I Must Create Every Monster Girl Myself Then!!!

[m4gpier]

Utarou laid on the field, stabbed in the chest by a large pike as he was trampled by the cavalry of a small kingdom charged towards the nearby castle.

"Skill activated: Perfect Immortality." A soft mechanical voice echoed through Utarou's head as the final horse crushed his skull.

As the brigade of horses continued forth, Utarou rose up from death once again.

"Yep, immortality was the perfect cheat skill." Utarou thought smugly as the spear ejected itself from his chest, his wounds quickly restoring themselves in a healing light.

Just under an hour ago, Utarou had died, a tragic accident involving too many drinks, a yakitori grill and stuffing his pants with rubbing alcohol soaked toilet paper while break dancing.

It was a wild night to say the least but it had resulted in the 30 year old salaryman's untimely demise.

Fortunately, Utarou had been given a second chance.

Utarou stuck his hand out, opening up a slick magical menu.

Well, it was quite a simple magical menu.

Utarou had been asked a simple question by that strange mechanical voice while he occupied the void between life and death.

"What would you like in your new life?"

Now Utarou, he wasn't a fool, he already had an answer prepared.

Looking at his magical menu his wish was granted.

He had one skill, his XP points had been blanked out and the rest of the skill tree had been erased.

"Perfect Immortality!" Utarou shouted, raising his hands into the air triumphantly as an arrow flew through the sky, lodging itself directly into his skull.

"Skill activated: Perfect Immortality." The soft mechanical voice chimed in as Utarou healed from the wound.

"I should probably leave." Utarou said as he looked towards the castle where the arrow had come from.

It was a large stone fortification surrounded by what Utarou could only assume to be medieval European knights. Looking towards the castle he saw a robed figure gathering energy, launching bolts of lightning down at the knights. Some were able to dodge but many of them were stunned.

"Alright, fantasy, check." Utarou grinned.

So far, everything was going exactly how Utarou had dreamed it would. Of course Utarou had hoped to live a slightly longer life in Japan, but that didn't matter.

He was so close to his goal.

His dream from when was but a small child.

Utarou could finally pursue it in this new world.

He could finally create his own harem of Monster Girls.

Utarou hadn't picked his cheat skill of immortality for no reason, he knew that Wolf Girls would be protective, and quite possibly wouldn't let him add Cat Girls to his harem, and how would the Harpy and Mermaids get along?!

Utarou would need to live several lifetimes in order to properly and fully enjoy every monster girl.

Additionally he could imagine it would be quite deadly to get with Sirens, Dryads and Succubi, so he would have to be able to heal!

His plan was perfect.

Now all he had to do was find some monster girls.

Utarou couldn't help but laugh triumphantly, his dream had come true.

Another arrow was shot into his head as he cackled.

"I should get going." Utarou sighed as he pulled the arrow out of his head and slunk off, finally noticing that he was also nude.

…
​

"Woah mister, I don't think I've ever seen that before!" The peasant man, Timothy, gawked as he looked at Utarou's strange skills menu.

"Heh, like I said I'm from another world and God gave me a cheat skill." Utarou explained, puffing his chest out as his poorly fitting clothes hung off his body.

Timothy was a peasant from Starton, a small farming village, and had offered some spare clothes and food to the very lost and hungry Utarou.

Perfect immortality didn't mean Utarou wouldn't get hungry as it turned out.

"I guess you're one of those Blessed Beings then! My skills menu is pretty boring." Timothy sighed, placing his palm out to reveal a similar looking menu as to Utarou, but with a functioning XP bar and several skill trees branching out from a central core skill.

"Minor food poison resistance?" Utarou asked, looking at the aggressively underwhelming skill that everything branched out from. Timothy had invested several levels into various minor resistances to disease and upper body strength, Utarou couldn't see anything particularly interesting that could be unlocked either.

Notably, every single skill had at least 1 branch unlockable from it, some with up to 5 different branches ready to be unlocked.

"Ah yeah, that's my legacy skill."

"Legacy skill?"

"Well us normal folks, we get 1 skill when we're born from our parents. That's our starting skill." Timothy explained. Utarou nodded.

"My my, I wonder what a monster girl's legacy skill would be." Utarou pondered.

"Monster Girl?" Timothy asked, cocking his head. Utarou felt his heart drop as he quickly turned to Timothy, grabbing him by the shoulders.

"M-Monster girls… Cat girls? Werewolves? Harpies? Succubi? Mermaids?! GIRLS WITH STRANGE EARS?!" Utarou shouted, shaking Timothy more viciously as he saw waves of cluelessness pass with each question he asked.

"Oh! Do you mean Elves?" Timothy asked. Utarou fell to the ground.

"Timothy… Are you telling me… you don't know what a monster girl is?" Utarou asked as he laid on the grass.

"Uh, no?"


Utarou hadn't anticipated this possibility.

Utarou had reincarnated into a world without Monster Girls.

Looking into the sky, Utarou took a deep breath.

"WHAT THE HELL KIND OF FANTASY WORLD DOESN'T HAVE MONSTER GIRLS?!?" Utarou screamed, scaring several birds away and causing a nearby dog to freak out barking.

 

[m4gpier]

After overcoming his severe depression (And being kicked out by Timothy), Utarou travelled to the city of Richerson.

Apparently the King of this land was always looking to hire Blessed Beings, which Utarou apparently qualified as.

"Maybe he was just a peasant and doesn't know anything… Maybe the King actually keeps all the monster girls to himself and that's why he's looking for Blessed Beings, yeah yeah that's it…" Utarou thought, desperately trying to come up with a reason why this world of swords and sorcery lacked his one true desire, Monster Girls. Utarou walked while staring at the ground, bumping straight into the chest of the city's guard.

"Hey watch where you're going buddy!" The knight shouted, pushing Utarou to the ground.

"Sorry… Waitaminute…" Utarou looked up, he saw two large men with weapons standing outside a heavily fortified entrance. Utarou stood up and grabbed the knight's hand.

"YOU! You're city guards right!?" Utarou asked pleadingly. The knight, Gareth, flinched and looked down at this strange looking man.

"Uhh, yeah?" Gareth said as he pushed Utarou off.

"THAT MEANS THERE ARE MONSTERS HERE, RIGHT?!" Utarou shouted, pointing towards a forest as a merchant exited the city.

"There are monsters? I thought you had cleared the way already damnit!" The merchant exclaimed angrily.

"What?! No, No this guy's just talking crazy. Rest assured I have my best men keeping the road clear of any monsters." Gareth explained, rubbing his temples as the excited man pumped his fist into the air victoriously for a reason none of the men watching him could fathom.

"Where there are monsters, there are monster girls." Utarou explained with a smirk, clasping his chin and striking a pose.

"Hmpth, don't scare me like that. I've got a wagon filled with salted meats." The merchant grimaced as Gareth grabbed Utarou by the arm.

"Listen here bud I don't know what you're talking about girl monsters for but Richerson hasn't had a serious monster attack in over a year, male or female." Gareth growled.

"Right! OH I need to talk to your King." Utarou declared, quickly opening up his skill tree.

"You w-... Oh a Blessed Being. Great, all of you guys are freaks of course you're one of them." Gareth groaned, rubbing his temples as he beckoned Utarou to follow him into the city.

"CLIVE YOUR TAKING OVER GATE DUTY!" Gareth shouted into the watch tower built into the main entrance.

"What?! But it's your turn on the schedule!" Clive whined as he picked up his hand of playing cards, the three other men he was playing with smirking.

"Captain of the Guard has to deal with Blessed Beings." Gareth sighed, nodding towards Utarou who was frantically looking around for any signs of monster girls.

"Great… I was totally going to win that round too." Clive whined as he threw his cards onto the table.

…
​

"Hmm, I see. You are a very powerful Blessed Being indeed, and from another world as well?" King Oldsman pondered, scratching his long white beard as he sat atop his tall throne, Utarou shaking his leg as he bit his tongue.

"Gareth, you may return to your duties. Thank you for bringing me this specimen." King Oldsman nodded, waving slowly towards the door.

Gareth was kneeling besides Utarou and stood up.

"Thank you my lord." Gareth bowed, making his exit.

"Thank God he didn't talk about monsters." Gareth thought with relief as he walked towards the exit door.

"SO KING OLDSMAN, DO YOU KNOW WHAT A MONSTER GIRL IS?" Utarou shouted, causing Gareth to face palm just as he left the throne room.

King Oldsman let out a small laugh, his legion of knights all staring intensely at Utarou.

"I'm not sure I do, could you describe what you mean exactly?" King Oldsman asked with a bemused look on his face.

"They're women who have the traits of monsters, like a Werewolf girl who'll sniff you and become super soft and fluffy during a fool moon and wag her tail when you come home from a long day at the office and-" Utarou ranted about the benefits and perks of various kinds of monster girls, intriguing and disgusting in equal measure everyone in that throne room.

He was allowed to continue uninterrupted for 10 minutes.

"- Of course slime girls would leave a trail but that just means you wouldn't be able to use carpets plus the fact she can change shape more than makes up for-"

"That's quite enough I think. We do not have anything like that in the world of Nugenesis." King Oldsman interrupted.

"Y-you don't?" Utarou asked, his heart sinking.

"I'm afraid not. I can tell you are quite… passionate about the subject so I apologize." King Oldsman sighed as he saw Utarou sink to the floor in despair.

"What was the point of it all…" Utarou muttered as he felt his dreams shatter in front of him.

King Oldsman rolled his eyes.

"Putting that matter aside, you say your skill is perfect invincibility, perhaps you could demonstrate it?" King Oldsman requested.

"Yes… Yeah." Utarou muttered as he walked up to one of the knights lined up against the wall and snatched his sword, committing seppuku, the wounds healing effortlessly. He then committed sudoku on his chest, which also had no effect.

"I see, quite remarkable, I wonder if it could withstand Lucian's instant death touch…" King Oldsman pondered aloud.

"Bring him to me…" Utarou demanded, looking up at King Oldsman with a pleading look on his face.

Utarou had nothing left to live for, if there were no monster girls in this fantasy world, he may as well just die for real.

King Oldsman was taken aback but nodded.

"I see, you're that confident are you?" King Oldsman nodded, failing to see the hopelessness in Utarou's eyes.

Moments later, Lucian appeared. He was a well dressed man with short hair and a pair of silk gloves, he clearly kept his hands as far as possible from himself and others.

"You summoned me my lord?" Lucian asked with a cocky smile.

"Lucian we've found a Blessed Being who's skill is-" King Oldsman began but was interrupted by Utarou grabbing Lucian's hand, ripping off his glove and pushing it onto his chest.

Utarou fell to the ground as Lucian took a step back, quickly putting his glove back on as Utarou laid lifelessly on the ground.

"Who's skill was apparently perfect immortality. I shouldn't have summoned you, I apologise." King Oldsman sighed, another Blessed Being getting over confident in their ability.

"No matter my Lord, it seems to me this is what he wanted." Lucian noted, looking at the peaceful look that had appeared on Utarou's face.

"Skill activated: Perfect Immortality." The peace on Utarou's face lasted for all of 10 seconds before he jolted back up, life being returned from nothing.

"DAMNIT!" Utarou screamed, punching the ground in disgust.

He'd been cursed to live in the nightmare world of Nugenesis, one without so much as a concept of monster girls.

 

[m4gpier]

Utarou was given land and a title, he was now "Sir Utarou of the Mountain Keep."

His responsibilities were to operate the fortress and collect taxes on behalf of King Oldsman.

Unfortunately, Utarou was extremely depressed, and this persisted for the next year, where he simply went through the motions. He had no dreams, but without the ability to die he was simply operating on auto pilot.

Until a lone woman collapsed at the entrance of Utarou's mountain fortress in the middle of a stormy night.

…​

"Heh, she's a lot prettier than I thought." Joelson smiled, licking his lips as he leered at the heavily breathing woman bundled in blankets by the fire.

"Hey! Don't even think about it, we're waiting on Lord Utarou to decide what to do with her, remember?" Henrek scolded, punching Joelson in the chest.

"Look kid I get you're new here, Utarou couldn't give a rats ass about what we do. We basically have free reign over the place as long as the tax money flows to the King." Joelson explained, still leering at the pale woman who was slowly stirring back to life as warmth returned to her body.

"She's clearly an escaped slave, she doesn't have a coin on her."Henrek sighed.

"She can pay without money." Joelson grinned as the woman opened her eyes, ears perking up as she heard the lust in Joelson's voice.

"N-No…" She gasped, struggling to push herself back, emaciated body pushing off the thick blankets Henrek had given her.

"Look, once she warms up we'll just have a little fun that's all." Joelson said as he stood up and began walking towards the shaking woman who closed her eyes.

"Just a little fun for-" Joelson reached over to grab the woman but was stopped by Henrek smashing him over the head with a chair, knocking Joelson out cold.

The woman looked up at Henrek as he dragged Joelson onto a bench, putting a flagon of ale in his hand in case any of the other guards came back, letting out a deep sigh as he looked at his fellow guardsman.

"I'm so sorry, are you okay? Do you need anything to eat-" Henrek asked as he turned back, finally getting a good look at the woman's eyes.

They weren't normal, they were large, her irises yellow, and pupils slitted.

They were cat's eyes, not human eyes.

"I-I… need… water." The woman panted, still weak.

"Right… yeah of course…" Henrek laughed.

There was something every knight in Utarou's employ knew.

Utarou had a lust for women with monstrous features, though everyone assumed that it was a mere fantasy from a mad man.

"I don't know how Lord Utarou will react to this…" Henrek thought as he gave the shivering woman a glass of boiled water, sitting next to her by the mess hall fire.

…
​

Utarou experienced many emotions upon seeing the mysterious woman.

The first was anger, Henrek had said he'd found a monster girl. The woman before him was far from what Utarou had spent many cold nights dreaming of. She had regular human ears, she had no tail and she lacked even the faintest trace of a whisker.

The second was relief, this woman clearly had the eyes of a cat. Henrek made it clear that this was strange, this was unique, perhaps this woman could lead Utarou to a true monster girl?

The third was hope, the dream of monster girls had not died.

The fire in Utarou's chest reignited as for the first time in nearly a year, he smiled.

This terrified every knight in the throne room.

"Tell me, what is your name?" Utarou asked.

"I-I… I don't have a name. I was born a slave." The woman explained nervously, looking behind her back. Utarou laughed heartily.

Every Knight visibly shivered.


"And your eyes! Where did you get those from!" Utarou asked as he leapt up from his throne and grabbed the girl's hands.

"M-My mama!" The woman shouted, stepping back from Utarou as she opened her skill tree.

Her Legacy Skill was named "Night Vision."

Utarou clasped his head as it all clicked.

"I see, I see now. I now know what I was placed on this world to do." Utarou exclaimed as he began pacing around the throne room, every Knight watched in horror, except Henrek who put himself in between Utarou and the woman.

"I WAS NOT PLACED IN A WORLD WITHOUT MONSTER GIRLS AS A FORM OF PUNISHMENT!" Utarou shouted, grasping up at the sky dramatically as lightning struck outside.

"I HAVE A GOD GIVEN PURPOSE! A DREAM!" Utarou declared before pointing at the woman, Henrek moving towards his sword.

"I name thy Hope, for you have shown me the light! The path towards the creation of Utopia!" Utarou proclaimed as his plan struck him like divine intervention.

"M-My liege what are you saying?" Henrek asked as he looked towards the woman, now named Hope, and his lord.

"How could I have been so stupid as to not see it. LEGACY SKILLS! With my immortal ageless body,I have the time to experiment and curate the right skill trees to create them…" Utarou laughed as he saw the future in Hope, who was still trembling behind Henrek now.

"Create what my liege?!" Henrek asked exasperatedly, unsure what Utarou could possibly be planning.

"I must create them, I must create every single one of them." Utarou grinned.

The room was silent.

"C-create what?" Hope asked meekly, poking her head out from behind Henrek.

"I MUST CREATE EVERY MONSTER GIRL MYSELF!" Utarou shouted triumphantly, a glint appearing in his eye.

The entire room blinked in unison.

 

[m4gpier]

Henrek and Hope sat across Utarou in his study. It'd been a week since Hope arrived and she'd been glued to Henrek's side the entire time, with every other touch starved knight leering at the waifish woman lustfully like Joelson had.

"My liege I-"

"No, No, don't call me that. I'm Utarou." Utarou declared, he hadn't stopped smiling since he declared his ambition to create every monster girl himself, he also hadn't left his study since then either.

"Ahem… Utarou. I still don't understand how you intend to create these 'monster girls' you talk about, and more importantly what you intend to do with Hope." Henrek said defensively, Hope grabbing his arm anxiously.

Utarou smirked as he grabbed a large sheet of parchment paper that was covered in plans and pages ripped out of books.

"Legacy Skills, I've wasted an entire year not considering the possibilities! Though research into Legacy Skills is woefully lacking so who can blame me. Look at this, I can only find one reference to improved vision skills at all." Utarou explained, pointing to one of the ripped out pages with several lines underlined.

"Individuals wishing to improve their sight must first increase their capacity for generalized perception, as such investing in perception based skills is integral to unlocking the sight skills branch."

Utarou then had a line linking to another ripped out book page that discussed Legacy Skill mutations.

"Parents with many Skills should be cautious when choosing a Legacy Skill for their child. Should the parents both have highly developed branches of a skill tree that are entirely different, the opportunity for a dangerous mutation dramatically increases. People of the far east warn of a Legacy Skill which causes strange deformations in the children of Chi masters. As such the Church's wisdom should be followed. Invest in poison or disease resistance for your child's Legacy Skill."

"Mutations? Strange deformations? Your church is holding you back! I bet they'd call those beautiful cat eyes of yours a strange deformation!" Utarou proclaimed with glee, Hope shrinking down slightly.

"O-oh… I don't know." Hope muttered, looking away from Utarou, she felt quite anxious being integral to whatever plan this strange man had, though he'd given Henrek strict orders to make sure she had anything she wanted which had kept her comfortable at least.

"So… what are you going to, uh, marry Hope?" Henrek asked awkwardly as he looked down at the white haired woman currently burying her face into his shoulder.

"God no! That'd lead to incest down the line, I don't do any of that." Utarou gagged.

"Incest?!" Henrek exclaimed.

"Look, right now Hope's Legacy Skill is 'Night Vision' right? Her children will probably inherit that, unless she levels up a few skills. We're going to push your Legacy Skill beyond for your children to something like 'Cat Eyes', now once we have Cat Eyes we can start with Cat Ears and Cat Tales until we have the new Legacy Skill…" Utarou grinned as he pointed to the complex diagram he'd drawn, all leading to a crude drawing of a Cat Girl.

"You… How many years do you think this will take?" Henrek asked as he finally comprehended the timescale Utarou was thinking on.

"100, maybe 200 years. Of course I'm planning on finding more individuals like Hope here, with skills we can invest in to create every single monster girl imaginable."

"U-Umm… W-what will you want from me… then?" Hope muttered, looking at Utarou with her large yellow eyes.

"Have kids! Make a family! But most importantly, I need you to level up your skills. I still need to learn how these Legacy Skill mutations work, but I want you to invest every skill point you get into, can you open your inventory please?" Utarou asked, Hope nodded and opened her palm revealing her skill tree.

She didn't have much XP and had only invested in basic poison, cold and starvation resistance skills without going deeper than one skill down any line.

Utarou moved to the perception branch, which had a unique skill thanks to her Legacy Skill.

"Improved night vision, perfect. I want you to keep going down that line. Whatever gets you better cat eyes." Utarou nodded.

"R-really? A-and… t-t-t-to have kids with who…?" Hope asked, she was expecting to be treated like property, she was born a slave.

"I don't know, Henrek maybe? Just make sure they're someone with strong perception skills… Or maybe reflex skills… Hmm this is tough, I need more data still…" Utarou pondered, the drop of Henrek's name caused him to flinch as he looked down at Hope, who was still clinging to his arm while blushing intensely at the thought.

"Y-you aren't going to force anyone onto her right?!" Henrek demanded, slamming his fist onto the table.

"What? No that'd create generational trauma, I need to make sure her descendents like me." Utarou explained, nodding with a self satisfied grin.

"That's kind of creepy dude." Henrek shuddered.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. And a world without a single cat girl is a desperate world." Utarou declared bleakly.

"I don't mind…" Hope muttered, still clinging onto Henrek who groaned internally, he'd decided from the moment he saw her laying in the snow he had to protect her, but seeing how quickly and deeply attached she'd become to him was making him worried.

"We can talk about this later but… Utarou, sir… You're really just asking Hope to have kids? Nothing weird?" Henrek asked cautiously.

"Well and investing in those perception skills, I want those kids to have cat eyes. First phase in the cat girl plan." Utarou clarified.

"Right… I suppose that's alright then." Henrek sighed, crossing his arms.

"Alright chop chop then! Henrek I'm officially giving you two a room. The sooner you two get at it the sooner I can collect my data." Utarou declared, causing both Henrek and Hope to go bright red.

"H-Hey isn't this a little fast?!" Henrek shouted.

"I don't mind…" Hope muttered, a small smirk cracking on her lips.

 

[m4gpier]

"Umamusume…" Utarou said as he held the jaw of a very confused horse.

"Uh, Sir Utarou, is everything alright?" Joelson asked.

"Uma… Musume…" Utarou repeated, nodding slowly.

"Horse… Daughter…?" Joelson repeated, slowly.

"Yes… Yes… Tell me, do animals have skills in the same way as you or I?" Utarou asked seriously.

"Uhh, no?" Joelson said, stepping back from Utarou awkwardly.

Most of the knights in Utarou's employ had never heard him speak, all they knew was a Blessed Being from another world with immortality.

They also had only ever known him as someone who was extremely depressed.

Ever since Hope had arrived in the fort he'd changed into an entirely different person, it was quite intimidating really.

The only people who quite understood the change in attitude was Henrek and Hope, whom Utarou had been very blatantly giving special treatment to.

As the Lord of this fortress he was well within his right to do this, but it was a notable shift in the status quo.

"Explain to me how you breed these horses, you're the horse master here right?" Uratou continued.

"I don't do any breeding, I just keep them healthy, and it's just a skill, look." Joelson sighed, opening his menu to show Utarou.

Joelson had invested in a standard set of skills for a knight, increased endurance, improved strength and quicker recovery.

These were only Tier 1 skills, stemming directly from Joelson's legacy skill of 'Bonus XP', a common legacy skill for minor nobility like Joelson. As Tier 1 skills, they provided minor bonuses, increased endurance was a flat 5% increase, improved strength was 10% and quicker recovery was a meager 2% increase.

However as Joelson was the horse master, he'd also invested into the tier 2 skill of "Animal Skill Check", which necessitated Joelson to invest in the pre-requistite skills of "Improved Perception" and "Animal Handling"

"Go on then, show me the horse's skills then." Utarou demanded, pointing to the horse he'd been fondling earlier.

"It doesn't work like that." Joelson sighed as he patted the confused horse gently, causing a familiar looking skills menu to appear.

"Wait a minute." Utarou muttered as he opened up his own Skill tree.

Since he was a blessed being, he only had one large circle with his Blessed Being Skill "Perfect Immortality."

The horse only had one large circle as well, with the Animal Skill "Tamed Horse, Destrier."

