"..." In the calm days of Ilias Village, a young abnormality named Victor Luis was sleeping on a bed that was anything but comfortable. For the first time of this week, the clouds covered the morning sun, letting Victor sleep for longer times; and without anyone waking him up, he could finally enjoy as many hours of sleep as he wanted ever since he came here.
When he opened his eyes, Victor felt like he was on a floating cloud, and could finally enjoy this sensation to its fullest now.
No one woke him up, no sun slapped him on the face, nothing and nobody was here to disturb his peaceful moments.
A smile was etched on Victor's face as he calmly opened his eyes without any problem, as naturally as possible. He stretched his back on the flat surface of his bed, popping some joints on his spine before he snuggled comfortably.
"Alright, let's see this night's gains…" Victor opened his system again, and set his gaze on the achievements first, which was holding a notification.
"...'Into the Riches', huh? Because I obtained 1'000 Gold Coins." Victor's smile widened as he read the description of the achievement and checked his inventory, which contained only his old set of clothes, a half roll of medical bandages, and his phone along with the number of Gold Coins he possesses at the moment.
2'110 Gold Coins? That's a really great number!
Still, it is better to wait before he uses them to increase his gains. Today is the day of baptism, and now his lifestyle will change. He will be living in the open for a long time, until he can actually buy a house. After that, he can do what he wants.
So, for the moment, he left his Gold Coins on the inventory and didn't use them at all. He started to feel a bit hungry and thirsty now, but first, he has to take care of his bladder and stomach problems.
Victor stood up from his bed, standing on his only good leg and carefully holding his balance. It might be thanks to his state, but he felt like he got better at the balance thingy. At first, he couldn't even properly stand on a skateboard before face planting on the ground with a bleeding nose.
...Getting used to two legs again will be annoying once he is done with the True Vampire Serum…
He stumbled forward, reaching for his wooden chair, and then he gently sat on the cushion over his seat. A sigh escaped from his mouth before he grasped the wheels of his wheelchair, feeling more adapted to this kind of thing now.
"Well then, let's get going." Victor muttered before he began to wheel outside the room. The building was quite silent, making Victor raise an eyebrow.
Did he wake up too soon?
He would usually sleep at midnight and use 8 hours to rest his body and mind, at least until the day before when he started to sleep directly at 9 o'clock. Could it be that his body got used to sleeping so little and now it's around 5 o'clock?
Just as he reached the door of the bathroom that stood right in front of the dining hall, something colorful attracted his attention, and his eyes widened in surprise as three words filled with stupor flowed out of his lips.
"What the fuck?"
"Hmm?" A feminine hum came from the mass of colors that shouldn't fit with each other at all, and the owner of all these colors turned around in surprise.
A long scaly red tail slithered across the ground, with a very thin tip which stretched up for 6 or 7 meters across the wooden floor and ended up in a very large snake tail section.
Past there, the body of the colorful entity was much more human, although it is colored with an unusual light blue-purple color, with human hips covered by a black row of petal-like cloths held by a golden belt acting like a half skirt covering the creature's private regions. There is also a sword sheath attached to her waist, close to a small bag hanging on her skirt.
The creature's belly and waist was fully naked, showing a slender figure possessing a tribal purple tattoo resembling waves. Just like on the skirt, there is another swirl-shaped ornament made of gold on her chest, below her big breasts that were barely covered by a lotus-shaped black bra hiding her nipples and the underside of her breasts.
Her purple sharp-looking tattoo extended from her hips to her collarbone, and further extended on her left arm. Speaking of which, she is also wearing black leather gloves reaching her elbows.
Then there is her face, which was unusually beautiful despite belonging to a monster. On her left cheek, her tribal tattoo ended, and long hair that resembled silver silk fell from the top of her head all the way back to her bottom, made up of red snake scales. Behind her white bangs reaching her collarbone were a pair of pointy ears, and above her left ear there is a parasitic rampicant plant with two red five-petal flowers.
On top of her head were a pair of black horns sprouting from the back of her head and making the entire way to her forehead, pointing to a vertical eye-shaped red symbol in the middle.
With her yellow eerie reptilian eyes, the second most known character in the game of Monster Girl Quest, Alipheese Fateburn XVI, or Alice, is observing Victor with an expression filled with surprise.
