Chapter 5: Chapter 4 – I’m… pretty? Cultural shock!

While we were driving, flanked by two armed female soldiers and a hungry-looking officer eying my crotch in front, I couldn't help but nervously ask.

"Where are you taking me?"

"I am not obliged to answer any of your questions." - The beautiful female officer said while smiling playfully and taking her cap off.

At this point, it didn't require me to be a genius to understand that she was teasing me. If I wanted to get any information out of her, I needed some drastic measures.

"Please, miss beautiful officer? Can you please tell me where we are going?"

I used my super secret technique - Buttering up.

I know, it's pathetic, but it works! (At least with my ex)

And as I expected, my little trick worked as the officer in front of me sweetly smiled and spoke through her translator.

"Since you asked so nicely, I'll tell you. We are going to your city called Sacramento. It is one of the rendezvous points to pick up the other "contestants.". If nothing goes wrong, we will get there in about two and a half hours."

"There are others?!" - I asked in shock.

"Yes, there are. There are 99,999 other contestants, and you are one of them. Lucky you." - She said with a smile.

"I am lucky to be picked up by a beauty like you." - I openly flirted with a cringy pickup line, trying to get as much on her good books as possible.

"Ahh, you're flirting with plain old me? How cute. Or are you trying to get on my good books by flirting with me so that you can get more information out of my mouth?" - She happily smiled while exposing my rather obvious ploy.

"Well, is it at least working, miss beautiful?" - I admitted, pushing my luck.

"Hahaha! You have balls, kid. I'll give you that. Flattery will get you anywhere, at least in my books. Isn't that right, girls?" - She asked while looking at the two female soldiers at my side.

"Sure, I don't mind some flirting, right, Islea?" - The soldier on the right said.

"As long as it is just genuine flirting, and it's not from some creep oozing with disturbing thoughts, I don't mind." - The soldier on the left, Islea, replied while shrugging her shoulders.

"See? No harm done as long as you keep it at a reasonable level." - The brown-skinned female officer said with a smile.

"I see... Then, may I know your names, beauties? You can call me Eddy, by the way." - I said, but in truth, aside from the officer in front of me, I couldn't see the faces of the two female soldiers on the side because of their helmets.

"Hah! How can you call me a beauty if you didn't even see my face?" - Said the soldier on the right as she took off her helmet.

What lay underneath the helmet was a silver-haired cutie that was no less beautiful than the female officer. Her silky hair was cut short in a bob-cut, and her eyes were marine blue like the ocean. Her face was shapely and well-defined, her thin eyebrows arched, and she had a tiny beauty spot under her lower left lip, accentuating her flawless lips.

What stood out was the pair of twitching cat ears growing on top of her head and her pupils being verticle.

As I looked at her, a name popped into my head. It was something from a popular anime trope. One that I truly liked.

"Cute Catgirl?!" - I exclaimed while looking at her ears, my eyes shining.

Thump* "Oof!!!"

The next moment, the catgirl elbowed me with her armored arm right on my ribcage.

"Cough* Cough*" - I coughed, my lungs feeling suffocated from the pain and shock.

"That's racist! I'm a proud El'kat, and remember that!" - The white-haired El'kat(Catgirl) soldier said while glaring at me.

"Now, now, Mirah. I'm sure he was only surprised since it is his first time seeing your kind. Right Eddy?" - The brown-skinned officer said while trying to mediate.

"Y-Yes, Cough*, Sorry about that, Ms. Mirah. It's just that I am a bit of a fan of Ca-, I mean, of El'kats. So I got a bit excited." - I admitted and lowered my head, sincerely apologizing for my rudeness.

As a White American with Hispanic and afro-American schoolmates, I am sensitive about the topic of racism, and I know how hurtful it can be.

"Hm... Fine. I'll forgive you this once, but nyoh next time!" - She said while exposing her sharp canine teeth.

"Did she say... Nyoh? Instead of no? I thought shit like that only happened in anime. Damn cute, though."

