Return Daemon

About
Return Daemons are a group of Devils that possess powerful spatial-manipulation Magic that allows them to freely transport objects across dimensional plains. They are considered to be 6th-class devils, making them moderately high-ranking members of the species.

In spite of their great power, Return Daemons are tasked with the relatively trivial duty of guarding the halls of Devil's Passage, a cavernous dungeon located within the mountain range separating the Free Cities of Kanra and Kathtom. They are instructed to utilize their magic to transport any Human travelers who cross their paths to the entrance of the dungeon in order to prevent them from using it for their own purposes. As a result of this dull and superfluous job, almost all Return Daemons are intensely bored by and indifferent to their work, and spend much of their time using their powers to look into Alternate Dimensions as a form of idle entertainment. On the rare occasions when they are actually approached by a human, they act substantially more lenient towards them than they are intended to, and will even allow human females to pass through should they agree to sexually service them.

During the events of Rance 03, the warrior Rance and his companions encountered several Return Daemons while traversing Devil's Passage in order to reach Kathom, with the only other available pathway to the city being covered by a Helman Army blockade. Sometime before Rance's group arrived, however, the priestess Rosé Card moved through the passage and had sex with every Return Daemon within it. Despite the devils' lustful personalities, they were incapable of keeping up with the human woman's libido, causing them to throw their hips out and be sapped of the energy needed to maintain an erection after she had finished with them. Due to this exhaustion, the Return Daemons were unable to make their usual demands of sex when encountering Rance's group, and instead ordered Kentou Kanami to act out various erotic scenarios they had devised in the hope that watching her perform them would restore their sex drive. Kanami was hesitant to agree to these terms, but was quickly forced into acquiescing by Rance, who was willing to comply so long as the Return Daemons did not touch Kanami themselves.

Using their inter-dimensional powers, the Return Daemons transported the reluctant Kanami to dimension 3FB, a world greatly resembling modern day Japan, and had her play the roles of a high school student getting molested on a crowded train and a webcam model performing on a pornographic livestream. While Kanami was greatly confused by the alien technology and concepts found in the other world, as well as embarrassed by her forced exhibitionism, she successfully acted out each scenario that was presented to her, causing the devils to happily allow her comrades and her to pass through the dungeon.

Rance and his allies crossed paths with the Return Daemons once again during the events of Rance X, while traversing through Devil's Passage in order to reach the Free Cities Army's headquarters in M Land without having to engage with the Monster Army. Recognizing Rance and Kanami from their encounter years prior, the Return Daemon closest to the entrance, no longer plagued by the fatigue that had prevented him from having done so previously, eagerly asked to have sex with Kanami. The proposition was immediately turned down by Rance, who declared that he had only allowed them to have done as they pleased before due to having been young and naive, and that he had no intention of taking orders from a mere gatekeeper now that he was ruler of the world. The Return Daemon attempted to retaliate by transporting Rance out of the dungeon, only to have his magic be countered by that of the Dark Witch Miracle Tou, forcing him to instead fight against the party, where he was ultimately defeated. Several other Return Daemons attempted to impede the group's progress following this, but were each met with a similar fate.

The Return Daemons make an additional appearance should Rance choose to assist in liberating the Free Cities from the Monster Army, where he encounters them once again while attempting to subdue a Golden Hanny within Devil's Passage as a means of drawing out the gold-obsessed Great Monster General Pizarro. Rather than try to oppose him, the Daemons simply warn Rance that their superior, the devil Neplacus, was moving through the dungeon as part of an inspection, and that he would pose a far more dangerous threat than them if he were to be encountered.

The Return Daemons play virtually the same role in the original release of Rance III as they do in its remake, with the notable difference of demanding to have sex with Kanami themselves in exchange for allowing Rance's group to pass as opposed to simply asking to watch her in an erotic situation. While Rance is outraged by the request, Kanami agrees to go through with it for the sake of ensuring Leazas' future. Rance shows disgust with himself for allowing the devils to have their way with Kanami, and uncharacteristically apologizes to her for it afterwards.

Personality and Appearance
Return Daemons are enormous humanoid creatures with muscular bodies covered in yellow scales, jet black eyes with glowing red pupils, a large pair of tattered wings, and a set of three horns protruding from the top of their heads. They possess jaws that extend into large jagged spikes and have no lips, exposing their jagged teeth at all times, as well as a pair of massive downward-facing tusks, giving them a permanent grimace. While their exact measurements are unknown, they are described as being around twice Rance's height while kneeling down, indicating that they are well over three meters tall. They appear to be exclusively male, and have large penises which they can retract into their bodies when not in use. During their appearance in Rance 03, Return Daemons wore large black bracelets that emanated a red-colored glow on their left wrists, and had several similarly-colored markings along their bodies shaped in a chain-like pattern.

Return Daemons possess a radically-altered design in their appearance in Rance X. Though maintaining the same basic body structure, their forearms, abdomen and horns are depicted as being twisted and ribbon-like, with a strange blue and red coloring appearing on the underside of each and a glowing infinity symbol floating in the empty space inside of their stomachs. Their eyes are also noticeably farther apart from each other and seem to bulge out slightly from their skulls, causing them to appear even more bizarre and otherworldly.

