The Golden Retriever

A couple of minutes after the fight started, a brown boot suddenly flew and slammed on the Mandragora's face, taking her by surprise and pain at the same time.

"FUCK!!" The movement of the foot wasn't light at all, leaving intense pain on her nose, although it was still too weak to leave permanent damage on her. The Mandragora grasped her nose with both hands, letting go of Luka's dick as he scrambled away from her with his pants down.

Luka took deep breaths as he finally shrugged off the paralysis, while the Mandragora glared at him. "How in the Founder's name can you move?! The scream should have lasted for more than a hour!"

The purple-haired boy didn't answer, he quickly pulled his pants and underwear up as he got on his feet, with his iron sword in one hand. Now that he can move, he could retaliate to the Mandragora's attempts, and that wasn't a favorable situation for her, who is restricted to the ground.

"Go fuck yourself, you cheap dingly-dongly purple-ass weirdo." The Mandragora retreated back on the ground, along with her large leaf coming from her head. She left behind a small pile of dirt that closed up the hole on the ground, and in a small amount of time, the tremors on the ground stopped as the Mandragora got away.

Noticing the mess happening in front of him, Victor pulled off his earphones and stared ahead as he stuck his phone back in his pocket. With a neutral expression, he glanced at Luka.

"Are you okay, man?"

Luka gave a small glare at his direction and spoke. "I could have been better if you actually helped me! Why didn't you do anything?!"

Victor gestured to his legs and spoke with a sarcastic tone. "Do you think this wheelchair is just for show? I can farm out money like potatoes, but I am not the son of God."

"Yes, you have lots of money, couldn't you use them to do something like that thing against the Slug Girls?!" Luka retorted while he sheathed his sword back on its sheath.

"And what then? I don't have the money to cover up a bushfire with water, and homicide is a step too far even for me! Besides, to make ourselves clear, I was forced to follow you and the chromatic-challenged snake. Although I am willing to assist you, I won't put myself in danger so you 'might' have a chance to win."

Luka was fuming in anger, as he began to compare Victor with Alice due to their similar situation with him during combats. "But…! You could still do something! Instead of helping me, you simply played around with that black thing of yours! You could buy a sword too! They are also cheap!"

"Do you think it is that easy? I don't know what kind of life you went through in every single second of your lifetime, and I don't want to know any further! 

It's easy to harm someone with a gun, you simply have to pull the trigger, no matter how heavy your thoughts get on you. It is a simple movement of your index finger, and the target collapses on the ground with a hole in their brain! If you feel bad about it, it will be already too late anyway!" Victor's tone started to get serious and louder, which silenced Luka's incoming words.

"What about a sword? What about a punch? Even if it is for self defense, do you have what it takes to kill someone? I already told you and Alice that I was a civilian before all this shit; I am not trained physically or mentally to actually slice someone apart! 

This is not as simple as a single-second decision, I can easily stop the attack midway, or unconsciously hold back! Besides, the Mandragora looked like she could snap apart in a single proper kick!"

"..." Luka clenched his fists, but he didn't say anything. Victor was right, he is not trained at all to accomplish the feat of injuring someone to the level where they are reduced to an harmless state without a great deal of anger backing him up. He also knew about this, since he had to hurt animals during his 'training' with Maro, a soldier in his hometown, to feel the resistance of the flesh through his iron blade.

...But this is what makes him angry. Luka knew about Victor's inability to inflict real physical pain without the assistance of tools, and acknowledged that fact. However, it barely eased up his anger against Victor for not doing anything. 

After all, it's not like he can simply say that he understands Victor and smile at him. No matter how good the reason might be, Luka felt betrayed.

What he didn't know was that Victor was also feeling bad about it. Powerlessness is not an excuse for laziness, he clearly knew that. Victor simply looked at Luka with guilty eyes and sighed.

Maybe he could actually do something to help him, like threatening the Mandragora with a bluff; instead, he had to carelessly say about his inability to fatally injure his enemies to the Mandragora.

Just like those minutes in a shower, things that he could have done in the past for better paths across his future arrived when it was too late.

Due to the awkwardness that his guilt brought him, Victor looked away from Luka's annoyed figure and just noticed a mysterious fact.

"By the way…"

"What?" Luka asked with an annoyed tone as Victor trailed off and looked straight to him. Victor was currently looking around from his wheelchair, twisting his eyes left and right.

"I don't see Alice anywhere…"

Luka blinked at Victor as he began to look around a second later. He left his anger aside and carefully looked through the trees surrounding the path of soil the two of them were in. Some seconds later, they noticed shadows twisting behind trees and bushes.

"...Luka." 

"...Yes?"

"I don't know a lot about the surroundings of Ilias Village, but how many are the chances of monsters being attracted by the scream of a Mandragora?"