"Mirah, you're doing feline-speak again." - Islea pointed out.

"Nyaaa!!! By the holy throne! Nyot again!" - Mirah cried out while ruffling her hair in distress.

"Is it that big of a deal?" - I asked while eyeing the upset El'kat.

"It is for the El'kat race. It's like doing babytalk." - The brown-skinned officer explained.

"I honestly thought it was cute... Ouch!"

"Shut up!" - Mirah yelled at me with red cheeks and gave me another elbow, this time to the arm.

"Is it just me, or is the strength behind this elbow less than half of the previous one?"

"Wow! It's been a while since Mirah got so riled up by someone." - Islea said as she removed her helmet, revealing a...

"Pink-skinned ravishing beauty?! Ouch!" - I blurted out, receiving a well-earned elbow to my other arm.

At this rate, both of my arms will get bruised tomorrow.

"Rude! But thanks for the compliment." - The pink-skinned beauty, Islea, said with a smug smile. I could tell that she was only annoyed and not angry.

Islea is not like a pink-skinned native American but a genuine pink-skinned Human with blue hair and lips. If I was to describe her in a sentence, it was like doing photoshop on your average 9 out of 10 campus belle, changing her skin and hair colors to a different shade.

Other than her color, she was indistinguishable from your average 20-year-old beauty with shoulder-length curly hair and emerald eyes.

"Sorry about that, Ms. Islea. I was just surprised, that's all. We don't exactly have humans with pink-colored skin on my planet." - I apologized and explained myself.

"It's fine, it's fine. I am not as sensitive as Mirah. But be careful about what you say, though. Not everyone is as easygoing as I am."

"I see... Then, may I ask what race are you from, then?" - I tentatively asked.

"I'm from the Qharri race, sweetheart. A race filled with humans with skin tones ranging from light pink to crimson red. We pride ourselves on a much higher emotional quotient than average and can limitedly detect emotions through pheromones, with many of us possessing the potential of becoming empaths. I am not mad at you because you have been sincere with your words so far. That's a virtue."

"Wait, you can detect emotions?! Doesn't that mean you're a living, breathing lie detector- Ouch!"

"RUDE! That's a derogatory term that human puritans use on us. I swear. If you weren't honest and innocent like a curious baby, I would have broken your teeth by now." - She glared.

"Sorry..." - I admitted my mistake again. I connected the "lie detector" to the N-bomb of black people.

At this point, I felt like a child scolded by his teacher for saying racial slurs. A violent and exotically beautiful alien teacher at that.

Trying to change the subject, I turned my attention to the brown-skinned and velvet-eyed charming officer in front of me.

"So, may I know your name, Ms. beautiful officer?"

"Ah, I forgot my manners. I am Kelya, a lowly first lieutenant in the administration and your current charge." - She said with a gentle smile. It's the second lowest officer rank in the army if you didn't already know.

"My charge? What do you mean? Aren't you just bringing me to the gathering place or something?" - I tilted my head and asked in confusion.

"Ah, right. I didn't explain it to you. Well, every contestant in the Games has a charge, a manager. These managers are selected directly from the administration and are all of the officer ranks, either first or second lieutenants. We are also accompanied by two bodyguards, in my case, Islea and Mirah."

"Wait, wait, wait! Does every other contestant have an officer and two soldiers in charge of him?! All 99,999 of them?!" - I asked in shock.

"Exactly."

"Isn't that a bit extreme?! Those are officers! Not some rank and file soldiers!"

Although I didn't exactly know much about the army(since it doesn't interest me), I at least know that officers are not cabbages to be thrown around casually like that. At least in the US military, around 18% of all personnel are officers, with the rest enlisted, and this is during peacetime.

In ww2, it was around 11-12%. Even if there are over ten million alien soldiers here, taking out 100,000 low-ranking officers and 200,000 accompanying soldiers for misc work is overkill.

"Not at all. We won't have to worry about that after the preliminary round since more than 99 percent of the contestants will be removed."

"R-Removed?"

I had a bad feeling about this.

