Chapter 43
A Change in State
"Onii-chan! Onii-chan! Get up! It"s morning already!"
A voice called out to me as I comfortably drifted in and out of sleep . Though my consciousness was hazy, I could still somehow make out the words that were being said .
"Nrrggh…" I groaned .
"Come on! Hurry up and get up already!"
The voice was that of a young girl"s . It was so pleasant to the ear that it almost sounded angelic .
"Just give five more minutes…"
"No! You have to get up now, Onii-chan! Leila"s already done making breakfast!"
In fact, it was so heavenly that I felt like it was slowly lulling me back to sleep .
"Nrrggghhhh…"
My body sudden began to jerk back and forth right as I was about to drift off to dreamland .
"Onii-chan!"
"Okay, okay, fine . I"ll get up, so stop shaking me already . "
I groaned again before opening my eyes . Illuna"s shaking had forced me awake, regardless of whether I liked it or not .
Ugh… I"m still so sleepy…
I groggily yawned as I raised the upper half of my body off the throne room"s floor .
Wait, why"s it so warm?
There was a really comfortable patch of warmth to my left, so I looked over and tried to identify it .
"Oh . It was Lefi . "
The dragon girl was sleeping right by my side . One of her hands had made its way toward me and grabbed ahold of my s.h.i.+rt . The look she had on her face could only be described as innocent . Seeing it made it hard for me to think of her as anything but a girl in her early teens .
Oh yeah, she made me play with her until the crack of dawn last night .
Lefi had kept losing . She got more and more indignant with every round, so she continued challenging me throughout the night . She kept playing until she was literally too tired to continue . Neither of us had had enough energy to make our way over to our beds, so we"d pa.s.sed out on the spot .
"Get up Lefi . It"s morning . "
"Nn…"
"Come on, wake up . It"s time to eat . "
"Just… 17 more years…"
That"s an oddly specific number .
"Geez! Get up already Onee-chan! You"re gonna miss breakfast!"
Illuna realized that Lefi wasn"t listening to her, so she did to the Supreme Dragon the exact same thing she did to me . That is, she grabbed her by the shoulders and started to gently shake her back and forth .
"Ugh…" Lefi groaned . "I get it, I get it already . Stop shaking me . "
I couldn"t help but smile wryly at the fact that her reaction was more or less identical to my own .
Once Lefi let go of my s.h.i.+rt, I got up and started to stretch . Sleeping on the floor had not been a good idea . My body was stiff and I hurt in all sorts of places . Worst off was my shoulder, so I started to rotate it in wide arc in order to loosen it up .
G.o.d d.a.m.n it Lefi . I know you hate to lose, but can"t you at least like, get better before trying to beat me? We had to keep playing all night because you couldn"t pull off a win .
"Hmmm? You’re kinda looking cooler than usual today, Onii-chan . " Illuna curiously tilted her head as she looked at me .
"Huh? I am? Well uh… thanks, I guess . You"re looking pretty cute yourself today, Illuna . "
"Ehehe . " She giggled . "Thanks!"
Illuna and I started walking towards the dining table set up in one of the throne room"s corners . Lefi was trailing a bit behind us, still half asleep . She couldn"t walk straight yet, so she kind of just ended up staggering along .
Lyuu was already sitting at the table and waiting for us . At first, she and Leila had both protested the idea of joining Lefi, Illuna and I at the table because they were our "servants," but I eventually managed to convince them otherwise . Though they were helping us with ch.o.r.es and stuff, I didn"t really think of them as hired housekeepers . I felt that treating them that way was just far too cold .
"Mornin" Master . And you too Lefi," said Lyuu . "Wait, a sec . It is just me, Master, or do you kinda got this like different feel to you today?"
"Huh? I do?"
"For sure, but I dunno how I"m s"pposed to describe it . You"re just… kinda different . "
I didn"t really quite get what she meant .
"Good morning My Lord . Good morning Lefi . "
Like Lyuu, Leila also ended up awkwardly pausing as soon as she finished greeting us .
"Interesting," she said, her eyes gleaming with curiosity . She put down the plates she"d carried out of the kitchen and, without warning, brought her face right up to my own .
"W-What"re you…"
My heart rate shot up . She was so close that I couldn"t help but smell the feminine scent wafting off her body . Though I was certain she heard me, Leila didn"t answer . She instead began to circle around me and examine me from all sorts of different angles . She remained totally silent throughout; the maid didn"t start speaking again until she was looking me over .
"Have you perhaps undergone a racial evolution, My Lord?"
Though she"d phrased it like a question, her tone was conclusive . She seemed fairly confident that she"d hit the mark .
"Huh? Racial evolution? What"s that?"
