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Luka's Story-Paradox	By : Ditmag Category: +M through R > Monster Girl Quest Views: 2709 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Monster Girl Quest Paradox is the intellectual property of Tortorro Restistance. I make no money from this.

Chapter List
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It took about two hours before I was able to decide how much I wanted to reveal. In the meantime, except for occasional singing from Lime, there was silence. Ilias and Alice hated each other, and Sonya didn’t want to talk about anything except answers to her own questions.
“So I guess you all have questions?” I asked, since I wasn’t sure where to begin.
“Where did you get that power?” Ilias asked. “My memory is pretty foggy, but I still know who is who in this world. And Luka doesn’t have that kind of power.”
“Power?” Sonya scoffed. “What kind of power does Luka have?”
“That one is easy to answer,” I replied. ”I come from another universe.”
“You were born in Iliasville, Luka,” Sonya scolded. “Why are you messing with these children?”
“I am not a child!” Ilias objected. “I am your goddess, and you will show me the respect I deserve!”
Alice was more interested in what I’d just said than in trying to prove that she was the Monster Lord.
“Another universe?” Alice asked. “That actually makes sense. It explains how you know me, as well as your strange power. As unlikely as a being from another universe would seem to be, if you possess a power that doesn’t exist in this universe, it’s only logical that you must be from another.”
“Hmmmm…” Ilias mumbled to herself. “I’ve been aware of the existence of at least one other world for quite some time. Promestein had been urging me to let her do research on how to visit it. Did I say yes or no? I can’t remember….”
“Hello?!” Sonya exclaimed. “I’m telling you both, Luka was born in Iliasville!”
“Sonya,” I tried to say as gently as I could. “I’m not the Luka you know.”
Sonya’s club was out in an instant. “What have you done with my Luka?!” she demanded to know.
Alice and Ilias stopped and watched with interest. I assumed they would not intervene, so I had to handle this as delicately as possible.
“Nothing!” I responded, hands held out. “I just woke up in his bed this morning!”
“Did you possess him?!”
“No! Maybe! I’m not sure!”
Now her club was cocked and ready to deliver a horrendous blow. Unarmed, I would have little choice but to use my power against her if she became determined to harm me.
“He’s not possessing Luka,” Ilias said calmly. “As you know, Sonya, since you are studying for the priesthood, the correct approach to dealing with demonic possession is an exorcism, not beating him with a club. I see no foreign presence in his body. This is actually Luka.”
“He can’t be both Luka and from another universe!” Sonya cried, close to tears. “Now tell me who the hell you are, imposter!”
“I’m Luka!” I said quickly. “Not your Luka, but A Luka. A variant of your Luka. Same person, different universe! In other universes, there are other versions of you, of Ilias, of Alice, and of Lime! Everyone you’ve ever known probably has a counterpart in another universe.”
“That still leaves open the question of what happened to this world’s Luka,” Alice noted.
“To be honest, I don’t know what happened to him,” I said dejectedly. “I can only go by my experience. The last time I was in another universe and was replacing an existing Luka, he was still inside me. You don’t see him inside me, Ilias?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Ilias said. “Perhaps you switched places? Maybe he’s back in your world?”
That would be a bit of a problem, given that I wasn’t alive in that other world. I wasn’t ready to get into THAT just yet, however.
“Sonya,” I said, trying to sound as reassuring as I could. “I don’t know how much you know about alternative universes….”
“Absolutely nothing, other than that maybe they exist,” Sonya replied, lowering her club.
“Well, a person’s essential nature doesn’t change from universe to universe,” I explained. “In every universe there are some differences, mainly due to changes in environment, upbringing, and life experiences. But no matter where you go, Alice is still Alice, you are still you, Lime is still Lime, and Luka is still Luka. I’m the same guy you knew in all the ways that matter.”
“Except you’re not him,” Sonya retorted.
“What he’s trying to tell you is that you can trust him,” Alice said. “If the Luka you knew was a good person, then the Luka standing in front of you is a good person.”
“But what about my Luka?” Sonya asked, clearly distraught.
“The last time I was brought to another world to replace another Luka,” I explained. “When my mission was completed, the original Luka returned. Whatever is going on in this world, apparently I’ve been brought here to fix it. The Luka that was already here probably didn’t have the necessary power. I do. So once we fix…. Whatever this is, you get your Luka back. Okay?”
“Okay,” Sonya said, clearly not satisfied. “I have no idea what’s really going on here. I’m not sure I believe any of you are who you say you are. I hope this is all just some very unfunny prank you’re playing on me, Luka. But if it’s not…. Then I have to trust you. Ilias appeared to you, and she would have known if you weren’t the one she was looking for.”
“Wait, Ilias appeared before him?” Ilias asked. “I did no such thing!”
“I think that was the Ilias from my world,” I said, hoping it was true.
“There’s another me walking around on MY world?!?” Ilias asked indignantly.
“No, she’s not actually here. She was only able to send a message. The world is in danger and I’m the only one who can save it. That’s what she told me, anyway.”
