A few moments since the last chapter…

Succubus Homeland, Research facility

 

Rex was standing in front of one of his guards, he couldn’t Find Kira or Welch anywhere on the island. He was told they went on an “Adventure” he didn’t buy any of that for a single second thought, he was well aware of the relationship between the two. Questioning them was pointless, they all knew that even though he was the golden ticket to the plating facility, Kira could just as easily have them pulled out. This meant that when Kira enacted the Super Secret Succubus Code, then they would all reply that Kira was out “Adventuring,” so he decided to ask them different questions instead.

 

“What happened to the little blonde girl?” He asked.

 

Rex was curious why he hadn’t seen the girl from the flower, he was worried that Kira or Welch might have done something to her. This idea was soon blown away when his guards all responded with strange looks on their faces.

 

“She turned into ashes, it was just like when we used to eat the prisoners. Then the large flower she came out of closed itself back up.” His guard said.

 

Rex had to pause when he heard this news, then he recalled how she had been born, he quickly began putting together a hypothesis on the creature. He suspected that the flower was its real body and where its consciousness was stored and the little girl was just a carrier for it. The conclusion he reached during his bath and after a round of experimenting was that he had indeed unlocked mana. Just as he made his way inside of his large research facility, he paused and suddenly saw something that might explain what happened to him.

 

A magic stone…

 

A pile of them were sitting in the corner of his lab, they were all from the large monsters that the coastal defense weapons were used to kill. The succubi had truly been adamant about defending the island from these creatures that were once ignored by the population. These large aquatic monsters who once battled freely in the waters around the island were becoming more scarce. Rex could see 20 or 30 magical stones that were larger than his two fists put together.

 

Did I also get a magical stone when that flower creature kissed me and fed me whatever she gave me?

 

Rex had to pause, as he started to feel around inside of his body carefully, he spent an entire minute slowly searching.

 

What am I even looking for?! How will I know if I find it?! Where the hell is it even located?!

 

If he was looking for more questions then he would be succeeding, all he was doing though was just causing more confusion. Suddenly a thought crossed his mind, and he remembered how he was able to determine his original translation ability. The succubi could see concentrations of mana, so he was certain they could see if he had developed a magical stone. This caused him to immediately begin speaking out to his guards.

 

“When you look at me, where is the most magic in my body?” Rex asked them.

 

Rex looked around with a serious expression as they all began to raise their fingers and point, where they pointed though caused him to feel some anger.

 

Why are you all pointing at my crotch?

 

Rex reached down and placed his hands over his crotch out of bashfulness, but after a moment he realized that they weren’t quite pointing at his Wiener Schnitzel, they were pointing slightly above it. This made Rex stare at his waist and try to figure out how he could miss a stone growing inside of it.

 

“Is it round?” He asked.

 

Looking back at his guards, they were all nodding, and some of them were even holding their fingers into a round shape showing him the size of it. He was stunned to think he had something the size of walnut inside of his body that he hadn’t even noticed. It made him desperately want a doctor, but he probably understood anatomy better than anyone else on the island. This question then led to another.

 

“Did I always have it?” He asked.

 

Rex finally saw the succubi all start shaking their heads.

 

So I somehow gained a magic stone… maybe this is why I didn’t have the mana left to control anything… hold on a second….

 

“I want you to use your charm on me!” Rex announced.

 

All of the succubi looked at him curiously, before suddenly…

 

***

Meanwhile…

Out on the ocean, A makeshift arena

 

A large metal ship, it had been painted black along the bottom half, and white across the top. The crew had already decided on their uniforms, and they all matched the paint job of the ship, black polyester pants, and white tops that looked more like formal suits than battle wear. The newest addition to these sailors were the assortments of weapons they were all carrying, as the official nave they all had access to the succubi armory. The ship had been built right on the docks, currently, they were testing it by performing a trip to the mainland to collect cargo.

