Ça va, Madame?

“Terrible monsieur, terrible.”

Excellent! Tell me all about how you hate this city.

The fae woman shook her head, her moth-like wings drooping to the ground.

Aigoo, you poor thing, come now, tell me what happened to you?

“I’ve been trying to find the person singing! It sounds like my husband!”

Singing huh....?

“Do you hear it?”

Oh you know, I think I do, but just, hum along with him so I can make sure we’re hearing the same thing.

“Hmm hmm huuummm hum hmmmm...”

Oh THAT singing, the one that goes like Hmm hmm huuummm hum hmmmm, right?

“Yes!”

No idea where it’s coming from, sorry.

“Oh, what a shame. I’ve been looking for so long that I’ve hardly found the time to feed my baby! It’s so hard to feed him now, my boy’s looking so thin, so small..."

She looked sadly into the baby carriage she was pushing...

Huh. Yeah that carriage is definitely empty.

An incubus stepped out of the shadows, ran up and put a gun to the woman’s head.

*Click!*

“Gimme your purse, bitch!”

“Of course dear, here you go!”

She readily handed him the bag, and as soon as he grabbed the handle, it launched a dart into his throat.

“Huk!”

He tottered and swayed and fell to the ground, paralyzed.

“My boy’s looking so big now! Look at him, he hardly fits in his carriage. Tsk tsk, we’ll have to make room somehow!”

She reached under her dress, pulled out a handsaw, and whistled a tune as she proceeded to saw the man’s legs off. And then she sawed his arms off. And then she used fae magic to seal the wounds. And then she taped a pacifier to his mouth and put a bonnet on his head...

Good gods! She just turned that poor innocent mugger into a potato body baby!

With law enforcement like this, I feel safer already. Maybe this city isn’t half bad.

Hey potato body baby mugger! What do YOU hate about this city?

“MMMHMMGHHHH!!!MMMMMMMMMMFFFFFF!!!!”

Awww look at him trying to talk! Aren’t you just the sweetest little thing? Who’s the cutest little potato body mugger? Who’s da kewtest wittle thing?

“MMMFFFFFF!!!”

You are! Yes you are! Yes you are!

Haha. Let’s ask everybody. Hey people! WHAT DO YOU HATE ABOUT THIS CITY!

----------------------------------------

A stringy looking incubus in his underwear expertly played a drum kit in a trashy apartment room. He spoke as he played.

“Walls are pretty thin.”

“STOP WITH ALL THE FUCKING DRUMMING!”

“...and the neighbors make too much noise, WHEN I’M TRYING TO DRUM!”

He stomped on his double bass pedals and drummed even faster.

----------------------------------------

A cute dwarv girl with plushy cheeks, a waterfall of strawberry blonde hair, and a giant backpack full of machinery fumed with anger next to a stall at a dwarven marketplace.

“Brun ‘The Bargain’ Coldsteel won’t sell his IMPROPERLY refurbished parts at reasonable prices!”

“I’m selling for ten claws!”

“And I’M buying your terrible craftsmanship for four, you greedy lardass!”

----------------------------------------

A balding man with a long nose frowned next to piles of books.

“Even when the library’s COMPLETELY empty, there are STILL people talking when I’m trying to read.”

Wow that’s a bummer man. Biiiiiig Bummer. Mondo bummerino compadre.

Haha he’s mad I can see it in his nerdy old man eyes. Pfft. Who reads books am I right? Only nerds read.

----------------------------------------

A severe looking gaian woman sat on a throne overlooking a packed underground coliseum. With one hand, she held a glass of wine, with the other, she stroked a hairless dog with batlike ears that shivered as it sat on her lap.

“I don’t hate this city so much as I hate the people.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

She side eyed her two beastmen guards and lowered her voice.

“If you can even call them people, honestly.”

...

“This city was fine back when the only people you saw on the streets were good, honest, gaian men and women. Now, well, at least the beastmen know their place. They’re a perfect example of integration into gaian society. But the demonkin races? The elvs? They’re all drifters! Or sluts! They drive down property values just by existing. The dwarves, the gnomes, the giants? Well, if I must share air with them, I must, but I won’t enjoy it.”

Her voice grew cold.

“But the worst race by far has got to be the roaches. Illiterate, violent, stupid, unwilling to work, prone to criminal activities, I could go on, but the truth is they’re simply animals. Animals built to fight our wars. They’ve fulfilled their purpose. The war is over. Why are there still roaches? As soon as peace was reached, all the males should have been put down or neutered, and the babies should’ve been smothered in their cribs.”

She paused.

“Or just incinerated for good measure, even as children those little shits stubbornly cling to life like ticks attached to a diseased dog.”

Wow. That’s pretty fucked up of you to say.

“Yes, well, if no one speaks the truth, it’ll never be heard. And if no one culls the roaches, they’ll infest everything.”

She paused again.

“So I started this roach fight club! Get them to cull each other!”

She gave a strained smile as the roars of the crowd suddenly increased in intensity.

“I thought it would be a quick solution! Is it a solution? Sure! Is it quick? Well...”

She passed a disgusted gaze over the two shirtless men fighting to the death in the cage below.

“RAUUURRRRRGHH!!!”

The first man got a firm grip on the second man’s shoulders, then tore his arms off.

“URAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

The second man stood there and screamed, flailing his upper body, and six circular metallic protrusions on his head whirred as they sucked in mana. And then with a Pop! His arms grew right back.

“RAUUURRRRRGHH!!!”

And the first man ripped them off again.

“STOP RIPPING OFF HIS ARMS YOU KNOW THEY’RE GONNA GROW BACK!”

The woman on the throne shrieked, her wine spilled everywhere, and the dog on her lap shivered even more violently.

“URAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

“GO FOR HIS HEAD! BREAK THE PROCESSES ON HIS HEAD YOU FILTHY IDIOT!”

“RAUUURRRRRGHH!!!”

“No the processes, the, tch... Aisssshhhh...”

“URAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

----------------------------------------

Two teenagers, a fiend and a roach, squatted in the sewers next to a ladder that lead up to the streets.

“Running water would be nice.”

“Yeah.”

They spoke in unison.

“Could wash the stink off of Tanner.”

“Could hose the stench off Ash.”

“Eyyyyyy!”

They laughed and pointed at each other.

“Ay, kocchi muite, pendejos!”

A gaian girl with a long pelt of white hair slid down the ladder, landed next to the two boys, and held out a very familiar looking long black gun.

“Check out the sweet loot!”

“Uwaa, daebak.”

“Some sort of mana gun, huh?”

“Dunno.”

She pretend cocked the bolt action black hole launcher as if it were a pump action shotgun and pointed it at Ash. The fiend boy casually raised his hands.

“All I know is that it’s mine now! Bam! You’re dead!”

You’d all be dead, that thing’s more dangerous than a RPG. Just sayin.

“Oh no shit?” she grinned. “Sweeeeet.”

----------------------------------------

A wolf beastman in a long black coat fitted an arrow onto a complicated looking crossbow, turned a crank to draw it, turned another crank to pull the whole mechanism down into a spring loaded magazine, then fitted a new arrow to start the process all over again. He sighed.

“Repeating crossbows are irritating to reload.”

Isn’t that just like a, in general sort of deal?

He shrugged.

----------------------------------------

A willowy gaian girl in a chef’s uniform stood in an expansive kitchen. Her two long braids wobbled back and forth as she rapidly chopped vegetables.

“The lady I work for forces me to make four-course meals at 5 star restaurant quality for a tank of piranhas that rolls around on tank treads that she calls Mr. Bitey.”

...Excuse me?

She continued chopping with a pained look.

“Did I fricking stutter?”

----------------------------------------

A conflicted looking man in a suit and bunny slippers ate a sandwich at a large marble table across from a tall, stiff woman with a frozen expression.

“When mum died, pap had her stuffed, and he just leaves her sitting at her seat at the dinner table. Now I can’t snack alone comfortably.”

Alone? Hah. You’re not alone, my guy! MOTHER’S WATCHING. SHE’S ALWAYS WATCHING.

----------------------------------------

A ditsy looking fae man wearing a white blindfold squatted behind a pillar in an abandoned building as six men with machine guns pumped bullets into the concrete. He sprinkled some powder into a leaf, rolled a joint, put it to his lips and lit it. He spoke lazily as he puffed.

“Man there’s just too much violence in this city! This used to be the realm of wine! I came here to get wasted man, not to get wasted! You feel?”

He flitted his wings once and vanished, before re appearing behind his aggressors, leaf joint between his lips, silver pistol in hand. He fanned the hammer.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Six heads exploded.

I feel that, bruv.

----------------------------------------

A gaian woman with a shaved head sat at a desk, checking her phone. She was clothed from head to toe in black leather, chains, and spikes. With exasperation, she threw her phone down onto the table and picked up a fork.

“My frogman mercenaries STILL haven’t completed the one assignment I gave them.

She took a single bite of the food in front of her, scowled, and spit it back out.

“And my cook STILL keeps over seasoning the meat. Does she seriously expect Mr. Bitey to eat this slop?”

She threw the plate on the floor and it shattered, spilling the meticulously prepared food all over the place.

A glass fish tank on tank treads rolled up to the mess and the piranhas within it thrashed as they tried to eat the slop.

----------------------------------------

A huge lizard beastman sat in front of an even larger painting of a landscape.

“I used to rob banks. Now there ain’t any banks no more. So I picked up painting.”

How’s that working for you?

“It makes me feel tranquil, yet vulnerable.” he paused. “I hate it.”

----------------------------------------

“But honestly, if there was one thing that I really hated in this city...”

----------------------------------------

“The real problem with this city though...”

----------------------------------------

“Everyone would probably agree that the thing they hate most in this city...”

----------------------------------------

“Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE. Hates...”

----------------------------------------

“Doghead.”

----------------------------------------

“It’s gotta be Doghead.”

----------------------------------------

“Damn Doghead gang.”

----------------------------------------

“Doghead gang stole my dog!”

----------------------------------------

“Holliday Glass, that little roach SKANK!”

----------------------------------------

“Yeah, Doghead is the worst.”

----------------------------------------

“Mr. Bitey is terrifying, but Doghead is more terrifying.”

----------------------------------------

“Doghead, Doghead, DOGHEAD!”

----------------------------------------

Wow, seems like we have a consensus, the city unanimously hates... Holliday Glass.

Almost everyone: “What?? No! Were you even listening?”

The woman on the throne in the fight club: “Hah! I knew it wasn’t just me!”

The dwarv girl in the marketplace and the cook girl in the kitchen: “What? Holly’s great!”

The girl in the sewers with the white hair and the gun: “Bitch, the fuck you say about Holly?”

Yeah I was kidding. What is this Doghead gang that everyone keeps talking about anyways? Y’all just racist against dog beastmen or something?

----------------------------------------

A dog beastman janitor looked up from his work, mopping up a plate of food that had been thrown on the floor.

“Um, I mean that’s a common misconception, I actually don’t believe I’ve seen a single beastman of any type riding with the Doghead gang. They’re mostly gaians, fiends, and succubi.”

He continued mopping with a thoughtful look on his yorkshire terrier face.

“Actually I think I saw a roach girl with them too.”

Huh. Well if everybody hates them so much, why don’t you all do something about it?