Demon Queened Ch. 01

"Just how big is this thing?" Jacob muttered, glaring at his computer. The words "Tower Conquest" were stretched across his screen, in large golden letters. Beneath that was the subtitle, "Can you take Dimona tower as your own?" and beneath that was a loading bar, which had been slowly filling up for the last fifteen minutes. It was still only at ninety percent, though it did tick over to ninety one even as he glared.

"...Maybe I should make a snack or something," Jacob sighed, glancing at the clock in the corner of his computer screen. It was apparently only two. Since it was the weekend, he didn't have to worry about how late he stayed up, either. In other words, he would have plenty of time to play. He was just being impatient.

"Guess I'll wait another minute..."

***

"What is the matter with you!?" I screamed, glaring at the maid in front of me.

"I-Is something the matter, my queen?" the maid asked me, causing me to glower even more harshly.

"You certainly have audacity to ask me that," I told her, looking her up and down. She was a lesser succubus, a demon whose ancestors had settled in the mortal realm some generations back. She had dirty blonde hair, cut right above the shoulders, with a touch of curl at the end. A long cord-like tail, with a spade at the end, poked out from beneath the skirts of her dress, while black wings stretched out from her backless uniform. Her eyes, like all of her kind, were pure black, making it impossible to tell just where her pupils were focusing. It did seem like her eyes were directed downward, though, instead of at me. I was glad to see she knew her place.

"I-I'm not sure what you're talking about, Princess," the maid told me. Her voice was trembling, but the tray in her hands was perfectly steady. It was actually impressive that she managed to stay so composed in my powerful presence. Not that I intended to compliment a being who was so far below me.

"Your ignorance is part of the problem," I told her, before gesturing to the very tray she was holding. "What do you see on that plate?"

"E-eggs, bacon, and toast, Princess?" the maid said, brow furrowing. "Is that not what you ordered?"

"Of course it's what I ordered, you dimwit." My lips pulled back into a sneer as I spoke. From the look of confusion on the maid's face, it was clear she had no clue what my issue was. Which, of course, only made me more irritated.

"The toast," I said, magnanimously deciding to indicate the problem. Despite that, the maid's brow remained furrowed. "Are you seriously such an idiot that you can't recognize a problem even when it's pointed out to you?"

"I'm sorry, Princess," the maid said. "I really don't know what's wrong with it."

"I don't know how it could be more obvious," I complained, letting out a sigh. It seemed I would need to point out the flaw myself if I wanted anything done about it. "The toast is cut vertically; as my maid, you should know that I prefer it be done diagonally."

"I... I see, Princess... I'll go to the kitchen and get new toast, immediately."

"That's not good enough," I informed her, narrowing my eyes. Was this woman new? I didn't remember seeing her before, but that hardly meant anything. I never bothered to memorize the appearance of mere servants. "By the time you return to me with new toast, the breakfast will have cooled. Inform the head chef that I wish her to remake the entirety of my breakfast, so that I can enjoy it all at the proper temperature."

"Understood, Princess," the maid said, bending lightly at the knees and turning to leave.

"And if you bring me the wrong thing, again, I'll have you and the chef both thrown in the dungeon," I called after her.

The maid didn't respond, but I was sure she had heard me. Just as I was sure she would do as I asked. Unless she wanted to spend a few days in a cell, at least.

"Honestly," I sighed, shaking my head. "You'd think they could at least get my last meal as a princess right..." I just hoped they wouldn't make such a crucial mistake during dinner. If they got my first meal as the queen of Dimona Tower wrong, even I didn't know how I would handle it.

***

A small ding rang out from Jacob's speakers, telling him that the game had finished loading.

"About time," he grumbled, moving his mouse toward the start button. He was grinning, though. "Let's see... Right, we start with the classic scrolling text for the game's background. Lucy the heroine has trained her whole life to fight Devilla Satanne, the demon queen - well that's a porn name if I've ever heard one. Lucy has made a solo trip to the demon tower, against the wishes of the church... Yada yada yada... Bla bla bla... Alright. So it's like Alice said - a hundred and one floors, ten generals, and the demon queen as the final boss. You seriously wouldn't know this was a porn game from the description, though... Guess that's why they put warnings all over the store page."