 

A large group of succubi all patrolled the air around the ship in the sky, there were over 200 of them all watching the waters carefully. On the deck of the ship were two women standing in front of each other, gearing up for their competition.  If Rex saw what they were wearing on the deck of the ship, he would be shocked to see modern bikinis, Welch wore a solid black sporty version and Kira had on a bright red and low cut model that revealed a decent amount of cleavage.

 

The girls were standing a few meters apart on the deck, and they were both armed with cold weapons. Welch was holding a spear in one hand with a net in the other, it made her seem like some kind of coliseum fighter. This image wasn’t helped when you looked over and saw Kira standing before her wielding a large trident. The entire crew was armed with bracelets to protect against charm spells, and so was the elf holding the weapons.

 

Suddenly a succubus wearing a little black dress that was more like a mini skirt appeared, she was holding the flag that would signal the start of the battle. She had red eyes like a vampire, and she wore a  tophat that had various sections that could open up like windows. This was Sara who had run into the leader of the succubi while they were about to go out to sea for this competition, and she had decided to tag along. The strange hat served the second purpose of giving her husband a place to hide from the sun in his transformed bat form, it even had little windows added to it.

 

With Sara being the only other succubus alive who was in a successful succubus marriage, Kira instantly felt like she had discovered her best friend, even if she didn’t like vampires anymore. This whole time she had been desperately looking for anything she could use that would help her advance her relationship, and now she had an experienced succubus wife who could ask all kinds of questions! Already she had learned so many different techniques from Sara, after she defeated Welch she couldn’t wait to show Rex some of it.

 

Welch on the other hand was paying close attention to the flag in Sara’s hand that would signal the start of the match. The two had many matches over the years, this was just one of the hundreds, at first she had been just a young girl on the island. She had lost her grandmother, and she had a crush on Rex that she hadn’t had time to pursue. The amount of pressure she felt like she was under was constantly growing, and this trip would just be adding even more. 

 

The mousemen had constructed a prison on the mainland for the captured elves, and this test cruise was for her to see if she could convince her fellow elves to work for her. The main reason that Welch had decided to take this competition so seriously was because of an idea that was forming in her mind. The elves were a stagnant race, and their production was limited to the number of slaves they kept, there was no merit to working harder in society. There was frustration from a lack of progress that the elves had run into, the other issue was that the High Elves had only been gone for a few generations.

 

Dryfys was tapping in on these feelings, the feeling that they were far inferior to their original species. It was like destroying your captor to find that you were still vastly inferior to them, even when using a nearly identical system. After many talks with Rex, she realized that this was the crux of how Dryfys had achieved what he had done, by taking advantage of this sentiment that existed and magnifying it. He then came up with rationalizations for all of the Elves' frustrations and bent them into thinking that it was the issues with the slaves that supported their labor.

 

“Are both combatants ready?” Sara called out, from her tophat they could see a small bat looking at them through windows in the hat. 

 

The flag that Sara was holding was the flag that had been on the ship, it featured a black background with the silhouettes of men of several species holding hands in white. For the succubi’s contribution, you could see an image of a rifle in the center with a succubus tail slithered around it like a snake, curling around the barrel and pointing up in the signature spade. Kira had used a contest to decide what the icon for the succubus army should be, and the rifle and tail are what ultimately won. It fully showcased the ferocity and hot-blooded nature of a succubus, this was why it won with an overwhelming majority voting for it.

 

“Ready!” Kira announced as she flourished her trident, a fierce and proud look on her face.

 

“Let’s see who wins today, shall we?” Welch asked, flourishing her spear and net.

 

Sara looked at the two women who looked like they were getting ready for a battle, she sighed as she waved the flag to start the battle. Instantly both women turned around and began sprinting for the side of the ship, Sara could only watch as the elf and the succubus leader dived off the side of the ship and into the water. For their 301st duel, they were using fishing on the maiden voyage of the ship to compete over Kira’s husband. It was the most ridiculous thing that Sara had ever heard of, her husband was too weak and couldn’t defend himself.

