“Pretty high.” Sharon giggled as she heard my question. The two guards, upon seeing us, quickly ran over.
“The queen wishes to speak with you.” The notably ruder one said, though his attitude seemed a bit different. With a shrug, we followed along after Sharon put away her animal horde.
Once we were back inside the throne room, the two guards offered a brief salute before leaving. With them gone, it was just the queen, Sharon, and myself in the room. Seeing that, the queen visibly relaxed. “Sorry about all that… Well, at least we didn’t get off to a bad start, right?” She offered a weak smile in our direction. “After you left to work on the temple, we called this planet’s High Queen and discussed things. She said that if your words held truth, that we should arrange for you to speak with her. Judging by the words of our guard, this is the case.”
After saying that, the queen rummaged around her throne like someone who had lost the remote in their couch. A few moments later, she made an ‘aha’ sound, and pulled out a device with a single black button. “Calling the High Queen.” She spoke into the device as she pressed the button. Soon, a large section of the wall behind her throne and to the right receded away, revealing a television screen. Currently, the screen was blue, with a single white line going across it, and a low beeping. “Sorry… this can take a minute… come on…” She muttered under her breath before the call seemed to connect.
“Ah, that was fast!” A feminine voice on the other end spoke up. Soon, we were greeted with a young woman apparently in her late thirties, wearing a golden gown. I could only imagine that, like this queen’s silver gown, it was made of actual gold threads. Like many other elves we have seen, her chest was nearly flat, with only two small mounds barely visible through her gown. Otherwise, she had fairly well defined curves. “Hello again, little Talia ~! Are these the ones you told me about?”
“T-talia?! P-please try to keep this formal, High Queen!” The teenage queen suddenly had red cheeks and blurted out. “And yes… these are the ones we mentioned earlier…”
“Oh come now, you don’t need to keep up the formalities. If what you said is true, and they are aliens to this world, then the formalities would mean very little to them. Now, how to begin… Hmm.. Well, hello to you, offworlders. I am High Queen Maeve of the planet Gerin 6. I don’t suppose ‘her Royal Elfness’ has asked for your names yet?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle, seeing how the Queen of the Woods was getting more and more embarrassed as this went on. “No, but I’m sure there was some reason for that. My name is John Hulett.”
“And I’m Sharon Bradbury.” Sharon spoke up next to me, smiling at the attitude the High Queen was using.
“Pleasure to meet you. I received a report roughly an hour ago that an unidentified ship was in position around the planet, and I would assume that is your craft?” When we nodded, she continued. “Don’t worry, I don’t have any designs for it. If anything, it seems a bit inferior in some aspects to our own ships. Now, since we’re talking, I assume that the temple was a success, and that someone managed to gain one of these ‘classes’?”
“That’s right, High Queen.” Talia spoke up from her throne, crossing her arms over her petite chest in frustration. “Jorel was granted the class of Fighter, which would indicate that they were speaking the truth.”
“Jorel, huh? I think I remember that one. He’s the one with the attitude, right?” When Maeve said this, even Talia couldn’t help but giggle slightly. “Still, just this is a significant help to us. I wonder if there was another purpose for your visit here, John and Sharon?”
“Well.. there is more we can offer you. For instance, we know of two methods you could use to prevent these monsters from appearing in your territory.” I answered honestly. To be frank, I hadn’t even considered a reward yet. What could they give me that I couldn’t give myself? Money that would not be useful anywhere but on this planet? Resources I could easily mine from asteroids or my grove? At most, they might be able to give me one of their ships.
Maeve and Talia both looked to us in surprise at this. “Oh? There is such a method?”
I nodded my head. “For now, they are limited to those that choose either the Priest or Druid classes. In the future, there will be options available for a Mage to do so, but the materials needed do not exist yet.”
Talia raised a curious eyebrow at that. “You speak as if you have seen the future.”
“I have. On my world, when this happened, we were given the chance to go many years into the future to prepare ourselves. I imagine the rest from my world are still making those preparations.”
“Ohh?” Maeve smiled mischievously from the television screen. “Then, why is it that the two of you are here, when the rest of your planet is still fighting back this force?”
“Because ours was the only world given this privilege, and we were not needed there. So instead, we decided to set out, and visit the nearest civilizations that we had found with the information obtained in the future.”
“I see… You already have a bride in the woman beside you, so you do not want a position as a king. If you possess the information from the future, your technology is bound to be far more capable than our own. Am I to believe you are doing this solely out of the goodness of your heart?” Looking over, I saw that Sharon’s face had gone entirely red at the High Queen’s words. I wonder why she immediately believed we were married? Celeste, while laughing, provided me the answer mentally. Apparently, elven women with large breasts were limited to those who had many children, so that they could better care for them. Otherwise, almost all elves had the slim figures of the two queens.
