A few hours since the last chapter...

Succubus Homeland, Weapons Factory

 

When you conquered a city and wanted to curse the inhabitants’ ability to re-inhabit that city, then they sowed the land with salt. This led to all kinds of different folklore and superstitions regarding this once-used practice. After shutting down the weapons facility and moving the weapon of destruction off of the island, Rex had begun making a new weapon to deal with the large plant.

 

The first ingredient he was using was vinegar made from coconut wine. Being in an era without more mature sealing technology leads to several gallons a month of alcohol spoiling into vinegar. They hadn’t had much of a use for this as the taste just wasn’t very good, it was too sharp and bitter. Rex had even tried using it for pickling, but it had turned out awful. 

 

The second ingredient was salt, they had hundreds of pounds of it stored at any time. The Succubi, the Pride of Men, and Rex’s workforce all extracted salt from the ocean water. This was the primary seasoning for food on the island, as they had nothing to act like pepper. It was also being traded to Greko and Lunas.

 

The last ingredient was borax from the mining rights they owned. Elven mines were controlled much differently than traditional ones where the person ran the mine and paid a tax. These mines instead gave you a percentage of the production and the state took the rest, it worked in the reverse of a mine on Earth, but this worked better for Rex’s needs. This meant they could stock a sizable amount of the precious resources and they certainly went through a lot of it.

 

Thankfully, Dora is a soap merchant!

 

The elven currency used a special type of paper that was made from silk, Rex had thought of using a synthetic that was close enough to make forgeries but the elves used some magical print he hadn’t been able to reverse engineer yet. Not yet but soon, just give me a little bit more time and I will flood your economy with fake money! Rex smiled, as this thought went through his mind. He had to entertain himself this way or he would feel bad after looking around at the gathered succubi. 

 

After he had removed the chain firebomb they had created, he now had them packing large drums with either salt, borax, or vinegar. The disappointment was incredibly thick in the air, this was because they loved explosives and weapons of mass destruction. Seeing this reaction, a thought crossed his mind. 

 

I need to add another layer of concrete to the floor of the lab, or Kira may one day go look for the designs to make a nuclear bomb. Kira was standing next to him and it was clear she was also disappointed, this caused him to feel worried. The only saving grace to this was that she seemed to like her new gun. She kept moving it around on her belts to find the very best place to display it, and it brought a smile every time she saw it.

 

Seeing this situation with the succubi, he knew he needed to give some ground if he wanted to maintain his position among them. Making a few quick calculations, he looked at Kira, then at the rest of the succubi. Rex sighed as he realized he was going to need to do some trading with Guffrey later for some gold and other special metals. Rex smiled as he looked around and walked over to Kira, and spoke to her in a voice that all of the succubi could hear.

 

“I am sorry to disappoint you, Kira. I can also gold plate your shotgun for you too, so they all match.” Rex said, then spoke up for the other succubi to hear. “After that, I want you to select some of your sisters to help me start a new business. It will be a plating facility.”

 

The words “Plating facility” seemed to echo throughout the workshop, and Rex saw all of the succubi subtly glance at him with very serious expressions. Suddenly Rex felt a tension that seemed to flood the room. Then he saw something incredible, something he had never seen before.

 

They are all working so fast! Look at the intensity!

 

All of their disappointment and despair was now gone, they burned with an intensity to stand out and prove themselves. Suddenly Rex began to realize something from the group of 60 or 70 succubi. They had all started adding their own uniqueness to their dress and uniforms. The colors of their clothes, the length of their hair, and even the start of some jewelry. 

 

He hadn’t noticed before, but they were all starting to become much more unique in their appearances. Most succubi were relatively similar in their standard appearances, but now they were less like twins and more like actual sisters. Rex suddenly paused, and he felt tears come to his eyes. This was due to how much change he had witnessed in the succubus race over the last 7 years.

 

They aren’t like dolls anymore…

 

Kira suddenly walked over to him and thrust her shotgun towards his stomach. She suddenly seemed desperate to get him out of here. Rex was shocked, but she seemed insistent. She was also much stronger than him, so he was unable to fight against her.

 

“Okay Kira, I will go plate your gun!” He said.

 

“Good, I will finish up here! When we are done, I will come and get you.” Kira told him with a strained smile.

 

This was an instinct of a succubus queen, everything needed to be properly in its place in the pyramid, and she couldn’t tolerate a lesser succubus eyeing her husband. This was an instinctual reaction of the succubi queen, and it was why Welch as an elf was seeming less threatening by the day. What Rex didn’t know was that he had a new nickname that began spreading among the succubi, and that was “Father of all explosives!”

