The throne room was unexpectedly quiet. That was maybe due to lack of people here. Though, the moment I thought about this, Kaen appeared right next to me like a ghost.
"Welcome back my lord," he bowed gracefully.
"It's good to be back, though I will be returning for a short time to the city. I will put the kids in your hands. Take them to the elves and Frosts."
"Understood master. Oh, before you go, I should tell you that miss Hestia returned to her home and Gurako took Kesugi out for hunt. I belive they are out for rabbit pelts."
"Ah, thanks. Hestia probably needs to tend to her underlings... though, they are really dangerous bunch so she won't have it easy. Anyway, Hikari I will leave you in charge of the beastman, is that okay?"
"Of course milord," Hikari bowed and went with Kaen to the Elvish floor while I returned with teleportation spell to a back alley in the Dulior town, where I put my bracelets back on.
Back in the city, the guards were quite active, but they didn't notice me, nor did they suspect me from anything so I easily got to the guild and entered it by back doors leading to Guildmaster's office.
"Yo, I'm back," as I opened the doors, I was welcomed with a slap.
"You know how much work I have becouse of you?!" Tongu pulled me in by collar and closed the doors with her foot.
"Sorry, I thought it would be weird if you found dead bodies, no children and no one to blame. Feel free to use that masked demon any way you want."
"Urgh... you never change. This is same as that time in Ester dukedom."
"Sorry, but at that time I was in Moon rabbit kingdom so I don't know what you are talking about."
"You little... fuuuuuuu, fine, FINE! I'M CALM NOW!"
"You don't sound that way," Lizzie smiled at her from sofa where she was sitting with the two tundra wolf girls.
"And you are too lax! Where did my top class receptionist go?"
"Dunno, never met her," Lizzie shrugged.
"You two... really know how to suck my blood."
Me and Lizzie grinned at each other and decided to took seats infront of Tongu's table.
"So, will you tell me what happened?"
"Got stabbed. Almost bleed out. Goddess of demons appeared. Turned me into demon lord. Then I made a dungeon."
"And also entered peace pax with DSQ."
"Yeah, right. Thanks Lizzie."
"You're welcome."
"You two... Anyway, what are you planning to do with those two?"
"I made my dungeon into refuge for those who can't fight. I will take them there and raise them."
"Wasn't it you who destroyed that one place?"
"You know how many places I destroyed?"
"Touché."
"Urgh..." Tongu, though usually cheerful and making jokes every now and then, was now pressing her temples looking from me to Lizzie and vice versa.
"So... we can be together?"
"Of course we can," I smiled reasuringly at Tara and Bree.
"I see. So you will raise them... Does that mean together with Lizzie?"
"T-Tongu!"
"Yeah, who else? Lizzie is my most valuable partner. And also... I already accepted her as my wife."
'Though... I also have Yuki and Skaly... whatever! I have to take responsibility for what I did.'
"Damn, you are as red as beetroots... heheheh," Tongu watched us fondly.
For the rest of the day we spoke about my plans for the future and I found out that my former party run away and are now hiding somewhere. The adventurers guild have their pictures send to every branch so they can't re-enter under fake identity as well.
"Well, we better go then," I stood up and took Tara in my hands.
"Yeah, I better report the demon appearnce to my supperiors in the capital."
"That's a good idea, but please be careful about it. If the royal family finds out that there is a Demon lord in the mountains, you may get more trouble here."
"Ah, that reminds me, in capital recently poped up a group of Demon lord worshippers. The local knights can't find them though," Tongu said while standing up and handing me a paper from her desk.
"Pffft. They are asking me to find them. That's good. A demon lord hunting demon lord worshippers, I guess that would be a first time."
"Well, you are still missing so I will have to ask the head of the church to send out the inquisitors."
"If you want I can send out some pets."
"No. That's okay. You are missing, so stay put!"
Tongu's panicked voice was rather cute then anything so I let her rumble for some more time.
When Tongu calmed down, I took Bree's hand who was already holding her other hand with Lizzie, and we teleported back to the dungeon.
There, in the throne room, Yuki with Gurako and Kesugi were already waiting.
"Yo, how was the hunt?"
"We just dropped of all the meat in the freezing room, but there was a problem," Kesugi bowed.
"There was wolf and small Ogre~" Gurako smiled happily.
"Master... you have company I see," Yuki frowned a little while looking at the twins and Lizzie who was still blushing.
"Yeah, these two are Bree and Tara. They were with that group of beastmen from before. Could I ask you to take them to Kaen and that Azer to make Tara an artificial leg?"
