Damon P.O.V

"Hey Char, anything happen while I was gone?"

After I had taken everything I could from the corpse of the lava lizard I immediately set back to my castle. I had gained a decent amount of XP from the other skeletons that were hunting smaller monsters.

From what I've analyzed, my summons gains are also partially split with me to an extent, though they get most of the XP, I get the SP which is really efficient if I want to build an army up and restore this place.

I observed the skeletons working from up high, it was quite fascinating watching them work. Though they were supposed to be undead with no feelings or thoughts, they acted very much like normal workers and soldiers. 

They chatted in their own language while working diligently at collecting resources for me and the dungeon. The only difference other than appearance was that they didn't take breaks since they could feel neither pain nor fatigue.

Char looked up from the book he was reading. Ever since he became a Lich it seems that he spent most of his time reading books and casting spells more than anything else, though he probably wanted to learn different spells to counter close-quarter fights ever since the last spar with Vilard.

"No. Nothing happened other than the transportation of materials into the castle, though Vilard has yet to return yet."

"Huh. I would have thought they would've been back by now"

It wasn't like I was doubting his skill, because I wouldn't. It would be extremely difficult for most of the common monsters and bandits to take just him out, which still didn't factor in the other two skeleton warriors who were fearsome in their own right.

Suddenly, the sounds of hooves hitting the ground broke through the sound of footsteps from the other skeletons. I walked over to the window and peered out, seeing a familiar white suit of armor that was getting off of his horse. 

"Ah, there they are!"

I once again did the whole dramatic performance of jumping out the window instead of using the stairs like a normal person. Though, I still don't know how normal I was in my past life anyways. 

I reached the bottom while being, once again, closely followed by Char. Vilard and his men were dusting off their saddles before seeing me and saluting. Though it was a bit awkward for me, it was more imposing than awkward since Vilard was quite tall so he loomed over me.

"Welcome back, anything happen when you were out?"

Vilard ground his teeth, which was more intimidating than you would imagine when coming from an undead skeleton.

"....bandits..."

Ah, so that was where all that XP was coming from.

"You got rid of them, right?"

"....yes..."

I didn't really understand how the XP system worked, but for some reason, humans gave way more experience than any other monster of the same rank. Humans were generally weaker, so why did they give so much XP when killed? 

Is this why Demon Lords always invade humans?

Char stared at Vilard.

"Did you perhaps meet any humans that you didn't kill?"

Vilard straightened his back for a moment, which basically gave us the answer.

"....yes....lord....passing"

I racked my brains to try and understand what he meant, but unlike before, I actually didn't know. Thankfully, Vilard faced towards Char and talked in their normal, undead tongue. Char then turned back to me, red eyes glistening in the dark.

"There was apparently a group of soldiers from the nearby town that ventured into the forest. Vilard here escorted them out of the forest while killing the monsters and bandits that kept them trapped there as well as healed their lord with a kind of fruit since he was almost assassinated. That's about it."

Vilard looked at me for a moment before looking down.

"....wrong....?"

I sighed and shook my head.

"No, that's fine. Since they didn't attack you guys I guess they're fine, but just be warier before helping them in case they were bandits in disguise. "

Vilard nodded

I looked to my side and realized that Char had gone back in. I barely caught sight of the edge of his robe fluttering before disappearing behind the castle door.

I scratched my head at this.

"Well, I suppose you guys can do whatever you want now. I don't know if you guys can be overworked but I don't want to be a terrible employer"

Though I was introverted as all hell and never held a job, I knew of the plenty of mishaps and disasters that occurred in companies that didn't take care of their employees. Especially since I took off all control on their minds, they were essentially just humans. They could work constantly and still be fine, but I wouldn't know about mentally.

Vilard nodded and walked down the front stairs of the castle to go and tell the rest of the skeletons, or maybe I should be calling them my soldiers or subordinates, either way, he was going to get the message across.

I stretched my arms as I got an apple out from the dungeon inventory and took a bite into it, making a loud CRUNCH as I bit into it. It would be fine for now, but I really had to get a system going before I was going to die of both boredom and lost taste buds.

As I ate, I opened the dungeon's menu once again. The inventory space wasn't even 5% full even though I had the skeletons work for the whole day to gather resources, which ranged from trees to monster corpses to maybe even ores. However, I used some of the wood and ores to fix up the castle. Though it wasn't nearly enough, it could fix up a few rooms which included the office where I and Char spent most of our time dealing with the dungeon's problems.

As it stood, the castle was more or less fine. Which meant that it wouldn't spontaneously collapse and crush everyone under it, but the large town outside the castle was a whole different story. It was very much still in ruins, though the dungeon had self-repair mechanics, I would have to feed it more materials which I could either gather personally or could be put in the castle, which would cause it to be absorbed into the dungeons inventory.

[Level Up!]

[Learned Spell: Domain Of Nightmares]

"again?"

I had leveled up a few more times today because of the incredible amount of actions and work my skeletons did. Despite this, it was still nowhere near what I got from the lizard but it was still better than doing a ton of work by myself. It also made me feel like an actual lord by making progress with all of his subordinates, which felt great.

