Chapter 7a: Our New Home
Henceforth, you will be known as 176 and 177. This is what your trainer will use to refer to you at all times.
Keep your mask and helmet on at all times.
Refer to your trainer as "Instructor".
Both of you are heroes now. Heroes have duties that they must follow.
Report to the training grounds in one hour. Do not be late.
Adrian slowly awakened from his post-coital sleep. Every muscle in his body ached as if they were put through immense trials. Getting off of the bed, he put on his clothes, and opened the curtains to try and wake up Saralyn. Immediately, the bright midday sun shined through the window, temporarily blinding him. He held his hand up to his face, and waited for his eyes to adjust.
The sunlight clearly bothered Saralyn. She grabbed one of the pillows and buried her head under it, grunting in displeasure. Adrian walked over to her and gently shook her.
"Come on, let's get breakfast."
"Adrian, why do you always have to wake me up so early?" Saralyn said, her voice muffled by the pillow.
"It's afternoon."
"Ugh… Fine." Saralyn took the pillow off of her face and got up from the bed. Adrian noticed the sheets and the blanket were stained by… fluids, from last night's fun activities.
"We really let ourselves go, didn't we?"
"Yeah. Is it true that mamono have a sixth sense that allows them to just know what men they want as a husband?"
"Yes, that's right." Saralyn smiled at him. "And you were perfect for me as a husband. I just knew it."
Although Adrian had only known each other for a couple days, he was already feeling very attached to her. He speculated it was from the mamono mana. Either way, she seemed like a very nice person. He wouldn't mind being her husband, spending time together, having chil-
He stopped that train of thought. It was too early for that. We had barely known each other for four days. Clearly, the mamono mana was getting to his head.
"Thinking again?" Saralyn asked coyly.
"Let's just get breakfast…"
"Sure."
The two of us walked out of the room together. They went past the succubus hotel receptionist, who looked up from the book she was reading to smirk at them.
"Finally. I was wondering when you would come out of your room. You know, the walls in this place are a lot thinner than you think. I had to listen to you two fucking for way too long."
"It was only for several hours." Adrian said back to her.
"Hard to keep track of time, huh? Let me tell you something. It's been five days." Adrian was taken aback by this. They were fucking for five days?! It only felt like a couple hours! Saralyn was equally shocked.
"You went into that room as a human, and came out as an incubus." Now that she mentioned it, Adrian suddenly felt a lot more energetic than usual. He felt like he could run a hundred laps around the town without getting tired. Saralyn also looked even hotter than she did before. Details that he had never seen before on her body now stood out to him, as clear as day.
Saralyn suddenly gets very giddy and excited. "You're an incubus now? Oh, that's wonderful! We can do so much more now that your human limits have been broken…" Adrian thought about that last statement for a second. He definitely felt more energetic and strong.
They paid the receptionist extra for staying for five days longer than they should've, something that she insisted that they didn't do, but they insisted back saying that they weren't able to control themselves. After they left the hotel, they went to a nearby diner to eat breakfast.
"So," Adrian said, through a bite of toast, "Yester- I mean five days ago, I discovered that the ferry service is going to sell tickets to Lescatie. Now that we've passed that time, the tickets should be available."
"That's great. Maybe someone at Lescatie could help us with our little amnesia. We leave after we finish our food. Is that fine with you?"
"Sounds good. I'm looking forward to not having holes in my memory. Speaking of which, didn't you say that incubizing would fix my memory?"
Saralyn looked rather embarrassed. "Looks like I was wrong… But it wasn't a waste of time, right? It felt amazing, and becoming an incubus has its benefits. Did you know that we don't even need food or water anymore? We could just have sex, and I would be able to sustain myself with your spirit energy and you would sustain yourself with my mamono mana. We also grow stronger every time we have sex."
Adrian was confused as to how that worked. "Sounds like it would've been useful back when we were starving to death in the forest."
"That's why I'm happy that you're an incubus now." Saralyn remarked.
Both of them finished our food, paid the diner, and traveled to the ferry service building. Adrian spotted Sharon on their way there, waving to them.