"I wil see to it," said Yuki and gave me a hug.
"What's this all of a sudden?"
"You were gone entire day master, I missed you."
I smiled at her and patted her head after which I turned back to Gurako and Kesugi.
"So tell me about that Ogre and wolf."
"They were fed and are resting in one of the cells on the first floor."
"Okay, that's good. Kaen what about the beastmen?"
"They are resting right now. Miss Hikari was raring to go training though so I send her to the Bugbears."
"Ahh... okay, that's... urgh, anyway let the lions sleep as they say. Prepare a room for Bree and Tara near my room and show them to it," I smiled and patted Bree who was standing next to me.
After this I listen to Yukis report about today and walked with them to Kaens workshop, with Tara still in my arms. Halfway through I left her with Kaen and decided to check on my core for any inruders aside from that ogre with her wolf.
"Kesugi this is some cloths I bought in the human city please use it to make some comfy clothes for the beastmen. Gurako, could you take this to the smithy? It's materials I got and my request for what to make from them."
"Thank you master."
"Suuure~"
♦♦♦
The next moring came quickly. I didn't found any other intruder in the archives of the core, but that could change at any time.
A knock woke me up as I was sleepily looking through material excavation report brought to me by Gobura.
The person who came in was the Chief Azer who was in charge of creating certain items for me.
"Master, I've prepared those items you asked me too," he said in stiff polite voice.
"Thank you, please speak as cassually as you want, I'm not into polite speach either."
"I–I most certainly cannot, sire," Azer bowed stiffly and placed a square shaped box before me.
When I opened it, I found ten rings. 'Hold up, I asked you for engagement ring not rings! Is this some kind of premotion? I don't like it...'
"Thank you for your hard work. You can go back to your work."
"Thank you sire, although this was my first delicate work, if possible I would like to meet some dwarf who could help me with precious stone procession."
Looking closely I realized that all the cut gems were all from store in the city.
"I see... Okay, I will try to do something about it," I nodded magnanimously.
When the Azer left, I gave two of those rings to Yuki and Lizzie and hide the rest of the rings from them for safety reasons. Though, I did leave two more out for Skaly and me. My ring was made from a mass of gold and Azer placed magic symbols on it so it also worked as a conduit for spells outside of my expertise.
"Hehe, finally I have the proof," both Lizzie and Yuki whispered simmilarly sounding words to themselves.
"Yuki, do you have reports from other floors?"
"Yes, Traich and Renzir submitted their reports quite quickly, though the bugbears are still taking time."
"Urgh, if they don't report on their progress on time, we will cut support to their floor. What about the giants?"
"They can't write so I had Fiona to write it for them. There were no problems with building their new homes, though they said they wish for being granted possibility to live inside the dungeon rather then outside."
"Not for now. What about the imprisoned adventurers we have in catacombs?"
"I tried to calculate the DP we gained from them," Lizzie took a bunch of papers from her Magic bag and placed them on the table, and continued "it seems like those with higher levels tend to give more DP then the low leveled ones. Also I checked their karma and found out that the one who stopped supplying DP first were those who had red karma. Also blue karma tends to give more DP compared to people with same level and red karma."
"Thank you for that information. It will be useful for treatment of future captives. You can tell Renzir to kill them now. Let her turn half of them into undead and the other half let be eaten by slimes. I want to see if we can get some to evolve in simmilar way to Gurako just without that demonic energy from the Demon goddess... On note of the captives, Kolka, Weisa and Grin, take some spiders with you and bring that Ogre girl here. If that wolf tries to leave the room have some ghosts restrain him."
"""Understood boss! Leave it to us! Master Zaru we will return promptly!""" the three elvish maids working under Yuki saluted and run out of the room.
"They learned that from Hestia didn't they?"
"Seems like it."
After that, Hikari entered the room acompanied by Gatta, another one from the elvish maids. Originally, I wanted to summon some earth or water spirits to help out with it, but Haba, Lizzie and Yuki too, strongly opossed the idea.
"Milord! I heard that there is an ogre visitor so I came to your side! You can count on me if anything goes south!"
"…Fine, I will leave it to you."
'I'm not sure that with job class Berserker that's a really smart idea'
Soon, there was a knock so I spread (Dark cloak) over us and ordered them to enter. The girl that entered the room had a small stature and silverish horns that had a sickly yellow glow to them. Just to be sure, I used «Identify» on her.
