I Must Create Every Monster Girl Myself Then!!!

[m4gpier]

"Aitkens! What the hell?! How long did you think updating these priors would take?!" Penelope hissed as she cornered the dwarven man just after dinner.

They were roughly the same height, but the dwarven male was over twice the human woman in width.

Regardless, the man hung his head in shame.

"My oath is to keep you safe and you are very much in the safest place in the world right now and-"

"AND WE'RE GOING TO DIE HERE AS WELL! THAT WASN'T A PART OF THE DEAL! IT CERTAINLY ISN'T SAFE FOR HUMANS TO NOT SEE THE SUN YOU KNOW!" Penelope screamed, shaking the dwarf's shoulders.

"Bah calm ya self lassy, ya takin' the ol' golem's prediction a wee bit too seriously." Meachin said, appearing from the dining hall to separate the two.

"Oh?! How long do you think it'll take for the old man to let us go?! Poor Julia can't handle any more of these 'prior updating' sessions, being leered at by an old man for hours on end isn't fun you know!" Penelope screamed, aggressively jamming her finger into Meachin's chest.

"Uhm, only a couple hundred thousand…" Meachin admitted.

"Lass look, how about I let you and the golem out tomorrow evenin'? I can't letcha go of course but-" Aitkens offered before being interrupted.

"SEE!? FALSE PRETENSES! WE WERE SET UP!" Penelope screamed, arms flailing up as she stormed off, Emily quickly appearing at her side, writing a note.

"Is something the matter Madam Penelope?"

Penelope looked angrily at the golem and nodded.

"Aitkens thinks this is the safest place in the world? Well we'll see about that." Penelope thought with a scornful look as she returned to her dorm.

…
​

"I can't do this anymore…" Pinklia groaned as she returned to their shared dorm later that evening, a prepared stock of aether cubes laid out decoratively by Emily on a serving tray, with Emily staring at a wall.

"Yep, and based on what Henrek's saying the skirmish is starting in a few days. We want to get back before Rolfcons gets swamped with Oldser knights." Penelope nodded as she continued carving a hex and a series of scriptures onto a clay tablet she'd 'borrowed' from Aitkens.

"I thought the idea was just distracting Rolfcons… No King involved." Pinklia grimaced, noting the odd positioning of Emily.

"Is uh, she okay?" Pinklia whispered.

"Ems? Oh yeah she's fine, just ordered her not to look." Penelope explained casually as she finished writing the scripture into the clay, covering it with a blanket and handing Pinklia a note.

"Shove that in front of her face." Penelope demanded bluntly.

Pinklia looked down, not really able to read the note.

"It says she's allowed to look again but not touch the cloth here." Penelope sighed as she took the note from the struggling Julia and shoved it in front of Emily's face.

"Why…?" Pinklia asked.

"She can read our lips, and if she saw what I was about to do hoo boy she'd stop me." Penelope explained with a grin as Emily turned around to examine the room, clearly wanting to look under the conspicuously covered clay tablet.

"What are you planning?!" Pinklia asked incredulously, earning a quickly jotted down note from Emily.

"What are you planning?" Emily's note said, handing it to Penelope urgently.

"Relax! I just have a surprise for the old bastard Hume… Plus get some sunlight." Penelope smirked, pulling out a torn note that Aitkens had given her after her little outburst earlier that evening.

"Accompany these two outside," with the rest of the message that specified when they had to return by clearly having been ripped off.

Emily could tell, but since the signature from Aitkens was still visible, she had to accept the command.

Emily cocked her head before quickly writing a note.

"This appears incomplete, additionally your next prior updating session will occur throughout daylight hours tomorrow." Emily wrote.

"Heh, relax." Penelope sounded out, looking at her makeshift device.

"I think Utarou has rubbed off on you… You're making crazy plans…" Pinklia grumbled.

"I prefer the term, inspired," Penelope declared smugly as she placed a hand on her chest and looked up dramatically.

…
​

"Hmmm…" Hume grumbled, glaring at Pinklia's skill tree. The growth had slowed down, meaning Hume occasionally barked out an updated prior.

Penelope had joined this prior updating session, with a fairly inconspicuous bag containing her usual notebook and the mysterious clay tablet.

"Prior 330! Updated, lamb no longer requires grilling before eating!" Hume shouted, one of his apprentices quickly scribbled it down and ran off to spread the word just as another returned.

Penelope rolled her eyes and took this opportunity to strike, sneaking up to a working apprentice, the man was pouring mana into runic weapons and had been extremely focused, up until the moment Hume updated a prior forcing him to recite the dwarven prayer.

"PRIORS UPDATED! FOR LOGOS!" The apprentice shouted just as Penelope placed her hidden clay tablet on the table, while Emily watched from a distance.

"Sooo, what was that prior?" Penelope asked casually.

The apprentice looked at the human woman with an annoyed glare but obliged, the prior that required information surrounding logic to be shared freely had yet to be updated.

"Tis the prior what defines our eatin', can't say what Priormaster Hume figured but the dissection will happen afterwards." The apprentice explained, noticing the clay tablet Penelope revealed.

He didn't recognize the spell but he could clearly identify it as one.

"Awesome now, can you do me a teensy tiny little favour? I've been wanting to test a scrying spell I got from the Aviosian Churchs' library for ages, I had this absolute hunk help me out but I just haven't had any good mana! Poor Pinklia is all preoccupied with Hume and I wouldn't want to bother her, plus she wants to see her family and-"

"Bah! If it'll get you away from me woman so be it, just need to pour the mana in like any runic spell aye?"

"Yes sir!" Penelope grinned evilly.

The dwarf obliged, pouring mana into the spell Penelope had found and modified with the help of Templar Adam, though it wasn't a scrying spell.

It was an explosive spell timer.

As soon as the mana filled the spell on the clay tablet, a fiery countdown began, exploding out with energy from the clay tablet, demanding everyone's attention.

