After making friends with the remaining Heavenly Knights and becoming guests of the castle, the days passed in a flash. Sometimes I wondered how my fellow jigglies were faring without their leaders, but I trusted Cervantes and Horn to rein them in, and keep the feistier ones from getting into problems against stronger foes, mostly Ilias angels.
"Is there any way to contact them and say we are fine?" I asked Erubetie, knowing the knights could teleport anywhere they wanted for their missions.
"The seas are too vast, without Undine's help it's impossible even for me."
"Damn, and just after we recruited Tamamo to be part of the crew." I groaned loudly before remembering something that bothered me for a long time.
"I wonder what's her relationship with Cervantes? After her recruitment, she never stopped complaining about having to work with him, even Alma Elma is worried as her entire stock of Yamatai Sake was depleted by the Kitsune."
The slime girls who were under Selene's ship deck, and heard the secret between the pirate and the monster lord kept silent.
"I'm sure they will tell you soon enough Roman, but let's stop thinking about hard things, let's play~"
MLC training grounds
These days weren't spent just laying around and doing nothing, I was training hard in the castle against monsters who got increasingly hornier for me, according to them, males with monster blood and powers were so rare, they were considered gourmet cuisine for monsterkind.
"I'm still afraid of it though!"
I complained to my current teacher, a vampire who came to plead to the Monster Lord for an invasion of the Safina region, under orders of the current Vampire Queen.
"Stop being a spineless fool, you are a noble vampire, never show fear, as a ruler and an even rarer male vampire, you must always maintain your poise, for soon the Queen herself will demand your presence in her bed chambers."
My vampiric teacher was one step from drinking me dry out of anger.
"Your fears are unfounded, your mind won't shatter from something this simple, now disperse yourself into mist and then into a flock of bats."
Not wanting to anger her even more, I took a deep breath, concentrated and did as ordered.
fwosh
The sensation that came when my body dispersed into mist was alien, it wasn't supposed to be felt by a human mind, as everything that made myself spread through the room, I felt blind and suffocated, I kicked and clawed but had no limbs to do it, i had no mouth and wanted to scream.
(I'll never use the fog form again!)
The Vampire frowned while looking at the mist as if I never transformed in the first place, and clicked her tongue with disappointment.
(Well excuse me princess! Sorry for not being a natural born Vampire like you!)
"It seems this was a failure, no matter, time is something we have no lack of, now try to calm yourself, concentrate and turn into a flock of bats."
poof
"squeak squeak squeak!"
(It was better than the mist form, but not by much, now I feel myself through every bat in this flock, oh this is so confusing!)
With the fluttering of many wings, the flock of bats kept ramming against one another and falling to the floor, quickly forming a comical mound of dazed bats, angrily squeaking at one another.
"Another failure, then again it was only recently you found out your noble legacy as a vampire."
The woman shook her head as she jabbed her hand inside the mound and gently pulled a singular bat that I felt had the bigger slice of my conscience.
"In the name of my household I WILL shape you into a worthy member of our noble species."
"squeak! squeak! squeak!"
"Don't you dare say those sluts are nobler than us by being firstborns, so what if vampires are an offshoot species! We conduct ourselves with civility, instead of being horny monkeys who can only think about sex all the time!"
The woman's eyes turned into slits as the shadows of the room converged upon her.
"Comparing us with succubi just made your training hell, Roman."
"squeak squeak squeak!"
Sadistic laughter and terrorized squeaking could be heard from inside the training chambers. Eventually my friends came in wanting to see my progress, and found an exhausted wolf knotted to the also exhausted vampire, who had an expression of bliss plastered on her face.
(Damn masochistic bitch, so much for being nobility when you wanted the knot all along!)
And to the sounds of a new member of the crew being recruited, I passed out.
Today was my first meeting with Promestein's group. Suffice to say I was nervous, I thought about leaving Lime in the castle, but my last experience was dangerous enough to be acting alone, so with a click we both teleported to one of their drain labs.
"Welcome, my fellow researcher and newest member of the Seekers of Truth, today we'll be eating cakes, and sharing discoveries, for science!"
Promestein was strangely motivated, compared to her usual stoicism, as I looked around the table, I had to force a gulp as her colleagues looked at me like a guinea pig to be dissected. Feeling my nervousness Lime stuck closer to me.