"Eliminated from the games. In other words, you either gave up or went BANG. Dead. Screwed." - Mirah said with an evil smile.

"D-Dead?!" - I uttered in shock.

"Dead as a corpse, and then recycled as a nutritional paste or as Algae feed to be eaten by the masses or as our food rations." - Islea said with an equally evil smile.

"E-Eaten?!" - At this point, I was shaking in my Spongebob pajamas. I only hope I won't pee in my pants at this rate.

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"Stop scaring poor Eddy like that, girls. I think he is having a hard time as it is already. Isn't that right, Eddy?" - Kelya said with a calming smile.

I could only silently nod in agreement.

"S-So, you said I can surrender, right? What happens then?" - I tried to ask with a glimmer of hope.

"Lifetime enslavement." - Mirah said.

"A noble's pet Human in the best case and worked to death in the worst case." - Islea added.

"...Fuck - Ouch!"

"Language!" - Islea scolded after elbowing me again.

Rubbing my sore left arm, the pain and shock from that elbow washed out over half of my fears. I then looked up and noticed Kelya was staring at my crotch again with a hungry look.

"Like what you see?" - I asked unashamedly.

"H-Ha? Wha? Oh, sorry about that. It is sort of hard to resist staring at it with these eyes of mine." - Kelya apologized.

"Eyes of yours? What's so special about your enchanting eyes?" - I said while bootlicking again.

"Haha! I am a Khuccen. I can partially see through thin objects thanks to my special eyes. Not staring at your glorious spear is hard on me." - Kelya openly admitted while she kept staring at my crotch with her shining ruby eyes.

"W-Wait a minute! You mean to say that all this time you have been staring at my naked body?!" - For the first time in a long time, I felt somewhat ashamed of my body as I covered it up.

"Guilty as charged, hehe! Gulp*" - Kelya said while giggling like a perverted old man with a bit of drool running on the side of her mouth and swallowing the rest.

"Welp, there goes my image of her." - I thought to myself, feeling somewhat disturbed by how she was acting.

"The Khuccen race comes from a dangerous desert planet with a harsh climate, so they developed a conditional high libido that is active when they feel safe, to reproduce whenever possible. And right now, our junior commander is feeling VERY safe." - Islea explained by the side.

"Yeah, they get horny when they feel safe and see a suitable male. But at least it's controllable. In my case, I can't even control myself when I go into my monthly estrus." - Mirah said while shrugging.

"You go into heat?!" - I asked in shock.

"I do, like many other Kror'irs, or beast-folk in Terran. I am as barren as the desert on regular days, but when I go into heat, I might jump the most suitable stud I see and hump him all day until I'm satisfied, so I need to take special medication on that day of the month to repress my desire. It's not full-proof, but it gets the job done." - She explained in a matter of factly tone.

"Wow, that's hot... Inconvenient, but hot."

"Still, it's not that bad. Islea has it the worst of us and can't stand crowds. If you put her on a battlefield, she might go berserk from the overwhelming amount of bloodlust. If there is mass panic, she might enter a panic attack because of their pheromones. If she accidentally enters a room in the middle of an orgy, she might get overpowered by their pheromones and turn into a dopey slut." - Mirah pointed at the pink-skinned beauty.

"LANGUAGE! Sigh*. But, it's true. The Qharri race can easily get affected by overwhelming amounts of pheromones, which is why we created special pheromone inhibitors that we can activate to limit our pheromone receptors when necessary. It's like wearing sunglasses since it dampens our senses, but at least we don't go crazy." - She sighed and showed a metallic collar on her neck.

"Wow, that's rough... I can't imagine myself turning crazy by just going to a rock concert."

"What's a Rock concert?" - Mirah asked, intrigued.

"Yeah, what is that? Is that like those fancy noble events or bards?" - Islea also asked.

"On my planet, only the water barons have musical players play for them. I only heard of bards from my mother's stories until I joined the army when I was 16 and heard about music from other soldiers." - Kelya sighed and said.

"Damn..."

