Webcomic / Mage & Demon Queen

Mage & Demon Queen is a Webcomic by Color_LES.

In a fantasy world that is not an MMORPG, but operates by a lot of the same rules, teams of human adventurers seek to challenge the Demon Tower. Whoever can ascend to the top floor and defeat the Demon Queen Velverosa will gain fame and fortune and a rich reward from the kingdom.

But the queen is very powerful, and no party has ever survived a clash with her. One particular thorn in her side is Malori Crowett, a particularly powerful young mage that has repeatedly reached the top, only to have her party eradicated (fortunately, Death Is a Slap on the Wrist here.) But that's not holding back Malori, who is more determined than ever.

Not to kill her, oh no. To win her hand (and the rest of her body.)

And so a silly yuri Romantic Comedy begins.

The first season ran from August 2018 to May 2019; the second season ran from August 2019 to January 2021, and the third and final season ran from June 2021 to November 2023

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Includes examples of:

• Aborted Declaration of Love: Velverosa almost manages to finally confess to Malori and herself that she likes her... only for her to blurt out "I like killing you." instead.
• Abusive Parents: Malori's biological parents sold her off to slavery when she was a young child, giving her severe abandonment issues, and an overly idealized view on the power of love.
• Achievement Mockery: Throughout the story Malori unlocks a new title and an achievement, with the pop-up notifications being hilariously ill-timed. She gets the 'Dragon Tamer' title once she and Velverosa officially start dating, which said Dragon reacts to extremely poorly, and she acquires the achievement 'Came and Went' after, well...
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: When Vel sneaks into the human capital in disguise, she's shocked by how little demon currency is worth- decades of adventurers bringing it back as loot have caused its value vs the kingdom's money to plummet. What Vel had thought was a decent amount of money to bring with her instead turned out to be pocket change.
• All Genes Are Codominant: Zig-Zagged. In the epilogue, some of Vel and Malori's children display an even mix of their traits while others have one side being more dominant to varrying degrees.
• Alternate Universe Fic: Melathia is quite fond of making fanfiction involving Velverosa and Malori in alternate universes, such as with the roles switched, or in a school setting. It has also been subject to a holiday special, which imagines what would have happened if Velverosa adopted Mal after she torched the Wretched Hive she was living in.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Among demons, authority is established through strength, with tournaments held to determine leaders.
• Babies Ever After: Vel and Malori in the Distant Finale. And how. A family group photo reveals that they have a total of twenty children ranging from a few months old to adulthood in age.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Velverosa keeps killing Malori. That's about as belligerent as you can get.
• Best Her to Bed Her: Melathia told Malori that she would have to defeat Velverosa in order to romance her, due to the Asskicking Leads to Leadership culture of the demons.
• Better than a Bare Bulb: The comic strip pokes fun at just about every trope it uses.
• Big Damn Kiss: In Volume 2, Chapter 51, Malori demands that Vel tell her how she feels about her and Vel responds with this. In episode 54, after Malori is almost killed by Axel, Vel pulls a Big Damn Heroes and kisses Malori again, only this time spelling it out for her that she loves her.
• Birthmark of Destiny: Some people are born with Magic Crests, that look like birthmarks, and have exceptional abilities and powers. For specific examples, see Malori and Princess Leora in the Characters page.
• Brick Joke
  • After realizing that Connoleth's disguise does nothing to hide her horns and tail, Velverosa downs a transformation potion that hides them, but also has a side effect of inducing extreme drowsiness. (This is usually a benefit, because most demons use it so they don't have inconvenient protuberances making it hard to sleep.) Many strips later, after catching up with Malori and sharing a Cooldown Hug with her, Velverosa just tumbles over and falls asleep — the side effect of the potion finally catching up to her (even though she has earlier dispelled its main effect).