Name: Yama
Class: [None]
Race: Half ogre (human)
Level: 15
Skills:
'I've never seen anyone with two unique skills… she's half ogre half human, not really a common union, but still more common then combination of elf and dwarf. Still, what kind of life did she lead that she ended up like that.'
"State your name and reason for tresspassing into my domain," I said in slightly darker voice that was made by Dark cloak even darker and scarier.
"M-My name… is Yama… I'm half ogre as you can see… I was princess of the small ogre kingdom, but I've had to run away in order to save my life… Please, I know I'm not worth much, but please let me stay here! I will do anything you want from me! Just…"
"If I give you place here, you will never be able to return. You will be my possesion, my item. That means you will never be able to return to normal life and you will be bind to this place like to a prison."
"I… I'm sure that there is no other place for me… I surrender myself, my future, my everything to you, great demon lord," the girl, though trembling, bowed on the floor hitting the floor with her horns and showing palms of her hands before her body.
'This is a sign of absolute obedience ogres can show…'
I quickly wrote down her skills on paper and showed it to Lizzie and the rest. After I recieved a nod from both Yuki and Lizzie, I canceled the (Dark cloak) spell.
"Alright, I will make you my subordinate. For that reason I will grant you a new name."
"I–I'm deeply grateful!"
"Yes, your new name… Yes, you shall be known as Kyoko."
With that Yama, now Kyoko, shone with golden light. As always, being named meant that her weaknesses were rewriten into strenghts. And for Kyoko it meant one thing. Her small frail body enlarged and build up some muscles. Her horns turned golden and were as big as coconuts, she became as tall as me and completly looked more like her actual age. I mean her body used to look like ten years old, but now she got full-fletched eighteen plus years body. She now had muscular build and slightly tanned skin.
What wasn't so good about her sudden body transformation though, was that her clothes got torn and she was now standing completly naked before us.
'Hmm, she got C-cups… oh, she have a mole on her left breast, that's quite cute.'
My thoughts were sadly cut short by Yuki and Lizzie who punched me from either side, making me faint.
When I woke up, the person above me was Skaly.
"Good morning sleepy head," Skaly smiled warmly and patted my head lightly and silently added, "I won."
Noticing something warm to both my sides, I found Yuki and Lizzie there snuggling against my chest.
"Don't tell me you were fighting over who will be the one on which I wake up?"
"N-no, of course not!" Lizzie averted her eyes.
"You are bad at lying Lizzie," I patted her head and sit up, "How long have I been out?"
"Three hours or so," Skaly looked a little sad that I moved away.
"What about the rest?"
"We gave Kyoko a room here on the last floor and brought her wolf companion with her. You should probably know that it's a female and it's most likely that she will have pups in four to five months."
"Why do you think that Lizzie?"
"Intuition I guess?"
The three girls moved in closer.
"Well, we have the rest of the day free right?"
They all nodded.
'Guess this will be another sleepless night… whatever, they are my wives so I should pamper them a little more.'
***
And so, a week has passed.
Kyoko started helping out in the surface village where the Hill giants, Bugbears and wolves lived. Thanks to that, we discovered her talent for beast taming. When I renamed her, she evolved into High ogre and her skills evolved. Her resistance skills combined into rare skill called Abnormality resist. Another skill she gained after her evolution was
"And this is the end of my report on Wooly bear assimilation into the dungeon, Lord Zaru," Kyoko reported to me on her mission I assigned to her.
'She gains more confidence, that's good.'
"I see, good work. Wooly bears wool have high piercing and slashing resistances so it will be good to have them on our side."
"Thank you lord Zaru," Kyoko bowed to me with a warm smile.
"Now, that that's done, how is that wolf that accompanied you doing?"
"Hiya is doing fine, thank you for asking. Honestly I haven't realized she was pregnant when we left our country."
"We too, only realized it by chance. It seems she had everyone fool—"
In that moment, a red screen appeared before my trone, on which I was sitting.
"Is that... an emergency?"
"Someone entered the dungeon area..." I manipulated the screen and ordered the 'Dungeon eye' monster called Goro-chi to show me more.
"No... th-those are... ogres?" Kyoko suddenly went into panic and fear showed on her face for the first time since I canceled my (Dark cloak) spell.
"It does seem that way. Well, if they turn out to be hostile, we will deal with them as with any other intruder. Rest easy Kyoko, you are my item now."
'Calling her item seems wrong, but weirdly she looks happy whenever I say it to her... does she have that kind of kink? Little weaker then Renzirs?'
