Chapter 7

“Haah.. You know, if you keep that up, one of these days I might attack you.”, Maou said as he removed the hands covering his eyes.

“Aunt Lyca!!”, Dom exclaimed in delight as he ran up to his favourite aunt.

Lyca peeled off of Maou and lifted up Dom in her arms.

Maou turned around to a woman in her late twenties. She had dark brown hair, done in plates, reaching just a little below her shoulders. Her eyes were a similar shade as her hair but there was a kind of depth to them that could suck you in. Her face was ordinary yet there was a glow to her that would make one subconsciously approach her. But more than anything, there was a feeling of transparency to her aura that could put anyone at ease. Maou knew all of those effects were a result of a combination of several different passive Skills and enchantments.

She wore different earrings in each ear, a necklace, seven rings, bracelets on each wrist and Maou knew there were more accessories under her clothes. He had checked each one with Inspect Enchantment whenever she'd appear with a new one and was still baffled by their unique effects. Heck, he'd taught her how to use some of them himself. Each piece of jewelry on her as well as some of her clothes were so amazing that he had never seen anything like it anywhere else. He surmised that their enchantment would each place within the top 1% most complex of all enchantment to have ever existed.

“Dom, what have you been teaching your daddy? His first thought upon seeing a beautiful woman is to attack her.", Lyca furrowed her brows and pouted.

Dom turned around to Maou, "Bad dada!"

[Stop teaching weird things to Dom.] Maou sent to Lyca though Telepathy.

[Oh my. And what part of my speech was weird exactly?], Lyca replied back, her voice coyish.

[You know what I'm talking about.], Maou shot back a weak glare.

[Hmm…], Lyca replied back innocently, [Nope, no idea.]

Maou sighed. He had given up winning against Lyca ages ago.

"Aunt Lyca, there ij leavej in your hair.", Dom pointed out.

"Mm?", Lyca ran her hand through her hair but came up empty. With the strength of a Hero, holding up Dom with just one arm was a piece of cake.

"Running through a forest this time?", Maou pulled closer and picked the small leaves from her hair.

"Hmm.. Oh yeah. I've been looking for a unicorn. Any idea where I can find one?", She said while readjusting her grip on Dom to hold him up better, silently enjoying the moment that made them look like a small family.

“First a Hydra, then a phoenix. Did you find all those Elementals already?”, Maou asked as he picked off the last leaf he could see.

“Mmm? Oh yeah, I met a young elusive wind elemental last to last month, completing the list.”, she replied as she played with Dom’s cheeks.

“Haah… I have no idea where you can find a bloody unicorn. And I don’t suppose you’ll be telling me why you’re looking for one?”, Maou asked with a sigh. For some reason, he was feeling particularly old today.

“Fufufufu.. It’s a secret.”, Lyca winked.

“Aunt Lyca. Whad did you get me thish time?”, Dom asked with excitement.

“Hmmm?”, Lyca put her hand on her chin in thought, "I can't seem to remember. It seems old age is making me lose my memory."

[I have a small cube that glows in different colors depending on which side you touch. Is it okay to give it to him?], While she pretended to lose her memory, she contacted Maou with Telepathy for permission.

"Aunt Lyca, ale you okay??", Dom asked with concern.

[Does it have Any sharp edges?], Maou asked back, just for confirmation. He knew Lyca wouldn't give a dangerous item to Dom.

"Dom, you need to be with me in this. Give your aunt a kiss to help her remember!", Lyca said with dramatics while putting her cheek forward.

Dom readily kissed it.

[It doesn't.], Lyca replied back to Maou.

"Oh, I can feel something coming back. This side as well.", Lyca put forth the other cheek and Dom readily kissed that as well.

[Then it should be okay.], Maou gave confirmation to Lyca.

"I've almost got it, just a little more. We need to get your daddy to do it as well!", Lyca told Dom with urgency.

"Wait, what?", Maou was taken aback as he didn't imagine he'd get dragged into their game.

"Dada, fasht!", Dom turned to Maou, pleading.

"Hurry up, I'm losing it.", Lyca shut her eyes tight and held her head.

"Dada, hully!", Dom's eyes started to turn watery as his gift seemed to be slipping away from his fingers.

Maou just couldn't ignore his son's pleading.

[You're so going to get it later.], He sent to Lyca as he moved closer.

[Fufufu..], She laughed back.

Maou leaned in and gave her a quick peck before withdrawing quickly.

"The other side now!", Lyca shot back, speaking hurriedly, "Quick, I almost have it!"

Maou didn't even bother sending a glare her way since her eyes were closed and Dom's desperate look was getting too much for the doting father to bear.

Maou gave a quick peck on the other side as well.

"I have it!", Lyca opened her eyes, while quickly retrieving a transparent cube from her dimensional storage. Her movement was so smooth that anyone without a way of detecting spatial distortions would miss it.