  • Malori "accidentally" kills two hired adventurers while firing spells at Vel. Many pages later, Cerik runs into them post-revival, and has to give them a pile of gold as an apology. Turns to drama much later when they show up a third time with a couple of their own thugs, who start beating up Malori for revenge. Until Vel shows up and instakills the lot of them.
  • When a random adventurer steals the mercenaries Malori wanted to hire, Malori bombards him with spells until he passes out, so she can take them instead. After their lengthy misadventure, she disappears for a few days; Cerik eventually finds her still in her coffin at the church, and bullies the priest into letting him pay to revive her (normally against the rules). She thought she'd budgeted plenty for her resurrection fee, but it turns out her little stunt in the guild hall caused a lot of damage to the building—the restoration cost was automatically deducted from her savings, leaving her in the red.
  • Early in the series, Cerik steals a shed snakeskin of Melathia's while ascending the Demon Tower. The comic makes it a point that Melathia never noticed it was missing. Several dozen episodes and an entire season later, Cerik finally confesses to the theft and this is what Melathia has to say:
    "Why, you sonuvabitch."
• The Bro Code: In a female example, Princess Leora is not happy when her mother offers to poach Malori's First Kiss.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Malori fell in love with Velverosa after Vel destroyed her slavers' village and freed her. Vel doesn't really remember; she was just sacking another human village and freeing demon POWs at the time.
• But Thou Must!: Malori to Cedric:
  Malori has invited you to join her party. Accept? Yes -No- Yes
• Cast Full of Gay: So far, the only straight character we've seen is Cerik (who only seems interested in female lamia). Vel seems to be gay and had a relationship with a woman before Malori, Malori is Vel-sexual, and the first question out of Alto's mouth when he hears he's getting a royal audience is "Is the king hot?" The author stated that the culture believes everyone to be pansexual by default, unless otherwise stated.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Starts out as strictly romantic comedy and slapstick humor focusing on Malori's pursuit of Velverosa. Takes a more dramatic, serious tone in later seasons as the darker aspects of the world such as the Fantastic Racism are explored, although there's still plenty of the romance and comedy.
• Climax Boss: The Summoned Hero, Axel, proves to be one at the end of season 2, being able to negate Velverossa's defenses with his Cool Sword and seriously wound her, while also being able to shrug off multiple high-level spells from Malori thanks to his insanely high magic defense. He also demonstrates no qualms in using attacks that will level the city and kill hundreds to try and stop them. Malori and Vel only manage to escape thanks to Malori's old master teleporting them away after the end up trapped between the city's protective barrier and a super attack Axel is charging.
• Content Warnings: One is placed at the top of Season 3-Episode 22, for trauma flashbacks and parental abuse.
• Continuity Nod: In Season 2, Episode 2, Velverosa is shown waking up in bed without her horns. On Twitter, the author explained that she took the transformation potion from the end of Season 1 for its intended purpose.
• Cooldown Hug: Malori offers this to Queen Vel in Chpter 70. Queen Vel, still not trusting humans, refuses her offer and binds her instead, before coming in to hug Malori herself until she falls asleep.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears:
  • In one of the non-canon extras, Vel covers Malori's ears when Melathia starts reading out one of her erotic fanfics.
  • In a flashback, Leora's mother did this (ineffectually) when her father mentioned that he apparently recruited one of his allies by outlasting him in bed.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: If you die in the demon tower, your body appears in a casket at the local temple. Although they'll throw you out to rot instead of reviving you if you have no money left.
  • Deconstructed by the humans. In real life and other fictional settings where this trope is averted, the concern for death means there's a deterrent to war and a motivation to stop war. Since the humans have the Mana Tree to resurrect them every time they die, there's no actual risks to combat. It's because this trope is in effect that the humans have nothing keeping them from completely wiping the demons out. Queen Vel develops and empowers the Mana Cannon for the sake of destroying the Mana Tree and thus end the disparity.
