Warnings: coarse language, sexual innuendo, and its talk heavy this time.

Chapter 3: The Meaning of Life

Scott finished the last of his assignments for the day and leaned back. It had been two weeks since he'd been taken in as a ward and worker bee by professor Ophun.

She worked him ten hours a day for five days a week. The pay rate was around five thousand gold credits per day. Some people might think that sounded like a lot of money. In reality, it was fairly equivalent to making five bucks an hour.

Half his pay was retained due to the necessity of room and board. The other half was also retained due to the money he owed.

Scott didn't mind the job too much, though. The professor's idea of work mainly involved filing papers, data entry, working out, and studying. The man wasn't certain just why she insisted that all this was work related and necessary but he wasn't complaining. The time he spent working out and studying pretty much covered his food and rent.

He spent a minimum of four hours a day learning about the world. He refreshed himself on various demi-human breed types and got in shape. This was a good thing in his opinion. A large amount of the information he had written about was different when faced with it in person.

The most startling differences revolved around how many people actually lived here. Most estimates he'd worked with back home had placed numbers around ten to fifteen million or so in this country.

Estimated human populations in the real life variant were roughly at the fifty million mark. Of course, human was a relative term. Any male was considered human. Roughly one-twelfth of the female population fell within the minimum standards to be considered true human, as well. They required a blood percentage of no more than three percent non-human DNA to be classed as such.

There were a lot more 'human' females in the next scale up, anyone under the sixteen percent ratio. Anything beyond that, and she was generally considered to be on the fast track to awakening as a demi-human.

Demi-humans were a lot more plentiful than humans. The current estimate for all known breed types seemed to have them at a thirty to one ratio. For every human, there would likely be at least thirty demi-humans in existence. Monster populations were noted as being far more numerous, however.

These numbers were simply educated guesses, however. It was rather difficult to acquire a true census among the wild demi-humans considering how many of them were carnivorous or lived in out of the way locations.

There were a few more towns, villages, enclaves, and schools than the fiction he had written in general. The laws were sadly very similar, however. Demi-humans had about as much right to life and liberty as animals in a random third world country from his home world. Animals had the ASPCA, Green Peace, PETA, and such to try and keep owners from being too brutal back where Scott had come from. The tactics people used even on his world tended to be sorely lacking in effectiveness, however.

Scott continued working for a while. Once the clock struck seven he nodded and closed down his work station. It was time to once again begin his study of the various magic systems available in this perverse reality. His owner, as he thought of her on occasion, would test him on magic theory at the end of next week.

He lifted himself to his feet quietly and silently crept towards the door. He had to try his best to avoid the tutors the professor had assigned to him. They'd begun to act a little strangely around him and he suspected they were attempting to not so subtly let him know they were in season.

Amorous females were not something he would normally have issues with. However, these girls seemed to be putting on an act whenever they offered their services. He did not want to run afoul of any potential traps or emotional pitfalls.

In all honesty, he did not know where his heightened sense of comprehension had come from. Earlier in his life, he would have been completely unable to tell when a woman was faking interest. A lot of things were like that now. It was like his brain had been puttering along for most of his life, but suddenly it had been given an overhaul. Renewed life and vigor flowed through his mind, and now he was able to pick up on subtle things that he normally missed before. It was not a perfect upgrade. He was certain that he was still missing out on a lot of information, but he readily grasped concepts with greater ease than before.

He'd made it out of the room and managed to get halfway down the hall before the sensual voice of his captor and teacher reached his ears. Analise had said his name but he quickly realized she wasn't talking to him. She was discussing him with someone else. Scott slipped up to the door and quietly listened in.

"He's progressing rather swiftly compared to what one would consider normal for a pure blood human." said Analise, her professional yet flowing voice filtering out of the room. That statement was just one more thing that added up on Scott's list of 'reasons'. He was almost certain that she wasn't human at this point. Though, he wasn't entirely certain she was a demi-human either. Either way, something seemed off about her. She reminded him of someone, but he wasn’t sure who that someone was just yet.

He'd managed to get into her biological information file yesterday and was intrigued by the notion that she was considered true human. She supposedly had less than three percent non-human DNA. A little warning alarm had echoed in his head as he considered several moments that she might have slipped recently, however.

He didn't think she was used to having a male presence around. She'd never come onto him but she also hadn't seemed to be involved with the 'demi-humans' she had working here. The funny thing about it, though, was that none of them ever seemed to need to bond with a human. This was in spite of the somewhat blatant advances made toward him of late. It almost seemed like they were trying to perform a low budget movie script for him. The usual scenario was rather reminiscent of bad porn dialogue.