"Why does my skill tree look the same as the horses?" Utarou asked suspiciously. Joelson shrugged.

"Dunno, but animals all look like this. Just a skill that describes their species and breed, no options to level up." Joelson explained.

"Do monsters look the same as well?"

"Nah, opposite actually. They have no legacy skills and only upgrade. So y'know, the older a monster is, the more powerful it is." Joelson explained.

"So that means… a monster girl would have a large skill tree and a legacy skill, a true combination of a human and monster…" Utarou nodded.

"Right… sure." Joelson sighed as he saw Henrek walking past the stables with Hope clinging onto him still.

"How come Henrek gets all of the luck? A promotion and a woman hanging off of him with his own private quarters?" Joelson thought jealously, having conveniently forgotten his prior behaviour that might make Hope somewhat hesitant to be near him.

"Hope you don't have to follow me everywhere…" Henrek groaned as he pushed the thin woman off of him.

"Oh I'm sorry, please don't hate me…" Hope apologised suddenly, quickly taking several steps back from Henrek. Henrek flinched as she ran off back to her room.

Technically it was both of their rooms, but Henrek wasn't exactly comfortable with sharing a bed with this woman he'd met, though he also wasn't exactly willing to trust the degenerates that King Oldsman sent to Mountain Keep, so he'd been standing guard at the door.

"I… Hope no look just…." Henrek began, but saw Utarou quickly approach.

"Oh God damnit." Henrek groaned, Utarou approaching Hope who was now cornered by Utarou, shivering slightly as Utarou began asking questions.

"Hope! How have you been? Are you comfortable? Have you been leveling up?" Utarou asked in rapid succession, Hope flinching as he stepped a little too close to her.

"Yes master." Hope muttered softly.

"Heh, no we'll save that for later generations. Just call me Utarou! Let's see that skill tree!" Utarou demanded. Hope visibly shook as she opened up her inventory, Henrek quickly moving in and pulling Utarou back slightly.

"Utarou, sir, you're scaring her." Henrek said sternly.

"I am? My my that won't do! Henrek thank you my good man, I must prevent this generational trauma." Utarou declared.

"How the hell am I supposed to deal with this? Hope is not in a position to decline anything Utarou might ask of her. So far he's been reasonable albeit strange, but who knows what he'll do next? With how she's been relying on me I don't think she'd be able to stand up for herself either, uarghh mama what do I do?" Henrek thought with a sigh, looking up to see Utarou taking several steps back from Hope.

"Is here good?" Utarou asked, Hope slightly shaking her head.

"Here?!" Utarou shouted as he took several more paces back, Hope shaking her head.

"HERE?!" Utarou asked as he practically ran backwards, tripping on a wall that was supposed to stop anyone from falling down the hill. Utarou slipped and fell as Hope and Henrek ran towards the stony wall, seeing Utarou pull himself out of the thick snow.

"HOW ABOUT HERE?!" Utarou shouted again, Hope letting out a soft laugh and nodding.

"You did that on purpose didn't you?" Henrek asked with a bemused smirk.

"Who knows." Hope shrugged, her large yellow eyes looking away from both Henrek and Utarou.

"Maybe she's more in control than I thought…" Henrek thought as Hope opened up her skills menu.

Despite her unique Legacy Skill "Cat Eyes", most of her available tier 1 skills were what Henrek expected. Simple buffs and resistances.

However there was a unique Tier 1 skill.

"Superior Night Vision."

It provided a simple boost to her pre-existing night vision, and of course this was the beginning of the skill branch that Utarou was most interested in.

Since arriving at the Mountain Keep, Utarou had made sure she was being well fed, which was providing her body the opportunity to heal and actually absorb XP from her actions, which primarily consisted of sewing herself a properly fitting winter outfit for the mountains at the moment.

Thanks to this she'd been able to unlock a Tier 2 Skill in the short time she'd been in the mountain keep.

"Cat-like Reflexes."

"Good good! Looks-" Utarou shouted up, being interrupted by Hope suddenly throwing a snow ball just behind his head, causing the snow fox that was about to try and have a go at Utarou to run off.

"BOOM! Look at that! What's next on that tree! I can't read from here!" Utarou shouted up, causing Hope to laugh slightly, looking up to Henrek, who rolled his eyes and read out the skills Hope now had access to.

"Tier 2, Feline Acrobactics and Cat-" Henrek stopped as he read the second skill.

"Well?!" Utarou shouted.

"This is probably a bad idea." Henrek thought as he took a deep breath.

"Catish Hearing." Henrek mumbled.

Utarou collapsed to his knees in a praying pose.

"Thank you Kami Sama." Utarou declared solemnly.

Perhaps it'd only take one generation to create this world's first true cat girl.

 

[m4gpier]

"Now, I don't know wedding traditions of this world however I shall-" Utarou began as he paced around his study.

"We're not getting married!" Henrek exclaimed exasperatedly, sitting on a couch opposite of Hope.

"We're not?" Hope asked sadly as she sat by herself, with Utarou pacing around on the carpet between them.

"We met a month ago! That's way too quick between meeting and marriage!" Henrek explained exasperatedly as he face palmed.

Hope pouted, crossed her arms and looked away angrily from Henrek.

"So you don't want to get married to Henrek? Hope; Which man would you like to be married to instead, take your pick of any man in this castle!" Utarou begged in a panic.

"Hmpth." Hope scoffed, glaring at Henrek who gesticulated fruitlessly as Utarou slid in.

"Henrek, my friend, my amigo, my pall, my buddy, my nakema. I need you to realize she's throwing herself at you and is pretty clearly only interested in you right now. You gotta understand the evolution of her Legacy Skill is critical to my plans." Utarou explained in hushed tones, Hope still glaring at the two men.

"My Liege, I'm not going to exploit a young woman who collapsed at our gate." Henrek explained.

"Am I just not pretty enough for you then?" Hope asked with a glare.

"N-No you are very pretty and-"

"See you think she's pretty! No problems, I'll get the ceremony started." Utarou decided as he left the pair in his study.

Henrek groaned as he felt a headache start to throb.

A heavy silence fell upon the room for a long minute, eventually broken by Hope sighing.

"I'm not a kid you know." Hope said softly as she grabbed her knee, her long white hair and pale yellow eyes clashing with the dark red sofa she sat on.

"I didn't think you were." Henrek replied, shoulders finally relaxing as Utarou's loud presence was finally gone.

"So what, is something wrong with me then? Am I just not good enough for you?" Hope asked anxiously, looking up with her large eyes.

"No! No for gods sake but… I'm worried you're just trying to survive." Henrek explained. Hope cocked her head.

"Is there something wrong with that?"

"No but-"

Hope didn't let Henrek finish before walking over and sitting next to him.

"You're a good man, I never thought I'd ever have the chance to be married…" Hope explained, a sad memory crossing her eyes.

"There are many good men out there." Henrek sighed.

"I haven't met them." Hope countered.

"But you can! Gareth will be coming to collect Mountain Keep's tax money once the winter passes, you can leave with him then."

Hope pondered, blushing slightly as she looked down.

"I think I'd rather stay with you."

Henrek sighed.

"Are you saying that because you like me or because I'm the first good man you've met?" Henrek asked seriously.

"Why wouldn't I like the first good man I meet?" Hope asked with a small laugh, hiding the hurt.

"See! That's what I'm saying, I don't want you to attach yourself to me out of fear for the future." Henrek exclaimed.

"So you don't want me then is that it?" Hope sneered.

"I-I'm not talking about what I want, I'm just thinking about what will be best for you. I keep telling you I'm barely even a knight, I'm just a peasant who happened to be good with a sword, I have no noble house, I have no lands, I am going to spend the rest of my life in this frozen fortress filled with degenerates and you don't deserve that." Henrek explained seriously, placing his hands on Hope's shoulders.

"But what do you want?" Hope asked sincerely. Henrek found himself staring into her big yellow eyes before looking away.

"I-I want to do the right thing." Henrek stuttered, pushing himself away from Hope.

"Is it right to stay here the rest of your life?" Hope asked, cocking her head. Henrek took a deep breath before looking down at the ground.

"The money I get from this job is supporting my village Dryholm. So yeah, it is right for me to stay here until I die, I still have a lot of people relying on me." Henrek explained somberly, Hope going in to hug the man but stopping.

"Why? Why are they all relying on you?" Hope questioned bitterly.

"Dryholm hasn't had a successful harvest in nearly six years, it's in an unimportant province that King Oldsman doesn't even remember exists, it's surrounded by mountains so the journey to the next village is too deadly for the elderly and sick to make… Like my mother and sister." Henrek explained seriously.

Hope stood up, fists clenched.

"Then I'll go with you! We'll go to Dryholm together and… I don't know we'll do something!" Hope declared.

"What?! That doesn't fix anything!"

"Nuh uh! If I decide I don't like you anymore, I can just leave, right~?" Hope smirked playfully.

"I-I guess but what about money?! I still need to pay for food until at the very least the next harvest!" Henrek countered, standing up with Hope.

Right on que, Utarou returned with a pair of wedding rings.

"I found these on the floor of the vault, they probably fit right?" Utarou asked as Hope pointed towards Utarou.

"You can't be serious." Henrek gawked.

"Heyyy~ Utarou, me and Henrek hashed it out but we need to get married in his hometown, do you mind p-" Hope began before being interrupted by Utarou.

"Of course! This is no place to begin the Monster Girl Evolution plan. Henrek, where do you live?" Utarou interrupted, not giving Hope a chance to finish.

"Uh, Dryholm. It's a 16 day journey south from here, near the border." Henrek explained diligently, despite the complete shift in personality in the last month, Utarou was still his lord, technically.

"Climate and population?"

"Warmer than here and barely anyone who still lives there."

"Perfect. How long would a detour through Richerson take us?"

"Just an extra day."

"Excellent, I'll ask King Oldsman to give it to me then!" Utarou declared naively.

"W-what?!" Hope exclaimed disappointedly. She was hoping to elope in peace with Henrek.

"Oh god what did you do?" Henrek groaned as Utarou began shouting orders to prepare for a journey from the mountains.

"At least it'll be warmer?" Hope winced.

 

[m4gpier]

Utarou strode through the city of Richerson with an enthusiasm and confidence he hadn't had since he first died and came to this world.

The only residents of Mountain Keep that had accompanied him were Henrek and Hope, with his travel from the mountains to the city being guided by Gareth and his tax collection convoy.

"You know, you still haven't told me how this… peculiar girl will lead to these monster girls you speak of." Gareth noted as Utarou practically danced his way towards the castle of King Oldsman.

Hope tucked her head further into her hood as they walked the high streets of Richerson, having left their wagon and horses at the gate they were now exposed to the city dwellers of Richerson who noted the strange woman's platinum blonde hair and yellow eyes that almost glowed.

"Something to do with Legacy skills." Henrek sighed.

"Interesting, you know when it comes to Legacy Skills you should consult the Elves-" Gareth began, interrupted by Utarou snapping his neck around, Henrek and Hope bracing themselves for the rant.

"THOSE DAMNABLE KNIFE EARS? YOU THINK I'M GOING TO LET THEM GET THEIR DIRTY HANDS ON MY MONSTER GIRLS?!" Utarou shouted, pointing aggressively at Gareth as he continued on a long rant about the disgrace that Elves brought to every project they were put on.

"Has he even met an Elf before?" Hope whispered.

"I don't think so, I'm pretty sure he's only been in this city and the Mountain Keep." Henrek explained.

"Really?" Hope exclaimed in shock.

"He is from another world…"

"He's been here for a year!"

"He's got…" Henrek trailed off as Utarou finally finished his rant.

"- THEY WILL BE TOO COWARDLY TO ATTEMPT THE REAL SCIENCE I'M LOOKING FOR! THEIR PRISSY LITTLE MAGIC AND FORESTS HAVE NO PLACE IN MY MONSTER GIRL UTOPIA!" Utarou screamed, having thoroughly explained his position on elves which can be succinctly described as;

Somewhat negative.

"... Specific goals." Henrek groaned.

"Alright alright I get it! Calm down, you're making a scene!" Gareth shouted as he pushed Utarou's finger off of his chest, his years of being a city guard coming back to him as he tried to bring things back to order. Utarou smirked and spun back around, facing towards Richerson's Castle.

"Very well, I don't have any time to discuss Elves anyhow." Utarou declared.

"What were you just doing then?" Everyone else thought in unison.

"ONWARD! We shall procure the necessary funding for Monster Girl City!" Utarou shouted.

…
​

"Absolutely not." King Oldsman declared.

"Why nottt?!?" Utarou whined as he looked up from his deep kowtow. Hendred, Hope and Gareth were standing at the back of the throne room, collectively face palming.

"You've quite literally asked for more gold than there is in the entire treasury of this kingdom in order to establish a city in a province which hasn't produced a harvest in nearly a decade, has 0 natural resources and for all intents and purposes, is entirely useless to me to develop, let alone have you govern on my behalf." King Oldsman explained clearly.

Henrek shook his head, regretting getting involved with Utarou more and more day by day.

"You can still transfer right…?" Hope asked quietly.

"Believe it or not, King Oldsman is quite a generous man, I'm sure your track record will speak for itself." Gareth explained comfortingly.

"It better…" Henrek sighed as he looked at Utarou consider his options at the foot of King Oldsman's throne.

"I can't bully the money out of him, and making him an enemy is a terrible idea for the sake of my Monster Girls plan, dealing with a thousand year blood feud? Yeah no thanks… Plus that instant death guy is standing right next to Hope, can't risk this meeting going south." Utarou thought until suddenly stumbling onto an idea.

"You said that province is useless to you right?" Utarou clarified, a glint in his eye.

"Yes… I'm not intending on giving up any land if that's what you're asking." King Oldsman growled.

"Not at all! I'm suggesting that you give me unilateral control of it."

"That sounds a lot like me giving you the land."

"Not at all! I'm requesting you make me a sort of… Duke let's say. Give me control of the province for the next two years. I'll not only fix the famine in that time, but I'll make it one of your most profitable provinces." Utarou declared with infinite confidence.

King Oldsman raised his eyebrow.

"And what does unilateral mean exactly?" King Oldsman asked cautiously.

"Simply, that you allow me to do as I please with the land. I won't ask for anything, we'll trade under the same rules as foreign territories, however we'll also still pay the royal tax as loyalty to the crown."

"Wait wait wait, you want to pay the 20% tariff and pay the royal tax?"

"All I ask is that you keep the guards you have protecting the border whilst I restore the province." Utarou explained.

King Oldsman considered it for a moment.

"You spoke of your exploits in your previous life, you said you were a great strategian who managed many cities. Are you saying this experience transfers into restoring a province's devastated land?"

"Not only that, I have hundreds of hours as a farmer as well." Utarou declared.

"I was talking about Strategy Games, City Builders and Farming Simulators but… same idea." Utarou thought to himself, his confidence only dropping for a moment.

"Hmm, you, Henrek was it? Come here please." King Oldsman requested, beckoning the man in the back towards him.

"Y-yes my King." Henrek exclaimed, quickly running over and kneeling in front of the King.

"You've spent far more time with the Blessed Being from another world, tell me, do you believe he will make an effective leader in this time of crisis? Do you believe he can save the province of Dracons?" King Oldsman asked seriously. Utarou looked intensely at Henrek, nodding furiously.

Henrek sighed.

"Despite his eccentricities, despite his outbursts and despite his… fixations." Henrek said, glancing over to Utarou before looking back at Hope.

"I do think he has the drive to do what he sets out to do." Henrek sighed, he was betting it all on black, either Utarou would save and potentially help his hometown thrive, or it was all over.

King Oldsman nodded.

"Very well! By royal decree, you are now the Duke of Dracons." King Oldsman declared, grabbing his sword and using his weak arms, forcing it up to officially knight Utarou.

Unfortunately he slipped and dropped the blade, chopping Utarou's head off.

"Still counts right?" Utarou's head asked as his body flopped to the ground.

 

[m4gpier]

"Say, is there a specific reason why it's called Dracons?" Utarou asked as he stared at the sky ahead.

"Yep." Henrek sighed, unsheathing his sword.

"And it's related to what I think it's related to right?" Utarou clarified as the dark figure in the distant skies began to elucidate itself.

"Yep."Henrek sighed again, raising his blade up to the small wyvern that was charging towards Utarou and his convoy.

Dracons was a small and isolated province within the kingdom of Oldser, it was royal land and was only a part of the kingdom of Oldser thanks to it being surrounded by more important provinces.

It was named Dracons due to all the Dragons that nested in the province. The people who lived in this province were few and far between, mostly living in small villages hidden in thick forests or heavily fortified castles on the few open plains this province provided.

Henrek had grown up in this land, and as such, he'd spent much of his childhood aiming for a specific ability. The Tier 3 skill, Dragon Slayer.

He leapt off his horse as the Wyvern swooped down, in one smooth motion he sliced off its head and kicked its body hurtling off the narrow mountain path, landing in front of Utarou and Hope with a cocky smirk on his face.

"Henrek…" Hope gasped.

"I know, I know, this is what-"

"NO BEHIND YOU!" Hope hissed, quickly leaping off her own horse to pushed Henrek to the ground, before a disguised rock Wyvern spat out a ball of fire where he'd been standing.

"Hoho! My turn!" Utarou exclaimed, trying to jump off his horse, but getting stuck and falling to the ground, getting his face crushed by the spooked horses.

Henrek chucked his sword into the rock Wyvern's head, killing it instantly.

"T-thanks, you can get off of me now." Henrek requested looking up at Hope, whose investment into Cattish Hearing had just saved Henrek's life.

"Hmmm, maybe in a bit." Hope cooed, nuzzling against Henreks chin while Utarou was stomped into a bloody pulp just behind them. Henrek sighed and pushed the girl off, grabbing his sword from the rock Wyvern's head and walking over to save Utarou from the horses.

"Settle down, settle down." Henrek sighed as Hope walked over in a huff to help him.

Eventually the pair managed to settle their three horses down, it was a fairly narrow mountain path that led to Henrek's village of Dryholm, and the first they'd seen of any kind of Dragon.

"Thasncks gushes." Utarou muttered as his face slowly reformed back to its usual self.

"You gotta stop trying to jump into battle Utarou, you just don't have the skills for it." Henrek sighed as he grabbed the broken mess that was Utarou's hand, by the time he pulled Utarou up to his feet, his hand had cracked back to normal.

"I don't get it! I'm an isekai protagonist! I should be able to do crazy ninja stuff by default!" Utarou whined.

"Urgh, look I've got this Dragon Slayer ability yeah? You know what it lets me do?" Henrek interrogated, annoyed at Utarou's complete inability to take things seriously.

"Slay Dragons?"

"Yes, but look here." Henrek placed his hand out, opening up his Skill Tree and clicking on Dragon Slayer.

"Allows the user to perform the necessary aerial combat with sufficient strength to slay dragons in one go…" Utarou read out, sighing in despair as he looked at his own menu, still woefully lacking in options to upgrade too.

"Guess what, all you get is that one skill, nothing more, nothing less!" Henrek explained firmly, closing his Skill Tree, but managing to give Utarou a glance at Henrek's legacy skill.

"Run away? Perfect for a cat girl. I knew putting you two together was the right idea!" Utarou declared, causing Henrek to groan.

"I was hoping you wouldn't see that… C'mon get it out of your system, I don't want you to be talking about weird stuff when we meet my mum and sis." Henrek sighed as he got back on his horse.

"Will your dad be there as well?" Hope asked, nervous about meeting Henrek's whole family already.

"Nope, he died a long time ago." Henrek explained stoically.

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Eh, it happens." Henrek said dismissively as his eyes lingered on the rock Wyvern he hadn't noticed.

"They aren't normally any of those bastards outside of the caves…" Henrek thought, quickly shaking the thought away from his mind. Wyverns did weird things sometimes, nothing more to it.

…
​

"Oh my son! My beautiful son has returned with a wife!" Gertrude, Henrek's mother, said with great enthusiasm as she hugged her boy.

"S-she's not my wife!" Henrek blustered.

"Yet." Hope added with a cheeky smile.

"Eloping! Oh my goodness Henrek I raised you better than that, poor girl, did he even ask for your fathers hand in marriage?!" Gertrude asked as she hugged Hope, who tensed up and got quiet.

"I don't have a father." Hope whispered.

"My goodness, come come! I've been cooking all day." Gertrude declared as she hobbled, slowly, towards the kitchen.

"Sorry, she's just like this." Henrek sighed. Hope shook away the thoughts and smiled up at Henrek.

"It's fine, she reminds me of my mum actually… So where's your sister?" Hope asked, quickly changing the topic as she entered Henrek's family home. It was a small cottage that used to be attached to a pig barn, but ever since Henrek left they'd converted it to a chicken coop.

"She's just at the dinner table! Henrek honey can you help me serve, I wasn't expecting you back so I might not have enough for everyone!" Gertrude said before hobbling all the way into the kitchen.

She was very slow.

"I have to go actually mum, I just wanted to say hi and introduce Hope before Utarou said anything-" Henrek began before being interrupted by a booming voice coming from the town's center.

"HERE ME HERE ME! I AM OFFICIALLY DECLARING THIS THE NEW CAPITAL OF DRACONS!" Utarou shouted through a makeshift megaphone in the middle of Dryholm.

"- said anything like that." Henrek sighed as he quickly ran off to see what Utarou was doing, as did many of the other villagers, who looked baffled at this strange man.

"I intend to make Dracons great again! We will be investing into the necessary upgrades to create the foundations for a glorious monster girl utopia!" Utarou explained as the more able bodied members of the village hobbled out of their homes to listen to what this mad man was saying.

The village was in a deep valley, surrounded on all sides by mountains with a thick forest canopy blocking much sunlight, and more importantly, Dragons.

Utarou had stood in the small central gap in the treeline, lighting him up as if he were some holy messenger.

If that message was about monster girls anyway.

Henrek snatched the megaphone, just a simple piece of parchment Utarou had folded, and clarified.

"Yes I can confirm, the province of Dracons has been given to… This man." Henrek sighed, pointing at the glistening Utarou.

The small crowd that had formed began muttering to themselves.

"He has decided to begin the restoration effort here in Dryholm. This man is a Blessed Being and came from another world, King Oldsman himself personally appointed him as Duke of Dracons!" Henrek explained in an attempt to reassure the crowd.

"Though he did have to beg for the privilege, screwing over everyone else with that new trade arrangement." Henrek thought nervously.

"Fantastic work. Now as my first decree as duke!" Utarou said, snatching back the megaphone.

"SHOW ME EVERY PREGNANT WOMAN IN THE LAND!" Utarou shouted, pointing his finger into the sky as Henrek face palmed, already regretting putting his faith in this man.

 

[m4gpier]

"This is insane! There aren't anywhere near enough houses to support moving everyone in Dracons to Dryholm!" Henrek begged as Utarou laid out his map of the region and tokens on his table. He'd set up a tent he'd bought as a part of his "master plan materials" back in Richerson.

"It isn't everyone, just every pregnant woman." Utarou clarified, as if that was the issue.

"Are you thinking they can travel in Dracons without help?!"

"That's where you come in, you'll be in charge of getting them all here safely." Utarou said as he set up 8 tokens across the region of Dracons. The map of Southern Oldser contained 5 provinces, 2 of which surrounded Dracons like a circle, making Dracons look quite small in comparison.