“She must have been the one who sent you here,” Alice observed.
“It makes the most sense as a theory,” I agreed. “She has the power and the motive. I think she does, anyway. My ilias was pretty weak, but she still has strong command of her most unique powers, such as the ability to send souls wherever she wanted.”
“A weak Ilias?” Ilias asked. “The very idea is offensive. What kind of world do you come from?”
“That’s a very complicated question with a very complicated answer. One that isn’t really relevant to what we’re dealing with right now.”
“What are we dealing with right now?” Sonya asked. “I know we’re going to Iliasburg to get better equipment. But then what? Save the world? How? We don’t even know what’s wrong with it!”
“We’re also looking for that white rabbit that made me little,” Alice interjected.
“And apparently, this world’s Luka was looking for his father,” I added. “And since we don’t know where to find your white rabbit or his father, I guess we just explore this continent and once we’re done, move on to Sentora. What else can we do?”
“Whatever you want, as long as you keep me safe,” Ilias said grumpily. “I don’t know whether this white rabbit did this to me, or whether it was Promestein or Black Alice, but whoever did it couldn’t have intended anything good. They obviously weakened me in order to kill me.”
I was pretty sure that Ilias couldn’t be killed, but then again, I was on a different world so the rules could be different. In any case, even if she couldn’t be killed, the little blonde goddess could be put out of action for millennia, which would be bad, since we might need her power to save this world. I also reminded myself about how the essential nature of people didn’t change from world to world. If this Ilias regained her full power, she might stop being cooperative and become very, very dangerous. Still, Ilias was redeemable if she didn’t always feel lonely and unloved. I’d have to make a point to be especially kind to her and remain on her good side.
“I’ll protect you with my life, Ilias,” I pledged.
“You’d better!” Ilias responded petulantly. “And I still have a job for you when this is all over!”
“You can take that up with the Luka of this world,” I said.
We continued on, mostly silently. I gave Alice and Ilias small snacks out of my backpack to keep them pacified as we traveled. The geography of Ilias Continent was different from what I was used to. The differences weren’t huge, but the distances were a little shorter and the changes a little more abrupt as a result. We’d go from forest to plains to hills in the course of only a few hours. Whatever that great catastrophe had been, it had definitely altered the geography.
I tried to recall my original journey. I had fought Lime and driven her off, and then next had been…. Yes, a slug girl. I never did get her name, even after peace between humans and monsters reigned. Over the years, I’d gotten to know a lot of the monsters that I had fought on my original journey, but I had never seen that one slug girl again. Given that I’d chased her off with salt, she probably still held a grudge.
So would I encounter her again? On almost every world I’d jumped to the last time I’d gone world hopping(as chronicled in Luka’s Story 3, on sale now!), I’d encountered Lime. Would I encounter the same monsters here? Would Granberia be in Iliasburg? That was a sobering thought. I was WAY out of practice with my swordsmanship. I wondered what I should do if she was terrorizing Iliasburg.
We never did encounter the slug girl. But there was an encounter. As afternoon began to darken into evening, I saw a little imp in the road, scared and quivering. Ilias had noticed her first, actually, I only saw her when I looked up. I’d been in my own head again, barely aware of what was around me.
“Luka, please kill the imp occupying the human walkways!” Ilias ordered.
“No!” the poor little imp cried, cowering.
“Stop being mean to the imp!” I retorted, and knelt before her. “It’s okay, little one. Your name is Rumi, right?”
“Remi,” she said quietly, shaking her head. “You know Rumi?”
“It’s hard to explain, but sorta. Is Rumi here?”
Remi nodded. That’s when I felt my legs swept out from under me. Before I could react, there was a weight on my chest. I looked up into the eyes of Rami, a third imp. Remi had apparently taken me off my feet and was holding my arms down. Remi got over her fear long enough to hold my legs down.
“Oh, we caught a delicious looking one today!” Rami exulted. “As the leader of our little band, I get to eat first!”
A quick word about these three imps. I never wrote about them before, but I had encountered them a few times over the years. The first time had been Rami alone, in the Monster Lord’s castle. I skipped over that part because it wasn’t really important. When Rami had heard that the castle had been invaded, she went looking for a place to hide and had gotten herself lost in the castle, before running smack into me. Frightened, certain that I was a hero sent to massacre monsters, she offered me several sexual favors, to which my response had been to kindly ask her to get out of my way. If you’ve played the game based on that adventure, then you may have hit her with a quadruple giga. I did NOT do that. I never struck her at all, actually. She’s little. I just went around her and she scampered off, presumably to find a room to hide in.
Later on, I encountered her with her two imp friends in Succubus Village, after the war. I’d been sent there to feed the succubi by my own wife, who thought it would be a good diplomatic gesture, and also because it was my birthday. They had been receiving succubus training and were given first crack at me that day. They performed…. Credibly. It had been a nice appetizer before the true succubi really started in on me.