"WHAT IN THE SAVIOUR'S MENU IS THAT?!" Hume shouted, immediately grabbing his gun and shooting the clay tablet which did nothing for the already activated spell.

After swiping a few aether cubes that were sitting on a work bench, Penelope ran back to Pinklia and Emily as Aitkens looked at the fiery timer that was rising and creating an area of effect warning.

"Hey so, I don't think it's safe here anymore~" Penelope cooed as Pinklia freaked out.

"W-what?! You… Oh you're good." Aitkens growled as he realized what Penelope had done, grabbing her by the arm.

"W-where are you going?!" Meachin asked incredulously.

"I MADE AN OATH TO KEEP THEM SAFE!" Aitkens shouted angrily, Pinklia and Emily following.

"PENNY WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Pinklia screamed as she ran down the hall, the swarm of magically inclined dwarves running to try and disable the spell.

Unfortunately, archaic high level Avoisan church magic that's been hastily modified by an overly ambitious witch was not the easiest kind of spell to disable.

"MY OATH IS TO KEEP YOU SAFE! THIS MOUNTAIN IS NO LONGER SAFE THANKS TO THIS DAMN WITCH'S SPELL! THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR TRYING TO BE A GOOD HOST AND NOT THROWING YOU IN THE DUNGEONS!" Aitkens screamed as he tossed Penelope into the elevator, Pinklia and Emily following swiftly behind.

"T-t-thank you for… not locking us up…?" Pinklia offered as she watched the Errata scroll past, the elevator ascending as quickly as it could in this emergency.

Penelope quickly wrote a note and gave it to Emily before Aitkens could react and override Emily's command to accompany them on the surface.

"Cover your eyes for 3 minutes."

"I can't believe this… We let you in, apologised in accordance with the priors, and THIS is how you repay us?! You know this is how you earn your spot in the Errata and beyond." Aitkens fumed, he was furious, looking at the golem covering her eyes.

"AND YOU! DON'T THINK YOU CAN JUST… Argh… Bloody hell I'm going to lose my position for this." Aitkens sighed, falling to the floor in despair.

"Well sorry, but staying here until we died wasn't exactly a part of the plan." Penelope smirked as the elevator reached the top.

"L-Let's hurry…" Pinklia muttered as she grabbed Emily and Penelope, dragging them away as quickly as she could, leaving Aitkens sitting on the elevator in a defeated pose.

Soon they emerged from the mountain's entrance, a few dwarven women and children had escaped from other exits and had already opened the main gate.

The sun burnt everyone's eyes except Pinklia's, who carried Penelope and Emily over the crowd and to the nearby forest.

Eventually, they'd escaped, and Emily had uncovered her eyes, looking around in bafflement at what they were doing in the middle of a random forest clearing just off the main dwarven path.

"W-why did you do that?! You're seriously killing them all?! Oh my god that's insane you're-" Pinklia shouted in a panic before being interrupted by Penelope's uproarious laughter.

"Relax! It's a dummy bomb!" Penelope laughed, wiping a tear from her eye, giddy with the thrill of the escape, and looking at her haul.

She had her notebook filled to the brim with exotic dwarven information and more than enough mana between Pinklia and these aether cubes to do whatever she wanted with.

"W-wait, it was a fake?" Pinklia asked, Emily looking behind them at something in the distance.

"Yeah! I'm not evil! Come on, I think we have a few more minutes before they realize it's a fake and-" Penelope began, before being interrupted by the top of the mountain exploding.

 

[m4gpier]

Rufus was not known for his cunning, wit, intelligence or functioning prefrontal cortex.

He was a simple man, perhaps the epitome of the layman.

This was more than evident to anyone who spoke to him.

Considering the regal dress he was in, he could easily pass as a nobleman's son sent on minor errand, fetching a letter.

Unfortunately, Rufus also had a bumpkin accent and was carrying an extremely dangerous letter.

"Now, son, tell me again, what exactly did you think was in this letter?" The captain of the guard, an older gentleman named Joel, asked seriously from across the table of the anxious Rufus inside the guard tower near the rough border Burtcons had established.

"Uh, I didn't think it had anything." Rufus blinked, unsure what even he thought was in the letter.

"To the Duke of Rolfcons, we are interested in your offer to join together against the Oldsman family so long as you can guarantee me and my family's safety. I will be arriving at the lake just south of the river which makes up yours and Burtcons border the night after the new moon with my full military force, we may march the following morning.

Henrek Porak, provisional governor of Dracons."

Joel read the letter out loud, the dozen guards staring intently at Rufus, who looked blankly at all of them.

"I never knew what it said." Rufus shrugged, it was somewhat truthful, he'd just completely forgotten on the ride over what was in the letter, focused on remembering the plan to get captured.

Luckily despite forgetting half the plan, playing dumb came naturally to him.

Joel let out a sigh, he could tell that whatever this bumpkin was doing, he was too much of a simpleton to be in on anything.

The nature of the letter was suspect still however, it'd have to be escalated to the Duke of Burtcons, Archos Oldsman.

Ever since his kin in Rolfcons had been killed by Henrek, the provisional governor was a disreputable man from the distrusted Bolger family.

This kind of scheming was expected from them unfortunately, and if this was true they only had a few days to muster the army to launch a counter attack.

…
​

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" Penelope squealed as she saw the mountain cascade

"THAT WAS YOUR SPELL!? YOU KILLED THEM OH MY GOD!" Pinklia screamed as Emily began to point at something.

"I SWEAR IT WAS A DUD! I DIDN'T EVEN INVOKE ANY INFERNUS INCANTATIONS OR DERIVATIVES! PURE SPECTACLE I SWEAR!" Penelope shouted back defensively as Emily's pointing arm began to slowly move in an arch above them from the mountain, to a clearing just in front of them.

"Oh my god we have to go and help them before-" Pinklia began, suddenly stopping as she felt a presence.