Which it was, assuming a safe journey you could travel the height of Dracons in less than a day by horse.

Though the issue with Dracons was that safe journeys were hard to come by, making it safer and more economical to travel around the entire province.

"That's still insane, and do you think their husbands would just let me take them with me?" Henrek asked incredulously.

"Some of them might be unmarried!" Utarou laughed as he rummaged through his bag.

"That… No no what am I doing. The main issue here is we cannot house, let alone feed that many people!" Henrek reasserted as Utarou got out several documents and laid them out on the table.

"Tell me Henrek, do you play strategy games?"

"What? Do you mean… war games?" Henrek asked, confused by the question, causing Utarou to chuckle.

"You see my royal knight, I have been playing strategy games since I was 5 years old. And the most important thing in any strategy game is optimizing to the game's parameters." Utarou explained, pointing towards the various spreadsheets of taxation information he'd brought from Richerson.

"The game we're playing right now is dire, we lose around 30% of all cargo transported from our 8 settlements, travelling across Dracons is pretty much never done since the routes between settlements are basically never used by merchants! Which means no one protects them, which means there are no merchants to use them! It's a terrible cycle." Utarou sighed as Henrek nodded, he didn't quite know where Utarou was going but he could see that somehow seemed like he knew what he was talking about.

"So, how does moving everyone here fix that exactly? This is the most central settlement in Dracons, that'll just exacerbate the problem." Henrek countered, more calm now that Utarou seemed to have thought this through.

"Exactly, we're ransoming the next generation." Utarou smirked.

"We're what?" Henrek asked, baffled.

"Look, I have complete authority over this land and its people. They can leave but I'm going to send out a decree that all other settlements in Dracons are no longer valid, and to be ignored by the king's guards. We're focusing all resources on securing Dryholm."

"Again, the people, the houses, the food, we can't support that many!" Hernrek countered, less calm again.

"They'll bring their food, look Dryholm isn't actually in that bad of a position when it comes to farming. According to this survey the land in Dryholm is actually more arable than Nihola, which produces over 80% of the food." Utarou explained, throwing a report over to Henrek.

"This survey is from 20 years ago! Who knows what's happened since then!"

"I think I do, I tried to get any information I could about Dragon Attacks in the surrounding provinces of Burtcons and Lolcons, look here…" Utarou pushed another document towards Henrek who cautiously took it.

"The last 50 years of dragon attacks, what about it?" Henrek asked, not seeing any pattern.

"Look, they split it between types of Dragons. Wyverns, Wyrms, Hydras and Drakes. Look at the Wyvern attacks and Drake attacks and see if you notice anything interesting from 50 to 30 years ago." Utarou said with a prideful huff as Henrek looked through the data again.

"Wait a minute, when there's a bunch of Wyvern attacks then the Drake attacks stop, and then as the Drake attacks ramp up the Wyvern Attacks slow down…" Henrek realized.

"... But these are for Burtcons and Lolcons, how does that help us?"

"Look at the change in Wyvern and Drake attacks in Lolcons 30 to 20 years ago and then to now." Utarou prompted. Henrek looked through the data and saw that throughout that 10 year period, Wyvern attacks didn't increase, while Drake attacks maintained a steady pace, then for the last 20 years Wyvern attacks dropped to nearly 0 per year while Drake attacks maintained steady levels.

"What the… Wait and Burtcons also saw a massive drop in Drake attacks with a spike in Wyvern attacks… We're closer to Burtcons than Lolcons…" Henrek realized.

"Bingo, Nihola's doing something interesting with these Dragons, and it started 30 years ago. It's got to be a unique legacy skill which I want. That's why it's the first stop on your route."

"If we're able to bring that legacy skill here then we might be able to plant a successful crop… But what about all of the houses… and why the pregnant women?!"

"Simple, I'm hedging my bets. Chances are whoever this guy is will be at least 30 years old now, he'll have a wife or a mistress and the child will more likely than not have the legacy skill."

"Why can't we just… ask?"

"Henrek, the Church apparently helps parents choose the correct Legacy Skill for their child, whatever that means. I don't think 'Dragon Tamer' fits the bill for the legacy skills they suggest like poison resistance and hunger resistance." Utarou intuited.

"I… Yeah you're probably right." Henrek sighed, even being as remote as Dryholm in such a dangerous province like Dracons, they still had a vicar arrive once a month to give a ceremony and help guide the community.

"We have to assume whoever this is probably won't respect our authority. He's helping his community so if we round up everyone to consolidate them here, he'll either come with or worst comes to worst, there's a more than 0 chance we'll yoink his legacy skill." Utarou snickered machiavellianly.

"You're just after the skill at the end of the day huh…" Henrek sighed as he scratched his head.

"Still, houses and food if he doesn't arrive?" Henrek pressed.

"You haven't been here in awhile Henrek, there's 18 homes here in total, 8 of them are completely empty. According to last year's census Nihola only has a thousand people in it. I'd say it's safe to say we'll have 200 or so people coming, pregnant women and their husbands with some younger children."

"That's a huge amount of people to bring and feed."

"It'll mainly be the young and healthy couples who will be bringing food and seeds with them, the perfect work force for my next project."

"Go on." Henrek sighed, finally taking a seat to discuss properly with Utarou.

"Deforestation."

 

[m4gpier]

"I can't believe I agreed to this." Henrek sighed as he looked around the sky, the complete absence of Wyverns in the sky was something he wouldn't have noticed hadn't he been looking for it.

"I can't believe you left him alone." Hope added as they approached the village of Nihola, the breadbasket of Dracons. Well more of the crumb plate of Dracons, but still.

"He's apparently going to try and figure out where the Wyvern nests are. I'm just hoping they don't get fat off of repeatedly eating him." Henrek laughed as they got within ear shot of a nearby village girl.

"Are you with the King? Or the Church?" She asked suspiciously, lifting her very pregnant self up from her field work.

"Oh no! Actually we're with the new Duke of Dracons." Henrek explained, noting the glare in her eye as he jumped off of his horse to shake her hand.

"Din't think we 'ad a Duke, under the Crown direct 'n such." The woman replied, eyeing Henrek up and down, keeping her arms crossed.

"He was only declared a Duke recently, we have a royal decree if you-"

"Ah, so you's with the King then. I'll let Barney deal with ya, he deals with you types." The woman scoffed, returning to pulling weeds from the field.

"Thanks… I guess." Henrek muttered as he began walking his horse further into the village.

"She seems mean." Hope whispered.

"Yeah I noticed, let's stick to the plan of saying there aren't any pregnant women here." Henrek reiterated. On the journey over, Henrek and Hope had agreed that trying to take the estimated 200 people through Dracons was going to get them all killed, especially trying to shove them into the 8 empty houses in Dryholm, so they'd come up with a little plan.

If there are no pregnant women, then there's no reason for anyone to come. They both figured Utarou wouldn't accept that without anything to show for it, so they'd just ask around for this Drake Tamer, maybe figure out their secret and return with just that instead.

The village was quite different than what Henrek had expected, it wasn't surrounded by any kind of defenses against Dragons, though the ruins of a large wall revealed they had once existed. The people all looked at Henrek and Hope with suspicion, not just because of Hope's white hair and yellow eyes but because Henrek was clearly a knight.

"They don't like outsiders, great." Hope and Henrek thought as they sighed in unison.

"Something wrong?" Henrek asked as he looked over at Hope.

"I think you know what's wrong." Hope laughed as Henrek cocked his head, baffled as to what she could be talking about.

"Oi! You's two are with the King yea? I'm Barney." A massive muscular man in damaged chainmail asked as he exited a building, his arm heavily wrapped in bandages. Henrek and Hope looked at each other and nodded.

"Perfect! I think you're just the one we're looking for!" Henrek declared happily as he tied his stead to a nearby fence post, Hope doing the same.

"Oh? Word get's 'round quick hahah! Come join me for some drink!" Barny laughed as he beckoned Henrek and Hope into his hovel.

It was a small house with no room for farm animals, really it was just a single room with a kitchen, bed and dining table.

"Well, not quite. The new Duke of Dracons, Utarou has-"

"The hell kinda name is 'you tar row'?" Barney interrupted, erupting into uproarious laughter before taking a swig of his drink on the table and going to the kitchen to fetch two more mugs for his guests.

"It's a long story, but he's now the Duke of this land under order of the king. He's been researching some strange happenings surrounding Wyvern and Drakes here and-"

"He's what?" Barney asked, his joyville attitude dropped as the room suddenly became icy cold with the tension.

"Researching. Apparently Lolcons have been reporting consistently lower Wyvern attacks for the last 30 years." Henrek explained quickly, Barney glared at the two for a moment but sat down with a laugh as he handed the two their drinks.

"Oh why didn't you say so! That'll be because of me and my ol' man, nothing more to it." Barney explained, pointing to his arm.

"Ya don't get this just sitting around y'know."

"I-I'm sure." Henrek coughed, gingerly taking the drink as Hope eyed the man.

"So, how did you do it? The Duke wants to replicate it in his new capital." Hope explained.

"New Capital?" Barney pondered, wondering why Dracons even needed a capital in the first place.

"Well, the Duke has big plans for Dracons. He's uh… Looking far into the future." Hope explained, blushing at the thought of her own future.

"So we just want to know how you've done it, you're pretty much on the border with Lolcons, most Wyvern and Drake nests extend out from the center of Dracons… So Nihola must have been doing something about the Wyvern problem right?" Henrek continued, Barney pondering the question for a moment.

"What's this data say exactly?" Barney asked cautiously.

"That about 30 years ago, the Wyvern attacks began a steady decline while Drakes remained stable."

"Yeah… Yeah that makes sense…" Barney groaned as he grabbed something. Hope reacted before she could think and pushed Henrek out of the way of Barney's sword, getting a deep cut in her arm.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Barney and Henrek asked in unison.

"What are you hiding! Why! We're not going to harm you!" Hope shouted as she leapt to the back of the room, clutching her now heavily bleeding right arm.

"Yeah that's what the last one's said." Barney growled as he went in for another attack, but this time Henrek was prepared, jumping into the air he was about to slice Barney's head off, but hesitated for a moment.

That was enough time for Barney to duck and roll out of the house, dropping his sword as he did.

"THEY'RE HERE FOR M!" Barney shouted.

"Who's M?!" Henrek asked exasperatedly.

"Probably the real reason all those Wyverns haven't been attacking Lolscon." Hope hissed as she poured some alcohol onto her wound and quickly grabbed some spare bandages to wrap her arm in.

It was a flesh wound but it hit a major nerve, she wouldn't be able to move it until she could find a healer.

"WE'RE NOT HERE TO HURT ANYONE! PLEASE JUST LET US EXPLAIN-" Henrek shouted before being interrupted by an arrow narrowly missing his head, quickly he ducked back into the house.

"Alright we need to get out of here before they kill us." Henrek said as the two horses were shot and killed.

"Think they'll shoot at a cute girl?" Hope asked hopefully.

"Please don't risk it." Henrek sighed as another arrow burst through the wall.

"Any better ideas?" Hope snarked.

"Just this one." Henrek sighed as he grabbed a nearby pot with stew in it, dumping its contents on the floor and holding it up as a makeshift shield.

"You waste this perfectly good…" Hope said sadly as she bent down, grabbing a chunk of meat and sniffing it.

"Meat…?" Hope said, unsure what she was holding exactly.

"Hopefully not human." Henrek sighed before kicking the door down, using the pot to block the barrage of arrows that came from the villagers who'd all gathered weapons.

"They're all trained too, no wonder they're taking down so many Wyverns, but how are they producing all of this food?" Henrek thought as time slowed to a crawl.

He threw the pot to his left where a man was waiting with a sword, his approach was sloppy, clearly a regular farmer. To his right was another arrow, he jumped into the air and kicked off the building towards the large crowd where he used a large downward swing to clear a path.

The crowd scampered as fast as they could, none of them were warriors except for one.

Barney, who was with the heavily pregnant woman they'd met at the entrance, standing at the ready to attack.

"It's my kids skill day soon, so you better get out of here well quick." Barney growled, pointing his blade at Henrek like a cornered dog.

He knew Henrek could've chopped his head off, but he hadn't.

He knew Henrek could've killed every last person who had tried to ambush him.

But he didn't.

"Look, everyone can we just-" Henrek dropped his blade.

"-calm down a little. I don't want to hurt anyone." Henrek begged, raising his arms in the air as he looked at the scattered people.

They were scared.

Barney stood firm, until his wife, May, moved from behind him.

"Is that my soup?!" May screamed, walking directly up to Henrek.

"I believe so." Henrek explained clearly. May slapped him in the face before storming into her house.

"You! You're helping me clean, you two go get me some more Wyvern meat. I'm craving it and I am not in the mood. Everyone, get back to work!" May shouted, the entire town practically standing at attention as she spoke.

"Yes ma'am!" Everyone shouted in unison, including Barney.

"W-what?" Henrek asked in bafflement.

"C'mon new guy we're goin' Wyvern hunting." Barney declared.

"B-but, you can't eat Wyvern!" Henrek exclaimed in sheer confusion.

"The misses does some magic to it." Barney explained with a coy grin.

"Oh god, don't tell me… It's a legacy skill isn't it?" Henrek asked.

"Bingo!" Barney laughed, patting Henrek on the back as he dragged him towards the nearby forest.

"Oh and sorry about ya misses, but don't worry she'll be getting fixed up well soon." Barney explained, genuinely apologetic.

"She better…" Henrek growled as he looked back to where Hope was.

 

[m4gpier]

It took an hour, but once they found a wyvern it was quite effortless to take down with Henrek and Barney working together.

"Yep, you're the real deal." Barney sighed as Henrek landed from his aerial guillotine attack.

"Training as a knight has some perks. Though most of this is home grown in Dryholm." Henrek explained as he examined the wyvern's body, lifting its wing up in disgust.

"Explain to me how we're supposed to eat this." Henrek asked, dropping the foul monster.

"Just leave it to the misses! She'll show ya why Wyvern's steer clear of Nihola!" Barney laughed as he slung the decapitated dragon onto his shoulder.

"That is what we came here to learn after all I suppose…" Henrek sighed as he followed Barney out of the surprisingly monster-free forest.

…
​

While the two warriors were hunting for meat, the rest of the town worked on repairing the damage caused during the spat, all to Hope's bewilderment. They'd even used magic to heal her, something the former slave girl was not used to at all.

"And get me that water right away, I am not in the mood to be standing for a moment longer than I have to!" May shouted as soon as Hope's arm had been fully healed.

"Y-yes ma'am!" Hope squeaked, quickly getting up and grabbing a bucket of water.

She sprinted across the village, falling flat on her face just before the well.

"Deary me, let me take that for you." One of the older ladies offered as Hope pulled herself up.

"O-oh thanks…" Hope mumbled as she awkwardly handed the bucket to the elderly lady.

"That's quite alright! It's the least we can do after that little misunderstanding." The elderly lady laughed non-chalantly.

"I uh, still don't quite understand why you did that…" Hope mumbled, despite the strides she'd made around Utarou (out of necessity) and Henrek (for other reasons), she was still quite nervous around most people.

"Oh honey, people from the Church 'n the Crown have been a bit interested in our lil May since the day she was born, we get a bit jumpy whenever strangers come 'bout now." The elderly woman explained as she took the bucket to the well.

"H-how come?" Hope asked, following the woman to the well.

"Well missy din't your parents ever get a visit from a vicar who… well I guess not." The elderly lady stopped herself as she got a better look at Hope's glowing yellow eyes.

"I uh, didn't see the church often. I don't know much about it…" Hope admitted awkwardly, scratching her neck.

"Ah I see. Well the church has a couple o' funny rules about ya birth skills. They ain't too fond of anyone gettin' too different." The woman explained as she dropped the bucket down the well.

"Really? Why?"

"Somethin' about turnin' into monsters. I think it's all phooey anyway, the church won't help us so why should we listen to them huh?" The woman spat.

"Turning into monsters…" Hope mumbled, feeling an anxious burning in her chest as she thought about Utarou's plans.

…
​

"Alright alright that's enough…" Utarou groaned as he kicked the baby dragon off of his leg.

He had been continually devoured and spat out for the last 8 days, and throughout the time he'd been scraping through systematically destroying every single dragon egg he found.

The hardest part was killing the Wyvern mothers, but with enough time anything was possible.

He'd almost finished exterminating the nest, but during his campaign several of the eggs had hatched, giving him more problems to deal with.

Though it had also given him some insight into monster biology.

Picking up the last baby dragon, he noted the complete lack of wings, and its four legs.

Wyvern's only had 2 legs, its front arms turning into its wings.

But these were clearly the Wyvern's eggs from prior.

"It must evolve dramatically with its skills… But how does it know what to pick…" Utarou pondered as he held the small beast by the scruff of its neck, the baby trying to bite his arm off and failing.

It was smaller than the other baby dragons he'd squished, and its teeth hadn't come in, must've been a runt of the litter, perhaps hatching early as a survival mechanism.

"Alright congrats! You are now officially joining as my first experiment in Dragon Domestication!" Utarou said with a devious smirk, the baby dragon squeaking before biting his nose.

"I'm calling you Rhinosurgery." Utarou groaned as he ripped the small creature away, holding it under his arms as he took it away from its nest, its brutally executed family being left behind him in the cave, entirely unknown to its small baby brain.

This was good for Utarou, considering he was going to try and somehow get this baby dragon to become a Dragon Woman. A two pronged approach to the Monster Girl plan, if he could make monsters more like girls, and girls more like monsters, he might be able to find the perfect mix somewhere in the middle.

"I wonder if Henrek and Hope are back yet." Utarou thought as the baby dragon, Rhinoplasty, bit the side of Utarou's stomach.

…
​

"T-t-t-thanks for t-t-the meal…" Hope stammered as she was presented with a bowl of soup with a large portion of Wyvern wing in it.

Hope was used to eating off cuts, but she'd never eaten a monster before.

"Are you… sure this is safe…?" Henrek asked, there was a strong taboo in Nugenesis regarding the consumption of monsters, due to a variety of reasons, some mystical and some practical.

The most practical one was, you were more likely than not to get extremely sick just by eating any part of any monster.

"Are you questionin' my cooking?!" May scoffed as she sat down at the table, next to her husband Barney.

Henrek and Hope sat opposite, with the rest of the village going about its business as they ate.

"Relax honey, they're actually interested in ya birth skill!" Barney explained, pulling his grumpy wife in for a kiss.

"Fine, what's all the interest in this darn thing." May scowled as she stuck her hand out, revealing her Legacy skill.

Monster Eater.

"Allows the user to eat monsters entirely unharmed…" Henrek read aloud, glancing around a few other skills until he noticed her one of her tier 2 and her only tier 3 skills.

The tier 2 skill Monster Cook, allows the user to prepare monsters so that others can consume it without any risk.

And the most interesting skill, the tier 3 skill Cooking Magic, allows the user to prepare special meals that take on the aspect of the monsters put into it.

"Oh no, Utarou is going to really like this…" Henrek sighed as he leaned back in his chair as Hope gingerly sipped a spoonful of the Wyvern Wing Soup.

"Mmm! This is really good!" Hope exclaimed, lighting up.

"Ya darn right it is! Now who's this Utarou fella?" May asked as she began inhaling her soup.

"He's the new Duke of Dracons, he's got… Big plans for the province." Henrek sighed as he took a spoonful of soup and sipped it.

It was very tasty, and somewhat concerningly, he could taste how the spice was coming from the Wyvern Wing and enhancing the rest of the stew.

"What'shat got to do with me?" May asked, mouth full of food.

"He's looking for interesting Legacy Skills! Like yours and mine." Hope explained, pointing to her yellow eyes. May raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

Hope and Henrek looked at each other and sighed.

"To uh… evolve them further." Henrek said carefully.

"Evolve?! Honey, this is great!" Barney exclaimed, standing up excitedly.

"Calm down, we don't even know what the little bastards gonna get yet." May grimaced, looking down at her pregnant stomach as it kicked.

"Yeah talkin' about you!" May huffed before continuing to chow down. Henrek and Hope both looked quite confused at this.

"Y'see, me 'n the misses are wantin' to keep the Monster cookin' alive, better even! It's how our lil' village has survived so long. But it still ain't too good y'see." Barney sighed.

"It's plenty good! Drakes are just too rough…" May contested between bites.

"Y'see the reason you saw all them Drakes 'n non' of the Wyverns was on account of us well, eatin' all the Wyverns!" Barney laughed as his wife finished her meal.

"Those Drakes are just too tough, the poison as well just gives me diarrhea too." May declared matter of factly.

"D-doesn't Drake poison normally…" Hope began before Henrek pushed her arm down and nodded.

"I think they know that it kills people normally." Henrek whispered.

"So I'm hopin' we get a little boy that can eat all the dragons! Get even tougher from em too!" Barney exclaimed with a loud chuckle.

"Yeah yeah, if it's a girl though I get to pick!" May said in an annoyed tone.

"Well, I think Duke Utarou would be very fond of you! Say uh, are there any other pregnant women in the village?" Henrek asked hopefully.

"Hmm, I think Suzie might be, or she's just gettin fat." May shrugged.

"Well one of our uh… Orders was to… Well bring every… Pregnant woman to Dryholm…" Henrek explained awkwardly.

May and Barney looked at Henrek.

Henrek looked to Hope, who was looking away from the situation.

Henrek looked back to May and Barney.

The pair burst out into laughter.

"Ya thinkin', of bringin' everyone like that to Dryholm?!" Barney asked.

"Ain't that place dead already?!" May laughed.

"Not… quite yet. Despite the Wyvern and harvest problems we've survived." Henrek sighed.

"Waitaminute, Wyvern problem? Too many or too few?" May asked quickly.

"Far too many. They're everywhere." Henrek explained seriously.

"Hmm, alright then, all paid for by this Duke whoever right?" May clarified as she quickly worked out what she had to do.

"Well, I suppose so yes but right now we're-"
"Alrighty! But on one condition!" May declared.

"Sure!" Hope replied before Henrek could decide.

"We're gonna move everyone from Nihola in, that a problem?!" May asked in her usual gruff and terse voice.

Henrek went slightly slack jawed.

"T-there may not be enough housing or food so-"

"We's got builders if you's got the wood! Your prissy lil village probably hides under the trees rights?" May asked.

"Y-yeah."

"Perfect! I'll tell everyone in the mornin', you two love birds can sleep here if you don't-"

"We're not love birds!" Henrek clarified.

"Yet." Hope whispered, blushing intensely at the thought.

 

[m4gpier]

"You can't keep that in here!" Gertrude exclaimed as Utarou plopped Rhinoplasty the baby dragon onto the floor of his tent.

It'd been a long trip from the Wyvern cave Utarou had found and Rhinoplasty had gotten tired, considering he'd just hatched and was hauled through the rocky cliffs of Dracons by the strange man Utarou, so he found an empty chest and curled up into it.

"Why not? I'm the Duke, my word is law!" Utarou laughed as he looked around for something he could use as a collar.

Gertrude had been hoping her son had returned but instead was greeted by the strange immortal man who'd apparently been named Duke of Dracons.

"It'll eat someone! Oh my goodness, what about its mother!" Gertrude exclaimed as she hobbled around the tent in a panic.

