In the Demonic Forest, I gripped a dagger, then threw it. In an instant, all the mana in the dagger activated, and Rir, who’d been on standby at a distance, appeared in its place.
“Wooow...”
“Grr.”
He looked around, realized what’d happened, and rumbled with satisfaction.
“Oh yeah, this is a winner. Being able to summon you as fast as lightning if shit goes sideways is gonna be super-duper handy.”
“Grr.”
“Ha ha, sorry about that. But if I’d brought you along, it would’ve been obvious who I am. Okay, sure, I was only pretending to be someone else, so I didn’t really plan on hiding it in the first place. Still.”
I patted him soothingly after he complained about me not having taken him along recently. No matter what he said, he was, after all, a monster to others. If I took him to a crowded place like the Reauxgard Empire, the people there would be scared.
Back to the matter at hand, aka the teleportation dagger used in the terrorist attack. I’d looked into it and found it listed in my DP—Dungeon Point—Catalog, so I’d bought one to try it out. Final review? It was freaking amazing.
The amount of mana it needed to work was enormous, and it broke once it was activated, making it a single-use item. Another downside was that just one of them cost twice as much DP as the Super Potions I always used. Those were also called elixirs, and they were considered extraordinary healing items in the outside world. They were expensive too, though in my case, price wasn’t much of an issue.
I decided to buy a few dozen of the daggers since I found them to be quite useful. Of course, I’d store them in Inventory. And just in case, I’d toss a few into the pouches I’d given Iluna and the others that were enchanted with spatial magic. That’d give me a bit more peace of mind when the day came that I needed to let them venture out on their own into the world outside. Note to self to imbue them with mana beforehand so they’re ready to use whenever.
Oh yeah, sort of off topic, but I’d brought a Huge Claw Wolf home recently. Rir, who’d been looking after it, had said it was a fairly intelligent monster, so I’d summoned the thing for a little chat and learned a few things. It and the other monsters had never fought in all the time since they’d been “born.” They’d simply been sealed away. As far as it knew, it’d been summoned with knowledge of the dungeon implanted in it and then fallen asleep for some unknown reason, and when it’d woken up again, it’d been right in front of me. The same was probably true for the other monsters, so from their perspective, they’d been thrown into the thick of battle just a few seconds after being born.
When I thought about it, I felt kinda bad for the other monsters, the ones I’d killed. Then again, they were dungeon summons, so I guess you could say that was just part of their job. If they’d only been a bit more intelligent, like the Huge Claw Wolf I’d taken back... If they’d only submitted, I would’ve brought them along too.
I didn’t know how they’d gotten sealed. I’d looked through the dungeon’s functions, but I hadn’t found anything that looked particularly relevant, so I suspected it was some kind of magical technology unrelated to dungeons. From what I’d learned, the Reauxgard Empire was a major player in research into this sort of thing. But to be honest, I wasn’t all that interested in the subject, so it ultimately didn’t matter. Despite the wolf having told me everything it knew, there was still a chance that more monsters were shut away somewhere, so a location search might be necessary at some point, but the folks in charge could handle that without me. Also, the senate president’s interrogation was still ongoing, so whatever information we got out of him meant we’d see some progress soon.
As for the monsters’ origins, my theory was they’d been created even before Shen’s reign. At the very least, we’d been able to confirm that he was unaware of their existence, so he definitely wasn’t their creator. To paraphrase the Demon King on that front, “Perhaps emperors before Shen distributed monsters to high-ranking nobles in exchange for their cooperation. Since no concrete records of such have been found, we can only assume there were some serious backroom dealings.”
There was still a lot we didn’t know, like the exact dates of their summoning, why they hadn’t been used until now, and who owned them. Having said that, I didn’t think I needed to get involved in that investigation either. We couldn’t put a pin in things yet, though. All the terrorist stuff wouldn’t be truly over until the Magical War Games ended. However, chasing the mystery wasn’t my job. Not much I could do on that front anyway.
Actually, that’s a lie. I could still contribute, except only in a supporting role. Because I wanted to go back to being a normal demon lord as soon as possible. I just wanted to spend my days relaxing with my family. Honestly, the idea of being able to chill once I went back to being a regular ol’ demon lord felt kinda strange now.
“By the way, how’s Mrs. Rir doing?”
“Grr, grr.”
“Gotcha. If anything changes, just let me know. I know there aren’t any vets in this world, but I’ll do whatever I can.”
“Grr.”
Rir rumbled in gratitude.
Yup, turned out that Mrs. Rir was also pregnant. My kids would be coming sooner as far as I knew, but I was pretty sure dog gestation periods were short... Well, they were fenrirs, not dogs, so I genuinely had no idea how long her pregnancy would last, but odds were good that Rir’s pup would probably be born around the same time as my kids.
Oh man, Rir’s babies... They’d be fluffy, silky, and insanely adorable. I really hoped they and my kids would grow up together as siblings.
“Looks like we both gotta work even harder from now on, huh?”
“Grr.”
I fist-bumped him on the forehead.
✦ ✦ ✦
