and give the very last entry a quick tap.
Particles of light suddenly began gathering in front of me as the monster I selected was given physical form. The light faded just as quickly as it appeared and revealed a creature with a sort of translucent body. It was tinted blue from head to toe, or so to speak, as it didn't actually have either. Its entire body was comprised of a single, round blob a bit smaller than the average shih tzu or dachshund.
"Wow, you're much cuter than I thought you'd be."
I gave the monster, the slime, a bit of a poke. Its stretchy, elastic body shook as I prodded it before snapping back into position as I retracted my finger. It seemed to recognize me as its summoner, as it responded to my action by playfully latching onto my hand. The slime was adorable. It was so cute I couldn't help but think of it as something along the lines of a domesticated pet.
"You know what? I'm going to give you a name." I paused for a moment to think before continuing. "Alright. You'll be Shii."
***
General Information
Name: Shii
Class: None
Race: Slime
Level: 1
HP: 11/11
MP: 2/2
Strength: 15
Stamina: 37
Agility: 26
Magic: 11
Dexterity: 52
Luck: 110
Skill Points: 0
Skills
Predation I
Regeneration I
Titles
Kin to the Demon Lord
***
The slime was weak, but I didn't mind. It was more than cute enough to make up for its lack of strength. I immediately began thinking about keeping the slime alive, so I quickly checked the encyclopedia implanted in my brain. In reading the dungeon monster entry, I realized that my summons didn't actually need food. They sustained themselves by consuming the dungeon's mana. The discovery I made was a highly convenient one. It not only indicated that Shii was an awesome pet that I literally didn't even have to take care of, but also allowed me to understand that I wouldn't have to inconvenience myself with preparing meals for all the monsters I summoned regardless of how many I ended up with.
Hold up, does Shii's stat page say what I think it does…?
I felt the urge to groan as I realized that Shii's luck stat was higher than mine.
Wait, wait. Don't jump to conclusions, Yuki. You might not actually be that unlucky. It could just be that your luck stat looks really low because of how high all your other stats are. Yeah, like, Shii could just be super lucky or something. Yeah, that has to be it… Totally… Yeah…
I attempted to convince myself that there was nothing wrong with my luck stat, but I failed. I ended up falling to my hands and knees and moaning in despair. The slime approached me and rubbed itself against my legs. Its movements were slow and soothing.
"Are you trying to cheer me up?" I asked as I blinked in surprise.
The slime leapt up and down over and over as if to say yes.
Holy crap. Shii's cute as hell. I swear it's even more adorable than all the other pets I've ever had combined. Yeah, you know what? Luck doesn't matter. It ain't worth shit. I managed to get myself a pet this god damn cute even without super high luck. Bad luck doesn't exist unless you believe in it. Besides, it's not like bad luck is really that awful a thing to have either. If you're normally unlucky, lucky moments will seem all the more special due to how rare and infrequent they are. Lucky people are clearly less lucky because they don't get the same rush from actually striking gold. Yeah, I understand now. The lucky are unlucky, and the unlucky are lucky. Thanks Shii! I've finally awakened to a universal truth, and it's all thanks to you!
I rambled on and on in my head and managed to use a sort of questionable, convoluted sort of logic to assert that there was nothing wrong with me.
Alright, that's enough messing around with the dungeon for now. Screw work! It's time for Shii and I to deepen our friendship!
And so, I spent the rest of the morning playing with Shii—Or at least that was what I intended. The map shot open in the middle of our play session. An enemy had entered the dungeon.
A low growl suddenly came from the cave's entrance, so I quickly spun my head around to face it.
There, I saw a sort of wolf. It had three demonic looking heads, each decorated with a bizarre, ferocious face. For a canine, its body was massive. It looked even larger than the average golden retriever.
***
General Information
Name: None
Race: Cerberus
Class: None
Level: 32
***
A wave of nervousness washed over me as I analyzed the enemy, only to realize that I couldn't see its stats. Its level was too high. To make matters worse, the cerberus was the first monster to have ever intruded upon my territory. I didn't know how strong it was, nor how I was supposed to deal with it.
Likewise, Shii also seemed kind of scared, but the slime stepped forwards regardless. Though Shii lacked a head, or any other appendage for that matter, I could still kind of tell that it was glaring at the dog in an attempt to intimidate it.
Damn. Shii's got guts. Wait, is it just me, or does this kinda feel like a P*kemon battle?
"Alright Shii, you got this!"
The slime gave its body a bit of a shake. Though I didn't speak slime, I could tell that it was trying to say something along the lines of "leave it to me!"
Seeing my pet's reliable reaction caused me to shake off my nervousness and get a hold of myself. I realized then and there that my foe was irrelevant. It didn't matter how strong my enemies were. Their power levels changed nothing. As a demon lord, my task was to annihilate any and all invaders, regardless of how weak or strong they happened to be. And fortunately, I was equipped with all the tools I needed to do exactly that.