After that, I saw the three of them frequently at the castle, as they visited about once a year to stay a week and enjoy the accommodations. Life isn’t easy for imps. They are one of the weakest monster races around, one of the few that a normal human can defeat. Unless they gang up on said human, as they were doing to me at the moment.
I struggled, but despite their small size, they were still monsters, and they had all the leverage and I didn’t. I was going to have to get raped in front of my friends, which would be mortifying. I knew the imps wouldn’t kill me, so it wasn’t a scary situation. Just…. Really embarrassing.
“Should we do something?” Sonya asked as Rami ripped my pants off.
“He’s the big hero who is going to save the world,” Alice snarked. “I’m sure he has things under control.”
“I knew you wouldn’t help him,” Ilias gloated. “You’d sooner see him get eaten then fight one of your evil abominations.”
“I don’t like fighting my cute little subordinates, that is true,” Alice said. “But those are just imps. Even without his power he shouldn’t be in any real danger.”
I gasped as Rami’s pussy engulfed my penis to the root. Now I’m not terribly large, a little below average, actually, but I was still shocked that I didn’t break her in half. At her small size, I had to be in her rib cage. The tightness was overwhelming. I knew I wouldn’t last long. I redoubled my struggles, which only made things worse, as moving increased the stimulation.
“Wow, he’s really going to get raped by imps,” Alice observed. “That’s pathetic.”
“Are you two just going to stand there?” Sonya asked. “Lime, let’s go help him!”
“I don’t like fighting monsters either, but those imps are attacking my friend!” Lime replied. “Let’s do this, Sonya!”
Just before I orgasmed, Rami was forcibly ejected from my chest by a club blow from Sonya. Rumi released my arms as slime covered her entire body. Remi let go of me and scampered behind a tree.
I rose to my feet and walked over to Rami to check on her. She was crying in the grass.
“Are you hurt, Rami?” I asked. “I can heal you if you’re hurt. So can Sonya.”
“I’m not healing the girl who raped you!” Sonya said hotly. “She deserves whatever injuries she suffered from my crushing blow.”
I saw no evidence that the blow had been particularly crushing. Monsters are strong and resilient. A blow from Sonya’s club to a human’s rib cage would at the very least bruise the ribs, and probably break a couple. But Rami seemed to be uninjured. Rami confirmed my diagnosis.
“N-no,” she sniffled. “She didn’t have to hit me so hard! I wasn’t going to hurt you! I just wanted to eat! It’s so hard for imps to eat! We depend on semen more than any monsters except succubi, but it’s so hard for us to get it!”
“You can’t just go around raping travelers!” Sonya admonished her.
“Why not?” Rami asked.
“Because… because you just can’t!” Sonya responded.
“You really shouldn’t do things like that to people without their consent,” I said. “So where were you three going? I know you don’t live out here. Imps don’t live in forests.”
“We were traveling to Iliasburg,” Rami sniffled. “We managed to talk a few travelers into giving us their semen at first, but in the last couple of days we only encountered religious people who wouldn’t do it. So we had no choice but to force someone! We were hungry!”
“Even imps don’t need to eat semen every day,” Alice said. “Your greed got you in trouble. You’re lucky this man didn’t kill you. He has the power. He just didn’t use it because he didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Power?” Rami asked. “What kind of power? You weren’t going to vaporize us, were you?”
“Of course not,” I assured her. “I knew you wouldn’t really hurt me, so I wasn’t going to unleash my power on you.”
“You’re a good guy,” Rami said. “So does that mean we can eat?”
“No!” Sonya exclaimed. “You can get all the semen you want in Iliasburg! It’s just a few hours north of here! You can hold out!”
“It’s not safe to travel at night,” Rami said. “So that means we have to wait until tomorrow!”
“You’ll survive,” Sonya said with finality.
“Tell you what,” I said. “how about you three camp with us tonight and we’ll go to Iliasburg tomorrow. That way you can feel safe.”
“We are not taking those…. Imps with us!” Ilias objected.
“Listen to your goddess!” Sonya added.
“Oh, now you believe I’m really Ilias?” Ilias asked skeptically.
“I think that’s really kind of him to offer,” Alice said. “Weak monsters can be preyed on by humans or more powerful monsters. Luka’s offer to protect them until we reach Iliasburg demonstrates what kind of person he is.”
“Luka’s always been a great guy,” Lime added. “Even if he’s not our Luka, he’s still Luka! I think.”
“Well, let’s set up camp here,” I said. “This is as good a place as any. Rumi, Remi, c’mon and join us! I’ll be cooking! I know it doesn’t fill… that stomach, but it’s still sustenance and you need that kind of food too.”
“Oooh, you’re cooking?” Alice asked. “Then I shall help by eating.”
Nope, the essential nature of people definitely did not change between worlds.

“This is so good!” Rami exulted.
“Your experience running that inn certainly paid off,” Alice noted.
“I don’t think it was that,” Sonya remarked. “Most inns serve terrible food. Luka’s just got the talent. He’s been good at cooking since he was a small child.”
