I was actually up well before midday. Alice was impressed. "You may not be getting stronger in that way as quickly as I'd like, but you're definitely progressing. The more I do that to you, the more you'll be able to experience without passing out. You only got to feel a fraction of the things I can do."
I was definitely looking forward to that, but feared that it would be a one off. After this there might be no more opportunities. Things were about to get very dangerous for me. I'd need to be at full strength at every moment. Even though I was awake and mobile, I knew I wasn't combat ready yet and probably wouldn't be for several more hours.
We left the inn to walk the streets of the city again, since traveling was out of the question after last night. As usual, the ant girls were hard at work. That's how the day started, anyway. After a few hours of sampling food stands and chatting with residents, something happened. A loud explosion was heard somewhere in the city. At first I thought it might be a terrorist attack by the Ilias Kreuz organization, an infamous terror group that hated monsters, but I discarded the idea as absurd. Why would they hate a city where monsters were kept as slaves? Even if they were opposed to all intercourse between humans and monsters, sexual or otherwise, they had bigger fish to fry. Then there was the fact that the ant girls dropped what they were doing and started picking up any humans they could find and carrying them off. Even the golems and other various constructs were attacking people, although this behavior was more random. Whatever system Grangold had in place had obviously failed catastrophically. Human screams could be heard everywhere. People were running around in a panic, trying to escape.
"Should I do something?" I asked.
"Hmph…," Alice replied. "They're just reaping what they sowed. This is their reward for treating monsters like slaves. "
The ants must have been able to tell she was a fellow monster because none of them approached her. For now, they were steering clear of me as well, either because they knew I wasn't a citizen of this city or perhaps because they assumed Alice would protect me.
"You shouldn't dawdle around here either," Alice warned. "Don't stick your neck out for them. Just leave."
"Okay," I said. Alice was right. It was not my job to put down a slave revolt. Free labor wasn't free. At some point the bill came due and now it was being collected.
"Okay?" Alice said in surprise. "So you're just going to leave?"
"Yes I am," I said. "That's the right decision, isn't it?"
"It is. I'm just surprised to hear you say that."
"Where I come from, slavery is one of the worst things there is," I said.
"So you're taking the ants' side?" Alice said.
"No, I'm just leaving."
Alice didn't seem to be understanding me. "Okay, so… we're just going to walk out of here. Leave all these people behind. Not help them."
"Yes," I confirmed. "That's exactly what we're going to do."
Alice didn't seem satisfied that I was listening to her. In fact, she seemed quite uncomfortable, as if an immutable law of nature had been violated. As we began walking calmly but quickly to the city gates, doubts started to creep into my mind. I stopped.
"Having second thoughts?" Alice said, smirking.
"Yes I am," I admitted. "This feels wrong. Maybe I should help. Not to put down a slave revolt, but to maybe try to mediate? I don't know."
"I wanted you to leave, but when you agreed with me it felt wrong. As much as your hero act drives me crazy, I think I like that Luka better. Go on, do what you think is right," she said.
"I'm badly outnumbered though," I mused.
Alice coughed. The cough sounded suspiciously like "queen". She repeated the cough. I think I got the message. I headed off towards the castle, since the Queen Ant was being held there. Using the power of the wind, I managed to travel fast and avoid any ant girls between me and the castle. They didn't attempt to grab for me, nor did they give chase. That did not mean I was out of danger, however. As I passed by the inn Alice and I were staying at I was speared hard by the inn's sex doll. The surprise attack knocked the wind out of me. The construct immediately ripped my pants off and climbed on top of me. Before I could even react, my penis was in its artificial vagina.
"Ejaculation counter set to 300,000," it said. "Begin pleasure program 4A."
She was definitely glitching because she went straight to a very intense technique. Her mechanical pussy began to spin rapidly. She was surprisingly strong as well. I couldn't get her off me until I could catch my breath, but what she was doing to me was making me try to hyperventilate at the same time so that I could barely breathe. I began to see stars and feared I might pass out. I had to get my breathing under control before trying anything else. I turned my head to the side and saw numerous other men on the ground around me. Had they all been exhausted by this android?
Just as I started breathing normally and thought I might be able to push her off, I ejaculated violently into her. I began to despair. Critical ecstasy would prevent me from further effective resistance. What a stupid way to lose! Why was I losing in the dumbest ways imaginable?
"Ejaculation achieved," the sex doll said. "299,999 left to go."
I was pretty sure that was physically impossible without killing me, causing me to despair further. The fast spinning had never stopped. But I started to notice something strange. It didn't feel good anymore. In fact, it was downright uncomfortable! Of course! This isn't a monster! It's just a machine! I'm not in critical ecstasy!
