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 . "

"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 .