39 A Being Greater than Royalty

"We are so sorry!" (Kaal)

"Hmph!" (Alicia)

Alicia sat on a small throne like chair opposite a kneeling and bowing Kaal, the leader of this tribe of Lizardmen. His head, and the heads of some of his warriors surrounding him, is firmly pressed into the dirt while they ask for forgiveness from the rather angry Alicia.

Additionally, the Lizardman who pissed her off in the first place was kneeled next to Kaal, his head being pressed against the ground by Kaal.

After Alicia demanded to see Kaal, the surrounding Lizardmen complied and hurriedly took her to meet him. He was, at the time, checking on all the Lizardmen who were injured when he heard a loud bang that was followed by some loud shouting.

He quickly excused himself and ran to see what was going on, fearing it was an attack again.

Part of Kaal did not think that Alicia could defeat the humans he faced off against after seeing how strong they were.

When Ignis and Vera said that they would be waiting in this area until she returned, he thought that they may be wasting precious time they could use to further escape. However, he also thought that Alicia deserved the benefit of the doubt after saving him. Therefore, when Ignis and Vera said to wait, he did not argue and went to set up a temporary camp with his people nearby.

Kaal was proven wrong though. Alicia did return, and seemingly completely unharmed which showed him how strong she must be. And now an even worse situation had presented itself to him. Even worse, as it turns out, than the humans catching up to them. His saviour who could fight off three strong humans by herself, was incredibly angry with them.

Kaal did not yet know her personality. For all he knows, she could be incredibly blood thirsty and vengeful. So he was doing all he possibly could to appease her, to avoid any possible lashing out. That was the plan, but…

"Haaaaah… it's fine. It's not like he meant to offend me I guess… And I'm not sure why you're all apologising, it was only him who annoyed me anyway." Alicia says, with a voice still tinged with annoyance. After all, she had never been so blatantly treated like a child by anyone but her mother and Terre.

"… I see. Thank you for your kindness, Queen Alicia." Kaal was surprised and relived at how quickly she calmed down. It gave him a favourable impression of her that she did not take her anger for one lizardman and apply it to the whole tribe.

They were inside a small hut like structure that was made of tree branches and tied together with vines. The lizardmen lived in small huts like these once they settle into a new area and they felt most comfortable when they lived near a water source.

Alicia changed her body language after letting them know everything was okay. It changed to one of confidence, and her face loosened up a bit.

"Okay! Now that has been sorted, lets get on to negotiating." Alicia announced with a grin.

Kaal nodded, and Alicia then started with her pitch.

"Right! To start, as Ignis and Vera may have told you, I am the Queen of a fairly new kingdom called Drakonia. It's a couple days walk up to the mountain range and has expanded quite far cause of a recent victory we had. BUT… That's all the boring stuff you can hear about from Ignis later!" (Alicia)

"HEY!" Ignis shouted in frustration.

Alicia started in earnest to try and explain a few things about her kingdom, but you could tell she was already getting bored of talking about that… Even though it had been a matter of seconds.

"What I wanna talk about is my vision for the kingdom!" Alicia shouts happily, ignoring Ignis's protests which leaves her stewing next to Alicia until later.

"I see, and what is your aim for the kingdom?" Kaal asks, leaning forward with interest.

It was an intriguing question. What direction would this small human looking girl want to take her kingdom. She obviously displayed the power that may be expected of a leader in these violent and dangerous times, but how did she envision her kingdom developing and what form would it then take. These were questions Kaal wanted to know the answers to.

On the surface, Kaal may look like a muscle head with his healthy, muscular body and clear fighting prowess. But he was a thoughtful creature who wanted to make sure his tribe was being taken in the right direction, if he was to entrust them to this girl.

"What I want… Is to make my kingdom the strongest in this world. Not only that, but one free of discrimination between races and were they can work together to make each other stronger."

"I see…" Kaal says, stoking his lizard head and showing he was in thought to consider what she had said.

Alicia continued her pitch…

"Don't get me wrong, I am not going to force anyone to fight if they don't want to. Everyone has their own strengths after all, so people are free to do what they like and pursue their interests. But even if they don't wanna fight, I want to do what I can to make sure they can do what they want better then any other kingdom! Anyone who wants to get stronger and help me fight to protect our kingdom and the people that live there, I want to help them reach the point they feel they can do so." (Alicia)

"Hoooh…" (Kaal)

[So she has morals eh? That is good, I was afraid that she may act the age she looks and be a spoilt brat. But this girl actually has a plan for her kingdom. A kingdom where there is no discrimination, people can follow there dreams carefree and those who want to protect can be helped to get stronger to realise that dream… Though quite vague, it sounds nice... But…] (Kaal)

"May I ask a question, your Highness?" Kaal asked, waiting until Alicia was done with her initial speech to ask her a question that he was curious about.

Alicia nods her head with a blank stare, telling him to go ahead.

"Thank you… I would like to know what you get out of all this? If you are strong enough to easily repel those three humans, then surely with the advantage of the terrain in the mountains, which no one outside of it usually ventures into anyway, you would not need to come looking to us for recruitment?" (Kaal)

When Kaal asked this question, Alicia tried to think of some sort of way to phrase her reasoning that sounded smart. Though in the end…

"Hehe… I get to fight and meet new and interesting people! What more could a girl want!" (Alicia)

"…" (Everyone)

Ignis completely face palmed and Vera shook her head with smile. Everyone sat in the silence for a tiny bit, as Alicia stood with a proud and happy smile on her face. Until finally a laugh rang through the hut…

"haha…HAHAHHAAAHAH!"

