Disclaimer: I do not own MGQ, no copyright infringement is intended

Chapter 4

Luka stared at Alice in wonder once Granberia left, "Wow Alice, you must be someone pretty amazing!"

Alice stared at him in disbelief for a breath, before retorting, "Idiot." She flicked her silver hair over her shoulder, then indicated towards the collapsed man besides her before walking off, "Make yourself useful and carry him, I have some questions I need answered."

As Luka turned towards the specific person she indicated, he realised it was the warrior that fought Granberia before him. As he was mustering his courage to face the draconian swords-woman, she had challenged the man to fight her. Luka had watched in admiration of his skill, as he managed to stand up to Granberia even better than he did.

Luka had barely touched her, and she only left due to Alice telling her to. That just confirmed in Luka's mind that his companion was more important that she seemed. Shrugging to himself he hoisted the man over his shoulder, following after Alice.

I sighed as I looked across the grey skyscape that was the view from my apartment window. Checking the time on my phone confirmed what I already knew, I was up 4 hours too early. Taking a sip of the extra strong coffee in my hand, I despaired over how tough the coming work day would be, especially considering the 12 hour work shift ahead of me.

It was way too early in the morning for any of my friends to be up, so passing time that way is not an option. Sighing again, I turned around to take a seat at my dining table, before pausing. Wasn't there something I was doing? Something about... Monster Girls? Suddenly a rush of memories came to my mind.

My eyes snapped open.

"Oh, so our mysterious warrior has awoken."

I took in the opulent room around me, shaking the last of my sleep off. The one who spoke was Alice, still in her human disguise, sitting on a plush armchair and happily munching on some sticky concoction on a stick. Sitting next to the bed I am on is Luka, who has apparently been tending to my wounds if the dull ache in my body and the bandages are anything to go by.

Alice snapped the last bit of honey glazed treat off of the stick in her hands and carelessly tossed the now barren piece of wood to the side. She then stood up and marched over to loom imperiously over me, "You, what is your name?" Before I could answer that question, she immediately hit me with another, "Why can you use Dark Energy?"

Wait, what? "What?" Yeah, not my most eloquent moment. "What are you talking about?"

Alice seemed to get frustrated before Luka intervened, "Alice, he just woke up. Give him a minute."

Alice huffed and turned away. Luka then turned to me and flashed a nervous smile, "Sorry about her, Are you alright?"

My head was still spinning from what Alice asked me. Dark Energy? Isn't that the thing monsters use to power their magic? What the hell was she talking about?

I decided to answer Luka, "Yes, thank you. My body is still sore from that fight, Granberia certainly hits hard. Who are you?"

Luke flashed me a bright smile, "I'm glad you're not in too much pain! I'm Luka and her name is Alice. What's your name?" As he introduced himself he stretched out his hand, offering me a handshake.

I took the offered hand, shaking it while replying, "My name is Lothar Pendragon, thank you for caring for me. What happened after I collapsed?" Despite already knowing, I decided to ask for appearances sake.

As Luka moved to answer however, Alice whirled around and glared at me, "He's awake enough!" Her eyes started glowing and I was too slow to avert my gaze. She locked eyes with me and then demanded, "Tell me how you can use Dark Energy!"

I didn't hear her however, as the buzzing that had been my constant companion ever since coming to this world suddenly became a shriek. The energy rushed forwards directly to my eyes and I was suddenly overtaken by an inexplicable feeling of pure, seething rage.

The shriek intensified, and the pain hit me. I had headaches before, but this one had them all beat. The splitting pain was like a pure lance of burning metal shoved straight through my head. The agony was so intense that I lost all sense of my surroundings for a time, I can't say how long.

When the pain subsided slightly, I realised I was curled into the fetal position on the bed, with my arms tightly wrapped around my head, tears streaming from my eyes. I raised my head gingerly and was struck was by the sight of Alice, no longer in her human form, collapsed into the coils of her tails. And there was Luka, fretting restlessly while trying to decide who to help first.

She raised a hand to her head as she rose on her monstrous tail, and regarded me balefully, "Well, aren't you quite the surprise."