 

-

 

Rex was sitting inside of his research facility watching Shaya making another engine, this was the third one she was creating. Off to the side was a large plastic crate filled with elven artifacts taken from the recent war between the elves and the mousemen. Shaya stopped the mill as she finished the last cut and walked over to Rex, who was pulling a large metal chest and placing it on his desk.

 

“What are you doing?” She asked.

 

Rex looked at the large metal box then at the little girl, a smile formed on his face before he said. “This is the lock-breaking engineer, and today we have a fantasy-styled lockbox for all of you.” Rex quoted a famous content creator with his own spin on the intro.

 

Shaya seemed confused by this statement but decided to watch him continue his show.

 

“The first step is to carefully analyze and understand the internal structure of the lock, for this, we have our little blue friend here.” Rex said this as he held the blue slime in his hand and began feeding it into the lock.

 

Rex nodded as he felt the slime go into the lock and mimic the internals, soon it had completely slid through the slot of the lock. Shaya watched with confusion, as she thought Blue was just going to be used to tell him what the inside of the lock was supposed to look like. Rex smiled at this as he prepared his next tools. He thought the little succubus would like this one.

 

“For my lock pick I will be using this thin strand of cyclonite, and to tension it, I will use this lead azide blasting cap,” Rex said as he fed the C4 into the lock and pushed the blasting cap in.

 

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small, enchanted lighter and lit the fuse. He stood and walked three steps calmly as he placed the lighter back in his pocket. 

 

Pop!

 

A loud crack rang through the air, and the lid of the box popped open from the force of the blast. Rex wasn’t worried about anything on the inside of the box, as Blue was carefully shielding it for him. Reaching into the metal box, his slime companion wrapped back around his wrists, and he was able to pull out several sets of missives. Shaya walked over and looked at them over his shoulder, and a look of confusion appeared on her face.

 

“What are those? I can’t read them.” She muttered, a bit angrily.

 

Rex took a large packet of papers and quickly tossed it towards the trash, then he focused on the second set of papers.

 

“The first is the prices that they are paying for different slaves, it is useless trash,” Rex said, then he read over the second set. “This is a map of the places they were keeping the slaves, it looks like they are building labor camps.”

 

Rex paused as he looked these documents over carefully, a thought appeared in his mind. He could use these latter to strike a powerful blow against the elves. A smile spread over his face as he tucked these plans away for later in the war.

 

“What are you thinking of?” Shaya asked him.

 

Reaching over, he began to pat her head. “I am just thinking of the best way of paying the elves back for these detestable practices. Do you know what the real deciding factor of this war will be, though?”

 

“What?” she asked.

 

“It will be you.” Rex said with a smile. “The total production power of this island is going to be entirely determined by you from now on. These engines that you are creating are going to be used to drive large machines that will bend, cut, press, and rivet metal.” 

 

Rex pointed at the large block of metal that was being carried away by several members of his work crew. 

 

“The ultimate winner of any war is the one that can outproduce the other. That is why the elves are winning, even though the strategy they are using is flawed.” Rex told her with a gentle smile. “Later on when people are trying to figure out why the mousemen and foxmen suddenly became so powerful, they can only look at one brave little succubus. The one who produced the engines that allowed the succubi to supply these beastmen with hundreds of firearms a day.”

 

Shaya looked bashfully at this, it was too much praise for such a little girl. However, to Rex, he felt like he was getting closer and closer to the things he missed most about the real world. In his mind, the roles were being reversed, and a small version of Rex sat under his palm, and he was being replaced with an image of his father. Scenes of his father encouraging him in the workshop would play in his mind every time he encouraged her.

 

The difference he felt was how gifted she was at controlling the equipment and understanding the principles. Welch had tried to learn engineering and failed, this caused her to redouble her efforts in her training. Rex was planning to sit down with her soon, as he was getting worried about her mental state. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he pulled out another document and saw this was just a standard missive.

 

Rex shook his head at the vulgar content and discarded the letter, as it didn’t have any useful information. Just like all of the elven propaganda, it was filled with blatant racism and messaging about putting the lesser races in their proper cages. The next thing Rex found was some other missives that mentioned troop movements, these weren’t as useful to him as they would be to Greko after he translated them.

 

“Is that Elven?” Shaya asked as she looked at the letter in the trash.

 

“I doubt it, most missives like this are usually written in some kind of code.” He said.

 

“Then how can you read it?” She asked.

 

“I can read anything,” he said as he set another note to the side. “Even if it was just a random scribble you made, if there was any intent behind it then I can read it.”

 

It was such a bizarre concept that even Rex found it strange sometimes, the only time it didn’t work as if a living creature did not create the message. A printing press created a similar problem, and now that English had significantly spread, Rex was thinking of introducing this machine. The dwarves, the beastmen, and the succubi all used English to trade, and the succubi used it almost as their own language. 