"Relax, I have a plan." Utarou grinned as he grabbed a belt from his wardrobe, quickly wrapping it around the sleeping dragons neck.

It was around the size of a dog, so the belt had a large segment of loose leather, which Utarou used a nearby knife to make a hole in, attaching a rope to the end of it and tying the creature to a nearby tree on a short leash, pulling the chest he was in slightly outside the tent.

"Hmmpth, I'll feel more comfortable when Henrek comes back, when will he come back?" Gertrude asked sadly.

"Soon, apparently it's only 3 days of travel each way, probably slower on the way back so… Any day now."

"Hmm alright…" Gertrude mumbled as she looked down.

"Yes, once he returns, hopefully with every pregnant woman in Nihola, I'll be able to execute the next phase of my plan!" Utarou laughed, cackling manically into the sky like some kind of delusional villain.

I said like some kind of delusional villain.

"I see… Oh and one more thing."

"What is it old woman? Can't you see I'm busy concocting the next stage in my master plan?"

"Well deary… Where are your pants?"

Utarou looked down, he was entirely nude.

"Ah, the Wyvern's must've eaten them."

"Oh dear, that's no good… Perhaps you should cover up before you get so… excited." Gertrude said wisely, pointing at Utarou's y'know.
"Urgh, fine." Utarou sighed.

…​

"Now what'n the hell is this!?" May shouted as she was handed the head of a rock Wyvern.

"Never seen one? They live in caves and disguise themselves." Henrek explained as the caravan made it's way to Dryholm.

Henrek looked back to the large group of people, the entire village of Nihola was following May, their entire lives packed into wagons and taken across the narrow rocky path.

Henrek and Barney were the only two true warriors who could take on the Wyverns as they came, but the other menfolk of the village had enough provisional training in archery to help distract or damage the creatures that Henrek couldn't deal with from the front or Barney couldn't deal with from the back.

It had been a surprisingly smooth journey, besides catering to May's pregnancy cravings.

"We gotta cook it, I can already tell it'll be delicious." May declared, licking her lips.

"We're nearly there, can you hold on just a bit?" Hope asked softly, having taken on the role of keeping May from causing too much of a ruckus on the journey.

Though Henrek was already imagining how Utarou and her Big personalities might clash.

"Maybe Utarou won't be weird about it?" Henrek thought, before quickly abandoning that hope.

"Utarou said he would try to clear out some nests while we were gone… I'm going to say he wasn't successful." Henrek sighed as another Wyvern dove towards the convoy, he quickly jumped into the sky and chopped the beast's head off.

May grabbed the second Wyvern skull as it fell besides her cart, sniffing it and comparing it with the rock Wyvern.

"Won't that mean he's dead?" May asked as she unceremoniously chucked the regular wyvern skull off the side of the cliff.

"He uh, doesn't have a problem with death don't worry." Henrek sighed.

"Yeah this first meeting is going to be critical, if May gets a bad impression of Utarou then who knows what he'll do…"

…
​

"I LOVE IT! You sayin' you're makin' this thing a pet?! You're the good kinda crazy I like you!" May laughed as she patted the Rhinoplasty, who had made itself quite familiar with May almost immediately.

"It's so cute…" Hope muttered as she gingerly went to pat the creature.

"The name is terrible though! I'm calling you… Rhiney!" May decided unilaterally.

"Fine fine go ahead… But your legacy skill… It's perfect… To think you people couldn't eat monsters this whole time! No wonder you're lacking nutrition!" Utarou exclaimed.

"You also can't eat monsters normally, you just recover from it faster…" Henrek suggested as he stood just outside the tent with Utarou.

"True enough! But this is brilliant! We've already secured a healthy population boost, whatever you've done, good job!" Utarou declared, slapping Henrek on the back.

"Thanks… Though I think we're going to be dealing with some problems soon." Henrek suggested.

"How come?"

"That." Henrek sighed as he pointed to Barney who was desperately trying to get his Wife's attention.

His skills menu had been replaced with a new menu.

A Legacy skill menu congratulating him on his brand new baby boy.

"What about it?"

"Church rules, they need a vicar's approval to pick a skill. Nihola scared off their vicar awhile ago. Dryholm hasn't, we're about due a visit in Dryholm according to mum." Henrek explained.

"Hmpth, no matter. I have a plan." Utarou said with a smug look.

"Oh no."

 

[m4gpier]

"So Utarou, so-called Duke of Dracons… Whatchu want me and my hubbie to do about the vicar coming by?" May scoffed as she cooked up the rock Wyvern's head into a stew.

She'd taken over Gertrude's kitchen, she'd objected to all of the Wyvern parts she'd brought in but once May started cooking, she settled down upon smelling it, and with much reassurance from Henrek that it was safe.

"I have a simple plan, all you need to do is wait like you're supposed to, then I'll work my magic." Utarou explained with a cocky grin.

"Hmpth, good enough." May nodded as her and Barney continued to cook.

"She was so hostile with us at first…" Hope said sadly, Henrek patting her on the back reassuringly.

"More importantly, what skills does the child have potential for?!" Utarou asked, a devious glint in his eyes.

"That's a bit rude you-"

"Only one that I care about! Dragon Diner! Look at it!" Barney said gleefully, pushing his Skills Menu into Utarou's face.

Dragon Diner was one of three choices available for Barney and May's baby boy, but Utarou agreed it was most certainly the most interesting.

The other two were Strong Constitution, which was just Barney's Legacy Skill and Disease Resistance, which was apparently May's mother's Legacy Skill.

Dragon Diner was clearly a combination of May's Monster Eater Legacy Skill and Barney's various Dragon slaying skills.

It had a variety of similar effects, allowing for the consumption of monsters, but notably provided minor bonuses to eating Dragons.

"Would eating Dragons turn you into a Dragon I wonder…" Utarou pondered aloud as he tapped the skill on Barney's menu, who flinched back as he did so.

"Hey hey watch it! You Blessed Fellas got some freaky things going on!" Barney retorted.

"Relax ya idjit! Ain't no finger gonna work except yours." May said, as lovingly as an angry and hormonal wife can.

"Still, it seems pretty obvious what the Church would want you guys to push." Henrek noted anxiously, Utarou was still unwilling to share any details with his plan.

"Relax, the church won't put the blame on any of you guys."

"That doesn't make me any more relaxed." Henrek thought as he rubbed his temples.

"Hey hey! The vicar is here!" One of the former Nihola villagers shouted into the house.

"Crap, alright all you fella's hide 'n case he recognises one of ya's! I'mma put this on hold for a minute, Gerty you mind?" May asked as she unceremoniously gave the cooking spoon to Gertrude as she made her way to the village entrance.

The people of Nihola had gotten to work quite swiftly, chopping down every tree they could to build houses for themselves as quickly as possible, the young and old were able to be housed somewhat comfortably in the empty homes, albeit cramped, while the menfolk were sleeping in their wagons until they could build new homes.

Luckily, the people of Nihola were a hearty people, so this posed little trouble for them.

Utarou, Henrek and Barney all followed May towards the village entrance, a simple stone path that spiralled down the steep hill that surrounded Dryholm.

Down walked a man dressed in a simple set of grey robes with a green symbol on his chest.

He was in his 50s and had a relaxed, pleasant aura surrounding him.

Barney and May were immediately distrustful as they watched the old man approach them.

"My, my, I see you're making my job easy!" Vicar John laughed as he swiped his palm from his left shoulder to his side in a sweeping motion. Henrek reciprocated instantly, while Barney and May hesitated for a moment before obliging the old man, while Utarou tried and failed to copy to motion.

"Haha, now to whom do I have the pleasure of meeting today? Perhaps one of you could explain what all this ruckus is about." Vicar John asked, noting the log piles and open skyline that was being carved into Dryholm.

"I'm Henrek, I'm the Knight of this Village. This is the new Duke of Dracons, Utarou. A Blessed Being from another world."

"My, my. No wonder everything seems so busy all of a sudden! You two must be the happy couple looking to receive the church's wisdom then?" Vicar John asked, looking towards May and Barney.

"Y-yeah." Barney muttered.

"Well let's get on with it! I'm sure you must have something interesting considering your… Oh my." Vicar John exclaimed as he forcefully opened up both Barney and May's Skill tree's.

"How'd he do that?!" Utarou whispered as he and Henrek watched from a few paces back.

"It's just a part of the training to be a Vicar, you need to have a specific set of skills. That's a Tier 3 skill called Skill Check"

"How do you know how to unlock a Tier 3 skill like that?"

"So long as your legacy skill isn't too unique, the church has a guide for it."

"How come my research didn't say any of this!"

"Well, everyone already knows. Plus the church is pretty secretive with this stuff." Henrek explained, just as Vicar John finished examining both Barney and May's skill trees.

"My my, your parents strayed from the word. Thankfully it seems the Lord has blessed your child with a chance at redemption! The only path forward towards the light is Disease Resistance!" Vicar John declared, grabbing Barney's hand.

"Now my son, prepare thy child to head towards the light." Vicar John began, lifting Barney's hand into the air to push the button.

This is where Utarou's master plan began.

"Oh yeah Vicar! I've got a couple questions I want to ask you about-" Utarou began before 'accidentally' tripping over himself, falling directly into Barney.

Barney didn't react for a moment, before being kicked by May to realize what was going on.

"Oh right… I mean Oh no! I pushed the wrong button! I pressed Dragon Diner! Lord have mercy!" Barney shouted in fake anguish.

He was a terrible actor, but luckily the church didn't teach vicars how to detect sincerity.

"My child, this is grave news… This child shall never be able to join the church." Vicar John lamented sadly, his voice still as warm as ever as he rubbed May's stomach.

"Oh woopity doo." May snarked as she pushed his hand off of her.

"I can only speak of the child in my prayers, and you good sir…" Vicar John said, looking at the incredibly smug looking Utarou.

"I will have to report this to the Grand Wizard of Avoisa. Do you have any defense for yourself?" Vicar John asked, his tone cold and serious.

"Uhh, woopsie?"

"The Utarou, Duke of Dracons. I am disappointed in you. May God have mercy on your soul." Vicar John lamented, shaking his head as he looked to Henrek.

"Now, Henrek was it? Is there anywhere else I must attend to my duties?"

"Yes Father, we have 12 undead who have yet to be properly put to rest since you last came."

"Hmm, I hope I am not too late." Vicar John sighed as he followed Henrek.

"Too late for what?" Utarou asked.

"The only reason to keep the church around." May grumbled.

"Ghosts." Barney explained.

"Oh I have got to see this." Utarou said as he quickly ran after Henrek and Vicar John, following a few paces behind them so he wouldn't be too obviously following them.

"Psst, are they going soon? Rhiney is getting annoyed in the chest!" Hope hissed from inside of Utarou's tent, where she was sitting atop of Rhiney's chest as it was shaking and pushing around.

Hope was, for hopefully obvious reasons, hiding from the Church with their pet dragon.

"He's got some ghost busting to do, so I dunno!" Utarou replied with a grin.

"G-ghosts… great…" Hope shivered, remembering her frequent encounters with them during her childhood.

Making their way to the village's graveyard, to Utarou it looked like a normal graveyard.

"Hmm, this is quite bad." Vicar John mumbled as he stepped into the graveyard.

"Is this just all superstition? They're letting the evolution of MONSTER GIRLS be held back because of whatever silly make believe ritual he's about to-" Utarou thought cynically until being interrupted by a wave of transparent blue hands bursting from the floor beneath him.

12 pairs of hands, 3 pairs grabbing each limb.

"YOU FOOL! Why did you follow us?!" Vicar John shouted as he grabbed some silver dust from his pocket, but it was too late.

Utarou was ripped apart, limb by limb.

Vicar John quickly gave the dead their final rites as the wave of blue hands charged towards him and Henrek, being blocked by Vicar John's holy circle.

"... Amen." Vicar John finished, the ghost hands suddenly seized up and faded away, only leaving behind the hand prints on Utarou's body.

"Poor child, may he rest in peace…" Vicar John sighed as he walked up to Utarou.

"Uh yeah I wouldn't worry about that." Henrek explained as Utarou began to reform himself in front of the Vicar's very eyes.

"GOOD GOD I'VE NEVER SEEN IT HAPPEN THIS FAST!" Vicar John shouted as he fell to the ground, watching Utarou's body reattach itself as he rose from the ground.

"Brainnsss!" Utarou moaned, before being smacked in the head by Henrek.

"Knock it off." Henrek sighed.

 

[m4gpier]

"So how'd you deal with ghosts without the church?" Utarou asked May and Barney seriously.

Vicar John had just left the small town of Dryholm, seemingly none the wiser about the population of Nihola having moved in, and Utarou wanted to learn how to excuse himself from the church.

Their stifling of Legacy Skill Evolution was entirely counter to his goals afterall, but it was clear they served a practical function in this world.

Barney shrugged in response.

"We didn't, we'd just throw the dead as far away as possible." Barney shrugged.

"What?! W-what about their families? Sentimentality?!" Henrek gasped.

"Was either that or let em take May away." Barney explained seriously.

"What?"

"This was 30 years ago, May wasn't the first one what had this skill, was her Dad." Barney explained as May bit her lip.

"He's gunna come back. With men too." May said, her usual gusto replaced with pure terror.

"How'd you get rid of them last time?" Utarou asked.

"Lemme guess, you added a few more ghosts to your unmarked graves?" Henrek scoffed.

"Hey we lost some good fellas too! If they'd just left us alone we wouldn't be worryin' about all this nonsense!" May shouted.

"Rest assured, I'm preparing a diplomatic solution." Utarou declared as he leaned back in his chair.

"Great…" Henrek sighed.

"Woah woah settle down Rhiney!" Hope shouted as she was dragged by the rapidly growing baby dragon, it'd already managed to become the size of a large farm dog, with twice the strength.

"May you manage to level up yet?" Utarou asked.

"No? How do ya think leveling up works?" May asked, baffled.

"I dunno, Hope seemed to just get like 3 skills as soon as we found her." Utarou shrugged.

"That's because she was malnourished, she had the XP but couldn't spend any until her body was rested. How did you not find this in your research?" Henrek inquired indignantly.

"I don't see how experience points relate to my goal of Skill Evolution." Utarou retorted, defensively. The truth was he just hadn't thought about it.

"Urgh, lemme explain somethin to ya kid." Barney exclaimed, sitting on the table and looking back at Utarou like he was his dad.

"Ya get XP whenever ya do something new, or achieve somethin' impressive. The harder somethin is, the more XP." Barney explained, Utarou nodding as he took detailed mental notes.

"When ya body is busy healin', starvin' or of course workin' on makin' a beautiful baby boy like my wife, that XP ain't gonna be able to take so to speak."

"So what, you don't earn XP while you're pregnant?"

"Not quite, you just can't level up, it's all sorta stored until you can recover."

"Hmm, say May, how many levels do you think you'll gain after giving birth?" Utarou asked, causing everyone to gasp.

"You can't just ask that! It's rude!" Henrek shouted, smacking Utarou on the back of the head.

"It's an important question! May open up your menu. I want to show them something." Utarou said.

"F-fine." May scoffed, putting her hand out and opening up her skill tree.

"Look here, tier 1 skill Calm Monsters, and there's a locked tier 2 and 3 skill that leads off of it." Utarou said, pointing to the blanked out branch of the skill tree.

"What about it? Why'd I want to…" May asked before Rhiney burst in from behind the tent, chomping Utarou's shoulder as he dragged the limp Hope in.

"I believe you'll be able to unlock a skill that lets you decide what skills this thing gets, like how Joelson could with horses." Utarou explained as Hope and Henrek pulled Rhiney off of Utarou's shoulder.

"Horses don't have skills…" Henrek grunted as he pulled with all of his might to get Rhiney off of Utarou.

"Aha! They have legacy skills! And whoever opens the menu is the only one who can control it, right?"

"M-maybe? I don't think I've… ever heard of someone… opening a monster skill tree…" Henrek grunted as he finally pulled the creature off, a chunk of Utarou's flesh coming with it.

"I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry!" Hope apologised rapidly as the creature swallowed more of Utarou's meat, it was what was letting him grow so fast and he'd clearly taken a liking to it.

Which was good, considering Utarou was immortal and everyone else in Dryholm was still very very mortal.

"Hmm, alrighty. I like the way you think!" May said giving a thumbs up to the idea.

"Perfect! Now, if you could all settle down, I have a 74 page plan I'd like to share with you all-" Utarou began before hearing something dripping on the floor.

…
​

Utarou, despite having been devoured several times, had his limbs ripped off, and receiving all sorts of incredible physical damage, was a complete wuss when it came to the magic of childbirth.

Despite the less than perfect amenities, the villagers of Nihola and Dryholm all came together to assist May through the process.

Hope and Henrek had tasked themselves with keeping Rhiney in check, which mostly meant making sure he only nibbled on little bits of Utarou at a time.

"WAHHHH UWAHHHH!" Was the siren that alerted Utarou into wakefulness, with his forearm being chomped off by Rhiney's surprise.

Henrek and Hope let out a sigh of relief as they heard the cheers of the village, the sign a healthy and beautiful baby boy had just been born.

"Quick, I need to make sure she selects the right skills." Utarou said, his arm regenerating as he stood up. Henrek stopped him with his sword.

"Relax, she's still got a week before any of that XP will come in. Don't bother them right now please." Henrek groaned.

"Hmpth, I didn't even get to start my 74 page plan before she started… Belrgh…" Utarou shuddered, remembering how horrific the site was.

"For someone who's entire plan involves a lot of babies being born, you sure can't handle it in the slightest." Henrek smirked.

"H-Hey! I come from a more civilized time, one with a safe and sterile environment for child birth to occur in! O-One without the man having to be involved and… clearing blood…" Utarou gagged.

"Do you think he's a virgin still?" Hope whispered.

"I'm pretty sure he's saving himself for a cat girl." Henrek joked, before realizing what that meant as he looked at the woman he was grooming to have the right skills to produce a cat girl child.

"You're sick." Henrek sneered.

"What?! I haven't done anything yet!" Utarou retorted defensively as Henrek and Hope left him alone with Rhiney, who had finished Utarou's arm and was looking to snack on some fingers.

 

[m4gpier]

"Sit!" May growled, Rhiney whining before gingerly sitting on the ground.

"Hmpth, good. Utarou give him some of your arm as a treat." May huffed as Rhiney looked up pleadingly at Utarou.

"I don't like how I'm being used as a free dragon food." Utarou groaned, but a glare from the tired May shut him up quickly.

"I will say, I am enjoying this Monster Tamer skill." May remarked, looking at her skill tree.

Under Utarou's instruction and after 9 months of accumulated XP finally had the chance to be absorbed properly, she'd unlocked 3 new skills.

Tier 1, Calm Monsters. All monsters in her presence are now 50% more relaxed.

Tier 2, Monster Skill Viewer. May can open up any monster's skill tree.

Tier 3, Command Monsters. May can get monsters to listen and understand her commands, whether they obey or not is another story.

Needless to say, Utarou was very pleased with these developments.

"UAWHHH, WAUHHHH!" Screamed little baby Barney Junior.

"Looks like BJ is hungry again." Utarou smirked.

"Stop calling him that." May hissed as she grabbed Barney Junior from his cradle.

He was a healthy 2 month old baby boy, had his fathers darker skin tone but his mothers eyes.

"Do ya mind?" May asked, motioning with her head for Utarou to leave.

"Hey you're the one who asked me to come help train Rhinoplasty. I'm the duke of Dracons, remember? I have important things to do!" Utarou retorted, raising his hands in the air. May frowned.

"His name is Rhiney… and I'm pretty sure ya 'ave just been bossin' people around and sending out letters to stop trading with other folks." May frowned.

"Yeah! That's what Dukes do!" Utarou retorted as he left May and Barney's new house.

Dryholm had been expanding rapidly, with the mass influx of people it'd been rough, but they'd been incredibly lucky with getting the people of Nihola first.

They were resilient, effective and most importantly, they were very used to hunting monsters, something which Dryholm was in no short supply of.

The previously forested village had been entirely felled, with new houses being constructed as compact and tall as Utarou could convince the people to go.

He had sent Henrek and Hope to enact his pregnant parents' poaching plan in the villages of Kolob and Wigga, and was expecting them to arrive any day now.

All trade had been directed to Dryholm 2 months ago, and migrants from that decree had been trickling in as news spread. Though it was clear most people took the opportunity to leave Dracons if they were able to.

"Hey! It's the Mad Duke!" A teenager laughed as Utarou walked through the growing village of Dryholm. The boy's mother quickly grabbed him and pulled him into the half built home.

"Shush! Don't let him see you." The mother hushed, but Utarou began approaching.

"I-I'm so sorry my lord my son doesn't know what he's doing, he's just an idiot boy please don't hurt him!" The mother begged, much to Utarou's bemusement.

"Relax, hey kid, mind telling me why you called me that just then?" Utarou asked in a soft, gentle voice. The boy was suddenly petrified, his prior confidence shattered as he stood in front of the Mad Duke himself.

"T-t-those k-kids from Nihola said you uh… you… you had… plans… for the uh… babies and you were… going to… make them into uh… monsters…" The boy stammered, it was such a blatantly false playground rumor, right?

"And they call me mad because of a dream?" Utarou asked, suddenly looking up into the clear blue sky.

"Is it mad for a fish to look onto the shore and decide it will learn to breath!?"

"W-what?"

"Is it mad for that fish to become a frog and dream of bigger things! Going even further inland, up to taller heights!?"

"Frogs?"

"IS IT MAD FOR THAT LIZARD TO DECIDE THAT THE HEAVENS ITSELF ARE IT'S HOMES AND EVOLVE WINGS?!" Utarou asked, picking the kid up by the scruff of his shirt.

"N-No?!"

"THAT'S RIGHT! WE ALL DREAM OF THINGS WE CANNOT HAVE, BUT GIVEN ENOUGH TIME AND DEDICATION, THE GENERATIONS WILL EVENTUALLY BEND TO MY WILL! I WILL HAVE MY MONSTER GIRL HAREM BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY DAMNIT!" Utarou screamed to the heavens, most of the residents of Dryholm were used to this kind of outburst from Utarou, it'd become part of the ambiance.

Though the new arrivals were still freaked out by it still.

There was a reason the kids called him the Mad Monster Duke.

"I-I-I'm sorry?!" The teenager sobbed.

"No no, don't be sorry boy, be proactive. Pick the most wild and extreme skills you can, that's the only way we can shape the next generation, yes, yes we must push ourselves now our future children, well your future children, I'm pushing you for my sake still, yes, yes…" Utarou mumbled as he walked towards the village graveyard, having thoroughly traumatized the boy.

"My reputation is a problem that will solve itself in time. I've already solved Dryholm's famine and Wyvern problem in one swoop with the residents of Nihola… But we're overdue for a visit from the Avoisan Church and whatever merry men they're bringing. Barney thinks he can handle them all on his own, even if that's true we'll have some major long term problems with the graveyard without the church." Utarou pondered as she wandered to the graveyard, where Gertrude was sitting besides her husband's grave.

"You're not planning on throwing us to the monsters like those Nihola savages are you?" Gertrude asked bitterly as she wiped moss away from the grave.

