"Foolish adventurers, you face the mighty prince of all demons! I am Valkner Gaustein, destroyer and pillager of worlds! And now, you shall-"
His monologue ended short as one of the adventurers fired a gleaming arrow into his chest and punctured one of his hearts.
"... Huh?"
Another arrow sank deeper and the screams of two of the adventurers leaping at him with their blades caused the prince to recoil. Their blades cut through his shoulders and struck another of his five hearts.
"W-Wait, I-I only have five hearts! No! Stop! Noooo!"
The demon abruptly sat up in his bed, reaching out and trying to cast his trusty Fireball!
Spell [Fireball] unavailable.
Oh. Right.
Valkner slipped out of his bed -- a mediocre one with a squeaky wood frame and its bedding starting to spill -- and got to his feet with a defeated sigh. The two hundred year anniversary since he groveled for his life was coming up in a few months yet it still caused him night terrors. He -- the mighty Demon Prince -- left traumatized at the hands of mortal heroes. Of course it was much worse than that since they not only killed four of his five hearts but also killed his father. All of his siblings had scattered into the wind and had been getting hunted or put under seals to be left to the services of lesser beings. Except for him, that is; he had been left to his dungeon out of pity for sniveling at the feet of the great heroes.
How was he supposed to know that they would attack him while he was giving his speech!?
His right hand raised and carefully brushed along the stubs of his long-severed ebony horns before it moved to rub the center of purple forehead. Valkner had grown to sleep shirtless so he could feel their handiwork as well; his hand brushed over the large valley of a scar that ran from his shoulder to the top of his left chest, skipped down to tap the twin arrow marks near the bottom of the left side, then slipped across the magical burn scars that had melted through his right chest and out his back. They'd done a fine job obliterating those four hearts despite being "heroes" -- they fought like absolute madmen and women! They'd at least left him both of his cherry pink eyes and everything else on his body. Including the pride of any demon -- his spaded tail! His wings hadn't been taken by them directly so he didn't count them. Despite being six feet tall and packing some muscle in his prime, his aging had dropped him to a mere five feet and seven inches tall with much of his muscles softened and lost to slimming.
He missed his wing -- along with much of his powers -- but they made him surrender his power to their gods and goddesses so there wasn't anything he could do. All the skills and strengths he had built up were taken and he was left as nothing but a mere... weakling.
The first few years had been particularly rough since his dungeon hadn't been entirely swept clean. All the other monsters who had been loyal continued to serve him and tried to help him train -- the only problem was that the gods had ensured the only way for Valkner to regain his power was to be good. Their evil natures had prevented any chance of him learning, forcing him to watch for many years as they were picked off one by one by traveling adventurers. The Slime Princess bottled, the Lizan Princess of taken as a trophy wife for the Dragonling Prince and then there was Wolfgirl Princess who left to become a traveling dancer! All the women -- and the few male monsters -- had eventually left, died or vanished until he was all alone.
It wasn't until he'd met a merchant traveling through the lands in the wake of the heroes that Valkner learned two skills he had managed to refine over the years.
[Disguise] and [Basic Trade].
Neither of the skills had ever been of use for a warrior but had allowed him to do more than crawl around and eat dead animals. Valkner walked to his mirror and clapped.
Mastered [Disguise] skill activated; select disguise.
"Day-to-day."
His magic focused and wrapped his entire body in a pillar of free-flowing mana, feeling his features soften and the masculinity in his face become androgyny. His ears grew longer and flicked slightly outward while his horns slipped away beneath pale, creamy skin. His hair stayed the same style but flashed blonde while his eyes turned a sickening level of sky blue. Everything about being an elf sucked and Valkner hated that worst of all it wasn't even one of the true knife ears. His disguise was based on the very same half-elf he had met so long ago.
Valkner looked back and watched his tail slipping out of existence and finally leave the image in the mirror the ideal half-elf male. That stupid mage had said it was but his ideal half-elf male would be far more effeminate and would bend to his will, serving their soul and body to him for all eternity so that he could sustain a long and powerful life!
"... Valkner, what happened to you?" The mirror didn't answer but he wished it could. "... Remember. Your name... is..."
"Valentine? What kind of dumb name is that?"
The adventurers laughed amongst themselves as the half elf tried his best to maintain some form of a smile. All they saw was a tired one.