It was like the sound of water began to deafen her, the blur of waking up began to blind her.

Emily was pointing directly behind both Penelope and Pinklia, turning they saw nothing.

But they felt its presence.

had arrived.

"Hail, thou art highly favoured," announced, its voice piercing past the wind and the rolling boulders collapsed from the mountain.

Penelope was terrified, entirely unable to understand what was happening, backing away from the subtle distortion the entity caused, her eyes watered just trying to look at it.

"Fear not Penelope, for thou hast found favour with me," explained, closing the distance between it and her in a second.

"W-what?" Penelope stammered, tears welling up in her eyes as Pinklia struggled to maintain her form, desperately trying to run away and grab Penelope on the way away from this thing.

"You are a great woman Miss Penelope. You shall conceive of me in thy womb and bring forth a son that shall create a kingdom with no end."

Emily could only watch, with her ability to hear having been removed it simply stared at the entity with her mechanical eyes.

"W-who are you?" Penelope stammered, shielding her eyes from the entity.

"Who I am matters not, merely know you stand in the presence of the Saviour's Father, with your role divinely ordained more than a millenia ago,"

"G-go away!" Pinklia screamed, finally managed to use her will to grab Penelope and drag her away from the entity and back into the forest.

But the entity was there as well.

"Julia Porak, you were not meant to live this far. I see that the pieces have been scattered much further than expected,"

"M-my name.. How?" Pinklia hissed, every part of her body felt like a migraine as she slowly dissolved into a puddle.

"Penelope, you were meant to be in Aviotica," lamented, glancing at Emily who was still staring and pointing directly at it.

"This machine at your side is also an interesting turn, tell me Penelope, has this venture given you the knowledge you truly sought? The power you desire? The magic to do what you want?" asked sincerely.

Penelope felt a tinge in her heart.

"N-no." Penelope admitted, unsure why she was being so honest right now.

Pinklia tried to speak but was only able to gurgle her mass.

Emily cocked her head as she saw walk towards Penelope and grabbed her hand.

"I know the time is not quite right, but would you accept my patronage?"

"W-why?" Penelope stammered, feeling the coldly hot hands clasp hers.

Suddenly, a vision from another life flashed in her mind.

One where Utarou hadn't consolidated Dracons into one village.

One where she lived in Kolon her entire life.

One where she took the road to Aviotica herself.

One where unspeakable things were done to her on that road.

"You have been more fortunate than expected, but I fear that luck may not last," explained sorrowfully.

Penelope didn't remember screaming, but she felt the tightness in her throat once she realized she'd fallen to the ground.

"Now tell me, may I come upon thee, letting the power of the highest overshadow thee?"

Penelope looked up, unable to see, but felt herself about to accept.

Until Emily appeared to push the invisible entity aside, kneeling down to her master and panickedly writing a note.

"Master, is everything okay?" Emily wrote.

"N-NO! NO GO AWAY!" Penelope screamed, snapping back to her senses as she looked around, the sound returning to her ears and sight slowly being restored.

"A shame, but I shan't despair, you shall depart from me,"

Without so much as a second being allowed to process it, Penelope, Pinklia and Emily were suddenly standing on the outer border of Oldser, near the province of Rolfcons.

Penelope collapsed as Pinklia reconstituted herself, then collapsed as well.

Emily panicked and wrote several more notes trying to confirm that her masters hadn't been mindbroken by whatever that encounter was.

…
​

Hans sat awkwardly surrounded by a small force of border guards in a watch tower, trying to keep any lecherous knights from catching a glimpse of what was below the skirt.

"Heh, pretty young thing doing spy work? I'm not surprised, not a lotta work for young girls with short hair." The Rolfcons guard schmoozed as his superior read the letter once again.

"To the Duke of Burtcons, we are interested in your offer to join together against the Bolger family so long as you can guarantee me and my family's safety. I will be arriving at the lake just south of the river which makes up yours and Rolfcons' border the night after the new moon with my full military force, we may march the following morning.

Henrek Porak, provisional governor of Dracons."

"So where did you get this letter then?" The captain asked seriously.

"I-I told you! I got it from Henrek and then he gave me some gold, then I got told not to ask any questions!" Hans lied, it was effortlessly simple to capture the tone of a distressed woman when dressed and looking how Hans looked.

Which was, looking and sounding a lot like a distressed woman.

The captain sighed.

"Alright, we'll have to elevate this to the top brass, can't trust those damn Oldsman as far as you can throw em." The captain grumbled, being a member of the Bolger family he has quite invested in this conflict.

Ever since the provisional Bolger governor had acquired power in Rolfcons, the power hungry Oldsman family had been using every dirty trick to try and get another one of their wretched kin in charge of the province.

This kind of scheming was expected from them unfortunately, and if this was true they only had a few days to muster the army to launch a counter attack.

 

[m4gpier]

"Three more days…" Henrek muttered, looking at the moon.

"You shouldn't have to fight, relax…" Hope urged, trying to pull Henrek back to bed.

"I just feel like we're going to get more attention than we should." Henrek sighed as he sat on the side of the bed, eyes wandering over to Lilly in her crib.

"I think your stunt with Utarou did that already, you know how much the King loves Blessed Beings." Hope teased.

"Heh, yeah… I just hope this doesn't get too out of hand…" Henrek groaned as he got into bed.

"If it does, I'd rather have the mad immortal take the damage as opposed to you…"

Dryholm had charged the dwarven weaponry with the questionable consent of Utarou's grown pot of Redlia, it was entirely inert but still magically potent enough to charge the weapons.

The day of battle approached.

…
​

Penelope looked up, she was in a nightmare.

With piercing green eyes and a furious expression, messy blonde hair covering his sharp features.

He'd clearly come here in a hurry, considering he hadn't even changed into his armour.

His hand was pushing into the wall just beside Penelope's head.