“Food is terrible at most inns?” Alice asked. “How disappointing. I’d really been hoping to eat good food while we traveled.”
“There are plenty of places to get good food,” I responded. “Cheap inns just aren’t usually one of those places. The finer hotels are a different story.”
“Ooh!” Alice exclaimed. “I’ve got this guide that lists all of the great places to see! The Sutherland Inn in Iliasburg is one of the finest ritzy hotels in the world! They are famous for Ama Ama Dangos.”
“Well then we must try to spend a night there,” I said, smiling at Alice. She smiled back.
“I’m still not sure what kind of hero you are,” Ilias said. “But you’ll definitely keep me fed.”
“Do you even need to eat?” Sonya asked. “Being a goddess and all?”
“Oh, so now you believe I am who I say I am? In my true form, no, I don’t have to eat. I can eat if I wish to, but I don’t very often. Heaven has many things, but good cooks aren’t one of them. In this body, however, I require sustenance. I’m essentially mortal. It sucks.”
“You still can’t really die,” I said. “At least I don’t think so.”
“Probably not,” she said. “But I’ve apparently been out of touch for thirty years. I don’t want to be gone for thousands. The way the Six Ancestors’ Seal works, if this body is destroyed, I can never regain consciousness until the seal is broken.”
“Because your true body is sealed,” Alice finished. “I assume the same is true for me.”
“Except if your child body is destroyed, your consciousness is destroyed as well,” Ilias said. “Your soul would pass on. I don’t technically have a soul. I’m just holy energy personified.”
“Sorry, Ilias, I only heard the part about you having no soul.”
“Be civil,” I gently reminded them.
“I’m going to go take care of um…. An issue I have over on that hill,” Ilias said.
“If you need to pee, you can just go into the forest,” Lime suggested helpfully.
“I don’t have to pee! I don’t just have to pee, that is. If you must know, I’m going to stand on the top of that hill and see if I can contact my angels. I need more help than this weak crew can provide.”
“Say hi to Eden for me,” I said.
“You know Eden?!” Ilias asked with alarm. “What DON’T you know?”
“Anything about the specifics of this world that aren’t true of every other world I’ve been to. Which means what I know isn’t worth a whole lot.”
“Well I’m going to turn in,” Sonya said. “Tomorrow is the first big day of many big days.”
The imps crowded into a small spare tent I’d put up for them. Sonya went into her own. Lime had already gone to sleep by the fire, her body melting into incoherency as she snoozed, all identifiable features gone.
“Are you going to bed too, Luka?” Alice asked.
“Soon,” I confirmed. “I just…. Want to sit here alone with you for a bit if that’s okay.”
“Luka?” Alice asked. “Was there something between us in this other world?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Yes,” she chuckled. “The way you look at me, the way you speak to me as opposed to everyone else. You seem much more solicitous of my needs. So how did you and this other Alice meet? Was it on an adventure?”
“It was,” I replied. “the reasons were different, and the circumstances as well. Alice and I traveled alone. We saw the entire world, most of it, anyway.”
“And I assume she…. Did things to you?”
“She definitely did,” I confirmed, chuckling. “I recall that we made it to Iliasburg when she made her first move.”
“That makes sense. The magic monsters use to pleasure men can make them fall in love if it’s strong enough. That’s why Tamamo never let me near humans, among other reasons.”
“It wasn’t the magic,” I said wistfully. “It was…. So many things. When you travel with someone you learn all about them. She… you… are an amazing person, Alice. Intelligent, strong, a natural leader….”
She blushed. “Thank you, Luka, you’re very sweet.”
“You have your faults as well, which I won’t torture you by detailing,” I chuckled. “But those faults made me fall in love even more.”
“Is it painful, looking at me, knowing I’m not her?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It would probably be more painful if I wasn’t with you right now. Even though you’re not her…. It’s…. just nice to have you along on this journey. I couldn’t have succeeded in my first quest without you and I feared if I had to go on this quest without you that I would probably fail. I'm more brawn than brains. One of Alice’s favorite things to do was to call me an idiot.”
“That wasn’t every nice,” Alice said with a slight smile.
“I don’t know that I’m an idiot, but clearly I’m not as smart as you are. So having you here to guide me… it means everything, Alice.”
“Luka…” Alice started to say, but Ilias had returned.
“Nothing!” the goddess raged. “No one heard me! Have they abandoned me?!”
“No one has heard from heaven in thirty years,” I said. “For whatever reason, no one can go there, leave there, or communicate. At least that’s what I’ve heard.”
“It’s so frustrating!” Ilias said, grabbing a fourth helping of chicken and savagely biting into it. Since we would reach Iliasburg before lunch tomorrow, and money wasn’t yet a problem, I decided to just make everything except tomorrow’s breakfast since our group had become a little large at eight members. I’d restock in Iliasburg, which had better food than Iliasville anyway.
