A Demon Lord’s Tale: Dungeons, Monster Girls, and Heartwarming Bliss

he heck, Claire! You can’t just cover my nose like that!” complained Sylvia, right away.
“I thought I was gonna suffocate!”

“You wouldn’t suffocate that easily,” said the lyrkress, as she stretched her tail.
“It’d take a while for your health regeneration to drop into the negatives.”

“I really don’t think that’s how that works! If you run out of air, you die, and that’s that!”

“It is,” said Claire, confidently.
“I’ve tried.”

“I think that’s just because your body is weird!”

“No it’s not.
All lamias are the same.”

“Then lamias are super weird! First the hunger thing, and now this? Seriously! What the heck!? That’s not how bodies are supposed to work! That’s not normal!”

“It’s normal.”

Claire shrugged as she stepped back out of the alley, only to stiffen up like a statue the moment she looked towards their destination.
In front of her stood another familiar face, one that she recognized in the blink of an eye.

“Hello, and good evening.”

Adorned by a pair of boots and a priestly habit was the ability point thief.
He had appeared right in the middle of the street without warning, even though her ears had been on high alert.

“Child of Flux, I welcome you to the citadel with open arms.”

After blinking a few times, Claire turned to look at Sylvia, who she assumed the man had been addressing, but apparently the fox was just as confused.
She was returning Claire’s gaze, her head tilted to express her lack of understanding.

“You have the wrong person,” said the lyrkress.

“That’s impossible,” he said.
“I was guided here by a divine hand.”

“Then maybe you have the wrong time.”

Her voice was steady, but she was far from calm.
Even setting his lack of fur aside, she couldn’t help but find herself bothered by the -100% catgirl.
Something about him, his aura, and his impression was simply wrong and it took a moment of silent observation for her to pinpoint it.

He didn’t have a heartbeat.

In fact, he was making no sound at all.
She couldn’t hear the wind that rushed past his hairless body, nor could she hear his breath, despite watching as his chest heaved up and down.
Spoken words aside, he made not a single noise, even as he rummaged through the rucksack slung over his shoulder.

“Flux told me to show you this.
She said that it was something that you would recognize immediately.”

From the leather bag, the cat produced the tail end of a fish, specifically one that was charred a deep black and left with a thin layer of skin, brittle enough to crumble at the slightest touch.

So her name is Flux…

“I don’t know what that is,” lied Claire.

“Really? That’s strange.” The cat-sith put the fish back in his backpack as he stood up on his hind legs and fiddled with his feathered cap.
“Can you show me what you look like under that hood? The goddess mentioned a few key features, namely some scales and a pair of ears, and I’d like to check for them.
Assuming you really don’t recognize the charcoal.”

“I don’t.”

“Wait, you don’t? Wasn’t that fish the one yo—”

Claire paralyzed the fox with a glare, but it was too late.
Sylvia had already revealed too many key pieces of information and the glint in the cat’s eye made it clear that he had caught on.
Knowing any further deception to be futile, the rogue sighed, peeled back her hood, and revealed her face. I thought foxes were supposed to meow in front of other people, not give me away.

“I knew it.
Scales and ears, exactly as described in the revelation.” He smiled and bowed with one hand on his chest and another behind his waist.
It was a sharp, practiced motion, the sort you would only expect to see from a man with an education.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, my lady.
Beckard Links, fireclaw devout, at your service.”

Not opting to return the greeting, the bluescale pulled her hood back over her head and hid her eyes.
“What does your goddess want?”

“I was told to help you, within reason of course.”

“Okay.
Bye.”

Without another word, the lyrkress walked right past the cat.
She wanted nothing to do with him.
There was no telling what associating with the strange man would bring, even if—or perhaps even precisely because—he had the goddess’ mark of approval.
It wasn’t as if Claire suspected that the snarky divine was out to harm her.
There was no need for such a convoluted plot.
She was ultimately under the box’s umbrella, which was to say that Flux could have smited her at any point in time if she so desired.
If anything, her impression of the goddess was a positive one.
She thought her a relatively pleasant deity, even if she was too neglectful to offer regular guidance.

Her suspicion came instead as a function of the timing.
If the cat-sith was truly the devout he claimed, then he would be a man of great faith, one whose life was dedicated to the goddess’ service, which was to say that she could have sent him at any point in time.
He could have been there to greet her immediately upon the ritual’s completion.
Given that he was only showing up now, right after she had pulled a prank, with the item used in said prank in tow, she couldn’t help but suspect that the box was using him to get back at her, one way or another.

“I can teach you a number of rare skills, if you’d like.
Combat worthy ones.”

The offer stopped the halfbreed in her tracks.
Slowly, reluctantly, she turned around and set the fox in her arms down onto the ground.

“Claire, frostblight lyrkress.”

Unlike when she had introduced herself to the furball and the whale, the half-snake went through the formality of disclosing her racial identity, largely in part because she just wanted to say it.
She highly doubted that leaking the class’ name would run the risk of exposing her identity.
Even as a well educated noble lady, she had never once heard a lyrkress mentioned by any person in any context.
Likewise, she saw no problem in listing her name.
It was common enough for it to be impossible for a potential hostile to think of her just because it happened to come up in a conversation.

“Wait, is that what you are now? I thought you were a chimera,” said the fox.
“Oh I’m Sylvia Redleaf, Llystletein woodfox.”

“Redleaf?” The priest cat furrowed his brow.
“You must be Zelos’ daughter then.”

“Yup! We were just about to go see him.”

“I can show you to him, if you’d like.”

“Oh, sure! I was gonna sniff him out, but that’d make it a lot easier.” The vixen rubbed the note off her nose and blew it to the winds, where it soon dissipated back into mana.

“He’s normally in his room at this time of day.
Follow me,” said Beckard, who had dropped onto all fours and started walking down the street.

“What about the skills?” asked Claire.

“It’ll be a little late for that, especially if you have other business.
You can stop by my office at any time during the day.” He pointed a paw towards a large building on the opposite end of the street.
“It’s right over there.”

Like the abbey, the cat’s workplace was a relatively large building marked with a holy symbol, an hourglass with a swirl in both chambers.
The mark of the eternal flow.

“Now let’s get going.
Zelos likes to drink at night.
If we take too long, he may find himself at the bar, too inebriated to speak.”

If you want to support us, please download our awesome cultivation game Taoist Immortal!