Chapter 3

Pleasant company and truly reliable choices

"Likewise." — Olga nodded her head in greeting. Chloe hesitated for a second, then repeated the gesture. — "But I'm afraid it's not evening at all and not that good of a time as well."

Now that she had the chance to take a good look at him, it became clear to her just how young and handsome he really was. He had a pale face adorned with a straight nose and rather thin lips. His light brown hair of medium length for a man was combed to the right reaching his temple and the hair on his left temple had been braided into tree thin strips that were tucked behind his ear. Quite the unusual hairstyle. She paid special attention to his steel-colored eyes, which were emitting a barely noticeable bluish glow whilst those incomprehensible mechanical elements rotated around inside his pupils.

He was now looking at the two dark elves with interest, his gaze lingering on their ears. 'Perhaps this was his first time meeting a dark elf?' Which by the way is not such a rare case, especially after the Dark Elven Empire had fallen to ruin due to the monsters legion's onslaught.

Chloe also noticed our unwitting cellmate focusing on our ears, which made her frown. She hated humans and she definitely had good reasons for that.

"Yeah." — the man replied.

"That's quite noticeable by the situation." — He shrugged his shoulders, silently gesturing to our current location. — "If it's not too much trouble, would you be willing answer a couple of questions?"

"Ask away. As you can see, we have plenty of free time here." — The former queen smiled sadly. — "So why would I not want to talk to a polite person?"

"First of all, I would like to know where we are and why? You know, I am a bit confused by the fact that I am in a cell, chained to the wall." — The man answered the smiling queen with his question. "The company, I of course find rather pleasant, but the setting worries me." — He tilted his head to the side and pondered for a couple of seconds, staring at the floor. — "Especially since I, in fact, shouldn't even be here."

"To answer your question, I would need to introduce myself first. My name is Olga Discordia, now the former queen of the dark elves and also the former mistress of the Dark Citadel, in whose dungeon cell we now have the honor" — Olga grinned at those words — "to meet."

"And this sullen beauty," — she nods in Chloe's direction, whose ears had started to turn a shade of pink at the straightforward compliment given by her mistress. — "is Chloe, my most loyal and devoted subject." — Then she added a much quieter voice. — "The only one who remained faithful and survived..."

"We were betrayed during an uprising orchestrated by our enemy and thrown in here to be turned into toys to satiate our captors lustful desires. As for you, I don't know anything about you. Both of us and our captors, judging by their conversation. They seemed quite surprised by your appearance."

"They said they found you in the stairway." — Chloe suddenly spoke up. — "And that there were things you had on you that their leader was interested in."

— "Heh, now instead of asking about the shape of your ears, I'll have to come up with a new question."

"How dare you!" — Chloe was outraged by his statement. But Olga prevented her from continuing her outburst. She turned to look at her ward with a reprimanding gaze, making the girl shyly look away in a fluster. — "But... he…"

"It's not his fault that he has never met an elf before." — Speaking in an authoritative manner, the older elf put an end to the younger's rebuttal.

"I'm sorry if I offended you." — The man apologized, slightly tilting his head. — "Where I'm from, your people were considered to only be part of myths and fantasy stories. And until today I thought the same."

"Where did you come from if they consider us as mere fiction?!" — Chloe asked, continuing to glare at the man with a suspicious look.

"Really, where are you from? Your appearance does not correspond to any garments that I have managed to get acquainted with in my long life." — The queen supported Chloe's question.

The man started to pondered. It was clearly visible on his young face that he was thinking how to properly answer that. Having decided something for himself, he nodded and spoke; "Clone-captain of the United Armed Forces of Earth, special forces unit "Fenrir". Personal identification number: KS-00214, but my brothers," — A slight smile started to appear as he spoke. Olga's attentive gaze didn't mis the slight hints of nostalgia and sadness hidden behind that smile. — "called me Kay. Before I woke up in this cell, I was in a battle. We are currently in a genocidal war with an alien species not from our world.

'Like our Empire once...' — the thought flashed through Olga's mind. She wasn't too surprised by the man's words. The existence of other worlds had long been theorized about due to the fact that the monsters, that destroyed her country when she was just a girl, could not have appeared out of nowhere.

"People like me were created to fight this war. I fought in it,.. and died in it." — Meanwhile, Kay continued. — "Well, or I should have. But for some reason I'm here now." — He spread his hands as far as the length of the chain allowed. — "With you."

"That sounds like nonsense. You're lying." — The young elf commented, still suspecting him.

"No, why would I?" — Kay shrugged his shoulders. — "I know it sounds like the ravings of a madman, but that's the way it is."

"The world is always full of wonders." — Olga remarked. Curiosity had started welling up inside her. The man's short speech had been filled with so many incomprehensible terms. The millennial old knowledge craving woman, who had accumulated so much knowledge over her long life and hadn't been able to satisfy said craving for decades, raised her head in anticipation at what she could learn.— "Your case is unusual but not as unique as one might think. This fortress for example."

"Around one hundred years ago, it just appeared out of nowhere, sprouting from right out of the ground." — She patted the cell's floor with her hand.

"You mean, out of the ground?" The young man raised his eyebrows in surprise. — "As in, it grew out of the blue? Like a mushroom?"

"Stupid human..." — Chloe commented with a frowned, clearly making her disdain known on her face. — "Mistress never lies, everyone knows about this!"

Olga just laughed, amused by the reaction. At least, until their captors came for them, she definitely wouldn't have to be bored.

Ten hours later,

Kay woke up, still in the same cell.