 

“What are they fishing for, I haven’t seen them kill any monsters at all.” Glad asked from the window in Sara’s hat, it looked less like a tophat and more like a small house on her head.

 

“They are fishing for the filer.” She said.

 

“Filer? Why would they want that?” Glad asked in wonder.

 

“Kira’s husband can’t digest monster meat, so he can only eat filler fish,” Sara said. “Part of this contest is because Kira needs someone who can be in charge of his security, that isn’t another succubus. Kira is really worried that another succubus will try to take advantage of her husband, she thinks that this will only become worse over time and the only succubus she completely trusts is her mother and another one named Shaya.”

 

“Would they use him to get to her?” He asked.

 

“No, but they might try to get him to put them in the positions they want by going around Kira, this is why she is worried that his guards might be inadequate. While he can resist their charm, he is too nice to tell any of them no, she thinks that if she can also figure out how to allow succubi to safely breed, then the population will begin to grow.” Sara told him her thoughts.

 

“Why would it grow suddenly?” Glad asked.

 

“Succubi live incredibly long lives compared to the other races, only the other demons are a match for us.” She said this with a smile as she looked towards the hat on her head. “Most children in the past were a mistake, and we needed the island to be able to raise them safely without them risking our ability to hunt. This has changed in the last few years, and now a lot of succubi are considering changing this practice.”

 

“Ah, right, you mean Dora?” Glad asked.

 

“Right, she often finds reasons to take vacations from the elven lands to visit her daughter on the island. One week out of every month, and she is so proud of her. I bet once she receives the gun that her daughter made for her she will be even prouder.” Sara said as she rolled up the flag carefully.

 

“It is good that I was hidden in your clothes when we got here, I have never seen such well-armed people before.” Glad said.

 

This statement caused Sara to raise her head in pride, she also looked at the large gun at her hip and the rifle on her back and felt like one of the sisters. As the only demons who lacked claws, fangs, talons, or other intimidating features, this had always caused the succubi to feel a sense of inferiority. Now they all felt like it was time that the succubi finally got the respect they deserved! They didn’t want to be lust demons, that was just how the succubi were forced to fight originally!

 

Splash!

 

Sara looked over to see Kira climb out of the waters and towards the side of the ship, she was paddling valiantly through the waters of the ocean. Behind her the corpses of several mid-tier monsters climbed out of the water with holes in their eyes; they had all been charmed and harpooned to death by her. This harpoon was enchanted to release a blast of air when it penetrated the body, this caused horrific wounds to enemies. She was soon climbing up a rope ladder up the side of the ship, her catch was firmly secured using her tail.

 

She reached up and ran her hands through her air as she slid the large fish forward with a flick of her tail. 

 

She then placed her hands on her hips and puffed her chest out proudly, as a sailor wearing the Pride of Men’s black polyester pants and white shiny shirt walked forward and brought the fish to a scale. The scale used a set of springs and a rack and pinion to determine the weight, it was a simple mechanical scale that had been used for centuries on earth. This worked because something called Hooke's law was one of the basics of physics.

 

“78 pounds(~38KG)!” He announced before he pulled open a large chest and added this fish to the large amount that was already on ice. On the wall behind the sailor was a chart that was being used to keep track of the catch for the day.

 

“Why are they competing like this?” Glad asked.

 

“Fufufu! You see, the succubi have many advantages in combat!” Sara explained. “They had many duels using rubber bullets and fought like true warriors but then they needed to keep adding rules to the battles. After over 200 fierce competitions, they are now determining their superiority this way.”

 

“But why?” He asked.

 

“This is a sacred battle between two women to decide who is superior!” Sara said slightly offended, if she was battling like this for her husband she would expect backrubs and tail oilings every single night! 

 

Splash!