• Distant Finale The finale takes place 25 years after the previous episode, showing what became of various characters.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Played for Laughs. In season 2, episode 1, King Albert Siegwald assumes that Malori's being one of the top students of the Adventurer's Academy, and her constant, repeated trips to the 100th floor means she absolutely hates Velverosa, will stop at nothing to kill her, and is thus humanity's best champion in their war against the demons. Anyone who has read up to this point will know that can't be farther from the truth.
  • Once more Played for Laughs, later in the season one of Malori's coworkers notices her staring at dragon-form Velverosa and assumed she was looking at her anus. He promises not to say anything about her fetish. Malori can't defend herself without explaining how she feels about Vel (and subsequently becoming a pariah in human society, among other consequences), so she just has to live with it.
• Entertainingly Wrong: As seen in Dramatic Irony, King Albert believes Malori must hate Velverosa due to how many times she has attempted to fight her.
• Everyone Is Bi: The author stated that the culture believes everyone to be pansexual by default, unless otherwise stated. Other sexual orientations do exist, but nobody makes a particular point about it.
• Fantastic Racism: Neither humans or demons really like each other, for the most part. At one point, Malori suggests King Albert that she might be able to find a peaceful solution, since the current Demon Queen hasn't done anything besides defending herself. However, his Majesty goes on a rant about how all demons must be destroyed so that humans can reign supreme and even the other adventurers find this disturbing. One has to imagine his long, storied journey to defeat a previous Demon King and seeing first-hand the kind of destruction and misery that this Forever War has brought has forever tainted his view.
• Fetish:
  • Cerik has a fetish for snake women and stockings. When he meets Melathia, the first lamia he's seen since his first encounter with them as a child, he sheds Manly Tears, then sneaks into her bedroom and steals a shed snakeskin to snuggle with.
  • In an omake strip, Melathia's fic series about Vel and Malori is rejected partly because it's chock full of fetishes.
    As the dragon is unable to live without her, the series ends in vore.
• Flashback: A handful of them are used, to explain how Malori and Cerik became friends and adventuring partners, and Velverosa's life before becoming the Demon Queen.
• First Kiss: In episode 51 of Season 2, Vel finally kisses Malori after coming to terms with her feelings.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: Parodied when Fenn appears to be guzzling booze. As she slams the bottle down, you can see that it's labeled "Juice," even though it's clearly the type of glass bottle normally used for alcohol.
• Funbag Airbag: In episode 27 of season 2, Malori, walking around the demon tower lost in thought, accidentally faceplants into Vel's chest.
• A Glass in the Hand: Vel crushes the wine glass she's holding when she sees that Malori has brought party members with her to meet the queen.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: When she weakens Velverosa in combat, Malori has small angel and devil versions of her appear, representing her conflicting thoughts.
• Happily Ever After: Velverosa and Malori, and Melathia and Cerik are happily together by the epilogue.
• Harmful to Minors: The strip has numerous instances of young characters being exposed to traumatizing or highly inappropriate content for their age. This is either treated as a dark and serious matter or the subject of dark humor.
  • Drama: Malori's biological parents selling her to slavery and Malori later watched the town soon get ransacked and burned to the ground by Velverosa and her army. Velverosa was manipulated by an older woman she was fond of so she could break into Vel's home and loot the place.
  • Comedy: Malori's being kidnapped, caged, and forced to repeatedly torch a demon to death for his masochistic pleasure. Cerik's being kidnapped by Lamia, constricted by them, and gaining a fetish for all his troubles. King Albert retelling his besting his former party member and friend in a test of (sexual) endurance, all while then 5-year-old Leora was well within earshot.
• Hidden Elf Village:
  • A literal example with the elves, who tend to live in isolated villages away from humans and demons.
  • The demon charmers, feared and mistrusted for their abilities, also live in isolation, though in more desolate regions.