Scott listened attentively as she rattled off a list of his traits and the growth pattern he'd shown. The most interesting thing to him was to come though.

"So, do we know why he survived such a high overdose of condensed Magna Potion?" asked a mystery voice. It had a lilting quality that reminded him of someone. He just couldn't place it. Much like the naughty professor, this new voice made him think of someone who should be familiar, but wasn’t.

"I'm not entirely certain, but he seems to have some kind of latent magical and psychic talents. It's not that unusual in the pure bloods." said professor Analise. Afterward she stopped a moment to take a deep breath before continuing.

"Their genome was the baseline used when the desperate former world governments grafted monster genetics to their soldiers’ genes in the beginning. If the basic qualities for mystical, life force, and psychic manipulation weren't there, then likely there would be very few such demi-humans. They are quite plentiful, however."

Scott quirked his eyebrow as those words sank into his mind. He had latent mystical and psychic powers? Sure, he'd been drawn to the occult back home and had studied such things as the Kabbalah, Golden Dawn ritual magic, and other such things in general. He'd actually performed a fair share of the 'spells' such things produced. True, there was rarely any remotely noticeable effect, but he had kept trying.

"So what does that mean really? Having mystical affinity wouldn't normally save a demi-human from such an overdose." spoke the lilting voice. Scott was almost certain he knew the quality and tone, but it couldn't be certain yet as to whether it was who he thought. The voice belonged to the original character's anime voice actress, the English speaking one. Just like Cerene, he had made a few fanfiction stories that involved a parody of that character as well. He stopped to consider where he was and smirked. It was entirely possible.

It had taken the man a while to adjust to the new reality of his situation. A month in prison and a few weeks of working for the good professor had brought the reality home to him quite nicely, however. There were many things in this world that seemed to have been born straight from his worst fanfiction stories, yet they meshed together well. It was a psychotic, chaotic, mixture of places and peoples that should not exist, yet they did. That should be quite an awesome thing to be a part of, but he sincerely doubted that he had somehow created this place. He didn’t know why he knew the things that he did, or why things were so similar to the stories that he had written. In the end, it might not even matter. He was here, wherever here was. He had to make a life for himself while considering the future.

"Well, from my initial findings, I'm quite certain his entrance into this world left his molecular, etheric, and genetic structure in disarray." stated the curvaceous professor before clarifying.

"It's quite common really. This is especially common for first time dimensional shifts and teleports. His aggression levels and unstable structure spiritually, mentally, and physically combined with the sudden impact of a purely magical force upon them awakened his latent capacities."

The man, took all this in stride, and noted this all mentally. It might be important at some time. He also continued trying to place the new voice as he listened in.

"Ok, but still that doesn't answer the question does it? It’s a nice theory, but it doesn’t hold up when you think about it." asked the mystery voice.

Analise was quiet a moment and said simply, "No. It doesn't."

"Hmm, a mystery these humans... I suppose that's why I find some of them to be charming." came the lilting reply.

Scott's eyes widened comically and he immediately thought, 'bingo!' He was almost one hundred percent certain who the mystery person was. That only left discovering who Analise might be. He had a hunch, but she seemed well practiced at playing the part of a human professor.

"If you say so, I only found one to be even remotely interesting. Two if you count that boy that helped me free him..." Analise's softly replied. It seemed she had a tragic past, possibly with lost love.

"Yeah, same here really. I mean I find them generally interesting, but there was only one for me too." came an equally sad reply.

The two were quiet for a moment and then the lilting voice asked, "Oh, did anyone ever manage to find out how that Angel was able to get into that tamer's D-pack? Those things are supposed to be genetically encoded to only work for the owner, or at most their alpha."

Analise released a soft chuckle. "No clue. I just chalked it up to happenstance. The running theory is that he'd simply left it on 'open' status."

"Always something new in life I suppose. Well, I should be getting back to the enclave. The next ceremony is supposed to get underway tomorrow night. There are more than a few 'elven' demi-humans quite excited about their future." stated the lilting voice. Her soft musical tones continued to remind Scott of a particular elven anime girl.

Professor Analise answered, "I bet they are. Honestly, it's almost an insult to call them that. Though, it is nice to know that humans and elves can interbreed here. It was impossible in our original home."

The man listening in at the door nodded to himself. So his assertions about the professor were right, she was not a human or a demi-human. Most likely they would turn out to be dimensionally shifted elves of the traditional fantasy variety. She was no doubt the kind of elf that tended to live anywhere from seven hundred to multiple thousands of years. Heck some elves in fiction back home only died if killed or they chose to fade away. It was beyond weird, but considering where he was at he would either adapt to it or go insane.