"How did you…." She spoke first in her surprise before her eyes set up on Victor's wheelchair, and noticed his broken left leg. She held back the words that she was just about to say and simply stared at Victor in silence.
"..." Victor simply stared back at Alice in silence just like she was doing, and slowly grasped the handle of the bathroom door. Without saying a word, Victor entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him with a lock, even though that was completely useless at the moment.
Victor approached the toilet, which was surprisingly modern for being in this kind of era, lowered his pants and switched seats on the toilet. He paused there and stared down on the ground, before a sigh escaped out of his mouth.
"...I woke up too fucking late…" Victor muttered under his breath as he shook his head. It might be because he was kind of tired, but he actually forgot that today the Monster Lord herself would be knocking at these doors…
If he had woken up soon enough, he could have actually gone out of the inn before that monster entered the inn.
Unfortunately, he got caught in the plot… Let's hope that this will be the first and last time she sees him…
Another sigh left his lips after he finished to do his business, and wiped his ass before zipping up his jeans. He sat on the wheelchair after flushing the toilet and left from the bathroom, seeing that Alice is currently staring at him with her arms crossed in wait.
"...Have a nice day." After saluting Alice, Victor began to wheel towards the exit of the inn. It was better setting a camp near Ilias Village soon enough.
However, a red snake tail slithered before the door, blocking Victor's way.
"Have a nice day, my ass. I'm not going to let you leave from here just like that, human." Alice said, much to Victor's annoyance. However, Victor let out only an exasperated sigh before he turned around and faced the monster.
"Why?"
"Do you take me for an idiot? How could I let you snitch on me to everyone else out there?"
"Fair enough…" Victor commented as he wheeled back to a wall and looked through his store for a moment, using 500 Gold Coins to buy himself a USB cable and a small powerbank. The first thing he did was connecting the powerbank to his phone after checking that it was full, before slipping them in his jeans' pockets.
"How?"
"Hmm?" Victor raised his eyes and found Alice staring at him in surprise.
She pointed a finger at his pocket and asked. "How did you make those things appear?"
"Not your business." Victor gave out a blank answer, annoying Alice.
Alice frowned and looked directly at him. "Don't use that tone with me, do you have any idea who you are talking to?"
"Yes, I do. Because I know who you are, I know I am not obligated to give you any respect, both as a human and as a citizen living and breathing outside Hellgondo." Victor replied, making Alice click her tongue. However, she didn't say anything else and simply sat on a wooden chair that was around the dining hall, waiting for someone.
Soon, the door opened and a familiar boy with purple hair entered the room, fully dressed in his battle gear and carrying a depressed expression.
"Took you long enough." With an exasperated voice, Alice opened her mouth and turned towards Luka. Meanwhile, Luka froze on his location and stared at Alice with wide eyes.
"Y… Y… Y-You… W… W-What… H-H-How?!"
"Take a deep breath, Luka." Victor suggested from the side, attracting Luka's gaze on him.
"V-Victor? You are still here?!"
Victor simply shrugged. "I slept too much."
"Crap, I can't let other people see this…!" Luka panicked at the realization of what was happening at the moment and closed the door behind him, before he ran around the dining hall pushing down the windows.
The room was visibly darker, but there was some light coming from the hall at the side of the dining hall brightening up enough for the three occupants of the inn to have a proper and undisturbed conversation.
Luka took a deep breath to relax and turned around to face Alice. "...How did you find my house?"
Alice scoffed at the stupid question and replied. "By scent. Smelling your unsophisticated scent once was all it took. I didn't expect other people, though…" She shifted her gaze to Victor, who raised an eyebrow at her suspicious gaze.
"What?"
"Speaking of which, how were you able to hide your presence from me?"
Victor blinked a couple of times at Alice's question and went in a small pause. "...Woman, I don't even know what kind of presence I am supposed to have in your eyes, what are you even talking about?"
A sigh escaped from her lips as she shook her head. "Nevermind, it was stupid of me to ask a human about a concept of magic."
"Anyway." Luka butted in the conversation, and asked Alice. "Why did you come here?"
"Well, I was just interested." Alice looked back at Luka and casually answered. "There's also something I want to confirm…"
Luka frowned and glared at her in annoyance. "I'm already in a bad mood since I couldn't receive my baptism. If you came to make more fun of me…"
Just as Luka expected, a smile appeared on Alice's face when she heard Luka's words. However, the reason why she handed out a smile was for a completely different reason. "Hah, hearing that was one of the reasons I came here for. So, Ilias didn't appear for your baptism, huh? I owed her for giving me so many wounds, serves her right."