• Human Resources: The tower's Magitek harvests adventurers' deaths, or simply their presence, for mana. Malori is a particularly powerful source, which is the only reason Vel decides to keep her around.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: It gradually gets revealed that humans are really the aggressors in the conflict. The king isn't sanctioning attacks on the demons' territory out of noble intentions, but because he's a xenophobe trying to commit genocide. Humans also seem more inclined towards atrocities than demons.
• Imperfect Ritual: In the past the king decided to use the Summon Everyman Hero ritual despite being told there wasn't enough mana in the tree after Vel ascended to the throne and defeated him and his army. It ended up jamming the consciousness of the summoned hero into Cerik's body.
• Infinite Canvas: Each "episode" is laid out as one huge column of panels of various shapes and sizes and positions, equivalent to several pages of a more traditional format.
• I Want Grandkids: Malori's master only agreed to teach her in the first place because she wanted to see Malori's and Vel's babies.
• It Makes Sense in Context: Cedric and Malori designing and constructing a prototype stocking for Lamiae, in Season 2, Episode 3.
• I Should Write a Book About This: During the epilogue, several of Melathia's published books are shown. The title of one of them? Demon Queen and Mage.
• Jerkass: A lot of Malori's fellow adventurers are jerks, and she has little compunction about turning them into scorch marks if they give her lip.
• Killed Off for Real: Hasn't happened to a character yet, but the season 2 finale reveals that if you are sentenced to execution, they take extra steps to make sure you stay dead: cutting your head off, smashing it, then tossing your body into a ravine. Apparently, this prevents you from respawning in the temple.
• LOL, 69:
  • The comic's Milestone Celebration happened on Episode 69.invoked
  • Malori later gains (and then loses) an ability giving her +69 to Charm.
• Love Triangle:
  • Both Fenn and Cerik are in love with Melathia, though the former is platonic while the latter is mostly sexual.
  • Princess Leora is in love with Malori, who's in love with Vel, who insists that Mal is not her girlfriend.
• Loving a Shadow: Malori eventually admits to a human-disguised Velverosa that she had an unrealistic pursuit of her, without realizing that it was Velverosa all along.
  Malori: I was in love with being in love, and whenever I saw her, my head saw nothing but a caricature.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: In the epilogue, Malori and Vel have 20 kids.
• Milestone Celebration: Lampshaded and parodied with the celebration of Episode 69. (As in the sex position.) invoked
• Mistress and Servant Boy: After Cerik is "punished" by being assigned as Melathia's errand boy, she delights in bullying him for entertainment (and writing material). That said, she does like him (and doesn't mind that he's got a fetish for lamia).
• My God, What Have I Done?: After lying to Cerik and leading him to his (temporary) death, and almost permanently dying after she miscalculated her savings, the cost of resurrecting herself, and the ramifications of torching some adventurers and part of the guild on impulse, Malori has an epiphany and decides to tone down the Comedic Sociopathy. She also realizes that her pursuit of Velverosa probably qualifies as harassment and resolves to give up on her.
• Mugged for Disguise: Connoleth does this to a female adventurer to get a disguise for Vel. Said adventurer just happens to be a skimpily-dressed Dancer class.
• Mundane Utility: The Player Inventory is explicitly a type of magic in-universe, and its most common use is for merchants transporting and storing their goods.
• Neutrality Backlash: After joining the demons' side, Malori calls out Cerik for trying to remain neutral between humans and demons, because that's just letting people continue to suffer from the war. She urges him to join them instead.
• Non-Heteronormative Society: The story has a Cast Full of Gay, and even the princess Leora formerly being Prince Leo doesn't seem to be an issue. Word of God says that society basically assumes that everyone is pansexual by default.
• "Not So Different" Remark: After Malori's first big scheme to win Velverosa's heart falls through, Cerik spells out to Malori that her stalking of Velverosa makes her practically indistinguishable from all of the other tower-goers who seek to kill Vel.
  Cerik: You claim that you're different from other adventurers, but are you really? You only see the Demon Queen as someone to be conquered! Your PRIZE!