"Oh Scott, you can come in now. Our visitor is gone." came the voice of 'Analise'.

Scott cringed and then chuckled as he walked in to see a sight that didn’t entirely surprise him. "Hello, Pirouette."

The resulting eyebrow quirk from his benefactor only added to the raw amounts of sex that seemed to exude from the woman. Here was a creature of intellect and discipline who would stop at nothing to achieve her goals, a dark elf who had changed her name to 'Analise Ophun'. Her existence, as far as he knew, began as a dark elf who had been created as a parody of a certain elf from an anime known as Record of Lodoss War.

"I'm not even going to ask how you figured that out. You'd probably tell me and give me another headache." said the elven woman as the last vestiges of her human image faded away to reveal her true form. Once he knew intellectually who she was the illusion held no power.

Scott chuckled softly for a brief moment then sighed. "Ya know, anime doesn't do you justice milady." before attempting a proper courtly bow. She might be a literary creation of his that was based on a popular anime character, but he didn't want to seem rude. The other eyebrow of his elven benefactor quirked up causing her to look delightfully surprised.

"It's my own fault for not recalling how sharp true elven hearing and senses in general are supposed to be. You probably heard me the moment I got out of my chair." stated Scott, before he decided to plop down in the recently vacated chair.

The dark elven professor shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Pretty much, yes. Though, when we had decided to let you listen in I never suspected you'd know so much, so readily."

The man smiled and then wiggled a little, "Hmm, well speaking of we, you might want to tell Delia to lay off the sweets. My rump fits perfectly here, so hers must be getting rather matronly."

Professor Analise blinked, digested this bit of information, and then promptly fell into a fit of unrefined giggles. She was right, this one would definitely do.

Scott soon joined her in her giggle fest, while noticing that they were both relieving a lot of pent up tension. He knew, at least in part, how hard it must be to pretend to be so many things at once. She'd probably been at it for years. Laughing was a hard thing for him, given his first few weeks in this world. Yet, he had to live his life. Cerene, he wanted to go find her but as he was now it would be impossible. He would get only one shot, and he had to make it count. He refused to let her be in that bastard’s clutches for the rest of her life.

"Answer me one question if you would?" Scott asked in his most serious and sober voice, a look of concern and sincerity upon his face.

Pirouette sobered as well and nodded, "I suppose I owe you an explanation, though you figured out quite a bit more than one might suspect possible. Ask anything you like."

The man nodded sagely and then inquired, "Ms. Pirouette?"

"Mmm, yes Mr. Scott?" she half purred. He wasn't sure whether that was from mild attraction or simply habit.

"Why did you choose the name Analise Ophun?" he asked with as straight a face as he could muster. He hadn't named her that in any of his works. Given the way her name was pronounced it sounded like she was saying something naughty.

She chuckled and then managed to keep herself from giggling again. She hadn't had this much fun in years. Her sage and honest answer was, "Because it is."

Scott's immediate flush and head shake caused the jaded elf to smile a little. 'He's made me laugh and smile more in the last few minutes than I have in over a hundred years. Amazing.' she thought to herself.

The two were quiet for a moment before Scott spoke up, "Oh and you can tell your other dimensionally relocated sisters that they don't have to pretend they want a bonding experience. I was already pretty sure they weren't normal demi-humans to begin with."

Pirouette nodded lightly. They'd be happy to hear that, though not as excited to realize he knew a great bit about their secret. Just how intelligent was this human? He'd been here two weeks and had almost completely figured out their whole operation. The government hadn't even known they existed until the year prior. A hundred and twenty years of acute secrecy were foiled easily by a dispossessed human. It was remarkably sobering.

"So, dark elf of my dreams... Why did you bring me here? I figured that pure blood human stuff was mainly a cover." he asked bluntly. He had suspicions based on his early writings, but he knew that his old stories were not perfect fits for this world. He needed real information.

The elven girl struggled mightily to avoid the flush that began to daringly attempt to creep its way onto her face. "Well, honestly, I hadn't intended to tell you until you paid your debt. I guess that's pointless now."

Scott nodded absently and wiggled in his chair. It was a comfy seat and the residual scent of sunshine, green grass, and sweet flowers clung to it. Delia must smell awesome.

She nodded and continued, "Well, basically I wanted to sponsor you as a tamer." she began. Noting the growing frown spreading across her indentured servant's face, she finished, "But as I found out, the idea of being a tamer is appalling to you. You aren't against the gratuitous sex and possible high-end powers so much as the ownership angle."

