Chapter 79: Chapter 77: War

Eve watched in satisfaction as the heroes felled their last foe on their way back to the frontier town. It was a few days before her invasion would launch, and she was pleased to see that the heroes had grown to the point where they wouldn’t instantly be overwhelmed in the initial waves of her attack.

They wouldn’t be able to repel the waves either, but that was all according to plan. If people were just able to…deal with her army without any major losses, then they would lose any sense of urgency and the whole Queen of Monsters thing would end up being a giant waste of time.

It hadn’t been easy, though. She had to spend a lot of time carefully micromanaging the heroes to get them to be just the right strength. It was harder than she had thought it would be, since they would start getting suspicious if she sent too many strong things at them too fast, so she had to carefully space things out.

As they were now, Eve estimated that they were, as a party, roughly equivalent to one of the monsters Nuwa had been breeding. Eve had a few hundred of those, and she wouldn’t be letting the heroes face them one at a time except for at the very beginning when Eve was overextending her army.

She had also taken the time to prepare five stronger monsters that she would use as her generals. They were a cut above the rest, the strongest of which was roughly equivalent to Anna in terms of raw strength. Well, similar strength if you discounted all of the dogs except for Fluffy.

…She wasn’t spoiling Anna and Jameson, she was just making sure anyone who stood by her side was strong. Yeah. That’s what she’d tell people if they asked. Lilith would probably call her out on it, but she was expecting that at this point, It almost made it less embarrassing, since she didn’t have to say sappy things herself.

Uh…for a given value of not herself, anyway. She’d get that memory later and have to live through it that way, but it was a layer removed, and as such, not nearly as bad as just saying the thing outright.

“Eve, are you ready?” Lilith asked.

Eve jumped. She had zoned out entirely and hadn’t been paying enough attention to her other sets of senses to realize that Lilith had turned her attention away from the others and to Eve. “O-of course I’m ready!” Eve said. “I was made to do this! There’s no way I’m nervous!

Lilith smirked that knowing smirk that meant she was on to whatever excuse Eve was trying to spout. “Are you sure?”

“Don’t tease me!” Eve huffed. “This is my big day, can’t you leave it alone for like…thirty minutes?!”

Lilith grinned, sitting down across from Eve. “Not if you’re looking so nervous it’s going to affect your performance.” Her face became serious. “Seriously, though, what’s bugging you? We’re just making a recording, so if you mess up, we can just do another take.”

“It’s not that I’m worried about.” Eve sighed. “It’s how people are going to react that’s worrying me.”

A trace of a smile crossed Lilith’s lips. “Well, the news outlets all gave their proper doom and gloom stories, so…”

“You know what I’m talking about.” Eve groaned. “People have already done so much with just that little bit of footage of a calm me, I’m kind of scared what they’re going to do with an angry version of me.”

Lilith wasn’t bothering to hide her smile anymore. “You really should stop looking up fanart of yourself. If you keep doing that, you’re just going to find more and more lewds.”

“But some of it is really good!” Eve protested weakly. “And it’s important to know how the people think of me, so I can live up to their expectations!”

Lilith snorted. “What, are you gonna step on the heroes? I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you have to live up to.”

“Not those! The ones about me being an ice queen or super cool and aloof and stuff!”

“Then you already know what people expect you to do, you can stop looking.”

“But…what if they change their minds?”

Lilith shook her head in amazement. “You want to find the lewds, don’t you?”

“Absolutely not!” Eve protested, face as red as her hair normally was. “I just…”

“Then why do you keep looking on those kinds of sites? There are plenty of other places you can find more…respectable art. And…you definitely don’t need to be actively keeping up with fanfiction about yourself. You like this, don’t you?”

“I…I…”

“It’s okay.” Lilith laughed. “We’re all me here. You don’t have to try and hide it, none of us are going to judge you for it. Actually, why did you even think you could hide it from us? Even if you kept those memories from us, eventually everything would get shared and we would find out.”

Eve pushed the tips of her fingers together, looking away. “I thought if I kept it to times you weren’t looking and snuck it into our passive nightly sharing of memories, you might not notice? Look, it’s just…morbidly fascinating, you know? I know you’ve looked at art of yourself in the past, so I know you get it.”

Lilith paused, searching her memory. Then, apparently finding what she was looking for, she grinned and focused back in on Eve. “If it’s morbidly fascinating, why did you comment ‘LOVE THIS!!!!!’ on that story where you take over Earth and turn everyone into monster-person hybrids? It wasn’t even that well written.”

Eve groaned. “Fine, fine, I like the attention, you happy? But I can’t just say that, otherwise I sound super egotistical! And I’d sound like a pervert if I admitted I like the lewds, so I can’t say that either!”