"Eh? ...What do you mean?" Luka asked with raised eyebrows, pulling away his previous glare. A panicked expression emerged from his face soon enough as he asked with suspicion. "You… What did you do…?"
"Food."
Unfortunately, Luka didn't get the answer he wanted. Rather, he got back a simple and confusing answer.
"Eh?"
"Get me some food. Make yourself useful."
Initially, Victor wanted to let things make up by themselves, but he felt a bit of pity watching the depressed Luka staring at Alice with powerlessness in his eyes. Since it won't amount to much, and the idea of camping in Ilias Village until he is prepared to travel seems to be ruined now, he went through the Store and bought something.
"I gotchu fam." Victor spoke before he spent 50 Gold buying a pizza on a box, and placed it over his lap. Luka and Alice turned their attention to him and the mysterious box that appeared on his lap, before Victor opened it in a theatrical manner.
There it was, an irregular disk with bread-like corners covered in red sauce and white melted cheese. The smell soon reached Alice's nose, which started to twitch at the new stimulation. With wide eyes, she stared at the box.
"What's that?"
"Pizza." Victor answered before he bent the lid of the box under the said box and pulled a slice of pizza out. Under the two's watchful eyes, he bent the pizza's midsection and pulled the two edges together, before he ate the tip.
As he pulled back the slice of pizza, a trail of melted mozzarella hung off his lips, connecting his mouth with the pizza.
"Fuck…" Victor's voice was muffled from the piece in his mouth. After chewing a couple of times, Victor swallowed the piece of pizza in his mouth. "I really missed this taste." Thus, he continued to eat his slice of pizza.
Falling into temptation, Alice started to salivate and picked up another slice of pizza. Imitating Victor, Alice folded the pizza in the midsection and took a bite out of the tip.
"...!" A different path appeared in front of Alice's view as soon as her tongue felt the taste of the pizza in her mouth. Now, it's not like she ate poorly since she was born.
Rather, almost everything went well for her, especially in cooking and tasting! Tamamo is a great cook, and everything she made is delicious. Thin fried tofu, sushi, croissant, anpan, curry, chocolate, croquette, sandwiches, hamburgers, fried egg, steak, salad, pasta, udon, sweets, cakes… Everything that Tamamo could cook, she ate it all, ever since her teeth could chew something until now.
However, no matter what you do. Once some time passes, you will only feel bland, bored… She didn't feel anything else from Tamamo's cooking, which made her extremely excited once.
And here it is, this 'Pizza' that only the Founder knows where Victor pulled it from… It was a combination of tastes that she never ate before, but she recognized all the ingredients used.
Tomato sauce sprayed all over the surface of this disk food, melted cheese that seemed cheese but didn't taste like cheese, spices of any kind, crunchy and soft bread that was made in a oven recently, and most of all it was warm, melting in her tongue.
As soon as she swallowed the piece in her mouth, she opened her mouth really widely to the point where it was abnormal and swallowed the slice of pizza in her mouth. She started to chew it repeatedly while her tastebuds danced in joy in the mysterious lands of this unusual disk bread filled with tasty seasonings.
"Hmm! It's really good!" Luka commented at the side as he also took a bite out of a slice of pizza, and Victor nodded along.
"I know, right? My mom used to bake one once in a week. Even if hers was different from that of other restaurants, what made it better was that it was made by your mother."
"I understand." Luka wisely nodded. "Family cooking is the best kind of cooking. Nothing beats your or your parents' cooking."
"That's right." Victor agreed with Luka before Alice suddenly grabbed his hand with both of her hands and pulled his arm closer, with him along. His slice of pizza fell back on the box as he was taken by surprise.
Alice was currently staring at him with wide eyes and asked. "Where did you get this?!"
"Uhh… Actually, that's a good question." Victor remarked as his eyes also widened in surprise. Where did the stuff that he bought with the system come from to begin with?
"Anyway, I got that pizza with 50 Gold, so you owe me that amount now." Victor said before Alice quickly approached him, turned to a bag hanging at the side of her waist, and cupped her hands together inside the bag before pulling out a small pile of gold that he passed at Victor.