• Out with a Bang: When Vel and Malori have their first time, it's so intense that Malori dies and respawns in Folstina's church.
  You have a new achievement!
  "Came and Went"
  Malori: Shut up! Shut up!! SHUT UPPP!!!!
• Periphery Hatedom: Invoked in an omake. When Melathia's yuri novel is rejected, one of the reasons is a 0/10 troll review by someone who said he was het and only liked het, and read and reviewed it knowing he wouldn't like it.
• RPG Mechanics 'Verse: The author has stated that the world is not an MMORPG, but it operates by most of the same rules. People have numerical stat boxes and inventory grids that pop up as a window, they respawn after they die if they have the money to pay for it, and you can Level Grind by killing monsters (who are rather pissed at humans over this issue.)
  • A few throw-away lines explain that menu interfaces and inventory slots are all different forms of magic.
  • Hero summoning uses a gacha mechanic.
• Schizo Tech: In a medieval fantasy setting, they have radios. Justified thanks to randomized interdimensional portal spells being a thing.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: Played for Laughs. When Vel and Malori finally consummate their relationship, it's depicted as them having a wrestling match "for the sake of censorship."
• Shout-Out:
  • In chapter 21, when Malori asks Cerik "What's a paladin?", which is an infamous quote from Ultima IX, made even more infamous by Spoony's retrospective of the game.
  • In Chapter 36, when Cerik wonders if Malori is on a honey moon with Queen Vel, he imagines the two of them embracing in the same pose as Himeko and Chikane from the end credits of the Destiny of the Shrine Maiden anime.
  • In chapter 49, Connoleth jumps a female adventurer and steals her outfit for Velverosa. She then dresses up the girl in "some old rags" for modesty's sake, with the rags in question including a Steven Universe shirt.
  • In Chapter 68, when Vel muses how praising how good a fight someone gives them is considered a compliment in the Demon World, the example given are demons wearing the clothes of Mulan and Shang, with 'Shang' giving 'Mulan' the "You fight good" compliment from the ending scene of Mulan.
  • Episode 37 has Cerik literally do the TRY NOT TO CRY, CRY A LOT meme◊.
  • Episode 89 starts with a recreation of the intro meme from Skyrim, with Malori waking up in a horse-drawn cart with Alto saying they're about to cross the border. Malori glares at him, almost as if she's seen this joke before.
  • In Season 2, Episode 43, Leona gets a Slasher Smile and thinks that events are going All According to Plan. Translator's note: Plan means plan.
  • In episode 44, Velverosa spies on a pair of magical girls who ended up in Folstina in a freak dimensional accident — and who just happend to be dead ringers for Sayaka and Kyoko from Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
  • In Season 2, Episode 50, when Vel tells Malori she wishes to know more about her life on their date, Malori's reaction is depicted with a tribute to Shen Comix, with appearances from Shen and Life and complete with Malori catching a ball from Life that says "GAY" on it.
  • In the finale, the half fox demon who goes to interview Queen Leora is named Toby.
• Sleep Cute: Chapter 70 ends with Queen Vel falling asleep while hugging Malori, and Malori falling asleep soon after in Vel's arms.
• Suddenly Sober: Malori whips up a potion to cure Vel's drunkenness. Vel immediately collapses in shame for what she did while drunk.
• Summon Everyman Hero:
  • The human king tried to summon a hero from another world, with the visuals comparing it to a gatcha game—they had a ninety percent chance of getting a Boring, but Practical ordinary hero. Unfortunately, the ritual apparently failed, and they never found their hero. Except Cerik looks very uncomfortable with the conversation...
  • Leora tries to summon a hero in a convoluted plan to win Malori's heart.
  • It's eventually revealed that the Imperfect Ritual of the king forcing things when there wasn't enough mana resulted in the attempted hero summon's consciousness ending up in Cerik's body.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Surprisingly enough for a genre filled with escapism.