"Not if I can help it" Utarou sighed as he sat down on a nearby stump from one of the many felled trees in Dryholm.

"I couldn't believe they'd forsake their families like that… unable to be laid to rest…" Gertrude spat.

She was rightfully worried about what would happen to her given that the town of Dryholm now primarily consisted of residents from Nihola. They'd already cut down the canopy of trees that had protected her since she was a little girl, changing the little valley town nearly overnight.

Though, they'd also brought food to fix the famine, food made from monsters as well.

It was very conflicting for the old woman.

"I've got a plan… Though I'll need to find someone with the right set of skills…" Utarou sighed as he looked at the graves. As far as he knew, ghosts were a ubiquitous problem in this world, one which the Church had a monopoly.

One which Utarou would have to overthrow if he was to get a Ghost Girl for his harem.

 

[m4gpier]

"That's everyone." Henrek declared, looking down at the trail leading to Dryholm from atop the recently constructed watch tower. The final lot of arrivals from Kolob and Wigga were greeted by Utarou who gave them the usual spiel about Monster Girls and Consolidation.

"Yeah… Is everything alright?" Hope asked, noticing the gloomy look in Henrek's eyes as he surveyed his village.

It used to be a couple of houses in a large ravine, surrounded on all sides by tall hills, with a waterfall feeding the river that flowed through the town, plentiful space for farms, trees and sparse population.

Now with Utarou's plan in full swing, it was stuffed to the brim with people, every tree had been felled and most of the agriculture had been moved to outside the walls thanks to the monster population being aggressively hunted by Barney and the people of Nihola, all being 'cooked' by May.

Turns out the limitations of her skill were quite loose, so long as she had any part in the cooking process the edibility increased 10 fold, and if people prepared the monsters correctly they ended up being completely safe to eat.

So the famine was over, Barney was building hunting lodges in the various caves that used to be infested with all sorts of creatures.

The population was booming.

And Henrek felt conflicted by the changes.

"Nothing… Hey I need to see Mum and Julia still, want to come with?" Henrek asked with a somber smile.

"Absolutely." Hope said, following Henrek down the ladder.

All the while, Utarou was leading the new villagers to their temporary housing.

"Hey?! Temporary? What the hell! You moved us here without even a house to sleep in?!" One of the men from Wigga shouted, many of the other men folk shouting back.

"I'm the Duke of Dracons, unless you want to leave then it's Dryholm or nothing! I require more babies to be born so I may locate more useful Legacy Skills for the Monster Girl pla-" Utarou was stopped as he saw May walking around with Barney Junior in her arms and Rhiney at her side.

A bright pink Rhiney.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO HIM!?" Utarou shouted, running towards May and the baby wyvern.

"I was thinkin' he'd look cute in pink, plus he had one of them experience points to use so I-" May began before being cut off by Utarou's screaming.

"NO! Absolutely not! I need you to save every last one of those! AND YOU WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Utarou shouted as one of the elderly people from Kolob wandered towards the graveyard.

"Oh, well I figured I'd see where I was being buried!" The elderly man laughed.

"GRAVEYARD IS OFF LIMITS! It's filled with ghosts!" Utarou chastised.

"My god, you people are not respecting the plan…" Utarou sighed.

"You ain't told us a lick of the plan yet." May huffed, the 5 month old BJ let out a sound of agreement.

"Yeah in't that right lil Junior…" May cooed, Rhiney letting out a huff of jealousy.

"Left hand doesn't need to know what the right hand is doing." Utarou declared.

"You're just a makin' it up as you go ain'tchu." May sighed.

"No!" Utarou retorted indignantly.

…
​

"H-hi, I'm sorry I haven't visited much…" Hope gulped as she sat down at the dinner table with Julia, Henrek's very sickly sister.

She had a gaunt look to her, anorexic, pale white and covered in blankets, her hair was messy and covered much of her thin face.

"Itsh fine… You've been busy with my brother right?" Julia smirked as she took a spoonful of Wyvern soup to her mouth, shaking the entire way.

"I told you, we're not dating…" Henrek groaned.

"Yet." Hope and Julia said at the same time.

"I don't like this joke."

"I'm not joking." Hope smirked.

"She'sh not joking bro…" Julia added in meekly as Henrek rolled his eyes, Gertrude arriving with some bread she'd baked with the little flour the people of Kolob had been willing to share.

"My goodness all this meat isn't good for my constitution, I don't know how those freaks from Nihola lived like this." Gertrude grumbled, slicing the bread for the table.

"Hey mum, they're helping us out." Henrek said defensively.

"Honey I know you're working for that wretched duke but he'll be busy showing those new invaders around…" Gertrude hissed, grabbing a slice of bread to dip in her meagre portion of wyvern soup.

"W-we found a doctor!" Hope added, desperately trying to change the topic. Julia looked up, dry eyes glimmering slightly.

"Yeah that's right! Apparently he's really good." Henrek exclaimed excitedly.

"Thanksh guysh…" Julia said, avoiding getting her hopes up.

She'd been born sick and she expected to die from sickness.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU PICK THE EXPLOSIVE ENTRANCE LEGACY SKILL?!" Utarou shouted, heard faintly through the walls.

Though with what Utarou may have to change that prediction.

 

[m4gpier]

The legion of Avoisan Templars marched towards Dryholm, walking the narrow path in perfect formation. Their dark green armor glistened as the lightning struck in the distance and rain hailed from the storm clouds above. It'd been 8 months between Vicar John's arrival and his return, evidently he'd traveled somewhat further than his church on the edge of Burtcons and Dracons.

Utarou, Henrek, Barney, May, Hope and Rhiney were all looking at the oncoming army from the watch tower they'd constructed, several of Nihola's more militarily inclined men were at the base, holding weapons anxiously. The elderly, women and children were all holed up on the other side of the cliff, hiding in the Wyvern nest that Utarou had cleared out and Barney had fortified, being guarded by the rest of the men.

"So, you said you had a plan?" Henrek asked as he paced around the watch tower in a panic.

"Naturally." Utarou smirked as he petted Rhiney, who had grown to be the size of a sheep, though covered in scales and muscle instead of fluff.

"You think a baby Wyvern is strong enough to take down… 300 Templars?!" Henrek asked incredulously, quickly counting the 10 by 30 rows of men.

"Ya I ain't lettin' the lil' bastard get killed either." May scoffed, pulling the dragon back.

"No one's gonna die… except them… and me but that's a given at this point." Utarou elaborated in his usual vagueness.

"Better not be, if a single one of those bastards touch Junior then it's your head." Barney growled as he poked Utarou's chest. Junior was hiding with the rest of the town, being taken care of by a friend of Barney and May.

"Relax! May, how many skills can Rhiney invest?" Utarou asked, snapping his fingers. May sighed.

"Little bastard ain't been happy but looky. 18 points free to use just like ya wanted." May exclaimed, turning the baby Wyverns skill tree to Utarou.

It was somewhat different than the animal and human skill trees he'd seen, with Rhiney's species, currently Baby Wyvern, and name, Rhinoplasty, being listed at the top of the menu and just a collection of random and unconnected skills available, aside from a cluster of skills like pink scales, tail, wings, slit eyes and more all being connected and clustered together.

It was time for Utarou to test his theory out.

"These skills here, I think they define Rhinoplasty's nature as a baby wyvern." Utarou explained.

"Now's not the time for a lecture on whatever theory you have about monster skills! We need to do something fast!" Henrek shouted, pointing towards the approaching men.

"But look! Don't you wonder what something like 'Spiritual Sensitivity' means? They don't have any descriptions until you unlock them so who knows what it could unlock!" Utarou laughed.

"WE ARE ACTIVELY UNDER ATTACK!" Henrek screamed, pointing to the glowing light of the Avoisian Army.

"Calm down, I have a plan. The graveyard's still got a couple of ghosts in it, right?" Utarou asked, pointing at Henrek.

"Yes. At least 6." Henrek growled, his mother was a part of that number, in a shallow grave dug by Utarou in between ghost attacks.

"Alright May, Rhinoplasty come with me. Barney, Henrek, Hope, you're all on watch out." Utarou said, jumping off the watch tower and letting his broken bones heal as he approached the graveyard. May quickly followed.

"Are ya sure this is a good idea hun? The two of us could still-" Barney began, before being silenced by his wife's deathly glare.

"Do you really want to keep on runnin'? Utarou may be insane but at least he's tryna build somethin' for the future." May hissed as she quickly clambered down the ladder, Rhiney gliding down to follow.

"He's saying something…" Hope muttered as she squinted, using every ounce of her night vision and cat-like senses to try and gleam any information she could.

"Charge… hour… Wait… rain to clear… I think he's saying they'll wait an hour to charge…" Hope groaned, trying to read someone's lips from a kilometer away on a dark stormy night wasn't easy for her.

Though for Henrek and Barney it was impossible.

"Sounds 'bout right, but I don't think ol' Utarou is gonna be waitin' that long." Barney declared, looking at him and May enter Dryholm's graveyard.

"So what's the plan captain crazy?" May asked as she and Rhiney stood well clear of the graveyard's boundary while Utarou plunged into it.

"Open the ghost's monster menu up!" Utarou shouted as he stuck his hands out, waiting for the inevitable as pale blue hands burst from the ground, attempting to tear him apart.

"Th-they ain't monsters! They're ghosts!" May stammered, quickly putting her hand out regardless as Utarou was grabbed by the ghost hands.

She tried to open up a menu, and was surprised when a monster menu skill tree appeared.

"Avoisian Ghost Core." was its name, the menu opening up at the oldest grave in the village.

"Haha! Now look at the skills!" Utarou's decapitated head shouted before being grabbed and thrown back into the center of the graveyard.

"R-right!" May shouted over the roaring thunder.

The collection of skills that made up the Avoisian Ghost Core painted a certain picture.

"Human-Spirit Collection"

"Violently Attack Non-Allies"

"Intense Physical Strength"

"Swarm of Human Hands Appearance."

"Loyalty to Creator's Group."

May felt her stomach drop.

"H-How did you… The Avoisian Church they… They did this?! They make ghosts?!" May screamed, her father had died trying to protect her from the Avoisian Church, the reason they had to ditch their dead in the wild was because their graveyard had been cursed by the Avoisian Church.

It was too much to handle, luckily Utarou wasn't interested in handling it right now.

"Look at… Human-Spirit… Collection's… Tree!" Utarou shouted as his jaw was repeatedly ripped off and growing back as his eyes were gouged out.

"R-right…" May muttered as she quickly traced the set of skills that led to Human-Spirit Collection.

"Spiritual Sensitivity… 4 skills down… Oh I get it." May said as she looked at Rhiney and towards the ghosts, opening up his menu. She looked through the clusters of skills that were just floating aimlessly in the void of his menu, locating the Spiritual Sensitivity.

As she unlocked skills for him, the various base level skills she hadn't picked disappeared.

Rhiney shifted and morphed with each skill unlock.

The first skill, Spiritual Sensitivity, gave him streaks of white throughout his body.

The second skill, Spirit Shining, gave his eyes an azure glow.

The third skill, Spiritual Manipulation, gave his claws a dark green shine.

The final skill, Human-Spirit Collection, gave his wings a haze of ethereal blue energy surrounding them

"Muwarh?" Rhiney squeeked, his name having changed from Rhinoplasty the Baby Wyvern, to Rhinoplasty the Spirit Median Dragon.

"Alright Rhiney, destroy that damn thing there." May growled, pointing to the moss covered stone that was the Avoisian Ghost Core.

Rhiney nodded and glided in, as soon as he crossed the barrier of the graveyard the ghosts went to attack him.

Instinctively, with his new skills, he flapped his wings, pushing the ghost's hands back before flying to the actual monster, the Avoisan Ghost Core.

"BREAK IT!" May shouted, Utarou's body struggling to find itself as it healed back together as the ghost hands pushed back against Rhiney's new spiritual control abilities.

Rhiney flew over and knocked over the grave, it crumbled easily to reveal a small clam-like creature inside of it. Rhiney picked it up with his mouth as the ghost hands rushed towards him, and crushed it in one bite, the ghosts evaporating in an instant into puffs of blue energy which pooled around his wings.

Utarou sprung up, petting Rhiney on the head.

"Alright! How many points do we have left?" Utarou asked.

"Uh, 0. Why?" May asked, suddenly worried.

"What?" Utarou asked, stomach dropping.

"Those were expensive skills!" May shouted.

"Oh… oh it'll be fine… I'm sure this will be just fine…" Utarou gasped, looking at Rhiney, who was now a tiny dragon who could control ghosts somewhat. His plan of saving skills to the last moment had somewhat backfired it seemed.

 

[m4gpier]

"WHY DID YOU THINK MONSTERS COULD STOCKPILE XP LIKE HUMANS CAN?!" Henrek shouted.

"WHY SHOULD I ASSUME IT'S DIFFERENT FOR MONSTERS THAN HUMANS?!" Utarou shouted back, pointing his finger in a rather aggressive manner into Henrek's chest.

"RELAX! Look, let's lay out the facts 'ere." Barney shouted, pushing the two men back while May and Hope kept close eye on the oncoming army.

The storm was still strong and they were clearly waiting for a break in the weather before starting the assault.

"Nihola was able to take the bastards down back when we were kids, right hun?"

"Yeah… I don't think we 'ad that many…" May said, biting her lips as she looked at the 300 templars.

"Well we didn't 'ave a dragon last time either! Barney gotta be able to do somethin nifty right?" Barney offered fruitlessly.

"Hold on hold on, I'm also the Duke of Dracons, what is the relationship of King Oldsman with the Church?" Utarou asked, everyone immediately staring at him like he was an idiot.

"What?"

"Why am I not surprised, you don't learn anything unless it has to do with monster girls do you?" Henrek scoffed.

"No! I don't! I thought this was obvious by now! What do you think I keep all you people around for!?" Utarou retorted defensively.

"King Oldsman is a devout man, hence why he believes so strongly in blessed beings and gives idiots like you positions." Henrek explained.

"Wait a minute, what are they actually here for again?" Utarou asked.

"TO TAKE JUNIOR!" May and Barney shouted in unison.

"Alright alright alright, we still have proof of the Avoisian Ghost Core, right?" Utarou asked, Rhiney answering by spitting out the chewed on clam-like monster from his mouth.

"Can you still open its skill tree?" Utarou asked, May raised an eyebrow and tried, revealing that she still in fact could open it. The creature's name was now "Dead Avoisian Ghost Core.", with all of its skills greyed out but the names were still intact.

"What are you thinking?" Henrek asked suspiciously.

"You'll see, don't worry." Utarou smirked, having no idea what he was thinking either yet.

"Well can you show us quickly, it looks like the Vicar is coming by himself…" Hope gulped.

"Alright everyone, let's have a little chat with the Vicar."

…​

"I was hoping coming alone would put you at ease, I see it has not." Vicar John sighed as the squad stood just outside the entrance of Dryholm, all but Utarou looking ready to fight or flee.

"Hi, I don't think I properly introduced myself last time we met. Utarou Nishimura, Duke of Dracons." Utarou explained, putting his hand out to shake the Vicars, who politely but reluctantly accepted it.

"Your Knight did a fine enough job I felt." John replied as he looked towards the people aiming their weapons at him.

"I'm naught but a holy man, could you please lower your weapons."John requested, raising his arms towards the archers in the watch tower.

"Yeah! We're gonna have a nice chat, how long until your boys back there decide to rush in?" Utarou asked.

"Should I fail to return, they have been given permission to burn this place to the ground." Vicar John explained honestly.

"I figured, well let's make this quick then. What are you guys even here for?"

"TO BLOODY TAKE JUNIOR!" May shouted, being held back by Barney.

"Quite right, and also your pets here." Vicar John elaborated, pointing to Rhiney and Hope.

"Woah hey, pets?" Hendrek stepped up as Hope took a step back, she wasn't exactly a fighter.

"Those who stray from God's wisdom are doomed to disgrace themselves as beasts, though it seems your Duke is quite keen on that outcome as I've come to understand." Vicar John explained, Utarou's smirk grew as he saw an in.

"Oh? So tell me, your church is against monster taming for any reason right?" Utarou asked, a cocky grin on his lips.

"Quite right, though I don't see where you're going with this." Vicar John replied.

"May, would you like to show him the cause of our little ghost problem." Utarou said, snapping his fingers as thunder rolled over them.

May stepped up, holding the Avoisian Ghost Core, opening its menu.

"What… What is this?" Vicar John asked, baffled by what he was looking at.

"Right what it says on the tin. An Avoisian Ghost Core, isn't that your guy's little church?" Utarou asked with a smirk.

"No, no that's impossible… Are you meaning to tell me this is a monster's skill tree?!" Vicar John asked, baffled.

"Oh yeah, if you don't believe us, check May's skills out. The one you're looking for is gonna be Monster Skill Viewer, right above Calm Monsters." Utarou explained with a cocky grin as Vicar John opened May's menu to confirm she did have the ability to open Monster Skill Trees.

"You've strayed from the Holy Path… and found this…" Vicar John mumbled, trying to reconcile the contradiction in front of his eyes. How could something so useful be completely foreign to the Holy Path?

"What? Surprised? I thought all you guys would be in on it." Utarou shrugged, shaking his head. Vicar John shook his head and looked at Utarou, a serious look covering his face.

"No, Monster-Craft like this is quite blasphemous. But I cannot deny the facts as I see them, whoever created monster this named it Aviosian Ghost Core and gave it the nessecary skills to-"

"YA THE BASTARDS WHAT NAMED DON'T TRY PULL THAT ON US!" May shouted, going to strangle Vicar John before Barney picked her up and pulled her back.

"Careful what ya say little man, I might not stop 'er next time." Barney growled.

"Ahem, yes what I was trying to say is that this is a cause worth researching, as I can unequivocally assure you the church does not support any monster-craft." Vicar John explained, looking at Rhiney as his faint blue glow illuminated the area.

"Where is that on the hierarchy of importance compared to kidnapping?" Utarou asked cheekily. Vicar John let out a long sigh.

"As I understand, you are from another world, you are not truly aware of the dangers skills possess, and how straying from the Holy Path will lead to disastrous outcomes as described in the book of-"

"Yeah yeah buddy listen." Utarou interrupted.

"I just want to know, where on the blasphemy scale does a little bit of straying from the Holy Path fall, compared to creating monsters in the churches name to torment innocent souls?" Utarou asked.

Vicar John thought for a moment before letting out a reluctant sigh.

"You're quite right, this is a much more serious matter." Vicar John relented.

"So, how about you tell your boys back there to march on back so we can leave on friendly terms, your holy path doesn't exactly have a skill to let you find these things does it?" Utarou suggested smugly.

"Quite right, though I fear there is a reason we are not granted access to it." Vicar John muttered.

"Welp! Glad we could chat, hope to see you-" Utarou began, preparing to wipe his hands of the situation.

"Wait, I'm not the leader of this expedition. It would be Templar Adam. I believe he will be amenable to a retreat should we explain the situation however." Vicar John explained, May and Barney looked at him with fire in their eyes.

"I do not wish for blood to be shed tonight believe me, I am simply trying to follow the words of my lord as best as I can." Vicar John pleaded.

"Relax guys, I'll go in and explain it all away. And if they do something funny it's not like they can kill me." Utarou said with a beaming smile.

"How reassuring." The squad thought in unison.

 

[m4gpier]

Utarou and Vicar John stood in the middle of the 300 or so Templar Knights that the Avoisian Church had sent.

Before them was the leader of this expedition

Templar Adam.

He had long blonde hair, sharp features and bright emerald green eyes.

"So, you're the heretical Blessed Being I've heard so much about!" Adam laughed as he jumped off his horse, his voice was smooth and relaxed, resonating even as the thunder storm raged on.

"Hah, glad to hear my name's gotten around. Utarou Nishimura, at your service." Utarou said, sticking his hand out to greet Adam.

As he raised it hand, it was chopped off, without Adam appearing to have even moved.

"Sorry, sorry. When I heard your blessing was perfect immortality I wanted to test it out." Adam apologised in a jovial tone as Utarou saw his severed hand turn into mush as it fell onto the ground.

"I'm glad I don't feel pain anymore then." Utarou laughed nervously as he simply grew a new hand.

Templar Adam had a fierce presence to him, despite the harsh storm his radiant smile pierced through it, along with his immense strength.

"Lucky you; So John, what compelled you to bring me the heretic with none of the beasts he's been cultivating?" Adam asked with a sigh, sitting on the ground, leaning against his sword, clearly completely unthreatened by Utarou's presence.

"This!" Utarou declared, shoving the clam-like monster in Adam's face.

"A monster that controls spirits? What of it?" Adam asked with a casual smile.

"The woman that eats monsters, she has the ability to open their skill trees as well." Vicar John explained.

"Oh? An interesting novelty but I fail to see what it does for us."

"Its a named monster called the Avoisian Ghost Core. I verified the woman had no ability to forge it's name either." Vicar John explained seriously. Adam paused, looking down as he scratched his chin.

"That is quite interesting." Adam agreed, standing up as he took to the small shelled monster from Utarou and examined it.

"And now because you're hypocrites, you can't attack us." Utarou declared triumphantly. Adam laughed as he handed the creature to his squire.

"No, I'm afraid that isn't how this is going to work." Adam smirked.

"Hey, that's not fair! You guys don't get to just-" Utarou was cut off as Adam sliced his head off, grabbing his hair to hold up his decapitated head so the two men could be at eye level.

Quite concerningly, he had managed to slow Utarou's healing to a crawl using one of his skills.

"Skill 9 of the Holy Path, Humility. Though clearly your immortality trumps it, considering it's a blessing from God themselves perhaps that's to be expected." Adam explained as Utarou tried to speak, finding his lack of lungs to make that difficult.

"Now, let's discuss some basic theology. You seem to not comprehend the magnitude of the situation. Beyond any Divine path, there lay only demons. There are islands of savages that go down the same path you are intending to tread, in only 4 generations they turn from a human into something that cannot be saved. Women having their wombs torn open by piles of flesh that secrete acid, children who speak unknown languages to commune with dead gods, men who cannot stop their unquenchable thirst for the blood as they decay into something that cannot be called a man. These are not hypothetical stories the church tells us, these are things I have personally had to put down with my own hands." Adam explained to the slowly healing head of Utarou, his lungs having finally reformed enough to allow him to speak.

"Bleargh… I haven't tasted blood in a while." Utarou spat, a lump of healing flesh coming out with it. Adam chuckled softly.

"I see you are unphased. I see that if I would want to stop you, I'd need to lock you in the deepest darkest hole I can find and bury you with the heaviest stones." Adam laughed, throwing Utarou's head aside and releasing his skill, letting Utarou's body spring back into existence as his healing powers were now unbound, falling into the mud just at Vicar John's feet.

"You uh, seem to have thought this out." Utarou laughed nervously as Adam picked up his sword.

Utarou was out of his league.

The entire village of Dryholm was doomed unless he could think of something, fast.

"W-what is so good about this Holy Path anyway!? Aren't all of these skills coming from the same menu?!" Utarou sputtered as Adam went to walk past him.

Adam smirked.

"You know, I was hoping you'd say that." Adam smiled.

"The Avoisian Church believes in the supremacy of the menu as you common folk put it. Though we with Divine Right prefer to call it the soul." Adam explained, opening up his menu to show it to Utarou.

