Maou no Hajimekata

"Weird."

Oul shrugged when he saw the puffy, wavy crystals of magic in the dungeon core.

"What's wrong?

Lil, who happened to be coming to Oulu to report a new demon, peered together from behind.

"Core magic is diminishing"

"What, did I use a little too much magic this month?

What the magic of the dungeon core maintains is diverse. Instead of maintaining the bodies of demons, including lils and logans, they also use magical facilities for boiling water in the water hall, lighting residential areas, and housework in general, such as cooking and laundry.

"No... this is more of a drop in the amount of magic you inhale than it consumes"

"So somewhere has collapsed? Yesterday when I looked around I was fine..."

Although not even proportional, the influx of magic increases or decreases depending on the size of the labyrinth. It's almost gone since we hired Kobolt and Dwerg in, but if there's a massive collapse, the influx of magic can drop dramatically.

But Oul shook his head sideways.

"No, to see the current quantity, it seems to be decreasing gradually from a few days ago. From the way the magic flows, there is no sign that there is a collapse somewhere. Maybe the dragon pulse itself has changed."

Oul glanced at his face. If that's the case, it's going to be a little rough.

"That's the dragon vein, isn't it? It flows through the earth, a great stream of magic like a river. Is that going to change easily?

"No, I don't normally change. But it doesn't change at all."

The dragon pulse also gradually changes its flow so that the river gradually changes its flow over time. But that's a century-by-century story, and it's not about what happens in days or months.

"... maybe it was a ground sink somewhere."

That's about the reason I thought of it. The dragon pulse flows through the earth, so if the structure of the earth itself changes, so does the flow.

"Well, we're just talking about spreading the labyrinth in a different direction trying to change the flow. But we have to find out what direction it's changed. We're going to investigate."

"... you want to call Eunice or Spina?

Asked by Lil, Oulu thinks a little.

"... no, fine. We're gonna investigate from the air, and we're gonna have a lot of trouble moving around and getting picked up by the Figurines."

"Me."

Lil whispered and clenched her fist all the way around her waist.

"Well, I'll get you ready!

"Ready? Especially what you need...... hey!

Ignoring Oul's words, Lil sneaks back to his room.

"... here we go"

Staring blurry at Lil's disappeared hallway, Oul groaned with a sigh.

Lil was flying through the sky with her cheeks swollen in dissatisfaction on the sky where we both went out for a long time.

In its arms, the oul fits, gazing straight into the ground from above the sky.

"Lil, change course. It's two o'clock from here."

To Oul's instructions, Lil silently changed direction. Lil's mood, which was superior until he went outside, was plummeting because he told him to leave a white piece that he had dressed as "ready" and a lunch box in his hand.

It's like telling me to find it if I can fly in such a prominent outfit, and I'm not going to a picnic. When he yelled so, Lil threw his lunch away, reversing his willow brow but returning to his usual outfit.

What the hell, Oul sighs inside. I know Lil has expressed a blatant favor here. but I don't know sappy when that's why. It is nothing more than a livestock or precisely pet existence, such as a human being for the devil.

Sometimes feelings boil slightly, but there is no such thing as serious falling in love. Not to mention Lil is a horny devil who manipulates sex and takes a man by the hand. It's unlikely. Or so he's not even a belly that tells him to contact and manipulate Oulu. You know that doesn't work for Oulu in the first place.

At first, I thought I was just up against Eunice, who shows a great deal of favor, but these days I rather conspire with her and Spina to seduce Oulu. I have no idea why.

"I'm flying as instructed earlier, but do you know if the dragon pulse is flowing?

"No, I don't know."

Oul answered clearly to Lil, who asked him to connect between them if he was feeling somewhat better.

"Now I'm just following the dragon pulse I checked before in reverse. If the dragon pulse changes enough to shift in a few days, there must be something you can see with your eyes."

Lil stared at Oul's words still on the ground as well, but no particularly unnatural sight has spread. Meadows, woods, mountains, villages... the two continue their conversation as they jump over something like that.

"How do you find out about dragon pulse flow? If you're flowing through the earth, you can't even do magic or" Magic Eyes ". I don't even know how much it costs."

Oul snorts.

"Dig deep into the hole and find out how much magic is in the soil. By and large, if the soil about three chains deep contains 100 times more magic than normal, you can say it's above the dragon vein. If you dig it every mile, and you have two dragon vein points, you can expect the one that connects it with the line to be the dragon vein."

Three chains are roughly 60 m, a mile is about 1.6 km.

"Is that... isn't that pretty tough?

"I'm not talking about quite anywhere. I've been treated like a lunatic or a freak all my life while I was investigating dragon veins. The place that's spreading the labyrinth now is the point where the three dragon veins intersect, but it took me 20 years to figure this out. If we go that far and identify the location, it doesn't mean anything without the dungeon core."

Lil barely swallowed the word "freak."

Instead she rattled her nose and smelled the magic mixing with the atmosphere.

"Master, something faintly smells of magic"

"What? Where?"

"Mmm... that way, I guess"

Lil lowered altitude toward the sparsely wooded forest as he flared his pastries and wings. The smell of magic mixed with the atmosphere grew stronger and stronger, and Oulu clearly noticed as he approached the surface.

"What is this?

There were many steel columns embedded there. A peek from the top reveals that it is a hollow cylinder, not a pillar. Apparently, magic was leaking out of the ground through that cylinder.

"This is...! Shit!

Oulu thrusts the lil. At the same time, his feet glowed white.

Before the eyes of a thrusted lil, a pillar of light rises and the figure of an oul is enveloped.

"Ourrr!!

"No, don't come! Lilshana, 'Run'!

To Lil, who reaches toward Oulu, he shouted a cursed order. Driven by the covenant, Lil's body moves as far away from Oulu as possible, regardless of his will.

"Ooooooooooooooo!!

In front of Lil screaming, Oul's figure scratched out.