Your Majesty, Dinner Is Ready. - Chapter 136

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 136: Is There No Benefit?
‘Which Dungeon should I tackle next?’
I was already caught up in the delightful puzzle of it when the Saint’s prophecy—that something joyful was coming my way—set my heart racing even faster.
I had narrowed it down to three candidates.
“I can’t decide on my own, so listen and choose for me.”
After we’d successfully cleared the Tower of Trials and celebrated with grilled meat for dinner, eating our fill,
I spoke to the siblings while sipping Abel’s specialty tea as dessert.
“The first Dungeon won’t strain the body much, but it demands considerable mental fortitude.”
“How much?”
“I use a scale calibrated to the soul’s grade, with 1 as the minimum and 10 as the maximum.”
I gave it serious thought before answering.
“Mental danger rating of 6, physical danger rating of 1—that should cover it.”
“It’s hard to judge without more information….”
“Let’s hear all three first.”
“That sounds fair.”
I took another sip of tea and continued.
“The second Dungeon is easier on the mind but demands the body endure tremendous strain. Mental danger rating of 1, physical danger rating of 7.”
“…So you’re not interested in any Dungeons where you don’t suffer?”
“More precisely, I prefer not to enter places where the reward doesn’t match the hardship. I don’t want to toil for nothing.”
“I suppose that’s reasonable….”
Merlin picked at the leftover meat, her gaze growing subtly disrespectful.
“Your eyes are losing respect by the moment. Won’t you show some admiration for your benefactor?”
“Show me something admirable first.”
“Fair enough.”
I picked up the fork and jabbed a piece of cucumber side dish—made by Abel for Rachel—and ate it.
“Did you see?”
“…See what?”
“I hate cucumbers, but I pushed through and ate it anyway. That’s the kind of dignified conduct only an adult can display, wouldn’t you say?”
“…….”
“…….”
Both siblings clamped their mouths shut in unison, but Rachel, who’d been washing the dishes, seized the moment and exclaimed loudly:
“How admirable, Master!”
“It’s nothing. I’m an adult, after all.”
I waved graciously to the enthusiastic household attendant and pointed my fork at Merlin.
“Can you guess what the third Dungeon will be like?”
“It would be a Dungeon where both body and mind are equally taxed, with danger ratings of about 5 for each?”
“Remarkable—you got it right on the first try. I didn’t expect that.”
“…Please don’t use ‘remarkable’ like that. It sounds like you’re teasing.”
She was complaining, but her tail was wagging happily.
“What rank are these three Dungeons?”
Abel asked while bringing out homemade pudding for dessert and handing it to his sister.
“All three are C-Rank. I’d say they’re at the high end of C-Rank difficulty. In practice, they’re harder to clear than the Tower of Trials.”
“Hmm… Since I’m a half-elf, I think I’d find physical strain more manageable than mental stress.”
“Me too!”
“I see. Since we’re on the subject, shall we decide by vote?”
A capable Expedition Leader knew how to listen carefully to her team members’ opinions.
“Abel, come with me.”
“Yes.”
“What about me?”
I tapped Merlin’s forehead with my index finger while she was chewing on pudding.
“You’ll go around busy places like the marketplace with Rachel and practice using the Sky Ear technique the Saint taught you.”
Once she was fully trained, Merlin would establish herself as a full-fledged explorer capable of pulling her weight in a Dungeon.
“Rachel, please take good care of Merlin.”
“Will do!”
I came to Odillon’s mansion with Abel and met with each team member to hear their preferences.
“The third.”
Rosalia gave a terse reply and took the Toxic Herb Tea from Abel.
Pendrick and Astrímia, the next voters, chose the first Dungeon—the mentally demanding one—opposite to the siblings’ preference, but for different reasons.
“A swordmaster should not neglect mental discipline alongside physical training, as Brunelda taught me. Now that I think about it, that was from when I lived on the Eastern Continent….”
– Didn’t your body take enough of a beating in the Tower of Trials? Shouldn’t you rest this time?
And Bartimir, true explorer that he was, cast his precious vote for the Dungeon, a place that demanded the full exertion of both body and spirit.
“Of course I choose the third Dungeon! If it’s a Dungeon, it ought to exhaust you in every possible way!”
With that, the vote tally stood at two to two to two.