In stark contrast to their intimidating appearances, Return Daemons are universally shown to be lighthearted and non-threatening individuals. Due to the nature of their jobs, they very rarely have to put forth any kind of effort into their work, and have become lazy and self-indulgent as a result; devoting much more time to their personal hobbies than to interfering with humans as they are intended to. To go along with this behavior, they speak in a casual, overly-familiar manner with everyone they come across regardless of who or what they are, and have comically high-pitched and nasally voices that are completely unfitting with their looks. While these mannerisms may make them seem friendly and approachable, Return Daemons are also exceptionally selfish and cruel, and perceive both humans and devils of lower standing to themselves as mere objects that exist to entertain them, making them dangerous foes to encounter nonetheless.

The most notable trait that all Return Daemons share is an insatiable libido. Perhaps as a side effect of their largely sedentary lifestyles, they are very sexually frustrated and masturbate almost constantly. While they are able to occasionally exploit their positions to force passing women to have sex with them, these instances are generally too few and far between to offer them a reliable sexual outlet, causing them to seek out alternative means of release. Their most frequent solution is to use their trans-dimensional magic to search for erotic content across the multiverse to pleasure themselves to, which has resulted in them developing an intimate knowledge of a vast array of niche sexual fetishes. This exposure has greatly influenced the Return Daemons, to the point where they now often demand the women they have sex with to also engage in elaborate roleplay to cater to their personal tastes. Many Return Daemons seem to be particularly fond of pornographic video games, with some referring to the act of sex as an "event CG" and others going so far as to write their own amateur erotic scenarios in the style of one.

Return Daemons have considerably different personalities during their initial appearance in the original release of Rance III. While they are still shown to be perverted, they lack both the distinct accents and interest in niche erotic roleplay that define them in their later appearances and are instead described as behaving similarly to depraved old men.

Abilities
Holding the position of 6th-class devils, Return Daemons are exceptional creatures that possess a level of power far greater than the vast majority of the Continent's denizens. They are stated by Feliss to be several magnitudes stronger than her while she was a 9th-class devil, to the point where she advised Rance to avoid attempting to fight them at all costs. The Return Daemons proved this considerable strength during their clashes with the Dark Lord Extermination Squad, a group composed of dozens of humanity's strongest warriors and designed with the express purpose of subduing Dark Lords, where they were able to put up a formidable fight despite ultimately getting defeated. By far the most notable ability that Return Daemons are known to have is a potent magic allowing them to create rifts capable of instantaneously teleporting objects, themselves included, across space and time. There is no clear limit or restriction to the range of this magic, as it is shown sending individuals to alternate dimensions with the same ease at which it expels them to the entrance of Devil's Passage. Along with being useful for transportation and surveillance, this magic effectively trivializes all combat, as it can be used to immediately send away any who attempt to harm its user before they are able to land an attack, making Return Daemons nearly unbeatable under most circumstances. The only known countermeasure against this magic is by harnessing gate connection, an advanced form of magic only usable by those in possession of the Magic Lv3 Skill Level that can similarly manipulate inter-dimensional gates for travel across space and time, to close the rifts it creates before they are fully opened. Even this is shown to be a temporary solution, however, as the Return Daemons are able to overwrite the opposing gate connection in a matter of minutes.

In their appearance in Rance III, the Return Daemons claim to derive their energy from sexual intercourse, which is used as the explanation for why they demand to have sex with Kanami. As this is not mentioned in either of their following appearances, it is assumed that this is no longer considered to be true of them in canon.

Trivia

 * The Return Daemons collectively came in 9th place in the "Males and Others" category of the Rance 03 Popularity Poll.
 * The name “Return Daemon” is likely a play on the Daemon family of computer programs, which perform background processes within operating systems to remove unnecessary and incorrect variables, much like how the Return Daemons themselves are tasked with removing intruders from Devil’s Passage.
 * Return Daemons speak in kansai-ben, an accent that is otherwise associated with characters from the Free City of Portugal within the context of the Rance Series, most notably Copandon Dott. As kansai-ben is most strongly associated with the city of Osaka, which is home to the headquarters of several prominent eroge development companies, including Alicesoft, as well as a sizable otaku subculture, it is likely that the Return Daemons are intended to parody people from within those demographics.
 * The Return Daemons are collectively voiced by Nobuaki Arikasa (折笠伸明) in Rance 03, who also provides the voices for all Hanny characters and the avatars for Alicesoft staff members TADA and DJC++.
 * TADA, the director of the Rance series, has stated on multiple occasions that he views the Return Daemons' rape of Kanami in the original version of Rance III with a particular amount of shame, as he believes Rance's participation in the exchange to be wildly at odds with his characterization across the rest of the series. Notably, both the remake of Rance III and the Return Daemons' reappearance in Rance X address this, with Rance 03 altering the exchange so that the creatures do not assault Kanami directly, and Rance X repeating the beginning of the exchange solely for the sake of having Rance reaffirm that he would never allow another man to have sex with a woman he considered to be his own.