With renewed energy I pushed her off of me. Rather than stay and fight it I resumed running towards the castle. That had been embarrassing but fortunately not fatal. I hope Alice hadn't seen it. She probably had. Argh.
I noticed that the ant girls seemed to be heading towards the castle with the people they were carrying. It made sense. Gather every citizen into the castle, whereupon the queen would face them and pass judgment. I feared her judgment would not be merciful. As much as my instincts said to let them reap what they had sown, I realized that a second Remina would be the worst thing that could possibly happen to human/monster relations. No ant girls tried to stop me as I entered the castle. I guess they really could distinguish between citizens and travelers. Inside the castle, I could see many men crowded into it, most of them shaking with fear. The king was among them.
"Many prisoners collected," three of the ants said in unison. "One with high quality genes will be the queen's reproductive partner. Others will be slaves."
At least it wasn't going to be a genocide. Just turnabout. Most of the ant girls seemed to have dropped off their charges here and then gone to get another. Only a few were guarding the prisoners. Charging towards the ant girls, I shouted for the prisoners to attempt escape. At first, they were paralyzed. Then the king showed what must have been the first initiative he'd demonstrated in a long time. He echoed my command. That got them going. He led them out of the castle while I dealt with the ants.
Now I had their attention. Recognizing me for the first time as an enemy they did what ants do. They mobbed me, trying to hold me down. Summoning Gnome took care of that. I slashed every which way with my sword, but they were strong. None fell. Their tactics didn't change, however. They continued to attempt to hold me down. But these weren't soldier ants, they were just workers. They were strong, tough and durable, but had little in the way of offensive ability. Even their pleasure attacks weren't very good. With the power of Gnome, even their strength wasn't enough.
I never did seal any of them. After a short but inconclusive battle, I heard a voice ring out. "That's enough, my cute little children. Ignore that human. Go after the men."
I expected to see her, but she was nowhere to be found in this room, or in adjoining rooms. Had she projected her commands? I guess she did that normally, but I couldn't hear them. Why do it in such a way that I could hear? I had no idea how to get to the basement in that large castle. To my utter shock, Alice appeared.
"This way, Luka," she said. "The Queen Ant's magical power is leaking out from here."
Alice opened up a trapdoor. Under that trapdoor was a staircase. I would have never found that without her help. "Alice, thank you," I said. "But why are you helping me so much?"
"I'm being decisive," she said. "This is Monster Lord business. Aside from my cute little subordinates being enslaved, I need to know how the humans sealed the Queen Ant."
We went down the staircase as quickly as we could. On the way down, it occurred to me that I was probably going to be fighting a queen-class monster on a day that I wasn't supposed to be exerting myself. I felt 100%, but I knew that could be deceiving. Oh well, there was nothing that could be done about it now. I just hoped it wouldn't deter Alice from giving me more of what she'd given me last night. When we arrived at the bottom of the staircase, we emerged into a room with all sorts of strange machinery. This wasn't 19th century tech. This was a combination of 1980s with a smattering of stuff that looked to be beyond even what my own world produced. A slew of memories started to hit me all at once. Along with the knowledge that there was a lot here that I'd never seen or even imagined before.
"Human technology has advanced this far?!" Alice exclaimed in shock and wonder.
A worker was down there as well, frantically trying to fix whatever was broken. I ran up to him to ask what was going on. He had no idea other than that the seal was broken. I'd already figured that out myself. Along with the entire rest of the city.
Alice had no patience for the obvious at that moment. "Did you humans really develop all this technology?" she demanded.
"What?" the worker asked. "That doesn't matter now!"
"Answer!" Alice ordered. "Where did these machines come from?"
I didn't need a warning to look away. Alice's eyes flashed. Her questions were going to be answered come hell or high water or rampaging ants.
"We did not develop the technology here," the now quite hypnotized man said. "We were given the tech for free. "
"Who gave it you?" Alice asked.
"A woman named Promestein," he answered.
"Who is Promestein?"
"I…. I don't know."
"Don't lie!" Alice yelled. "No… he can't lie while he's like this. Dammit!"
"We don't even know how any of this works," he blubbered. "She just kept giving us more devices which we understood even less. A magnetic field system, a space altering energy transference device…. It enabled us to advance by leaps and bounds over all the other countries. But we didn't develop any of this. It all came from her!"
"That still doesn't tell me who Promestein is!" Alice said, now shaking the man by his lapels.
"All I know is that she just gives us stuff! We didn't ask any questions!"
"You didn't even wonder what she was getting out of all this? What her purpose was?!"