I was speechless. These three flawlessly beautiful and exotic women lived their whole childhood without music. That's just low-key sad.

"Now that I think about it, how come all of them look so... Flawless, perfect? It can't be a coincidence that all of them look so good, right? What's more, they are not even wearing light makeup, so how they look right now is their natural appearance. No matter how I look at it, this doesn't make any sense."

While I was thinking about that, I explained to them about rock music and concerts.

"Rock music is a kind of a loud music genre on my planet, a mixture of electric musical instruments and drums and loud singing. Concerts are gatherings of people and can have tens of thousands listening and dancing to a single rock band playing music."

"That sounds horrible! I would go crazy if I go anywhere near such a place!" - Islea cringed and said.

"Yeah! My ears would hurt! They are sensitive to sound." - Mirah pitched in and added.

"Sounds good to me, though..." - Kelya's ruby eyes shined.

"That's just because your race is completely human besides your higher tolerance to heat, dehydration, and your eyes." - Mirah complained.

"And high libido." - Islea added.

"And high libido." - Mirah corrected herself.

"Fuck off..." - Kelya rolled her eyes at them.

"Language!" - Islea reprimanded again.

"Yeah! Language!" - Mirah followed, but I could tell it was in jest from her grinning face.

"Bah!" - Kelya seemed to have enough roasting, so she turned her head away, annoyed at her two subordinates.

From my observation, Kelya wasn't acting like a superior should, but more like a colleague and friend with her two female subordinates. From what I know, it is good for building rapport but bad for authoritative commands. Then again, they are her guards, not her bee-workers.

The car then fell silent for some time before I asked something that bothered me.

"How come you are all so beautiful?"

"Hah???" - Mirah opened her eyes wide and stared at me, her face full of question.

"What do you mean?" - Kelya frowned and asked, confused.

"..." - Islea didn't say anything and just gave a perplexed look.

"Er... I mean, how come all three of you are so beautiful? It can't be a coincidence that I was picked up by three top beauties, right?" - I felt that the atmosphere was wrong, so I clarified myself.

"..." - Mirah just blinked her wide eyes at me, but her lips slowly formed a silly grin.

"... Islea, was there any lie in what he just said?" - Kelya gave a perplexed look.

"... He wasn't lying. He is genuinely asking why we are beautiful..." - Islea said in a daze.

"... Did I ask something wrong?" - I worriedly asked.

"O-Oh! Nonono! It's fine, it's fine... it's just... It's just..." - Kelya struggled to say it.

"It's just that nobody has ever thought of us as being beautiful before... Not even our parents..." - Islea continued the sentence with a complex look.

Mirah just kept stupidly grinning at me, her feline eyes shining brightly.

"N-Nobody?! HOW! You are all so pretty! How is that even possible?!" - I couldn't help but burst out.

"I'm... Pretty?" - Kelya entered a daze, her caramel face slowly blushing.

"... Wow..." - Islea's already pink face turned a few shades redder as she started fanning herself from non-existent heat.

Mirah just kept staring at me with the same stupid grin, her face slowly flushing.

"..."

"What the hell is going on with them? Not even their parents told them they are pretty? How? How is that even possible?!"

I couldn't comprehend it. How three top beauties like them were never told they are beautiful.

After 30 long awkward seconds, I couldn't take it anymore, so I asked again.

"Why were you never called pretty before?" - I couldn't help but ask.

"... Your serious, arent you?" - Kelya turned to me and said with a still-flushed face.

"... Yes."

"Wow... Sorry about that, I was just overwhelmed by the compliment. In the beginning, we thought you were just trying to curry favor with us, but we didn't know you were serious." - Kelya made a complex look, her thoughts unknown.

"No, although I admit I had some ulterior motives, I was not even complimenting you. I was stating a fact." - I said with an equally complex look.

"I... Sigh*. Well, I am not too clear about the situation on your planet, but from where I come from, I was born the ugliest in my tribe." - Kelya said with a downcast look.

"The... Ugliest?!" - My mouth hung open.

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