I had never been the type of trainer that bred or EV trained my Pokem*n. Nor had I ever bothered grinding just because I was worried about an upcoming gym battle. I'd always just pushed on with nothing but my own strategic mind. And never once had I failed I saw no reason for my current scenario not to follow the same trend. It was time for me to begin my tale as that underdog that rose above all that stood in his way.
Come at me dog! I'll show you the difference between a wild Pok*mon and one under a real trainer's control!
"Alright Shii, show 'em what you got! Let's start things off with a Quick Attack!"
Naturally, the slime wasn't able to pull of a real Quick Attack, but it obeyed my orders and attempted to tackle its foe nonetheless. Unlike a real Po*emon, the cerberus didn't just sit around and wait for its turn. It instead swatted my slime away as if it were nothing but a mere nuisance. A single wave of its front paw was all it took to send Shii flying into the side of the cave. The slime lost its form as it came in contact with the rocky surface, splattering its insides all over the wall.
"The hell do you think you're doing to my pet, you fucking mangy mutt!?"
Thinking back, I should've known that there was no way Shii could have possibly beaten the cerberus. Slimes were literally the weakest monsters the dungeon could summon. There was simply no way for one to beat something that was not only innately more powerful than it, but also a good 30 levels higher. Though it was in part due to my own stupidity, I ended up getting angry at the wolf-like monster regardless. I immediately ran up to it in a fit of rage and shoved the sole of my right foot into its torso. The attack I launched was poorly formed; it was a typical yakuza-style front kick.
The three headed dog didn't even so much as try to dodge the attack. It simply stood there and tanked it—only to burst into a thousand different lumps of flesh.
"Uh… what…?"
All that was left of the "dog" was an indistinguishable piece of meat. Its entire upper body was missing. My surroundings had been dyed a deep shape of crimson and decorated with all sorts of guts and entrails. And of course, the exact same could be said for my body. I was covered from head to toe in red. I was so confused by the outcome that I stopped what I was doing and just stared.
The heck? Was that it? Seriously?
After a brief pause, I directed my gaze back towards the "dog." There was no doubt that it was dead. It wasn't moving any more. In fact, it wasn't even twitching.
Unlike when I encountered Lefi, my newly improved senses hadn't screamed at me this time. My body hadn't warned me about any sort of impending doom. That said, I'd still assumed that the Cerberus was stronger than me. It was a whole 31 levels higher, so there was reason for me to believe that its stats would totally trump my own.
But clearly, I was wrong.
Hmm… Did it maybe not react to my kick because it just couldn't keep up with how quickly I was moving? And does this mean that my stats are actually pretty high? Wait, I just beat up a pretty high level monster. I should probably double check my status card to see if anything's changed.
***
General Information
Name: Yuki
Race: Archdemon
Class: Demon Lord
Level: 12
HP: 2320/2320
MP: 6900/6900
Strength: 672
Stamina: 701
Agility: 574
Magic: 915
Dexterity: 1273
Luck: 70
Skill points: 17
Unique skills
Magic Eye
Translation
Skills
Item Box
Analyze I
Martial Arts Mastery I
Titles
Demon Lord from Another World
DP: 2250
***
Defeating the cerberus had earned me a good chunk of experience. My level had increased by eleven, and most of my stats had gone up a good bit. The only one that had remained static was luck, but I didn't care. I was already over it.
I mean, again, I still don't really have anything to compare myself to, but I guess my stats are actually pretty decent.
Though I discovered that I wasn't actually as weak as initially anticipated, I wasn't about to let myself get cocky. I knew that there were all sorts of abnormally strong freaks out there. Hell, I lived with one. Naturally, there weren't Lefi-tier creatures just lying around all over the place, but I was still going to play it safe. I didn't want to end up like the video game villains that shouted "impossible" upon losing to the protagonists because they assumed that their high stats would allow them to triumph. Nor did I want to end up like the foolish demon that had challenged Lefi, only to lose his pride and life in one fell swoop. No way in hell was I about to let myself be stupid enough to wastefully discard my second life.
Wait! Why am I sitting around thinking about random bullshit!? This isn't the time for that!
"Shii, you okay!?"
I closed my status window in a hurry and ran up to the slime-stained wall. Fortunately, the cerberus' attack hadn't been enough to drain all of Shii's health. The slime was still alive. In fact, it had already started regenerating.
"Whew…" I heaved a sigh of relief. "Sorry, I pushed you way too hard. I should've known that the cerberus would be too much for you to handle."
The slime responded to my words by giving itself a shake. It was almost as if it was saying "Don't worry, I'm okay."
Almost.
Again, I didn't speak slime, so I couldn't actually tell.
Alright, from now on, I'm going to need to remember that Shii's a pet. Pets and P*kemon are different. Pets aren't meant for battles. They're just there for you to cuddle and love. Ugh… this is all my fault.
I frowned as I realized that I had to be more rational. I'd lost control not once, but twice. A fatal mistake. I'd end up having the rug pulled out from under my feet if I didn't learn to keep my cool.
Maybe I should make "stay cool" my motto or something.
I nodded and acknowledged the idea as I plopped myself down beside Shii. Only after the slime finished regenerating did I finally return to the throne room.