Earlier

Alice was feeling very bemused. She had just seen one of her Heavenly Knights, Granberia, interpreting the orders she gave that monsters should only act in self-defence rather liberally. Granberia apparently thought this meant that the best way to defend herself was to attack Illiasburg, one of the cities on the Illias continent that was known for the ridiculous Heroes that were trained there.

She would have scoffed, as Granberia carved through these so called "Heroes" as if they weren't even there, but one warrior gave her pause. She had watched the fight, same as that Fake Hero she was travelling with, but unlike him she knew the outcome was a forgone conclusion having seen Granberia fight at her best.

The man that fought Granberia was tall, just over two metres, with a muscular, trained build. He had shaggy dark brown hair, and a trimmed beard. As he fought, his incisive brown eyes was tracking the movements of Granberia. Alice could tell from her experience that the man was keeping up mentally with Granberia, but his body was too slow to keep up with his eyes.

Still, for a human he was doing impressively, but he was only human. Even though Granberia was holding back by a wide margin, the warrior facing her was barely keeping up with her. Both combatants seemed to know this, as they separated and traded a few words. The human's resolve was impressive, but ultimately useless.

Or so she thought, as she watched the man dodge the Demon Beheading of Granberia, something that should not have been possible for someone who didn't recognise the technique. What was more impressive and shocking however, is how the man channelled Dark Energy into the end of his weapon which he then slammed into her Heavenly Knight.

Granberia tanked the hit admirably, but Alice knew that is must have been painful. More than that, if the human had focused the energy rather than using it so bluntly, Granberia would likely have been severely injured. That should have been impossible, Alice had never heard of any human being able to consciously utilize Dark Energy. The fight ended soon after, then her foolish companion challenged the draconian swords-woman.

This fight was also extremely one-sided, Luka only lasting due to his natural quickness and Granberia's need to test and evaluate everyone she fought. As Alice watched, she noticed that Granberia was moving a bit more gingerly, reducing the strain on her injured stomach. That confirmed what she thought she saw, the unknown warrior had successfully imbued his strike with Dark Energy.

She intervened in the fight soon After Luka successfully used Demon Beheading, showing once again his impressive aptitude for learning (he was still an idiot though). Ordering the wannabe hero to carry the unknown man, she started moving towards this famous Sutherland Inn she had heard to much about, wanting to try some Ama Ama Dango as well as get to the bottom of this mysterious man and his Dark Energy usage.

After all, what's the point of being the Monster Lord if you can't have your cake and eat it too?

At The Luxurious Sutherland Inn

Alice was munching on the succulent sticky treat that the Innkeeper had prepared for them. Apparently the story of what happened with Granberia had already gotten twisted quite a bit by these foolish humans, as they believed that the mysterious man, who she now knew to be Lothar, got injured while dealing a debilitating blow to Granberia, which then allowed her and Luka to fight her off.

She would have laughed, the thought of Luka managing to fight off any of her Heavenly Knights with his weak resolve was amusing. So long as he is using a lethal weapon and not be willing to kill, Luka would always be handicapped. She had already resolved to fix that, and with Angel Halo and his insane learning speed, he might actually be able to defeat her at the end of this little adventure.

'Still,' She thought, eyeing Lothar on the room's bed, 'It wouldn't hurt to have a backup.' If she could teach Lothar to use his Dark Energy more efficiently, he might also be able to give her the proper ending to this little adventure. First, though, she would need to get to the bottom of how he got the ability in the first place.

Once he awakened, she impatiently demanded that the man answer how he was able to wield Dark Energy. She had expected him to be confused about what Dark Energy was, or know what she was talking about and answer her. What she didn't expect, was for him to have a spark of recognition in his eyes, yet still try act dumb.

So he knew it was Dark Energy? Yet he still tried to act like he had no idea what she was talking about. This infuriated her, but she allowed Luka to check on his health while she stewed. Eventually she decided that she will get answers no matter what, so she decided to hypnotise him to force him to cough up the answers she wanted.

As her eyes flashed and the connection was established, she ignored the protestations of the Idiot Hero and focused on her hypnotism.

While she hypnotizes people, she can get get a vague feeling of their current state of mind. Initially, she had thought he had somehow resisted her hypnotism, as she did not feel any emotions from the man. That was soon proven false however, as she felt a torrent of rage and hate from the man like nothing she had experienced before.

