Reborn as a Reluctant Demon Lord

Chapter 21 - Underwater

Daves are, in some ways, the perfect minions.

Perfectly loyal. Surprisingly strong. And also... Very disposable.

Don't get me wrong, some people would object to sending daves off to their deaths, but it's hard for me to think the same way after witnessing how suicidally imbecilic they can be. That and the fact that I was able to just summon them out of the ether meant that I was probably the last person who would make an organization for the ethical treatment of daves.

Though maybe an organization for the ethical treatment of all the poor people of Placeholder who now had a slime monster named after them wouldn't have been remiss. However, that's a story for another time.

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I ended up losing Dave the crocodile-slayer later that day. Rest in peace. It turned out that while a dave could survive a single crocodile bite, that a second was more than enough to vaporize the poor amorphous blob.

That led to me frantically summoning another one, but otherwise, the fight went exactly the same as before.

Other than the 2 run-ins with the new crocodilian monsters, not much of note happened that day.

However, something of note did happen when we got back to camp that night. The thing of note? Science Dave was still going strong.

I walked up to it. "I guess you guys last longer than a day then. Don't you?" I stared at it as if my glare would somehow make it reveal its secrets to me. "But how much longer? I guess... Just keep sitting there, and I'll check up on you every day until you disappear."

The dave obeyed my order and didn't move an inch. Which meant that my order was basically useless, but I liked to feel like it had followed my command to the letter.

A quick checkup on the other dave showed that it was still being a good little submarine. If an entire day wasn't enough to convince me that daves don't breathe, I don't know what was going to. I was also pretty sure at that point that [Summon Dave] was an absolutely overpowered spell, but I tried not to think on that too much. Well, beyond thinking, Please don't nerf it. Please don't nerf it. Please don't nerf it.

After checking up on my science experiments, I went off with Jake again for the first watch of the night. He was a bit confused when I kept summoning daves whenever I had the mana.

"Whaddya need those for?" he asked.

A grin and "You'll see tomorrow" were the only answers I would give him. Eventually, I grabbed one of the daves and asked Jake if we could go to a swampier part of the swamp. He was a bit confused, but I insisted, so he finally caved.

He gave me a weird look as I stood there, holding one of the daves, but I staunchly refused to explain my science experiment. Any minute now. Any- A vine grabbed hold of my leg and dragged me underwater. Perfect!

I hope this works... I held the dave against the plant monster's vine, and the vine disappeared almost immediately. Yes!

I swam back up to the surface.

"That was faster than normal," Jake said. "Oh, you didn't grab the body?"

"Nope, not done with the experiment," I answered. I set the dave down into the water and then backed up.

"Are you trying to have them fight?"

"Fine, you caught me." I sighed. "I want to see what happens when a stranglevine attacks a dave. Or if they will at all, I mean it should be basically suici-" I saw a vine shoot towards the dave. "There it goes!"

The vine wrapped firmly around the dave before completely dissolving. We watched two more vines attempt the same thing before I grabbed it, and we headed back towards more solid ground.