In the aftermath of the Queen’s spell, Izumi found herself stunned. Had she just made a black hole? It all tracked; the flash of light representing the star’s expansion as it died, the compression into a single point, the vanishing of sight as light was unable to escape the event horizon, and the highly-compressed ball of matter left at the center of the explosion.
Belatedly, she realized that she had receive enough experience to evolve, along with one notifying her that she would be teleported away to receive her reward as soon as she closed the window. “It looks…looks like I’m getting my reward now.” Izumi stammered. “I’ll be back, I guess?”
Rose gave her a nod and a smile, gently floating to the ground with Lia in her arms. “Okay. Thanks, Izumi.”
“Uh, yeah.” Izumi replied, closing both windows. And, all of a sudden, she was sitting in a chair, the God of Space standing in front of her with a distinctly displeased expression on his face.
“We meet again, Izumi.” He said coldly. “I am contractually obligated to give you your reward.”
“Did you…know this would happen?” Izumi croaked.
“I had my guesses.” The God of Space sighed. “I had hoped that, perhaps, we could keep the swarm contained to Ratha, but I understand now that that was never an option. I will keep this brief; I have placed an orb in your inventory that will allow you to open a portal wherever you are standing.
“When you first use it, the destination will be your place of residence on Yasato, where your parents still live. Every subsequent use will update the location the portal links to on that plane, and you may use the orb to close the connection at any time.
“I have been also told to tell you that, if you wish to visit your parents, you and the swarm will be safe from consequences so long as you are confined to your house and do not attempt to convert your parents. Your parents have something of an understanding regarding the situation, but you will still need to explain much. Goodbye, and…I am sorry I was not able to aid you more at the outset of your journey.”
And, just like that, Izumi was back in the crater, sitting near the bottom. “Uh, I’m back?” She said. “I have the reward.”
“Oh, good.” Rose said. She seemed to be in the process of putting away a cocoon that held what must have been the condensed matter left behind by Lia’s spell. “Amelia, will you take us home?”
“With pleasure.” Amelia replied. She snapped her fingers, and the group was back in the capital, the familiar pleasantly earthy smell bringing a surprising measure of comfort to Izumi.
“I’m going to go get Lia to bed.” Rose said. “She’s fine, just exhausted after that spell. I’ll give her an hour or two of rest before I wake her up, so everyone take a break for now; we’ll call you when we need you. Good work out there.”
With that, people began to disembark from Miki, and Izumi wandered off to her house. She was tempted to use the orb right away and to go see her parents, but…well, that was rash, and the God of Space could have been lying to her. Seeing as how rash actions had burned her in the past, she decided to hold off until the Queen had awoken; Izumi would no doubt be one of the first, if not the first, person called for when it was time for business, and an hour or two meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
----------------------------------------
Lia woke to a pleasantly fruity taste in her mouth that, after a moment, she realized was one of Rose’s fruits. She opened her eyes and sat, feeling completely energized and awake. “Rose?” She asked.
“I’m here.” Rose said, squeezing Lia’s hand gently. “Good job out there.”
“Um, sorry about the spell.” Amelia said embarrassedly. “I didn’t test properly test it with that much Worship put into it and it ended up being a lot stronger than I thought it was gonna be.”
“It’s fine. The Lord of Monsters is dead, right?”
Rose was silent for a moment. “Yes. Uh, are you up to meeting with people?”
Lia frowned. “I think so. Why?”
“Matthew wants to talk to you.” Rose replied. “If it’s alright with you, he’ll visit you here.”
“I thought he was busy.” Lia replied, surprised. “But that’s fine with me.”
In response to that, Amelia nodded and left the room. As the door shut behind her, Lia turned to Rose. “Is everything alright?” Lia asked. “You’re making me worried.”
“Everything’s fine.” Rose said soothingly. “It went off without a hitch, everyone is safe, the threat is dealt with. I just…no, I’ll let Matthew explain the rest.”
Lia frowned, but accepted that. There was a minute or two of comfortable silence before the door opened once again, and Matthew stepped into the room. “Lia.” He said wearily. “Good work. How are you feeling?”
“I feel fine.” Lia said cautiously. “How about you? You seem…tired.”
Matthew gave her a weak smile. “I am. You beat me up pretty good back there.”
It took a few moments for the realization to set in. “Wait, you…”
Matthew sighed. “Yes, I’m the Lord of Monsters.” He said. “I’m sorry for lying to you, but I had no other choice; if you knew, it would certainly have affected our fight, and that was something that couldn’t be allowed. I don’t expect you to forgive me immediately, but I’ll make it up to you however I can.”