Lilith smiled. “I know, I’m just giving you a hard time. Feeling less nervous now?”

Eve blinked. She had been so caught up in trying to defend herself that she had momentarily forgotten the pressure she was feeling. “…Yeah, actually.” She admitted. “B-but only a little, don’t get me wrong!”

“Good. Go knock ‘em dead, then.” Lilith said, standing up and giving her another smile. “You did great on the last one, so this one is in the bag.” With that, she left the throne room, leaving Eve alone with Mae.

Eve sighed, sitting up straight on her throne before turning to Mae. “Fine. I suppose I’m ready, then.”

Mae nodded. “In that case, recording begins in three…two…one.”

Eve glared at the camera. “I believe I made myself abundantly clear six weeks ago.” She said. “I said that if you had not completely vacated this plane, I would take it back by force. I am pleased some of you had the basic intelligence required to realize you have no chance of standing up to me and fled, but an alarming number of you were deluded into thinking you stood a chance.”

She gripped the arm of her throne tight enough to crack it, then took a chunk of it off entirely as she stood up and looked down at the camera. “Let me let you in on a little secret.” She snarled. “This isn’t like your stupid novels. There are no heroes from another world, no contrivances that will suddenly grant you the power to defeat me. Your precious High Arbiter isn’t going to step in, and I’ve already got measures in place to deal with the other Perfect Chimeras. You have no chance as you are now.”

She crushed the stone of the throne’s armrest in her hand. “My army marches tonight, and will be on your lands by the end of the week. Flee, or make your peace with your gods. Anyone left in the cities will be assumed to be an enemy combatant and will be dealt with accordingly. Consider this your final warning.”

She waved a hand and the recording stopped. “Alright, bring it here.” She said. “Let’s see how this turned out.”

---

“Do…you really think we’re ready?” Anala asked in a small voice. They had just watched the Queen of Monsters’ latest…broadcast? Announcement? Threat? “I still don’t think we can take on some of the monsters she showed in her declaration of war. We’ve struggled against monsters that I’m pretty sure are lesser versions of them.”

“We’re going to have to.” Raesn said grimly. “But I got in touch with some people I know in the weapons industry, and they’re saying that we’re going to have a dozen or so of those tanks that they fought the High Arbiter with to back us up. It’s the best they could do on such short notice.”

“Shouldn’t they still have a few from before?” Bruce asked. “Surely they didn’t just…stop producing them.”

“As far as I’m aware, they did.” Raesn replied. “The Council’s been much less militant without Elenoa in charge. The tanks were considered an unnecessary expense when they were still reeling from the changes to the world and trying to make sense of everything.”

“I would have done the same, but it’s really coming back to bite us in the butt.” Ava muttered.

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“In their defense,” Anala said, “there was no reason to believe that something like this would happen.”

“People have been speculating about something like this ever since the Shift.” Bruce countered. “Though, to be fair, they’re mostly people who like to think that they’ve suddenly fallen into a novel now that this more…game-like magic system is in place. No one ever really believed them, but I guess they really are having the last laugh, huh?”

“Still…” Raesn mumbled, glancing up. “Why now?”

Anala frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Why wait to do this until after we’ve established ourselves as much as we have? Why give us time to gather strength? Why not attack immediately after the frontier towns were made when we were at our most vulnerable?”

“Maybe the Queen of Monsters needed time to get stronger, too?” Bruce suggested.

“Yeah, but the monsters didn’t need to do that.” Raesn countered. “Something about this just…isn’t adding up.”

“Well, I’ve never seen so many strong monsters in one place before her declaration of war.” Ava said. “In fact, I hadn’t really seen monsters that strong anywhere. They all seemed to be on the level of one of those ancient, calamitous monsters like Fenrir. Perhaps, now that the new system is in place, the Queen of Monsters was able to take control of monsters like that easier, and she needed time to gather them?”

“I guess.” Raesn replied, clearly unconvinced. “I suppose the only way to find out is to make her talk once we defeat her.”

“We can think about this later.” Bruce said. “First we have to try and figure out where she is, and where she’s going to attack first.”

Anala nodded. “You’re right.” She said. “We can just use the portals to get to where we want to go, but I’d like as much time as possible to prepare. Raesn, do you think you can convince the guild leaders to let you place traps outside city walls?”

“Probably, as long as I make sure they know where the traps are.” He said. “Though that all depends on how much they think their city is going to be the one targeted. I can’t imagine they’d want traps that could hurt people right outside the city otherwise, even if they knew all their locations and how to disarm them.”

“That’s fine.” Anala said. “We just need to make a good guess, then.”