 

Rex finished sorting everything into a couple of piles, he would later transcribe copies of the documents to send to Greko, some of it was also useful to him for the war effort. Rex then looked at the piles of weapons and armors and a smile spread across his face, he couldn't wait to dissect these enchantments and discover their purpose. Just as his hands were reaching forward for a long saber, the door to his lab opened and a tanned elven woman walked in.

 

“I heard you are fighting a monster today!” She announced, pausing when she saw the giant crate of elven weapons and armors.

 

“Well, I am not too sure how this is going to turn out, actually.” Rex said, then paused as he realized what this looked like. 

 

Sighing deeply, he decided to close the large plastic crate for now. He would go through the contents later when he was training his team of enchanters. Only him learning from this would be useless, he needed to start disseminating the information he discovered. 

 

“Also, why are there so many succubi all surrounding the building…” Welch asked with discomfort.

 

Rex looked over at the windows with drapes he had closed, the windows were also locked. On the other side of these glass panes were large groups of succubi. Gossip was a force even more powerful than erosion on this mountaintop. Every succubus on the island had heard about the start of a new factory, a plating plant. 

 

The first thing a lot of these succubi did when they imagined this incredible new field was thinking of how lovely it would be to have their own golden weapons. They then imagined what else could be put on them, and before long every available succubus was racing to Rex and Kira’s locations, all of them eager to stand out and be selected for this incredible job.

 

Rex needed this industry for a lot more than plating guns with metal foils, he also needed to apply plastics to various products. Plating and coating would all be things this new industry would be responsible for. The succubi who got this job would be worked like dogs, they would easily be the busiest, but once it was started, then Rex wouldn’t need to do all the plating and coating himself.

 

“It wasn’t like this before, I think this is a result of there being so many of them in a single place. All they do is gossip when they have nothing going on, and this means they want things to brag about.” Rex said with exasperation. “Even if they only worked for the weapons manufacturing plant for a few months, it is still something to brag about. There are so few industries to choose that the positions are very coveted, so most of them work at the refinery.”

 

Rex sighed as he tried to think of how to describe it.

 

“Succubus culture is a lot different than any of the other races, they are so unique compared to a lot of the other races that it created this powerful cohesive effect.” Rex said as he tried to word it correctly for her. “It is like how the dark elves often feel like a separate elven race, since they can only live underground, it is a minority effect. Now that they have gotten all of this technology, it means their culture is lagging. I think I need to figure out some holidays, some types of entertainment, things besides guns and explosives…”

 

Rex looked over at Welch with desperation, tears were streaming from his eyes.

 

“I beg you, tell me what women like. Things that don’t kill people! I need to correct this horrible course the succubi are heading down!” Rex looked desperate as he explained. “I told Kira about people who had built bad reputations, one of them was even called the ‘Merchant of Death!’ She thought that was so intimidating, and renamed the company that sells all the succubi weapons to ‘The Merchants of Death.’ Do you know how this makes me feel as the weapons designer?!”

 

A black spade shaped mark, this was the symbol of the succubus death merchants. All the guns that the future weapons factory produced would have this mark stamped into them. The dwarves who, Rex expected to object, had thought this also sounded fearsome, and they wholly agreed with the idea. The more and more Rex thought about it, the weapon this morning was only the beginning if he didn’t find some way to intervene.

 

“Speak softly and carry a big stick, I quoted this line to her. Kira immediately disagreed, she said that a succubus should be fierce and stare everyone down, all while showing off her guns and explosives! Only then will the world truly take her seriously!” Rex said in exasperation. “The only good thing is that they follow their orders to the letter, they don’t deviate at all. As long as it comes from Kira the succubi will rush to follow it, some of them even see her as even more important than the great ancestor.” 

 

This suddenly made him think of something else now that Welch was standing before him in her combat rig. Her shotgun was on her back, and she had her pistol at her side. 

 

Blue, the Succubi, the High Elves, the Vampires, why are so many races doing the opposite of evolution? It is always the first of the race that seems to be the most powerful, and the offspring are much weaker.

 

Rex looked over at the slime in the corner of his workshop, it lived in a large glass bowl. Its job was to clean the workshop and eat any waste chemicals. When he opened his workshop at the start of the day it was sterile, that was how hard that little slime worked when he left at the end of the day. These slimes were some of the best cleaners on the entire island, even the succubi tried to coax them to live in their houses. For now, they also helped clean up the swamp, but they avoided the pool that the giant plant was in. They also helped him by bringing him a variety of different things, like nitrates and phosphates.   