"She wanted to test it!" he pleaded. "We were told to seal the Queen Ant and deliver her the data. She wanted to test sealing powerful monsters so that she could seal the Monster Lord!"
Alice's eyes went wide. She released the man, both magically and physically. He ran away in a panic. I looked around, trying to see if I could catch sight of the queen. She had not chosen to reveal herself yet.
"You'll need to excuse me," Alice said. "I'll let you either defeat or reason with the queen. "
While I was glad that Alice was apparently working on something to resolve this, I'd really hoped that she'd see her role as dealing with the queen, being the Monster Lord and all. I decided I'd have to trust that she knew best in this situation. I was about to have bigger problems. Now I was sensing the presence of something powerful, and it was coming closer. I drew my sword and waited. I didn't have to wait long. The queen emerged from the shadows.
"I am the Queen of the limitless ant army," she said by way of introduction. "Human, who are you to stand in my path?"
"Just trying to resolve this situation peacefully," I responded.
"My children aren't killing anyone," she said. "We are merely repaying the humans for what they have done to us. Now they will be our slaves."
"I completely understand your anger," I said. "But revenge is not the way!"
"You understand?!" she said. I think I may have said the wrong thing. "You understand?! Did you spend the last five years seeing your children enslaved?! You will know what it's like to be a slave yourself soon enough. You seem to be of fine stock. You'll be my personal slave."
"I will not be," I said with real determination.
"Do you intend to resist me?" she said haughtily. "A mere human thinks he can challenge the ant queen?"
"I don't want to fight you," I pleaded. "I don't even live in this city! What I saw here was wrong. But what you're doing, this isn't justice! It's not even smart! This region is bordered by two powerful human kingdoms. They will send their armies to try to free their fellow humans. I don't know whether they'll win or not, but I do know that you'll lose many of your children."
"So I should silently swallow my anger," she replied. "and pretend as if the unjust actions toward my family never happened? You dare to feel pity for the assailant and lecture the victim?"
"I considered just leaving these people to their fate," I said. "They have earned it."
"Then why didn't you?"
"I…. I'm not sure. Seeing people running around panicked… I couldn't just turn a blind eye."
"You turned a blind eye to our plight," she said.
"I didn't. I honestly didn't. I thought it was wrong and I was going to do something. I just needed time to think."
I couldn't tell her that I was waiting on the Monster Lord to tell me what to do. I didn't know how much Alice wanted the queen to know at this point. That made my answer far less than adequate. So inadequate that she was done debating me. I'll give her credit though, she talked a lot longer than most monsters had to me in similar situations.
"I would so enjoy seeing that courageous face of yours twisting in agony," she said ominously. "Please, would you be so kind as to show it to me?"
Her basic mode of attack was similar to the queen bee's. She had four powerful arms which she used to bludgeon me. I retaliated with my sword. Not liking that one bit, and apparently dissatisfied with the results she was getting from repeatedly hitting me, she leaped at me and pinned me down.
"You'll enjoy being my breeding partner," she said. "I can give you a preview now if you like. I have a breast technique that will send you to the heights of pleasure. You were right, we don't have to fight. Just let me show you my special technique for a few seconds and I guarantee you won't want me to stop. You'll want to experience it every day. And you can, once you are mine."
I didn't like the sound of that at all. Sorry, but these ant girls just weren't my type even if I had been inclined to play around with them, which I wasn't ever since I'd promised that I wouldn't. My struggles were annoying her. And if there's one thing monsters never seemed to learn when fighting me, it was to control their impatience.
"Very well," she said, still struggling to hold me down. "If you won't listen to reason, I'll persuade you another way. Give your heart to me!"
Her eyes flashed and my mind went blank. I came to, still on my back. I leaped up in a panic. Where was the queen? I hadn't vaporized her, had I? The answer came a second later as she fell a few feet to my left with a thud. I went to check on her. She was tough, all right. She started flailing at me again even though she couldn't rise. Grabbing two of her arms and putting my own weight on her, I tried my best to keep her down.
"Enough!" I shouted. "I don't want to have to seal you again!"
"Seal?" she gasped. Uh oh, I think I triggered her. "No. No, you can't! Please, no!"
Her struggles grew frantic. She was clearly weakened from whatever that strange power of mine had done to her. As I held two of her arms in my hands, her other two fists flailed uselessly against my sides. My assurances that I wasn't going to seal her if she'd just calm down seemed to be having the opposite effect.
"Stop!" Alice's voice rang out with authority, causing us both to stop our struggle in an instant.