"Y-yes sir," Kyoko blushed rustling her clothes around.
Ogres prefer light clothing, even in winter, so it was no suprise for me when she chose a vest that was showing a part of her underboob. When compleating her outfit with shorts and sockings with rose pattern, it turned into quite a suggestive look.
'Now that I think about it, some ogre females doesn't wear shirts at all. Giving them quite bad reputation between humans. Especially housewives.'
The Ogres were going around and around until they found a trail we were using to get to the spring camp and they followed it towards our dungeon like flies scent of rotting meat.
It was quite easy to ambush them and bring them before me for the bugbears when they finaly got close to the dungeon.
The five ogres were forced into kneeling before my throne for ten whole minutes before I entered with Kyoko and Lizzie by my sides.
"It's him..." Kyoko's fist started shaking looking at young ogre before un in head of the ogres.
"Calm down. You are under my (Dark cloak) right now," I whispered to her in low voice and took my seat. Meanwhile some of the ogres stood up.
"You lot are allowed to gaze upon our king! Be grateful for his willingness to let you live this long!" Lizzie took an attitude typical for a tyrant king or a demon.
'Guess I will leave all the acting to her'
"Y-yes!" the ogres, except for the one in front took a knee again.
"Will you not kneel insolent fool?" Lizzie snorted and almost gave an order to bugbears to attack.
In that moment I raised my hand to stop her. "That young man probably have a reason for not taking a knee before a king such as I. I feel good this morning so I shall at least allow him to state his reason for show of defiance."
"My name is Harwyn Gernet Glunder, first prince of Small ogre kingdom. Due to my position I can't take a knee. It would hurt position of our—"
"And who said your position matters here? To us you are just trespassers, a maggots to be crushed underfoot. Your position is of no importance here."
"I–I beg to differ! There is worth to my life!" The prince after being interrupted quickly shot back his own lowsy reply.
"I don't see any. But, please do enlighten me about your worth," I snicked and patted Kyoko's shoulder stiffened with anger.
"I'm first in line to take the throne, as such I can guarantee you full support of our country."
"And what worth have a falling country exactly?" Lizzie snorted and rised her hand again.
"We... I have a sister... would she be enough to make you reconsider?"
'Is he selling his sister to save his ass? This scumbag!! I'll kill him!' my rage exited my body and the ogres shivered, but in that moment, Kyoko placed her hand on my shoulder and whispered.
"I'm the only princess of Small ogre kingdom so he's lying my lord."
"Aah~ I see. Sorry prince but I've just been informed that the sister you are so willingly offering is, how is that word again? Oh, yes missing. That's the word. She's missing."
The prince shuddered with fear.
"Well, if you have no other thing to offer me for your lives, then I quess we are done here."
"Oh... no..."
The ogres faces turned pale as they realized that death was upon them.
"My lord, may I?" Kyoko suddenly spoke up.
"Um? What is it?"
"The treasury of Ogre kingdom hides many rare materials and Items. Maybe the prince would be willing to exchange some of them for his life?"
"Oh, what a brilliant idea Kyoko. What about it prince? Will you exchange items for your life?"
"Y-yes of course!" The prince nodded seriously.
"My lord, there is one more thing still to discuss. There are five ogres, but only one item and that's for the prince. I humbly suggest we ask for additional items for the remaining four men," Lizzie bowed with a smile that could enchant and scare almost anyone.
"Hm... that's probably a good idea, yet I'm not sure there are items that could inerest me."
"Th-there are!"
"There definitely are!"
The remaining four started speaking one over the other.
"You guys..." the prince grunted at his subordinates.
"They are sons of nobles in that country who support his claim for the throne. If they die he will lose support of their parents which could lead to his younger brother taking the place in line of succession," Kyoko silently explained.
"I see, so they too have some worth? I quess we will have to do without killing them then. Now, shall we seal the deal?" I stood up and canceled the (Dark cloak) on me and Lizzie, keeping it still on Kyoko for the time being.
"S-sure..." the prince extended his hand and gave it a simple shook.
But that was all I needed. The pack was sealed and if he tried to get out of it, he would loose his life instantly. That is power of pact between demons and those in mortal realm.
"Alright now! Given I don't want to lose my items to Orks, we should get moving! Lizzie call bugbears, Kyoko and Skaly will accompany me as guards and advisor."
"Understood, I will hold the fort while you are away," Lizzie smiled happily and took the ogres away alongside the bugbears who were standing guard here.
"Attention all units! We are going to our first war! Do not ashame yourselves!"