Alice blinked confusedly when the large double door opened on creaky hinges. As if from nowhere, several souls appeared in her range of perception. She still wasn't used enough to feeling what's behind a wall. In her mind, it was still a solid barrier, causing her to miss it when the walls actually blocked her Soul sense.

"Could you feel them before the door opened?" Alice quickly asked.

"No," Debby answered immediately.

"So, the room is probably shielded against most types of physical and magical intrusion..."

Alice looked around the small assembly hall. She had been only once or twice in this room before.

If she remembered correctly, it was a relic of the time when the office building had actually been the university's only building. Back then, the room that was about twice the size of a standard High school classroom had been the place where the largest lectures were held.

In her time, however, the place had mostly served as a kind of event space. And after one such 'event' went out of control, as student parties tended to do, it had been restricted for teacher-use only.

Now, however, it resembled none of that anymore. Stepping through the door, she felt like she had entered another era.

Instead of the large open space in the middle, with tables and chairs stacked at the walls ready for use, the room was now split in three by two rows of pillars, shooting up to the ceiling on the left and right of the red carpet leading from the entrance to the stage.

While the pillars were new, however, the floor, walls, and stage itself had changed. What had previously been made in warm and welcoming wood, meant to make a room stuffed full of people as comfortable as possible, had been replaced by cold, oppressive stone.

Fascinatingly, however, it looked neither new nor makeshift. Instead, the stone was old and weathered by time. In some places, Alice could even see small cracks. Crude metal cages were bolted to the old stone, attached about three meters from the ground on the inner side of each pillar. Small flames were floating inside each cage, immersing the central path in their dim, flickering light, but the areas outside the pillars, in shadows.

Only the very end of the room was brighter, giving the stage and its occupants a halo, projecting a standing above the common people. The light came from a chandelier hanging high above under the ceiling. It was made from a dark, wrought iron, standing in stark contrast to the clear crystals hanging beneath it, shining their almost holy light in no direction but down onto the stage.

It was on that stage, standing almost a meters tall to give you no other choice but to look up at it, that she saw the thone. A monstrosity of wrought iron bent into twisted, intimidating patterns, the sharp ends stained with dark, rusty gold. In two places, strangely jagged yet smooth crystals of imperceivable colors were caught in the backrest, thin, irregular wires holding them in place, like the roots of a tree holding onto a boulder.

Alice stepped into the room, immediately feeling weaker as a strange pressure pushed against her body and mind.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Debuffs:

Monarch's domain

Monarch's presence

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Checking her status, she saw immediately what she had expected. Fighting against the aura suppressing her, Alice took off her helmet, simultaneously giving the sign for 'telepathy-silence' behind the back of her head.

She wouldn't have been surprised if the 'Monarch's domain' controller could feel those kinds of things if used. Ideally, they would have cut all active connections, but if they could feel it even if they weren't used, it would still be safer to keep the network and marks up, just in case they needed them.

Finishing up whatever he had been talking about with the person in front of him, the man sitting on the throne looked up at Alice's group. For a moment, Alice had to stop, fighting to keep her back straight and eyes on the man as his aura alone tried to force deference onto her body and mind.

For a moment, all she could see were his regal features, the majestic red mantle flowing around his shoulders, and the imposing crown on his head.

Bloodlust radiated from next to her, the mental force pushing against the other.

Then, Alice noticed that he was wearing the same cheap leather jacket as their guide, the absurd contrast weakening the foreign influence on her mind. Breaking out of the illusion, the crown and mantle suddenly appeared only in a seethrough, ethereal form.

"Yo, Patty, who're those guys?" King Andy asked, his absolutely non-majestic way of talking tearing the remaining shreds of majestic atmosphere away.

"Guests, so tone it down a bit," their guide answered.

"Ah, sorry, sorry. I'm trying, but it's not so easy. I would talk with you outside," he continued, now directed at Alice, "but my Skills are enhanced when I sit in this chair, and we can't have that now, can we? Oh, right," he now looked back at his previous conversation partner, "you can go do your thing."