Lia frowned. “I…sorry, I’m having trouble processing this.” She said. “I, just…which part of you is the real you?”
“This one.” Matthew replied. “Whilst around you, I have made no move to hide my true self. The Lord of Monsters act is a façade, one that Jerry has us do to help get people out of their comfort zones, push them to new lands. But…this was my last performance.”
Lia’s frown deepened. “What? You mean that there’s no more Lord of Monsters after this? It’s over…forever?”
Matthew gave an oddly melancholic chuckle. “Well, sort of. That’s you now, in an odd sense. You do the same sorts of things a classic Lord of Monsters does, but in a far more effective way. Due to the swarm, a standard Lord of Monsters approach just won’t work anymore, so we’re retiring the concept, at least on planes with the swarm.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“There are some planes that the swarm won’t be allowed to reach, and I’ll still do the part there, but we’ll have to think of different ways to push people forward now. And, you’ll likely be consulted about those, to help increase their efficacy.”
“Me?” Lia asked, taken aback.
“You.” Matthew confirmed. “And Rose, Amelia, and Connie, of course. You’ll find that, over the course of your conquest, you’re going to start taking more and more duties traditionally performed by the gods. By the time you’re done, I wouldn’t be surprised if you, Rose, and Amelia, were made full gods. At the very least, something’s going to have to be done to help deal with all the Worship you’ll be generating. That is, if you succeed in your conquest, of course, but I have no doubts that you will.”
“That’s…a lot.” Lia said slowly. “Um…why did you train me, if we were just going to fight?”
“You’re looking at it the wrong way.” Matthew replied. “In my eyes, the Lord of Monsters is training. That wasn’t us fighting, that was simply another test for you, and you passed with flying colors. I didn’t hold back; I came at you with the stats and abilities I had decided upon ages ago, and I fought hard.
“You had good instincts, choosing to go for just a few very large hits; I had chosen to take on a form that would become increasingly nasty if you brought in a bunch of fodder to do chip damage, and ending it quickly was the correct call. That last spell, though, Amelia designed it, right?”
“Yeah.” Lia confirmed. “I asked her to prepare something as a contingency.”
“Thought so.” Matthew replied, casting a glance at Amelia. “I could tell because it seemed a bit too effective at hurting me.”
“Sorry.” Amelia said. “I wanted to make sure it would work well if she tried it. And…sorry, Lia, Rose and I knew too. Rose figured it out while you were training with Matthew, and Connie asked us to keep it a secret for the same reasons Matthew gave.”
“Was that why you were so confident I would win?” Lia asked. “Because you knew that it’d be Matthew there?”
“No, not at all!” Rose said quickly. “I said that even before I figured out Matthew’s identity. You really are just strong enough to handle it. I mean…look, you were phenomenal in that fight, and that was stronger than the Lord of Monsters that I fought. You would probably have won even without everyone else’s help, but with them? There were no doubts in my mind.”
“You compare yourself to Rose and Amelia too much.” Matthew said. “They are exceptions amongst exceptions. In terms of stats and abilities, you’re stronger than Rose was at the peak of her time as Ruby Emperor. You just need more experience, and to get more confident.”
Lia nodded, slowly getting out of her bed. “I’ll forgive you, Matthew.” She said. “I know it’s not really your fault that you had to lie to me. Same for Rose, Amelia, and Connie. Um…is this going to affect our training at all?”
Matthew gave her a relieved smile. “I’d love to keep training with you.” He said. “Nothing much will change in terms of curriculum, I’ll just be able to be more up front about my experience with things. I still am going to reduce the frequency of my sessions, though; Willow has been itching for more time with you, and I won’t deprive her of it further.”
Lia nodded. “So…what now, then?”
“Now, I get back to writing up a report for Jerry.” Matthew replied. “I’ll let you get back to your after-action activities.”
He vanished, and Lia looked from Rose to Amelia. “What are we doing?” She asked. “Izumi got her reward, right? And, other than that, is there anything we even need to change?”
“She did, and there’s not, not really.” Rose replied. “We should just give commendations to the people who went with you.”
“Oh, that reminds me!” Lia said. “Septima was hoping she could be reconverted with the Scourge of the Skies, becoming a shipgirl like Miki. What are your thoughts on that?”
“An excellent idea.” Rose replied. “I was going to suggest reconverting it soon myself, and as long as she’s aware that she’ll likely end up seeing more action and less breaks than most shipgirls, then I don’t have a problem with it.”
“I told her the same, and she said she knew and was fine with it.” Lia replied.