Adam had appeared not more than a minute after the trio of Penelope, Pinklia and Emily were teleported just outside of Oldser, and he was demanding answers.

"Where is it?" Adam growled, staring deeply into Penelope's eyes.

"H-huh?" Penelope asked, tears still wet from the sobbing she was doing moments prior.

"It, the creature which cannot be seen, cannot be spoken of, cannot be heard. Where is it?" Adam demanded before Pinklia and Emily pushed him away.

Adam had an intensity in his eyes that none of them had seen before.

Emily quickly wrote a note and handed it to Adam.

"Madam Penelope had recently had an encounter with a demon, are you asking about that?" Emily's note said.

Adam read it and looked at the mechanical golem maid, a flicker of a smile appeared on his face before he began to interrogate it.

"You are not human, you two must've been able to see and hear it fine, correct?" Adam demanded, looking at Emily and Pinklia.

"W-what?! I couldn't see anything, it was just this… horrible presence…" Pinklia shuddered as Penelope slowly composed herself, taking deep breaths.

"You carry the curse of humanity as well? Fascinating." Adam noted.

"I could only see it, as my hearing has been removed." Emily wrote, handing Adam the note.

"Interesting, you, golem, draw me a picture of the demon immediately. You two, where was the creature? The Church sensed its magic and sent me here." Adam explained calmly, finally settling down as he realized he was scaring the women.

Emily hesitated, looking back at Penelope who just gave a thumbs up, standing up straight to Adam to speak to him properly.

"You can't just do that, jeez, hot guys think they can get away with anything…" Penelope retorted meekly, her usually confident remarks still stilted.

"I apologise, but we haven't had any sightings of the demon in nearly two hundred years, such a blatant move from it means something serious is happening. You three being a part of it makes me concerned, with warrant I'd like to think." Adam sighed, genuinely remorseful over his uncouth introduction.

"Blatant… Wait a minute, where are we?" Pinklia asked as she looked around, recognizing the scenery was not like the dwarven east of Aurora.

"Just outside of Oldser. I was hoping to not need to return until long after your little skirmish concluded." Adam explained with a sigh, glaring at Penelope.

"H-hey! We didn't ask to be taken here! He just did it!" Penelope retorted defensively as Emily handed over a sketch to Adam.

It looked terrible, with poorly drawn fingers that melted into one another, proportions drawn as if it was a toddler.

"Hmpth, no matter. What did it want from you? Where did you see it?" Adam asked seriously as he looked towards the dwarven lands.

"We were just outside of Clan Assynt's fort… And it appeared right after I used that spell you showed me!" Penelope exclaimed suddenly, catching Adam's interest.

"Hmpth, I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it found you. The Church's magic is something the demon hates. But then why didn't it kill you upon finding you?" Adam asked seriously.

"Hey hey calm down! It just… Well uh… It…" Penelope began to blush as she remembered the intense encounter.

"It was saying weird stuff about being the father of the Saviour and wanting to be Penelope's son!" Pinklia blurted out awkwardly.

Adam paused for a moment as he considered the scripture and holy records of this demonic attack.

This was unusual behaviour for it.

It wanted something from Penelope.

"And it made you a deal for power? You said no right?" Adam asked seriously, placing his hands on Penelope's shoulders.

"Of course I said no! And don't touch me until you've taken me out for dinner first!" Penelope retorted confidently.

"I'll keep that in mind… Consider this a warning Penelope, do not leave the lands of the Church, otherwise that entity will return for you." Adam explained seriously, before disappearing to try and find the Demon before it left.

The three girls remained silent for a few more moments, until Emily wrote a note and handed it to Penelope along with the sketch.

"Do you think my illustration is that poor?"

Penelope laughed and patted the golem on the head.

"It's fine, c'mon let's get going. The skirmish is probably happening soon, so this will be a good excuse to pick up the blue Julia on our way back." Penelope said, gathering her gusto and picking up her bag.

"A-are you sure that's a good idea? What if there are Oldser knights around…" Pinklia asked nervously.

"Bah, I'm sure they're busy." Penelope smirked, her grand war plan was falling into place, and she was, naively, trusting Utarou to be able to execute his half.

He just needed to keep a low profile, let Henrek appear to be the one causing a ruckus, then blow both armies up with their dwarven weaponry.

From there, it'd be a smooth take over of the old senile king.

No problems.

…
​

King Oldsman's throne room was dark, with only four individuals in it and lit by nothing but the full moon.

The old king looked upon his collection of Blessed Beings, Lucian, Kiera and Koch.

Lucian, the man blessed with the ability Instant Death Touch, wore silk gloves and an expectant look on his face.

Kiera, a woman blessed with the ability Absolute Lock, was fulfilling her duties as one of the king's collectables in listening to his summons.

Koch, a man blessed with the ability Total Mana Nullification, loyal to the crown and having been a key member of the king's court for over a decade now.

"It is a great shame that I failed to anticipate this occurring. Kiera, have you heard the rumblings of strife within my lands?" Oldsman asked wearily.

"Yes my lord, it is a tragedy of the utmost seriousness that your vassals would dare fight against one another." Kiera replied sycophantically, causing the King to roll his eyes.

"Hmpth, indeed. The most troubling part is Henrek's part in it. I'm afraid it is far too late to send an army off to squash this rabble. The man was broken when I last heard of him, yet he appears to be reanimated in a kind of conspiracy… One to undermine my provinces and acquire more land? Tell me Lucian, does that sound like anyone we know?" Oldsman asked rhetorically.

"Yes my lord, it does sound like Utarou's doing." Lucian replied dutifully.

"It's such a shame, he was the prized piece in my collection right besides you and Koch. I smell that this fight is the church's doing." Oldsman muttered bitterly, causing Kiera to flinch at the blatant Aviotican dissent the king so casually uttered, though Koch and Lucian were aware of the King's distaste for the current Pope and Magisterium already.