Instead of answering, Luka carefully approached Victor from behind and grasped the handles of his wheelchair, before taking a deep breath. "Do me a favor and help me move this wheelchair as fast as possible…" It was as small as a whisper, but those words reached Victor's ears and caused his heart to beat wildly.

"Run-run-run-run-run-RUN-RUN-RUN!!" At Victor's panicked yells, Luka kicked the ground and began to push Victor's wheelchair as hard as he could, while Victor spun the wheels at his side to help Luka ease up the load he was pushing forward.

Half a second later, the shadows behind the trees shaped up in broken silhouettes of women mixed with tiny figures of little girls with wings and horns. As if Luka just pulled a trigger on a racing gun, Slime Girls and Imps showed themselves and began to chase the two humans.

"Come here and give us your semen!"

"Please stop! We don't want to harm you!"

The Slime Girls were the ones who yelled that. They might be Monster Girls, which is a species that is superior to man in every physical aspect, but they were actually very low in the hierarchical scale, using their amorphous bodies to their advantages. And that is problematic now, because with their simple and amorphous bodies, they could never hope to outrun a human with solid legs.

However, while the distance between the Slime Girls and the two humans grew farther with time, the Imps had the flight advantage, and with their small bodies and light weight, they can go much faster than a normal human.

In fact, they were gradually gaining ground towards Luka and Victor.

Victor was currently fully awake now, and his mind began to spin crazily in thought. If they get caught by the monsters…

…?

Then what? They will get raped once or twice, it's not like they would die. Luka might care about it, due to his loyalty to the commandments of his Goddess, but Victor didn't have this kind of restriction.

He could simply stand there and shield Luka from the monsters' pervertedness. What's the worst that could happen? He should even feel rather happy at finally experiencing sex with a beautiful and experienced girl, althout not human; he had lived his life without a girlfriend and friends, after all…

Who knows, he could even end up married with a Slime Girl. To be honest, they are kinda cute…

Just as he glanced behind, he noticed the extremely lustful expressions of the Imps, the monsters that were currently catching up with them.

What about Imps, instead? Their bodies are small, childish even, which could turn his first experience with them into an attack to his morality. However, they might be even more experienced than the Slime Girls… Since they are related to Succubi-

"..." Victor quickly blinked in surprise as his thoughts paused. He bitterly chuckled under his breath as he continued to spin his wheels as fast as his arms could permit.

He almost fell for a very dangerous trap…

These Imps were hardly different from Succubi, except for their overall power. Who says they won't suck his life out of his dick?

It would be fine with Slime Girls, due to their gentle and cute nature; but Imps were traps in the literal sense, not the weeb sense: so don't put your mind in 'that' spot, you little pieces of cultured swines.

They could literally kill him with 2 or 3 blowjobs! He can easily go to find a monster hooker elsewhere if he feels like it, so there is no need to waste a life for curiosity.

This also made him realize how-

"I've got an idea!"

*Bam!* All of a sudden, the wheelchair started to shake a lot, snapping Victor out of his thoughts with a violent tremor. He tightly grasped the arms of his wheelchair and looked in front of him, seeing that Luka was pushing him across the small forest around the path of soil.

"LUKA!! WHAT THE FUCK!?" Victor shouted in panic and anger, angry at Luka's chosen path.

"We can outrun them in the forest!" Luka replied back with a determined tone. "They go faster than us, so they will need more space to move left and right!"

"You son of a bi-ITCH!" Victor stuttered out the last part of his sentence when a rock made him bounce over the wheelchair. "This is a wheelchair, not a mechanical spider! How am I supposed to dodge trees?!"

"Just keep rolling!" Luka rebuked back at Victor, not stopping his effort for a single moment. It might have been a miracle happening now, but Luka was able to barely dodge incoming trees and holes on the ground that might slow them a lot.

Adding another fact to that miracle, because of the small bodies of the Imps, they burned out their stamina very quickly. As soon as one gave up following the two of them in the middle of a forest, the others followed her action and abandoned their chase.

Not only was it too dangerous to fly at high speeds across a forest with solid trees, but they couldn't keep up for long with an actual human in terms of stamina. Just like the Slime Girls with their bodies not carrying any muscle, the Imps were also bottom-feeders of the hierarchical pyramid due to their short stamina. The rewards were simply not worth the risks.

"Oh thanks god…" Victor sighed in relief as he glanced behind, seeing the Imps vanishing one after another was good for his quick heart, which started to calm down. Although now they were in a better situation, he could clearly feel his heart's beats through his chest.

Luka also turned his head around and began to relax, with his steps gradually slowing down. However, just for a moment, both Victor and Luka felt an absence of weight, which made them turn forward.

Two screams loudly echoed in the middle of the area as both Victor and Luka fell from a small cliff connected to a wide river, followed by one large splash.