"Good luck, you two."
"Thanks, Sharon. I'll see you later."
Saralyn waved as well. "Thanks for the treatment."
"You two know each other?"
"She healed my wounds." Adrian made a mental note to try and get something for Sharon to show his gratitude.
Adrian and Saralyn both walked to the ferry building. Adrian was relieved to see that the very talkative centaur wasn't running the booth. Instead she was replaced by an automaton, multitasking doing paperwork at her desk as well as dealing with the customers. The line was thankfully not as long as it was when Adrian first came, so they didn't have to wait long to get a ticket.
"What is your destination?" The automaton said in a monotone voice, without blinking or looking up from her paperwork.
"We're going to Lescatie." The automaton took out two small slips of paper and handed one to me and one to Saralyn.
"That will be ten gold. Proceed to the door on your left." The automaton pointed to a nearby door. "Please consider buying your wife an anniversary present. Enjoy your trip."
Saralyn handed over the money while Adrian chuckled. It was too early for that, he and Saralyn had barely known each other for four days. Mamono were always so forward-thinking.
Both of them walked out of the building, to a large depot with horse-driven carriages and wagons. Business seemed relatively slow; only a few people seemed to be arriving or leaving. Adrian watched two devil bugs and an incubus get onto a wagon to Lescatie; he recognized them as Laura and her parents from the prison. Sighing in relief at the fact that they escaped, he and Saralyn walked over to one of the wagons that were departing for Lescatie, driven by an anubis and her husband.
"Hurry. Get in." The anubis snapped at us. Adrian and Saralyn put their hands up at the dog-woman's short temper.
"Honey, please be nice to them. We can't be arguing in front of our passengers." The anubis's husband tried to calm her down.
"We were late to work!"
"You were the one who insisted that we cuddle for fifteen extra minutes." The anubis went silent, her cheeks flaring up.
"W-w-whatever… Let's just get going…" The anubis responded after a full ten seconds of silence. Her husband nodded, and the wagon set off for Lescatie. Adrian began looking through the windows out at the landscape, with Saralyn leaning on his shoulders.
Five days into the trip
"YOU IMBECILE! WAKE UP! YOU'RE DROOLING ON THE WINDOWS!" The anubises' angry screeching broke Adrian out of his sleep. She was right, he was drooling on the windows. Adrian quickly wiped the spit off of the windows the best he could, with the anubis glaring at him from the front of the wagon.
"I'm sorry! I was so bored and I just fell asleep and…" I tried to explain myself. They had been traveling for several days now. He and Saralyn had run out of things to talk about, and looking out the window and admiring nature was fine as entertainment until they came across the long stretches of empty forest and grasslands.
"It's okay… the two of you look so cute together when you're sleeping together!" The anubis's husband forgave them.
The commotion woke up Saralyn, who had also fallen asleep. She suddenly grabbed Adrian's arm.
"What is it?"
"I'm in the mood again… You know what that means, right?" She said, her voice filled with lust.
"We just had sex several hours ago-"
"You don't object to doing it again, do you?"
"...No." Adrian was bored and had nothing else to do anyways. He began taking off his clothes.
"Are the two of you…? Fine, then. If you're going to be doing this on the wagon, I might as well have some fun as my own." The anubis driver began climbing on top of her husband.
Ten days into the trip
Adrian and Saralyn had stopped in a small town along the route to Lescatie. Both of them entered over to a small shop that sold weapons and armor for adventurers, run by a cyclops. Saralyn argued with the cyclops for a lower price on a box of mana-bullets, while Adrian waited outside of the shop, bored. Saralyn had spent nearly two hours looking around.
The only thing he had bought were a couple books to read on the way to Lescatie. Two encyclopedias containing profiles of every single known species of mamono. The author hadn't even bothered to give his real name, instead citing himself as "Wandering Scholar".
Adrian skimmed through the pages while leaning against a wall, looking to regain his knowledge of the world he didn't remember. While reading, a couple of the pictures piqued his interest.