"I take it you summoned me and your son to the capital for a specific reason then my lord?" Koch asked cautiously.

"Hmpth, yes. These events have caused me to expedite my plans. Send word to the rest of my collection, Youngsman will be crowned within the month. I wouldn't want my favourite pieces to miss that now would I?" Oldsman asked with a machiavellian grin.

He would need to locate and secure Utarou, all so he could witness his son's glorious crowning, before the church could interfere with his plans any further.

 

[m4gpier]

The trio had made their way into Rolfcons territory.

"Holy moly ravioli… Look at all those soldiers!" Penelope hissed, looking back at the quivering Pinklia and motionless Emily.

"How are you not freaking out about the literal demon that was wanting to be your son?!" Pinklia asked incredulously, still rattled from the encounter with Adam that was mere hours ago.

"I'm a fast moving modern woman, can't get bogged down by things like demonic pacts and hot holy knights interrogating me." Penelope retorted with her usual jokey attitude, having firmly reestablished her protective layer of irony.

Emily quickly wrote a note and handed it to Penelope.

"Why are we moving towards the soldiers? Miss Julia appears frightened."

"Relax Ems, if Henrek's directions were accurate we should be close to Badlubrain's fort, and the blue version of Julia… Actually wait how will your command access handle that?" Penelope pondered out loud. Emily cocked her head and scribbled down a note.

"I am authorised to serve one Julia, not several."

"Fair enough." Penelope shrugged, looking back through the bushes to see when the march of soldiers stopped.

They were on their way to rescue Bluelia, or Twolia, the one that was frozen in the fortress awhile ago now.

Names are confusing with all these Julia's around.

…
​

"Ravoli moly holy…" Barney exclaimed as he saw the two armies muster at opposite ends of the lake.

Utarou, Bluelia, Redlia, Henrek and Barney had set up with three rifles, the cannon base being deemed inoperable and three rifles being considered more than enough fire power to cause a landslide.

The garrison was prepared with the rest of the weapons fully loaded, courtesy of Utarou's new home grown red mana gel, much to Redlia's wrath.

Though, most things caused her to get angry.

"I can't fucking believe you grew so much of it…" Redlia grumbled, looking back at the barrel of mana gelatin they'd brought along, with several more barrels back in Dryholm.

Utarou knew how to use his meat efficiently, after all it was the one resource he had in spades.

It was also the only thing he had going for him other than Dryholm being slightly better off with him than without him, though he had been trying to learn how to extend the limits of his Perfect Immortality even further.

"Keep quiet, looks like they're bringing their wizards out now…" Henrek mumbled as he and Bluelia monitored the battlefield.

Bluelia was finding that she could intensify the light reaching her eye, giving her absurd vision, while Henrek was just trying his best.

"Are you sure? They look like… Oh nope yeah they're wizards… Big crystal orbs too woah." Bluelia remarked as she stared out of her telescopic eye at both sides of the conflict.

"Aren't those fuckers going to just see us here?" Redlia growled as she pushed Bluelia aside, copying her telescopic eye trick for herself.

"That's what we brought two for. Barney, fire." Henrek commanded, calmly aiming the rifle at the wizard on the Burtcons side.

"Aye aye." Barney replied dutifully, aiming at the wizard on the Rolfcons side.

At the same time, they fired.

The beam of light was intense, neither army had a moment to react to the explosion, but they knew one thing for sure.

Someone had fired at them, and there was a very clear opponent just across the lake who could've done it. Neither of them quite realised they'd both been shot at the exact same time of course.

It took all of thirty seconds for the horns of war to be blown.

"Alright, we shouldn't have to worry about any reconnaissance over here for a while. Sit back and watch the fireworks." Henrek declared, a dark grin growing on his face.

"Yeesh, you're acting like they did something to you." Utarou remarked as he proceeded to sit back.

"Archos Oldsman tried to kill my wife and daughter when I was attempting to negotiate with him. You were in a cell at the time." Henrek explained bluntly, earning the awkward bluster of both Bluelia and Redlia.

"Well I think we should step back a bit anyway, c'mon the missus made some sandwiches for us." Barney said quickly changing the topic of conversation, he didn't like seeing his friend so hateful.

"Urgh, no offence but I'm still feeling bloated from her trying to grow back my finger…" Redlia moaned.

"Yeah watch your figure tubby." Bluelia sneered, pushing past Redlia to walk next to Barney. Henrek sighed as he watched his two sisters squabble and got up, pulling the rifle with him.

"Did you have siblings in that other world of yours?" Henrek asked casually, the group retreated out of sight as the battle raged on.

"Just a brother, but he died back in 2011." Utarou shrugged.

"I… I have no idea what that means." Henrek replied, having no concept of the Gregorian calendar.

"Died when I was a kid, was a fair few years older, didn't know him well since he was usually in his room until he got run over by a truck. He did show me Tokyo Mew Mew though, so you can thank him for showing me the light of monster girls!" Utarou declared triumphantly.

"Right… So being a freak runs in your family then." Henrek laughed as he looked towards Rolfcons, where the other piece of Bluelia was being held.

Soon they'd be able to go and rescue her.

Entirely unaware that she had already been saved.

…
​

"CRYO UPSEPTIA!" Penelope cast, freezing the two remaining guards at this Rolfcons castle and waltzing in effortlessly with Pinklia and Emily.

"By the Saviour! Monsters!" A servant girl squealed as Penelope and co walked past.

"Heh, boo." Penelope mocked, flicking her finger towards the terrified servant who promptly fainted.

Emily handed Penelope a note.

"Why are we storming a modified dwarven fortress?" Emily asked, noting the old design and how it had been heavily modified for human usage.

Penelope wrote back.

"We're finding a friend, now take us to the secret dungeon."

Emily read the note and cocked her head, scanning the hallways before suddenly turning 90 degrees and walking to a seemingly inconspicuous looking wall.