 

Rex smiled at the blue creature on his wrist and tugged it gently, it was the reason we could make bullets all day long now. Its children could replace it in making the super plastics, with the engine the succubi would finally have true bullet production. Once the plating factory was made, then they would not have to worry about the steel dissolving when they made the plastics. They would then only need brass for their artillery, and those would not be used very often.

 

“I have spotted a monster offshore, it is nearing the island” a loud succubus voice excitedly announced to the entire island from her position on the shore defense.

 

BOOOM!

 

A loud cannon shot could be heard off in the distance, this made Rex instantly take back his thoughts. He had to tell himself that they were just learning, and it would take some time for them to take things seriously. The shore defenses were like a new toy, at least they would be very well practiced when something attacked them. Rex could already imagine the hell that an enemy force would face if they tried to invade the island. 

 

And now that they made the molds, they can make even more cannons. It won’t be long before they start to place them into the mountain. I am sure the dwarves will hate it!

 

“It is so hard to sleep with those things firing all the time.” Welch muttered.

 

“I know, give it a few weeks, it will lose its appeal to them then they will take it seriously.” Rex assured her. “It will become a point of pride, and they will have an almost ceremonious feel about it.”

 

“Oh right, we need to talk later, can you make some time tomorrow?” He asked her.

 

“Sure.” Welch asked with some curiosity. 

 

They were interrupted as Borscht made his way into the Research facility, his gun on his back with a full drum. He had begged the succubi to make one for him, and they used all the plastic they made in a day. This was before Blue’s children had been placed at the refinery, there were several that took turns throughout the day there. Rex smiled as he saw the large white bear, and walked to him, with Welch following behind him.

 

“Hey, buddy,” Rex said as he jumped up sideways on the bear’s back, next to his gun. “The fertilizer drum is back there, thank you for carrying it for me.”

 

“What did you want to talk about?” Welch asked him with curiosity.

 

“You, we need to figure out what you are doing. Because of your grandmother, you have a lot of sway with the elves, and the mousemen are planning on sending us their prisoners.” Rex told her. “If you can’t take these poor sods, then I can only let Simbad and Charlice take them in. As a man who likes women, I can’t accept condoning them to this fate. I also think that you are going to try to take revenge on Dryfys one day and instead of hiding it, why not just ask me for help?”

 

Rex shook his head as he looked at the tanned elven woman, he could understand her conundrum. She wanted to overthrow Dryfys, but she didn’t want to rule the elves. It seemed irresponsible to destroy a government without replacing it with something else. She also did not have Greko or Lunas’ nerve to take over and rule herself, which would make her no different from Dryfys. She had been so confused about what to do that she hadn’t spent as much time around the boy or the succubus leader as she used to.

 

When she was younger, she had quite a crush on the boy, but with the elves pressuring her, she had been spending more and more time training. She had felt lost lately, she realized it might be kind of nice talking with Rex, he always seemed to know what to do. He always had great ideas to solve a problem. Suddenly they were interrupted when they were getting the fertilizer. 

 

A large group of succubi was descending onto the research facility. They carried the various barrels filled with ingredients to destroy the plant if it created any problems. Rex hopped off the back of the large white bear as he saw Kira entering with her full battle gear. A lot of succubi were following her, wearing the black battle gear that the succubi favored.

 

Kira walked up with her guards, they all looked ready for war, Borscht was following behind with a large barrel filled with a thick paste. The fertilizer was a compressed mix of potassium nitrate, and phosphorus, it was rich enough that it would kill a normal plant. He had to assume that the nutrition it needed was much higher than any plant on Earth, this mixture also possessed an extensive amount of mana. 

 

Kira smiled beautifully at Rex, it was like a flower blossoming, then she saw Welch and looked like she was struggling internally with a terrible decision. Her looking at the various succubus guards that all stared at Rex like he was their point of pride helped her decide. 

 

“We need to talk!” she told the elf in a serious tone.

 

This caused Welch to tense up, the last time they had ‘talked’ it turned into a battle. Since then their record was 150-150 they had fought countless times with rubber ammunition. It was something the two of them hid from Rex, who was an extreme pacifist. She got good at throwing rocks to knock Kira out of the air!

 

Rex watched the two staring each other down, he felt like he could see sparks flying from their eyes. Suddenly he felt like he could see the outline of an F-16 behind Kira, and an M1A2 Abrams behind Welch. Both women nodded at each other, the tension rising even further.

 

“After we deal with the plant!” They said in unison, then the tension disappeared and they were all smiling as they looked at Rex.

 

Rex saw the two girls who were smiling at him like usual but he suddenly felt a deep fear. He felt like he was seeing the tip of a massive iceberg, and all he could see was a small ice cube.