Dom quickly snatched it from her hand and the cube started to glow two different colors on the sides that Dom placed his hands.

"Whoooaaa…", Dom rotated the cube in his hand, it glowing different color each time he would change its orientation.

Lyca put Dom down and let him play with the cube.

"Don't look at me like that. I know it got your heart racing.", Lyca smiled at Maou who was looking at her with narrowed eyes.

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"I won't reply to that.", Maou turned his gaze away.

"Why?", Lyca approached him close and whispered, “Afraid I’ll catch your lie?”

“Dom, did you thank your aunt for the gift?”, Maou dodged her and called out to Dom.

Dom stood up and ran over to Lyca.

“Thank you, aunt Lyca!”

Lyca bent down so Dom could hug her proper and briefly used the opportunity to play with his adorable cheeks again.

"So, what have you two men been talking about me?", Lyca turned to ask Maou.

"I was teaching Dom and you happened to come up.", Maou replied.

"Dada, stoly!", Dom caught on to Maou this time.

Lyca raised one eyebrow at Maou.

"I told him the story of when William first came here, as a hero. So he probably wants to know yours.", Maou replied.

"...", Lyca started to think about something.

"First, let's move to the dining area. It's snack time. Buer must've prepared something.', Maou said as he started leading Dom and Lyca away. Dom kept playing with his new toy on the way while Lyca was lost in thought.

"Maou.", She finally responded.

"That's me."

"Can I tell the story instead? Including parts of it before I came here.", Lyca said.

"...Are you sure? Your story can be a little.. extreme.", Maou replied, carefully choosing his words. He knew Lyca's story in detail from the time she came to this world and wasn't sure if Dom was ready for it. And that was not including any R18 scenes.

"I'll censor what I think is inappropriate and tune down the gloom. I just think it'll be good for Dom to see things from a hero's perspective.", she suggested. Normally Maou would have refused but he could feel the sincerity in her speech. Sometimes he didn't like the Title of hers that had that effect but inevitably that was what had let them get so close.

He thought about it for a bit.

While Lyca's story has little in common with those of other heroes, there is some benefit to it. To understand how to deal with heroes, understanding their culture and their mindset is important, and stories are a great way to teach children. Maybe I can use certain points in her story in my lessons next time to make a point. It will certainly be easier for Dom to learn if he can associate the teachings with a story.

Maou stopped his musings before he got lost in them. He had a bad habit of doing that when it came to teaching Dom.

"Alright. The story is all yours.", He gave a short confirmation as they reached the dining area.

"Greetings, miss Lyca. Master, I have prepared snacks.", Buer the butler stood ever ready in his perfect black suit and white shirt.

"Hi Buer. Nice to see you too.", Lyca replied to the greeting. Buer the butler slightly bowed in response.

Maou, Lyca and Dom took their seats around the table and Buer started serving.

"Aunt Lyca, who will win if you and dada fight?", Dom asked.

"Hahaha", Lyca laughed, "Dom, there is absolutely no way I can beat Maou."

"Hehehe..", Dom laughed proudly as if it was his own achievement. Almost as if to hear the praise was why he had asked the question.

"But she's the last hero I'd like to fight, with all her ridiculous assortment of Skills and Enchanted items.", Maou added.

"You'll still win though, no matter what I do.", Lyca said to Maou.

"Only because I can use both Skills and spells.", Maou replied, "Actually, this is a good point to elaborate on. Listen closely Dom."

Maou turned on Teaching.

"I told you how over several centuries, almost all humans now have the System that came from the Heroes.", Maou started.

Dom nodded. He remembered that the System was originally called the Hero System and was 'hereditary'.

"Because of that, humans have become completely reliant on it and have lost all their knowledge of spells. Whereas demons who don't have the System have no choice so they continue to use spells."

Dom nodded. He knew how to use the System by looking at his Status and at the same time, he could use some basic spells taught to him by Maou.

"Spells are versatile but are harder and prone to failing if you do something wrong. You can think of Skills as perfected versions of spells to achieve a single task. To give you some examples, take Buer.", said Maou. Buer the butler's ears perked up at his mention.

"Buer uses the most amazing dimensional spells I have seen, but he can't do Hero Summoning. The amount of mana it requires is a problem in itself, but the main reason is that the spell is simply so complicated, even though it is scripted in books, that it is bound to fail nine out of ten times because of.. demon error.", Maou was about to say 'human error' but corrected himself just in the nick of time, "At the same time, the humans who use Hero Summoning with assistance from the System never fail. They also don't have to go through the cumbersome process of having to learn the spell. For the short lived humans, why this would appeal to them is obvious. But in reverse, even if a human with the System can use Hero Summoning, he can't summon anything else. On the other hand, demons with knowledge of different kinds of spells can modify the Hero Summoning to summon different objects."