"It's my name so... would you all like rooms or-"
The party of four's warrior turned and walked closer before setting their war axe on the counter. More specifically, they drove its blade into the wood and leaned down to him from their impressive seven foot height advantage.
"No thanks; you built your inn next to a dungeon that doesn't even have monsters. What kind of sap would completely clean out their own dungeon and run a dump like this?"
All of them turned and set off out the door, leaving Valkner -- or Valentine in his disguise -- to stand there facing the door in shame. Or at least that's what he felt it probably was. He didn't have the carpentry skills like the men who had built it and even they hadn't done a great job. The inn itself was in poor condition after all.
[https://i.imgur.com/uYEFidg.png]
His inn was only a measly Level 1 thanks to their craftsmanship -- all of the rooms were basic, the dining area didn't provide buffs or even decent comfort and his storage room was generic. He didn't even have a proper kitchen to work from which meant he could only serve foods that were raw like fruit, cheese or bread. It honestly was far from ideal for Valkner and only made him hate his situation in life more. The only highlight was getting to see the one person who had made running this inn bearable in the last two years in particular.
The door swung open and in walked a stocky woman only about four feet tall. Her height made her somewhat stumpy but being a dwarf meant she had curves; the muscle of her body in particular kept her thick body padded with a soft layer of plush push. Calling her fat would be like calling well-figured mothers fat and he simply wouldn't have it. Her tight ass had lift and her chest could fill any man's hands regardless of their race. But the real kicker wasn't below the shoulders.
The dwarf girl's head was a bit wider than most might enjoy but the smoothness of her jawline made up for it. Her amber eyes were big and slightly farther apart as if they wanted to be the only thing you ever saw, sat upon her button nose and plump-lipped grin like a man might wear a hat. She kept her black hair pulled back into a messy bun that always seemed to be losing cohesion as if it was a curse. Every day she came to him, she'd flash her thick lashes at him before waving and saying the same thing.
"Hey Val! How's business?" Her dwarvish voice had a mature swing to it that mislead most into thinking she was old. Of course she was only in her forties so it wasn't as if she was even close to Valkner's age. But she also had a thriving farm that made money and kept him fed.
"... Bad, Yvette." He pointed toward the door and sighed. "I guess you saw my would-be customers on the way out?"
Yvette rolled this colorful gems she called eyes before she turned and lept up onto his counter. Her overalls clung to her butt nicely and seemed to try and bring the demon's gaze down to her thighs... but instead she looked over her shoulder and winked at him.
"You'll get some eventually -- it's almost harvesting season and adventurers come in droves! Heck... maybe some monsters will move into your dungeon!"
Valkner gently leaned over the counter, looking toward her backside for a moment before a quick punch to his arm knocked him face-first into the wood. She might have had a killer body but Yvette had grown observant of his watching. If she knew he hadn't been laid in almost two centuries she might have been even easier on him. She had a great idea of just how weak his passive Endurance was though so she didn't do more than make him sting.
"I'm serious! Stop thinking about my butt so much and maybe think of your customers! If you keep failing at running this inn, the local lord might actually come and shut you down!"
Except the local lord was the descendant of one of the heroes and kept him under tight watch as some part of heroic duty, acting like some damned parole officer checking in on him.
"... Right." Val refused to repeat his thoughts so he instead pushed himself up to his feet and looked toward his storage. "I think that I'll try setting out more traps today. Maybe I'll lure a Giant Rat or Mystery Bug into the dungeon that might bait some sucker adventurers into delving it."
Yvette looked at him in disbelief but tried her best to look understanding of him. "You don't think you'd be better off trying to sell some of your sakura tree flowers or cherries?"
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Valkner's head turned, looking out his window and down the poorly fenced yard of his inn at the trio of trees in his garden. They stayed in bloom throughout most of the year thanks to a parting gift from the Demon Moss King yet the cherries were awful. Yvette teased him often that selling them to adventurers often meant they turned the cherries into weak poisons. If he knew any crafting skills or gardening skills, he could either improve the cherries or make poisons himself.
Getting money without skills always felt so impossible.
"... Yvette, why don't you teach me how to use the Garden skill? I can give you a free room and-"
A punch to his gut dropped Valkner to his knees and his chin struck the counter. Yvette's cheeks puffed up and she openly wore her anger as she waved a finger at him.
