Zagan actually had similar memories.
Back when he was scavenging for food from the trash-filled slums, and stealing.
Back then… what did I want to be told…?
Even at the time, he probably wouldn’t have known the answer. But even so, Zagan gently reached out a hand into Nephy’s hair. As he touched her hair with his hand, he understood what was making her shudder. Staying like that, without putting any force behind his hand, he said this.
“I bought you because I need you. So don’t go on about dying.”
Back when he was scavenging for food from the trash-filled slums, and stealing.
Back then… what did I want to be told…?
Even at the time, he probably wouldn’t have known the answer. But even so, Zagan gently reached out a hand into Nephy’s hair. As he touched her hair with his hand, he understood what was making her shudder. Staying like that, without putting any force behind his hand, he said this.
“I bought you because I need you. So don’t go on about dying.”
An Archdemon's Dilemma: How To Love Your Elf Bride (Maou no Ore ga Dorei Elf wo Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dou Medereba Ii?, literally "I, a Demon Lord, Took a Slave Elf as My Wife, but How Do I Love Her?") is a romantic comedy Light Novel series about...a Demon Lord taking a slave elf as a wife. Unfortunately, years of solitude and obsessive study of magic have rusted Zagan's social skills to the point where he can barely hold a conversation with Nephelia, much less confess his love to her. Together this unlikely pair navigate the pitfalls of love and life in a fantasy setting.
The novels are written by Teshima Fuminori and illustrated by COMTA, and the first volume was published by HJ Bunko in 2017. In June 2018, J-Novel Club announced
that it would release an English translation. This was followed in December by translation of the manga adaptation by Itagaki Hako. An anime adaptation was announced in late 2022 and released in April 2024, animated by Brains Base.
This series includes the following tropes:
- 13 Is Unlucky: There are 13 Archdemons, and all of them terrify mages and Angelic Knights just by existing.
- Arc Words: Volume 2 has "Orobas", the name of Foll's father and the Church's Unification Faction aiming to unite mages and Angelic Knights. It seems at first to be the only thing tying together Foll and Raphael's subplots.
- Beat: After first arriving at Zagan's castle, he and Nephy just awkwardly stare at each other for about an hour, because neither of them know what to do now. The silence is broken by Nephy asking how he's going to kill her.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Mages are selfish, ungoverned people constantly exposed to temptation (even the few who don't accept it), and the Angelic Knights are fanatical, self-righteous pawns of a ruthless bureaucracy. But a significant contingent of both regret how they've treated the other side and only fight because they think they have to.
- Crapsack World: Of the 'great personal freedom leads to great anarchy' type. There is pretty much nothing stopping any of the hundreds of mages roaming the world from killing whoever they want, except for their own rivalries and the Church, which has both really good and really bad people working for it. It's luck of the draw who gets involved in any given situation.
- Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Barbaros, an aspiring Archdemon, has these in the manga adaptation.
- Defeat Means Friendship: A lot of Zagan's friends and members of his retinue are people he defeated in combat.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The good characters do not make use of slavery, but everyone accepts it as a cultural norm- for example, there's no emancipation campaigns, and collars are displayed in shop windows.
- Did Not See That Coming: Andras was understandably not expecting a street waif to manifest magic. This is why he's dead before the story begins.
- Enemy Mine: If the demons come back, all of humanity is fucked, so the organization Orobas, composed of both mages and Church members, is formed.
- Evil Is Easy: No mage has to use Blood Magic to gain power, but it's the easiest and fastest way. Many are (or become) evil just because of this fact- cruelty is just so much more rewarding than it was when they were normal humans, and mages are in danger just by existing.
- Fountain of Youth: Nephy was turned into a child in Volume 4. Then Zagan got hit by this in Volume 6.
- The Golden Rule: Zagan is not a compassionate man, but the reason he's the protagonist is that when he sees someone (Nephy) in the same situation as he was a decade ago, he immediately does everything he can to save her.
- Gossip Evolution: The details of what happened to the people that attacked Zagan or his friends got severely distorted by the time Zagan and his retinue were invited to a large gathering of mages. The most distorted story was that Zagan punished Barbaros for attacking Nephy by torturing him when he actually just subjugated him.
- I Meant to Do That: Zagan has no Evil Plan and is surprised by most of the dramatic events enfolding around him, but he is excellent at pretending otherwise.
- Love at First Sight: Nephy (per
Word of God) and Zagan fell in love with each other at first sight, although she was still terrified he would butcher her for magic ingredients. - The Needless: The first thing most mages learn is how to make themselves immune to illness and lessen their need for sleep. Therefore, most of them live up to a thousand years.
- Non-Indicative Name: Archdemons are not actually demons, they're mages strong enough to command demons. The translations that render "Maou" as "Demon Lord" are a little closer to the mark.
- Not Afraid to Die: Nephy is eerily calm when submits to the idea of being killed. Both people she has done this too are freaked out by this.
- Our Demons Are Different: Demons in Japanese stories are often just another race like orcs, elves or dwarves. They may be evil, they might not be. Contrary to this, the true demons of Zagan's World are more along the lines of Western or Middle Eastern thought. Demons are unknowable incomprehensible creatures from another plane or dimension. Inimical to human life (and all other life), they are very powerful, cannot be communicated with and extremely dangerous. Most people on Zagan's World think demons are long gone or were just mythological. Unfortunately they are wrong, they're coming back.
- Position of Literal Power: 'Archdemon' is just a title, but it bestows its own unique perks, like inheriting the previous Lord's demon familiar. Unfortunately, only the strongest mages in the world are even considered for the honor, so competition gets fierce.
- Satanic Archetype: The first Demon Lord (the one whose seal was split into 13 parts that empower lesser, present-day Archdemons) was so massively powerful and evil that no one, not even mages, want to unseal him. Apparently it took all of the Angelic Knights fighting together to seal him the first time, and just a sliver of his essence being released in Book 3 requires an unprecedented Enemy Mine on the part of everyone in the area. (They just manage to destroy it.)
- Sex Magic: Zagan reveals that bodily fluid exchange can be used to recharge mana. Kissing and sexual intercourse works. Which becomes a problem when Foll wants to become bigger, but Gremory's plan require Zagan to transfer large amount of mana to Foll (due to dragon's innate magic resistance, large amount of mana is required to overcome that), and since having sex with his own daughter is absolutely out of question...thankfully a kiss to Foll's forehead is enough for that.
- Spoiler Title: The title essentially spoils Zagan's promotion to Archdemon, which doesn't occur until late in the first volume.
- Theme Naming:
- The names of several characters, mostly mages (e.g. Zagan, Marchosias, Valefor, etc.), are drawn from the Ars Goetia.
- The holy blades of the church knights, meanwhile, are named after various angels (e.g. Raphael's Metatron, Chastille's Azrael). Given how the blades apparently choose their wielder, the name might be more than symbolic.
- Unperson: The revenge of an Archdemon is a slow, thorough process where everything and everyone associated with the target is eliminated until no trace of their existence remains.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: A Non-Video Game example. Needing to use human sacrifices isn't needed to be a powerful mage, however it is one of the quickest ways.
- Whammy Bid: Nephy was being sold for an opening bid of ten thousand gold, but Zagan impulsively jumped the price to one million, his entire fortune, to the shock of everyone present.
- With This Ring: It is very clear that Zagan and Nephy treat her slave collar as an engagement ring when he puts it back on her.
- World Half Full: There are a lot of people actively enjoying their lives and changing the world for the better. The heroes' problem is not finding people who want to stop the Sealed Evil in a Can from being released, but in building a society where they can work together effectively without getting into fights all the time.