Jacob waited for the scrolling text to finish, then left clicked to start the game. Despite being porn, the game had a surprising amount of combat. The heroine, Lucy, had to work her way through a narrow passageway, slowly climbing up the tower, defeating demons with her sword as she went.

Most of the climb was fairly monotonous, with only the floor counter in the upper left corner telling the player how far they had progressed. Every tenth floor, however, the passageway would open up into a wide area; the boss room. From there, one had the option of either trying to seduce the demon general through dialogue, or just jumping straight to combat. Either way victory ended with the demon general submitting to Lucy, having sex with her, and then giving her part of their magic power so that she'd be strong enough to fight her way through the next ten floors. The dialogue boxes seemed to ignore the hacking and slashing Lucy had been doing so far, with the generals and Lucy both treating it as if she'd simply incapacitated all the demons she'd met so far.

The combat was exciting for Jacob. So was the dialogue, though in a very different way. Combined with the fact that every demon in the tower seemed to be a hot girl, Jacob could see why Alice had recommended the game to him. She knew Jacob was almost as fond of lesbian porn as she was, after all.

"Though it's sort of strange how all most of the demons just look like different types of monster girls," Jacob had to admit.

***

I held out my arms, allowing my maids to examine me carefully for any defects in my state of dress. My outfit was pure white, with a pleated skirt that stopped just short of my knees and a backless, armless top that hugged my breasts and showed off all my curves. All of it had been tailored to fit me perfectly, and it had even been adjusted the very day before, so there was little doubt of it fitting right. This was my coronation, though, and there was no room for error.

"Everything looks wonderful, Princess," one of my maids declared. She was a lamia, a lady with the bottom half of a snake and an upper half that was mostly human. She was also one of the many demons that served me - not a true demon, like the lesser succubus who'd delivered my breakfast, but it was all the same so far as the human church was concerned. If you weren't a human, you were a demon, and that was all there was to it.

"I have your shoes ready, Princess," another of my maids told me. This one was something of a rarity: a unicorn girl, with hair as white as white as my own, if only half as long, and a single pale horn growing from her forehead. She was holding out a pair of high heels, which of course also matched the white motif. I stepped into the proffered shoes without comment, slipping my toes through the open ends and allowing my unicorn maid to strap them on.

"Your generals are ready, Princess!" yet another maid called, opening the doorway. I couldn't see many of her features from where I was standing, but she seemed to have a faint green tinge to her skin. Perhaps a goblin, then? I didn't care enough to check.

"Let them be ready," I told the maid. A faintly ticklish sensation spread across my back, then disappeared. I heard a faint gasp from one of my maids, and it brought a smile to my lips. It was always like this when I manifested my wings. I was sure they looked magnificent today, as always - each feather as dark as the void itself.

"I'll make my way to the throne room at my own pace."

***

Jacob let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. He'd managed to seduce the final general, which was good. According to Alice, if you entered combat with her it wouldn't end until she was completely destroyed. In other words, there wouldn't have been a sex scene.

"Though it's not exactly like I really have time to enjoy it, anyway," Jacob groused to himself. It was almost seven A.M. Jacob had been playing nonstop since the night before, something he would never have done if it hadn't been the first day of his weekend. He was tired, and desperately wanted to sleep, but he was so close to finishing the game that he couldn't quite bring himself to stop playing. True, he was more or less numbly skipping through the majority of the dialogue, at this point. He wasn't even paying full attention to the sex scenes. The game let you make a save file whenever you defeated a general, though, so once the sex scene was unlocked you could simply reload the file and run through it all over again. Even if he didn't have the energy to enjoy it during this play through, being able to go through it at his leisure later would be well worth the trouble.

"Next up is the demon queen..." From what Jacob had read, the generals were only capitulating to the heroine because Devilla herself was so terrible to them. Even Lucy herself seemed to view the demons as pitiable victims of Devilla, true villainess. It made Jacob wonder just how bad the woman really was.