It had a painting on it with a golden and ornate frame. Emily immediately bent the gold with her hands, ripping it off the wall and revealing a dwarven switch. After flicking it down, the mechanisms began to whir and immediately ripped open another portrait on the opposite wall revealing a stairwell to the dungeon.

"She's scary…" Pinklia admitted, as she watched the unnerving golem return to them.

"Yeah but unless any dwarves come to get her then she's only going to listen to us!" Penelope smirked, covering her mouth so Emily couldn't read her lips.

Emily noted this and made as unimpressed of a facial expression as her aperture eyes could allow.

Walking down the stairs, the trio noticed the temperature suddenly drop.

Frost crawled up the stairs as they reached the heart of the dungeon.

At the bottom, the answer revealed itself.

Bluelia, frozen and left behind, hadn't simply resigned herself it seemed.

There were dozens of separate ice spikes with Bluelia shaped holes in them where she had managed to escape, with the last one being a frosted dome with a pale blue Bluelia shivering in its centre.

"W-what the hell?" The pale Bluelia asked, barely audible from behind the thick frost, her body rigid and filled with shards of ice.

"Oh crap, hold on! Ember on ignitus!" Penelope cast a small plume of fire appearing from her hands and quickly raised the temperature within the dungeon, while Emily watched with her usual curious stare and Pinklia looked around in horror as the ice spikes began to melt.

These weren't just random icicles that had formed.

These were other parts of this pale Bluelia that had been deliberately and specifically frozen.

She'd been fighting to escape for a long time it seemed.

Eventually, the dome was cracked, and the pale Bluelia inched her way out, looked at Pinklia and Emily and sighed.

"Utarou already found more monster girls huh?" She laughed before passing out.

"CRAP! EMILY! HOT WATER STAT!" Penelope screamed, turning to Emily, focusing on maintaining temperature so she didn't accidentally burn anyone in the room.

 

[m4gpier]

Utarou caught himself imagining what he must look like from the outside as his head regrew from his torso, briefly catching a glimpse of himself as the straggling knight who'd just attacked Utarou was cut down by Barney.

He was wandering the field of corpses, picking up anything useful from them and shooting anyone who hadn't been caught in the slaughter.

He must have looked like a kind of grim reaper.

"Heh, maybe I was the shinigami the whole time…" Utarou thought out loud as he heard the sound of breathing coming from a pile of corpses to his left. He aimed his gun at the pile, paused for a second as he saw a raven quickly fly away.

He was nearly out of ammo and didn't feel like wasting any shots he didn't have to.

With a sigh he looked up to where the Julias were watching.

"ARE WE DONE HERE?!" Utarou shouted.

They'd sent him down first alone to handle the stragglers himself, it wasn't exactly a risk if he died a few times.

Henrek and Barney had come to take care of a few that were hiding themselves.

"YEAH! COME ON LET'S GET OUT OF HERE THIS PLACE IS STARTING TO REEK!" Redlia shouted.

The battle had thoroughly wiped out the armies of Burtcons and Rolfcons, with Monsteria's new dwarven rifles helping to keep the battle a complete and utter bloodbath on each side. Whenever one was about to win, Henrek evened the playing field with a sniper shot.

The chaos of battle kept their sabotage hidden until it was far too late for either side to do anything about it. When both sides had mages firing explosive spells, knights using skills to perform explosive and flashy attacks, a few golden beams of light hardly stuck out.

"Alright I'm happy enough with what we've gotten sorted, you?" Barney asked, grabbing a bundle of weapons and equipment for himself as a part of the spoils of war.

Henrek was looking at the corpses of Archos Oldsman and Adamonze Oldser, the men who represented wider society's rejection of his sister, wife and child.

He said nothing as he cut off the men's heads and walked away.

It was time to go home, the war was over. No one would hear of this incident, any scouts would see a bloody battle between two rivals, and Monsteria's role in it would never be known.

Walking across the bloodied grass, it was like a red carpet.

The raven returned to the corpses, pecking at something deep below the pile of bodies.

Amongst the thick red carpet, a singular soldier was barely able to survive, one who had just seen and heard everything.

…
​

It was a hastily arranged coronation, only the nobility who could receive the invite and arrive at the capital within two weeks were invited, resulting in some of the outermost nobility from provinces like Brattany being excluded.

King Oldsman sat on his throne as the room talked in hushed whispers, spreading rumours that the King was closer to death than expected, or the potential that this completely unknown heir was a bastard he had decided to install under everyone's noses.

Prince Youngsman was a complete unknown to the wider nobility, but it was evident that he was Oldsman's son.

He carried the posture, dignity and regal nobility that people spoke of Oldsman having when he was, well, a younger man.

But he was terribly young, no older than 15 years of age, his face was boyish and his body was still small.

It was insane to be crowning him, but as he walked the red carpet and knelt in front of his father, this unorthodox crowning only continued to grow stranger.

"My collection, please, come here." Oldsman demanded, signalling with a weak hand for the five pieces of his collection to kneel before him.

Lucian, the man whose touch would instantly kill anything.

Bertolt Befehl, the man who could command anyone instantly.

Koch Bloch, the man whose presence nullified all magic completely.

Cassandra Morrow, the woman who could see the perfect future.

Kiera Riegel, the woman who could halt anything.

They all knelt just behind Youngsman, who looked up to his father, Oldsman smirked.

"I wish for my son to… Perhaps absorb some of the divinity you Blessed Beings have been given. May he start with you Kiera?" Oldsman asked in a coldly calculated tone.

Kiera felt uneasy but nodded.

"O-Of course my lord!" Kiera exclaimed, seeing that Youngsman was already approaching, his eyes glowing a faint white.

Cassandra, a woman blessed with Future Sight. She could see what actions she would have to take in the next 10 seconds in order to guarantee the best outcome.

This ability had led her to Oldsman, thus granting her a generous offer as a noble with no obligations but accepting summons like this.

