Chapter 14: History
...
I set the book aside and moved on to another story as important and relevant as the Epic of Heinrich. The Great Monster Wars.
To sum it up, the Great Monster Wars was a time that predated Heinrich's story. In fact, it was less of a story and more of age. It was so old that most of the original information survived only in damaged texts, many of which were apparently impossible to translate. These days, most people know about the wars through word of mouth and what the church of Ilias taught, which, as you might know, is not a credible source of information.
Thankfully, I don't need to read the ancient papers to get the gist because they had drawings, and with Lukas's memories and my game knowledge, I can do my best to fill in the blanks.
So, the Great Monster Wars was an age of conflict before Heinrich, stretching back probably more than a thousand years. It was a time when Ilias and her army of angels fought against the monster girls to defend humanity's future.
'People really bought this shit?' I shook my head but stopped and thought for a moment about it. Realistically speaking, it's not like I could truly fault them for it.
It was understandable if I thought about it. Back then, humanity was still new and didn't know much of the world, so it made sense they would believe a beautiful goddess and her angelic servants over scary-looking monster girls who saw them as food, toys for pleasure, or any other wicked things they do to humans. I couldn't even call them stupid for that. If I didn't know what I knew, I probably would've done the same.
The parchment I was looking at showed a massive battlefield with angels descending from the skies, wings spread, and weapons in hand while monsters of various types surged across the ground below as humanity was caught in the middle. In another drawing, the same scene was depicted playing out, but it featured an angel that I assumed was Ilias, as she was the largest among them. Also, the hairstyle looked similar to other depictions of Ilias I had seen from Lukas's memories, but I digress. The point is she wasn't alone in this. She was facing a woman who was covered in what I assumed to be a mass of black tentacles
Even as an illustration, something about the woman with those overgrown tendrils made me shiver. I had an idea of who I was looking at, but I decided not to dwell on that and looked at the next drawing.
This next one showed a woman with nine tails standing among several other powerful-looking monsters. I couldn't read the damaged text beside the picture, but I was pretty sure that she was Tamamo. Golden hair, fox ears, and nine tails. Kind of hard to miss.
She wasn't alone either. In the image there were five others with her, showing them terrorizing and raping men. For an ancient text, the imagery was very graphic. One had what looked like vine traps around her, another had wings on her arms and a snake's tail on her lower half, and another had mutliple tendril appendages sprouting out of her body, especially from her lower waist.
"Egh, I need bleach for my eyes." I shook off those thoughts, set the piece of parchment down, and returned to the books about heroes.
There were plenty of other heroes recorded throughout the history of this world. They weren't Heinrich-famous, but they were still impressive. The book I was looking at featured a large, burly man wielding two axes while fighting against what looked like a succubus, judging by the wings, horns, and tail with a heart shape sticking at the end of it.
I leaned closer and checked the name. "Axle, huh?"
The book said that Axle was the only man brave enough to stand up to a powerful succubus and her subordinates when she attacked a human village. He didn't manage to kill her, but he resisted her pleasure attacks and drove her and her fellow succubi away, saving the people and earning the title "Axle the Brave."
"Not bad." I had to give credit where credit was due. No matter the succubus, that was less like fighting a monster and more like resisting a walking biological cheat code. Fending off a succubus and not immediately folding was a feat on its own.
"Couldn't be me, though." I smirked as I checked out the illustration and couldn't help the giant smirk on my face growing larger looking at the drawing of the succubus on top of Axle before closing the book and moving on.
The next item on the list was the maps. To start things off, I went directly to the region I was currently in. The Ilias Continent. Since this was Luka's homeland, the map of the Ilias Continent was much more detailed than the others, and combined with his memories, it was the continent I more or less knew the most about. had game knowledge, but I wasn't sure how helpful that was to me right about now. Again, Suu.