I feel, strange? My body's sensation feels good? My senses feel even better than what they felt like over the years of being a clone. I have, to a proficient degree, learned to sense my body's condition, so I'm confident in my conclusion that my body has somehow improved. It is unclear as to how far the changes go, but it should not be too difficult to break out of the chains that bind me. Not that I couldn't before, but I have the feeling I wouldn't even need a fraction of the effort I was required to put in before. Even my eye implants are performing better, I doubt I've ever had such a vibrant and detailed view in my life. I was convinced after noticing that switching between the different modes of view had become more efficient.

Well that's strange and all, but I doubt it is as strange as the fact that I am currently sharing a prison cell with two representatives of a fairy-tale like race. It is still not clear how or why I ended up here. I know for sure that I died in Beijing. How would I not be, when my last memory was of a mollusk's bladed limb being impaled straight into my face?

This however is not something I would get worried or frustrated over. And it is certainly not the first sharp turn my life has taken. Not to mention that I have already experienced waking up in the cloning capsule after being electrocuted to death. Though I didn't have much time to reflect on the situation, with the training and continuously being sent out for battle. I did not even notice that I started enjoying that life and began to truly perceive the other clones as actual family. So in conclusion, I'm alive and well and that's the most important thing.

I do feel sorry for the boys that died alongside me and hope that those that managed to get on the tiltrotor reached the base safely. It won't be easy for them without me but they'll manage, I'm sure they will. The only thing that I find surprising is that unlike the last time I didn't start this new life with a new body, but kept the old one instead.

My cellmates are quite unique by the way. The first one is a thousand-year-old woman of royal blood and the second, her right hand and best friend, was an experienced warrior. The clothes they're wearing are… well, by earth's standards those would be called nothing short of erotic lingerie. The girls outfits leave practically nothing to ones imagination as they reveal their smooth bronze-tinged skin.

Olga is the eldest of the two — a brunette with golden eyes that has a voluptuous figure that would make you believe that she was an actual MILF. She has nice bountiful breasts, a nice hourglass figure and her long lush hair that reached down to her ankles which was currently strewn next to her on the floor as she sat there. On her exposed stomach I spotted a tattoo made up of some complex set of runes, though their meaning is unclear to me.

Chloe the youngest was in no way inferior to Olga, well except for her breasts being a bit smaller. Her eyes were red and her white-caramel colored hair was tied in a ponytail to her left side that reached down to her knees. The fact that she looked a little shabby due to noticeable small faded scars that could be seen here and there on her body did nothing to prevent my eyes from clinging to her slim body's curves. Although I frankly tried not to stare.

As we got acquainted with each other whilst talking, I gradually started to figure out where I was.

As they told me their story, whilst complementing and filling in details for each other, I learned that we were situated on a large continent called Eostia. The dark elves had once been a prospering empire on these lands as they lived in relative peace with the human nations. They competed amongst themselves similarly to the USSR and USA of the 20th century. That is until disaster struck, a legion of monsters had descended from the north. Sweeping through and devastating their lands, turning them into an endless wasteland, the monsters brought death and destruction. Eventually turning the once powerful nation into a handful of surviving ruined miserable cities. In order to survive the dark elves had been forced to live a miserable life in hiding, as the monsters now occupied their lands. As the years passed, their situation only worsened as their numbers started to dwindle. They couldn't escape to the human nations either as they had started to capture and enslave them. Thought the monsters didn't limit themselves to just the elves as they had turned to raiding the human lands to kidnap their women. As it turns out, monsters do not have a female gender of their own and so they would instead use the kidnaped human and elven women in order to reproduce

And then a hundred years ago, the dark citadel containing a powerful source of magic appeared in the middle of the wasteland.

Having thought this an opportunity to restore some of the dark elven might and better her peoples lives, Olga acted to capture the citadel and use its power to make the monsters submit via a sort of mind control.

I doubt I need to explain what this led to next? Celestine Lucross, current High Queen of the Continent and leader of the allied (elven and human) forces, saw Olga's actions as a threat and formed the holy 'Seven Shields Alliance', which consisted of noble warriors, to act as a counter force.

The thing is that only a few of these so called noble warriors had any actual 'real' combat experience. The decision was then made to neglect and disband their regular army and instead hire a mercenary group led by a certain citizen named Vult. Whom they then sent to deal with Olga, only for him to eventually decide to backstab everyone by allying himself with the monsters and do their own thing. They would return and have their way by pillaging cities, slaughter and enslave the people and more.

And the most fucked up thing about it all wasn't that Vult and his subordinates would face no resistance, it was the fact they were actually being lauded as heroes. The people themselves would welcome them into their cities with open arms! It was very clear that Vult had many people supporting him, who would act behind the scenes as to facilitate things as he seized power. I could not comprehend the logic of the human-elven ruler, which I made abundantly clear.

"That is fucking nonsense." — I say as I hold up my chained hand with my five fingers outstretched and look into the eyes of the elves. — "Instead of using the time they have to assemble a proper army to deal with their enemies, they go and disband the existing one." I bend my index finger and continue. — "Our neighboring nation has been overrun and exterminated by monsters? Hmm-mmm… What should we be doing?" — I start to portray and act out a role as if I was the ruler of a human nation in deep thought.

Then as if I've been enlightened I change my pensive expression into a stupid one. — "That's it! Let's pretend nothing happened and disband the army. Afterall there's definitely no way that those monsters would attack us as well! Oh, wait they are? What a surprise! And when someone actually steps up and decides to do something about it. We'll sit on our asses while doing nothing, Unable to think of anything smarter than to rally a bunch of mercenaries to SUBJUGATE them!" — As I continued list of each point I continue to bend my fingers one by one. —"What a great plan, just fucking awesome, truly nothing could ever go wrong!"