A Demon Lord's Tale: Dungeons, Monster Girls, and Heartwarming Bliss Chapter 9

Maou ni Nattanode

Chapter 9 Let's use magic – 2

"Alright, let's start with sensing the mana. Hold out both of your hands."

Sweeping off the bits of cookie off of her, Lefy said while putting both of her hands forward.

By the way, Shii ate the cover and bits of the cookie Lefy swept off.

Monsters summoned with DP should not need food but… As he was eating it deliciously on his own, it is probably like a snack to him.

I was wondering what I would do about the garbage but this actually takes care of that problem.

"Eh? O-oh."

Being puzzled, I did as she told and she grabbed my hands, then—

"Ohh? Ohhhh? Ohhhhhhh–?!"

A somewhat intense power came flowing in from Lefy's soft, right hand.

That power circulated inside my body, then it came passing through my right hand this time and returned back to her through her left hand.

It kept going in circles between me and Lefy.

So this is —- mana.

A completely different nature of mana from the dungeon's one, a tremendous, violently rushing torrent of mana.

I felt like if I lost my focus even just a bit, I would stagger and collapse to the rampaging mana circling throughout my body.

—-After that situation had gone on for a few minutes, Lefy started decreasing the amount of mana flowing into me until it reached zero and then let go of my hand.

I immediately fell to my knees and had to grasp for air.

My heart was pounding like crazy.

It was only just a few minutes but I felt so exhausted. It was as if I had just sprinted with all my strength.

"Yep, so it is okay." Lefy said while looking at me fascinated.

"O-oka…?"

Slowly regaining my posture, I asked her. To which she answered quite indifferently,

"Just now, I forcibly activated your mana with mine. And if you hadn't endured that mana, your head might've exploded and you would have died after all."

"You–you were doing something so terrifying?!"

When I flared up against her like that, she just fluttered her hands as if she did not care much.

"I just judged that since you are a higher demon you would be okay. And you were okay like I thought, right? Now, before you forget that feeling, try doing it by yourself. You can probably do it pretty easily now."

Not being fully satisfied with the situation, I stood up and closed my eyes to try—-

——-O-ohh… I can feel it.

I didn't feel it even the slightest before but now I can. It's probably because Lefy directly flowed it within me.

Around the pit of my stomach, I can certainly feel my mana.

Then, I tried moving it just like Lefy had done a while ago.

I can't really properly describe it but… when I tried moving the mana like you would move a spoon in a glass of water, at first it had some friction and was slow but after a while, it kept getting faster and faster and started flowing throughout my whole body like blood through vessels.

As I was doing it myself this time rather than being controlled from outside, I did not feel the dizziness from before.

Like that feeling when you don't feel sick when you are the one driving but feel sick when you are on the passenger seat.

Well, I never really drove a car so I wouldn't know, though.

"Yep, that's good. That's the stage where your mana is activated. It's the foundation for magic."

Lefy kept on talking but, because I was focusing on circulating the mana through my body, I could not properly reply.

"Next. Listen properly, imagine what I say in your mind. I will tell you the chant afterwards so repeat after me then."

I nodded.

"First, imagine an enormous land and a vast field."

The overwhelming mother nature surrounding the dungeon came up in my mind.

"Amongst all that, one flower. You will tear its stem and hold it in your hand."

Suddenly the scale became much smaller, and I tried picking up the flower at my feet — in my mind.

"Were you able to imagine it? Then, hold out your hand and chant– Create Bloom"

"Create Bloom"

Just as I said that, all the mana rushing about my body flowed into my left hand and kept condensing.

And by the time when it had settled into place, I opened my eyes which I had closed for so long and—-

"Wah–such a pretty flower!— Wait, why?!"

I reflexively threw the flower to the ground. Well, though I said threw, I just gently put it down.

"What, are you not satisfied?"

"No, I surely did think it was amazing to use magic at first! But there are other things, right? Why flower for the first time?"

"This one was just the introduction. Now, try imagining a fire. No need for chanting. Imagine your mana forming a fiery shape. Vividly."

"…..Got it."

When I tried doing just as I was told, activating my mana once again, it felt somewhat smoother than before.

—-Fire, eh?

For the imagination.. I will go with that. A lighter.

It was easier to imagine the Zippo lighter which was in my house.

A red coloured light swayed on top of my hand.

A flint turned into a spark, then as if it caught oil, it ignited.

"Ohhh..!"

I ended up letting out my astonishment.

S-so cool!

Well, it wouldn't be wrong if someone were to say it is dull but, the important thing is, I have fire coming out from my index finger.

If you're a man, you will definitely be in high spirits.

Everyone probably tried creating fire from their finger at least once in their life. Yep. So it is definitely not that I am childish.

"Hmm.. You did it easily. As I thought, demons excel at magic."

"Is that so?"

Being somewhat pleased as I was able to make the flame go out and appear again, I asked Lefy.

Maybe because I had imagined a Zippo lighter, every time I created the fire, it came out with a spark.

I don't really have to make it so real to that point but, I guess, it's fine since it looks cool.