“Well I’m going to go find a decent tree to wrap around,” Alice announced. “I can’t wait to stay at Sutherland tomorrow! Good night, Luka!”
“Wrap herself around a tree?” Ilias muttered. “How barbaric. I’m going to go to my tent. You’d better get me my powers back, Luka! I’m very disappointed in your performance so far!”
Before I could respond, she stalked off to her tent. She’ll come around, I thought, smiling to myself, then went to my own tent to get some shut eye.

Breakfast went about as well as dinner. One thing about monsters, if you feed them tasty things they’ll like you, at least the ones with prodigious appetites. Not all monsters are big eaters, although the ones who are can put away several times as much as a human. I never really figured out how such monsters could be satisfied by a few teaspoons of a man’s special sauce. Alice had once explained to me that semen was so nutrient rich for monsters that draining a man was the equivalent of a four course meal. Monsters were specially evolved to make extremely efficient use of the product.
While I made breakfast, my companions packed everything up. Alice had never been much for cooking or setting up camp, but for some reason she had developed a talent for efficient packing, and so she helped load things back into the packs.
We began the now much shorter trek to Iliasburg. I estimated that if we made good time we should arrive before noon. I had a lot to think about. In every alternate world I’d ever been to, including of course the original, Iliasburg meant an encounter with Granberia. I missed her so much it made my heart ache. She had been my best friend for hundreds of years. If I faced her in Iliasburg, it would be as an enemy. I’d have to decide in the following few hours how to handle that encounter. I still had no weapon. I could probably buy a training sword in the weapon shop for the confrontation, I imagined.
I also still wasn’t sure what exactly I was doing. We were looking for Luka’s father. But there were no leads. We were looking for a white rabbit. No leads there either. We were trying to get Alice and Ilias their bodies back. How? I understood why we were traveling to Iliasburg at least. There was much better equipment to be had in Iliasburg for questing. But I was at a complete loss as to what to do after we reached the city. Perhaps Alice would have some ideas.
I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Rami was jumping around a lot. Her two imp companions simply trudged. Rami seemed to be the only one with any kind of enthusiasm. Rumi seemed perpetually bored, while Remi seemed scared of her own shadow. Both trudged listlessly along the road, Rami practically skipping and singing to herself. Lime, always enthusiastic herself, would sometimes join in with Rami.
“Rami, not that I mind your enthusiasm, but what’s with the jumping?” I asked.
“I’m trying to fly!” she replied. “But I can’t seem to stay off the ground. I think my boobs are too big!”
Now that she mentioned it, her breasts were pretty huge given her small size. She was carrying breasts only slightly smaller than Alice’s in her true form, but on a three foot tall body. Her two friends were more proportional, now that I was actually looking. Believe it or not, I don’t check out every monster I encounter. Besides, I’m more of a face guy as opposed to a boob man or a legs man. If a woman has a pretty face, I generally don’t look any further.
“She thinks that if her legs get stronger that she’ll get airborne,” Rumi yawned. “I don’t think she understands physics very well.”
“Imps have an affinity for magic,” Alice provided helpfully. “Given your proportions you might need to learn a flight spell. Your wings will make your flying easier than using magic alone. But without magic, I don’t see how you get off the ground. Imp wings are too small.”
“I do know some magic,” Rami said. “But I haven’t been able to find an elemental magic instructor. I only know a little dark magic.”
“Of course you know dark magic, you little abomination,” Ilias growled.
“I’m not a bad person!” Rami protested. “I only learned what was available to me. I’d be happy to learn holy magic if you’ll teach me!”
“First off, you don’t have an affinity for it,” Ilias replied. “Secondly, I don’t allow even my followers to use holy magic. Holy magic is reserved for angels alone.”
“I’m sorry, Ilias,” Sonya said ruefully. “It’s just that you were gone, so we started learning how to use a small amount of your magic. The priests, even the pope, said it was okay. But if you don’t want me to use magic anymore…. I serve you faithfully, Ilias. I would never knowingly sin against you.”
“You may of course continue to use your magic, Sonya,” Ilias said graciously. “You’re on a very important mission and you’ll need all the power you can get. I therefore give you a dispensation to learn as much holy magic as you can.”
“Really?! Thank you so much Goddess!”
“Thank you so much Goddess!” Alice said mockingly. “Even when you were around, it’s not as if you helped your people. You demanded their worship and gave nothing in return.”
“That’s not true!” Ilias protested. “I protected them from the likes of you, through my baptized heroes.”
In my opinion, that had actually made things worse. I decided not to get into a political debate at the moment. It wasn’t worth it. Maybe we could discuss such things once Ilias actually liked me, assuming I could get her to that point. Since Alice was still ignorant about many things, I’d have to have some discussions with her as well, about slavery and rape.
“Cool it, guys,” I said. “By my estimate, you two have gone a full day without taking a swing at one another. Let’s try to make it two in a row.”
Alice flinched and took up a defensive position as Ilias whipped out the knife I’d bought her. It wasn’t quite a short sword, but it had pretty decent length, about eight inches long. Ilias wasn’t being aggressive, however, she had simply chosen that moment to finally inspect what I’d bought her.