We both looked to where she was standing. She had the king of Grangold with her. I stood up and offered my hand to the queen. Looking at me in confusion, she took it and I helped her up. Ever the queen, she faced Alice with as much dignity as she could muster.
"Who are you?" she asked. "What business does a powerful monster like you have here?"
She was apparently still groggy, because a few seconds later she must have figured it out. "Are you…?"
"I am," Alice replied. "However, right now my identity doesn't matter. This man has something he would like to say to you. You should listen to him, Queen Ant."
"Very well," the queen sighed. "Since it's an order from you."
Her nod towards Alice was respectful. The look she gave to the king as she turned to him was one of barely controlled fury.
"What do you have to say?" she asked the king, quiet rage in her voice. "What does the one who was in charge of oppressing me and my children wish to say?!"
"That's right," he confirmed. "I was the one in charge. I'll become your slave."
"Is this a jest?! You are a leader like me, are you not? Have you no pride?!"
"I'm not joking," he said. "I am sincere. I offer myself as your slave in the hopes of cooling your ardor for revenge against my people. I bear the sole responsibility for what was done to you."
"I see," she said, folding two of her arms. "So you are trying to bargain. Did you think I would simply nod my head and agree? Do you understand how much suffering you humans caused my children and I?!"
"I know," he said, clearly ashamed. "I know now, but I did not before. To ask forgiveness now is selfish, I know."
"Then why?!?" she screamed, her rage only building.
"We didn't notice," he said. "We thought ant girls were like unfeeling machines. We never considered ant girls to be actual beings. Just dolls with hands and feet to work. As for you, we thought you were evil."
"No!" the queen exclaimed. "We're….."
"That's what we all thought until today," he said. "Now we know that you have feelings just like us. The days you all went through until now were full of pain and suffering. You were kept imprisoned and sealed, doomed to watch as your children suffered. We…. We didn't realize that monsters have feelings and thoughts just like we do."
"Queen Ant," Alice interjected. "don't you think the same way? These tiny, weak humans are undeserving of notice, are they not? Their lives are meaningless when compared to your powerful existence, right? But the feelings these humans hold are the same as us monsters. They feel sadness, pain, and happiness just like we do. Just because they are weaker than you does not mean that they cannot feel the same things you do. If you do the same things the humans did, then this entire situation will repeat. Only this time you will be the one treating the enslaved humans as unfeeling dolls. You will be the same as the oppressor you feel so much hate towards right now."
Alice turned towards me. "I'm tired. Luka. You say something."
"I…. um, I think you said it better than I ever could," I said, remembering how badly I'd botched reasoning with the queen earlier. "We all bleed the same color-"
Alice facepalmed. "Okay, you can shut up now. We do not all bleed the same color. Idiot. He did have a metaphorical point though. You don't understand these humans any better than they understand you. And yet you aren't as different as you might think. Retaliation will just bring more retaliation. You'll make these humans suffer and then you'll suffer and then you'll make them suffer again. It never ends until someone says no more. So can you say to us all now, 'no more'? For you own sake, as well as theirs?"
"If it's an order from you, I have no choice but to reconcile with them," the queen responded.
"I'm not giving you any stupid orders like that," Alice retorted. "If you can't bring yourself to reconcile with them, then this evil will continue."
The queen thought it over for a few moments. She turned to the king.
"Do you regret from the bottom of your heart the labor forced on my children?" she said.
"Yes," he replied. "I apologize from the bottom of my heart. If you desire, I shall have all the citizens apologize to you. Surely they all realize the grievous error we have made until now."
"From here on and forever, do you vow never to do anything similar?"
"Of course," he said. "We now know that you have the same heart as us humans. It wouldn't be possible for us to force labor on you, knowing that."
"Very well," she sighed. "Then let's assume it has ended. Perhaps our rebellion has crossed a line as well. I shall release all the captured humans. King, I believe your words."
Thus it was settled.
Alice and I returned to our hotel room to gather our things. Another city, another big problem dealt with, another step towards better human/monster relations. It really was starting to feel like fate. As we were preparing to resume our travels, an ant girl informed us that the king and queen wished to see us one last time. Since the castle had been heavily damaged, we met in an assembly hall elsewhere in the city. The humans and ants were working together to repair everything that had been damaged.
"Really, thank you for everything you've done," the king said to me. "Words alone are unable to describe how indebted to you we are."
"I too was about to commit a grave error," the queen said. "The humans I was going to oppress all have fathers and mothers who would have grieved for them as I grieved for my children. Just as I have a bond with my children, so do humans have bonds with theirs. I did not realize… I viewed all humans as evil and unable to feel emotions as I did."
"What will you do, now that you're free?" I asked.