The man took a deep breath and nodded. She was right. He did not have any issue with getting laid by hot and nubile females. Incredible mystical powers and skills sounded rather awesome as well. The issue was the idea of slavery that kept sticking in his head.

"Well, I have a way around that. You'd still be traveling around with tamed demi-humans, but you wouldn't be a licensed tamer. You'd be an adventurer." said the elven woman. Her hand idly reached up to brush back a few strands of hair immediately afterward.

"Oh, you lost me. Adventurer?" asked Scott seriously. This was something new to him.

Pirouette smiled, "Yes, it's a new guild that started up recently in the Southern territory. It's only about forty years old."

The man smirked. To an elf with unlimited possible sunrises forty years would seem recent.

"They serve as couriers, bounty hunters, monster slayers, and treasure seekers." continued the woman. She had the look about her of someone trying to recall something they memorized.

Scott acquired a thoughtful look as the woman continued. "Tamers in general only seem interested in finding and bonding new demi-humans. These sorts of tasks annoyed them. It also plagued the local police too much to deal with the monster sightings, too. This led to the government trying something new."

"They sent the word out to various cities and towns to post these missions and necessary things in training centers, post offices, and random inns." said Pirouette. She had a faraway look, as though remembering something.

The man sitting across from her, decided to listen to her more specifically since his eyes kept traveling down her form and figure. She did make it ever so difficult to concentrate.

"Eventually, this sort of thing became stratified and turned into a typical process. A few years later a guild formed to handle these random tasks."

"Ok. So basically tamers show up and take random jobs. How is that different than being a normal tamer?" asked Scott seriously. He just wasn't grasping the concept yet.

Pirouette chuckled. "Well normal tamers don't, only members of the guild do. Adventurers have a slot somewhere between breeders and licensed tamers."

"So, they're like tamers only with less authority?" asked the man. This seemed kind of well, pointless.

"Yes, to an extent. The main difference is that they get a weekly pay allotment from the guild based on rank. They also have restrictions and benefits that tamers aren't allowed."

Scott gazed silently at her a moment and then took the bait, "Ok. Details please."

Pirouette smirked, he was beginning to come around she could tell. "Well for one thing, they're immune to turn over laws and challenge laws. If a tamer challenges a licensed adventurer to a duel, the adventurer always has the right to use themselves and their full party in any battle all at once."

She took a breath and continued. The movement of her chest almost hypnotized Scott. "If the tamer wins they simply get the satisfaction of victory. An adventurer does not have to give them one of their pets by law. Though, generally they're expected to compensate with some form of currency or item trade."

"Well, I could see that being somewhat useful but open to abuse." said the man. He was still trying to understand why people bothered with this.

"It was at first, but now by law an adventurer must announce themselves as such. They also can simply refuse a challenge unlike a normal tamer. Most tamers dislike adventurers because of this." stated the elfin woman before reaching over and picking up a bottle of water. The room was getting rather warm.

Scott tried his best to ignore the sight before him. There was no way she was missing her lips with that much water. The cool refreshing liquid was flowing slowly down her neck to curve along her supple... best not to think about that right now.

"It's not without its disadvantages though. No adventurer can win a pet in a battle fought with a tamer acting under legal rules. They can only acquire them through trade or capture in the wild." said the somehow drenched elf. She smirked a little at his attempts to ignore her. Teasing him was fun.

"The whole concept seems kind of flawed. From what you're telling me, adventurers are basically tamers with few pets, less restrictions, and a few benefits. They travel around doing menial jobs no tamer would want anyway." said Scott.

A soft chuckle lilted its way from 'Analise's' direction. "In a nut shell yes. However, some of those 'menial' tasks involve monster extermination, bounty hunting, and exploring ruins. Quite profitable at times, as well as allowing you legitimate reasons to travel around."

Scott gazed at her softly and then smirked. It was time to see if some of his random suspicions were true. "That's all well and good, but you didn't bring me here to be an adventurer or tamer. This gig is supposed to be a cover for something. I'm guessing it involves elven demi-humans becoming real ones?"

Pirouette spit out a mouthful of the water, shock evident on her face. For a moment she'd forgotten how perceptive this man was. He'd figured out their deal. Though, he didn't know the mechanism of how they would transform a demi-human elf into a true elf.

The man casually wiped his face then vaguely wondered just why being spit on by a hot dark elf gave him wood. It was quite telling about his nature really.

The elven woman sighed and then nodded, "Yes. Mainly it's a cover for sending your sponsor, I. E. me, any elven girls you find. They aren't forced to change, and in fact many don't. The part about them no longer being capture-able and not needing to be bonded tends to help them decide."