His Legacy Skill stuck out immediately, and how he'd only invested into one specific path.

Divine Right, and he had unlocked 16 skills in one continuous line.

"This the Holy Path. See? I've just got one more to go and I'll have completed it! First man in over a decade to do so, if you'd let me brag a little." Adam smiled.

"Yet, despite being so close to this goal, I've always wondered what would happen if I explored these other paths? I mean, I've never heard of a single noble going much further than investing in these boring old skills to improve their health, ability to negotiate and other such nonsense." Adam explained, pointing to the handful of tier 1 skills at the bottom of his skill tree which he hadn't invested in.

"They're all written in God's word, yet somehow some of them result in such savagery and evil… It boggles the mind." Adam sighed melodramatically.

"R-right, so God's not exactly telling you to burn my Monster Girl project down right…?" Utarou said nervously.

Adam laughed as he pulled Utarou up.

"No, no they're not!" Adam snorted, grabbing the jacket from Utarou's last body and putting it on him.

"However, there is a reason why the church respects those with skills such as Divine Right. We were born with it, as decreed by God… And if we are given this ability, then we must follow our Holy Path… What a bother, if only someone was able to figure out some new Holy Paths." Adam sighed.

"I… I think I got the hint." Utarou gulped.

"5 years Utarou. I want to see what you can do in that time. I don't think God gave you this blessing without reason." Adam explained cheerfully.

"Vicar, congrats. You're getting a new job. Establish a Church in this village, help the monster woman to locate these things and deal with them swiftly. Let's see if this Blessed Being can find some new Holy Paths." Adam declared, much to Vicar John's befuddlement.

"W-what?! Sir you can't mean allowing such heresy to continue?!" John scoffed.

"I think you're on team Monster Girl now John!" Utarou laughed, pulling Vicar John in by the shoulders.

"Ah I do enjoy your enthusiasm, but not quite. This is a test given to us by God. I do not know if you've been sent as a destroyer or as a creator. Thus, there seems to be only one real solution." Adam smiled as he looked up into the sky, the clouds clearing briefly to reveal the starry sky.

"W-what is it?" Utarou asked, no longer so sure everything was safe.

"In 5 years I will have unlocked the final skill on the Holy Path of someone born with Divine Right. The only known Tier 4 Skill, Perfection." Adam explained with a grin.

"T-tier 4? Those exist?" Utarou stuttered, in all of his research he'd never heard of them, only as ideas scribbled in the margins of books on the subject.

"Should you produce your own tier 4 skill… Well that would be a clear sign we've been complacent and you were sent here to fix that, right?" Adam laughed, placing a hand on Utarou's shoulder.

"Of course, if you can't… Then you'll have corrupted these poor people's very souls so far off the Holy Path I will have to wipe this province off the map. I hope I've made myself clear." Adam explained coldly.

"V-very…" Utarou nodded, gulping.

He'd now pushed Dryholm's destruction to 5 years in the future should he be unable to discover how to make a Tier 4 skill within 5 short years.

But more importantly he had another thought.

"If Tier 3 skills can lead to legacy mutations like having glowing Eyes… then Tier 4 Skills must be the key to unlocking the power to real monster girl transformations…" Utarou thought giddily, though if he wasn't so scared of Adam he'd show it a bit more.

 

[m4gpier]

"You agreed to what?" The squad asked in unison, lightning cracking as they gawked.

"Nothing crazy, we just need to discover a new Tier 4 skill in the next 5 years." Utarou explained non-chalantly.

"Tier 4 skills don't exist! We need to evacuate everyone now! If we keep running we can make it somewhere far away! A Templar who's nearly completed the Holy Path is after us?! I can't believe I let myself get into this mess dear god!" Henrek shouted as he paced around the base of the watch tower.

"Um, if I may interrupt. There is one Tier 4 skill, it's the end of the Holy Path. The Skill known as Perfection." Vicar John explained as calmly as he could.

"Oh great! Great! The end of the Holy Path itself is where it exists. Yeah this is just great!" Henrek sat down on the nearby bench, joined by Hope who comforted him.

"Not to agree with the sissy there but'cha better got a better plan than hope'n for the best. I ain't trustin' these church fellas further than I can throw em." May snarled, glaring at Vicar John with contempt.

"And I'll throw you far if you try anythin' on my boy." Barney growled.

"I understand. I have been given… strange orders regardless." Vicar John sighed. He'd been hired to conduct a form of heresy against the current Church leadership, though it was on behalf of someone on the verge of completing the Holy Path and underneath a Blessed Being.

Needless to say, it was conflicting given the Avoisan Church worshipped the skill tree and its Holy Path.

"Utarou, I think you can do it…" Hope added softly.

"See! Finally some optimism!" Utarou declared, turning to look at Hope, who had tears streaming down her face and despair soaking her expression.

"I-I-I buh-believe…" Hope lied, hoping she'd start believing herself if she said it enough.

"We're doomed, we're all going to die…" Henrek despaired as he buried his face into his hands.

"Alright this isn't the celebration I was hoping for… Barney let's go get everyone back in while the storm's quieted down a bit." Utarou sighed.

"Aye aye boss, gotta check in on Junior." Barney sighed, following Utarou around the hills that surrounded Dryholm, the stars in the sky lighting up their path, along with the occasional distant flash of lightning.

"You're pretty relaxed about the situation." Utarou noted as he walked along the path the village had made to the hideout.

"Eh, me and the folks 'n Nihola ain't exactly unfamiliar with bastards like that. Though you managed to piss off a pretty big fish this time, I'm surprised you've kept ya head still!" Barney laughed as he idly flicked through his skill tree, trying to figure out how the hell he could get a Tier 4 skill.

"Probably something to do with my skill. Whenever I get too nervous I just hear 'perfect immortality activated' then I can focus on the mission." Utarou smirked.

"That bein' them monster girls huh?" Barney sighed.

"Bingo! And besides, tier 4 skills are gonna be key to that… somehow." Utarou pondered.

"Eh?"

"Think about it, Tier 1 is just some pretty boring stat boosts." Utarou said, pointing at Barney's skill Enhanced Physicality. It made him 10% Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

"H-hey sometimes a man's gotta invest in a little boost! The wife appreciates it…" Barney justified, having clearly picked the skill for non-combat related reasons.

"Then look, when you get to Tier 2 you get stuff that's more interesting. Conditionals and all that." Utarou continued, pointing to Barney's skill, Dragon Dance. It allowed Barney to activate the skill and temporarily gain up to 50% of the speed of the nearest Dragon.

"That's true enough I suppose." Barney nodded.

"And looky here, Henrek's got the same one. But you guys don't fight the same at all…" Utarou mumbled as he pointed to Barney's Tier 3 skill, Dragon Slayer.

"Well if ya read the description, it says it improves ya technique for fightin' any kinda dragon." Barney explained, expanding the skill to show its description.

"And what about that one there you haven't unlocked, that's a Tier 3 too right?"

"Yeah, I ain't too interested in that one…" Barney mumbled, cautiously opening it so he didn't accidentally purchase it.

The Tier 3 Skill, Dragon Blood. Grants the user the blood and voice of Dragons.

"WHY HAVEN'T YOU SHOWN ME THIS ONE?! I COULD MAKE DRAGON GIRLS NOW!" Utarou shouted, jumping in the air.

"Yeah I was thinkin' you'd say that. That's why I ain't wanted to show ya. Plus turnin' Dragon ain't exactly good when the wife craves dragon meat." Barney sighed as they reached the hideout, which had been sealed shut with a large boulder.

"Oi! Duke Deranged is here and we ain't dyin' yet!" Barney shouted, knocking a secret code onto the boulder. The guard on the other side of the rock quickly ran further into the cave, and the sound of distant cheers could be heard as Barney prepared to push the large rock aside.

"- And just imagine their tails, would they angle up or down? And going from Dragons to Lizard, Snake, Dinosaur girls would be easy… Maybe even Harpys and other Bird Girls too…" Utarou pondered as the hiding people emerged from their cave, Julia holding baby Barney Junior coming out first.

"He's finally settled down once you came along…" Julia whispered, incredibly weak from the journey from the village to the cave.

"Woah woah! Settle ya'self there miss, I think I should be carryin' the both of ya's!" Barney laughed, effortlessly picking up the bone thin woman in one arm and the child in the other.

"T-thanks… It's the least I could do, your wife's cooking has been helping me a lot…" Julia blushed as she was effortlessly hauled away, the rest of the village slowly making their way out while the rain was gone.

"Ah Dragon Girls… just imagine them cooking a meal with their fire breath…" Utarou imagined as the people of Dryholm walked past him.

"Why can't Barney be the duke instead…" The villagers thought as they looked upon the pervert with disdain.

 

[m4gpier]

A month had passed since the attempted invasion, and life in Dryholm had continued relatively unchanged.

Though a new church had been built, nothing strange for the young city in the making.

Everyone had finally something approximating their own home, with the surrounding forests outside the walls of the hills being chopped down to make way for farm land for when the spring arrives.

And Utarou had been hard at work building up understanding on something of vital importance for his mission of making a new Tier 4 skill.

"So you gained XP when you petted your first dog, but you've gained experience every time you killed an animal…" Utarou muttered as he connected his conspiracy cork board like a man trying to prove that reptiles had infiltrated the government.

"Y-yeah…" Hope mumbled, she'd been the primary object of his study due to her having a much more narrow band of prior experiences, making it easier to test things.

"I can't believe… you've never touched a dog before." Julia coughed, she'd also been the secondary object of study for Utarou; Given she'd been born ill she'd never been able to gain a single skill point to use.

A ripe opportunity for Utarou, if could work out how to heal her, or more importantly, force her XP points to go towards unlocking more skill points, he could shape her skill tree however he liked, ripe for experimentation.

"There aren't many small animals in the north…" Hope mumbled embarrassedly.

"Doesn't matter, look-" Utarou declared, pointing towards his corkboard.

"- I'm classifying XP gain in 3 categories. New Achievements, Difficult Achievements and Hunting Achievements." Utarou declared, pointing at the three lists he'd made from the last week of observing Hope and Julia's XP gain very carefully.

"Whenever you do something for the first time, you seem to always gain XP, regardless of how mundane it is." Utarou explained, pointing to his list of things Hope and Julia and their associated XP gains.

"From what I can tell, it's only around 10 to 50 experience points. Though we're limited by the fact you're uh…" Utarou paused as he looked at the already anxious Hope and the gaunt faced Julia.

"Stuck in the village." Utarou decided before quickly moving on.

"Whenever you achieve something difficult, relatively, you gain XP based on the difficulty. Julia, you've gained at least 8 skill points just from me making you walk outside of the house… but your XP bar just overflows and the skill points don't seem to go anywhere…" Utarou mumbled as he pointed to his third category of XP gain, hunting.

"Yet Hope, once you've done a new task it stops getting you XP, except for slaughtering animals…" Utarou muttered as he pondered the situation.

"I-I never like it you know…" Hope retorted softly.

"Hmm, I think I have an idea." Utarou smirked.

"W-what?"

"We're going to put May on a diet!" Utarou declared.

"WHAT?!" Hope and Julia shouted in unison.

…​

"You sayin' I'm fat?" May snorted indignantly as she held Junior in one arm and stirred the large pot of assorted monster meat soup. Utarou was joining the family for dinner, and of course, discussing his future plans.

"Ye-" Utarou began before having his head punched off by Barney.

"Keep yer mouth shut if ya knows whats good for ya." Barney barked.

"Muwah…" Junior babbled as he tried to grab a knife from the counter.

"Oi! Keep ya grubby mitts to yourself ya little vermin!" May chastised lovingly as she handed Junior to Barney.

"The wee man has a pension for sharp things like his old man it seems!" Barney laughed as he rested Junior on his lap.

"A fine warrior for the next generation, but May you haven't gained any new skills recently, right?" Utarou asked seriously as she began pouring the meal.

"Can't say I have, what's it to ya?" May hissed, throwing the leftover monster parts to Rhiney who was sitting in his corner.

The pink and white dragon had been thoroughly tamed, with a small bed in the family's home and subsisting off of leftovers and the souls of the dead.

"Well I think you might have hidden in your skill tree the ability to heal Julia's condition. We just need to figure out a way for you to grind out XP." Utarou explained as May gave him the smallest and worst portion of the soup she could.

It was soup, so, this mostly consisted of the bits she'd scoop out and wouldn't even give to Rhiney.

"I dunno what ya thinkin', ya can't just decide you want XP, just a thing what happens naturally." Barney said, shaking his head.

"Oh? Oh! Really now? Tell me, May, how much experience do you get from preparing that soup you so lovingly prepare every day?" Utarou asked with a smirk.

"Nun, and you knew that already you little bastard." May sneered annoyed at Utarou's antics.

"And Barney, how much experience do you get from preparing the soup?" Utarou continued.

"Uh, I dunno, some?" Barney shrugged.

"Thus! We need to get May doing something she's never done!" Utarou declared.

"Be carefully with ya next words boy." May sneered as she stirred her soup.

"EXER-" Utarou began before being swiftly cut off by Barney. Specifically, his head being cut off.

"Thank you darlin'." May sighed as Utarou regenerated another head.

"Fine, fine, but I need to figure out how to optimize your XP gain. You WILL cure Julia and we WILL save this town from the bastard Adam!" Utarou declared.

"Yeah… you better because we ain't got nowhere to run if you mess this up." May scowled.

 

[m4gpier]

May swung her wooden sword down at Barney who easily parried it, as she was pushed back by the force Barney let out a loud laugh.

"Quiet you!" May hissed as she stepped forward to continue her sloppy attacks while Hope played with Barney Junior just nearby in their homes small garden.

Utarou had insisted that May take up sword training, something she'd never particularly been fond of, as a method of building XP, amongst other things.

"Papa winner!" The now 3 year old Barney Junior babbled as he tried to run towards his parents in the middle of their mock fight.

"They're still training silly! You'll get hurt!" Hope laughed as she picked up the rambunctious toddler before he got himself hurt.

"Hmpth!" He pouted as he tried and failed to wriggle free from her grasp.

"Settle down there Junior! Just because your mother can't get a hit on me doesn't mean she won't hit you!" Barney gloated boasterously.

May fumed as she feinted a swing to the right, as Barney went to block it she swung up hard with her boot in between his legs.

Barney fell to the ground as May threw the sword on him.

"You learn to watch ya damn mouth!" May huffed as she turned around, seeing her XP roll up as she gained another skill point.

"Oi Utarou, looks like that bigg'n you wanted is good to go." May sighed as she went to sit by Hope and Barney Junior who was laughing manically. Utarou perked up and looked up from the book he'd been reading.

"Mama win mama win!" Barney Junior declared as he raised his arms towards his mother.

"That's right! Lesson for ya young man you's gotta respect ya wife!" May said sternly to the drooling 3 year old who looked at his mother blankly.

"Okayyy, I'm hungry." Barney Junior declared as he ran off to the kitchen.

Utarou finished the page he was on, placed his book mark and quickly ran over.

"Go on then! I want to see what this Regenerative Recipe looks like finally!" Utarou declared.

"Yeah yeah yeah." May sighed as she unlocked the skill.

"Oh… Alright then…" May said suddenly as this new recipe came to her.

"Hold on I gotta go 'n cook this!" May declared as she ran off into the kitchen.

"She seems excited." Hope noted her own skill growth having plateaued, leaving her with enhanced senses and reflexes, the only monstrous trait being her cat-like eyes.

"If this works, then oh boy all the XP Julia is going to get…" Utarou grinned manically, rubbing his hands together as he could only imagine what a lifetime of unused XP for him to play with could do.

"Heh, you still look really gross when you do that." Hope noted as she got up.

"Where are you going?" Utarou asked, not registering the gross comment.

"Henrek should be back from patrol by now, he should get to see his wife at home right~?" Hope cooed as she fiddled with her ring. Utarou rolled his eyes.

"If he wasn't such a prude you could've had a full litter by now…" Utarou grumbled, annoyed that his plans for evolving Hope's legacy skill had been delayed by her insistence on being with Henrek and Henrek's "slow and steady approach" to the woman throwing herself at him.

"Yep, still as gross as ever~!" Hope laughed as she walked over the still grounded Barney and left the families backyard.

The town of Dryholm had been growing rapidly, being the only legal settlement in Dracons had centralized trade massively, and most importantly allowed Utarou and Henrek to invest heavily into guarding one central path.

The valley that had made up the original village had been filled with buildings, the top of the hills had the foundations of Utarou's great wall project and the outside of the city was turning into proper farmland.

He'd even managed to acquire the gold needed to pay his taxes to King Oldsier and then some thanks to a secret ability he had.

He could produce unlimited mince meat, just don't ask where he got it from.

"OH MY LORDY LORD! Barney! C'mon 'n eat this!" May shouted from the kitchen, Barney limping up.

"I hope… the regeneration works… I wanted more kids…" Barney wheezed as he hobbled over, for all his skills in killing Dragons he'd never once invested in something to fight a human.

Almost none of Dryholm's military, led by Henrek, had any abilities suited towards slaying men, let alone a Templar.

If Utarou wanted to defeat someone on the Holy Path he needed to figure out a set of skills that could counteract it, which is what he'd been spending his time researching in between mincing his meat and governing the province of Dryholm.

"HOLY! Honey this is… Utarou! Take Barney Junior out! I'm feelin' REAL regenerated!" Barney shouted as he picked up his wife and threw his son out with an apple slice in his mouth and holding the pot of what May had just made.

Barney Junior walked up with the small pot of glowing red paste.

"Youtoe… Whatsh mama and papa doing?" Barney Junior asked with a mouthful of apple. Utarou grabbed the pot with the paste and the small boy by the hand.

"They're working on a baby brother or sister for you. C'mon let's hurry and give this to Julia!" Utarou declared with a wide grin.

"Yay! Yulia!" Barney Junior cheered as Utarou walked him through the town.

"Mornin' Governor!" One of the townsfolk said cheerfully.

"Think today's the day you get that monster girl?" A woman asked with a smirk.

"He's looking excited, maybe I should call the guard just in case!" An older man chimed in, causing the people on this main road to laugh. It'd finished being cobbled last month and had become the main through road from the one entrance of the city to the other, acting as the main market. Utarou spent little time here, but when he appeared he was often ranting and raving about his dream of monster girls.

The townsfolk had grown used to Utarou's antics and felt quite comfortable openly mocking him, since evidently Utarou couldn't care less.

"I think it is!" Utarou laughed as he rushed to Henrek's childhood home, now only housing him, Hope and Julia.

Utarou practically kicked the door down.

"JULIA! WE HIT THE BIG ONE!" Utarou shouted as Barney Junior ran into the house to find the cookies that Hope kept in the pantry.

Julia sat in a dark corner of the room with a large blanket to keep her warm during this summer, her skin was grey, hair thin and eyes tired.

She had been struggling, May's continual improvements to the healing capacity of her food had kept her alive for this long, but failed to cure the root cause of her ailment.

This was their last shot.

"Oh… hey Junior…" Julia wheezed, her condition had been decaying.

"Cookiesss…" Junior replied as he ran past her.

"In the… bottom shelf… this time…" Julia laughed, revealing Hope's latest hiding spot as Utarou sat next to her, a spoonful of the glowing red paste in his hand.

"Eat this." Utarou said seriously as he held the paste up to Julia's mouth.

Julia looked at Utarou and gingerly took a bite.

…
​

"Honey~!" Hope cried, jumping into Henrek as he debriefed the town guard about the monster population around the perimeter of Dryholm.

"W-woah! S-settle down!" Henrek blushed as Hope nuzzled him.

"Heh, this is what you get for waiting so long to marry her." One of the guards jeered.

"Shuttup. There's a monster nest somewhere in the south west, you get to deal with it now." Henrek scoffed as he walked away, Hope still clinging onto him as he put his arm around her shoulder.

"You gotta stop doing that, it keeps interrupting my reports to the wall guard." Henrek sighed as he made his way through town, still in disbelief at how much the place had changed in what felt like a flash.

His backwater had suddenly turned into a real city, an albeit small one.

It was a mixed feeling, one he'd struggled to reckon with ever since his mother died, hating the beginnings of this change.

"You gotta stop leaving your wife all alone~" Hope said, letting the word roll off her tongue like a giddy school girl.

Henrek sighed.

"You've got Julia at home right?" Henrek offered. Hope pouted.

"Yeah… about that… I think we need to have a conversation about Julia, I don't think she's going to-" Hope began, before being interrupted by a scream.

Julia's scream.

Henrek and Hope disappeared as they both ran towards their home.

"JULIA WHAT'S WRONG?!" Henrek shouted as he ran through the already open door, to see Utarou forcing a blanket over a convulsing Julia and crying Barney Junior.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU-" Henrek kicked Utarou off as Hope went to soothe Barney Junior.

"Hey, hey hey it's okay… What happened?" Hope said softly as Junior sobbed.

"Y-Y-Yulia's… melting!" Junior sobbed as he pointed towards the convulsing mass.

"W-wait it's not-" Utarou said as he poked his head through the Utarou shaped hole in the wall Henrek had made, being interrupted by Julia kicking off the blanket.

She was being regenerated, her entire body was being forced through a metamorphosis like a fleshy butterfly.

Her skin and muscle melting off the bone and returning only to melt off again, her face twisted into a thousand degrees of agony. Every single broken part of her body was being regenerated, which for Julia meant every bone, every patch of skin, every tooth, needed to be replaced.

It was horrible.

Until suddenly, it stopped.

Julia, looking like a different version of herself, lay lifelessly on the ground.

"You… You…" Henrek stammered, stomping towards Utarou as he felt a tidal wave of anger flowing through him.

"W-w-wait just give it a minute! She's probably just healing!" Utarou exclaimed before Henrek picked him up by the neck, crushing his windpipe with one hand. Hope had already pulled Barney Junior away so he couldn't see, she didn't know what to say so she said nothing.

There was a few moments of silence as Henrek fumed, holding Utarou up, knowing he couldn't choke the life out of him but wishing he could.

Until suddenly, a sharp inhale from the floor.

"AUHRGH!" Julia exclaimed as she hacked up a mound of bloody flesh from her chest.

"Julia!" Henrek and Hope gasped in unison, Henrek dropping Utarou to kneel down to his sister.

She looked different. Her face was rounded, her eyes had life to them, her skin was smooth.

She was healthy.

And for the first time in her life, she felt something.

She opened up her skills menu as Henrek hovered around her, unsure if he should hug her, help her up or cry tears of happiness.

Utarou's neck snapped back in place just in time to see the sight he'd been eagerly awaiting.

Julia's banked XP that couldn't be converted into Skill Points all came rushing in at once.

And it came in quick.

Utarou had calculated that the average person had around ten skills they'd unlocked by Julia's age.

These were usually seven tier 1 skills, two tier 2 skills and one tier 3 skill.

This meant the average person spent around 15 Skill Points throughout the first two decades they'd lived, and much to Utarou's dismay, they'd spend them poorly on short term benefits.

Utarou saw Julia gain that entire lifetime worth of skill points in the span of a few seconds.

And he had very optimized plans for these skill points.

 

[m4gpier]

Julia ran around the town like an uncontrollable child.