“This is a good quality knife, Luka,” Ilias said. “I’m surprised you could find something of this quality in that little village of yours.”
“I was surprised as well,” I admitted. “Got it for a song, too.”
“The owner let you sing for the knife?” Alice asked. “Are you that good of a singer?”
“No,”I laughed. “Figure of speech. It means the weapon was cheap despite its quality. Dave had actually been saving it for me for my quest. He sold it to me at cost.”
“You say a lot of strange things,” Alice noted. “Are they idioms from your world, or do all humans here speak as you do?”
“Oh, that story is about to get even more complicated,” I chuckled. “I’m not even sure where to begin. Let’s just say I’ve been around.”
Ilias had put the knife back in the sheathe under her white robes and had removed the bow from her back.
“This is more what I would expect,” the goddess said, experimentally pulling back on the string. I was impressed by her strength. Although it wasn’t a particularly high quality bow, it was made for a fully grown man. She drew the string back with ease. Sonya noticed as well.
“My goodness, you’re strong!” Sonya breathed. “I guess part of me still didn’t believe, but no child could possibly be that strong. I’m pretty strong myself from using such a heavy weapon for quite a few years, but even I’d have trouble drawing that bow!”
“Yes, even at a fraction of my power I’m still pretty amazing,” Ilias said with satisfaction. “I’ve lost less physically, however, then I have magically. I have almost no magical abilities. Is that true for you also, Monster Lord?”
“I’m afraid so,” Alice admitted. “I don’t think I could melt ice cream with my fire. I do have a little dark magic. Does this hurt?”
Alice tapped Ilias on the shoulder. I saw a spark of dark magic ignite from her finger. “Ouch!” Ilias said, then cursed and retaliated with holy magic, which made Alice grimace. I quickly moved between them.
“No fighting!” I ordered. I was annoyed that Alice was the aggressor.
We walked mostly in silence the rest of the way, except for Rami and Lime’s occasional singing. There were thankfully no monster encounters. I imagined that we’d have fewer of those, given that we were traveling in a group. When I’d traveled with Alice alone, she’d made a point of disappearing whenever a monster approached. That gave the monster the impression that I was alone, which made me ripe for an attack. No such attacks occurred on the road to Iliasburg, unless you count the imps, which I had to admit did count, given that they’d raped me. Sonya had had to bail me out of that one. Not my finest moment.
Iliasburg looked about the same as it had in every other world I’d been in. That being said, I’d lived a long time, long enough for Alice’s world to look very much like Earth, thanks to interactions with my birth world and the importation of huge amounts of technology. So seeing Iliasburg as I had first seen it resulted in a feeling of nostalgia. It looked so rustic without the skyscrapers and cars and apartment buildings. I also noticed something strange. Actually, what was strange is how not strange it was. I’d expected the place to be quiet, with everyone boarded up in their homes. Granberia should have been here, terrorizing the place. Yet it seemed like a typical day in Ilias Continent’s largest city.
“What’s wrong, Luka?” Sonya asked. “You seem a little weirded out. Is this Iliasburg not like the one you’re used to?”
“It’s not that,” I responded. “It’s more that I was expecting someone.”
“Who could you possibly be expecting?” Alice asked.
Before I could answer, a monster girl that looked a lot like a white rabbit appeared before us. She was not technically a bunny girl. I’d seen many kinds of bunnies in my life, of several different breeds. This bunny was not like any of those. She almost seemed to be a mockery of a monster girl, as if she was a human merely dressed as a rabbit.
“Perhaps you were expecting me?” the white rabbit asked sweetly. “Or maybe you were expecting Granberia?”
“Granberia is exactly who I was expecting,” I replied coolly.
“Wait, are you screwing with me?” the white rabbit asked.
“Never mind that!” Alice yelled. “You change me back to my true form right the hell now!”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the white rabbit laughed. “I like you better in that form.”
“Why did you do this to us?” Ilias asked indignantly. “Do you know what it means to do such mischief towards the goddess of all creation?”
“Oh, Ilias!” the white rabbit laughed. “I had nothing to do with your change! But I’m quite happy to see you in such a state. Perhaps I should take you out while you’re weak.”
I stepped in front of Ilias, blocking the white rabbit’s approach. “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” I warned. “Ilias is under my protection.”
“Is she now?” the white rabbit laughed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s probably best if I don’t kill you now, Ilias. You have a role to play. Just try not to destroy the world while you’re playing it.”
“What do you mean by that?!” Ilias asked. “Explain yourself, monster!”
“I don’t owe you any explanations, fake Goddess!” she laughed. “Especially when you don’t have the power to force me. But if you’d like to try to force me I think that would be fun.”
“I’ll be happy to force you!” Alice shouted. “Change me back or I’ll strangle you!”
“I think not, little Monster Lord,” the rabbit laughed. “Besides, I’m not your enemy. I’m here to guide you.”