"What else?" Scott asked quietly. He knew there was something else. All of this had been too obvious for him. There had to be some kind of secondary agenda. He wasn't surprised by this turn of events much. All stories that were worth being a part of had odd twists and turns. Admittedly he was surprised that three of his parody characters existed in an entirely different world than their origin stories. The fact that two of them were trying to change elven demi-humans into real ones was also a novel approach. That sort of thing wasn't really their normal mode of operation, after all.

"Well, that relates to the part about 'monsters'. Apparently, more and more sightings in recent weeks have been showing monsters growing in number rapidly. They have become more aggressive in recent months as well. There have also been a lot of fiend type demi-humans that show up with high power levels without being attached to an obvious tamer. These fiends seem to be some kind of energy vampire as well. They can drain the life out of even large crowds of humans and demi-humans with ease."

The young man quirked his left eyebrow. Fiend type demi-humans that spent time drawing life force from large crowds? They were high level and had no tamer in evidence. That sounded a great deal like yet another one of his parody stories. The face of the first person he'd met in this crazy world flashed through his mind. His eyes widened in possible recognition.

"Tell me Ms. Pirouette. Do these fiends that are attacking seem to be impervious to capture?" asked Scott softly.

The elven woman nodded and answered, "Yes, actually. No D-Ball, even people with great balls, has ever managed it. There was even a report of an attempted capture by an illegal black market device employed by one of the underworld organizations in Garland."

This new information greatly worried the man. It was like several of his parody stories had somehow merged into a single reality. Scott sat silently a moment and then sadly said, "But this would still require me to capture and tame demi-humans? I mean, I know it's a part of the society here, but you know how I feel about the concept."

He'd created the concept over the course of several years. However, writing about such a world and actually living in one are two different stories.

The professor sighed and then said what he expected to hear, "I can understand your reservations, but you know full well the reasons for why most of the laws are in effect. The domesticated girls are all well and good, but there are a lot more wild ones that menace towns and travelers. In your studies you should have learned how powerful they are. They were designed specifically to fight against the sudden influx of magic wielding monsters, and the resulting demi-human was capable of annihilating old world armies.”

She took a breath and continued, “Even the weakest demi-human is stronger than most human beings can hope to become. It takes hard training to even match those weaker ones, and the strong ones can still destroy entire human armies.

Then there are the illegal organizations which would steam roll over anyone who stood in there way, should these laws change. At present there really is no other alternative, though many of us are working towards changing this."

The man grew quiet and gazed softly at the ceiling. It was true. Part of the back story for the world that he had created, the world this place seemed to use as a primary basis, was that humanity had discovered dimensional travel but on the eve of the first attempted large-scale opening the technology had gone out of control. Monsters, or rather creatures from hundreds of different realities, poured into the world. The armies of the era were completely overwhelmed by creatures that used supernatural powers, many of which could easily ignore firearms due to their impossible biological structure or magical abilities.

In a desperate attempt to turn the tide, a group of scientists learned to fuse human DNA with a few of those monsters using a process that has been lost to the annals of time. The result would eventually lead to the demi-humans coming into existence. Demi-humans, a combination of human and monster, once heralded as humanity’s salvation. Now they were known as fearsome creatures with amazing powers. They were creatures that absolutely had to be controlled due to the massive difference in the scale of power between them and fragile humanity.

That power disparity was his excuse for creating a world concept based on a perverted parody of monster capture and battle games. Humanity needed demi-humans to survive. Otherwise they would be swallowed up and rendered extinct.

Monsters have already replaced most of the natural species of the world. What would a common wolf be able to do against a wolf that breathed fire, or a lizard that shot lightning from its horns?

The monsters could not be easily controlled, but through the power of hardcore sex... a demi-human could. Sure, he’d called it ‘the bond’ and defined it with some pseudo-mystical bullshit, but the truth was that he had just wanted to create a perverted reality where humans went out and captured hot, nubile, monster girls and used them like Pokemon for the survival of the human race. God, he needed to get laid back then... and this was the result.

He thought of Cerene and those suspicious fiends. He thought of how he'd come to be here and his prospects for the future. Was this world really something he had created? Was all the suffering of people in this reality his fault? He could not be sure, but he still felt supremely guilty for even knowing of its existence. Finally, he considered that he owed the naughty professor a bit more than just some money.

He knew what he had to do and though it hurt him more than a little to choose this path, his next question was obvious, "When can I start?"

Pirouette beamed a smile his way that threatened to light up the room. Her plans were progressing nicely.

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