 

A female elf surfaced at the side of the ship and was breathing heavily, as she swam towards the side of the ship. Over her shoulder was the net with her catch inside of it, around her were several dead monsters, all victims of the enchanted spear on her shoulder. Welch soon made her way to the side of the ship and began dragging up the net as she came up the side of the ship. A large smile spread across her face as she crawled up a rope ladder that extended off both sides of the metal ship.

 

As she began to climb up the side of the ship, her muscles started to bulge as she began to drag up the large fish caught in the net. The moment Kira saw this large blue tuna-looking fish, she instantly became more serious when she saw the advantage it would give Welch. Just yesterday Kira had also caught one that was nearly 550 pounds(~249kg) and since then she had been looking for more of them. Part of this entire competition was that she was worried about her husband, and now they had an easy way to get normal fish from the large open ocean.

 

“123 pounds(~56KG)!” The sailor from the Pride of Men announced.

 

Kira’s large lead was now significantly reduced, and she realized that it was no longer time to mess around with the elf in this battle. Kira needed someone to guard her husband while she wasn’t around, and someone to keep the other succubi at bay now that there was something they all desperately wanted from him. The plating facility wasn’t even started yet and they were already speculating on things like plated furniture, weapons, and jewelry. She had also failed several times in a row to protect him, the first time in the swamp, the vampire, and the blonde monster.

 

Kira quickly ran to the side of the ship and dived off the side holding her trident, these were creations of the Succubus Fulfillment Society. The original goal was to create a spear that was air-powered that could rival bullets that had failed. The new model served a different purpose instead, the moment the trident entered the water with Kira holding onto it a stream of air fired out of the back of it, propelling Kira rapidly through the water. Around her creating a large arena were various other succubi also using these weapons. 

 

These were enchantments that Rex had created when he was trying to make a compressor, he had discarded them, and the succubi had greedily scooped them up. Little did Rex know that these enchantments needed water to be able to produce air, instead of moving it, the enchantment was able to separate it from water. The weapons were hollow and stored the air inside of it and it was released using enchantments, they were useless outside of water though. Kira continued to use the trident to cruise through the water and look for fish, all around her she could see medium-sized monsters swimming around.

 

Several Pride of Men sailors could also be seen in the distance, they were helping the succubi by fishing up choice monsters for their dinner. The weapons that the Pride of Men and Succubi were using all had a feature that made them deadly to any undersea monster. Lunging forward with the trident at a shark monster that was trying to bite at her, Kira managed to spear it right behind the gills with the tines of her trident. She instantly pushed some of her mana into it, this caused a large burst of air to fire out of the ends of the tines.

 

Whump!

 

It was like a balloon popping, as the air was forced into the wounds and ripped them wide open. The shark struggled a few times as its organs began to fall into the ocean water, but the struggle was all it could do. Kira did not pay the dying shark monster much attention as she began to move rapidly towards a large fish she had spotted. Off in the distance, Welch was also diving back into the water.

 

***

Meanwhile…

Succubus Homeland, Underground City

 

“Guffrey, how has the fungus production been going?” Rex asked the dwarf.

 

“Ah, you will want to talk to Faris about that.” He said. “From the reports though he has had great success with it, the problem is the acid it produces, you said you have a plastic that might be able to resist it?”

 

“Right, it is a coating process or you use directly but you can’t see through it,” Rex said.

 

Rex was being led through the underground city, he had used the lift and seen the large tunnel that was carved into the mountain. The giant plant was just as he was told, it was closed up like it had been when it first exited the water. Rex planned to give it another round of fertilizer to see if that would allow the strange little girl to reappear. Only then would he be able to figure out what she had done to him.

 

On his wrist was the blue creature in bracelet form, for a long time he had tried to figure out why it was unique among all of the mold he had made. He was starting to think that something from the plant was the catalyst that allowed him to create Blue, and that was why he had never managed to make anything similar to it again. Whenever he mixed mana into the mold he cultivated it just created stronger antibiotics, he sold these over the counter to the Pride of Men and the Dwarves.