"What's this? What's that? All this is so different, oh my gosh!" Julia shouted as she excitedly picked up a lemon, something imported from the eastern continent, the merchant looking at the overly excited girl and towards Henrek.

"I'm sorry, she's uh, excited." Henrek apologised as he pulled Julia back.

"Can you calm down a little? You're scaring everyone." Henrek chastised, but Julia slipped out, stuck her tongue out at her brother and ran off into an alleyway.

"Currently she just has her legacy skill run away and the tier 1 skills of increased athletics, acrobatics and healing." Utarou noted as he caught up with Henrek.

"And she's very over-stimulated right now! Can we slow down a bit please?! Can you tell her to slow down!" Henrek exasperatedly begged as he waved towards the roof that Julia had clambered on top of.

"I'M QUEEN OF THE WORLD! WOOHOO!" Julia shouted at the top of her lungs.

"No can do, as soon as we brought BJ-"

"Junior" Henrek corrected.

"- Back to his parents she'd already wasted some skill points." Utarou sighed as Julia jumped across buildings and towards the Avoisian Church Vicar John had constructed.

"You weren't trying particularly hard to stop her." Henrek grumbled as he ran through the street to try and catch up with Julia.

May's new recipe had healed Julia's body fully though it was something of a brutal rebirth for her given how much of her needed to be healed, and Barney Junior hadn't stopped crying until he was brought home by Hope.

She had the same brown hair and dull eyes as her brother, though her skin was still porcelain white, and her body was no longer emaciated though was clearly on the edge of what could be a healthy skinny weight.

Now they were visiting the Vicar for some guidance, which Utarou was planning on using to help inform his plans. Vicars were important spiritual guides, and spirituality in this world included the skill tree.

"HURRY UP YOU TWO! I'm feeling like a trillion zillion million gold coins right now!" Julia exclaimed as she jumped a particularly large gap, tripped and fell onto the slanted roof of the church.

"JULIA!" Henrek screamed as he quickly cut through the wrought iron gates and prepared to save his sister from falling to the ground.

"Relax, I'm fine…" Julia pouted as she got up and jumped down, landing slightly wobbly as she nursed a cut on her elbow, ears perking up as she quickly checked her menu to see she'd gained another skill point just as Utarou ran up, panting heavily from the slight jog.

"See! Told you that was a good idea!" Julia smirked as she punched Henrek in the shoulder.

"You've gone crazy…" Henrek groaned as he ripped off a piece of his shirt and used it to tie the small cut on Julia's arm.

"I feel alive! I've spent nearly twenty years either stuck in bed or in a chair! I want to run! Spin! Jump! I wanna go Dragon hunting with you! I want to see beyond the hills! ARGHHH! I'm soo excited~!" Julia squealed.

"A-a-and you can do all of that… just… please… stop… getting skills without… asking me… first…" Utarou wheezed as Vicar John approached the trio, a disappointed look painting his face as he saw the hole in his nice iron fence that Henrek had just made.

"Fine fine fine! But c'mon you gotta admit that was pretty cool!" Julia said as she placed her hands on her hips proudly.

"I see the young Porak has recovered… Quite dramatically it seems as well." Vicar John said as he noted the mud on his roof.

"Porak?" Utarou asked.

"It's our last name, I told you when I… Whatever it doesn't matter. Vicar, we need your guidance." Henrek asked, quickly looking back at the broken fence.

"I'll have the guard repair that right after as well… Sorry." Henrek sighed as Julia looked around the new graveyard for her mother, to finally pay her respects.

"Of course, young Julia we'll just be inside." Vicar John explained as Julia crouched by her mother's grave.

"Kay…" Julia sighed, tearing up slightly as she started mumbling to the grave. The three men entered the Avoisan Church, a simple stone building with a circular glass window depicting a figure of the first Blessed Being, known as the Savior being quartered, giving the church its symbol of an X-like shape.

Vicar John took the two into his room and office just to the side, preparing a pot of tea for them both.

"Now, Julia is an interesting case, I've never heard of someone healing so dramatically after such a long life of illness. I'm sure you have some plans for what you'd like her to invest in however." Vicar John sighed as he looked at Utarou take out his notebook.

"You know it, don't want to just copy Henrek here since he's pretty much just on the path isn't he?" Utarou asked with a smirk.

"For the most part." Henrek shrugged, opening his skill tree, revealing his legacy skill Run Away was the same as Julia, also sharing increased athletics and increased healing.

His path towards the Tier 3 skill, Dragon Slayer began from those two, however there were several branches Utarou was interested in.

"Such variation is expected, the church has trained me to verify what skills are dangerous, we can't expect everyone to live on the Holy Path." Vicar John explained.

"Yeah yeah, but what makes a skill dangerous?" Utarou perked up, he wanted the most dangerous and risky skills for the biggest rewards.

If they wanted a hope in hell of reaching a new Tier 4 skill, they'd have to go where no one has gone before.

"I'd rather not tell you, however given this was a direction from Templar Adm…" Vicar John sighed, pointing towards a skill that branched from Increased Athletics and Increased Healing, called "Battle Regeneration."

"Notice how its border is filled with lines?" Vicar John asked.

"No?" Utarou said, looking at the seemingly ordinary skill. Vicar John zoomed in, revealing several hair thin lines that were cut into the border of the skill.

"These are cracks, fractures, they lead down to more unstable skills, more liable to create disharmony in the soul and lead to physical annihilation." Vicar John warned Utarou, as Utarou continued eagerly writing notes.

"Alright, so they're the skills I'm gunning for then." Utarou nodded.

"Noway! I'm not letting you put my sister in danger intentionally!" Henrek protested, quickly closing his skill menu.

"Relax, I'll be fine." Julia exclaimed dismissively as she joined the three men, opening up her skill menu.

"What's going to make me the strongest and let me do the most, Vicar?" Julia asked eagerly.

"Urgh, if it were up to me I'd have you go down the Matrilineal Path like your mother, primarily skills relating to knowledge that would benefit child rearing and-"

"Yeah no thanks, Utarou what are you thinking?" Julia interrupted, turning to Utarou who was examining her skill tree as best as he could.

"I think Battle Regeneration sounds fun." Utarou smirked as Vicar John shook his head.

"I'll pray you will be forgiven when this goes wrong." Vicar John sighed.

"Julia I don't-" Henrek began before being silenced by Julia putting a finger to his lips.

"C'mon! What's the worst that could happen? Why would God give us these skills if he didn't want us to use them huh?" Julia smirked.

"The same reason we have free will, though you don't seem particularly interested in theology at the moment." Vicar John lamented as Utarou and Julia began plotting what abilities to unlock for her.

 

[m4gpier]

"Alright! Nothing up ahead, we're good to go!" Julia shouted from atop the tree she'd climbed, jumping down the 4 story height, crashing through a few branches but still landing effortlessly.

"You could at least pretend to be careful…" Henrek sighed as Julia flicked a few thorns out of her arm, the wounds quickly closing and joining the myriad of minor skin blemishes she'd been accumulating.

"Whattt, Utarou ordered me to do things dangerously, right~?" Julia cooed as she looked to Utarou who was busy harassing Hope about the baby.

"You've been eating enough protein? And fruit? And milk? And-" Utarou was cut off by May smacking him around the back of the head, causing the 4 year old Barney Junior to laugh as he held his fathers hand.

Utarou's squad was going on a "reconnaissance" mission, but it was more of a family picnic and vacation for family under the guise of official business.

It'd been a year since Julia had been healed, and she'd been rapidly moving through her skill tree, a very min-maxed path at Utarou's design. They only had 2 more years until Templar Adam returned to find a Tier 4 skill, with results being not particularly impressive.

Utarou had been going one branch primarily, the healing branch, and the agility branch for whenever a skill had pre-req. He'd based this off of Henrek's skill tree which had a diverse enough investment in those skills for him to try and push it further.

This had resulted in Julia being extremely nimble, flexible and able to easily bounce back from pretty much anything. Currently, Utarou and Julia were gunning for something that seemed like a big leap, a skill that Vicar John had no idea about other than it was "something the church would never allow anyone to pick."

That skill was "Aspect of Water", it had a dotted border and until they unlocked it, they wouldn't see any description.

And of course, Utarou had ordered Julia to do whatever new things she could in order to get the required XP as quickly as possible, which Julia had interpreted as doing as much dangerous and stupid stuff as she could.

Which, being the adrenaline junky she was, she was happy to oblige.

"Utarou, can you order her to calm down then…?" Henrek asked meekly as Hope left Utarou to be chastised by May and to join her husband.

"I think he's a little busy, what did you tell the guys at the garrison we were doing anyway?" Hope asked as she leaned against Henrek.

"Recon for a new outpost. Though really I just found a beautiful lake that I wanted to show my friends and family." Henrek said warmly, looking back to see Utarou being kicked by a particularly cranky May.

"... And Utarou as well I suppose." Henrek sighed as he helped his wife down the hill.

"Aw c'mon, he's just a scamp." Julia laughed as she slid down the hill, hands on the back of her neck the whole way down, until she tripped on a rock and fell flat on her face.

"Something about those regenerative abilities, they lead to madness…" Henrek lamented as he and Hope gingerly walked down the hill as May finished up her rant against Utarou.

"AND YA BETTER NOT BE THINKIN' OF PULLING ANY OF THAT NONSENSE ON ME YA HEAR?!" May roared as she returned to her family.

"Feeling better?" Barney asked with a smirk.

"Absolutely, now Junior, remember, violence is never the answer okay?" May said softly.

"Okayyy." Junior exclaimed, giving a thumbs up.

The group soon arrived at the lake that Henrek had found on his patrols, it was a small forest clearing with a large waterfall opposite the clearing.

The ideal picnic location needless to say, well once Henrek had cleared the monsters of course.

"Sheesh! Ya weren't lying Hank! This is a right good spot!" Barney whistled as he placed his picnic basket

"I know right? Plus…" Henrek smirked as he grabbed his fishing rods.

"... I just know there's gonna be something tasty in there." Henrek said as he tossed Barney a fishing rod.

"Oh uh, Utarou we didn't bring ya any fishin' rod hope ya don't mind." Barney added as he looked back to see Utarou had already wandered off with Julia.

"Looks like ya might be gettin' a brother in law soon!" Barney laughed as he patted Henrek on the back.

"I pray every night to God that she finds any other man than him…" Henrek sighed as he sat on a large boulder and cast his rod.

It was a pleasant evening for everyone. Barney, Junior and Henrek spent their time fishing while May and Hope prepared the meal. Julia and Utarou reappeared, hauling a large monstrous spider Julia had just killed with them.

"Argh, nasty things, meat's no good, not bad for a stew but me pots back at home. We'll give it to Rhiney." May lamented before whistling for the baby dragon.

"I didn't want to eat it! I just wanted to show big bro what I killed!" Julia laughed as Rhiney came flying in from the sky, having grown to be the size of a horse, with an ethereal energy covering his white and pink body.

"All yours." May offered, the dragon nodded and wandered over, pawing at the carcass uninterestedly, but still nibbling it.

"Rhiney!" Junior exclaimed as he ran to greet the dragon, who had taken to patrolling the region, having marked it his territory. Very useful in keeping out other dragons.

Utarou beheld his progress, he just needed to make it past Templar Adam.

"Ahem… since ya all here I may as well make the announcement." May sighed as she saw Barney motioning her to say something.

"Argh I ain't good at this! Barney you just say it!" May flustered as she sat on the ground.

"Junior, ya getting a sibling!" Barney declared, suddenly jumping up.

"A wha?" Junior asked as he hugged Rhiney's leg.

"Woah! Congrats!" Henrek exclaimed in shock.

"Brilliant! More-" Utarou began before being cut off by May, specifically his tongue being cut off.

"I TOLD YA TO NOT DO ANY OF THAT! I can't be dealin with that nonsense for the rest of the year." May growled as Hope laughed.

"Congratulations!" Hope said softly as Julia nodded, taking a sneaky bite out of some of the food the ladies had already prepared.

She felt herself get a skill point, during the commotion, she decided to unlock the skill, Aspect of Water, with its dotted boundary.

She felt strange, her eyes suddenly changed to a bright blue, and her body was completely relaxed.

But more importantly.

"OH MY GOD!" Julia screamed, taking attention away from May.

"What?! Is it a monster?!" Henrek shouted, getting his sword out, Henrek ran over and looked at Julia's skill tree.

"YES! YES HELL YES! WE DID IT!" Henrek celebrated, jumping into the air like a mad man.

"W-wait what?!" Henrek asked as he ran over to see that Julia, now had a new skill, everyone else crowded around to see.

It didn't look like any skill they'd seen before.

Because it was a legendary Tier 4 skill, with a wobbly border that barely looked like a circle.

A newly discovered Tier 4, called Total Cellular Control.

It had one pre-req, the newly revealed Tier 3 skill, Body of Water.

All they had to do now was level Julia up, and Dryholm was saved, Utarou's experiment would be proved correct, and all would be well in the world.

 

[m4gpier]

"AND HAHHH DE HAHHH!" Julia cheered as she drunkenly danced atop a table to the cheers of the Dryholm's guard and the dismay of Henrek.

She slipped off the edge, her neck twisting as she landed on the ground. The crowd gasped for a moment until she jumped back up.

"AIHMM LIKE WATER BITCHESS!" Julia laughed as she wandered over to her frustrated brother, gleeful Utarou and concerned Vicar.

"This is certainly beyond my realm of knowledge." Vicar John sighed as he stared at the strange looking skill.

Body of Water was the kind of skill he would have prevented from being unlocked at all costs.

Total Cellular Control was also a legendary Tier 4 skill, one which his religion claimed to have the only Holy Path towards.

"Perhaps The Savior kept this knowledge hidden from us for a reason… I can't support it." Vicar John lamented as he closed Julia's skill tree.

"I'm hardly a fan of it either." Henrek concurred.

"You two are just being worry warts, what's the worst that could happen?" Utaoru laughed as Julia drunkenly stumbled towards the group, putting her arm around Utarou.

"Ouch, that 'Liquid Damage' skill hurts you know." Utarou moaned. Julia had unlocked the initial pre-req skills pretty quickly for Body of Water, the latest one being Liquid Damage, making all of her fluids deal damage.

Including the sweat she was covered in from her little performance.

"Bpathhh you're like healy anhs sthufh. BARKEEP! GIMETH ANOTHER!" Julia demanded as she continued to lean on Utarou and beckoned towards the Innkeeper of Dryholm's.

"Right away ma'am." The man nodded with a sigh.

The town guard had just returned from a successful mission to clear out a spider's nest near their new outpost by the lake and were celebrating, Julia of course having been the undisputed most valuable person in the mission was celebrating the hardest.

Additionally, she was celebrating the inevitable unlock of her Tier 4 skill and creating history, she just needed a bit more XP and she'd be able to unlock Body of Water, with 18 months she'd have more than enough time to get it as well.

"Are you sure you need to unlock the skill? I mean, it's there, we can see it on the menu…" Henrek whispered into Vicar John's ear.

"I doubt Adam will be satisfied with just seeing it and not knowing what it will do…" Vicar John sighed, shaking his leg anxiously as he thought about the shape of Body of Water.

It wasn't like any skill he'd seen before, only heard about, in the tales of demons and of holymen led astray by temptation.

"I can only pray God will forgive our foolishness." Vicar John said as he left the bar.

"Not staying to party?!" Utarou asked with his usual optimism.

"No, I can't. It all sickens me." Vicar John hissed.

"Tough crowd, oh yeah Henrek how's Hope?" Utarou asked, it'd been a month since their picnic and Hope was on bed rest, due any day now.

"She's fine…" Henrek muttered dismissively, clearly things were not fine but he was hardly in the mood to discuss it with Utarou of all people.

"You still haven't told me what skill you guys picked, better not have been something boring!" Utaoru laughed as he smacked Henrek on the back before walking over to Julia, who had managed to get herself stuck in a cupboard showing off her new contortion skills.

"Because if I told you, you wouldn't leave us alone. I know Hope wanted something else but I couldn't…" Henrek thought to himself as he swirled his brown liquor.

"Alright guys I should probably head back to the wife and-" Henrek began before being interrupted by Julia's shouting.

"WAIB A MINUBTE! IT'S HERE!" Julia exclaimed, opening her menu to reveal she had just crossed the threshold to gain another skill point.

The last skill point she needed to unlock Body of Water.

"FREE DRINKS ON ME! TONIGHT WE CELEBRATE ALL NIGHT!" Utarou shouted, jumping up onto a table gleefully.

"Wait, Julia hold on, not while you're drunk." Henrek exclaimed as he quickly made his way across the bar to his sister.

"THISH ISH A TOSTH!" Julia shouted, raising her empty flagon of booze, and without hesitation, unlocked the skill.

It happened in an instant.

One moment, Julia was standing, happy as she'd ever been, living the life that had been denied to her to its fullest.

The next, there was a puddle of blue goo, a pile of clothes and a flagon on the ground.

The room was silent.

And they were all looking at Utarou, who was looking at the puddle, waiting.

"W-w-wait! She'll rise up! She's just a slime girl now! She'll be fine!" Utarou shouted confidently, but Henrek was expressionless, with the only hint of emotion being pure rage just behind his eyes as he snapped Utarou's head off with his bare hands.

"This is a coup. Frederick, get the cage." Henrek commanded coldly.

"H-hey Henrek! She's just learning how to use her new body! She'll be fine in a minute!" Henrek blathered as Henrek held his spine, preventing it from regenerating.

"She's gone, and you killed her." Henrek hissed, Utarou feeling his stomach drop.

Well, his stomach had already dropped but, figuratively.

Utaraou kept looking at the puddle that was now Julia, waiting for something to move.

It didn't.

She was gone.

And all that was left was a pile of blue liquid that was currently seeping into the floorboards.

"Oh god, don't tell me you need a Tier 4 skill in order to use a Tier 3 skill? Who designed this stupid system…" Utarou thought with a grumble before his head was shoved into a clearly custom designed cage, his neck being painfully clamped.

"Hans, you've secured the body?" Henrek asked.

"Y-yes sir!" The slightly intoxicated Hans replied, clamping another metal device around the other end of Utarou's neck.

"Uh sir, what do you want us to do with… this?" Another man asked, picking up the flagon with a few drops of the blue liquid left in it, the rest having soaked into the floor already.

"Just… just put it somewhere safe." Henrek choked as he looked at Utarou coldly.

"I told you many years ago now, the only reason I became a night was to protect my family. My mother died under your rule and now my sister, from your hand, has been turned into this. I will not let you touch my new family." Henrek said calmly, it was almost rehearsed.

It was something he had been thinking about for a long time.

"W-what about Templar Adam?! He said he'd burn this place to the ground because of all the heresy!"

"THE HERESY YOU COMMITTED!" Henrek screamed, nearly throwing Utarou's head cage to the ground but stopping himself. He took a deep breath, saw the crowd forming outside the tavern and looked at Utarou dead in the eye.

"I have spoken with Vicar John deeply about this, the sins are squarely on your back. I have given my child a Legacy Skill advised by the Vicar, we will return to the Holy Path." Henrek declared to the audience he'd gathered.

Who, were more positive about it than Utarou had hoped.

"Hey! Don't you people see the bigger picture! Monster Girls are not on this holy path! Can't you see this is just a minor setback and-" Utarou was silenced by his throat being stuffed with a dirty bar cloth.

"SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR MONSTER GIRLS! YOUR PERVERSIONS KILLED MY SISTER AND I WON'T LET THEM KILL ANYONE ELSE!" Henrek shouted, handing Utarou's head cage to Hans.

"I need to compose myself, we'll hold a public trial in the morning." Henrek coughed, struggling to hold back tears as he felt the grief of finally losing his sister hit him.

"So dramatic, she'll be fine… Hopefully." Utarou thought, only just now considering the possibility she won't be fine and ergo, his monster girl project not being fine.

 

[m4gpier]

"C'mon Julia C'mon! Talk to me here! You've got enough XP to level up right? Right?!" Utarou hissed as he hid from Templar Adam, holding a bucket of blue goo that was once Julia.

The night was dark, stormy, the sounds of Adam's strikes against the forest and the thunder rolling across the landscape was difficult to distinguish.

"How the hell did this happen?" Utarou thought as he rushed between the bushes, time slowing to a crawl as he and Adam locked eyes, Julia's imminent demise was clear to both of them.

…

18 Months Earlier
​

"So you're just taking over and leaving me here to rot huh?!" Utarou shouted defensively as his head in a cage was thrown into the dungeon, his body chained tightly just beside him with both stumps of his neck being clamped shut.

"We're keeping you here until the proper authorities can sort this mess out." Henrek scoffed, tossing the key to a nearby guard.

"Hans, make sure no one gets their hands on this." Henrek ordered as he left Utarou alone, shutting the door and leaving swiftly.

"So Hans, since when the hell did we have this?" Utarou asked non-chalanetly as he looked around, he'd been entirely unaware that the watch tower had a dungeon built, though considering the specialist equipment they had to contain him, perhaps he could guess.

"I'm uh, not supposed to talk to you." Hans muttered as he finished checking the locks, leaving Utarou with one candle before locking the door himself.

"Well, great. This is probably a good trial run if I ever get stuck in a serious situation, I'm sure one of the many allies I've made so far will come and rescue me in no time." Utarou thought confidently.

…

15 Months Earlier
​

"Two million four hundred and fifty six thousand nine hundred and thirty two…. Two million four hundred and fifty six thousand nine hundred and thirty three…" Utarou thought boredly, having exhausted everything else to think about a month earlier he had resorted to counting.

Until, a crack of light.

"FINALLY! I've been waiting, you know!" Utarou said as his eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden flash of light.

"Urgh, it's worse that ya haven't rotted away. How the hell's you managed to make'n a deep 'n dark dungeon smell like sweaty underwear?" May complained, walking down the stairs into the dungeon.

She was starting to show, being 3 months pregnant and all.

"Hey don't blame me that my body operates with perfect hydration at all times… It is really getting moldy though so if you could hurry up and get me out of here please?" Utarou begged, his former infinite confidence having been humbled after a week of darkness.

"I'm just here cuz I figured I could'n try and give ya somethin to make it a bit more comfortable. I ain't supposed to be here y'know." May sighed as she placed a candle and book on the floor.

"W-what?! No daring escape?!" Utarou asked indignantly as he rolled towards the fire, knocking the flame into his cage.

"Honey you didn't put the-" Barney shouted from the top of the stairs, only to see that Utarou had already tried and failed to set himself on fire do to how muggy his dungeon was.

"Mans too moldy for any of that." May sighed as she walked away.

"W-wait! At least get me out of this so I can read the book!" Utarou begged.

"Not a chance, you're too much of a slippery bastard to let escape." Barney laughed.

"Barney come on! We had some good times right?" Utarou pleaded.

"Only thing you've done is bring the church into our lives! We were happy 'n such back in Nihola!" Barney retorted indigantly.

"Urgh, he also pushed me to get that ol' healin' recipe." May added reluctantly.

"Aw now honey you would've found it just fine by yourself." Barney comforted as they locked Barney back into the darkness.

"Wow! Thanks for the gratitude!" Utarou shouted as he flicked his head cage up, grabbing the wax stick with his mouth.

"This can do something, surely…" Utarou thought.