The first one that interested him was the entry for the dhampir. The sketch of the dhampir seemed slightly slimmer than Saralyn, with blond hair as opposed to Saralyn's black hair, with twice as revealing clothing. Saralyn was right, he wouldn't be able to distinguish a dhampir from a normal human woman.
The dhampir also seemed to be one of the very few mamono that would go through the normal stages of romance, albeit accelerated. At the end of the profile, Adrian read something that confused him.
"Furthermore, they are sometimes attacked by an urge to suck blood inherited from the vampire race, although they normally resist it. The reason why is if they happen to learn the sweet taste of a man's blood, the human part of the half human, half monster dhampir becomes corrupted by the "monster" part, and after that they can't resist future urges to suck blood at all or the lust that visits at the same time."
Saralyn had barely managed to resist sucking blood when they had first met, only stopping because they were in danger. She even openly expressed her fondness for blood at times. Rationalizing it as not every mamono acting the same, he continued onwards.
The second one that really made him stop was the profile for the Lilim. It unnerved him, somehow despite it being a simple picture. The eyes of the drawing seemed to follow him, the white-haired succubus smiling at him alluringly wherever he moved. He skimmed over the profile, stopping on one of the paragraphs.
"They have the greatest power of all succubi, but even if they don't use their power for charm spells, almost all men would become their prisoner after only catching a glimpse of their visage. Even without using words of temptation, men are aroused at the sight of them and consumed by total lust. If they tempt a man, even without magic, there is no element of force even necessary."
"Color me impressed…" Adrian murmured to himself. How the Order was still around when monsters like these existed was beyond him.
He closed the book, and put it back in the wagon. Saralyn's voice echoed out of the shop. Adrian spotted the cyclops holding a copy of the revolver she had used in combat. Saralyn had set her eyes on it, and was trying to get a lower price, much to the displeasure of the cyclops.
From outside the shop, he spotted a hat sitting on a shelf. Adrian examined it closer, and realized it was a near-perfect replica of the hat the dhampir in the encyclopedia was wearing. He decided that he would buy it for Saralyn. He took it off the shelf, and patiently waited for Saralyn and the cyclops to finish haggling.
The two of them finally settled on a price. The cyclops shoved the revolver towards Saralyn, rolling her single eye in annoyance. Adrian gave the cyclops the amount of money to buy the hat, and turned around.
"Glad to see you're more agreeable than she is…" The cyclops grunted.
Adrian took the hat and showed it to Saralyn. "What do you think?" he asked.
"Looks nice…" Saralyn exclaimed. She put on the hat, and posed in front of Adrian.
"How do I look?" Just by putting on the hat, she looked similar to the dhampir in the encyclopedia.
"You look great. I saw the dhampir in the encyclopedia wearing it, so I thought you might like it."
Both of us held hands, and walked out of the shop back to the wagon.
Fifteen days into the trip
They had been traveling for two weeks now. According to the Anubis's travel schedule, if there were no distractions, they would arrive at Lescatie in two days. Adrian had been getting very annoyed with being stuck in a wagon all day, so he was very excited to finally reach his destination. The wagon came up to a small bridge spanning a creek, and suddenly stopped in the middle of it.
"What is happening? Why did we stop?" Adrian asked the driver.
"There's some people blocking the bridge… Hang on… Wait." The anubis got off of the wagon and began walking towards them, her husband staying back.
"Get out of here." The anubis made a shooing motion with her hands.
A man who looked like the leader of the group grinned. "Nice wagon you got there. Mind showing me what's in it?"
"Fuck off. Clear the road." The anubis snapped back, irritated.
"How rude of you. I guess we'll have to help ourselves."
The bridge suddenly collapsed in on itself. The wagon tumbled into the creek, and was surrounded by the man's accomplices. Adrian spotted one of the attacker's hands glowing; a mage. He leapt out of the wagon and into the water, taking out his realm-silver sword and preparing for battle. Saralyn jumped out of the wagon, dual-wielding her new revolver with her old one.
She fired several shots at the thugs, wincing at the recoil. She managed to take out three of them with around eight shots. Taking cover back in the wagon, she tried to reload her weapons.