Leila explained to me that monsters, demihumans, and demons would go through a sort of metamorphosis after obtaining a certain amount of experience . In other words, leveling up enough would lead an individual ascending a step up their own evolutionary chain .
So it basically works the same way it does in P*kemon?
Monsters were the quickest to evolve . Demihumans and demons tended to require much more experience, so they almost never evolved until they were relatively high level .
With that knowledge in mind, I checked my stat page .
***
General Information
Name: Yuki
Race: Demon Lord
Cla.s.s: Demon Lord of Judgement
Level: 35
HP: 2951/2951
MP: 10321/10321
Strength: 897
Stamina: 912
Agility: 804
Magic: 1132
Dexterity: 1409
Luck: 72
Skill Points: 6
Unique Skills
Magic Eye
Translation
Flight
Skills
Item Box
a.n.a.lyze: Lv . VIII
Martial Arts: Lv IV
Primordial Magic: Lv IV
Stealth: Lv V
Enemy Search: Lv IV
Sword Arts: Lv I
Weapon Creation: Lv III
Endow Magic: Lv II
Art of Trapping: Lv I
t.i.tles
Demon Lord from Another World
Supreme Dragon’s Owner
One Who Judges
One Hostile to Humanity
DP: 420131
***
"Huh . You"re right . I did undergo a racial evolution . "
My cla.s.s had changed from just Demon Lord to Demon Lord of Judgement . I was quite happy with the change, as my new cla.s.s sounded much more bada.s.s . My race had switched from Archdemon to Demon Lord .
But why"d this suddenly happen? Oh, wait, duh… It must"ve been been all the people I killed last night .
I"d wiped out so many humans that I"d even got a t.i.tle for it, but because I didn"t personally end any of their lives, I didn"t actually end up gaining any experience . My level hadn"t changed . My stats, however, had . Most of them had been boosted drastically . My MP had even shot all the way past the ten thousand mark . The only stat that didn’t change was my luck .
But again, that didn"t make sense . It wasn"t me that"d done the killing . It was the dungeon .
Wait! That"s it! The dungeon must"ve leveled up!
Humans were weak . Their deaths barely generated any DP . The dungeon didn"t gain too much from absorbing a human"s corpse either . But that said, there"d been a whole 400 of them . Added together, the humans had provided a significant boost to my DP, as evidenced by the fact that I was currently holding on to the most I"d ever had at any given point in time .
The dungeon had always been pa.s.sively gaining DP because Lefi and many of the Wicked Forest"s more powerful monsters were within its bounds . The DP gained last night must have finally pushed the total over some sort of threshold and caused the dungeon to grow . And since the dungeon and I were linked, I"d grown as well .
It made perfect sense .
I made a mental note to check to see if the dungeon had gained any new features once I was done with my meal .
"I see," Leila nodded . "I presume that means Demon Lords evolve quickly, which likens them more to monsters than demihumans and demons . But wait, what if the demon lord was but a part of the dungeon and its systems? If I were to think along those lines, then…"
Leila rambled under her breath as she looked at me as she would a lab rat .
"H-Hey Leila…? The way you"re staring me down is kinda freaky . "
"Sorry, I do apologize . The phenomenon was so interesting that I forgot myself . "
So she thinks I"m an interesting phenomenon…? That"s uh… discomforting .
I felt as if I was starting to see a whole new side to Leila .
"R-Right, no problem," I said . "Anyway, I"m surprised you guys could tell . I didn"t even notice it myself . "
"It’s because you’re you, Onii-chan! It’s super easy to tell!" said Illuna .
"Us beastkin have got sharp senses, so it was real easy for me to notice that you were seemin" a bit different," added Lyuu .
I looked at the full-length mirrors I had propped up nearby and quickly examined my body . I didn"t really know what they meant . I still didn"t see it .
Maybe it"s just something that"s obvious to everyone but the person that it happens to .
"Oh well, whatever . Nevermind that, let"s have ourselves some breakfast . "
We all sat down at the table and got ready to eat, but Lefi nodded off before we actually got around it . She"d somehow managed to retain a near perfect posture despite no longer being awake . The only thing that looked off was the position of her head, which"d dipped a bit in the forward direction .
"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Lefi…" I sighed .
"Oh come on Onee-chan! I told you it"s time for breakfast!"
Illuna promptly shook her awake yet again .
"Ugh… Can I not just sleep? It is not as if we had anything planned for the day . "
"You can’t! You’ll end up getting as fat as a cow if you keep lazing around!"
Seeing Lefi get scolded by a girl far younger than her brought a smile to my face . And apparently, I wasn"t the only one . Lyuu smiled wryly, while Leila allowed herself to adopt a bit of a grin .
And that was how the five us began yet another average day .