“Ah… well… we aren’t married or anything like that… But yeah, I wasn’t really expecting a reward when we got here.” When I answered like this, a bit embarrassed myself, Maeve covered her mouth with a hand. Though, I could see an almost wicked grin underneath it.
“Oh, really? Then, you wouldn’t object if Talia were to be your bride?”
“A-aunt Maeve!!” The local queen suddenly looked to Maeve in shock, and I have to say none of us were expecting that.
“Uhm… well.. we are going to be journeying more after we help the elves, so I am afraid that I must decline.” Not only Talia, but Sharon as well visibly relaxed when I declined the offer. I don’t want an elven queen! My harem is growing too much as it is already! Let me have at least some peace…
Maeve, on the other hand, just laughed happily, as if she had been expecting a reply like that. “Oh, don’t worry dear, I was only joking. Though, I do think that there is still much that we could offer you in exchange for the services you are prepared to provide.”
“I-I see… just please… no more women…” I couldn’t help but saying that. Sharon, next to me, covered her mouth to suppress a laugh. Celeste, however, showed no such restraint.
“Oh fine…” Maeve put on a fake pout. “Anyways, what are these methods for repelling the monsters that you mentioned?”
Thankful for the change in subject, I let out a sigh of relief. “Well, it will be easier to explain once people have begun training in a class. I’ll have the AI for my ship upload the information to your network, and you can look through it.”
“Oh, that means it’s my turn!” Celeste spoke up in my head, and I could imagine as she quickly compiled the information on various classes, before uploading them to the local network. “Aaand done!”
There was a brief alarm sounding from the other side of the call, and Maeve’s eye twitched involuntarily. “I’ll assume that was your doing, then… Oh well… Still, you wield the power to control the earth, and change your shape. I imagine that such things can’t be learned through simply reading?”
Sharon looked to me and smiled before explaining. “The both of us are druids, and that is one of our abilities. John focuses on those aspects, while I focus on growing animals. We can offer early training for anyone that wants to be a druid, since we have been through such ourselves. Ah… by the w
ay, if you have any interesting animals on this world, could I borrow a couple?” She looked up to the High Queen with pleading eyes. Never miss a chance for new fluff, do you?
“Hmm, very well. I’ll have Talia see about showing you some of the local wildlife in her woods.”
When she heard that, the Queen of the Woods just sighed, shaking her head. “Yes aunt…”
“Now now, none of that. These people could very well be saving our people. And not just the ones on our world. I’ll discuss with the other High Queens and share this information with them. Now that we have seen what this temple looks like, we can have our people build them wherever they are needed. I assume there won’t be a problem with that, John?”
I shook my head at the question. “No, there shouldn’t be a problem. The important part is to get the statues. If you have those built, you can put them in any building you want, and it should qualify as a temple.”
“Oh, well that makes this easier. We pride ourselves on our artistic ability.” Maeve smiles proudly, puffing out her almost nonexistent chest. “I would ask that you stay around for a few weeks, however. This will serve as both time to train a few local druids, as well as for us to prepare our gift for you.”
“Ah…” Sharon looked to me, as if wanting me to take care of this one. I had never mentioned how long we’d be staying.
“We had planned to stay for a little while. Aside from the general monster problem, our ship detected a small number of much more powerful monsters that had appeared in this world.”
Maeve’s expression turned more serious at that. “You are referring to the six calamities. Yes, there were reports of powerful creatures wiping out entire cities as they established their domains. The other planets have similar problems, though they only have four or five such.”
“Yes.. they are what we call a boss class monster. One of our companions back on the ship is working on making a weapon capable of getting rid of them, but it may take some time.”
Talia seemed surprised by my statement, but Maeve only nodded. “Yes, I do not imagine it would be a good idea to leave them as they are. On Galen Prime, our original homeworld, they successfully managed to exterminate one of the great winged creatures by using our bioweapons. However, getting close enough to do so cost many lives. With each of these creatures having a different appearance, there is no guarantee that the same method will even work on all of them.”
As she said that, I could feel a cold sweat coming over me. These elves actually had a bioweapon capable of killing what sounded like a dragon… How is that not terrifying?! “Well… yes, we will be doing our best to help you deal with them.”
“Don’t worry, John, they don’t seem to be the really strong dragons. Not like the ones that were starting to appear on Earth. From what I’m seeing, these are smaller ones. Though, they are still much more powerful than anything we’ve fought before. At the very least, each one of them would be on par with that nature wyrm you fought on the jungle planet.” Celeste failed quite epically at reassuring me. I fried myself to deliver an ultimate attack, that did nothing more than stun that thing for a few minutes! “Look on the bright side. Orbital lasers! Also, only three of them are actually dragons. One is a giant golem that was birthed from a mountain, another is a massive… let’s just nuke that one rather than telling you, and finally we have a giant ice wolf.”