Yet here it was another miracle as the river was deep enough to cushion their 5 meters fall; not without some consequences, however.

Luka and Victor quickly swam up on the surface, with their bodies' density helping them along, and took large deep breaths once they came out of the river. 

"*Cough!* *Cough!*" Victor started to cough the water out of his throat and nasal cavity, and an uncomfortable expression appeared on his face. "*Sniff* You asshole!"

"*Cough!* I didn't know there was a cliff here!" Luka rebuked. Both of them were currently keeping themselves over the water to avoid drowning.

Victor wasn't a good swimmer to begin with, and with only one functional leg, it would be very difficult to reach the shore without help. As for Luka, his body ached from the impact he had with Victor's wheelchair when they fell in the water, and he was already tired from carrying Victor all over the road and forest.

They could only hope to reach shore by waiting…

*Splash!* *Splash!* 

Quick splashings that didn't match the movement rhythm of the river reached their ears. In a couple of seconds, they managed to turn their heads around to see a golden thing approaching their location with quick speed through the water and picking both of them on their arms.

A yelp came from both the two men as they were dragged across water very fast by powerful arms. They reached the shore very quickly, turning what would be 20 seconds for a normal non-swimmer into 6 split seconds.

"Holy shit!" Once Victor felt the contact with the ground, he stared at the golden savior with wide eyes filled with surprise.

"*Cough!*" More coughs escaped from Luka as he cleared his throat from the excessive water in his lungs, so he couldn't currently see the person who had saved them.

However, Victor was able to do so, and he was really surprised to see a young girl with golden fluffy hair, completely naked. She stared at him with worried blue eyes as she crawled closer to his face.

"Are you okay? Is everything fine? You are not hurt, right? Are you?" The young girl, probably 13 years old, asked all of those questions very quickly, which made Victor uncomfortably retreat from her.

Just as he was crawling away from the hyper-active girl, he noticed a weird detail on her head, and it was a pair of fluffy and floppy dog ears. Victor momentarily frowned as he stared at the little girl's head.

This was clearly a Monster Girl… A Dog Girl?

"...What the fuck is going on?" At the moment, Victor was thoroughly confused at the situation he was thrown in and his mind made quick work through it.

He and Luka fell into the river, and they got saved by a Monster Girl Victor never saw before, not even in the game. He began to associate her with the brown-haired Dog Girl in Monster Girl Quest: Paradox, but she had golden fur instead… Like a Golden Retriever.

"Hey, hey, are you okay?" The Dog Girl began to focus on Luka and quickly shook his shoulders.

"*Cough!* Hold up!" Luka pushed the Dog Girl's hands away as he began to recover, and when he saw his savior, his eyes opened widely. "HOLY ILIAS!" 

He pushed himself away from the Dog Girl in fright once he realized how close the Monster was to him, although he still couldn't get back on his feet without taking some time.

"..." Victor continued to remain silent and stared at the Dog Girl, who excitedly stood on her feet once she saw that both of them looked fine.

"Looks like you are okay!" Her golden dog tail waved around in excitement. Victor shook his head and dragged himself away from the water, before he spun around and stared down at the wet medical band covering his left leg.

Looking back on the river, he saw a small shadow getting further away as it was dragged by the river's waves.

"..." The frown on his face deepened and got mixed with exasperation. That shadow was Luka's traveling bag… And probably, stuck on the river bed, there is his wheelchair.

"...Shit…" A small swear escaped from Victor's mouth as he sighed in exasperation. His clothes were completely wet, together with his medical bandage, and…!!

"No… Nonono! No, no, no, no…" Victor's exasperation turned into horror as he went through his pockets, grabbing both his phone and earphones. No matter what he did, they couldn't be turned on anymore.

His grasp on them loosened as they slipped from his hands and fell on the rocky ground.

"No…" A despaired whisper came from Victor's mouth. Meanwhile, Luka unsheathed the sword that was stuck in the sheath that was still on his waist and pointed it to the Dog Girl. The Dog Girl stepped back with a fearful expression as small whimpers came from her tiny lips.

"Victor! Get away from… Victor?" Just as Luka tried to warn Victor, he noticed the gloomy atmosphere around him.

"...Victor-" Luka tried to call him out again, but Victor raised one hand and directed a palm towards him, stopping him from speaking further.

"Shhh… I must grieve…"

"Umm…" The Dog Girl ignored Luka and faced him, before she crouched down and gently patted his back. She looked at Victor with a worried expression hiding her fear as she started to speak. "...Is everything alright?"

"No, nothing is alright…" Victor replied back with a grievous tone. His phone, which contained everything he liked and couldn't replicate it, was now broken and the memory card is completely gone… He should have stuffed his phone in his inventory rather than pocket.