The man walked to the side, disappearing in the shadows behind the pillars as he made his way to the door.

With the illusion of grandeur gone, Alice could take the scene in objectively for the first time. The room, she realized, was still the same and pretty much real, not like the illusory crown and mantle. However, now that she had the awareness to pay attention to it, Alice realized that the room was larger than it should be. From the entrance to the back wall of the room, it shouldn't have been more than twenty meters, but when the door had opened, she had felt him closer to the edge of her Soul sense range.

Looking at the man himself again, Alice also realized that he wasn't by far as regal as she had perceived him to be. Sure, he wasn't ugly. Rather he was pretty handsome, his perfectly styled black hair complimenting his Asian features and a clearly muscular body. He was even almost as tall as Alice if she judged it right, not that it was something she cared about.

For the first time, Alice now also realized that he wasn't actually alone on his throne. Next to him, sitting on the left armrest like some favored concubine, was what Alice assumed to be his girlfriend. Compared to him, her features were Arab. And she was by no means a traditional one, considering how much skin her combination of hotpants and crop top was showing, and long, black hair that was freely flowing down her back.

Out of nowhere, the woman pulled a cigarette and a lighter, drawing a deep breath of smoke before blowing out smoke rings. All the while, she was looking at Alice's group curiously.

Of all the things, however, what caught Alice's attention wasn't the pair's good looks. Instead, it was how well maintained those looks were. She herself and Ava weren't the kind of girls to use tons of make-up, so neither of them went through too much of a crisis when they didn't have access to it anymore, but that girl clearly didn't belong in that category.

Which Alice thought was actually a bit of a shame. Less is sometimes more, as the saying went after all.

At the very least, Alice thought to herself, those two don't look like they have to forgo any luxuries.

"Well then, I'm Andy, the leader of this lot. You can call me your Majes... OUCH!"

"I'm Kate," the woman said after flicking Andy's head, before walking down the stair towards Alice's group, "this idiot's girlfriend and the woman in charge of flicking him if he starts talking bull."

"Alice," the two girls shook hands.

Taking the chance now that she was close to her and not moving, Alice took the chance to take a closer look at Kate's soul. It wasn't necessary to be physically close just to see it, not even in the way that she could see in more detail. But being close did help her to focus better. It was a bit like a camera. The more she had to zoom in, the shakier the picture would become.

What Alice saw was what she had feared. A small foreign piece of soul was attached to hers, connected through an almost imperceptible string of soul-stuff to her boyfriend. His soul, in turn, was covered in small pockmarks of missing pieces, each one with a string of its own.

"Anyway, I'm already late. Gonna take a look around and make sure everything's alright everywhere. Patty, you're on flicking duty while I'm gone!"

"Oi!" Andy complained as Kate made her way to the door, a grin on her face. "Anyway," he continued, "why did ya wanna talk with me? Since you aren't citizens, you must have come from somewhere else. You wanna join us, or what's it about?"

"Rather, I would say the opposite. We are from another group of survivors. We are based a bit outside the city. We found you guys while we were out searching for family members of some of our people," Alice explained their situation while not going into too much detail.

"Another group? We are already almost three times as many as there were supposed to be! I didn't expect there to be a whole other group of survivors. How many are there of you?" he asked excitedly.

"Over seventy," Alice kept her answer simple.

"Really? With that many people, things would go a lot faster. Think you could get your people here? Expanding the City Wall should become easy once you guys join us," he immediately made plans for the future.

However, Alice didn't like how quickly and assuredly he came to the conclusion that their group would join his, as if it was a matter of course.

"I can't make that decision. You will have to negotiate with our leaders. Besides, we came here hoping to find the ones we were looking for and maybe bring them back to their families," Alice rebutted him.