Meanwhile, Adrian charged at the mage. Strength that came from being an incubus allowed him to knock the man over. Adrian held his sword up high, preparing to stab through the man's chest. The mage retaliated by blasting an electricity mana shot into his chest, knocking him back. The mage got back on his feet.
Adrian stumbled backwards, gritting his teeth. The mage began preparing another mana shot to finish him off. Adrian got to his feet and rushed at the mage before he could release it, impaling him through the chest. The mage fell to the ground, stunned. Adrian stabbed him again through the stomach, knocking him unconscious.
The anubis and her husband remembered their training on how to deal with thieves, and pulled out two spears from the back of the crashed wagon, running at the thieves.
Saralyn finished reloading one of her guns and managed to take down several of the attackers with a couple lucky shots from within the wagon. The remaining thieves ran away, defeated.
Adrian walked over to one of the defeated thugs, and kneeled down next to him.
"Why?"
"We came here… because you ruined everything. We were finally gaining headway against the demons…" The thug managed to choke out.
"You're with the Order?" The thug nodded.
"We spent days following you…"
"Well, you found me. Was it worth it?" Adrian asked.
The anubis and her husband walked over to them. Both of them were covered in mud from the creek and had cuts all over their body. Regardless, they were smiling.
"We think we know how to deal with them. Tie them up, I spotted a couple werewolves in the nearby forest who would be happy to keep them." The group got to work.
The pack of werewolves that lived in the nearby forest were more than happy to take the group's intruders off of our hands. They immediately dragged their new husbands into the forests, howling with joy.
The group returned to the broken bridge, their wagon overturned with the horses having run off elsewhere. They retrieved their belongings, and began walking on the path to Lescatie.
Twenty days into the trip
Lescatie
It had taken them a full five days to get to Lescatie after the ambush. All four of them were tired and hungry. Thankfully, Lescatie was quite generous with helping mamono immigrants in need. They were immediately swarmed with mamono in Lescatie's uniform all eager to help them.
The anubis and her husband thanked Saralyn and Adrian for their help, and went their own separate ways. Saralyn and Adrian sat comfortably in their new house, generously provided to them by an inari who thought Adrian looked cute.
"We're finally here." Adrian sat down, exhausted.
Saralyn entered the room, looking excited. "Good news. I found a mindflayer who is willing to help us with our amnesia. We'll go tomorrow. We can finally get our memories back! Isn't that exciting!"
"I'm looking forward to it. It's high time we finally remember our pasts."
"Me too. Let's go to bed, we have a long day tomorrow." Saralyn walked towards the bedroom, Adrian followed close behind. Eager.
For once, both of them woke up at the same time. Adrian had chosen to end their nightly sex earlier than usual, with Saralyn begrudgingly accepting. Adrian enjoyed sleeping on a comfortable bed for once as opposed to outside, or in a cramped wagon.
They heard a knock on the door. They had arranged for the mindflayer to come to their house. Saralyn and Adrian quickly threw on their clothes, and answered the door. A pink-skinned mindflayer wearing a white coat stood outside.
"Hello? Saralyn and Adrian?" The mindflayer asked.
"That's us. You said you can help us recover our memories."
"Correct. I've helped many people struggling with mental issues. This should be easy." The mindflayer smiled reassuringly. "Please sit down so I can begin."
Adrian sat down on their bed, with the mindflayer sitting down next to him.
"Just lay down, and we'll get started. Don't worry, it won't hurt." The mindflayer took out her tentacles, and inserted them into his ears.
"Hmm… A hero, huh?" The mindflayer looked at Saralyn. "You are one lucky girl." Saralyn smiled back.
"He's lucky to have me and I'm lucky to have him."
Adrian kept hearing weird squishing noises. It didn't hurt, but he felt very strange. His body began heating up.
"What's going on?" Saralyn noticed Adrian's skin glowing orange faintly. A feeling of dread replaced the excitement she was feeling over regaining her memories. Adrian's skin began glowing brighter and brighter until…
"GET BACK!" Saralyn yelled as she pulled the mindflayer away from Adrian. There was a flash of red and orange light. His vision went bright yellow for a second, then stopped.