He blinked in surprise and instinctively cupped his own hands together as Alice passed him the money, before she grabbed the pizza box and pulled it away with her. She sat at a nearby table and began to eat the pizza for herself, while Victor and Luka stared at her with raised eyebrows.
"Huh, she really did pay…" Victor commented as he stared at the pile of Gold Coins that magically vanished from his hands and entered in his inventory, increasing the value of 1560 up to 1623 Gold Coins, with an extra 13 coins.
"...Hold up, my slice of pizza is still there!" Victor remembered something and wheeled towards Alice, but she quickly hugged the pizza box and glared at Victor.
"All of it is mine now that I paid for it. If you touch this box, I'm going to bust out your other leg." She threatened with a cold voice.
"You know what? It's just a slice of pizza, there is no need to get panicked…" Victor said with a carefree tone as he turned around and wheeled away from Alice. He went through his store again and bought three McChickens at the price of 20 Gold each.
He handed one box to Luka, who already finished his slice of pizza. "Here's one, it's good."
"Ok." Luka simply accepted the box as he was also hungry. In fact for this entire day, he didn't eat anything at all.
As soon as Luka woke up, he gave a prayer to Ilias and then there were screams of a monster seen in the outskirts of the village. He picked his sword, dressed up, skipped breakfast, and repelled the Slime Girl who wanted to taste his semen so much.
Then he met with Alice in a crater a bit away from the village, as she fell from the sky for some reason; they got into a small quarrel and Luka ran away to the Temple of Ilias for the baptism, just to find out that Ilias never descended that day and no one was getting baptized.
Basically, he skipped breakfast and now he is eating lunch with Victor and a new person.
Meanwhile, Victor enjoyed his two McChickens, not worrying at all about the future when he should do exactly that now that he was put into this mess… Hopefully, it won't end bad for him.
…
Victor Luis' (future) Trivia Book: Monster Lord
The Monster Lord is a person with the authority of ruling over other monsters. As a reminder, the Monster Lord is not 'one' person: Ever since the Great Monster War ended, the Monster Lord became a title passed down on the strongest monster in that current generation, peaking to the 16th Monster Lord of this current generation.
The concept and duty of the Monster Lord is to use absolute power to maintain order. With the Monster Lord present, the other monsters are kept in check, with no rogue monster trying to cause a serious rebellion or destruction of regional scale.
However, that is not a rule, or an important tradition. That originally came from the good nature of the future Monster Lords to make sure that monsters won't annihilate humanity and ultimately themselves.
An example of the opposite is Alipheese Fateburn VIII, widely known as Black Alice, who attempted to use her power and title of Monster Lord to completely dominate the world. Fortunately, she was stopped by Heinrich before she could do so.
Ultimately, the Monster Lord, in reality, has no rule to follow except for their own morality and ideals. They can speak of any rule, but there won't be any immediate punishment if they break some rules. The greatest punishment they will face is being killed by other monsters and having her title stolen, but that is more of a consequence rather than punishment.
Under normal circumstances, the Monster Lord will hand over the throne to her crown princess when she has grown enough, in body and mind. However, if the Monster Lord were to perish before that day, the crown princess would be automatically granted the title of Monster Lord.
However, no matter in which case, other monsters will have the right to challenge the current Monster Lord, whether by force or by invite. The victorious will retain the title of Monster Lord, while the others will have to submit or die, depending on the will of the Monster Lord.
Technically, a human can also be the Monster Lord, but they need to have the power to claim that title first, or they will be punished for life by the winner.
Meanwhile, if one wishes to marry the Monster Lord, they must have to follow three requirements: The male must be fully willing to go through the marriage, and as such, forced marriages are automatically nullified; for the same reason, the Monster Lord must also be fully willing to go through the marriage; and the last one is that the male must be stronger than the Monster Lord. However, the last one can be bypassed in special situations, because the reason that requirement exists is so that they can fully consummate the marriage and not die.
For example, if the male is immortal to all effects, they can get married anyway as they will not die anyway. It might sound stupid, but there are actually ways for a human to achieve that kind of immortality.
In the case the third requirement is not followed through without special bypasses, the Monster Lord has to give up her title and marry the man as a rogue. However, that is the case only if the Monster Lord belongs to the Fateburn family line.
A small trivia: Every Monster Lord, from the first to the sixteenth, they all belong to the Fateburn family, which originated from the Dark Goddess Alipheese, also known as the Founder and creator of Monsters.