But Lucius, our final voter, had already declared his intention to defer entirely to my judgment.
Abel let out a soft chuckle.
“So in the end, it falls to our patron to decide.”
“That’s how it’s turned out.”
“Which do you prefer, sir?”
“To be honest, I’d like to visit all three.”
“Greedy, aren’t you?”
My deliberation deepened.
Why did I have only one body?
If I could split myself into three, I could explore all three Dungeons simultaneously and endure three times the ordeal.
《Request: If you’re going to deliberate, please do it while reading books in the library as promised.》
Now that I thought of it, I’d promised to engage in Religious Practice befitting one who seeks Wisdom in the library once the Tower of Trials was conquered.
Since deciding immediately would be difficult anyway, it wouldn’t be amiss to lose myself in contemplation in a setting that would gladden Lidni.
“My dear, would you join us for a trip to the library?”
“The library? Good. It’s a ‘negative place’ to me. Let’s go!”
The kind-faced Demon-type Being looped his arm through mine and began walking with eager enthusiasm.
Following along in quick steps, Abel posed a question to Bartimir.
“Why is the library a negative place?”
“Because there are so many books. I hate non-mysterious ones—they bore me. So paradoxically, it’s a good place for me.”
“…Does that apply to other Demon-type Beings as well?”
“No. What matters is how each individual perceives it. For me it’s the worst place, but for someone else it might be positive.”
……
Abel’s eyes narrowed.
“Wait. You collect calamities of body and spirit—negative elements—to enhance your physique, yes?”
“That’s right.”
“Then surely you’re saying you regard curses and illness as ‘bad things’?”
?
Bartimir tilted his head slightly.
“Of course. What sort of person thinks curses and illness are good?”
……
Abel shifted from the kind Demon-type Being’s right side to my left.
Soon we arrived before a shabby building near the 6th District Central Plaza.
World Tree’s Leaves
The modest yet elegant library I’d visited once before with Abel.
“I frequent this place. There are quite a few worthwhile books here.”
“I wish Merlin showed even half your dedication to reading.”
Crackle!
“You’d like to burn the entire library down? That would be equivalent to slaughtering every beautiful intellectual being for Lidni.”
Screech.
“Kill them all and resurrect them as the undead, and both Sue and Leria would be satisfied. When they become undead their appearance deteriorates somewhat, so only you, the exalted one, would suffer a loss.”
I pressed forward inside, listening earnestly to the will of the Evil Gods.
Ding.
A cheerful chime rang out from above my head.
“Welcome…”
A Demon-type Being seated at the reception counter drooped forward in greeting.
Abel gasped in surprise and seized my wrist.
“…Who is this?”
“The librarian…”
“I’ve used this place quite regularly but I’ve never seen you before.”
“Well, I’ve been shirking my duties quite a bit…”
The Demon-type Being kept stretching out both their words and body.
As I took in the librarian’s appearance, Merlin paused briefly before projecting a line of text.
《Kiji Kirili (Demon-type Being, 1,289 years old). Librarian of the library World Tree’s Leaves. I thought I’d seen this one somewhere before—it’s the very same librarian I met in the Library of Sin!》
The Demon-type Being librarian I’d encountered as a spirit of the Dungeon in the Rare Books Archive, a hidden section of the Library of Sin.
Just as the parting greeting I’d offered suggested, we were meeting again—this time, “next time” had arrived.
“…Was that you, then?”
Once I explained who this was, Abel was startled for a second time.
The librarian Kiji asked me slowly.
“Have you ever seen me before…?”
“You appeared as a specter in the Library of Sin.”
“During the Cathedral era… So I was really young then….”
The languid Demon-type Being gazed absently at the ceiling.
“Back then I was full of enthusiasm… but time, what is it really….”
“You don’t seem all that different from then, though.”
Abel murmured softly, but Librarian Kiji paid no mind, lost instead in memories of better days.
“Bartimir, do Demon-type Beings normally live this long?”
“If they live in an environment saturated with Negative Concepts, they’re a species that lives longer than Elves.”
“That’s right….”
The Demon-type Being, pulled from her reverie, draped herself across the reception counter.
“Here I am, surrounded by the horrible concept of ‘work’ every single day….”
A Demon-type Being who consumed work stress as sustenance every waking hour.