"Yep. It is true that I forced your mana pathways open but, even after that, using magic is not something you can do that easily. Your demon race characteristic is probably allowing you to be so good at it."

Well, I guess that could be it.

I was able to use it far easily than I had expected but when I think about it now, it is probably something you need to practice for months to use normally.

From what I have heard from Lefy, it seems like demons are originally beings who are born from magical essence so that is probably why their bodies have a higher affinity with magic.

After all, someone like me, who came from a world where magic did not exist, was able to use it instantly.

Well, those stuff do not really matter. More importantly, this fire magic.

I wonder… If I could adjust its power.

According to Lefy, it seems like the image in your head seems to be important so… If I imagine a large flame emitting from my hand.

And then, while I was imagining that—it happened.

"—Uwoooohh–?!"

Suddenly, intense flames erupted from the tip of my finger.

I panicked and moved the finger which was close to me away but still I could feel the astounding heat. Some of my bangs might have gotten burned.

I could see Shii at the edge of my view, who was jumping up and down as if it was saying something like 'What, what?!'

"Nuuwahh?! Y-you, stop pouring mana into that!!"

"H-h-how do you do that?!"

"Stop the circulation!!"

I immediately did as I was told and reversed the circulation to stop it. The flame, which was now like a fire breath of a dragon slowly went out as if it ran out of gas.

And before long, it didn't come out anymore. Lefy, who had assumed a distance from me when the flame started bursting out, let out a sigh of relief and came back.

"Geez… you scared me there, you idiot."

"Ah, ahh…. me too. I thought my heart would come out. So-sorry."

"Be careful about your mana adjustments. Because you excel at magic, that also means that you will be able to bring out more mana comparatively than others. If you get ahead of yourself and charge all your mana in magic, you might also end up hurting yourself."

"I-I understand."

And truly, I was this close to burning my face to ashes.

….I guess I will put fire magic off for a while till I understand it well.

"…..Well, for now, that is magic. What's important is the user's imagination. That is both the foundation and secret to it. The demons and humans misunderstand it and concentrate more on the chanting but the only thing the chant does is assist. It's one thing if the user plans on using a huge magic which needs a ton of mana but you don't need to pay it much heed since you are a demon who excels at magic."

"Imagination, eh…? Certainly, I got into quite the pickle just now because of it. I will be more careful."

"Yep, do that."

And with that, as the conversation had calmed down a bit, I tried asking Lefy,

"Hey, with this, I could produce a flower and flames but, can other things also be produced with magic?"

"That depends on the user's talent. At the very least, I think you have the aptitude for earth and water too but, we would need to test the others."

"What else is there?"

"The basics are earth, water, fire and wind. But these are just categorized to be simply understood, they are not all. There's also time, light and dark and we can't know if you can use these unless we try. And so, you, I will keep on watch so you need to try some stuff.

After that, I tried all the other elements excluding earth and fire under Lefy's supervision.

Water: created water of perfect temperature for a bath

Wind: created wind perfect to dry oneself after a bath

Other elements: I probably do not have the aptitude for them or just had not realized them well.

I feel like I could freely use water and it would be quite effective but, with wind, depending on the strength of it, it can also be used as a dryer. I shall name it drying magic.

"You… can't you create something more natural?"

"I-I can't help it, okay? It just becomes like that."

I properly got to understand that magic really depends on the imagination after some trial and error but, it does not activate with simple imagination, I really need to imagine it lucidly to manifest.

And thus, to make it easier to manifest magic, I tried imagining the things which were close to me but that just naturally ended up making the magic similar to something which had roots in normal lifestyle.

I would like to use the magic widely seen on games and such but, unfortunately, because of my poor imagination, the only thing which came out was similar to the drying magic.

The only element I have really high aptitude with is water and I could produce some magic-like magic with it so I decided to gradually practice and get better at that.

I would very much like to manifest a water dragon soon. I can't help but feel it would become a hot bath dragon rather than water dragon, though…

Nice and warm.

"…..By the way, what are you doing there?"

"Well, I thought I would wash my head."

I exchanged a wooden bucket used for baths with DP and was using shampoo to wash my head with the water magic.

I can produce water directly from the tip of my finger so it actually feels pretty good.

The water and bubbles which fell were all going to Shii. He was jumping like 'New snacks!' and absorbed all of it.

It really helps but, are you really okay with it, Shii? Are you okay drinking shampoo?

He seemed fine eating trash and he is also eating the shampoo like it's really delicious. There is nothing really wrong with him so I guess I could let him be but….

Although I was a little worried, I finished washing my hand and wiped my head with a bath towel and dried it with the wind magic.

Ahh… it feels good.

I hadn't washed yesterday so it kinda bothered me.

"……Hey, you.. can you do that for me too?"

"Wash your head? Alright. I learnt these magic from you after all. This is my gratitude for it. Here, put your head out."

"….I did not really teach you magic for this, though…." Lefy said while being a bit baffled but still nervously put out her head which I started to wash.

Chapter end