"Ah, a fellow human who unlocked their potential to become a monster, and a male as well, how interesting, I'm Lucia. It's a pleasure to have a fellow human in our group. My specialties lie in tentacle magic and research of spirits."
Said the busty green haired woman while she took a slice of cake, her tentacles pulsating in a nauseating way as she didn't care about keeping an illusion of normalcy around her peers.
"Hmm, I've watched his battle against one of our experiments back at Plansect, his group has potential to become powerful zombies if he ends in failure." The plague doctor looked at Lime already planning something bad to my wife, making me pop a vein.
"I'm La Croix, I research puppeteering, zombies and the restoration of life, I hope you pull your weight."
The woman dressed as a plague doctor words struck a nerve, how dare she threaten my crew.
"So you were the one responsible for that! Your experiments are in very bad taste La Croix, it's no wonder the last monster lord banished necromancy, your unnecessary cruelty and defilement of the dead goes against everything a succubus values!"
"The monster lord didn't have an eye for the arts, and apparently, neither does you."
If La Croix was surprised I knew she was a succubus under all that covering she didn't show, but Lucia had a surprised face.
"You looked at my captain already wanting to ruin the perfection that is her body planning to turn her into a zombie, the logistics of it confound me, but I'm still pissed off!"
I and Lime pulled out our weapons, and La Croix snapped her fingers summoning her Cirque, worst of all the zombified XV was here too as a show of power.
"The fifteen… why?!"
Lime's expression was one of horror, after hearing Cervantes' story, seeing his love reduced to this angered her to no end, eyes becoming red, she was prepared to end this abomination.
Red alarms blared loudly and the Next-dolls appeared to stop both groups, Promestein pulled out a futuristic gun and pointed it at us.
"There shall be no infighting in this place, you can go and try to kill one another when our meeting is done and if any of you ruin the Cake day, I ruin you, am I clear?!"
We all nodded afraid of the unassuming scientist angel packing heat, note to self, never fuck with Promestein's cake.
"Very well then…"
Promestein turned off the alarms and sent the Next-dolls away, we could hear their snickering about the last fools who messed up cake day, she didn't hide her weapon thought, it sat on her lap ready to be fired at the next offender.
I tried to calm Lime down and earned an out of character "We'll talk later" from her, the corpses of old monster queens went on standby after another snap of fingers by La Croix.
(This girl's reaction was too personal, did she know the fifteen? I must be careful around them).
"Before we begin our meeting, please present the fruits of your research this last week." Promestein supressed a pleasured moan as she began eating her chocolate and strawberry cake.
Lucia began, explaining in depth about her research on spirits and how they were closer to completing the artificial copies to supplant the originals.
La Croix revealed that she finally found the resting places of even older Monster Lords, and was slowly in progress of building up an army of queen class zombies, and that XV reached 30% of her original power, but the Plague Doctor expected 100% by the next month.
(Heh, if the true story goes like the canonical events, no one will have a month anymore, at most a week. That means i won't be able to build the ship to run Ilias over… damn)
"Deep breaths Lime, deep breaths."
I heard my captain mutterings nervously trying to calm down herself and clenched her hand in support of whatever happened. Then I noticed the gazes upon me, knowing it was my turn.
"My progress with our vampiric serum was a resounding success. The side effect lethal weakness to the sun was surpassed by the strengthening effects of drinking the blood of strong monsters during my stay in the Monster Lord's Castle, including the Heavenly Knights."
Knowing I got their attention I continued.
"When I began this new life, I could be considered no more than an infant in their species and somehow even weaker than a human, because of that debilitating weakness that almost killed me on the way back to the castle." I gave Promestein the stinky eye, she didn't show she cared.
"It was only by sheer luck in meeting a succubus who liked being drained instead of doing the draining, that I could level up. The massive difference in our strengths earned me a bonus from defeating her."
The other members couldn't understand how defeating a strong monster would suddenly give the man a boost since that's not how life works, but Promestein had a prankster smile after researching the scrapped jobs system Ilias had.
(This is how I'll stabilize the White Rabbit, I need to train my Alraune form until it's strong enough to accept a new evolution without killing me.)
Roman clenched his fist and let power course through, the air crackled with unseen pressure and static.
"But now, after the generous contributions of every party involved, I feel I could go toe to toe with the current Vampire Queen, winning isn't assured though due to her superior experience."
I looked at Promestein and said something that made her smile.
"We can proceed to the next step of this evolution."