At the same time, his Dark Energy attacked her magic, attempting to force her out. This had happened before when she had used this ability on magic users, but like always, her overwhelming strength allowed her to resist his attempts to force her out.

What had never happened before, however, was for his subconscious to seemingly realise that attacking her magic was futile, and subsequently switch targets. His Dark Energy was too weak to force her out and was not able to attack her directly, so it attacked the only target it could, himself.

The pain from the feedback was excruciating, and forced her to cut the link. The shock of it was also so abrupt that it made her drop the focus on her transformation. As she reeled back, clutching her head, her mind was similarly reeling as well. That was extremely dangerous, if she had attempted to keep the connection active and his Energy had continued to do what it did, he would have likely died. She had no idea how that would have affected her, but she suspected it would not have been pleasant.

More that that, she could feel the fierce independence behind all that rage and hatred. Most humans are meek when confronted with monsters, their species having learned long ago that submitting when they were at a disadvantage was the best way to ensure survival. Not this one, it seems.

Pulling herself back up on to her tail, clutching her aching head, she glared at the cause of her current discomfort. Bitterly, she remarked, "Well, aren't you quite the surprise." Unsaid was her multitude of questions about this strange man.

AN: So, this chapter absolutely kicked my ass. It felt like I was drawing each word from a stone, but now that it's over I can hopefully get the next one over much quicker. What makes it even worse as that this was just a set-up chapter, ugh.

Something important to keep in mind, is Alice's Hypnotism attempt and it's fallout is a fairly important plot point, that's why this chapter took so much time, writing from Alice's perspective and getting all the important bits right took a while.

And now, its HEAD-CANNON TIME (TM).

My personal head-cannon is that the Humans of MGQ have not been unaffected by living alongside Monster Girls for so long. My favourite explanation for Critical Ecstasy is that Monsters inject Dark Energy into their victims via touch. When someone climaxes, it's a large build up of their life energy that then ebbs away temporarily after the climax. During this ebb, the Dark Energy overwhelms them and interferes with them from correctly using any of their Energy, due to it belonging to someone else.

I don't know how well I described it, but this is fairly similar to how AnthonyTsa describes it in his work, The Spin of Destiny, which you should totally check out.

More importantly, I believe that Humans in this world would have evolved differently from Humans on ours, most significantly in temperament. The goal of Evolution is to survive and procreate. Monster Girls can give birth to human males, so procreating with a Monster Girl would be a legitimate breeding strategy. The important part here, is I would think that Humans would evolve to instinctively realise that once a Monster Girl is in a position of strength over them, the best strategy for survival would be to submit and avoid angering her.

Humans from our world would lack these instincts, which I plan to make a plot point later on, but that's enough of a tease for now.

Review Responses:

Nightshift the Dragon Shifter: Thank you for the kind words!

AnthonyTsa: My Lord! Thank you very much for taking the time to review and the kind words. About your questions, I am still deciding on whether to fully reveal how the Protagonist got to this world or not. If I do, it will be after Luka defeats Illias (Or will he?). I tried to implement your criticism into this chapter, hopefully it makes it flow better.

As for the protagonist's surprising lack of culture of shock, my personal philosophy on writing First Person is to not go too deeply into a character's thoughts, as it then sort of "pauses" the scene and fatigues the reader. Once the character finds someone he can actually talk to about his thoughts and feelings, more and more will become clear I hope. I hope you enjoy the future chapters, I have some fun stuff planned.

Gentlemen Rance-T.M: The Chapters should be longer as the story goes on, for the time being my current plan is to have a chapter dedicated to the Mountain Bandits, two to the Harpy Village, one to Enrika and then two to Illiasport. After that, the story will open up a lot. I will do my damnedest to finish this story, but unfortunately my work has very fluctuating workloads so it can make finding the correct time to write a bit difficult.

Thatcatman: Ara Ara?

Weewoozesty: Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad someone got the reference!

Unnamed Guest: Thank you!

Korporal Kornflake: I agree, the Quarterstaff is a super cool weapon! Lothar certainly didn't only practice with Halberds, but from my experience in HEMA people always seem to practice with Halberds and Spears when they practice with Polearms.

N: Now!

The New Shinka: Don't worry, I will!

Thank you for reading!