"Like last time when you tried sneaking into my room? You're lucky I'm still your friend you half-elf pest!" Yvette waited until her scolding sank in and Val seemed to sink an inch lower into the floorboards before finally relenting and looking to the door with a sigh. "I don't have the time to stay here long enough for that either. You would be better off just refining your Trade skills."
"... Can we trade now, then? I-I need to restock a bit..."
The dwarf sat still and Val kept his head hung yet eventually she relented and pushed herself down to the floor and turned to face him. "Fine. Stand up and let's engage a trade."
Valkner did as ordered with a spring to his step and reached over the counter to offer her his open hand. It was the only true prolong contact he made with women -- or really anyone -- when he traded... and feeling her rough hands slip into his sent shivers down his spine as the personal menu sprang into his sight.
Your Selected Items |Trade| Yvette's Selected Items
50 Gold
1x Canvas Bag (Full)
Do you accept the trade? > Yes / No
A quick nod of his head and Yvette doing the same ended the trade but not their hands touching. Yvette reached back to her waist bag and Valkner reached to his coin purse, feeling out the gold.
Do you wish to activate the Trained [Basic Trade] skill? Yes / No <
This time he chose no because of how his skill worked. [Basic Trade] allowed vendors to try and wrangle the better end of a deal. Between friends it was considered a filthy move to use skills like it and after he tried it on a few adventurers he felt bad about what it could let him do to Yvette. She'd never cheated him and today certainly wouldn't be the day. Yvette pulled free a large canvas bag and set it on the counter before their hands met and the five coins -- all of them considered "grinners" that counted as ten each -- swapped into her ownership. His hand then moved to grab the bag before her rough grip slipped free and they were apart at last.
"I gave you a lot of bread and fruits this time since we had some trees ready ahead of time. You'll be alright with just that, won't you?"
Valkner nodded and watched Yvette's face light up in satisfaction; perhaps it had softened him these last two years to see him make her day but this was the aspect of living a life as a normal person he enjoyed. As much as a normal life one could call his anyway; having to use the [Disguise] skill anytime he left his room and being the Demon Prince had its quirks that weren't exactly common. The dwarf lass made her way out of the inn and back to her waiting cart, leaving him alone. Valkner's gaze shifted down to his coin purse and pulled it off its string before dumping it out on the counter. There wasn't a Bag of Holding in his possession so he carried all of his money in a state-issued Gold Bank Pouch instead. It taxed him every time he made any transaction and took five percent of anything over ten gold.
He only had five gold left.
"Excuse me, is this an inn?" A heavenly voice calmly asked.
Valkner slammed his hand down over the gold and looked up, hurriedly nodding at a newly arrived woman. But something was off -- Val felt his skill menu lurch for the first time in ages.
[Disguise] skill check; rolling 1d100. 2 or higher needed to pass.
Result: 3.
Someone actually checked if he had a disguise?
The woman in front of him didn't even look special; she seemed like some normal, plain-skinned human girl wearing a dirty robe! She didn't have any special curves or an amazing face! The complete opposite of the normal adventuring female!
Skill [Identity Check] learned. Skill mastery level is Basic.
[Identity Check]
A skill useful for verifying the identity of a being or object.
At basic mastery, the skill can only be used on living beings.
At trained mastery, the skill can additionally be used on chests, bags and containers.
At proficient mastery, the skill can be used on non-magical items.
At mastered, the skill can be used on magical items.
Valkner couldn't help but see this as a twist of fate -- she taught him a skill from using it on him? Perhaps she was wearing a disguise too; but if she passed the check or had a similarly Mastered [Disguise] skill then it would alert her to him making it back. But what did he have to lose with this new face intruding and trying to poke around to find out who he is?
Basic [Identity Check] skill used.
Result: Critical Success!!!
Valkner actually succeeded? Not only that but he critically succeeded? He couldn't help but smile, watching a menu pop up and half of the woman's visage shift. But he didn't expect what he saw at all.
[https://i.imgur.com/F27kdxn.png]
Half of the girl's body shifted into one of the few halfbreeds that he had only heard about back in the days of the great demon empire. The unholy harmony of a slime and a human formed together as a half-slime. A semi-skeletal girl floating within the protective barrier of slime; yet many tales indicated that such slimes were far from undead. Instead, the human half of the slime could contract their slime and form a replacement for skin while their cores still acted as the beating heart. It was no surprise that the slime had poor disguise values though. Racial skills were obtained only at a Trained level and required investment to improve.