***

I walked into the throne room with a smile on my lips. I was calm, and confident. The coronation was barely more than a formality to me, after all. I already wielded supreme power over my people, and had since I was mere thirteen hours old. Indeed, there was only one part of this ceremony that held any real importance to me, and that was the Rite of Insight: a holy spell that would grant me access to an archive of knowledge. It had been passed down from demon queen to demon queen. Now that I was twenty one, it would finally be mine.

My generals were already waiting for me, naked and kneeling in a display of vulnerability and submission. A wooden stand had been placed in front of the throne, and atop it was a small box, made of pure gold. It would open only for a member of the royal line, and it contained the spell that would cement my position as a great and powerful demon queen.

Of course first I had to listen to the orator discuss our history. She was a wolf woman, with a bushy tail and furry ears. She was likely quite beautiful during her own time, but her long and wild hair had long since turned grey with age, and her face bore deep wrinkles. She had held the position of orator since my mother's time, making her something of an oddity. Almost everyone else who held a position in that administration, including all but one of my generals, had either resigned or been let go.

"We begin the story with the Fallen One - Luci..." The orator's voice droned on, and I found my thoughts drifting within moments. I knew most of the story already, anyhow. How long ago humans and demons, then known simply as monster girls, had warred over territory. How the angels above had declared humanity the goddess's chosen ones, even though the goddess herself had long since gone on a journey. What's more, the angels went and created the heroine, a human woman who actually absorbed magic power from the demons she killed. Even killing her did no good - another one would simply be born nine months later.

That was what caused Luci, my ancestor, to grow angry with her sisters' favoritism. Unable to turn them aside from their new path, she chose to fall from grace and descend to earth. She gathered the monster girls under her banner, helping them to fight back against the humans and their angel backing. She also chose not to fight the humans herself, however, turning her power only on the angels' aberration of a chosen heroine. Despite being made queen, her goal was to counterbalance her sisters' influence, not to eradicate humanity or lead the monster girls to supreme victory. Her descendents followed the same principle, only going to battle against the heroine, and only when the power of the angels' had grown strong enough within her.

Of course, that refusal to take part in battle was a big part of why our territory had been reduced to a single tower. One in the middle of a wasteland, no less, thanks to the last heroine unleashing a rather large amount of holy magic.

She was the one who'd taken my mother, too, when I was a mere thirteen hours old. I hated the entire thrice damned line of heroines, but I hated her the most. Jodeyne. It was all her fault that we were in such dire straits. It certainly wasn't because of anything I'd done.

Try telling that to my people, though. True, my mother likely could have led us to more victories had she not been pregnant with me. And yes, she likely wouldn't have died in battle against the heroine if she hadn't been weakened from childbirth. But to blame me for the state we were in? It wasn't my fault that we'd made no progress reclaiming our lands. I was constantly ordering the generals to do something about it, so saying I hadn't been doing my part was just ridiculous.

"And that of course leads us to our current princess: Devilla Satanne, she who will soon become queen."

The orator was staring at me. It seemed she'd finally finished droning on. My turn.

"My name is Devilla Satanne," I say, my voice serious despite the smile on my lips. "My mother was Grimmilla Satanne. My ancestor was the Fallen One, known as Luci, who took the name Satanne from her mortal wife. Right now, I stand before you as a princess. In mere moments, I will stand before you as your queen."

With those words spoken, I reached out to touch the golden box. It was warm beneath my fingers, and I could feel something like an electric current running through my fingertips as I touched it. Carefully taking each side of the lid into my hands, I looked about to make sure that all eyes were upon me.

No one moved, or even made a sound, as I reached into the golden vessel to pull out a small scroll of parchment. Opening it revealed three sentences, written in a language I did not understand. I didn't need to understand the words, though; so long as I read them phonetically I would be fine. Once the Rite of Insight had granted me the knowledge of past demon queens, I would be able to translate this and any other holy writing with ease. I'd even be able to cast holy magic of my own.

