Other reasons you should read my releases on my blog… I make updates! While I don"t care for corrections from random people, I do get feedback from Deer B, plus as I get further in a series I sometimes discover that I translated something wrong in earlier chapters and go back and fix them.

I wasn"t actually planning on finishing this in one night, but once I got going it went so smoothly that by the time I decided to stop, I was nearly done already, so I figured I"d just stay up a bit longer and post it.

And so, Angelica and I were planning to climb the mountain together, but—once we set off, I discovered that there were some problems.

"The air here is so refreshing! It just lifts my heart!"

"No, it"s clearly not uplifting at all. The demon lands are really gloomy, you know…"

"Ooh, look, there are flowers blooming on the wayside."

"Blech, those flowers look disgusting and gross… And the bugs sitting on them are huge and creepy…"

Angelica"s sense of taste, or really a young human woman"s sense of taste, wasn"t very compatible with this demon"s mountain.

Well, we were just starting. The real charm of mountain climbing wasn"t from just walking for a bit. If she had exclaimed "I see now, this is so much fun!" after just five or ten minutes, that would have been suspicious in and of itself.

In that case, I"ll just bear it for now. Eventually, there will be an opportunity to chat with my step-daughter—

A bunch of human-sized flies came flying towards us, buzzing loudly.

"Hmm, these are h.e.l.l Flies. They"re a type of monster that lives around here."

"Wah! They"re attacking us! What the heck! Didn"t the kingdom and the demons sign that treaty?!"

"Come now, that only applies to demons, monsters are unrelated. They are just like wild beasts. It would be like trying to order the animals in the human kingdom not to attack demons."

"In other words, we have to fight… Fine then, I won"t hold back!"

Angelica pulled out her sword and slashed at the h.e.l.l Flies. She beautifully cut one of them in two. Her swordsmanship was very good for someone of her age. There were still many areas where she could improve, though.

"Yes! This"ll be a piece of cake! Now that you"ve run into the hero, your luck has run out!"

"Don"t let your guard down. h.e.l.l Flies always travel in groups. I believe there are always at least ten or so."

There was still buzzing around us. A swarm of h.e.l.l Flies closed in on Angelica.

"Keh! Without Selene"s attack magic, there"s no way to take them all out at once… What a pain…"

"Make sure you defeat them all. Each fly"s offensive power is fairly low, but apparently they can poison humans."

"Then don"t just stand there all relaxed! Ahh, they"re p.i.s.sing me off!"

Angelica was mowing down h.e.l.l Flies like gra.s.s. They were probably worth a lot of experience points.

"Why aren"t any of these flies attacking you?!"

"Monsters tend to be instinctively afraid of demons. Because I"m the demon lord, they won"t do anything as foolhardy as attacking me."

"Hold on a minute… So you"re saying any monsters are only going to attack me…?"

Angelica sent a cold stare my way. It felt like she was actually losing faith in me.

"This couldn"t have possibly been your plan, right? Bring me to this secluded mountain, then do me in… That way you"d get to live with Mama, just the two of you…"

What a horribly rude imagination she had!

"No, of course not! You are my daughter! I would never want my own daughter dead!"

"I"m not your daughter! I still don"t approve of you becoming my father!"

"You say that, but if I decided that you weren"t my daughter and treated you poorly, that would anger you even more, wouldn"t it?! So how should I act around you?!"

"You have a point, but… I-In any case, help me kill these flies already! You"re just standing there doing nothing anyway, so do something!"

"…Very well."

I struck at the flies, taking them out with single blows. There was nothing here that could withstand an attack from the demon lord.

"Hmph. Just small fries, after all. Well then, Angelica, we should hurry along."

—Angelica was being accosted by even more h.e.l.l Flies than before.

"This is completely ridiculous! It"s like they haven"t had any prey for a long time or something!"

Actually, that might be exactly what was going on. Humans didn"t come here often, after all.

"d.a.m.n it! I could use some attack magic too, but… I would really rather save it."

"Ah, fire magic is no good. National park regulations state that any magic that could cause forest fires is prohibited."

"Why are you such a stickler for the rules?! You"re the demon lord, aren"t you?!"

"Look you, a king must uphold the law."

"Then you should be helping me kill these flies! I can"t believe this, they"re endless! It"s really hard to fight without a party!"

Naturally, they didn"t have to divide up their attacks, so they"re all concentrated on you.

However, I also couldn"t really afford to just watch from the sidelines. Even though they"re small fries, any monsters that could live in demon lands had decent strength. I attacked the h.e.l.l Flies as well, reducing their numbers.

After about five minutes of battle, we finally defeated all the h.e.l.l Flies.

"Haah, haah… That was a pretty tough battle… I"m starting to understand the importance of having a party. I should be a lot nicer to everyone…"

"Indeed, a battle that"s hard alone becomes much easier when duties are split between four people."

"It kind of ticks me off to hear that from a demon…"

But then, that obnoxious buzzing returned.

"Come on! How many flies are there?! Why are there so many!"

I thought to myself: Was it the wrong choice to come to a mountain in the demon lands? We couldn"t climb the mountain if Angelica was being constantly hara.s.sed by these monsters. I had the feeling that the same thing would happen if we went to a high-level dungeon, though.

At the very least, this atmosphere wasn"t conducive to deepening the relationship between a father and daughter. Due to the constant battles, it was more like we were building up stress, if anything.

"All right! We got "em! We got all of "em! Let"s keep going, demon lord! There"s no way we can stop here!"

"Ahh… got it…"

I thought things had started out pretty badly, but did I actually make some progress?

"But, now I think I can trust you a little bit."

"You can? Why is that?"

"It really wouldn"t be weird for there to be a legendary weapon on this mountain. I don"t think there are many adventurers who could make it through this place. Now let"s keep going!"

I couldn"t suggest turning back now… And if I told her that I just made up that story, that could shatter our relationship for good and get her to try to kill me right here…

From this point on, I really needed to think about what I should do as Angelica and I kept going up the mountain trail.

 —  — Chapter 14