 

It didn’t take long before they reached a much rougher section of the tunnels, Rex was told the mushrooms were being grown here. He needed these to make another large batch of fertilizer for the plant in the swamp, he also wanted to be able to study them. Soon he was led through a large metal door into an open cave system. They had various seals, and he could see wooden boxes that were filled with mushrooms, just at the door, they had more than Rex was able to cultivate the entire time he tried to.

 

‘Wow, they have done an incredible job.” Rex murmured.

 

“Faris comes from a long line of farmers, for the races that live underground, food is a lot more precious.” He explained, as they soon came to a metal door after many twists and turns.

 

Knock! Knock! Knock!

 

The door was soon pulled open and Rex saw a green bald head, looking down he saw it was attached to a goblin. Rex hadn’t interacted with many of the creatures, but he had heard that they came from gnomes. He hadn’t interacted with many of them, and this was one of his first times.

 

“You come for mushrooms?!” He yelled out excitedly.

 

The goblin's teeth had a blue stain on them, he realized these were from the mushrooms, the goblin's eyes were also unfocused. Rex suddenly wondered if he was intoxicated by them, it was one of the effects he heard they had.

 

“Mushrooms bring peace to island! Everyone must eat mushrooms! Quickly! Spread mushrooms!” The little goblin called as he started making all kinds of grand hand gestures, to the wall next to Rex and Guffrey.

 

“He is a very diligent worker,” Guffrey told him with a smile.

 

“Is he always like this?” Rex asked.

 

“He wasn’t before he insisted on eating the mushrooms for quality control,” Guffrey said then sighed out sadly. “But he doesn’t let it slow down his work, he still produces a large number of mushrooms.”

 

“They burn holes in the rock, they is trying to escape! We must not let them escape! They is everything to me!”Rex looked over and saw the goblin holding the edge of a plastic box, tears pouring from his eyes.

 

“I don’t think he should be ea-” Rex started before Guffrey silenced him.

 

“Don’t finish that sentence, he will go ballistic,” Guffrey told him.

 

“Really?” He asked.

 

“Yes, this is Faris though, did you still want to ask him some questions?” Guffrey asked with a smile.

 

Rex suddenly realized it was going to be very difficult to have a conversation with someone who was in the state that Faris was, as they both continued to watch him crying to a table leg.

 

“The mushrooms know all, Guffy!” Faris said seriously. “Everyone laughs at Faris, but I will show them!”

 

They watched as the goblins' emotions changed from manic to depressed, this left a very deep impression on Rex. He was never, ever going to eat these mushrooms, he didn’t even know they were capable of this. The goblin seemed to think that there was a whole crowd of people watching him right now, not just Rex and Guffrey.

 

“See, look at how she keeps staring at me, Guffy!” He said to the table leg next to him, as he pointed out a plastic box in the corner.

 

“How many mushrooms does he produce in a month?” Rex asked.

 

“Five or six of these plastic containers are full, it might not look like it but he is quite exceptional at growing them,” Guffrey said. 

 

“You are right,” Rex said in disbelief.

 

Reaching forward, he pulled the plastic lid off and inspected the mushrooms, it was a phenomenal amount, on par with what he had managed to produce the entire time he tried using them. The limiting factor on him using this new type of mana was entirely one caused by supply. Now it looked like he would no longer have that issue.

 

“Guffy! You eat the mushroom?! You eat it!” Faris said in excitement, he was trying to feed one of the magic mushrooms to a crack in the wall.

 

Rex could see various sealed chambers, he assumed they were where the goblin was growing the mushrooms. In one month, Faris had managed to create over 6 times the amount that Rex had the entire time he had tried growing them. The trick to growing them was to use mana from magic stones, the mushrooms broke them down with their acids and absorbed the mana inside of them. They also broke down rock and left behind incredible quality fertilizer, it was similar to a lot of ancient fungus on Earth.

 

A smile spread over his face, it was something new to explore.