"I knew you were special, Subject no.0"
Promestein seemed proud of herself and took notes with increasing fervor.
"So, based on your current instincts, you think you're able to test the next serum?"
"I'm not sure, a guaranteed way to test it without risks would be having a copy of the job changing book, but since Ilias scrapped that system long ago…"
"And this venue of research is too recent, without enough samples to make it viable for now." Promestein added, she wouldn't reveal her cards to anyone here.
"Why don't we see if he's compatible with tentacle magic then? It was made to give humanity an edge after all." Lucia added.
(Blowing up into a disgusting tentacle creature right out of Resident Evil would be nauseating though…)
"It's better we don't, we already tried it with other men and the results always ended in death, tentacle magic only works for women."
Promestein didn't want to lose Roman to something that proved so fatal, and the threat of his slime wife going nuclear at point blank he made back then still stood, she would survive, but her colleagues and research wouldn't.
"There will be enough time for that later." Roman pressed on "What about that little project we had planned, how much time you think you need to make it a reality."
"Months, if not a year, her eyes are everywhere, and doing it fast enough while still keeping her in the dark is not feasible in any less than that."
"That would be a problem… "
"We don't have months, at the current pace i doubt we even have a week..." The man murmured to himself before having an idea.
"What if we just built the main weapon?"
"The main weapon could be done in days, as we already have the technology for it."
"Perfect, can it be mounted on a normal ship, or carried by a giant monster?" The man's eyes glinted with glee, Horn would be getting a nice weapon in the future.
"It has its own source of energy, so yes."
"What are you two even planning, and why are we being left out of it?"
"Vengeance/Friendship." Promestein and I gave our answer at the same time to our colleagues, confusing them even more with our little project.
"This meeting is over, you can go back to your projects now, bring me the Narwhal girl next time and you'll have your weapon Roman."
Promestein stood up and left, followed by Lucia and La Croix, who I could feel staring at us from behind that mask the entire meeting.
"So what was that with La Croix when she revealed the zombie XV?"
"There's no need for secrets anymore, I wanted Cervantes to tell you this, but he's Alice's father, and the old lover of the late Monster Lord."
"Oh, ohhh…"
(This explains everything about his reactions towards Luka and Alice.)
"Fufufu, a story about heartbreak, how interesting." The unseen lolita appeared before us, playing with the feathers of an angel, probably another Cupid she killed.
"Would you get in his way Black Alice?"
"Oh dear me, no, housewreckers who ruin a love story should suffer the worst fates, but you know that, don't you, my life and motivations are an open book to you after all fufufu."
"Sure…"
(Maybe back when Heinrich still lived, but 500 years of hatred added to your already unstable mind? I doubt it).
"I would be more than happy to help the man called Cervantes into reuniting with my descendant and taking revenge on the plague doctor, for a price, of course, fufufu."
Black Alice offered her hand, Lime was tempted to accept it, but even she knew that would be bad. I also held her back just for safety.
"Thanks for the offer, but that's something Cervantes should do himself, with his friends' help."
"Heheh, well, let's leave it at that, would you care to enjoy a nice tea party with old little me?" Black Alice pressure intensified, now we had no means of escaping this.
"No killing, no trying to eat us, and if violence happens, limit yourself to only bodily harm, I've had enough of mind fuckery for a lifetime since our last meeting."
"Sure, sure, now show me the fruits of your labor, young vampire!"
Darkness enveloped us and we were back at her pocket dimension, quakes, explosions, thunder and boomerang savagery soon followed.
Everyone could instinctively feel the fated day has come, Luka was at the doors of the castle ready to challenge the Heavenly Knights, Alice slithered by without stopping, but the side glance she gave us promised pain after the reports of her castle's sacking reached her.
"And that's our cue to run away girls." I got the device Promestein gave us to teleport to one of her labs and called the girls to escape with me.
"Aww but I wanted to fight the hero again." Lime complained, not finding it fair to be denied from puru puru~ Luka into a mess.
"I agree with Lime, imagine the surprise of the hero when finding out he'll have to deal with two extra challenges."
Hime honed her skills further after her horrible defeat by Alma Elma, with Granberia being a sparring partner the openings and flaws she had before were beaten off her with dragon fire.
"You really want to risk staying here after what happens next?"
Even with our power up after coming to the castle I still feared the worst, considering the invasion would hit at full power, after everyone was exhausted from fighting Luka.