Seeing that the Dog Girl was acting harmless to both of them, Luka began to relax and put away his sword. Hearing the sword sliding back in the sheath made the Dog Girl flinch and look back at him with fearful eyes.

Luka felt hurt when he looked at her puppy eyes and awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. "...I'm sorry for scaring you, I was on the edge before…"

The Dog Girl's attitude made a 180° turn switch as she smiled. With her wagging tail, the golden Dog Girl replied. "It's okay! I am fine, you see?"

"Speaking of 'you'... Who are you? And why did you save us?" Since Victor was busy holding a funeral for his own phone, Luka decided to communicate first with the Dog Girl.

"Ah, my name is Penny! I'm a Golden Retriever! As for why I saved you…" The Dog Girl named Penny trailed off and cutely tilted her head to the left. "Isn't it natural to help people who are in a problem?"

A small trail of blood came from Luka's nose, which he quickly covered with one hand as he looked away from her. "This… This cuteness…" It felt like this Dog Girl was radiating him with the same level of cuteness that a Succubus would do with her pheromones. 

"Is something wrong?" The Dog Girl looked at Luka with curiosity, while he started to swipe his hand below his nose to clean it up. 

"N… N-Nothing… Anyway, why are you naked?"

The Dog Girl looked down on herself, seeing her pristine clear human body that resembled that of a 13 years old little girl. "Oh, I was just here to clean my body."

"Well… Can you dress up? I want to have a normal conversation…"

"Okay!" Penny cheerfully answered as she skipped through the rocks making the shore of the river, towards a brown rag lying on the ground. Seeing her dressing up with a ruined rag raised some pity within Luka.

He quickly took care of that by turning around and focusing on Victor. He recovered from seeing his phone and everything he had along with it gone like a flame in a windstorm, and was currently holding his electronic stuff in his hands.

For now, Victor decided to sell them, since they were useless now. The earphones went for an easy 12 Gold and the phone was sold for an amazing total of 1993 Gold, bringing his money count to 5'662 Gold. For now, however, he kept that number as it is.

Hopefully, he could rescue his wheelchair from the depths of the riverbed.

An exasperated sigh came from his mouth as he started to sit on the rocky ground and look down on his wet bandaged leg once again. He momentarily shifted his eyes to the river before they turned to the Dog Girl and Luka.

Luka still has his sword and clothes, but he is currently lacking his traveling bag. He still hasn't realized it yet, so he will remind him as soon as he isn't busy.

As for Penny, she is coming back with her ragged clothes and a wagging tail.

"Here I am!" She cheerfully called out again. As she approached the two humans, she turned towards Luka and asked. "By the way, who are you, Human?"

"Ah, my name is Luka, and I am a Hero Apprentice." At the mention of his 'supposed' job, Penny froze in her spot as her tail rose straight up. A frown appeared on her face before she quickly skipped through the rocks until she reached Victor, hiding behind him.

Victor raised an eyebrow at the Dog Girl's action while Luka sweatdropped.

...

Victor Luis' (future) Trivia Book: Slime Girls

The average Slime Girl is considered as a very weak monster, a punching bag for novices way back to the time when monsters and humans actively fought. However, only people who survived against them for many times understand the danger that occurs when you fight against an amorphous opponent.

Slime Girls are able to freely control the shape of their bodies, although they genetically carry a preference to shape up as a young and beautiful girl, despite the possibilities their bodies can manifest if used properly.

Unfortunately, the lack of matter in their bodies also influences their IQ, sustained by a single soul. Although they can learn, they have difficulty dealing with things that generally go against their understanding. As an example, you can explain in little words why balloons float in the sky, but it will be hard teaching them about gravity. However, due to the understanding of that nature, they also show great acceptance for the unknown and mostly ignore that.

Just like Imps and other soul-sucking monsters, their overall power is based on the number of lives they have taken with their digestive gel, and also the quantity of Slime Cells they have compressed within them.

However, they are usually happy and friendly towards humans, resorting to rape when their Slime Cells haven't got their dosage of sperm. They usually attack weak men because it is easy to deal with them.

Fortunately, the Slime Girl in question might release her catch after feeding. However, if the man feels like it, or if they are especially tasty, the Slime Girl might kidnap the victim. 

Incidentally, semen is not only their main food resource, but also a fundamental ingredient for them to reproduce into new Slime Girls. They groom the sperm cell into a new kind of Slime Cell that carries a totally new soul, and then split it off from their main body, creating a new Slime Girl.

Although they have an amorphous body, they are very susceptible to changes in the environment that they are adapted to. Pollution is harmful for their Slime Cells just like it is for human people, although there are exceptions such as Erubetie due to the immense amount of vital energy within her body, obtained by the abominable number of Slimes and Monsters absorbed within her. That in itself also makes it hard to judge Erubetie through normal standards, she might not even be anymore a Slime monster, but a gestalt amorphous creature.