“Guide me? Guide me where?”
“You’ll see,” the rabbit replied with a twinkle in her eye. “but you, Luka, you’re not behaving as I anticipated. I’m a little concerned by that. Perhaps it is you who needs to explain himself.”
“You first,” I said, rising to the challenge. “You say you’re here to guide the Monster Lord. Fair enough. You got her attention with your little stunt. I have to admit, sealing Alice is a pretty good attention getter. I even understand it a bit. She’s the Monster Lord. It’s very hard to get a Monster Lord’s undivided attention. But now that you have it, change her back.”
“I think I’ve already made it clear that I’m not going to do that just yet. And my, aren’t you the authoritative one? How about you try to make me do it?”
“Get her, Luka!” Ilias said. “Wait, can you only change the Monster Lord back?”
“I’m afraid so,” the rabbit replied. “I had nothing to do with your seal.”
“Don’t get her, Luka!” Ilias ordered.
“I don’t fight your battles for you!” Alice said hotly. “So I don’t need you to fight mine! Prepare yourself, white rabbit!”
I hurriedly caught Alice’s tail just as it whipped around to strike the strange monster. Alice looked at me in astonishment. It was good to see that my reflexes were still as good as ever.
“Let’s not resort to force just yet,” I cautioned. “We have no idea how powerful this person is. If she can perform a seal of that level of power, then the only way you could possibly defeat her is if you were in your true form.”
“That’s right!” the rabbit crowed. “My, how do you know so much? Troubling.”
“You’re about to be a lot more troubled,” I threatened. “Last chance, lady. Change Alice back.”
“What about me?” Ilias pleaded.
The white rabbit appraised me. The mocking look in her eyes was briefly gone as she seemed to look deep into my soul. Then her expression changed back to her more familiar unseriousness. She reminded me a little of Alma Elma in that respect.
“I ask again, fake hero,” she said. “Or what?”
“I ask you, Father time…”
“What are you doing?” she asked, now alarmed.
“Their bodies are bathed in twilight…”
“You’re not even saying it right!”
“Return their bodies to them!”
I had no idea if it would actually work. My power could theoretically do anything I could imagine. Being able to mimic a powerful but also simple spell should have been well within my abilities. It didn’t matter if I said the incantation exactly right. What mattered was my will, and my ability to envision what I wanted. I was prepared for my dramatic demonstration to land with a thud. Instead, the white rabbit stared wide eyed at the true forms of a very angry Monster Lord and Goddess. Well, not Ilias’ true form, but close enough for our purposes.
Everyone except me was shocked and stood frozen for a moment. The white rabbit was the first to recover.
“Ah, well, it’s been a great conversation, I really must be going!” the rabbit said and hurried off. That unfroze everyone immediately.
“Oh, you are going nowhere, rabbit!” Alice said, a huge smile of satisfaction on her face as she extended her arm, presumably to do something magical that would prevent the rabbit from fleeing. Except nothing happened.
“You idiot!” Alice raged at me. “You restored my body but not my power!”
“I’m not very good at this!” I protested.
“We can figure that out later!” Ilias yelled. “After her!”
For once in total agreement, Ilias and Alice raced after the white rabbit, Ilias taking to the air and Alice slithering with impossible speed after the even faster rabbit. I gestured for everyone else to wait and hurried after them. Sonya looked as if she would protest, but knew that she was even slower than I was.
Alice had gone down an alleyway after her quarry. I could no longer spot Ilias from the ground. I decided to try a different alley. If I couldn’t keep up with Alice, I could at least cover ground she wasn’t. My choice proved to be the correct one, much to my misfortune. I made it no further than halfway down the alley before I was thrown to the ground, the white rabbit ambushing me from above. She sat on top of me and began working on my pants.
“Oh, you are just full of surprises, Luka!” she said brightly. “Perhaps you are the one who needs to be taken out! I don’t think you have any idea how dangerous you are!”
One thing was clear, she had no idea how good a grappler I was, either. Her body was light and she had absolutely no leverage, sitting on my waist, which was the perfect position for me to reverse her, which I did before she could react. I had not accounted for those rabbit feet, however, as being on top of her simply gave her an opportunity to extend her legs abruptly and throw me off. She leapt at me, but was intercepted by a lash from Alice’s tail in midair. The rabbit crashed against a wall, yet hit the ground standing, as easily as a champion gymnast.
“I probably shouldn’t kill you anyway, Luka,” the rabbit laughed. “It’s hard to see how this crisis gets resolved without you. But you’re not off the hook yet, boy. I’m beginning to think that you aren’t who you’re supposed to be at all! If that’s true, I still may have to kill you. But for now, I think I’ll see how things shake out. Later!”
“I don’t think so,” Alice said coldly, wrapping her tail around the rabbit and squeezing.. The rabbit, now sincerely alarmed, struggled, to no avail. Alice may not have had her magic, but her true body was incredibly powerful. “Let me tell you how this is going to go, my cute little wayward subordinate. You’re going to change me back completely, since I don’t appreciate not having my power! Then, I promise to discuss with you exactly what it is you want to guide me towards. After you’ve explained yourself, maybe I’ll go easy on you for inconveniencing me so.”