“Good.” Rose replied. A cocoon appeared in the air in front of her, held aloft by magic. “May I suggest adding this to the cocoon?” She suggested. “It’s a bunch of compressed matter that was left behind after that spell, I think it’ll have interesting application in conversion. Just put it in storage directly, though, it’s insanely heavy. It even taxes me a little to pick it up, and it’d probably break any sort of table or anything you put it on.”
Lia obediently put the cocoon in storage. “What’s it made of?” She asked.
“As far as I can tell? Literally everything that was in that crater that wasn’t us, Matthew’s corpse included. And, yes, Matthew did leave a corpse; it was a surrogate body he used, not his real one.”
“By the way, what was that spell, Amelia?” Lia asked. “It was a lot…flashier than I thought it was going to be.”
“I had heard Connie talking about what happens when stars die, I thought I’d emulate the process.” Amelia replied. “It was supposed to just be the explosion, though, the whole suction-y bit at the end happened because it was juiced up too much.”
“What does that have to do with an explosion?” Lia asked.
The door opened, and Connie walked into the room. “Good job, Lia!” She said enthusiastically, running over and catching Lia in a hug. “I’m super proud of you!”
“Connie, remind me what you called the thing that’s made when a really big star dies?” Amelia asked.
“Huh? Oh, that spell, right? Yeah, that’s called a black hole. I won’t get into the physics too much, but imagine taking an entire star and compressing it to a tiny little dot. That’s what happened. It sucked everything in because of gravity, but, once the Mana fueling the increased gravity ran out, it just became a ball of all that stuff and doesn’t really attract things more than all that stuff would if it was uncompressed.”
“Huh.” Lia said. “I’ll…have to be extremely careful about using that spell in the future. I don’t think it has a…nonlethal setting.”
“No, no it does not.” Amelia replied, a hint of pride in her voice. “You wanted something that would kill things really well, and I made sure it would deliver.”
“I’ll say.” Connie chuckled. “That did not look pleasant to be caught in.”
“So, are we going to go meet with Izumi now?” Lia asked. “I’m anxious to hear about her reward.”
“Oh, yeah, about that.” Connie said. “She’s been told that she’s free to come and go between here and her home plane so long as she doesn’t leave her parents’ house or try to convert them without permission. That is a valid offer, not a lie or anything, and it extends to her parents coming here; they’re allowed to do so, and the swarm can’t touch them.
“If they break contract and provide information on you to others, then I get free reign to tell you in excruciating detail about what’s going on over there. If you break the terms, then things start over there much sooner than I think you’ll want them to. Basically, it’s the same sort of thing that we did with Meg and Brom. This is just to reunite a family, and anything further is off-limits.”
“Good to know.” Rose said. “I think the plan is to leave that plane untouched until a year or two after we’re finished here, to allow us time to really settle this plane and get everything in order. You know, make sure the people are doing well and our systems are working, that sort of a thing.”
Lia nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. If we don’t, we’ll just run ourselves ragged.”
Connie nodded. “Good. And, uh, Heather wants to talk to you when you’re done with Izumi, and she says to bring Izumi with you.”
Lia raised an eyebrow. “Alright, that shouldn’t be an issue, I think.”
“She’ll, uh, be glad to hear it.” Connie replied. “I…um, I’m going to let you get to it. I have work to do on my end too, I just wanted to pop in and say good job and that I’m proud of you.”
Lia gave Connie a quick kiss, watching in satisfaction as Connie reddened slightly. “Love you, Connie.” She said. “Will you be able to be back for dinner?”
Connie nodded. “Yeah, it’s mostly just…politics. I’ve started sowing the seeds for change in the religions that worship me, I've got to, you know, change my image, and people are asking about the swarm, and then there are the other gods who want to talk with me after you beat the Lord of Monsters…just that sort of thing, you know.”
“I can’t say I’ve ever done anything similar to that sort of stuff, but I get it.” Lia said, giving Connie a smile. “I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?””
Rose walked over and gave Connie a quick peck on the cheek. “Hang in there.” She said. “Hopefully, once we’re through with this plane you’ll have a year or two of respite with us.”
“T-that’s the hope, yeah.” Connie replied.
“Then we’ll just have to wrap things up quickly, won’t we?” Amelia said, giving Connie’s other cheek a kiss. “Love you.”
“Mmm…love you guys too.” Connie said contentedly.
With that, Connie left, and Lia, Rose, and Amelia set off for Izumi’s house. There was still work to do, and the sooner it was done, the sooner the lovers could spend some much-needed quality time together.