“Boss, one of the scouts wants to talk to you.” As I was preparing to go to bed, one of my personal guards walked into the room.

“Tell them to fuck off, I’m going to bed.”, After responding to him, I ignored the guard and continued with what I was doing.

The guard hesitated for a moment, before speaking again; “It’s the Panther, boss.”.

 

Hearing that word, I froze; “The Panther? What is that bastard doing here? I send him on a suicide mission, why is he still alive?”.

If it was anyone else, I’d tell them to come back tomorrow, but I couldn’t do that with the Panther. I hastily walked to my desk and pulled the chest out from under it. I opened the lid and swept all the items on the desk into the now open container.

 

Just as I pushed the chest back under the desk, the door opened and slammed into the wall; loudly announcing the arrival of a guest.

Startled, I looked up and found the one man who could threaten my position in this new land.

“H..hey, Bro. What, uh... what are you doing here? I thought you were out on a mission?”, quickly moving the attention away from what I was doing, I started talking.

 

Seeing me hunched down behind my desk, he looked at me weirdly before speaking; “I don’t see you for three days and this is how you greet me? How about a drink first?”

Without waiting for me to respond, he grabbed one of the bottles standing on a shelf and sat down on the sofa.

He opened the bottle and took a swig. He let out an audible sigh and returned his eyes to me.

 

He frowned and spoke again; “What are you waiting for? Sit!”.

Startled, I quickly moved to the chair opposite him and sat down; “Umm..., ah… What can I help you with?”

The Panther poured more liquor into his mouth and thought for a second before answering; “I ran into a strong warrior.”

“What…?”

“More specifically, I lost to a strong warrior.”, As he finished what he was saying, the Panther put the bottle down and relaxed on the couch.

 

Shocked, I could say anything for a few moments; The man before me wasn’t called ‘Panther’ for nothing. It was a title that signified that he was the strongest beastman from the panther clan. 

As one of the most important clans, he had a position only inferior to the beast king himself. The only reason I was in charge right now instead of him, was because he couldn’t be bothered to lead everyone and left it to me.

I had convinced him to go on a dangerous mission in the hopes that he’d die -find and infiltrate the elves’ capital city-, but I had expected him to lose to a large group of enemies, not a single one.

 

After I eventually calmed down, I asked him the obvious question; “What happened?”

Seemingly having enjoyed my panicked face, he lazily opened his mouth; “I was travelling through that cave system the Lizardmen call the ‘Hive’ and encountered someone fighting a large group of monsters.”

“They looked like an elf, so logically, I attacked.”, The Panther shrugged his shoulder and continued; “Maybe she underestimated me, but I managed to injure her with my first move. After that, however...”

 

“Wait? ‘She’? You lost to a female?”, It sounded so absurd, I thought I’d misheard for a moment.

Annoyed that I interrupted him, the Panther glared at me; “Yes, and I know enough females who’d easily beat your ass, now shut up; I’m talking.”

 

“After getting serious, ‘She’ suddenly got much stronger, I could tell I wouldn’t be able to win after that”, Getting up from his comfy position, he leaned forward before continuing; “You know how the beast king can use some kind of energy to strengthen himself? She can do the same.”

 

“You’re saying she is as strong as the beast king? The strongest warrior in the kingdom?”, Hearing the Panther’s words, I couldn’t keep quiet.

“Hmm… No, the beast king is probably stronger. And even if she is stronger than him, he isn’t the strongest beastman by far. Although you didn’t hear that from me.”, The Panther picked up the bottle of liquor again and continued; “But, we don’t have to worry about that; she isn’t an enemy.”

 

Surprised, I lifted my head and focused my eyes, that had been looking at the ground for the past while, on the Panther; “Not the enemy? Didn’t you say she’s an elf?”

“At first glance, she looks like one, but she has scales and claws similar to those lizardmen. She also didn’t fight from a distance like the elves, she actually fought like a warrior.”

 

“You think she’s a hybrid?”, thinking of a possibility, I didn’t keep quiet.

The Panther frowned and quickly dismissed my idea; “No, she said she’s from across the sea, like us. Not from our homelands, though. There might be some distant connection to the reptile clans in the south, but I’ve never heard of a clan that looks like her; For such a powerful clan to be unknown now, they would have to have split off from the homelands hundreds of years ago.”

 

The Panther took another drink from the bottle and fell silent for a few seconds before speaking again; “That’s not important right now. She offered an alliance.”

I was surprised again; Just because she wasn’t an enemy, I didn’t expect an alliance offer after the Panther and she fought. “Why would she need help? What did you say?”

“She and her people haven’t been here for long either, she said there are about seventy people with her. I’m guessing she wants to avoid conflict before gaining a solid foothold.”, The Panther leaned back on the couch as he brought the bottle back up to his lips; “I told her I would have to discuss with my superiors before deciding on this.”