But it also explained why she had checked him -- slimes instinctively use things like [Identity Check] to verify if someone else is another slime-in-hiding. The girl reached out her hand and the visage of her true identity slipped away to her disguised one.
"Are you renting out rooms? I'd love to buy one out and-"
Valkner interrupted her with a simple raise of his hand, staring at her for a few long seconds as he thought of the best way to show he knew her identity. Coming out and saying he saw through her disguise wouldn't be smart... so it'd be Option B. The demon prince reached out and pushed his hand through her chest and grabbed the core from within her ribcage and pulled it free.
The slime girl's face twisted in horror and her disguise flaked away in seconds, reaching her hands out for the core. She was forced to pause when Valkner raised it in preparation to slam it on the counter.
"None of that, slime. I want to know why you're trying to rent one of my rooms." He pointed his free hand back through the door and toward the distant dungeon entrance. "There's a perfectly good dungeon over there! Why wouldn't a monster like you want to live there!?"
The blue girl's slime morphed and shifted but her skeleton inside was her true actor -- she raised a bony finger to her mouth in what must have been a frown.
"W-Well... I... I don't... want to get slain! A-And... I... er..."
The silence hung as she didn't finish her statement; unfortunately for her, anyone who knew slimes wouldn't have blamed Valkner for the scowl he put on.
"You were going to eat me?"
"... W-Well... yes." She pouted before sinking toward the floor, feeling her goo grow more and more out of control. "B-But I-I won't if you g-give my core back... please!"
The demon prince didn't blame her for being so subservient; monsters had a sense of survival that he had abused long ago. It wouldn't be right if he didn't pity her but letting her off scotfree wasn't doable either. So he had a better idea... one that brought a smirk to his elf guise and sent chills down the half-slime's spine.
"I'll give it back... if you agree to work under me."
The slime girl and the core in his hand pulsed twice as if her body's heart fluttered.
"Not like that." he barked, slowly offering her core outward as well as his free hand. "I do like that spirit and enthusiasm... but I'm not what I seem either. So if you help me run this inn, I'll even feed you."
The promises resonated in the slime girl's head for only a few seconds before she took his hand and the trade interface popped up.
Your Selected Items |Trade| Jigalta's Selected Items
Jigalta's Core
Servitude (Unspecified Length)
Do you accept the trade? > Yes / No
The bony girl's core illuminated with a magical seal he hadn't seen in years before he slipped it into her slime body and backed away. The glow was his name written in the demonic text, signified as a source of dominion. And when she looked down at her core and saw it, he couldn't help but feel pride. For the first time in years, he'd share his identity with another monster and-
"What does this say?"
Her question resonated around the frontroom of the inn painfully, forcing Valkner to collapse back into his chair. If she can't read, she can't man the front desks... which means his new worker at best was going to be useful for cleaning rooms. Of course she could learn skills without the same restrictions of others teaching him -- through demonstration or use it seemed -- so maybe she could acquire the skills needed to help run this inn that he'd sorely lacked all this time. For the first time in almost two centuries, Valkner couldn't help but sigh in relief.
Except the slime girl ruined it by leaping over the counter and plopping down on top of him. The pair of them fell over and slammed on the ground. Valkner was left stunned but not because of the fall; Jigalta had let her slime start condensing and thickening, forming a blue layer of skin that pushed and pressed into him. She smiled down at him while her hair absorbed some excess slime and spilled out in a brilliant cascade and her eyes formed like sapphires. Her core vanished beneath the now non-transparent layer of slime-skin, buried deep beneath a bouncing pair of breasts. Her butt -- and most of her body -- took on an average-looking weight and size but with a tantalizing jiggle at the slightest touch. Since slimes didn't wear clothes, he could feel her rubbing up on him and noticed her staining his shirt in the process.
"Okay boss," she giggled and sat up to look down on him through the gap in her cleavage. "I guess I'll be staying with you. Make sure you feed me lots." Jigalta waited for him to nod, giving him a cutesy wink.
"Let's make this inn the best, then! But um... what is the place called? I can't read so-"
Valkner raised a finger to her plush, jiggly lips to silence her before he pointed at the sign. "You better memorize it then."
"Gaustein's Demise... a perfectly unrelated inn name that was named after the heroi- er... totally understandable defeat of Prince Gaustein at the hands of the Legendary Heroes."