"Eh, guess they wouldn't send their leaders out. But, well, having you take people from us would be a bit of a problem. We need as many people as we can get, and it's not like there are many of us left."

"We are only looking for seven people and know for two that they are here," Alice argued, annoyed. She already didn't like how this was going, "and besides, even if they are your citizens or whatever, shouldn't it be their own decision?"

"I guess you aren't wrong about that," he conceded, "If you tell me their names, I can tell if they are with us. Start with the ones where you don't know."

"Julian Tipton, Alison Seymore, Bob and Kenny Bartram, and Angelina Smith," Alice recounted the names she had memorized.

"Wait, wait, wait! Not so quick!"

One after another, Alice repeated the names, giving him time to think after each. The result was disappointing, but not surprising, as sad as it was.

"The last two are Sarah and Angelica McBell," Alice named the last two people.

Alice's eyes went almost wide before she got her expression under control. For just a moment, Alice could feel a ripple go through the man's soul before he answered.

"We have a Sarah McBell, but there is no Angelica. How did you know that they would be with us?" he asked curiously.

"A note in their home. Said they would join your group," Alice answered coldly.

"I see. One of them probably didn't make it then," he answered, sounding more annoyed than anything. "Well, if you want, you can meet her now, or is there something else?"

"Yeah, we wanted to exchange some information," Alice answered.

"What kind of information?" once again, a little more interested.

"Mostly about monsters, since that's the only thing we have details on right now. What kinds there are, and where they can be found. And most importantly, where they came from," Alice explained.

"Hmmm... I'm not sure of how much help we can be in that regard. We have been making sure to stay relatively close to the base until now. But we do, in fact, know where they came from, or at least the direction," Andy stopped.

"Come on, out with it," Alice said when he didn't continue for a while.

"Shouldn't you tell me first what you can offer in return?" he asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Are you seriously fucking haggling over information that important?" Alice asked angrily.

"Hm? Ah, sorry. Old habits. We think they came from the forest in the east," he quickly conceded.

"You mean the one behind the High school?" Alice asked for clarification.

"Yes."

"Okay, ehmmm... Three things then, I guess. Lawrence shopping center, just don't go there. There is an entire army of gigantic invisible spiders there.

The South-west area is also a place you should stay away from. Not sure what it is, but there is something there. Whatever it is, there are a lot of them, and there is nothing else alive in the area. At least, it seems like they can't enter the light, but we haven't confirmed it.

Regarding the High school, there is actually a group of Trolls based there, or at least that's what we call them. Problem is, they are intelligent enough to build fortifications.

Ah, right, at the bike shop..."

"Yes, the Dragon. We know about that one and are making sure to stay away from it," Andy agreed.

Quickly, Alice went through the list of monsters she knew about, giving a short description about each and more detail whenever Andy asked for it. Then, their roles were switched. However, for good or bad, she knew about all of the creatures already.

There was only a single being that made her stop, "What the hell is a Big-worm?"

"Never encountered them? They look like earthworms but scaled up until they are as thick as a finger. They are pretty harmless, but if you get within a certain range, it feels like they are some gigantic monster. Well, apparently, it's just fake. At best, you can use them for a prank, I guess," he explained.

"Ah! Totally forgot about that! Yeah, but I only know about the aura. Got out of there as fast as possible," Alice answered, ignoring the mirth in the man's eyes. Even if it was only fake, Alice still considered it better to fall for a fake than run straight into something that might actually be real. Better to look stupid and alive than foolish and dead. However, she didn't have the nerve to argue about that.

"Ah, Kitty is back, good timing. Patty, can you bring them to the girl they were looking for? She should be at the second field."

"Sure, boss."

"In that case, until next time," Alice said her goodbyes and turned around, the rest of the team following behind her.

For just a moment, Kate grinned at her when they passed by the girl.

"Let's get out of here as quick as we can. This place makes me uncomfortable," Alice sent as soon as the last of her group left the throne room.