As Youngsman placed his palm out above Kiera's head, Cassandra saw nothing out of the ordinary.

So long as she kept kneeling, she would get the best outcome.

Until suddenly, she received a vision she'd never gotten before.

Guaranteed death.

Cassandra screamed and immediately began running towards the exit.

Everyone in the room looked baffled except Lucian and Oldsman.

Her vision was clear, she was going to die.

It was already too late.

Kiera fell to the ground ten seconds after Cassandra began to flee, Youngman's eyes were glowing yellow.

Bertolt looked at the young lord and was about to say something but it was too late.

"Absolute Lock," Youngsman declared, snapping his fingers.

Everyone in the room suddenly froze, their bodies immobile, with only King Oldsman being spared.

"Hmm, it does feel good to finally use my own Blessing." Youngsman remarked as he approached Cassandra, his eyes returning to a soft white glow.

She could no longer scream as her vision came true, with Youngsman holding his hand just in front of her face, she died, her body unable to move as Youngman's eyes began to glow a dark blue.

Turning back, Youngsman saw the man who raised him, Koch Bloch, in a hidden fortress in the forests, away from the prying eyes of other nobility, his Total Mana Nullification keeping them hidden from even the Avoisan Church.

Koch looked devastated as Youngsman let out a sigh.

"I'm sorry, old friend, it has to be this way." Youngsman apologised, holding his hand over the man's face, as the life faded from eyes, Youngsman's eyes began to glow a bright green.

Bertolt Befehl, the man possessing the Blessing of Absolute Command, was desperately trying to speak, to force his will onto Youngsman like he had done to so many men before to protect himself, but his jaw was unable to move.

Youngman's eyes glowed red after taking his Blessing.

Finally, there was Lucian, the only other man in this room who knew what this coronation was really for.

He was eagerly awaiting his curse to be taken away, even if it meant his life.

"Be careful with that one boy, it's a feisty ability!" Oldsman laughed as over a decade of planning finally slotted into place. It was earlier than he wanted, but no matter, the boy only needed one more blessing after this to become a God King.

As the life left Lucian's eyes, Youngsman's eyes turned purple.

"Yes, this is quite a dangerous one you kept for me father…" Youngsman remarked as his eyes switched to yellow, he snapped his fingers, releasing everyone from the grip, including the corpses of 5 blessed beings.

There were several screams of terror as they were finally freed from the power of Absolute Lock, though they were quickly silenced by a red eyed Youngsman shouting.

"TO ALL IN ATTENDANCE, SILENCE!" Youngsman shouted, the power of Absolute Command compelling them to deathly silence.

"Everyone in here, your standing order is simple, you are to never betray me, lie to me, or defect from me." Youngsman commanded, his eyes switching to a dark blue.

Seeing the ideal path for the next 10 seconds, he suddenly walked away from the throne room towards the hall, where a bruised, battered and barely alive soldier was standing, horrified.

"Speak." Youngsman demanded.

"M-My liege I didn't mean to-"

"What news do you bring?!" Youngsman snapped.

"I-It's… The Immortal… The battle… Burtcons and Rolfcons armies are gone… We were set up… By an unkillable man! THE unkillable man is alive!" The soldier gasped, his wounds having barely healed, the hard journey from Dracons had nearly killed the man.

Youngsman smiled.

"The final piece of my collection appears to have made itself known to us father, perhaps we can skip the formalities, I believe it's clear to everyone here I am now king. I now wish to hunt." Youngsman declared.

Once he stole Utarou's Perfect Immortality.

Nothing could ever stop Youngsman again.

 

[m4gpier]

"A DOLL GIRL!?" Utarou squealed as he began to aggressively examine the unimpressed Emily's joints, who firmly shoved Utarou off.

Penelope quickly slid Emily a note before Utarou could get up and start examining the golem maid again.

"You're allowed to break this man if he does anything you don't like."

Emily read the note, nodded and before Utarou could even get close, she grabbed his head and crushed his skull.

As the pieces regenerated he let out a sigh.

"Ah Penelope, you appear to have given this robo girl the misapprehension that she can break me whenever she feels like it just because I'm immortal." Utarou sighed, causing Penleope to let out a girlish giggle before catching herself.

As this was going on, Pinklia, Bluelia, Bluelia, Redlia and Henrek had just finished their touching reunion at the gate of Dryholm, and now had to deal with the logistics of the situation.

Everyone's favourite.

The two Bluelia's glared at each other.

The one who had been frozen in Rolfcons for nearly a month had grown pale, notably investing into every ice resistance and regeneration skill that appeared on her skill tree.

The one who had escaped back to Dryholm was a deep blue, investing in the combat abilities that had started appearing in her skill tree.

Pinklia and Redlia, despite both being mana slimes, were clearly composed of a different gelatinous substance thanks to whatever process the Burtcons Alchemist and the Elves in Aviotica had used being entirely different for infusing them each with mana.

This was all the information Henrek had to explain what he was about to see.

The two Bluelias had been one up until the moment one had frozen, and now…

The pale Bluelia grabbed the dark Bluelia's hand impatiently, wanting to get over the memory merging process like they had done with the green speckled Julia from when they first regained mass.

It didn't work, with their hands phased into each other, the slime merging together in a swirl of dark and light blue, both of the Bluelias jumped back as they felt the uncanny feeling of their bodies not mixing, as if they were made of water and oil respectively.

Splitting off both of their arms, the combined fragment tried desperately to push the other fragment off as they kept swirling around in each other's bodies.

The rest of the Julias suddenly jumped back away from each other as they saw the combined fragment struggling to free itself from the incompatible slime.

"W-what the hell?!" Henrek screamed as he tried in vain to help.

"BleauhjrghuOFF ME!" The fragment screamed, a pale blue strand pulling itself out of the dark blue by stretching out to a nearby rock, slowly pulling its mass outwards.