"Yes!" Lime and Hime left no room for debates.
"Oh well, we shall sink together, let 'em come!"
CRASH BOOM KRAKOOM
Our enthusiasm was silenced by the sheer power that came from the castle entrance, as a bunch of monsters came running to hide deeper inside.
"What the hell was that attack!"
"The hero is a monster!"
"The roof is gone, and i just finished cleaning it!"
Almost every monster locked themselves in their rooms, only the bravest monsters and us remained.
"Damn, the Quadruple Giga is too broken. It's good Bimp is currently somewhere at the sea, I wonder who the victim was."
I offered a prayer to whoever was the idiot who didn't attack Luka while he was charging his big move.
"I want to recruit him!" Lime swung her boomerang with conviction, I offered my prayers to Luka.
"Conquering the seas would be a joke if we had that power."
VRRRR
"Ohoho, look at it, it's finally time to take her for a walk~"
Blam blam blam blam blam
Tamamo having the time of her life passed through us after activating the Giganto weapon, the nod to Final Fantasy 6 crashed through the doors and damaged the castle even further on her path to battle the hero.
"Stop ruining my castle you Idiots!" Alice's scream could be heard from behind the throne room's closed doors.
A creepy song began playing in my pocket before I answered it.
"Hello, yeah it's me."
With our group alone, as everyone went to their positions, Promestein called me through her device, alarmed that Ilias was mobilizing everything for an invasion this soon.
"I wanted to escape but you see, my friends want to battle the hero, so my hands are tied."
I kept talking to an increasingly annoyed scientist who tried and failed to convince any of us to go away, the sheer scale of angels being moved to the castle supposedly enough to stamp it into a crater.
"Yes yes, I hope you leave a way out for us when that happens."
A shaky compromise was reached between us, with Promestein not guaranteeing our sneaky escape if the castle was overrun by angels.
"Best of luck to both of us, we'll need it." The call was finished as I turned to my party and told them everything planned to happen in the next hours.
"That's worrying, their plan is so vile, as expected of that woman."
"We have Auntie Micaela's weapons, the time finally has come to show their true power!"
"Be sure to hold back in your fight with Luka and save strength for the true enemy."
The battles with the Heavenly Knights were gruesome, we had to find cover to watch each one in relative safety.
"It's no wonder they were too weak to fight back the first wave, these girls threw everything they got at him, damn."
When Erubetie threatened to explode herself though, Lime appeared from the shadows and beat the shit out of her more than Luka ever could, the hero was gobsmacked with the interruption, as Lime kept saying how she would never forgive Erubetie if she killed herself to prove a point, and why she didn't learn anything while journeying with the jigglies all this time.
"I was just getting into character!" Erubetie's screams went unheard.
"Hey Luka, how's it going with your girlfriend?" Seeing Erubetie's punishment wouldn't be over so soon, I made small talk with the hero.
"Alice told me her plan and the reason for our journey…"
(The reveal came before the fateful battle in the throne room, damn.)
"That bad huh, do you resent her?"
"No, never! I know she's an insufferable bitch sometimes when she cuts too deep with the insults, but she also helped me all this time. I wouldn't be the hero I am without her training…"
I had to force back a laugh, who would've known Luka's tongue was this sharp, Alice would kill him ten times over if she heard that.
"Then that's all that matters, go beat the shit out of your girlfriend and Hora Hora~ make up with her, as the dominant party of course." I tried once again to convince the masochistic bottom to take the reins, but I've accepted long ago my efforts were for nothing.
"Stay in that form and think about how sad you made me today little girl."
Lime brought back Erubetie who lost half her body mass and now looked like a loli, she was on the verge of tears and her pouting was adorable.
(Being on the receiving end of a Neverland Frontier, ironic.)
"She's so adorable! Can we adopt her!" I held up Loli Betie in the air and swung her around, she showed no reaction, possibly too ashamed after Lime's therapy session.
"I'll raise her well, she will grow up to be a person greater than life and make me a proud parent, I'm sure of it!"
I hugged her like the daughter I never had, bringing clear discomfort to the Queen Slime, vapors rose up from the contact between our bodies.
"Please, stooop" It seems losing her biomass also regressed her to a younger mindset.
"I don't wanna, my little Betie~ my cute Betie~"
"Hmm, she's cute isn't she~ I'm holding the rest of her in me until she is truly sorry for her actions."
"Won't that have consequences when she reforms?"