When he regained his sight, everything was on fire. The entire room had been engulfed in flames. Saralyn and the mindflayer had hidden behind an overturned table, and peeked out. Saralyn grabbed Adrian, and the three of them bolted out of the house.
"So what happened this morning?" A demon asked the two of them.
"I was suffering from amnesia. So we called a mindflayer to try and cure it, but something happened. My body began feeling incredibly hot. Next thing I know, everything is on fire." Adrian explained.
"I see… My best guess is that you're both being affected by a highly reactive memory-curse. One that negatively reacts to attempts to remove it."
"..." Adrian and Saralyn were both silent.
"Either way, until we can find a way to remove it without triggering it, or we can find the person who cursed the two of you, I suggest that you two start a new life. I've cleared both of your names, so neither of you will get in trouble for this incident. I've also found a new house for the two of you." She handed out a slip of paper with an address on it.
"Best of luck to you two." The demon waved as they left the office.
Adrian and Saralyn both walked to their new home, deep in thought.
"A new life, huh…" Adrian thought to himself.
Chapter 7b: The Valkyrie's Purpose
31 years ago
Raniel examined the Order's newly captured land. The skies of the mamono realm had given way to clear blue skies, and the mamono realm flora crumbled into dust as the mamono mana that gave them life faded away.
At her feet, was an injured succubus. She had covered her eyes and was sobbing.
"Go on, then. Finish her. We've got a celebration party to get to." A voice from behind Raniel shouted.
Raniel stared at the succubus, then back at the captured land. What was the point of this? What did we gain? She thought to herself. The mamono realm was relatively small scale. Many of the inhabitants hadn't expected to be raided by the Order, so none of them had been prepared for the attack. She could think of no tactical advantage this land had, nor any resources it contained. The inhabitants didn't have any ill intentions towards the Order, and just wanted to live peacefully. They didn't even manage to capture most of the inhabitants; All they did was force them from their homes.
Raniel made a choice.
"Play dead." She whispered to the succubus. The succubus was shocked but complied nonetheless.
Footsteps came up behind her. "Did you hear me? I told you to finish her off." Her assigned hero said to her.
"Already done." Raniel pointed at the "dead" succubus in front of her.
"Good. Let's get back to base. I've got a party to go to and women to meet." Her hero turned away and left.
As soon as Raniel knew he was gone, she kneeled next to the succubus, and began healing her injuries. "Run away." She said to her.
"W-w-what?"
"I said, RUN."
The succubus nodded and sped off towards where the rest of the inhabitants fled to. Raniel watched her disappear into the horizon. She sighed, and began flying back to their outpost.
"Raniel, go get me some more wine." Her hero slurred as he waved his glass around in front of her. People celebrated the fall of the mamono realm all around her. Everyone except her.
"Don't you think you've had enou-"
"Just do it. You're here to serve me drinks and look pretty."
Raniel took the glass and went to the bar. She hated this place. She hated these people. What am I doing here? She thought to herself. This was not what she envisioned being a holy companion to a hero would be like. She stared back at her hero. He had started out fine when they had first met, but over time, the victories over the mamono changed him for the worse.
He wasn't even that good of a hero. Raniel recalled a time where he all but hid behind her as she faced off against a hellhound during battle.
"Chief God, why did you give this man your blessing?" She murmured under her breath, trying to ask her god for answers. There was silence. Defeated, she refilled the wine glass and brought it back to him.
"Good girl." He got up, and went to where his friends were talking amongst each other. But as he walked over to them, Raniel saw something fall out of his pocket. It was a letter. Raniel picked it up, looked around, and made the decision to read it.
"Dear Nathaniel, Life has never been better. I barely have to do anything during battle, my new friend practically takes care of everything for me. I have so much money I have no idea what to do with it! This is brilliant, I've been getting more fame and political power by the day. Soon I'll be able to take my money and get out of this shithole, and live somewhere nice for the rest of my life. You're welcome to come with me if you like. -Julian."