 

[m4gpier]

10 Months Earlier
​

"Oh… You've been… busy." Hope mumbled as she walked down the stairs, holding a flagon in her hand.

"Oh!? Hope! Hope finally, the first monster girl, you saved me in Mountain Keep and you'll save me now!" Utarou exclaimed, his cell becoming a curated moss pit, with ramps and holders of moss being made thanks to the limited ambilitation provided by a half melted candle stick.

"It's been so long, I learnt how to read ink in the darkness!" Utarou rambled as Hope stood just across from him.

"I… I don't know what I'm doing here… I should go." Hope mumbled as she turned to leave.

"W-w-wait! Why did you come here?! Please tell me!" Utarou begged as he hopped over with his cage. Hope looked back, looked at the flagon and sighed.

"It's… Julia. I think she's still… a-alive…" Hope stammered, placing the Flagon on the ground for Utarou to see. Utarou knocked his book down to act as a platform, hopping up to look down into the flagon.

It was nearly overflowing, clearly larger.

"Yep… Yep she's definitely growing… She can 100% still get XP like that then." Utarou nodded confidently, smirking for the first time in months.

"R-really? I knew she was still in there!" Hope exclaimed.

"What does Henrek think?" Utarou asked.

"H-he hasn't looked… This has been hidden in the look out tower since they locked you up… I check in on it sometimes and share bread with her…" Hope explained.

"Tell him! I'm sure once he see's that she's growing then he'll let me go and all will be well!" Utarou declared confidently. Hope shook her head.

"Henrek can't stand to look at her… He didn't even want to hold a funeral." Hope stammered, clutching her chest.

"He's barely hanging on, for me and Lilly… I don't think he can handle this all… The church doesn't look like it'll forgive us and… and…" Hope began to sob.

"Wait, who's Lilly?" Utarou asked, unbothered by the church's threats. He knew he had what Templar Adam wanted; he just needed to figure out how to unlock it from Julia.

"Heh, you don't know? It's our daughter… She's beautiful, you know." Hope said softly.

"She doesn't even have a cool legacy skill does she…" Utarou grumbled. Hope shook her head and laughed.

"I always thought you were strange… but funny. Thank you for everything. I'm putting her back now, in the back of the storage room, behind the curtains." Hope said, choking back tears.

"Hey you could try and free me you know!" Utarou shouted, before the door shut again.

"She's got a plan, surely… hopefulfly… Oh god Hope please tell me you have a plan." Utarou thought desperately.

…

9 Months Earlier
​

"Shhh, c'mon Rhiney lets go!" The now 6 year old Barney Junior whispered as he snuck into the watch tower.

"HEY! Oi! BJ! RHINOPLASTY!" Utarou shouted, hearing the young boy and his dragon wandering into the watch tower. Junior stopped in his tracks, deathly afraid of the mysterious voice that he thought was dead.

"R-Rhiney there's a ghost! Gettem!" Junior hissed, petrified that Uncle Utarou's ghost had come to haunt him. Rhiney obliged, kicking open the door and making his way into Utarou's moss pit, where he'd been left to mold away.

Rhiney looked at Utarou and cocked his head, the pink, black and white dragon was now the size of a large horse, with a variety of spectral flourishes.

"I-Is it safe?" Junior whispered, looking for Rhiney's approval.

Rhiney let out a bored snort and laid down by Utarou.

"Hey! It's Uncle Utarou! You remember me right?!" Utarou asked desperately.

"Y-yes?" Junior said, half remembering the weird man whom his mother would often violently attack. Seeing his head on the ground was disturbing but slightly better than it being a ghost.

"Great! Now tell Rhinoplasty here to get me out of here!" Utarou begged.

"Dad said you were a bad man." Junior said cautiously as he slowly walked down the stairs, sitting with Rhiney just by Utarou's cage.

"Yeah yeah well your dad isn't right about everything, yeah? So how about you tell the old boy here to GET ME OUT OF HERE!" Utarou begged.

"I don't think so… I was just looking for Julia, mom said she was here and I wanted to see her again…" Junior explained.

"Actually wait, where is your dad, I thought this was a watch tower shouldn't he be running in?" Utarou asked suddenly.

"Dad's fighting some trolls, told me to stay here. I went looking for Julia." Junior explained.

"Right… Tell you what, you get me out of here, and I'll show you Julia." Utarou explained.

"R-really? But… Won't Dad get mad at me?" Junior asked nervously.

"Probably! But trust me, I have a plan and it will save everyone!" Utarou declared confidently.

"From the scary man?"

"Yep!" Utarou asserted.

"Hopefully the scary man is Templar Adam… " Utarou thought nervously.

"Alright… But don't tell anyone!" Junior said, nodding at Rhiney who let out a grunt, effortlessly crushing the bars with his tail.

"FREEDOM!" Utarou declared, rolling his moldy cage out towards Rhiney's jaw. Rhiney obliged and effortlessly chomped the cage, ripping off parts of Utarou's nose. But quickly Utarou was finally able to fully regenerate his body, causing Junior to scream in horror.

"M-M-melting! MELTING!" Junior screeched at the top of his lungs.

"W-wait it's all good don't worry! All here see?!" Utarou stammered before hearing a familiar set of footsteps.

"Shit…" Utarou thought as he scrambled up the stairs, seeing Barney explode into the watch towers base.

"YOU!" Barney screamed as he went to cut Utarou's head off. Utarou dodged, his neck muscles having undergone the world's most intense 9 month long work out.

"Woah! Didn't know I could do that." Utarou remarked as he rolled across the floor to the back closet. Barney saw his son passed out in the mossy dungeon and Utarou running away. It was an easy decision, Barney went to check on his son, giving Utarou the time he needed to find Julia.

Opening up the storage closest it wasn't hard to find where Julia was, the flagon was overflowing with the blue goo and was hidden in the very furthest corner of the room, right where Hope said it'd be.

"There we go! You're just about to level up!" Utarou remarked breathlessly as he grabbed a bucket and shoved the Julia slime in, leaving the closet to see Barney standing with his son in his arms and Rhiney behind him, blocking the exit.

Utarou froze.

"Long time no see." Utarou said nervously, holding the bucket with Julia with steady hands while his knees trembled.

"You didn't threaten my son did you?" Barney asked seriously.

"Nope! He was just looking for ol' Aunty Julia here." Utarou explained quickly, holding up the bucket.

"T-that… That's where he kept it?!" Barney scoffed.

"You didn't know?" Utarou asked. Barney said nothing, before letting out a sigh.

"Y'know, despite being a perverted freak, you were at least open about everything." Barney sighed, stepping aside and sitting down on the bench, motioning for Rhiney to join him.

"I-is this… am I free to go? You're not gonna sneak attack me right? I don't think I can do that again without tearing my shoulder and I don't want to-"

"Utarou, Henrek is struggling. There's enemies on all sides now and he don't' got the stones to manage the stress." Barney explained.

"Well yeah, the guy never struck me as the most strong willed character." Utarou shrugged as he slowly made his way past Barney.

"Utarou, you's better sort out Templar Adam. I'm makin' a bet you can pull some nonsense out of your ass, because we ain't got anywhere to run now." Barney sighed, putting a hand on Utarou's shoulder.

"Y-yeah, don't worry. Dryholm's and Dracon's is all apart of my monster girl plan and you know-"

"Right right, everythin' for them there monster gals. I'll believe in ya, don't let me down." Barney scowled, pushing Utarou out into the stormy night, revealing the sounds of battle.

Dryholm's was surrounded on all sides, it was a siege.

Not by the church, but by Trolls.

"Great, just great." Utarou sighed, but he was interrupted by something course and sharp lifting him up between his legs.

"Go on! Git! Get the bastard as far away as ya can!" Barney shouted, letting Rhiney fly Utarou away, high over the seemingly endless black masses of Goblins, Trolls and Orcs.

"T-thanks!" Utarou shouted, to which Barney responded by turning his head.

"Alrighty, Julia, I hope the water is good for you…" Utarou mumbled, trying half heartedly to block the rain from the bucket, his hand slipping into the goo for a second.

It burnt like acid.

"Ouach… Waitaminute…" Utarou mumbled, sticking his hand back into the goo. It was digesting his finger.

"Maybe… Maybe she's hungry…" Utarou mumbled.

 

[m4gpier]

7 Months Earlier​

Utarou and Julia had been growing a lot in these last 2 months.

Utarou, mentally, learned how to be a strapping survivalist as he finally ate food that wasn't moss for the first time in nearly 2 years, creating clothes from leaves, and stolen leather from Orcs.

Julia, physically becoming a larger puddle of good, having to be upgraded to a larger wooden bucket with a metal handle which Utarou had stolen from a goblin camp.

Utarou had learnt through the various mumblings and whatever passed as strategy amongst Orcs that Dracons had been declared open territory by King Oldsier as some kind of peace deal to keep the force from invading the capital.

"Bastard sold me out, and for what! Just for wanting monster girls?!" Utarou thought with disgust.

"Though, a cute goblin girl wouldn't go astray, sadly it seems like they only have the men here…" Utarou sighed as he sat in a bush at the edge of a goblin camp, they were short and terrible looking creatures, with unsightly features and misshapen skulls. Only 3 feet tall they somehow possessed the strength to rip animals in half with their bare hands, and out of the invading creatures they were the weakest.

Utarou looked towards Julia, who he'd been feeding a steady diet of his hand and whatever he could scrounge up, he needed to up her XP and get her that tier 4 skill as soon as possible.

"Maybe Templar Adam will just leave us alone to be dealt with by these bastards?" Utarou thought, before quickly deciding it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Ekekek! Man thing! Man thing!" A goblin shrieked, pointing towards Utarou, immediately throwing a rock at him before running to grab one of the rusty swords they'd stolen from who knows where.

"Oh come on! I was hidden!" Utarou shouted indignantly as he picked up and began what he'd been doing a lot of these last 2 months.

Running.

He dropped the bucket's handle into the Julia puddle, causing the slime to become sturdy.

He'd learnt a lot about slime biology in these last 2 months as well. Turns out when a slime comes into contact with metal, their outer skin solidifies into a more solid shape, ideal for running.

Additionally, Slimes could get full! He found Julia could only digest roughly half her mass in one day, presumably using some of that to get bigger and the rest of it for XP, at least that's what Utarou hoped.

He hadn't figured out how, or even if Julia could communicate at this stage, but he figured she'd appreciate the meals.

…

3 Months Earlier
​

"C'mon Julia, c'mon! You can do it! C'mon! Look! He's doing it!" Utarou begged, Julia was now overflowing the massive bucket he'd stolen a few months prior.

The pair of them sat in a cave, where Utarou had found an all natural slime monster, which was slowly inching its way towards them.

"COME ON! LOOK! THIS ONE IS A STUPID MONSTER! IT CAN BARELY DIGEST MY FINGER NAILS AND YOU CAN EAT MY WHOLE HAND!" Utarou shouted desperately, he didn't know how long he had until Templar Adam arrived, but he could sense it was soon.

The air had changed, there was an oncoming storm.

And he didn't have any more ideas on how to help Julia. To keep doing what he had been doing with no success or feedback would be madness.

But what other choice did he have?

Utarou looked at the green slime, and looked at Julia's blue slime.

"Maybe…" Utarou cupped his hands and grabbed a chunk of the blue slime, dropping it onto the green slime, hoping perhaps she could take it over.

There was more blue than green, and Julia was clearly more powerful, at least in terms of digestion.

Unfortunately it seemed as if there was some missing component, perhaps that total cellular control, perhaps something else, but Utarou could only watch as the green slime effortlessly absorbed the blue slime into it's mass and changed it's colour.

"Great… Awesome… Cool…" Utarou sighed.

"Remember, if you figure this out, you won't just have slime girls… You'll have EVERY monster girl… The first step is the hardest… Remember that… you can do it!" Utarou thought, clenching his fist and punching the sky.

"YEAH!"

Utarou's perfect immortality also made it so his mental state could heal from anything.

Well, anything that wasn't total ego death, like when he thought there was no chance of monster girls.

 

[m4gpier]

6 Minutes Earlier
​

Utarou sat beneath a large tree as the night time storm raged.

Utarou couldn't remember the last time he slept properly, he was on edge with roaming bands of Goblins, the Dryholm Militia and the threat of Templar Adam.

It'd been a hard couple of months, and for all his hard work he had a nearly overflowing bucket of blue goo that was once Julia.

Or was still Julia, he didn't know anymore.

"Well well, the former governor of Dracon's, sitting in rags in the rain with a bucket of what I can only presume to be the lucky lady." A familiar voice echoed from the distance. Utarou's head whipped around to see a man clad in pure white, his presence glowing in the dark night.

Templar Adam had arrived.

"A-a-ah! Finally, it's been too long… You have that skill to check skills right…?" Utarou asked anxiously, the long awaited moment and his confidence was at an all time low.

"Hmpth, but of course." Templar Adam scoffed, snapping his fingers to open up Julia's menu.

Utarou let out a sigh of relief when it worked.

"My my! Total Cellular Control! Now that sounds fancy… I'm sure it'd be useful for this mess here." Templar Adam laughed as he kicked the bucket Julia was in, nearly tipping it over.

"And let's see, Body of Water, turns every cell in the body into a fluid, almost like a slime, my my, is this the kind of Monster Girl you were hoping for Utarou~?" Templar Adam asked, almost mockingly as he closed Julia's menu.

"K-Kinda? I mean she has the Tier 4 skill, clearly! Right there! Deal's done right?" Utarou pleaded as he picked up Julia and took a step back.

"Utarou, Utarou, Utarou… Are you trying to tell me, this pile of sludge, is somehow equal to Perfection?" Templar Adam asked with a smirk, opening his menu to reveal the skill.

It was solid gold, glowing in a white light and had locked every other skill in his skill tree.

Its ability was simple.

"Perfected Stats. All other skills are permanently hidden after unlocking." Templar Adam said as he closed the menu.

"Now, I can't read that skills description, so it's hard to say you really showed me it." Templar Adam explained as he got out his sword.

"Hey now let's not-" Utarou began but was cut off by Adam taking a swing of his sword.

It cut through the air itself, cracking like lightning.

Utarou ran behind a tree, the ground exploding just next to him as he clenched onto the bucket of Julia as tightly as he could in the harsh storm.

"What the hell!?" Utarou screamed as Adam approached, coated in a divine light.

"Perfection, the complete rejection of skills outside of physical, magical, mental prowess. The only known Tier 4 skill and it requires the rejection of the skill tree in its entirety. Do you really think God would create a skill like that just to claim that others are equally viable? Do you really think that these training wheels are what will progress humanity further?" Adam laughed as he continued to strike, the air itself sparking with the sheer force and speed of his attacks. Utarou dodged, pushing the bucket of Julia as far away as possible, his entire low half being annihilated.

And it wasn't healing.

Now
​

"C'mon Julia C'mon! Talk to me here! You've got enough XP to level up right? Right?!" Utarou hissed as he hid from Templar Adam, holding a bucket of blue goo that was once Julia.

The night was dark, stormy, the sounds of Adam's strikes against the forest and the thunder rolling across the landscape was difficult to distinguish.

"How the hell did this happen?" Utarou thought as he rushed between the bushes, time slowing to a crawl as he and Adam locked eyes, Julia's imminent demise was clear to both of them.

So, in a moment of panic, Utarou did the only thing he could think of doing and tossed the bucket of acidic slime onto the Templar.

Adam sliced the air, splitting Julia in half, a single drop managing to get in Adam's eye.

"Ouch, that stings." Adam smirked as he looked at the puddle of Julia on the ground.

"S-she got a hit on you?" Utarou gulped. Adam cocked his head.

"She did… Oh my, she did." Adam said as he looked back, realizing what she'd let happen as the puddle that was Julia began to reform before the two mens very eyes.

She literally pulled herself together from the water, her face looking up to Adam as she formed a massive fist and tried to punch him in the face. Adam dodged but put away his sword.

"GET BACK HERE YOU DICK!" Julia shouted as she formed a pair of legs, trying and failing to attack Adam in her new body, it stretched and whipped, shifting in shape and size as she tried and failed to attack the pondering Adam.

"Organs removed, simulacra created to replicate humanoid features seemingly effortlessly…" Adam muttered with great concern as Julia kept trying to hit him.

"C'MON ONE MORE GOOD HIT AND I'LL GET A BILLION MORE XP!" Julia growled while Utarou just watched, his legs finally starting to regenerate.

"Finally…" Utarou muttered, pulling himself up as Julia and Adam danced their dance.

"FINALLY!" Utarou shouted, raising his hands into the air.

"THE FIRST MONSTER GIRL!" Utarou screamed, lightning striking as he bellowed into the forest.

Adam looked up at Utarou and quickly approached, side stepping behind Julia without her notice.

"You know, you've made my job very difficult now." Adam hissed, clenching Utarou's shoulder.

"H-hey don't think about breaking your promise! Julia show him the skill menu again!" Utarou shouted.

"Huh? Oh right!" Julia exclaimed as she quickly opened up her menu, revealing that her skill tree had changed as well.

The center of her skill tree was now a new skill called "Slimenoid", with no other skills to be seen.

It wasn't sleek like every other menu Utarou had seen, or glowing in gold like Adams, it was fluid, bubbly and most concerningly, resembled an animals skill tree more than a Humans or Monsters.

"Hmpth, I am honour bound to keep my promise to both you and the church. Unfortunately my duty to the church requires me to bring back a heretics head." Adam sighed as Julia approached, trying to get a sneak attack on Adam but only managing to splash him with a bit of her acidic body.

"Aw man, it didn't another crazy XP boost…" Julia sighed as she finally settled down, sitting down in her new body, finding her lower legs melting into the floor as she did so.

"Weird…" Julia remarked as she started experimenting with her new form.

"S-so, you know I can just give you a spare head right?" Utarou offered.

"That might just have to do for now… Though I make no promises in it assisting with wild lands status." Adam sighed.

"Wild wha-" Utarou asked before his head was cut off, a fresh one growing from his spine as Adam disappeared with the other one.

"Well… Glad that's over…" Utarou sighed, falling to the ground, and for the first time in months, falling asleep.

 

[m4gpier]

"Hey Utarou Utarou! Check this out!" Julia shouted from the top of the cliff that Utarou was struggling to climb up.

Utarou looked up and saw the slimenoid woman had shifted a substantial amount of her mass to her pony tail, and had lowered it down to Utarou.

"Uh, are you sure?" Utarou asked, cautiously grabbing the pony tail, which shifted into a hand and yoinked Utarou all the way up the cliff.

"Positiveee~!" Julia cooed as she chucked Utarou up the rest of the way, using the additional limb to pull herself up soon after.

"Impressive…" Utarou sighed, he was tired, despite having slept "like the dead" according to Julia he hadn't had a chance to slow down and recover.

While Julia had been rambunctious. She reabsorbed her pony tail into what she'd made her standard form, it was nearly identical to how she looked after healing herself, even using her slime to copy her old clothes outline.

Though Utarou had caught her experimenting with proportions when she thought he wasn't looking.

"Ahh, a monster girl all for myself and I don't even have the energy to enjoy her…" Utarou thought with a sigh.

"Why are we going this way anyway, I thought Dryholm was to the north of here." Julia remarked as she casually looked towards her home town.

"I'm surprised you had any sense of direction while in the bucket." Utarou replied as he made his way towards a familiar cave.

"You'd be surprised how far you can get with just feeling." Julia shrugged as she turned around, suddenly feeling a migraine and falling to the ground, legs sloshing as they melted into a puddle beneath her.

"You okay?!" Utarou asked.

"Y-yeah I'm fine, just hearing this… weird noise…" Julia explained as she rubbed her head.

"Welp, I guess this confirms it." Utarou sighed as he turned to the cave entrance.

"Confirms what?" Julia asked, backing away from the cave.


"That every part of you gained sentience." Utarou explained with a smirk.

"Huh?" Julia asked.

"C'mon, this is where I tried feeding a bit of you to a regular slime." Utarou said as he continued striding forward.

"OH! That's what that was! That hurt like hell you know!" Julia whined as she got up, the ringing was still in her ears but she could manage.

"I had to figure out how to level you up faster." Utarou shrugged as he entered the cave, looking for wherever the green slime had gone.

"Fair…" Julia pouted, her headache pulsing as she looked down the cave.

"Can you feel the rest of you?" Utarou asked, curious how Julia would react to the rest of her.

"No… It's just this buzzing that's coming from… there. Kind of like… Blergh it's making me feel sick." Julia wheezed as she rested against the cave wall.

"Alright you stay here, I'll see what's going on." Utarou said, venturing further into the dark cave.

Another skill Utarou had gained from his imprisonment, confidence moving through the dark, it was almost like he had night vision. He strode with the certainty that he could feel his way through the darkness, treading through the narrow path of the dark cave.

As Utarou slipped however, he had to remind himself that he in fact, did not have night vision.

He fell a good story before landing on something sticky, and screaming.

"BELahreaGHH!" A garbled voice echoed from him, in response Utarou could hear Julia cry out in pain.

"Uh, hello?" Utarou asked as he wiped the ooze off of him.

"UTeabrhlgho?!" The garbled voice asked, quickly beginning to burn his skin. The oozing mass began to rapidly grow as it ate through Utaraou's flesh.

"Oh yep, you're uh, Julia right?" Utarou asked as he felt his hand being chewed through.

"Blaerghh… Yes! Oh my god yes! ARGHHH!" This other Julia screamed as she ripped herself and Utarou out of the hole and towards the light, where the main Julia was.

"Woah." Both of them said in unison, looking at each other, the hole Julia dropped Utarou and quickly walked to the entrance Julia.

The hole Julia was about half the height of entrance Julia, with specks of green slime flowing through her body.

"What the hell is-" Entrance Julia asked as she touched hole Jullia's shoulder, trying to point to the green but stopped talking as soon as she touched the other one.

"WOAHT! GET OFF OF ME!" The Julia's said in unison, ejecting the green slime from themselves before merging back into one, Julia.

Utarou watched the whole thing with awe as Julia looked at herself with confusion, bumping her head against the ceiling thanks to the unexpected boost in height.

"Woah, that was weird." Julia remarked as she looked at her hands.

Utarou smirked.

"The slime girl race can asexually reproduce, a lesser man would accept a harem of slime girls and simply give up on the dream of every monster girl…" Utarou asserted as he stood up.

"What are you talking about?" Julia asked as she shrunk down, moving her extra mass into her hair so she could return to her normal height.

"... A lesser man would see a malleable, adorable slime girl, infinite possibilities and call it a success…" Utarou continued as he grabbed Jullia's hand.

"What are you-?!" Julia began, being cut off by Utarou spinning her on her heels and dipping her down.

"... I am no lesser man Julia, I was put on this planet for a reason." Utaraou declared as Julia literally slipped through his hands and between his legs, kicking him onto the ground.

"And what's that?" Julia asked, bemused and confused by Utarou's sudden perkiness.

"I was put on this planet not because I must create a monster girl, but because I must create EVERY monster girl!" Utarou declared triumphantly.

"Yuh huh, how about getting us back home first? There's probably another me back there who's wildly confused and scared right now." Julia sighed as she used her hair tendral to throw Utarou out of the cave and off the cliff.

"Whoops, looks I don't know my own strength anymore~" Julia laughed smugly as Utarou healed on the ground below.