The pale Bluelia stuck her hand out to the strand and reabsorbed it as it slowly freed itself, while the dark Bluelia could only watch on.

Pinklia was terrified while Redlia let out a scoff as she relaxed, realising she didn't have to deal with this nonsense thanks to her splitting not producing fully sentient copies like the others.

Penelope noticed the commotion just as both the Bluelias managed to reconstitute themselves without the others mass in them, mostly.

Each of them still had speckles of the other slime in them, which had turned to the form of freckles.

"What the fuck was that?" Redlia asked, still from a safe distance away from all the other Julias of course.

"Y-You didn't want to merge back!" The dark Bluelia shouted indignantly from one side of the path as Utarou walked over to see what the ruckus was about.

"Me?! Maybe I'm just so much more battle hardened than the one who ran away!" The pale Bluelia screamed from the other side of the path, with Henrek in the middle entirely unsure of what to do.

Fortunately, Utarou had a plan.

"Ladies ladies, there's no such thing as too many Monster Girls-" Utarou began before Redlia and dark Bluelia smashed his head in from both sides.

Notably, the impact between the red goo and blue goo was like two balls of putty slamming into each other, they flattened but did not mix together at all.

"- And I think the easiest solution is more names! You shall be Navy Bluelia!" Utarou declared, pointing his finger to the dark Bluelia.

"Fine, whatever." Navy replied, rolling her eyes.

"And you! Shall be Aqua Bluelia!"

"What the hell is this?! I'm gone for who knows how long and suddenly you have a bunch of replacements for me?! And I'm Julia, I'm not some variant!" Aqua shouted, glaring at the other Julias.

Henrek let out a sigh, he'd gone from one dying sister, to an uncontrollably alive sister, to a pile of goo, to suddenly an ever expanding roster of sisters.

All of which thought they were the original sister.

"LADIES! Ladies, what's all the commotion?!" Barney shouted, jumping down from the watch tower to see what all the shouting was about up close.

Suddenly all the Julias blushed and turned away, mumbling various excuses.

"Fufufufu… Alright now that they've settled down… Onwards! Time for Miss Penelope to teach her first lesson!" Penelope declared, pointing towards the old Church Vicar John had set up years ago now.

"Eh?" The Julias asked in unison.

…
​

"Hmm, you are an interesting one…" Folosogg mumbled, she'd been intensely studying this small piece of Bluelia since it'd arrived, growing it and splitting it into various samples.

Interestingly, despite containing the same kind of spirit as Greylia, the same skills that could be unlocked and everything, they couldn't grow any more than about the size of a pumpkin, with intelligence never seeming to exceed its most minimal state, still a bumbling and burbling ball of sludge.

Next to the burbling ball, there was a tray of Greylia's killed body resting, Folosogg was experimenting, seeing that the spiritually dead slime didn't react or combine with the blue slime at all.

Greylia stared from her tube, hatefully and quietly.

She was plotting.

…
​

"NOW! Education is important, the more you know, the more you can do, and you four lovely ladies have a lot to learn!" Penelope announced, the four Julias sat in separate pews, with Henrek hanging out by the door.

Emily was acting as her teaching assistant, passing out materials she'd hand copied for Penelope.

Pinklia raised her hand gingerly.

"Yes! Pink!"

"Uh, yeah… Why now?" Pinklia asked, looking to her left and seeing the frothing rage of Redlia as she snatched the paper from Emily.

"Brilliant question, first! You and Red are living mana batteries, if you two could learn magic hoo boy!" Penelope smirked as she imagined the firepower she'd be able to draw upon from them if they were able to cast through basic sigils.

"And us?" Aqua asked.

"You two need to learn something Utarou calls, the scientific method!" Penelope declared, quickly drawing up a diagram onto a piece of rock that had crashed into the church and had been flattened by Emily.

"The what method?" Navy asked.

"It's simple, step 1, you form a hypothesis!"

…
​

Greylia had no sense of time in her cell, the only measure was when Folosogg was in the lab, and when she was out. When Folosogg was in, the lights were on, when she was out, the lights were off.

There were no windows, and it wasn't obvious where in Aviotica she was.

She had taken to counting the seconds as best she could in between when Folosogg left and returned.

She had a theory, Folosogg left for at least an hour whenever she did leave.

If she wanted to escape, it'd have to be then.

…
​

"Alright… and then what do you do?" Aqua asked tentatively.

"Simple, you test it."

"How?"

"Figure out an experiment! Like Utarou did when he was figuring out XP!"

"And how do you do that?"

"You try to isolate the variables, only changing one thing at a time!"

…
​

Greylia was alone, in the dark.

The clump of mindless Bluelia was making noises across the room in its own tube.

Greylia had time to try again.

She placed her hand on the glass wall and tried to feel the spiritually inert slime.

Instead, she felt something different.

Naturally, she clenched it with all the force her exhausted self could manage.

The burbling Bluelia stopped making noise.

"Huhuhuhu! Perfect! I was hoping you'd learn something!" Folosogg cooed as the lights turned on suddenly, immediately placing a barrier around what used to be the burbling Bluelia, the colour drained from its body, becoming another Greylia, absorbing the tray of dead grey slime next to her as it stared hatefully at Folosogg.

"It didn't make any sense for a slime to be utterly unable to achieve a hive mind! Clearly young Grey-chan here needed the instruction of a mentor like me~!" Folosogg beamed as she looked at the small blob of Greylia as it stretched out limbs from its cores like an eldritch monster, crawling around its cage, trying to find an exit.

Folosogg's experiment had confirmed something.

The Julias had the mind of a human, it just diminished with mass and couldn't simply be regrown.

The Julias had the body of a slime, it was functionally identical to the substance slime monsters were made of.

The Julias had the soul of something entirely new, it wasn't human but it certainly wasn't a monster soul.

Folosogg was eager to see what other experiments she could run to confirm questions on this new species.