Raniel stared at the letter in shock. Shock turned to anger, anger turned to rage. How could he do this to her?! He was right, she practically did take care of everything for him. She made another decision. Pushing aside her obedience for the Chief God, she began plotting.
"Julian."
"Yes, Raniel, what is it?"
"I need you to come with me. Chief God's orders."
"Fine." Julian got off his lavish chair and followed her outside.
"We'll need to fly somewhere. Hold on to me."
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see." Raniel gripped Julian and began flying to a nearby cliff.
After a couple minutes, Raniel set Julian down near the edge of the cliff.
"Are you going to tell me what we're going to do?" Raniel began mentally preparing herself.
"I'm going to give you something you deserve." She quickly shoved him off of the cliff. He screamed in fear and anger as he plummeted to the ground below. Raniel peered over the edge and heard a *crack* when he hit the ground.
Raniel flew down to his body, only to find that he was still alive. His heroic blessing had saved him. "Why…?" He choked out.
Raniel didn't see it fit to give him an answer. She took out her sword, and plunged it down into his chest, killing him. Putting away her sword, she began walking. She didn't know where she was going, all that she knew was that she had to get away from here.
It had been a year since she had betrayed her hero. Since then, the inhabitants of the mamono realm they had raided had come back for revenge, converting the hero's city into their new home. One of the Order's major cities, Lescatie, had also fallen. She had reason to suspect it was because of Chief God's negligence.
She had no regrets about what she had done. Out of curiosity, she tried to speak to the Chief God.
"Chief God, you're a terrible leader. You give your blessings to terrible people, and you barely care about your followers. You couldn't even beat the Mamono Lord and her husband. You couldn't stop Lescatie from falling. You're an incompetent, clumsy, and weak failure of a god."
No answer. Figures, she thought to herself. But suddenly, she heard a voice in her head.
"Color me impressed."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Ophelia. And I have to say, not many angels have the guts to pull off what you did to your hero. Many of them just go crying to the Chief God for answers. Not like she gives any, of course."
"So, why are you here?"
"I'm here because we share beliefs. The Chief God has to go." Ophelia spoke proudly.
"What can the two of us do to her?"
"That's where you're wrong. It's not just the two of us. Thousands of Heaven's inhabitants all want the Chief God off her throne, and for good reason. I've been planning something. We're going to set this world on the right path. Are you with me?"
"Let me think." Raniel sat down.
"Oh, come on. Surely overthrowing a incompetent, clumsy, weak failure of a god is a better use of your time than wandering the world without a purpose?"
She was right. Raniel didn't have a purpose. She had gotten rid of the one thing that gave her purpose. Why spend the rest of her life wandering the world purposelessly if she could follow her beliefs?
"Count me in."
"I knew you'd make the right choice. Welcome back to Heaven, Raniel. You'll make for a good assassin." A bright white light enveloped Raniel's body as she was transported back to Heaven.
Raniel opened her eyes. It was not often that valkyries slept, but she decided that she needed a little shut-eye to wind down after her last mission.
The mission had been a close shave. She and Cassiel had managed to take down the twin priests of Arcani using a delayed explosion spell, and the entire thing was written off as an accidental fire. Unfortunately, a maid had spotted her in her angel form flying away from the scene of the crime, and she had to do some gaslighting and manipulation to keep the whole thing under wraps. But in the end, nobody believed her. Surely a valkyrie wouldn't kill a priest, right? She laughed to herself. Aperia's army had taken the opportunity to swiftly annex Arcani. A clean victory for the Matriarch.
The twin priests had just got done doing a speech of their own. Raniel had listened to them spew lies and propaganda under the guise of "protecting the people", and portraying the Arms of the Matriarch as criminals and traitors. It all disgusted her. How dare they act like they care about their citizens, when all they care about is lining their own pockets?! Raniel had thought to herself. If anything, she believed she was doing the people of Arcani a favor. Under the Matriarch's rule, they wouldn't suffer any longer.
