The Demon Lord's Second Marriage Chapter 25

Another chapter, another lack of Laetia 😦

Chapter 25 - The Demon Lord is Careful Not to Be a Meddlesome Old Man

I knew now why these caverns weren't popular. They were incredibly inconvenient. There was a small village nearby, but it still took two hours on foot to get here. Furthermore, that village didn't have a proper inn. You had to find a resident willing to put you up for cash. There was an inn at another village, but that was another hour by foot in the wrong direction.

Due to how out-of-the-way it was, it didn't get many visitors. Even my own resources lacked that key information on item drops and boss data, making it nearly useless. In other words, these caverns had been completely ignored. No one knew what kind of monsters might be here. They could even have their own unique, alien ecosystem for all we knew.

After entering a cave, the mage girl Selene used illumination magic to light up the interior. If they hadn't had access to this magic, they would've needed a long-lasting torch or a lantern, which would have taken up someone's hand and made things much more troublesome.

"I'm tirrrred… Can we take a break…? I don't wanna exercise too much or I'll build up muscle where I don't want any."

"Zenkay, we haven't even started exploring the caverns yet, so put a sock in it. This is just the beginning."

Angelica took the lead, as expected of her role in the party.

Good luck. However, don't push yourselves too hard. For dungeon exploration, it's fine if you move three steps forward and two steps back. Trying to do too much leads to avoidable injuries. Even if you progress at a snail's pace, any progress is better than no progress.

"Why do I… get the feeling that there's someone nearby trying to lecture me about something…"

"Is your mysterious sixth sense flaring up? Even still, we must keep moving forward."

"No, I mean, you're right, but you know how when certain people say certain things, it just pisses you off? It feels like there's someone like that thinking those things nearby."

Angelica, you really are a sharp girl… Also, as I thought, she thinks I'm a nag. Let's stop bringing it up at home. It would just set her off someday.

Looks like these caves go quite deep, which is pretty basic information. No guidebook would ever say "ignore your limits and keep going further into a dungeon." If there were such a reckless, "just cut off the head"-type of recommendation, they would surely incur the wrath of their readers. Be careful, and pay attention…

"Do you perhaps sense a rare monster? Jaunis, do you feel anything like that?"

"I don't think there's anything around here. Well, it's prolly fine, isn't it?"

"This man inspires very little faith, does he not…" the priest Nahalin grumbled under her breath.

This priest appeared to seriously hate Jaunis's guts. Well, considering their professions, perhaps it was inevitable.

Right at that moment, Angelica suddenly spun around, looking behind her. That surprised me! Wait… did she find me?

"I knew it, something's watching us…"

"Angelie, there's no way. Even if someone were spying on us, they'd do it in town or somewhere easier. There ain't no loafer out there who's gonna come out to this hole in the sticks."

Hey, I'm not a loafer! I brought my work with me to do! How rude, you thief!

"Yeah, you're right. There really isn't any merit in stalking us this far…"

Angelica seemed to convince herself. Thank you, thief Jaunis. Wait no, he called me a rude name, I should be calling him a scoundrel, shouldn't I? Or actually, he is a thief, is it really all right for him not to have realized that I'm here? I knew it, I couldn't trust Angelica with him. Do your job properly.

The party was exploring when a big group of bats flew at them. Poisonous Vampiric Bats, I think. They tended to live in places like this. If it were just these, they wouldn't be very hard to defeat.

"Hmph, piece of cake!"

Angelica beautifully sliced the bats apart. Her swordsmanship was excellent. However, that alone wouldn't be enough to beat all the bats. Dozens more came out from deeper in the cave at them.

"Wah! How many are there?!"

These monsters always formed armies to compensate for their low attack power. The first group was just a scouting party, or something like that.

"Angelica, leave this to me!"

The mage girl Selene used fire magic to scorch all of the bats at once.

"All right, time for me to come out front too!"

"Us two will take 'em out lickety split!"

The male fighter Zenkay and the thief Jaunis took the stage to go around delivering killing blows. Both of them were each able to finish off a lot of bats in a short period of time. Good; the party was still inexperienced, but their teamwork was pretty decent. Just keep going like that, Angelica.

"There it is again, that feeling like some guy is out there watching us with his arms folded, nodding in satisfaction…"

"Angelica, aren't you getting a little too obsessed with this thing…?"

When it came to my daughter, maybe I was sending too many telepathic shouts of encouragement at her…

The party slowly but steadily continued exploring the caverns, getting all the way down to the fifth floor. However, that was when their exhaustion started catching up to them. It wasn't a dire situation quite yet, but it was about time for them to consider leaving. They found a natural dead end room in which to rest.

"The monsters here are a lot stronger than I was expecting… It's going to take a lot of time to beat this place…"

"Indeed. It is about time for us to turn around."

Nahalin was a cautious person. She made decisions for the good of the party.

"Got it. Let's wrap things up here today. If we want to set up camp, we should do it outside of the caverns. This isn't a safe place for a nap."

Unfortunately, that was when a large lizard came into the room. It roared loudly, well aware of its own place on the food chain.

This was bad. I could easily crush something like that in seconds, but for my daughter's party as it was now, this would be a hard battle. In the worst case, I might have to help them defeat it. That would obviously reveal the fact that I'd been tailing them, which I really didn't want to have happen, but that was putting the cart before the horse.

The lizard chose to charge straight ahead and attack Angelica, it seemed. It was closing the distance quickly.

"Kh! You want a piece of me?! Fine, come and get some! I'm ready for you!!!"

Wait, Angelica, don't rush out now! You can't beat it with how tired you are!

But right then, that thief Jaunis dashed out in front of her first.

"Women gotta value their bodies more!!!"

 —  — Chapter 26

Chapter end