Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Chapter 17: Let’s Get Ready for a Counterattack, Part 1

If you were to believe the gossips that are travelling around, the Dungeon governed by the Demon Lord serves three separate purposes:

A labyrinth filled with ferocious monsters and deadly traps.

A royal palace where the Demon Lord dwells together with all the members of his inner circle.

And the living quarters accommodating the Demon Lord’s ever-growing harem of concubines.

As you can probably guess, the third one was a subject of the most rumors, for obvious reasons. Whenever the men inhabiting the lands ruled by the Demon Lord would discuss about it over a plate of food and a mug (many mugs, in fact) of alcohol, their eyes would flare up with an envious flame when they imagined their ruler going at it with his beautiful mistresses all at once, satisfying each and every one of them like it was nothing. Funny thing is, even though Demon Lord Aur had so many wives and women of varying races, backgrounds and social standings, none of them resented one another. Quite the opposite, actually, all of them were the best of friends.

However, no one has seen the Demon Lord near his concubines’ quarters for quite some time, actually, or that’s what the latest rumors say. But the truth of the matter is..

「Is it true that master has been defeated? What the hell happened?!」

The one to ask that question was Ellen, the leader of the Black Alvs. The archers she has under her command are a part of the Demon Lord’s army, as well as the members of the palace guard. For them to hear that their master, the man who managed to conquer formidable enemies such as the desert empire of Sahara, the snowy land of Himuro or an assassin from the wind country Furo, has been defeated by someone, it would no doubt be a cause for unrest.

「Please calm down. He has not been defeated, but the Dungeon went through a severe magical power failure. Restoring it back to normal should take a few days at best.」

「Magical power failure?!」

With Aur currently in the sickbed, his right hand, Lilu the Succubus took it upon herself to inform the rest of Aur’s most trusted men about what happened. However, the explanation of the actual problem itself was carried out by Wikia, one of Aur’s most skilled magicians.

「Is this supposed to be some kind of joke? If so, it’s doing its job poorly, because no one’s laughing here. Do you really expect us to believe that someone like master, who’s practically a walking, sentient magical power reservoir and the strongest sorcerer this world has seen made such an apprentice-level blunder and caused a magical power failure throughout the entire fucking Dungeon?!」

「What the hell is a magical power failure?」

Nadja, one of the most skilled sword-wielder in Aur’s army asked as she joined the others. While she was wielding her sword she was unstoppable like a Goddess of War, but she was a complete amateur when it came to all things magical.

「Basically it’s a kind of malfunction what will cause you rapidly lose a large amount of magical power and hinder it’s recovery speed. As Ellen said, it is something that’s typical for apprentice-level magicians who try to control magic that is way out of their league while not knowing the limits of their own power. Usually the fastest way to recover from such a state it’s enough to drink a mana recovery potion.」

Sharl, a White Alv Sage, answered Nadja’s question.

「First things first, Aur is not an amateur who’d make such a careless mistake, and I don’t think that there exists a potion in this world that could make him recover that much magical power in one go. After all, he is a kind of a magical monster.」

The head of the White Alvs, Ceres, frowned her brows.

「There is.」

However, the Kuduk bandit, Faro, disagreed with her statement.

「This Dungeon. As long as he’s here, Aur has infinite magical power. So as long as he stays here, he should be able to recover all the magical power that he lost.」

「..Makes sense.」

Even someone like Aur, who’s able to freely control the magical power that flows within him, was still prone to exhaustion after pushing both his magical and physical power to the limit, so it would stand to reason that a solid amount of rest should bring him back to his peak condition. On that account, everyone agreed with Faro’s words.

「Uhm, but.. why did he lose so much magical power in the first place? Just wondering.」

Mio, the village girl and the Queen of Demonic Beasts raised her hand and asked about the elephant in the room.

「Maybe.. maybe it’s something akin to an erectile disfunction? Huh? Why is everyone glaring at me like that? Come on, it makes perfect sense! Having so many women on two separate continents, having to constantly satisfy all of them equally.. under such grueling conditions even the mightiest of magical wands is bound to run out of charges sooner or later!」

Gnome, the head of the Merchants Guild under the patronage of the Demon Lord says with a mischievous smile. And as much as everyone present didn’t want to believe it, there was some truth in her words. No matter how powerful Aur is and how much his magic and knowledge go beyond human understanding, his own body is still that of a human, and is therefore subjected to typical human limitations. Plus it was a well-known fact that every woman he has ever slept with has been blessed with a fraction of his magic power in order to strengthen their abilities, and by extension, their usefulness to their master.

