Lair

Volume 2, Chapter 046 – Becoming A Diplomat

By Skalsar

Who am I?

What am I?

Those questions lingered in me for...

'You are scum! Giant scum! The worst of all! Trash that needs to get ridden from the world! Disgusting! Blasphemous!', Squishi squeeks into my mind, interrupting me.

I nearly forgot about him there right now.

His whole being is so week and squishi.

What was a former [Paladin] is now little more than a pet gold fish, existentwise.

I kick him away with a mental force, using magic power.

He comes running back like some loyal puppy.

'Sit.', I tell him.

>Yes Master.Sadly, he only is that obedient with voice.

'You dare!', squishi screams.

Binding his [Soul] to me forces the little [Formling] to do whatever I want, but I have yet to figure out how to really make him suffer. For now it seems to be enough to order him to do stupid things and break his arrogance step by step.

It's just so.. similar.. the skill to take a [Soul], binding it to me and the way a creature is born.

Could it be, that if enough of a [Soul] gets transformed into a [Core], a creature gains a consciousness..? And if so, are the memories just taken away by the hive..?

I might experiment on that in the future.

Still.. What am I really..?

Till today it was like some small drop of water in a large pond, with many more important ones.

Now, with all these things accomplished, with all the magic power gained, it is more.

The voice that told me to save Lily in the past, leave those adventurers alive.

Am I manipulated by something..?

Was it both times the same voice?

I don't think so.

It's not important for now.

'Now that we have all this livestock, we should get more [Dungeon Hearts].', Lysk says.

I can feel some bloodlust from him, looking at the humans living within our walls.

He still hates them and ever will, I guess.

After being imprisoned in a [City] for a long time and his hive body taken control of, he finally has the upper hand. Freeing him and joining our hive reduced him to a [Dungeon Lord] body though.

The other [Hiveborn] are starting a discussion on what to do next.

I don't really listen right now.

What I'm doing now needs my full attention.

I slowly cut the animal meat in front of me with a metallic tool, not completly smoothly, yet effective for the purpose. Along some fat that is left intact, the way it's cut looks kind of religional to me. The meat has to be hot, or it would not work.

Or so I'm told.

>It's called a Steak.He calls himself a [Cook], which seems to be his [Class].

I'm currently in the human district and in my [Morphling] form.

>I don't get it.Humans and their need to eat meat cooked instead of raw.

Half the useful stuff gets wasted because their digesting system can't work with it.

>I guess you [Hiveborn] creatures can't be expected to like human food.

I shrug and go on.

This experience was overrated.

Going through a [Black Gate] I arrive to the [Lair], where Danar, Nyr, Sora, and Lysk are already waiting and.. staring at me.. angrily..

I link my mind to the hive again. Concentrating on the Steak, I had blocked the connection to not be disturbed.

'How the hell dare you to shut me out!', Danar shouts angrily.

I slightly hit the ground with the tip of one of my feet and look to side.

'ikindaforgot..', I mumble in return, feeling somewhat awkward being stared and shouted at.

Actually, it's more of a vague way of thinking, since we just share our thoughts.

'What?!', he shouts again.

'I was just so focused on all that weird stuff the humans use! I'm sorry, ok?!', I shout back.

Sharing my experience with the steak with them.

They suddenly start shaking their heads.

Even you, Nyr?

Be on my side goddamn!

'Let's get back to the topic.', Nyr says and conveys what they discussed to me.

It seems that the [Local King] tried to summon Odas, but failed.

The [Local Lord] shouldn't be able to deny a summoning, but after dying and being returned as a [Hiveborn], his sacred vow of loyalty is over.

He still remains in his position, but has to follow no rule of his so called [Local King] anymore.

Actually, it would be bad to have him summoned at the moment.

We still need time.

Instead, Danar made Odas send Rego, to tell the [Local King] in person what happened.

That will buy us some time to get the [City] running, hide Odas new 'situation' and grow in defense.

Every second we gain, we can extract more magic power from the humans living with us.

Our [Watchers] have already shot every human here with their parasitical needle-like bodypart, which allows us to monitor them all and being in their bodies, we can easily drain them.

With their numbers, we only need to take small amounts while they are awake and bigger amounts when they are going to sleep.

It's impossible for them to notice like this.

Oh the fun of being in control is clearly on Danar's face.

The next step will be for me to play diplomat.

Sora had already started to build relationships with monsters from [Monstercave Mountain].

Now I would have to go there and 'convince' some of the intelligent races to settle with us.

Might even be fun to do so.

Grabbing my stuff, I open a [Black Gate] to as far as I can get, before I will have to walk.

Well, my stuff is just Squishi.

'Nooo! Don't bring me near these bunch of vermin!', he cries.

He doesn't know yet that I will even let them play with him to their hearts content.

'Say you love all monsters.', I tell him.

>I love all monsters, master.

His mind is going crazy.

Won't take long to break his arrogance I bet.