With the leveling up, it was clear that I had a personalized skill tree that taught me spells when I leveled up. This was the third spell I had gotten from the system, the other one's being [Shadow Well] and [Triple Mask]. I could pretty much guess that death and darkness was my domain, though it was obvious that while I could learn other spells such as [Ice Spears] from a third-party source, I had terrible control over it.

sighing, I opened up my stats page for the first time in a while

---

STATUS

     Name: Damon Maxis                                      Level: 17             

 Species: Awakened Demon Lord                         Rank: S                    

                             Title(s): 56th Demon Lord, Merciless Hunter                Fatigue: 0                                                      

---

 Health  [2100/2100]

 [/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////]

 MP [800/800]

 [/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////]

---

                         Strength: 540         Vitality:340                     

                        Agility:520               Sense:350                             

                       Intelligence:450      Points Available: 75                 

---

Effects Active:

Demon Lord's Aura - The power of a demon lord courses through your veins, +20% to all base  stats

Deal With The Devil - Due to your species' strong alignment to the evil side, leveling up is made 20% easier

Combat Frenzy - [???]

Skills:

Regeneration II

Quick-Step I

Resilience I

Hand-To-Hand Mastery II

---

Inventory

  - T-Shirt                           

  - Shorts                   

- Sneakers               

---

As I said before, my knives were long gone and all I had were my hands and legs, though it seems that it's worked pretty well so far. I did have a huge level leap when compared to last time, but even then, it seemed like my level was much lower for killing something that was level 75, though maybe I shouldn't be leveling up so quickly anyways since I had noticeably overpowered stats.

But [Combat Frenzy]  worries me. I still have no idea what it does but it doesn't sound the best...

The rest of my stats had undergone a noticeable increase and I also had 75 points that were free which meant I could put them into any of my stats. The reason I haven't yet was because I really didn't know what to put it into. I hadn't fought enough to know what I was good at, all I did was beat the crap out of a lizard and some goblins.

"I should be fine for now. But let's see what all they got from their adventure..."

I had witnessed Vilard's group take out a ton of gear that was strapped onto their horses into the castle's storage. Unlike the bandit gear, this stuff looked pretty new and valuable, but I was now skeptical about where he got it from. 

x6 [Steel Chestpiece]

x6[ Fine steel boots]

x4 [Steel swords]

x1 [ Steel tipped spear]

I looked at Vilard, who had now built a fire with his other skeleton friends. Though they said they couldn't feel any injury, they could still feel the warmth of a fire seep into their bones. They were all sitting around the fire, cooking something on a stick and passing it around.

"Skeletons can still eat? Well, that's something new."

I walked down the stairs towards them. Night had fallen, yet they looked the most alive in the dark when compared to when they were working during the day.

Vilard perked up when they noticed me coming over and stood up from his sitting position. The others also started to get up, but I waved them down.

"Vilard, do skeletons need to eat? I never knew that."

He, in turn, shook his head at my question.

"...no...just...taste....mana"

"I see... well, onto the important stuff. Where did you get all this armor from?"

I grabbed a chest piece from the dungeon's inventory and held it out, which made him tilt his head down.

"....dead...soldiers....left...behind...wasteful"

"You took the armor off the dead soldiers? I mean, from what I heard they had already left so I suppose this was justified, but you know you don't have to take it right? You were a knight in your past life, I won't use the equipment of innocent soldiers that had died to bandits. Do what you want with it."

Though it felt wrong wasting such good equipment, it probably wouldn't send a good signal to any nearby kingdom by taking off soldiers' armor and weapons from their corpses. That would probably get the entire human world on me, which I really didn't need at this moment. If in the future I fought against humans, perhaps I would do it because I would have nothing to lose. But now? No.

I pulled out the equipment from the dungeon's inventory and set it in front of Vilard, who just stared. 

"Well, tell me what you want to do with it tomorrow. I'm off to bed now."

At that, I left the pile of equipment in front of him and left for the castle to get some well-deserved rest.

---

Artia P.O.V

"Pardon, you want me to protect who now?" 

"My daughter, she needs a bodyguard now that we lost even more soldiers from the latest forest raid."

I just stared wide-eyed at the man who just asked a complete stranger to protect his 6-year-old daughter from assassins and bandits.

"Lord Terence, you're kidding, right? I don't even know how to fight, why do you think I could protect her when you have much more experienced people at your disposal?"

Terence sighed while clenching the sides of the armrests of his chair.

"I wouldn't have to if this soldier was crime-free, but we've lost most of our soldiers two years ago. New recruits aren't enough and people are leaving this place because of the close proximity to the Demon Forest. Even though you may be inexperienced, virtually nobody could harm you at all due to your defense stats. I don't expect a B rank or higher threat in this place, so please do this just for a week. Then, you can decide if you want to continue or not"

"do it, you idiot! It'll pay much better, why are you hesitating?"

Elynea interrupted their conversation, which made everyone at the table raise an eyebrow. Thogir once again smacked her on the head with a wooden stick, making her clutch her head in pain.

"Don't worry 'bout it, make your own choices."

Will nodded

"It's up to you Artia, do whatever you want"

...What should I do?

---

Hey guys!

So, I got an artist to work with me and draw illustrations for my story! Who is it you may ask? Well, it's my classmate who goes by the name MilkyMelon online, who is a phenomenal artist!  This is a draft of Char, Damon, and Artia. The colored version will be uploaded to my Patreon tomorrow. 

I will put all future illustrations on Patreon, though I may include a few that I believe everyone should see

He agreed to do future illustrations as well as my novel cover, possibly even short comic strips in the future. Also, he drew this in under an hour.

Currently, all money donated to my Patreon or Kofi will be donated to Child Haven, a non-profit international organization that helps children who are disabled, parentless, or have some other underlying condition that requires assistance.

We are aiming for 200$, so please put in anything you can!

This will end in December, with the money after that be put back into improving my story as well as providing a Christmas present for my parents.

See you guys tomorrow!

W.O.V