*WITH THE MONSTER EMPRESS*

  Majin was currently relaxing inside her village after getting the snowmen and deer to finally fix up the village. It now looked like the perfect place for a community of monsters to settle down and expand, but as the Monster Empress, Majin couldn't be just satisfied with this. It was time to get off her butt and begin to do Empress stuff.

  She raised her head and patted the deer whose soft sleep-inducing side she was laying on and mounted it. She called this deer Minion #1 and it was currently her favorite. This little deer evolved into an elemental deer instead of the other three choices, like growing horns, growing bigger, or growing more fur. There wasn't any special reason why she chose this deer to favor over the others. It just happened.

  Majin and Minion #1 set off into tundra with 10 snowmen trailing behind them. She left the rest of the deer and snowmen to defend the village while she went out looking for more races to conquer and take under her rule. She decided to save the trolls for last, since they conquered this cold wonderland for themselves. Majin and her minions came across a cave as they traveled across the ice. There was a frozen waterfall a little bit away from the cave but Majin felt something from the cave.

'Whatever's in this cave will be mine! I don't care if you're a monster or a nice little treasure waiting for Mama to grab! It'll all be mine!' She smiled.

  Majin left 5 snowmen outside the cave and went inside with the rest and Minion #1. The inside of the cave was completely dark. If a normal mortal came inside this cave, they wouldn't be able to see a thing. But Majin is anything but a normal mortal and was able to see everything clearly. The cave just led down a straightforward path down. The walls and floor was covered in ice and not much else was present until Majin reached the end of the cave. At the end was a campfire and 3 blue-skinned giants sitting around it. They had very impressive physiques and beautifully crafted weaponry. Majin nearly bit her tongue in excitement at the beautiful creatures.

  They spoke to each other in troll language and seemed to be curious about her intentions. She smiled wickedly before sicking her monster snowmen and deer on the three. The three trolls roared and easily tore through the snowmen with their weapons and surrounded Minion #1. They all struck simultaneously to end the cute little doe but she defiantly cried out and tendrils of vines shot from the ground, knocking the trolls away. Beautiful colorful flora began to grow on Minion #1's fur and she started using her nature magic to bind and entangle the trolls.

"Good work Minion #1! Now let's take them back and…." Majin was suddenly interrupted by the sound of chewing and turned around to see Minion #1 chewing the exposed blue shoulder of the tangled troll, but despite her carnivorous desires, her biology wasn't quite meant for something like that yet.

"Awh you little vicious killer.. Fine. You can have a bite." Majin said as she walked over to the bounded troll and tried to freeze its arm. But her ice magic had no effect on the troll.

"Good to know about one of the weaknesses of our future enemies.." She then used fire and the troll began to shout and yell in pain.

  Even though this was quite inhumane for Majin and definitely the first time ever torturing someone, she didn't feel much from it. It was kind of hard to really think of these creatures as thinking and feeling people like her. The fact that she couldn't even conversate with them wasn't helping either.

'But I will have to deal with even more cruel and terrible things to come as Monster Empress. It just feels like I'm getting a headstart on it or something.. Usually the protagonist would be forced to this point and I'm just doing whatever I want…' Majin thought to herself while still burning the troll's arm into a nicely smelling delicacy.

  Minion #1 tried to eat the tough troll meat with it's herbivore teeth while Majin continued to delve on her thoughts before suddenly screaming out loud and giving up.

"SCREW IT! ENOUGH THINKING AND MORE DOING WHATEVER I WANT AS MONSTER EMPRESS!"

  Majin turned the second troll into a peanut chocolate bar and ate him before softening up the arm meat for Minion #1 and letting her finally sink her teeth into it. She somehow ate the whole arm without looking any different afterwards and they left the cave with a fully traumatized Troll being dragged behind them. But when Majin exited the cave, she noticed her snowmen were gone.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" She heard a cry from above her.

  A short troll around her size was leaping down towards her with a familiar C floating above his head. He held in his hand a short spear and was aiming at Majin's temple. Majin dodged the boy's attack.

"What do you want?" She asked.

"Release my father! Don't make me hurt you." He shouted in a child-like voice.

"Hey, I can understand you! You'll be much more useful than your father here. I can't understand a word he's saying." Majin said while patting the troll yelling something at his son.

"Don't worry father! I will definitely save you."

  The similar-sized champion thrusted his hand out and yellow energy glowed from his body. It started to flash slowly before rapidly picking up in speed. He shouted as he ran towards her and tried to pierce through Majin's throat. Majin smirked in amusement.

'I don't know why he chose to be reincarnated over transmigrated. That is a very risky choice. Who would want to be stuck as a baby and child again for 16 years? Especially in this dangerous world. But it may have been fun if there weren't others who had cheats like me though.'

  Majin let the spear bounce off her neck and watched as the yellow energy start flashing even more intensely. He smirked and Majin's vision went white.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

  The troll boy self-detonated, killing Minion #1 and somehow avoiding the troll behind her. The ice cracked and burst apart, nearly taking her in the freezing waters that would definitely turn the average mortal into an ice cube in seconds.

"Minion!" Majin screamed.

  The explosion started to gather together from the leftover smoke and ash until they reformed the troll boy in perfect condition. He reappeared next to his father as Majin mourned the lost of her first mount. There weren't even ashes left for her to put away somewhere..

"I was going to let you and your father live a happy life in my village as my henchmen and slaves… but now you two deserve only the worst…"

  The troll boy aimed his spear at Majin while his father recovered his strength behind him. Majin stretched her foot underneath the water and tipped over the ice sheet that the son and father were standing on, knocking them into the icy waters and freezing them into ice cubes.

"I can't kill a champion without dueling them but the rules never said anything about this…"

  Majin used her gravity magic to sink both the father and son to the bottom of the icy abyss below her. She forced them so far down that even her captured souls would be unable to locate them.

  Majin began walking home all by herself after losing all her monsters on this first exploration out.

"I failed pretty badly at micro-managing my minions. I'll have to do better next time.." Majin said to herself sadly.

  As she was returning back to her starting village, she came across another group of kobolds. They tried to attack her but were quickly subdued and chained by her.

'I guess this journey wasn't a total flop. I think I read some novels where kobolds are descendants from dragons or something. So, evolving these three into my own dragons should be fun… and the snowmen can easily make another group of themselves. Although no one can replace my cute little Minion #1.' Majin thought to herself as she arrived back in her village.

  She placed her mind control spell on the kobolds and imprinted her pink M on their foreheads, also forcing them evolve. They turned into slightly bigger reptilian humanoids and looked at her with nothing but gratitude and loyalty in their eyes. They bowed before her and made weird kobold noises.

"Okay okay enough. I have a plan for each of you to evolve the way I want you to. I need one warrior, one mage, and a support."

  Majin gave the toughest looking kobold a large sword that it couldn't even hope to lift anytime soon. The weakest looking kobold was given a metal staff and the last kobold was given a large book.

  The kobolds began yelling and screeching while swinging around their gifts, except for the tough kobold. He couldn't lift his gift yet and just danced on top of it. She showed a brief smile at the cute little ugly monsters and began training her deer, snowmen, and three new additions to the family. They'll set out in a week or two when she believes they can take on a group of trolls without her help.