Lair

Volume 2, Chapter 049 - Control

By Skalsar

Two hundred [Lizardra] were walking in front of me.

Humanoid monsters, but with scales all over their body.

Similar to lizards, but as big as a grown human and likewise walking on two legs.

After deciding to use strength to subjugate them, everything became easy.

The [Abomination] walked into their cave, followed by a hundred very frightened [Goblins] and ten [Hobgoblins].

Most [Hobgoblins] had tried to resist. Much to their misfortune. Changing... occupation.

But lucky for me, behind me were like twenty of these very submissive, occupation changed [Ghouls] now, dragging corpses for me to use later on.

The [Abomination] had cost too much [Magic Power].

The [Lizardra] didn't even think about resisting and just knelt down.

A weird thing to do.

Why do they believe it's needed to kneel in order to submit oneself?

'Three hundred and ten monsters.. Not bad for a first. Bring them to the [City]. Any more and the balance would be thrown off too much.', Danar declared in my mind and felt a bit happy.

It's wierd, but newadays.. I don't feel that good about Danar being happy.

Maybe I catched a cold or something?

Humans say that they are often not themself when catching a cold.

Could this apply to [Hiveborn] too, now that we are a race?

I tilted my head.

Or.. is it just that I'm not sure if doing all this subjugation was the right choice..?

Naaah, can't be, right?

"Move faster, the slowest one gets eaten by me! Lets go home!", I tell the monsters.

Hm.. Eating.. that reminds me..

I grab one of the young [Lizardras] and bite his head off, hadn't eaten one of these yet.

A bit crunchy because of the scales.

The flesh is tender and not much [Magic Power] in them.

Guess that's the reason why there are no variants in their midst.

They look at me somewhat strange now.

Ah! Terrified, that was the word. Right.

It feels a bit like when the [Paladin] attacked us, we were that helpless, too.

But now that we are on the other side, it's quite funny.

And we won't simply slaughter them, but make them into citizens to grow our [City].

With the parasitic needles of the [Watchers], they will constantly produce [Magic Power] for us.

Unknowably.

Shortly after, we finally arrive to the [City Gates].

I take the [Goblins], [Hobgoblins] to one of the six still free districts and the [Lizardra] to another.

Maybe some monsters will share districts later on, but for now we have enough space.

For the [Goblins], small cave-like buildings are erected using [Magic Power].

The [Lizardra] prefer something more like stonetents for now, but are quite interested in huts.

[Humans] stare at the monsters as we pass through their district.

It seems to be fascinating for them that all these monsters are peacefully entering the [City].

The [Great Necropolis] that was promised to be peaceful, still not showing any sign of failing them.

For the sake of showing kind behaviour, we had Odas speak to the [Humans] again.

>Listen well, residents of the [Great Necropolis].

Even though they were just monsters once, everyone who seeks peace shall be welcome to this [City] and show the world that we don't have to kill eachother.

This is but a first step and many more will follow.

He didn't have to say anything besides that, the [Humans] were already convinced.

Not knowing that Odas himself was but a [Ghoul] and therefore slave to the hive.

>Welcome to our [City].

>As you can see, we live in peace here.

If you behave well and don't cause trouble, you will live well.

Fury will be in charge of the monsters [Goblins] and its variants.

The monsters [Goblins] and its variants have been apointed a leader.

As the leader is acknowledged by them for his strength and prior leadership, the monsters have been acknowledged as residents to the [City][Great Necropolis].

>The [Lizardra] will be looked over to find a leader for them.

With that, he already left.

Afterwards we made sure for them to know the rules of our [City.]

Peaceful behaviour, hunting in the dungeon, stuff like that.

'But is this really worthwhile?

They are so weak.', I say to the others in my mind.

'It will work out. We just have to train them.

They will need to earn [Experience] to produce more [Magic Power].', Nyr says.

But I don't quite understand.

Feeling my irritation he continues.

'Humans and [Monsters] grow very slowly by means of what they call [Experience].

Their [Souls] absorb this [Experience] and grow in strength.'

Oh, I see.

Then we could simply make them do stuff for us and pay them by giving back [Magic Power].

Like having the [Humans] provide on the fields around the [City] and share with the monsters.

'No, that doesn't work. They produce [Magic Power] themself, they don't absorb it like us.'

'Yeah, I still can simply give them the [Magic Power] and transform it for their [Soul] to assimilate it.', I explain.

'You could do what?', Danar asks surprised.

'Grand them [Magic Power] surrendered as [Experience]. I would just need to imprint the [Watchers] with the ability to surrender the [Magic Power] as if the Human or [Monster] defeated a [Monster], [Creature] or [Hiveborn]. They may then modify their parasitic extensions with the given knowledge remotely to grow part of their parasitic body and then simply cut that grown part off and let it desolve, resulting in an [Experience] gain of the Human.', I don't understand why it seems to be so difficult to think of for the others.

'That is impossible. How should the [Watchers] remotely change something in the distributed parasites?'

'Well, both share part of the same [Core]. It's something that happened by chance when I created the [Watchers]. Since we wanted to use them to aquire surviliance, I had them produce miniature [Cores] for the parasitic bodies. They therefore partly liquify their own [Core] to sample a [Core] and add [Magic Power] to create the new [Core]. Which results in a new [Core] that has partly intaken [Magic Power] of their original [Core]. Making them share a bond of [Magic Power] over a great distance.'.

All of them are deep in thought now.

I get the feeling as if they are thinking of me as some sort of alien being.

Why do they suddenly feel like I'm the strange one again?

'You are.', Nyr says.

'Just impossible to pass him.', Sora adds.

'I guess you should just throw him out, he shouldn't exist.', Squishi says with a feeling like nodding.

'''Shut up Squishi!''', everybody suddenly shouts at Squishi.

Wait.

How does Squishi add to the conversation?

Shouldn't he be cut off of the link?

I take a look at his being and scan his [Magic Power].

'Well, I guess you aren't as special as you think yourself as, stupid.', he exclaims.

I see!

Even through he is weak, pathetic and squishi, he still has a bound [Soul].

'I see', Nyr talks again now. Looks like he understood it, too.

'He developed a skill due to being confrontated with his isolated situation.', he explains to everyone.

'Interesting. I should check if such a thing has a regular possibility. I will go check on our [Hero] in her guestroom.', Sora said.

Oh yeah, we still have that female that provides us with large amounts of [Magic Power] daily.

Guess we don't really need her anymore though. Since we have all these humans now.

'That isn't all.', Nyr starts again already. He seems a bit fascinated by something.

'What Nydar just said, means that it's possible for [Watchers] to heal their [Core] by liquifying the [Core] and adding new [Magic Power] to a broken point. While that would only work on very shallow cuts, if adapted to other [Hiveborn] with more then one [Core] or with a bigger or stronger one, would allow them to live through most wounds if the [Core] or [Cores] don't or doesn't get completly destroyed.'

'Oh. Yeah, that should work.', I say. Didn't think about that yet.

'Stupid! You should think about stuff like that first instead of the [Humans] and [Monsters]!', Danar screams at me again.

Just because he is so focused on survival, doesn't mean everyone has to be like that all day long..

Well, at least it seems like that [Experience] think will be helpful in order to bind the residents to our rule. We will have to think about some sort of system to give out orders to them, providing useful rewards in return.

'Shut up! Make my [Dungeon Lord] body immortal!', Danar shouts again.. Annoying..