Chapter 1

The shame lingered in Siwang as he stood with the others around the scrying sensor that Leo had conjured. They all were in King Thanitis’s pavilion. The portal floated through the air, showing the city of Myrecilla to the south. Siwang stood with his hands behind his back.

I need to be stronger to be useful to Leo, rippled through his thoughts. He had been having a picnic with his girlfriend, Anji, when they had all nearly died. When not one but two of these saints had attacked Leo. He didn’t even ask for my aid even though it was life or death.

Siwang had gained Level 2 Monster Girls and Intermediate Magic, but that didn’t matter when he only had three elements. Death, Light, and Thunder. When his monster girls numbered a mere fraction of Leo’s. He just wasn’t at his friend’s level.

Siwang wanted to be. He didn’t want to hide in Leo’s shadow. He wanted to fight at his side. But how could he get even stronger when Leo drew everything on him? He fought the rogue dungeon builders. He had the power to extend his dungeon in all directions and find more mana veins. How could Siwang grow?

He needed to find a way.

“My city,” King Thanitis groaned. Horror brimmed in the young man’s green eyes. He ran a hand through his short, black hair. “What has that monster done to my city!” Anger shook through him as he stared at Myrecilla. They viewed the city from high up.

Leo rubbed at his chin. He was Siwang’s age but seemed older than King Thanitis. “Look at all those monster girls.”

Monster girls moved about the city as they organized the civilians. They herded the frightened population about. Streams of people crossed the bridges over the Myr river that split the city in half. The men seemed to be taken to the north half of the city while the women to the south. The buildings were all medieval. Stone with slate roofs. Some were grand. One building had three pools of water around it with a canal that led to the river. Other canals were branching off from it that led out through the city wall to the fields beyond.

Irrigation? Siwang supposed.

The southern half of the city had two compounds with their own walls. In the southeast there looked to be a collection of long buildings while in the northern one, it had the look of a castle with a strange spire trust out of the middle of the courtyard.

“Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 monster girls,” Leo said as he examined them. “He has an army of them.”

“Does he have more than you, Leo?” Munjan asked. He was another dungeon builder who’d recently sworn to Leo like Siwang had. A tall and handsome young man with tan skin that had paled with nervousness.

“It’s hard to say,” Leo said. “And he has a lot of unique monster girls. I don’t recognize a lot of them. He’s killed many dungeon builders.”

Those unique ones were leading squads.

Three women entered. Fara the elven scholar who wore only her black hair that fell over her slender body and covered her milky skin. Her nipples peeked through. She had abandoned clothes and lacked any modesty. High Priestess Lysila had not. She wore her blue robes of silk, a circlet of silver resting on her head. She, too, had black hair. She gasped at the sight of her city being occupied.

The last to enter was the dragon Agubnamus. A water dragon in her human form, she had a body covered in blue scales with long, white hair that spilled over her shoulders. Wings folded in on her back. Her red eyes narrowed with fury. She had been chained to guard Myrecilla and its royal family for nearly four thousand years.

Now it was conquered.

“I can’t believe it,” Priestess Lysila whispered. She pressed against Leo, holding her lover’s arm. “What is he doing to it? Why is he gathering the people.”

“He’s executing the men,” Leo said, pointing to the square on the north bank of the river where the men were being gathered. The river ran crimson after that spot as animated armors beheaded men and threw their corpses into the waters to float out of the city. “The women are being rounded up in the castle in the southwest corner.”

“Why?” Lysila asked, her voice thick with horror.

Leo shook his head. He didn’t know.

For breeding the women? thought Siwang. But there are so many of them. Thousands. How could he breed them all?

“I see many unique monster girls, Lord Leo,” said Fara. The elf spoke in her cool tone. She stared at what happened as if she watched paint dry. “Tuerien is known to have a cherfu. There she is.” She pointed at a monster girl that looked to be made out of cooling magma, mostly black but with fissures of glowing red. “And a red cap. Metal was his first glyph. Fire his second. then Death and Thunder. Only ... that’s a tennyo leading that group of pixies in the sky.”