"My children like this town and they have put a lot of effort into building it," she responded. "We would like to stay. If the humans can tolerate us, that is."
"Humans have long believed that humans and monsters lived in Grangold in perfect coexistence," the king replied. "But it was a lie. I want to make that falsehood a reality."
"I wish for the same," the queen agreed. "Searching for solutions together with the humans may not be such a bad idea."
"Luka," the king addressed me. "You set out to make a world where humans and monsters can coexist, right? Those thoughts of yours have saved this city."
"I wish it was that simple," I said. "But yes, it is something that I've wanted to see."
"Well, thank you," he said. "And thank you, Alice, for bringing me to my senses. I wish I had something to reward you both with."
Alice hadn't even been paying attention, but the word 'reward' brought her out of her boredom. "I like sweet things."
The king looked dumbfounded. He recovered quickly though, and gave whispered orders to a soldier. After more thank yous and goodbyes, we returned to our hotel room. There, on Alice's pillow, was a large bag of chocolates. She squealed excitedly and began to partake.
As I finished up packing, I had to know something. "Alice," I asked."Is that what you went to do, to go get the king and tell him about himself?"
"Uh huh," she mumbled, face full of chocolate. I mean that literally, it was smeared all over her face. I just loved her eating, it was so…. Cute. Like an excited child. She was a study in contradictions just like me. I was brave but pathetic, smart yet stupid. She was regal and childlike, insensitive and yet soothing when she needed to be. I guess that was what it meant to be a person. Maybe humans and monsters weren't so different in the ways that really counted.
"Why leave me to deal with the queen while you dealt with the king?" I asked. "Wouldn't it have made more sense for me to reason with the king while you reasoned with the queen? That would have been a tough fight if not for her trying to flash me."
She stopped eating and quickly swallowed what was in her mouth with a loud gulp. "What? She tried to use eye magic on you? Oh no! That's why you weren't on your back begging for mercy when I got back. I was certain I'd find you with your penis between her tits. Your pants were even still on. As for why I went after the king and left you to deal with the queen, just think about it for a second."
I thought. For several seconds. "No, it still doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't I have been the better choice to talk to him and you the better choice to talk to the queen?"
She rolled her eyes. "Of course! That is, if the king had been there, you idiot! Is teleportation among your weird abilities?"
"Ohhhhh…"
"Ohhhhhhh…." She said sarcastically. "All you had to do was hold her off for a short time. I was going to stop the fight as soon as I got back. I knew you were a little weakened because of me. I didn't expect much from you in that condition."
"It's weird, I felt right, but I guess it can be hard to tell sometimes."
"It's like being a little drunk," she explained. "You might not know you're impaired until you try to do something that requires precision."
"Well, thank you," I said. "at the point you came in, I was more worried about her than myself. She was really freaked out because I told her I might have to seal her."
"Wow, that was pretty stupid, given that she spent five years sealed. Looks like you could stand to gain some understanding yourself. I wonder if the humans and ant girls here will really be able to get along?"
"I'm optimistic," I said. "We get along and I don't understand you at all."
She snorted, then became more serious. "Do you think that monsters and humans can ever understand each other? There are a lot of pretty big differences. Differences in morals, differences in outlook, differences in biology…"
"It won't be easy," I said. "I guess getting along can't always wait for understanding. Sometimes you just have to be willing to accept differences. At least the ones that can be lived with. I'm not sure humans can ever live with monsters running around raping, kidnapping and eating us."
"I once thought that all humans were barbaric savages that attacked indiscriminately before I set out on this journey," she said. "Even after I met you, I just assumed you were an exception because you were so different. And later, to find out you're not even from here…. But I've met a lot of people while traveling with you and some of them are not horrible. They're almost all idiots though."
"I never really developed that kind of prejudice, having never met a monster before you."
"I thought I was the second monster you'd ever met?"
"Oh yes, that's true!" I said. "A slime girl, just before I met you."
"Well," she said. "It's true that spending time together has knocked down some walls. But until it happens everywhere, things will continue to be difficult."
"So any idea who that Promestein person is?" I asked.
"I didn't think humans were capable of that kind of technology," she said. "Maybe she's not human."
"A monster?" I asked.
"I don't know," Alice said. "Possible. Maybe she's from your world."
"I doubt it," I said. "Granted, my memory is still really spotty, but I knew that there were things down there that even my world isn't capable of. At least not yet."
"The mysteries just keep on piling up," Alice observed. "So, where do you want to go next?"
"There's only one place we can go. Succubus Village. If we do anywhere else, we'll miss the Purple Sabbath."
"Yeah," she said. "Wouldn't want to miss that. Damn pervert."