「If he was doing all of us here in this Dungeon, there wouldn’t have been any problems, even if we were to go at it non-stop for a whole day, because he would still recover the power that he’d lost in a jiffy, but since he was in a totally different Dungeon far away then the story’s different. Also, it is quite possible that maybe one of his new mistresses whom he’d obtained there made his fuck her so roughly that he had expended more magical power to do so than he originally intended. Really makes you think, am I right?」

「Maybe so, but if it’s Aur then surely he’d still be able to satisfy at least a dozen girls even with his magic completely depleted.」

「Not to mention that it’d be unnatural for Aur not to return here immediately after he’d notice that the reserves of his magical power were running low. And yet, he didn’t do that, causing this erectile dys.. magical power malfunction. Why is that? Why did he had to go that far?」

The ex-saint Melizand inquires further after Mio, who might appear modest at first glance, but she doesn’t beat around the bush when it is needed.

「All right, all right, enough with the guessing games. I will try to explain everything that happened as best as I can.」

Under the several strong gazes, Lilu finally surrendered and raised her hands into the air.

「But truth to be said, I don’t fully understand what exactly happened. All that I know is..」

Liliu then tells everyone about what she saw with her own eyes.

「A fragment of.. a God? Any comments on that, Melizand? Cause to me it looks like the very thing you were supposed to be a servant of has just became our enemy. And it took Sofia, the girl whom Mari and Aur raised as if she was their own child, away from them.」

「Impossible.. a God?! But that shouldn’t be po.. ssible..」

Melizand, who was always the calm and rational member of Aur’s advisors now had her eyes widely opened with surprise.

「God was destroyed in the Demon War six thousand years ago! What remained of him and what I was using was but a remnant, a fragment! Without a doubt, I saw that with my own eyes!」

「Be that as it may, that guy was undoubtedly the real deal. Because..」

Lilu looks at everyone with a deathly serious expression and continues to speak, finding it visibly hard to squeeze the words out of her throat.

「Even though it was a surprise attack, he literally wiped the floor with all of us. There was nothing we could do to resist him.」

Tena, the priestess who predicts the future and her granddaughter Yutsu.

Zana, the Ice Queen with the blessing of the Moon Goddess Marina that always allows her to chose 「the best possible hand」 for any situation.

Virtually unkillable Spina and Yunis with her power to jump through space and cut through everything.

Sakuya, the Volcano Goddess who controls the flames according to her will, Sea Goddess Tatsuki and the Goddess of Fortune, Misha. All of them took that so-called God head on and he easily defeated them as if it was a mere child’s play.

「Sakuya stayed behind to buy us some time to escape.. and we did, without even looking back!」

Their current enemy was certainly no pushover. He claimed to be the God of Heaven, and he certainly had the power to back up that claim.

「The power of Heaven stands in direct opposition to the power of magic. Faced with such extraordinary existence, it wouldn’t be strange for even Aur’s magical power to be scattered to the four winds..」

Melizand was the one who technically knew the most about the enemy, and yet even she appeared to be dumbstruck. Right now she was biting on her thumb with a stern expression.

「Personally, I don’t really care if our enemy is a God or something else entirely. There is only one thing that I need to know.」

Ellen looks at Lilu with the eyes of a Wolf whose about to jump on his prey to bite its throat out.

「When the enemy comes here to attack us, is Aur going to just bend over and take it like a pussy, or is he going to be the one who will make the enemy bend over?」

Ellen was itching for a fight. It was obvious to everyone gathered.

「Aur is going to fight of course.」

「That’s what I wanted to hear! This time I’ll make sure to bring down master’s enemies with my bow!」

Being in high spirits, Ellen raised her fist into the air and shouted a vigorous war cry, infecting everyone with her will to defend their home.

「But if our opponent really is the God of Heaven himself.. then do we have any chances of winning?」

Melizand asks quietly, bringing everyone’s enthusiasm to a grinding half.

「Of course we have. Aur in not a kind of man who would challenge someone without being absolutely confident in his victory.」

Lilu however, responded to her with a voice filled with unwavering trust and confidence.