“I really wish we had satellite coverage of Haven.” Bruce said. “It would make finding the army so much easier.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Ava retorted. “The Queen of Monsters is somehow able to take over all broadcasting when she makes announcements, so it’s entirely possible she could feed us fake info if we relied on pictures from satellites. Still, I’m guessing we’ll have at least a little advanced warning. The cities will probably have people scouting a decent ways away from them.”

“So…can we assume a day’s warning, then?” Anala asked.

“Seems about right.” Ava said. “If we assume they’re using people who can fly, and that they can see the army from a decent distance away.”

“I’d still like more time than that if possible.” Raesn said. “But I can whip up some quick and dirty traps in a day if necessary. Don’t know how much help they’ll be, but…every little bit counts.”

“Well, we can at least narrow our options down.” Anala said. “I think it’s safe to assume that the three main cities aren’t going to be targeted first. They’re too fortified, and the army would have to go near a few frontier towns to get to them anyway, so those would probably be the first to fall.”

Anala pulled out a tablet and opened up a map of Haven. It wasn’t nearly as good as the maps she was used to, and there were a lot of unknowns, but it was better than nothing. “The Queen of Monsters’ base probably isn’t anywhere we’ve mapped, since I think we would have found it by now, so I doubt we’ll need to worry about attacks from all sides, just the ones with unexplored territory around them.”

Which, admittedly, there was a lot more of than Anala would have liked. The frontier towns encompassed a roughly circular area around the three main cities of Haven, and everything in that circle was explored, but the outside was just one huge unknown.

“Let’s pick one of the outermost towns, then.” Bruce said. “They’re the most likely to see combat first, if you ask me.”

“Westtown is probably a good starting point.” Raesn mused. “The area around there is the deadliest, so it would be worst if the Queen of Monsters attacked there first. She could add to her forces by conscripting all the monsters as she marches her army to the town, and things would get even nastier than they already are. It’s not like we have any good leads, so we might as well try and shore up the weakest point.”

“Agreed.” Ava said. “There are just too many unknowns, whatever we pick is going to be an educated guess at best. No point agonizing over it unless we get new information.”

“No complaints here.” Bruce said. “If we’re wrong, we’re wrong. There’s just not much else we can do now.”

Anala sighed. “Yeah, you all are right.” She said, closing the map. “Raesn, you wanna get started asking permission for traps? The rest of us can help fortify the walls or do whatever other projects need doing, I don’t think we can get any meaningful training done without going out again.”

Raesn nodded. “On it.”

Bruce stood up, stretching a bit. “Shall the three of us be off, then?”

---

“The army’s been spotted outside of Northtown.” Ava said, slamming the door to their party’s shared room open. “They’re going to be there at around dawn.”

Anala groaned, sitting up in her bed. “Great. Just…great. I suppose we’re not getting any sleep tonight, then.”

Raesn sighed, standing up. “Well, I’m going to head off and get started immediately. I’ll let you all catch up. I’ll be back at the portal a half hour before dawn.” He moved towards the door, and Ava got out of his way as he left.

“Right, I’m going to get some energy drinks.” Bruce said. “I’ll meet you all at Northtown’s portal in fifteen minutes, let me know what we’re doing when I get there.”

“Thanks, love.” Ava said, walking over and giving him a quick kiss. “Anala and I will make sure to have something for us to do.”

Anala nodded, and the three left. Bruce parted ways with Anala and Ava after they left the building, and the two made their way to Westtown’s portal before taking it to Northtown. From there they went to the adventurer’s guild, and asked for any odd jobs they could do to help prepare for the army.

They were assigned to help reinforce the northeastern wall, the side closest to where the monsters had been spotted. They met back up with Bruce, then left for the wall. It was a tense night of hard work, but soon Anala’s party met back up and went to man the walls. And, shortly after, they were able to catch their first glimpse of the army.

It was…big. Much bigger than the Queen of Monsters had originally showed the world. Fortunately, it seemed that the rank and file weren’t anything special; they were the kind of monsters that could be found just about anywhere. In fact, many of them were weaker than most monsters normally found outside of the frontier towns.

But…there were just so many of them. And Anala could see some of the stronger ones among the army, too. She took a deep breath, hand going to her sword. “Ready?” She asked.

“No.” Bruce said. “But I’m going to have to deal with it anyway.”

“Same.” Ava said weakly. “There’s…so many.”

“My traps should catch a lot of the small fry.” Raesn said. “But I’m worried about those big ones.”

“I guess that’s our job, then.” Anala said. “Remember, if fit looks like your life is in danger, retreat. We can’t afford to lose any of us, not when there’s still the threat of the Queen. There will be other cities, there won’t be another us.”

The other three nodded grimly. It seemed that, at last, their fight was upon them.