Tyler had the time of his life. After the peace treaty between the Monstergirl Reik and Human Empire, he finally managed to reach the new capital city of the Human Empire of Lescatie, now loosely broken into a federation.
"Dear Gods..."
The 80-year old man looked barely past his mid 30's, due to decades of monstergirl essence coursing through his veins. Still, he wasn't ready for the splendor of the new Federation capital of Silberbonn.
"Holy...shit..." He gasped, his eyes widening as he saw the titanic construction jutting out of the blasted landscape. He had seen many debaucheries, served monstergirls as a sex toy all his life, but seeing the human capital was something of a mythical fantasy novel. After Maou had been permanently banished into the cosmos, his essence finally dislodged and disintegrated, the human and monster empires had signed a treaty called Ruby Pact, effectively outlawing monster wars and getting the pledge of permanent peace and end of slaving raids by dark elves, slow emancipation, and decentralization of force.
And now he saw a city built from scratch, dug into the very meteor where Maou had been eradicated from existence for good.
A massive crater, mercifully spared of cosmic fallout by spells far too arcane for humans to cast, had cooled the gigantic moon rock, summoned on top of the Black Legion led by Maou like crude artillery. The massive crater, the size of a small county, had been bristling with gems, crystals, and Lunarium, a rare moon metal. Yehudist human architects, monstergirl magic-engineers, and human builders had processed the entire crater full of riches into a circular city of mythological, titanic proportions.
The metropolis was surrounded by a giant, perfectly shaped circle wall, high enough to block the sun around itself, bristling with cannons, ballistae, and harpy aviaries where the messenger scouts, harpy girls, monster females of bird-like qualities were perched like eternal guardians, armed with claw-sensitive sniping arquebuses. Right in the center of the city, a tower, impossibly tall to exist by laws of physics, was like a diamond-encrusted pillar housing the endless bureaucrats and civil servants of a new governmental body that would encompass the continent.
The entrances were laid in perfect symmetry, main gates at every sixty degrees around the city, and smaller access points evenly distributed between them. Airships, heat-driven guardians floated with tethers, oversaw the entire city, manned by humans using magically enhanced lenses to see the invisible and the demon-corrupt. Every hour, thousands entered and exited the city on perfectly organized roads. Lifting his eyes to the skies, Tyler gasped again, seeing a massive pair of cables carrying vessels filled with passengers inside the city. He was glad he picked a side entrance: not many to jostle him here through this gate.
"Takes your breath away, doesn't it?"
"What?"
The female guard lifted her visor and removed her helmet, smiling. "Welcome to Silberbonn. I see you are astonished by the SkyTrain. Where are you from?"
She was a tomboyish-looking young woman in her mid 30's by appearance, with green eyes and hair cut short like a man. In perfect health, her features were of a strange beauty: cheekbones and jaw slightly masculine, and a body that filled her conservative suit of full plate armor nicely. She was armed with a rifling cannon adorned with a silver bayonet, no doubt to deter vampires and demons, her armor etched with her name engraved with a bright, simple script: Gisele Jensen. Tyler smiled politely and extended his travel papers from his pocket to the guardswoman.
"The Reik, officer. I am a retired...serf."
"Serf..." Gisele lifted her eyebrows, reading his papers. "You mean a Monstergirl Reik slave, were freed after the Ruby Pact? Don't worry, I have seen enough to keep an open mind. When were you...taken?"
Tyler exhaled, nodding. "Around..." Furrowing his brows, he looked down, calculating. "Two years before Theo led the Battle of Megiddo Hill." That made Jensen blink incredulously, her cute face twisting in surprise.
"That was nearly 70 years ago! How old are you?"
"I'm celebrating eighty-six this week."
The woman shook her head, exhaling. "Wow. You must have seen a lot. What did you do all that time? Labor? Or..."
Tyler smiled, nodding. "The thing that rings all types of alarms by your Inquisition, ma'am."
Gisele smiled, biting her lips. Better say it now not to look dishonest. She was pretty, Tyler noted, though not as feminine as succubi of the Reik.
"I was a sex worker, ma'am. My owner manumitted me around thirty years ago. Now I travel the world, seeing what I missed out."
Her eyes softened, a hand rising to touch his shoulder. "Dear God. You must have suffered terribly." Tyler almost chuckled, she was naive.
"Well...I wouldn't say suffer..." His rolling eyes made Jensen smirk and chuckle.
"Men..."
"If I had a coin every time some monstergirl said that back in the Reik..." Tyler laughed as she pressed a stamp on a page. "I was a peasant orphan at the frontier. A landlord had me nearly lynched and tossed me over the border to be killed by mamono, thinking I bedded his daughter." Seeing her blink, he corrected. "Monstergirls. He thought they'd kill me. Instead, I was taken by a brothel madam and raised to be a sex worker for monstergirls. It was...tolerable."
"I guess..." Jensen bit her lips, grinning inwardly. "Just stuck to one brothel and locked in to be used? Must be hard, even for men."
"Not at all. You see..." Tyler started explaining. "We were like a family. Slaves also travel and buy and sell, just like Ermorean Empire's old days, albeit with unrestricted access to our bodies. Besides, I had earned my freedom in 20 years, the rest I spent buying the freedom of my friends, and other prisoners of war. The slave-dealer dark elves were quite happily naming me "The Fool of Reikshold", taking my money anyway. Father's Day had a sale for male slaves."
That made Gisele's eyes soften. Her smirk turned to a soft smile, her hand reached to touch his when she handed him his passport back.
"Aw...You -are- the Fool of Reikshold?"
He raised his brows, surprised Lescatie citizens knew of the story. "Guilty as charged."
I read about you in the newspapers." Her face was one of care and genuine compassion, green eyes glowing with interest in his tales. "Some peasants even wanted you named a saint, seeing their daughters return safely." She giggled. "I wonder why not many male captives didn't return..."
"A lot of monstergirls married the free ones. They are not so feral and evil once you get to know them. They need only..."