“Whoa! Are you… are you that legendary demon king? Are you… are you going to eat the souls of us rabbits?”

“Sheena, no, that’s not it. He’s actually human. I just mistook him because his name is similar. Liz? Did you explain it properly?”

“Ahahaha! Sorry, sorry! I just wanted to mess with you a little, Sheena, after you went off on your own trying to act as bait.”

“What!? Liz-san, did you lie to the rabbit?Oh… Demon(Akuma-sama), I’m so sorry for misunderstanding after you helped us. Ah…”

“Pfft! Ahahaha! Sheena, that’s not an apology! Ahahaha!”

“Liz! Don’t be rude to the one who saved our lives!”

“My bad, my bad. Akutsu, right? Seriously, thanks for saving us.”

“Yes, thank you so much for saving us.”

“Uh, Akutsu-san… Sorry for calling you a demon. Thank you for saving Estina-san and Liz-san.”

“No… I’m just glad I made it in time.”

They’re quite the lively bunch. You’d never guess they were just on the verge of danger a moment ago. And to top it off, all three are so beautiful that I can barely keep my words together.

I mean, it’s been over a year and a half since I’ve spoken to anyone, and now I’m faced with three beauties?

What if they think I’m some sort of antisocial? Hopefully, they see me as just a shy guy.

That was a close call, though.

If I had been a bit later, the rabbit-eared girl closest to the earth dragon wouldn’t have made it.

With no signs of monsters in today’s search, I thought something was off and decided to widen my search area. Good thing I did.

Before I got here, I was actually just trying to find the staircase to the 59th floor so I could reach the boss on the 60th.

On my way, I stumbled upon a red treasure chest in a small room full of traps, so I disabled them with my [Demon Vanquisher] and looted the treasure. Inside, there was a black circlet, which I appraised and found to be a “Devil Mask.”

It had some kind of mental resistance effect listed, so I didn’t sense any curses.

I put it on my forehead to test it out.

The moment I did, it transformed with a “shing!” sound into a black mask that covered my eyes and nose.

Then, bat wings sprouted from the sides of the circlet. Pretty cool, I thought, and started messing around, doing “De-VI-L!” transformation poses for fun.

While I was at it, I figured I might try using my Wind Blade skill to make a “Devil Cutter” move, so I switched my focus from finding the staircase to searching for an earth dragon or basilisk.

But since I couldn’t find any, I started to think something was definitely off.

I suspected the dungeon might be once again accumulating up to throw a horde of monsters at me again, so I decided to get ahead of it by using my [Flight] skill to search far and wide for any sign of monsters.

Then, two rapidly moving signals that resembled monsters caught my attention.

They were moving oddly for monsters, so I decided to check from a distance and went to the location, peeking around a corner with my [Hawk Eye] skill.

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To my surprise, I saw a human man and woman, constantly glancing behind them.

It was a bit of a shock to realize I’d mistaken humans for monsters with my Detection skill, but the sight of people made me ecstatic.

It meant I was close to the surface, and I’d been lonely for so long that I wanted to talk to them.

Then, the pair suddenly stopped, and the red-haired beauty in luxurious, mithril-looking armor began yelling at the man.

I figured they were having an argument, so I decided to wait until she calmed down.

Curiosity got the better of me, though—I wanted to know which country they were from, especially since my detection felt odd.

So, I cast my appraisal magic on them.

As soon as I did, the red-haired woman turned sharply toward me and yelled.

Crap!

Did she realize I was appraising her? I quickly hid, but I could hear her shouting in a language I’d never heard before.

At first, I didn’t understand what she was saying, but then I began to pick up words like “Come out.”

I was shocked to understand her even without activating my language skill.

Normally, I need to continously activate the skill to understand a new language, but here I was, understanding her without it.

That meant she must be speaking a language I already knew: either Japanese or the language of the Termina Empire.

I looked around the corner again and saw that a section of the wall near the pair had slid open to reveal a hidden room.

The woman, still glaring in my direction, was pulled into the room by the man.

I was stunned for a moment, but then ran to the wall as it closed.

When I checked it, I saw a familiar magic circle at the corner of the wall.

I think I’d seen similar magic circles every ten floors, starting from the 30th, each one marking the area just before a boss level.

At first, I didn’t understand them, but I realized then that they were elevator shortcuts for the dungeon.

I tried placing my hand on the magic circle to pour in some mana, but nothing happened.

There must be some condition for activating it.