You were going to say that one is a massive spider, weren’t you?! Despite my mental retort, there was silence from Celeste, which only seemed to confirm my suspicion. Kill it with death lasers!
Chapter 16 - Scorched Earth is Best Plan
After the call ended with the High Queen, Queen Talia let out a long sigh. “We are sorry about High Queen Maeve. She’s a bit eccentric, but she really is quite capable, and has only the welfare of our race in mind.”
I could only chuckle softly at that. “It’s not a problem. But… I take it that’s why you dismissed the guards?”
“Right, right… She always puts up a serious face when others are around, so she asked us to make sure that was not an issue during this call, as a show of respect. Personally, we think she should take it more seriously. It’s the fate of our race, after all… Please don’t take her jokes too seriously…”
“No, it’s alright.” Sharon said, waving a hand quickly. “Besides, there’s not much else for us to do while we wait, Queen Talia. Do you suppose that we could look around to see what animals your world has?”
At this time, Celeste chimed in inside my head with a somewhat wicked laugh. “Oh… I did a scan to learn about their wildlife… She is going to love this…”
If you could just scan for it, why are we bothering to have someone show us around!? I retorted mentally. Talia however, simply nodded her head, clapping her hands loudly. A moment later, a few guards opened the large door to the throne room. “Have one of our hunters show Sharon Bradbury around the woods, and let her experience the wildlife. What is it you would like to do, John Hulett?”
I thought about it for a moment, and shrugged. “I could set up a ward around this forest for you, so that monsters don’t spawn inside of it anymore. It won’t stop them from wandering in, or remove the ones already here, but it should help.”
“We would appreciate that. What do you require to make it happen?”
I looked to the little queen. “I would need a glass sphere, about this big..” I measured it out with my hands to show how large I would need. “And I need a circle drawn around the forest. Alternatively, if you have someone take the Priest job at the temple, they can pray to the patrons there and ask them to shield the area.”
While the priest method was not feasible back on Earth due to religious conflicts, the way Sharon worded it here made them readily adapt these deities as part of their current religion. In that sense, what was impossible back on Earth could potentially be the easiest solution here. The queen thought about it for a moment, before nodding. “We will personally take the Priest position, and ask these patrons to defend us. We believe that doing so will show that we are completely sincere. Furthermore, we would ask that every generation of queen in these woods take the position of Priest for this same purpose.”
I wasn’t really sure about that, but the logic was sound. Even if I can’t count on Aria to be useful, I can hope the other two are. “Alright, then I’ll take a look around. I’ll probably fly around for a bit to make sure that there are no more fights breaking out.”
“Very well.” Talia nods, and Sharon is escorted out by an elf with a large bow on his back. Presumably, that is their hunter. “We ask that half of the royal guards accompany us, that they may be granted a class as well. The other half shall defend the realm according to their normal duties.”
I didn’t bother sticking around after that, and directly left the castle. “Celeste… there aren’t big you know whats in these trees, are there?”
“No sir, it is safe for flying! But… don’t go too far north. Just a warning. Probably best not to fly too high above the treetops either.” The AI quickly responded in my head.
“Please don’t tell me that it’s the closest ‘calamity’.”
“It’s not the closest calamity.”
“You’re lying to make me feel better, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“...Thanks… Just… warn me if it heads this way.” I mumbled under my breath, causing several elves nearby to look at me strangely, backing up to put distance between us. “Guess I’m not flying. Is there enough power on the ship to teleport up?”
“Barely. It’d drain almost all of the power on the ship. It’d be best if you just found somewhere to log out, and help resupply the ship’s generator while you’re up here. I could theoretically refuel us by flying at the sun, but at that distance we’d lose the connection with the clone bodies. Since that’s the case, it’s best for you to do so yourself.”
I nodded my head, and looked around. Since this wasn’t anything too important, and wouldn’t take too
long, I cancelled my Aspect of the Bird, and sat down against a nearby tree before ‘logging out’ of the clone. Back on the ship, I lifted the headset and examined my surroundings. The others were all still plugged in, so Celeste and Yo were the only ones here to greet me.
The slime girl tackled me before I even had the chance to stand up from my seat, giving me a strong hug. “Welcome back, Papa!”
“Yeah… Has any progress been made for creating a slime clone?” I looked to the AI, who let out an exasperated sigh, shaking her head.
“You’ve been down there only eight hours. I’ve barely had time to run the first round of tests. Give me a bit more time before you ask for results. However… I’ve managed to come up with a way to synthesize more slime, similar to what makes her body. The problem is that without a slime core, it’s just a bunch of useless goo. I need to figure out a way to make an inert monster core, that way we can transplant Yo’s soul into it when she does the cloning process.”
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