  • Determinedly trying again and again to win the heart of someone who has constantly, violently rejected you is more stalking than it is "fighting for love," and can lead to some serious consequences to yourself, your love interest, and those around you. Even—especially?—if Death Is a Slap on the Wrist.
  • Casually blowing up part of the Adventurer's guild in a fit against some people who insulted your hopefully-future-wife is not without its financial costs. Malori almost rots away instead of being revived, if Cerik hadn't been so keen to investigate her mysterious disappearance, and pay her debts off in time.
• Standard Hero Reward: When Malori was summoned before the King and charged with killing Vel, she asked if the kingdom was on the table as a reward. Princess Leora thinks that's an excellent idea, since it means she gets to marry the hero. It should be noted that Malori doesn't actually want either part of the reward.
• Thanks for the Mammary: In S3E33, Malori finds Vel drunk in bed and with her robe open to reveal her boobs. Malori panics and rushes over to help her cover up...
  Vel: ...and get your hand off my chest, you opportunistic pup.
• Too Kinky to Torture: How Malori got her extreme power so young. She was captured by a demon that gets off on being fried with fire magic, and simply wanted her to keep zorching him repeatedly. And supplied free mana potions so she wouldn't have to stop. By the time he'd had enough, she had leveled way up and her fire magic skill had been cranked up to eleven.
• Villainous Face Hold: Vel imagines having Malori imprisoned and doing this to her.
• Visual Pun: "Horny Mal" literally has four red horns sprouting from her head.
• Wham Line: Early in season 3 a male demon appears, and a guard identifies him as the Demon Queen's fiancé.
• Wham Shot: Princess Leora's summoned hero, Axel, looks a lot like Cerik.
• Where Are They Now: In the epilogue we occasionally catch hints of what the other characters are up to, and towards the end there's a more traditional montage:
  • Cerik and Melathia have gotten together, and opened a store called 'Alderbrant Armory and Lamia Essentials'.
  • Leora became Queen of Folstina and now has a Royal Harem of beautiful women. She's also trying to add Fenn to it.
  • The Demon Generals sans Fenn still work under Velverosa, but they're on vacation as the epilogue happens.
  • Sepheron survived his seemingly lethal wounds at the hands of Axel, and now trains Malori and Velverosa's children in combat against his will.
  • Cecillia progressed from teaching just Malori to teaching classes at the Adventurer Academy, finally getting the permanent job she bragged about not having. Fillione, her girlfriend, is seen sneaking her food under her desk.
  • Alto is seen working at what is presumably his family's clinic, treating a demon.
  • Amias is show meditating with a new batch of followers, her people now far more fond of her.
  • Zariyah is working in a field in Aphtos, presumably having succeeded Atenn as the chief of the village.
  • Gildor (the elf chief) is shown drinking tea in his house.
  • Axel lost his left arm, leg and eye in the accident that was fated to kill him, but he survived and now seems at peace.
  • And of course, Malroi and Velverosa got married and have exactly as many children as they promised.
• Wife Husbandry: One of the extra comics shows an AU where Vel adopted Malori. It mentions that "the road to yuri would have been much easier."
• Win-Win Ending: Every characters get a happy ending, even Axel, who finds contentment in getting back to his world despite his accident.
• Wretched Hive: Part of Malori's childhood was spent in one after her parents sold her into slavery.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: In episode 66, Vel calls Malori by name for the first time, which gets her to stop and listen to her.
• You Can't Go Home Again: The summoned hero Axel has been to two other worlds in need of help before the current one, but he keeps getting summoned again before he can go home. He's rather tired of it, and admits that he misses Earth.
• You Shall Not Pass!: The Demon Generals are supposed to do this. But nowadays they just wave Malori through. Partly because she can easily wipe the floor with all of them, but also to facilitate her pursuit of Velverosa. They are actually seen doing their jobs when the Tower is closed, and either Cerik or other adventurers insist on climbing.

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