Kiji would likely never grow old enough to die before reaching full retirement.
“Please use the library reasonably and head out when you’re done….”
“Yes, we’ll stay until closing time and then leave.”
“Ah…!”
“Do you happen to have any new books?”
“I’ll show you….”
I followed the librarian between the bookshelves near the entrance.
Clean books with not a speck of dust sat arranged throughout the shelves.
[The Fatal Tragedy of a Yawn]
[A Young Fawn and the Rotting Giant]
[Regarding the Golden Teeth of Talendroth]
All manner of bizarre titles and genres that Lidni favored were scattered about.
《The Wise One has taken interest! I shall mark the books she wishes to read.》
Truth placed arrows above several books.
I was in the middle of picking a few of them off the shelf.
“Huh?”
Abel suddenly voiced a sound, his gaze fixed on something.
I turned to follow his line of sight and spotted a small animal huddled in a corner of the library.
Bartimir, who had been casually skimming books while standing, tilted his head slightly.
“What’s a cat doing here? Do you keep one?”
“No….”
Librarian Kiji shook her head slowly.
“It just showed up out of the blue…. And it’s not a cat—it’s a lion cub….”
“A lion cub in the middle of the city?”
“Maybe it escaped from the Ecological Park in the 5th District….”
“Or it could be someone from the 1st District’s nobility kept it as a pet…?”
While the two Demon-type Beings offered their own theories,
I found myself gazing blankly at the lion cub.
I had no choice.
《Unnamed Demon King (Demon-type Being, ???years old) liberated from Seal. ???? What is this.》
“…Your Majesty?”
Why are you here?
-….
The lion cub slowly turned its head toward me and walked closer.
Then it looked up at me intently and spoke.
– You are the golden-haired Half-Elf who freed me from the Seal.
The chattering Demon-type Beings fell silent, and Abel’s tail went rigid.
Not because a lion could speak—that alone was unremarkable.
It was the sinister, ominous presence that emanated from the tiny cub that made the difference.
Though this was entirely unexpected, I lowered myself calmly.
“Your Majesty, didn’t you go to the Demon Realm?”
The movements of the Unnamed Demon King after breaking free from the Seal were unknown in the game.
Not even in Kato Roger’s YouTube channel, where the developer explained all sorts of unnecessary trivial lore, was this story told.
From here on, this is uncharted territory for me.
– Many things have transpired.
The Unnamed Demon King in the form of a lion cub looked slightly crestfallen.
– The Demon Realm went completely bankrupt….
“…….”
By now it had become as obvious a fact as “the Evil God is a weak divinity.”
– So I came back to the Middle Realm for the time being. My true form draws too much attention, so I’ve taken this shape instead. Shamefully, the circumstances don’t permit me to maintain the dignity befitting a Demon King.
“How did you find your way to this library?”
– I was wandering the streets and stumbled in on impulse. The scent of my own kind was quite strong here.
“…A Demon King? Your own kind?”
Kiji, already deeply confused, became even more bewildered.
– I was taken aback somewhat, but seeing that I’ve crossed paths with you again—well, the situation isn’t quite so bleak after all.
The Demon King’s dimly shadowed expression brightened at once.
– If the Demon Realm has fallen, then it simply means I can rebuild it as I see fit!
Crack-crack-crack.
With sounds of muscle and bone shattering, the young lion transformed into a bare-skinned Demon-type Being.
“Half-Elf, you freed me from the Seal, so I shall grant you an opportunity.”
The Demon King walked forward slowly and extended his right hand.
“Join me on this noble journey to revive the Demon Realm and take vengeance upon those who betrayed and sealed me away.”
“…….”
Reviving the Demon Realm was no easier than the Evil God becoming a popular divinity with many believers again.
Vengeance, too, was virtually impossible to achieve.
And yet, my heart raced.
“Am I to become your first servant, Demon King?”
“That is correct.”
“Are there no benefits for being your first servant?”
“Of course there are. I shall adore you dearly each and every day!”
The Demon King placed his hand on my forehead.
“And I shall grant you another Secret Art of Sin as well.”
Was there any reason to hesitate further?
Without a moment’s doubt, I pressed my lips to the back of his hand.
“I shall serve you with absolute loyalty for all my days.”
I had chosen to become the Demon King’s vassal.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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