The laugh belonged to Kaal, who almost had tears coming out of his eyes. He had expected some sort of profound reason after hearing the idealistic kingdom that Alicia had wanted to create. Possibly some soppy reason like {wanting the world to be a better place} or a heroic reason like {wanting to purge the evil from the world}. Reasons like that sound rather disingenuous and cliched.

But no. The reason she personally wanted to create a kingdom, was so that she could meet and fight people.

[Haha… such a simple reason… What a strange yet charming Queen she is.] Kaal thought to himself as he began to finally calm his laughing down.

Once he did, he noticed that Alicia was slightly pouting due to being laughed and apologised for his conduct.

"I apologise your highness. I just didn't expect such an answer. But it is an interesting answer, for I would one day like to test myself in combat against you at some point. And as long as you hold yourself to those values that you espoused before…. I believe we can join your Kingdom, your Highness." (Kaal)

As Kaal says that, the faces of Ignis, Vera and Alicia all change to those of joy.

That was when a bright light engulfed everyone in the hut. Alicia and co. had already experienced this, so were not phased by it and just covered their eyes.

"Waaah! What's happening?! Why are you covering my eyes big sis?!" Osha on the other hand evolved when she was asleep so had no idea what was going on. Alicia therefore had to block Osha's eyes before she blinded herself.

The Lizardmen who were evolving were also quite startled, and you could here the shouts of surprise and confusion being echoed from outside the hut as well.

Eventually though, the light died down and everyone uncovered their eyes to see what the evolution had changed. Alicia and company, excluding Osha, were not surprised to see the results.

"WOW! They all look more like us big sis!" Osha shouted with amazement and curiosity on her small cute face.

Alicia smiled at her, then gave a look around at the newly evolved Lizardmen. What she noticed straight away was that their head had changed from that of a Lizard, to more of a human one. They still had lizard like eyes as well as small frills were their ears are, like what some lizards had, instead of the usual ear shape. There fully scaled bodies, now turned into partially scaled bodies as only certain sections of there bodies had them. From what Alicia could see, it varied from lizard person to lizard person what parts of their bodies had scales on. They also retained their lizard tails, which looked similar to that of Alicia's. It made sense to her, considering Dragons were basically big lizards.

"Wh-What happened to us?" A familiar voiced spoke out in disbelief.

This person was Kaal, who was confused after his transformation. He saw that parts of his body was no longer covered in the green scales, replaced in parts with the same pinkish skin colour that some of the humans that he had seen possessed.

Alicia fixed her eyes on Kaal to check out his changes. He had a handsome middle-aged face, with dark green hair and dark brown eyes. His hair was long enough to be swept back and now that less of his body was scaled, you could really see how well maintained his body was as well as scars from his various battles when defending the tribe.

"Hehe, sorry guys this part of one of my skills. I'll explain…" Alicia then proceeded to explain her skill for a little while to everyone in the hut and outside of it. Though one thing that Kaal had said just before transforming, had her a bit distracted.

---

After a while, everyone calmed down and they were able to proceed with the conversation on moving out of the area.

"Great! So we just need to hash out some of the details and then we can begin moving everyone into the territory." Vera says, as her and Ignis begin to make plans for everyone to begin entering the kingdom.

Alicia meanwhile continued to stare at Kaal with her eyes sparkling with excitement, though none of the other took note of this until…

"That is fine, then shall we- AH!" Kaal began to try and move the conversation along, when Alicia comes charging at him, stopping just before they would collide and looks up at him.

"Did you really mean what you said before!? You wanna fight me!?" Alicia says, her eyes sparkling with excitement which would make it hard for anyone to deny her.

"Y-Yes, I did say that…" Kaal says as he tries to back away from her a little bit and avert his gaze.

Hearing this Alicia began to shake with happiness, her eyes growing brighter still...

"HAHAHA! Awesome! We'll have so much fun!" (Alicia)

Alicia could barely hold in the elation as she bounced up and down at the thought of another new sparring partner.

Ignis and Vera juts looked at Kaal with pity in their eyes, but they also thought it was his fault for dropping himself in it. Osha meanwhile just looked on with confusion, but soon joined in with Alicia's jumping and cheering because it looked fun.

Kaal and the other lizardmen were slightly taken aback by Alicia's sudden joy.

[I mean, she did say that she wanted to fight new people… But who would have thought it was to the extent of getting this happy at the thought of it…] Kaal thought to himself, however Alicia then said something that changed his line of thinking…

"Oh this will be so great! I can't wait to see what skills you possess! Oooooo, I wonder how you would do against my Dragon form…" When Alicia said this, Kaal quickly turned to face Alicia.

"WAIT… Did you say Dragon form?" Kaal asked in a very serious tone.

"Hmmm? Yeah why?" Alicia says nonchalantly.

Kaal stands there in thought for a moment, but then he comes to a sudden realisation and his eyes widen in shock. He realised that he had to ask a certain question urgently.

"… Your highness… May I ask what race you belong to?" (Kaa)

As Kaal asks this, the other Dragons begin to click on to what he is thinking. They all begin to shake and stare at Alicia with more fear and awe then when she first arrived here.

"Sure? I am a member of the Flame Dragon race." Alicia says, like its not that big of a deal.

However, the instant those words spilled out of her mouth, the Lizard people fall to their knees and bow to her. Which surprises Alicia due to the quick change of feeling in the room…

"What's going on guys?" (Alicia)

Kaal slightly brings his head up to look at her and answer her question.

"You see, my Queen… Dragons hold a very important position in our culture… Beings second only to the Dragon God himself… Basically, even without the territory… You are being that is even more important to us then any royalty ever could be!" (Kaal)

"Huh?" (Alicia) Alicia says, hoping this wouldn't turn into a cult.