Smiling, I thought of all the power at my fingertips, and began to read the words.

"Aloosh verocka devort magnina foruus. Groona, sellis rone essel dorma dorfus noga gillar, divi woon yuul queel maka yota walla ipsiin ritell. Woon deen maka oon det devort ackella."

Wait, no - that last word was supposed to be ackello.

***

Jacob sighed in relief, leaning back against his chair. He'd finally done it. He'd beaten the game. It had taken him all night, and most of the next morning, but it wasn't like he had anywhere to go that day.

"That last fight against Devilla was seriously hard, though," he complained to himself. Even with power from all ten generals, it still felt like Lucy had been at a disadvantage during the fight. The queen had seemed able to cast a seemingly endless number of spells, on top of having an intense physical attack that could shave away huge amounts of the heroine's HP. To top it all off, if you actually wanted the sex scene, you needed to take Devilla down to the red and hold her there for ten minutes of real time.

"And she could heal herself, too... Ah, well, it was worth it in the end. Though I can't help but feel a little weird about that ending..." Unlike with the generals, Lucy hadn't been content to let the demon queen off with just a promise to reform and make peace with humans. Instead, Lucy had put a divine collar around Devilla's neck. The enchanted item not only sealed the demon queen's magic, but also forced her to obey a variety of commands. The once powerful demon queen ended up as little more than a slave.

"Well, maybe I won't do a replay on that particular scene... At least it's over, and I can finally go to bed."

It was at that moment that Jacob's phone rang.

***

My body began to glow. A flash of light filled the windowless room, rushing past the kneeling figures before me and filling the entire room. The light remained only for a moment before folding in on itself. Inky darkness rushed back towards me. Then it was over, as quickly as it had begun, and I was simply standing in a moderately well lit room.

"What..." My mouth was dry. My head was pounding. What had just happened? I remembered casting the Rite of Insight, and getting the last line wrong. Then there had been a phone call...? Yes, I had been called into work. One of the bag boys had called in sick, and my blowhard of a boss had absolutely insisted I come in. Except... Except who in their right mind would call a princess in to work as a bag boy?

Something was off. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something was definitely off. I tried to think back to how my day had started.

I'd been delivered breakfast, but the maid had brought me something unacceptable.

No, that wasn't right - I... I had stayed up all night playing a game, no? And then I'd gotten a phone call... It was my boss, demanding I come into work. Something about one of the other bag boys quitting? He'd insisted, refusing to listen to any complaints, and I'd reluctantly agreed.

Who would make a princess come into work on her coronation day, though? What would he have done if I'd been late to the ceremony as a result? I was just lucky that I'd finished my shift in time.

Did I finish my shift, though? I remembered being so sleepy that I could hardly keep my eyes open while driving. But I didn't remember actually arriving at work, yet alone finishing the day.

I was starting to get a headache. No. Not starting to - I had one. It felt like someone was trying to break my head open from the inside. My legs began to shake, and my knees to give way. It took every ounce of my willpower not to scream, even as I drove my black nails against my scalp and desperately tried to hold myself together.

Around me, the generals stayed in place. Even as I myself crumpled to the floor, they waited for the signal to rise.A distant corner of my mind wondered just how much these people feared me, and what I had done to deserve it. True, I had a tendency of throwing tantrums. Yes, I tended to bully any girl who thought she was prettier than me. If I was to be brutally honest, perhaps I'd even thrown a few people in the dungeon. But surely none of that was uncalled for from a demon queen? Surely they wouldn't just leave me to die, for lack of an order? Yet, still, the kneeling generals around me refused to move.

The pain was getting worse. My vision was starting to go dark, and my nails were digging deep enough into my scalp that I was beginning to worry I'd draw blood. With no other recourse, I managed to swallow my pride and whisper, "Help," a moment before finally passing out. Yet, even in the darkness, there was still that splitting pain.

***

I sat upright in bed, gripping the pink comforter tight enough to make my knuckles white. Before I could even open my mouth to call for help, a maid was already standing by my bed. "My queen? Are you alright?"