Hearing the Panther’s words, I frowned; “Why? You don’t need my permission to decide on that; It isn’t like I can oppose you anyway.” 

The Panther laughed loudly before responding; “I’m obviously not asking for your permission; You’re simply better at this kind of stuff than me. I’m sure that the deal I would strike with them wouldn’t be half as advantageous for us as the one you’d be able to get.”

 

Hearing the praise, I fell silent, immediately thinking about what kind of things we, or actually ‘I’, would want in this deal.

If I could get the support of that warrior, I might even be able to deal with the Panther; He did injure her, so maybe it won’t even be that hard.

Without the Panther around, I could do whatever I want. Even if more strong beastmen appeared in the future, they would dare stand up against me if I could just get someone to kill them.

 

Whilst I was deep in thought, the Panther stood up and headed for the door.

Before he left, however, he said some final words; “That money you’ve been pocketing since we came here. Make sure to divide it honestly amongst the warriors, otherwise, I might have to find someone else to do it.”

As the door slammed shut, announcing the Panthers departure as loud as his arrival, cold sweat appeared on my forehead. ‘Let’s make this a good deal for ‘Us’.’.

 

********

 

“Hmm, yes, this is interesting, indeed”

I looked at the woman; I didn’t recognise her, so I asked; “What’s your name?”

Although she looked slightly unsettled, she answered clearly; “I’m Cora, I came here three months ago...”

 

Before she could continue, Yeong-Gi, who had brought me to see the woman, interrupted her; “That’s the interesting part. When she came here three Pits ago, there wasn’t any sign of it yet. It developed incredibly fast.”

“He’s right. According to my estimations, she’s developing about three times faster than normal.”, At that point, Jesper, the doctor, turned up; “She’s about ready to pop.”

 

I thought for a few moments, looking at the woman’s bulging belly; “What about others? Has this happened to anyone else?”.

“Ha, I’m pretty sure women have been getting pregnant for thousands of years already.”, Letting out a short laugh, Mike made an unnecessary remark.

I shot a glare at him, and rephrased my question; “Has anyone else gotten pregnant since they came here?”.

 

“Yes, there are two women in their second trimester, they are developing at a normal pace.”, Jesper pulled a notebook out of his bag and started looking for the women’s names.

The notebook had a picture of spiderman on it, making the scene look quite comedic. Our biggest supply of paper came from a class of primary schoolers several Pits ago. Sadly, they died after just a few hours in the Pit, but now we had a large amount of superhero and princess notebooks.

 

Finally finding the women in his notes, Jesper spoke; “They both got pregnant five months ago, 1 month after their Pit.”

“What about her? When’d she get pregnant?”

In response to my question, Jesper looked through his notes again before answering; “a few days before coming to the Pit, apparently.”

 

I thought for a few moments, but couldn’t find any answers; This was the first case of this happening and a pattern can’t be found with just a single instance.

“Let’s leave this for now; We might find a solution if it happens again. For now, just report in when the baby is born.”, I turned around and walked to the exit; there was no reason to stay here any longer.

 

As I walked away from the clinic, Luke, who had been waiting at the door, approached me; “Hella, could you tell Hime to go and heal Alex? We’ve been waiting for several hours already.”

“Why? It’s not like he’s going to die from his injuries without her.”, Although Luke and Alex were strong in combat, they were also hopelessly overprotective towards each other; They would bother Hime to heal any injury, even if it is just a scrape.

“Well, probably not, but Jesper said there’s a chance it might not completely heal without her.”, Seeing that I didn’t stop walking, Luke ran up to me and began walking alongside me; “And it will also take way longer. Hime could fix him up in just a few minutes whilst it will take weeks without her.”

“It might not heal completely? You’re not talking about it leaving a scar, right?”, Having experienced this situation several times already, I knew that that was exactly what he meant.

 

“Please! It will only take her a moment.”, not willing to give up, Luke continued begging me to help him.

Since Hime was currently occupied with healing all the seriously injured people, I initially decided to ignore him. But when a thought popped up in my mind, I stopped walking and looked at Luke; “If I remember correctly, you have someone with the second level of the ‘Language translation’ skill in your faction, right?”

Finding a ray of hope, Luke eagerly answered; “Yes, he’s in charge of communicating with the lizardmen.”

“Good, where is he now?”, I continued walking and Luke, who was late to react, shortly sprinted to catch up.

“He should be in the lizardmen village we recently discovered. It’s about four days northwest from here.”, Luke said, whilst pointing northwest.

 

“Alright.” Having arrived at my destination, I stopped moving and faced Luke;  ”Tell you what, you bring him to me in two days and I’ll get Hime to heal Alex.”