She was impressed at how Cassiel didn't say a word to her. She had half expected the recruit to chicken out of the mission, but she had done her job swiftly and silently. She truly was good when she didn't hesitate.
"Come on, team. Let's go home." She called out to Ophaniel, Nuriel, and Pahaliah. The three angels spread their wings and flew off towards Aperia. Cassiel and her followed close behind.
"Good work yesterday." Raniel complimented Cassiel.
"I did well because they deserved it. Not like the bridge…" Cassiel said.
"Still holding onto what happened at the bridge? Let me tell you a story, Cassiel."
Raniel retold her story about her past. How she was forced to fight useless battles for the Order, how she betrayed her hero, how Ophelia had helped her find her purpose in life. When she was done, Cassiel spoke.
"This is supposed to justify your actions?"
"How many times do I have to tell you that there are going to be civilian casualties, no matter how hard we try? I told you how I joined the Matriarch because that's why I fight. The Order needs to be torn out by the roots, and remade. So what if a couple people die? We will have saved millions from the tyranny of The Faithful."
"You've lost your way. What happened to the Raniel who cared about saving lives?" Cassiel grunted.
"Whatever. Let's just get back to Aperia."
Lescatie
Druella walked to her meeting room with new resolve. Ichoriya and Arcani had both been annexed in quick succession. The rumor that the "wildfire" and the bridge accident in Ichoriya had been orchestrated was all but confirmed. She knew that the Matriarch had begun to make her moves, and she was determined to stop her before any unnecessary lives were lost.
Druella had tried to take over Aperia before. When the mamono extremists would begin a campaign to take over a city, they would begin by attempting to smuggle items that trigger monsterization into the city, then they would attempt to monsterize or incubize any major leaders, then they would finally raid the city and turn it into a mamono realm. Druella had used this method to take over Lescatie, and it had worked almost flawlessly ever since.
All except for Aperia. Ophelia had meticulously established several methods of blocking her attempts to monsterize the city. Major leaders had heavy security and would regularly be probed for mamono mana. Imports went through a rigorous examination to see if they caused monsterization. The seraph had even gone as far as to hire mamono in the city to determine if mamono immigrants were using anthropomorphosis. Primera and Mimil had just barely managed to get into the city. The few spies that she managed to get into the city had severe difficulty getting information from Aperia to Lescatie.
Druella sat down in the meeting room, waiting for a certain someone. After a few minutes, the door opened, and a dullahan wearing Lescatie's armor walked in.
"Meryl, Good to see you. I have an important job for you. Are you up for the task?"
"Always, Lord Druella."
"So here's what's going on. Aperia's been getting very aggressive over the past few weeks. We need to stop them from taking any more unnecessary lives."
"So let's turn Aperia into a mamono realm. Simple enough." Meryl grinned.
"No, it's not that easy. That stubborn angel has foiled every attempt at turning their city into a mamono realm. We need to come up with a temporary solution until we can figure out how to get them to stop." Meryl's grin faded a little.
"So, any ideas?"
"You were a trained assassin for Lescatie before I took over. I've determined that the best course of action is to monitor their activities with whatever information our spies can get and try to and stop their violent campaigns before they can begin. Thankfully, they seem to abide by a strict code of not attacking mamono realms. Therefore, if we can learn where they're going to attack next, we can stop them before they begin." Druella explained.
"Where do I come in?"
"You are to create a team of mamono who will be able to convert land into mamono realms quickly and efficiently. Use whatever methods you see fit. Until we can figure out how to deal with Aperia, this is how we're going to stop their unnecessary violence."
"Got it. Further orders?" Meryl seemed excited.
"None. You've been an invaluable asset to Lescatie ever since I took over." Druella looked at the tattoos of the insignia of Lescatie on the dullahan's cheek. "Another one?"
"I want to show my love for this country. The state of this country was awful before you came, and I'm glad I was able to help change it." The dullahan saluted to Druella.
"Best of luck to you, Meryl."
"Thank you, Lord Druella." The dullahan ran out into the streets, eager to begin her work.