Anyway, the Ilias Continent was located at the far south of the world and was mostly comprised of humans, with fewer monsters than in other parts of the world. That made monster encounters less rampant but not uncommon, as was the case with Suu. The notes on the map repeatedly warned travelers not to journey alone, especially in the forests.
The human territories here were plentiful with villages and farms, but they did not have a kingdom. There were only two major cities, Iliasburg and Ilias Port. Iliasburg sat near the center of the continent and served as the capital, a prosperous city and major hub for merchants, travelers, pilgrims, and anyone with enough money to move around safely as well as a hotspot for blessed heroes. It was also the closest major city to Iliasville, which made it important for my future travel. In the game, it was the first place Canon Luka and Alice visited and where he confronted Granberia for the first time.
Ilias Port was located farther north of the continent, next to the ocean. It was home to fishermen, sailors, and trade ships that sailed between continents. If I ever wanted to leave the Ilias Continent, that was the only way I could go.
After them came the villages. Including Iliassville, there were six major villages. There was Happiness Village, located to the east. Like in the games, it is famous for its happiness honey, a prized local product that is renowned worldwide and always on the market. Come to think of it, I think I might have some in a cabinet somewhere.
Besides the delicious honey, the village was also located near a settlement of harpies called Harpy Village, hence how it got its name. Happiness Village, Harpy Village? In the game, the Harpies kidnapped the men of the village for reproduction because their population was declining, so that was something I would have to keep a lookout for. Not because I wanted to meet their queen or anything like that. Nope. Nuh, uh.
Coughing in my hand, I move on to the next village down south, Pornof Village. Yes. That was its name. Pornof Village was once known for its blacksmiths among the other villages, but it is mostly known for its casinos now. In the past, it was a very functional blacksmith village, but its mines had dried up long ago, and without the mines, the village slowly shifted away from blacksmithing and became more of an entertainment town. There are talks about that place someday having a high possibility of being turned into a city someday as long as the cash keeps flowing from visitors.
After the funnily named Pornof, was Midas Village, the farthest from Iliasville. According to the notes, it had a severe slug infestation and had a warning to stay away.
"..." I deadpan, slowly blinking my eyes in silence. "Yeah, no." I'd rather die than go there.
I skipped to the next village, Rostorm Village, to the far east. Compared to the others, it seemed normal. Quiet, agricultural, and close enough to Pornof that the two traded regularly. I marked the locations mentally and leaned back, tapping my finger against the table.
The map was useful. Very useful. Iliasburg is still probably going to be my first major destination, but I might check these places out to satisfy my curiosity. Except for Midas Village. Ilias Port was my route off the continent and onto the others, so that was a must. Happiness Village and Harpy Village were potential danger zones with sexy harpies dying for some loving. Pornof was useful because of blacksmiths, but I'd have to check that out. As for Midas, the less said about it the better.
"Nothing on Enrika, though." I wasn't surprised to discover none of them had any information about it. It was annoying, yes, but it wouldn't be a hidden village if it wasn't, you know, hidden.
I don't know what Michaela was doing to keep the place secret, but it was good.
It led me to draw some conclusions about the hidden village. If Enrika existed in this world, then someone must have information about it. Regardless of being a hidden village, both people and monsters require essentials to live. Unless the elves were entirely self-sufficient, they likely had connections with at least a few merchants.
And on that note, another question popped in my head. "Why would a human merchant willingly deal with monster girls?" I sat there thinking for a moment before letting out a small chuckle. "Oh, right. Money."
Humans were afraid of monster girls, sure, but fear and profit had been fighting each other since the dawn of time, and profit had a nasty habit of winning most times. I could picture a merchant forming a contract with the elves of Enrika if their dealings were profitable for all parties. Shit, depending on the profit margin, he might even call it smart business since there wouldn't be any rivals if only a single merchant was dealing with them behind the scenes.
"They might also be using their pleasure attacks to seduce him into staying loyal. " I didn't think that was true, but I'm hoping it is because I feel like I sounded super smart there with my deductions. This enhancement to my brain function was really earning its stripes.