Hearing my words, Luke’s face initially lit up before changing into a frown; “Just returning here will take him four days, sending him the message will take just as long.”

“Better get moving then.” I slapped Luke on the shoulder and, after thinking for a few moments, he dashed off somewhere.

 

Watching him leave, I opened the door of the building I’d walked to and entered.

“Hella, you’re not here for Alex, right? Hime is busy enough, I don’t care what Luke said, she’s not giving him priority!” Before my eyes could adjust to the dimly lit room, someone was already yelling at me.

“No, I’m looking for Yuuto, the Pit is going to open in about an hour.”, Getting used to the darkness, I could see a pale-faced Hime sitting in the corner whilst Natsumi, the moonparty’s archer, was preparing some food.

“It’s fine, I can heal him, it’s not a problem”, trying to stand up, Hime stumbled and nearly fell to the ground.

Natsumi, who was paying attention, caught her just in time and forced her to sit back down; “No, you’ve already depleted your mana once today, you’ll work yourself to death like this.”

She handed Hime a mug filled with water and turned to me; “Yuuto is still at the Hive entrance, looting the ants we killed.”

 

Thanking Natsumi, I turned around and left the moonparty’s house. Since there weren’t enough houses yet, most people lived in the Hive; they only had to pick an empty cave to claim a home. The Moonparty, however, had been one of the first to claim a house and had been expanding it on their own.

Because of that, they now lived in one of the biggest buildings in The Colony.

So far, I hadn’t minded it -there was more than enough space in the Hive, after all-, but since we decided to move everyone out of the Hive and into the town itself, it would probably be a good idea to make them share the house with some people. Until enough houses were built, that is.

 

Thinking about how I would convince the Moonparty to let people stay in their home, I reached the entrance to the Hive.

Taking a look around, I quickly found Yuuto. He was standing some distance away and was discussing something with Ryan, Mike’s father and the person in charge of the Colony’s construction projects.

 

As I approached, Yuuto spotted me and called out; “Hella! What do you think? I’m right, aren’t I.”

“Hold up! Even if you’re right, there’s no way I can do that in the first place.”, Seemingly agitated, Ryan grabbed Yuuto by the arm.

Yuuto pushed Ryan’s arm away and harshly responded; “I ‘am’ right! And why not? You’ve built all those buildings, this isn’t nearly as big as one of those!”

 

Seeing that things were getting increasingly heated, I quickly interjected; “What the hell is going on?!”

Pointing at Ryan’s face, Yuuto loudly spoke; “I just want him to make a few weapons from these ants, I’m sure they’ll be amazing quality. He’s making a huge problem out of it.”

“‘I’ am making a problem out of it?! I told you I can’t and you’re still going on about it! I don’t know how to make weapons and even if I did, I don’t have the time for it!”, Hitting Yuuto’s hand away from his face, Ryan yelled at him.

“Don’t hit me you fuc….”, Before a fight could start, I loudly stopped it.

 

“Shut up! Both of you!”, startled by my outburst, Yuuto and Ryan looked at me in silence.

I let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of my nose; “Let me get this straight, you want Ryan to turn these ants into weapons? Even though he doesn’t know how to?”

“I’m sure that if he does his best...”, being asked a question, Yuuto quickly started talking.

Before he could finish his spiel, however, I interrupted him; “Yes or no?!”.

“...Yes”

“You don’t see a problem here?”, Looking at Yuuto questioningly, he remained silent.

 

After not saying anything for a while, he eventually gave in; “Fine, I’m sorry, but you saw yourself how everyone struggled against those ants, only a few people had weapons that were able to pierce the chitin.”

“It’s true that we need more good quality weapons, but bothering Ryan with it isn’t going to help.”,     Talking calmly, I naturally deescalated the situation; “We need someone that knows how to make good weapons, but Ryan doesn’t have the time to learn. He has his own responsibilities.”

“Yeah, that’s right!”, having taken his side, Ryan felt secure in taunting Yuuto again.

“Speaking off responsibilities, why don’t you go do your job.”, annoyed, I quickly send Ryan away.

 

“Now, come. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and someone experienced with making weapon appears in the Pit.”, Having dealt with the situation, I led Yuuto to the town square; “And if not, maybe the beastmen know how to and can teach us.”

“Beastmen?”, Hearing an unexpected term, Yuuto was surprised.

I looked at him for a second before realising that he hadn’t been there when I told the others about the beastmen; “Yeah, I met a beastmen, you can ask Mike about the details later.”

 

Having arrived at the town square, we had to wait for about half an hour.

In that time, all the faction heads gathered, excluding Luke and Alex.

Whilst Mike was updating Yuuto on the situation with the beastmen, a rip appeared in the air.

It was time for the next Pit.