Maybe you need to clear each floor in order from the surface, or register something at the surface first.

I gave up for the moment and remembered how the two looked like they were running from something, so I decided to fly down the path they’d come from, using my detection skill.

Soon, I found three human signals along with those of an earth dragon and a basilisk, so I hurried to the location.

When I arrived, sure enough, it was a battlefield.

Two dead bodies lay nearby, and two more women with injuries were against the far wall at the back

Beyond them, a woman was yelling something as she ran toward the earth dragon and basilisk, raising her arms.

The women had the pointed ears of elves and the animal features of beastfolk, which surprised me, but I didn’t have time to think about it.

I quickly subdued the earth dragon with [Demon Vanquisher], healed the two injured women with Middle Heal, froze the remaining monsters, and took a closer look at the women.

Sure enough, they looked like an elf, a cat-girl, and a rabbit-girl.

All of them wore thick black leather collars, around 10 cm wide.

The pair I’d seen earlier, as well as the two dead women lying nearby, didn’t have those.

The red-haired beauty, along with the language that she used, made me realized that these girls were from the Termina Empire’s world.

This made me wonder: maybe, ever since the dungeon appeared, Japan and some country has been secretly protecting these people from another world.

Judging from the appearance of several people, they came from previleged class, but they also refused to free these children, who were probably slaves.

The government turned blind eyes, as they need their information about another world and dungeons.

Or, the worst-case scenario is that during the year and a half I’ve been down here, the dungeon somehow returned to their original world.

If it can appear out of nowhere, it might just as easily vanish.

In that case, if I’m in the Termina Empire’s world, I’d probably be captured in no time.

The idea of being at the mercy of a powerful empire that’s ruled the continent for over 2000 years is terrifying.

Determined to get some answers, I decided to ask these girls what they knew, trying my best to sound cool, like a royal aristocrat

The result?

I stuttered a bit and got mistaken for some “Demon King.”

They even started calling me “Lord Demon (Akuma-sama),” like a villain from a Saturday morning superhero show.

Even when I tried to introduce myself in my broken English, the elf girl kept looking at me with admiration, calling me “Akuma sama” constantly

I guess this elf girl really likes demons.

Eventually, the black haired, cat eared, and model-like girl nearby understood, explained things to the elf, and we sorted out the misunderstanding.

Then, I went around finishing off the earth dragons.

Thats when I came across the rabbit-girl with bumpy figures, who’d fallen back in shock at the sight of the dragons. I told her that it was safe now and she could join her friends. I think I managed to say it in a gentle voice.

After storing the dragon’s remains in my spatial storage bracelet, I returned to them, and that brings us to the conversation at the beginning.

Well, I’m glad I made it in time. If I’d been too late and these beautiful girls had died, I don’t think I could’ve forgiven myself. I’d probably shut myself away again.

The two women lying dead nearby were also quite beautiful, but something about the collars around their necks and their overall appearance made it hard for me to sympathize with them

And then there’s the elf and the bunny-eared girl’s…chests.

The elf might be an F-cup, and the bunny-eared girl…a G-cup, maybe even an H.

This isn’t the kind of slim-built elf you see in novels or anime—more like the adult-rated type. Not that I’m complaining.

“A-kutsu? Akutsu-san?”

“Huh? Oh, uh…what’s up?”

I’d been looking at the elf and bunny-eared girl’s chests, pretending to be deep in thought, when the elf suddenly started talking to me.

I met her sharp blue gaze and took in her strikingly beautiful face and her long, golden hair, cascading down her back with her long, leaf-shaped ears sticking out at a sharp 90-degree angle.

She’s gorgeous… And that green tunic with those bare legs—perfect. And that blue leather chest plate? I wouldn’t mind becoming that chest plate, honestly.

“Um, Akutsu… Are you from the world of [Earth]? From a place called [Japan]?”

“Yeah, that’s right. So…you guys came to this world along with the dungeon?”

“Huh?”

“What? Is that…not the case?”

Wait, did I just get transported to another world? No way—that would be bad news! There are people I still need to get revenge on!

“It wasn’t just the dungeon, actually. The entire continent got transported…about a year and a half ago. Didn’t you know?”

“Huh?”

“Then…you also didn’t know that the countries of [Earth] have been conquered by the Termina Empire?”

“What? Conquered? The Earth, conquered by the Termina Empire? Wait… WHAT?!”

Her words went in a direction I could never have predicted, and I was left in absolute shock.