WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Dragon Goes House-Hunting, Episode 6, “A Dragon in Trouble”, now streaming on Funimation.
Dragon Goes House-Hunting has been consistently titling its episodes in the format of “A…Home.” Episode 6 is the first episode that breaks this formula, and for good reason. This is the first time that Letty’s house-hunting journey is forced to be put on pause and it’s also the first time we get a glimpse into Dearia’s backstory, and it’s one of the most unexpected and hilarious origin stories for a Dark Demon Lord.
The title deviation is made into a big deal as a couple of ogres cover the original title with a wooden plank that says “Dragon Goes Job-Hunting.” This is because Letty has run out of funds to purchase a daily shipment of fresh snow from the North for Pip, proving that child-rearing is an expensive venture in any world.
Dearia takes Letty to a job agency, and things go as well as one would expect for him. He’s first tasked with making bricks for Minecraft-style buildings, but the pay is way too meager for even one of Pip’s meals. He then turns to the service industry and becomes a hotel concierge, but his dragon appearance scares away too many human patrons. Letty then tries to take on jobs exclusively reserved for dragons, which pay much better but are also more dangerous, like when he's needed as target practice for a new anti-dragon magic. Luckily, Pip and Dearia both help so he can finish the job and stay alive.
While waiting for Letty to finish his job, Dearia runs into Lilith, the first wife of Adam from the Bible, and Dearia's old acquaintance. Lilith reminisces about the first time she met Dearia, a day Dearia desperately wants to forget -- the day he first became the Dark Lord of this world.
An unsuspecting Dearia entered a lottery in hopes of winning a consolation prize pack of tissues. To everyone’s surprise, especially Dearia's, he won the grand prize: the title of the Dark Lord. Dearia immediately tried to relinquish the title, because he haf no desire to reign over anyone, let alone the entire non-human world. But the staff at the Dark Lord Agency wouldn't let him get away and took him to the Dark Lord’s Palace.
What interests Dearia much more than being the Dark Lord is the architecture at the Dark Lord’s Palace, which is usually not open for public viewing, so he bails on his inauguration to tour the palace. The palace is a dungeon full of magical traps, and Dearia “accidentally” triggered all of them and stopped the staff from catching up to him. But Dearia eventually agreed to become the Dark Lord when the staff allowed him to leave the palace in exchange for the minimum amount of paperwork.
The reason why Dearia agrees to the position is that the Dark Lord no longer has much power in their current peaceful world. The Dark Lord was needed when the non-human world was at war with the humans, but after a peace deal was reached and new governing bodies were created, there was no need for a powerful ruler. The Dark Lord is just a symbolic figurehead now, much like the Emperor of Japan or the Royals of England in the real world.
Even though things are so much more peaceful between the humans and the non-humans, there are clearly still tensions, as shown at the end of the episode when Letty and Pip are tricked and kidnapped by a group of humans. Judging from past episodes, Letty is likely going to be sold for his valuable body parts, so his only hope is for the Dark Lord to rescue them before he is taken apart.
