And so the story has finally concluded. There's still room for more side stories, of course. How about the magical slug and magical slime getting together and starting up their own magical girl party? They could be joined by a grachen—happy to discover [Magical Girl Transformation] solves their nondescript issue, and hence trying to remain transformed at all times—and one of the mascots. The group can run around solving problems with the power of love, friendship and slimy opposable thumbs.

Anyway, I think this story has achieved its primary goal. That wasn't a narrative one at all; I just wanted to lay claim to the achievement of longest womb arc. To the best of my knowledge, I have succeeded by a comfortable margin. (Unless you argue that Mystery getting [Astral Projection], [Telepathy] and [Translate] invalidates it, but it's not as if there's an official set of rules for this thing. There's not even a tvtropes page!)

Speaking of, the story underwent a couple of major revisions, the first before it ever hit patreon, and the second during its serialisation. The original plan was for a more traditional womb arc. Mystery would never get [Astral Projection] or any sort of communications abilities. Each chapter would be split into two parts; the first being Mystery experimenting and gaining skills inside the womb, never having a clue what was going on outside, and the second part being from the POV of everyone outside, running around and wondering WTF was happening. That didn't play out, because it was hard to sustain a story where the protagonist had no character interaction. (Which is basically the problem I'm having with An Unprepared Castaway...)

The second revision was an irreverent gender bender comedy, with a depraved MC that considered being conscious during breastfeeding an upside, not a down. That didn't work out either, because as the story progressed, things got more serious. (That seems to be typical of me. I enjoy writing absurdist comedy, and can start stories easily enough, but I really struggle to maintain them. The plot always seems to drift towards the serious. I'd really like to churn out 100k word stories set in Glimmerhome or following the exploits of Anya, but I just can't make them last that long.) Anyone who saw the start of the story on patreon will have seen a little of this version, with the original prologue in which the (male) protagonist was in the middle of reading hentai and masturbating at the point truck-kun hit. I managed to keep it up for a bit before deciding that version of the MC really didn't mesh with Mystery's later behaviour, and hence rewriting the start. You can still see a few holdovers from that version of the story, such as Sir. The bathhouse scene survived, too, albeit in a rather toned down form.

Anyway, I'm happy with version #3. It's a different story to the original plan, for sure, but it seems to have worked.

On an unrelated note, there is an interesting theory circulating about the demon lord that I'd like to officially confirm as canon. Specifically, that it is not at all stupid. In this story, yes, because it's a barely conscious egg, but in general no. Everything Dreobeth accuses it of is true—it really does act in self-defeating ways towards heroes—but what Dreobeth doesn't realise is that it's deliberate. It's implied in this story that the gods target the [Hero] at the situation in a sort of trade-off; they want the demon lord taken out with minimum collateral damage or cultural contamination. If demon and monster numbers build up, they summon a stronger [Hero], even if that means increased side effects. Conversely, if the demonic forces are weak, they send a weak [Hero]. The demon lord acting stupid therefore ensures lower quality heroes. Imagine what the gods would send next if the demon lord ordered the demons to attack the initial [Hero] as an organised army...

The demon lord respawns every century, so mere death is not a loss condition. Nor is the destruction of all monsters and demons; more can always be made. On the other hand, its victory condition is trivial; time. When the stars go out and the universe can no longer support ensouled life, it wins by default. All it needs to do is survive until then. Nothing in the local universe threatens its existence, so all it needs to do to 'win' is to ensure the gods don't bring in any heroes from outside with utterly ridiculous nonsensical powers. Perhaps the borders of the demonic forest will expand a little each cycle, enough that no-one notices or cares, but otherwise it tries very hard to not appear as an existential threat. It treats the cycles as nothing more than entertainment. A way to kill time while it waits for the universe to expire.

And then Dreobeth goes and spoils its long term plans by deciding to be intelligent.

The gods summon a ridiculous [Hero] to counter the massive new threat posed by Dreobeth, uncaring of the cultural contamination, and the resulting ridiculous [Hero] takes out the demon lord almost accidentally. Eons of patience and careful planning wasted, because one little demon didn't see the bigger picture. It's almost sad.

Anyway, now that we're at the end, the obvious question is what I plan next. There is, of course, the perpetually delayed An Unprepared Castaway, which may yet see the light of day at some point, but the next story I release will be A Broken Pact, a short story in the same sort of ballpark as Flight of a Villainess. Remember back in chapter 42, where Rose claimed that good stories didn't involve princesses getting eaten by dragons? Well, I hope she's wrong, because it's all about a princess getting eaten by a dragon. See you there. :)