"I'm making sure to not let her colony mix with mine, we are completely separated" Lime calmed my nerves.
(Good, Erubetie is needed for the final battle, Lime at this point could take her place, but let's not change canon too much.)
Roman and Lime left an amused Luka to Granberia, as the Pirate kept rubbing cheeks with an increasingly annoyed Erubetie, the sizzling of his melting face not bothering the vampire in the least.
"Feisty little girl~ Papa Roman and Mommy Lime will teach you all about boomerangs, fishes and friendship~"
I had my fill of fun, and even a beaten down Alma Elma gave a thumbs up when seeing my skills at getting under one's skin.
"Oh hero Luka, you had the Monster Lord at your mercy but didn't deliver the final blow, why must you humans disappoint me again and again?" The battle was over and Luka choose the way that rocks.
Ilias' visage descended towards the throne, to announce her plan.
"So be it, I decided to take things in my own hands, so let this horrible castle be the stepping stone on my purge against these vile creatures once and for all!"
Our vision turned golden and with the flutter of many golden feathers the Angel invasion has begun.
"Also, the outsider who played pirates with a bunch of monsters all this time, don't think you were ever under my radar, so enjoy being punished for your crimes for ten thousand years!"
"Half of the angels in this first wave descended upon me, my spider consort and slime wife, who fully absorbed Erubetie inside her to fight without worrying about protecting her friend."
"Have at thee!"
"Romaaanceeeeeee!"
"Today I'll finally taste angel meat!"
The castle exploded, the spirits were disabled, Luka and Alice escaped by a hair's breadth. Our blessed weapons made short work of many angels, until Ariel descended upon us, but as Promestein promised, an opening was made when her chimeras added to the chaos, giving us a chance to escape under the cloud of smoke.
"And the beginning of the end is here." We appeared at the drain lab, the little roid Radio rolled towards us with her one wheel and offered apologies for the mess.
"You did all you could, depending on the circumstances, it's fine Radio."
"Those damn chickens, how dare they destroy the castle! I need to go back, save my older sisters in the basement!"
Erubetie reformed after being spit out by Lime and was irate with how brutal and efficient the angels were.
"The chances of defeating the angels are zero, nothing can reach them with violent intent thanks to a world spanning field created by the master." Radio explained.
"Then let's destroy that." Hime added.
"That, i can't allow, it isn't time yet Roman." A new voice spoke, and from deep in the lab, the lights turned on to show Promestein's supercomputer.
A metallic loli, her body was petite and left nothing to the imagination, being suspended by many metal tubes and milking apparatuses, a face mask that had a huge disk drive on it, her feet also ending in many milking machines and other metallic cables.
"What do you mean isn't time Laplace?"
"The hero known as Luka must unite the world to fight against the Goddess, and eventually destroy the angel's defense system himself, only then the master will see fit to pass on her torch to humanity."
"Great, now even Promestein has plans upon plans…" I groaned thinking maybe it was bad letting Promestein in on the events.
"Thanks to what you shared about the future." The computer added with a tinge of confusion on why I would be reacting like this.
"So what do we do? We can't keep quiet in case Luka fails."
"Reunite with your pirate crew and do your own thing to help Luka, also the weapon was completed, you need to bring Horn here to be fitted with it, before Luka destroys this lab."
"So you know your life will be thrown away, do you feel nothing about it?"
I remembered that her death was also a sad thing, considering she was without guilt as the drain labs manager, just following her coding, earning a sense of self only by the very end.
"I'm a tool for master's plans, I have no feelings on the matter."
"But I do. If Promestein made you to be expendable, then once your duty for her is over, as a fellow Seeker of Truth, I order you to transfer master rights to me!"
"Processing, processing, that isn't possible, this unit has critical information that should never fall on Tamamo's hands, still I'm grateful towards your feelings."
Laplace surprised me, how the unfeeling machine could be grateful? did she develop herself early and was following a script to not let Promestein in the know?
"But in the event you reach me after the destruction sequence begins, I won't have any say in the matter anymore." Laplace disappeared inside a cocoon of cables that sunk into the ground.
"It's a promise then."
"Laplace is officially a member of the jiggly pirates, we'll steal Promestein's treasure since she doesn't seem to value it herself!"
"Puru~"
Then we ran out, this Drain Lab wasn't located in Hellgondo, so we had access to the seas and port cities, with luck we would find our crew on the first try.