"Whhoooaaa..", Dom was amazed at the new knowledge. Him being able to use both spells and Skills meant that he could grow as powerful as his daddy.

"Your mother was the previous demon lord and it goes without saying that she was one of the best spell-caster among demons. The credit goes to her for much of what I know today.", Maou added.

Dom's eyes shone bright as the respect for his mother increased in his mind, even though he had no memory of her.

"She knew the spell of Hero Summoning very well and with her help, I summoned a lot of things from Hero's world. For example, the suit that Buer wears is modelled after the one I summoned from earth." Maou pointed at Buer's suit. Even though right now, he was just shapeshifting to create the look of the suit, Dom didn't know that in case he revealed Buer's true nature in front of others. The only Hero who knew the truth was Lyca.

"A lot of food we eat is also derived from the Hero's world.", Maou's added. That it was a large part of why most of the Heroes visited regularly was left unsaid.

"Most of my battle costumes are also the same. One effect of that, is that Heroes feel relatable and are more open to conversations then."

Dom nodded. This was too much information for such a short time so he was having a little trouble understanding all of it.

Maou, who perceived Dom's troubles thanks to Teaching, continued a little more subdued, "Alright let's go back to your question. You asked who among me and Lyca would win if we fought. Firstly, note that Lyca is one of the weaker Heroes when it comes to physical fights. So she will most likely not fight in the first place."

[Hey! Where do you go off calling a woman physically weak! That's so sexist!]

Maou ignored Lyca's Telepathy and continued, "But she has so many annoying skills and items that she can still hold her ground against opponents stronger than her. For example, I have a skill Blink that lets me teleport a short distance in quick successions. I only received that skill when I was experimenting with short range teleportation spells, so you can say that skill is sort of unique to me but Lyca can do something similar with an item of hers, though it’s more restricted as compared to mine, since well, the System optimises it."

Dom nodded. He had seen his dad use that skill in fights and knew how amazing it was.

"Now just having this one skill changes a lot. If you can teleport behind the enemy and catch him off guard, even stronger opponents can be brought down. Another pesky thing is, she can somehow tame unintelligent demons and keeps a lot of them in a large habitable storage dimension item. Even if they are weak individually, that many might even be able to rip a mid-rank demon to shreds. With them and her own Skills, she should be able to defeat high-rank demons easily. I won't go into details for others but she has quite a few such crazy abilities that can be used in a direct fight. So this is one aspect of it. You already know her ability to teleport long distances, the one she used to come here. She also has an item that can let her go invisible. In case she judges she can't win, she can escape using those.", Maou explained.

"Whhoaaa..", Dom exclaimed as he never knew his aunt was so awesome. He'd only ever known her as the aunt who would always bring him gifts and play with him.

"Fufufu.. Amazing, aren't I?", Lyca said proudly.

"Unfortunately, none of her Skills or items can work against me.", Maou killed her short-lived pride, "Even if, let's say I had no idea what most of her abilities were, she stands no chance against me in direct combat so her only option is to run away. Now that is where things get annoying for me, though not impossible. For example, if she turns invisible, I would have no choice but to destroy everything in the area. In case she teleports away, a normal human would have no way to follow her but those like me and Buer who have knowledge of dimensional spells, can rip open the spatial fluctuations she leaves behind and follow her. Buer can probably do it immediately without much effort since he's way better than me at it, but I can also do it though it'll take me about a whole second to pull it off. Till then if she teleports again, I have no option but to keep following the fluctuations she leaves behind till she runs out of Mana. But I will eventually catch her since I have more Mana than her."

Dom listened to Maou with excitement. It wasn't exactly a fight scene but was close and he absolutely loved those.

"Moreover, she's friends with beings of crazy strong species like dragon and hydra. She can choose to escape to those friends of hers and they might defend her from me. And I have had enough fighting with legendary beings for one life time, so no thank you.", Maou concluded.

[You'll annihilate all of them easily, you 'bullshit-overpowered, unnecessary-character-developed' MC.], Lyca used his own words against him in Telepathy, followed by a glare for his modest-sounding way of putting things.

"Aunt Lyca ij aweshome!", Dom threw his hands up in how amazing his aunt was.

"Fufufu.. Well, if you put it that way..", Lyca turned her gaze away from Maou, her accusations all but forgotten against Dom's sincere praise.

Maou turned off Teaching and took a breather, "We have some time. You want to hear Lyca's story?"

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Supplementary teaching 1:

Lyca: Most of these enchanted items I wear use ancient magic that the System is incompatible with, for whatever reason. If you hadn’t taught me how to control my magic power without using Skills, all these would have gone to waste.

Maou: You’re welcome.

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Supplementary teaching 2:

Audience: Why don't you tell Dom that you're from Earth?

Maou: That is because the wrong people are not supposed to know that a Hero, much less a human, is the demon lord. So I'm waiting for Dom to grow up till I can tell him all the things I need to hide from him right now.