"So if I want to find Enrika," I muttered, tapping the map, "I need to find merchants with strange routes, missing inventory, or trade habits that don't make sense." But that was easier said than done.
I give one last look at the patch of green on the map, west of the Ilias Continent. "Someday."
Moving on from cities and villages, there were other things out there too. Ilias continent had a surprisingly large number of abandoned castles, ruins, old roads, and forgotten structures left behind from the previous ages. And that was only what the maps showed. There were probably plenty of abandoned mines, caverns, caves, and other such hidden places. I was bound to find something of worth there if I started looking.
There were also smaller settlements scattered here and there between the major villages, but none of them seemed important enough to get more than a name with a tiny dot on the map.
I leant back in the chair and stared at everything. "There's so much to do here…" And this was only the Ilias Continent. I'm going to have a doozy looking around the other continents, that's for sure.
With the Ilias map wrapped up, I went on to the others, Sentoria and Hellgodo. I had decent information on the Sentoria Continent. Hellgondo, on the other hand, was a different matter. There wasn't anything on it, just a rough, outdated-looking map. As the monster continent and home of the Monster Lord, nobody wanted to set foot there, not after Remina. It was good that I had game info on it.
Sentoria was massive, larger than both the Ilias Continent and Hellgondo, sitting in the middle of the world and containing several major regions, including Safina, Noah, Natalia, and Gold. That matched with what I already knew, but the longer I looked at the maps of Sentoria, the more something felt off. Very off. It wasn't just Senotria either.
For one, there was a region called the Snow Continent west of Hellgondo. I stared at that name for a long moment, waiting for my brain to connect the dots, but nothing came to mind. The only information I could find described it as a cold, desolate land where snow never stopped falling. Just endless snow and ice.
"That's weird. Was this in the game?" I muttered confusedly as I went back to the Sentoria maps. Besides the existence of the Snow Continent, there was another problem stemming from Sentoria.
The map of Sentoria had a huge black marking around the center. It was called Central Sentoria, also known as the Navel of Sentoria. I was confused to see this because while I've known of it before, I don't recall it ever looking like this.
"What am I even looking at?" My brows creased while I tried looking more into this.
The Navel of Sentoria was important as hell because it was where the gate of heaven was, but now there was a patch of black where it was supposed to be.
Unable to find any answers on the notes, I grabbed the other regional maps of the four regions of Sentoria and aligned them to get a clearer picture. Safina, Noah, Natalia, and Gold. I shifted them around, checked borders, then moved them again.
"No…" I whispered in disbelief.
The four regions of Sentoria were no longer the same as I remembered. They were still close to each other, but not as tightly connected. It wasn't one big continent anymore. A large section was missing from the center, and surrounded by a body of water.
I leaned over the table, my hand covering my mouth in shock as my brain tried to process what I was seeing. "What the hell is this?"
Sentoria shouldn't be like this. Aside from the issue stemming from the existence of the Snow Continent, the geography of Sentoria was a more pressing matter.
At first, I thought this world was just an alternate version of the original game. Suu being here already proved it wasn't following canon perfectly, but I could handle that. Some small-scale differences, some AU weirdness, maybe a few curveballs. But this? This was bigger than a curveball. This wasn't a minor setback. This was more major.
A terrible thought crawled into my mind. "Oh god no. Please no."
The original Monster Girl Quest was already dangerous enough, but at least the original had a clear route with a path that I could sort of plan around, but this was an entirely different beast. This was...
"Paradox." I felt my heart drop.
Monster Girl Quest Paradox. The original game was challenging, but Paradox was confusing and filled to the brim with powerful opponents you wouldn't believe. How the hell was I supposed to deal with the situation now?
"I am so, so, so, super-duper fucked." I grit my teeth, smacking my palm on my head as I curse my luck.
...
..
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