It was supposed to sound threatening, and would have, if not for the fact that Alice’s voice jumped an octave every few words as she began to shrink. The white rabbit easily broke out of her childlike form.
“Darn it!” the rabbit said mockingly. “You were so close! See you around!”
With that, she hopped off, right over the small form of Ilias, who had just arrived in the alleyway attempting to seal off the rabbit’s escape. Alice looked at me, anger in her eyes.
“How could you be so incompetent!” she raged. “You give me my body back without my power and then it wears off just when I was getting somewhere! We had her!”
“Take it easy, Monster Lord,” Ilias said, surprisingly gently. “That was an incredibly impressive feat of magic that he performed.”
“I know!” Alice conceded, frustration filling her voice. “It was just so nice to be in my real body again! I was so close to making her change me back! How did you do that, anyway, Luka?”
“This power I have is supposedly limited only by my imagination,” I explained. “The only real limit seems to be that I have to really understand what it is that I’m doing, and whatever I do is never permanent.”
“But you can heal, right?” Alice asked. “That’s permanent.”
“Restoring something to its natural state is different from creating something new,” Ilias explained. “What kind of Monster Lord are you? Didn’t you read your magic books?”
“I can’t eat books,” Alice shot back. “But I did know that! I just… forgot. I think I understand, though. Our bodies are still sealed somewhere. Luka didn’t really give us our true bodies, he simply imagined us as we were and so we became what we were, at least for as long as Luka could maintain it.”
“Still, that power….” Ilias mused. “It’s impossible. Even I can’t just do whatever I imagine.”
“What kind of goddess are you?” Alice asked. “Isn’t that what being a goddess is, just deciding something should happen and then it happens?”
“Yes, of course… Silly me, I must have forgotten my true power due to my small childlike brain. Never mind.”
I decided not to call out Ilias’ dishonesty, as that would just start the two fighting again. In fact, Ilias was not a real goddess, she had just fallen into that role because humans had worshipped her. If anything, she was closer to being a spirit, except instead of being the spirit of an element, she was holy magic personified. That made her the most powerful being in this world, but it also meant that she had to wield magic much as mortals did. She had to learn spells.
“Well, at least we got a better measure of that rabbit,” Alice sighed. “Luka, let’s go to the Sutherland Inn. Some Ama Ama Dangos will make me feel better about this day.”
I shuffled my feet uncomfortably. “Um…. That might be a bit of a problem.”
“How?” Alice asked. “We go to the Sutherland and we get a room and then you buy me Ama Ama Dangos. You’ve got lots of money! I know you can afford it!”
Alice was speaking without knowledge. My money bag may have looked hefty, but it didn’t even contain enough gold to get a single room for one night, much less rooms for all of my companions.
“I don’t actually have enough money to stay at the Sutherland, Alice,” I said sheepishly. “There’s about five hundred gold in my bag. A room at the Sutherland costs two million gold.”
Alice looked at me in shock and disappointment.
“Why did you say we would get to stay at the Sutherland if you knew you didn’t have enough money?” she asked.
“I said we’d TRY to stay at the Sutherland,” I explained. “I had hoped I’d meet an old friend here, and she’d get me into the Sutherland almost for free.”
“You mean Granberia?” Alice asked. “First off, why would Granberia be here in Iliasburg? Secondly, how does Granberia get you into the Sutherland? I can’t imagine you using her to threaten the owner into letting you stay for free.”
“Okay, in the world I come from, we ran into Granberia here in Iliasburg and I defeated her, which in turn, led the owner of the Sutherland to let me stay at a reduced rate because she saw me as a hero. I haven’t done anything heroic, so….”
“No Sutherland,” Alice finished for me. “How disappointing.”
“I’m sorry,” I said ruefully. “But I can afford to put us up in a decent inn, and I’ll buy good food and cook it for you tomorrow night.”
“Do we even know where we’re going tomorrow?” Ilias asked. “I get that you’re going to go shopping for equipment for us. I wouldn’t mind a better bow. But what do we do next?”
“Honestly….” I said helplessly. “I don’t know.”
“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” Alice said. “For now, take the rest of the day to shop for tasty things for me… er… us. And maybe I do want a weapon. If they have a good rapier, anyway. If not, don’t bother. But first, check us into an inn. I guess I wouldn’t mind a bed tonight.”
I agreed, glad to be doing something that might relieve Alice’s disappointment somewhat. Ilias shrugged and followed us back to our companions, who were waiting for us where I had left them. I remembered a good value inn in the city and led everyone to its location. I heard Alice visibly groan as we passed within sight of the grand Sutherland, torturing her with its promise of sweet things and posh rooms. I felt guilty for not giving Alice what she had wanted so badly.
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Luka's Story-Paradox