AN: I know. I'm an irredeemable pervert. But if your reading this and you're familiar with either of these series, then you're also a pervert. So lets all embrace our pervertness and be perverts together. Joking aside, I was originally planning on making this simple smut, but then my stupid brain started thinking.

On a side note, the reason I decided not to qualify this as a crossover is because the setting and monsters aren't exactly the same as MGQ. While you'd recognize the geography of MGQ, monster girls in the Monster Musume Universe don't have exactly the same mechanics/behavior as the monsters of MGQ or MGE. For the most part, I'm relying on the mechanics of monster musume but also drawing stuff from MGQ and MGE to make stuff up.

The only real different between human civilization in this fic and ours is that this fic does not have commercial planes or aerospace engineering. I couldn't quite imagine air travel in a world were giant monsters ruled the skies.

Hundreds of years ago, the great hero Luka and his wife, Alipheese XVI, defeated the evil goddess Ilias and freed humanity from its shackles bringing about an era of unparalleled peace between monsters and humans. This story of course is nothing more than a legend, though many suspect that there are some elements of truth in those old bedtime stories.

The origin of monster girls has always been a mystery that frustrated the understanding of evolutionary biologists and scientists. Some have speculated that male counterparts of monster girls once did exist millions of years ago, but that some affliction must have driven those males extinct leaving female monsters to adapt and evolve the ability to procreate with human males. Others have suggested that an advanced alien race came to this planet thousands of years ago and that monster girls must have been the results of experiments that toyed with the DNA of various Earthly species. Unfortunately, no hypothesis that biologists put forth are provable and no real fossil record of male monsters has ever been found.

To the best of human knowledge according to historical records, there was a great period coexistence between humans and monsters. It's known that monster girls did live among humans as every day occurrences. However, as coexistence became more common, the instances of interspecies romance and monster-human copulation increased exponentially. As a result, the monster girl population in the Sentora continent began to grow at a rate the human population could not hope to match. As the population of monster girls grew, so too did the demand for the human males. But humanity was no longer growing at a pace that could meet the growing demands of monster girls without threatening its own existence. Where once there was roughly only one monster girl for every ten humans, there was now twelve.

Soon it dawned on both humans and monster girls that if things continued as they were, humanity would soon become extinct and without humans, most monster girl species would follow. Sadly, like most events in history, the first responses to this realization were often that of fear and violence.

Roughly a hundred years ago, in the southern most island now known as New Ilias, human society started converting back to the radical fundamentalist religion of the Old Divine Light Goddess and prohibited the intercourse between humans and monster girls completely. Soon large scale violence broke out between monsters and humans for the first time in centuries leading to an unprecedentedly brutal genocide that drove out monster girls and their human 'heretics'. Where once humans stood little chance against their stronger and more powerful monster girl counterparts, innovations in human weaponry such as guns and tanks reversed the odds against the monster girls and the war, if it could still be called that, became a one-sided massacre.

Of course, humanity as not the only aggressors of such atrocities. When the citizens of New Remina tried to place reasonable limitations on monster-human intercourse to preserve their own population, the stronger and more savage species of monster girls in Hellgondo responded with violence. Once more, Remina was destroyed and this time it was the humans and some of their more reasonable monster girl allies that were forced to flee their homes.

To punish the monsters of Hellgondo for their atrocities, the United Sentora Federation sent its navy, composed of both humans and monster girls (mostly mermaids and other oceanic monster girls) to create a blockade between Sentora and Hellgondo. Though this was designed to prevent the monster girls of Hellgondo from spreading the violence any further into the Federation, it did not stop the occasional husband raids they made on rural northern settlements and travelling human ships. In similar fashion, the Federation also placed a permanent trade embargo on New Ilias and threatened war on the new nation unless it allowed monster girls and their human husbands to flee the island in peace.

Of course, the way the Sentora Federation dealt with its own monster-human population problem was probably the most interesting and encouraging events in the history book of human and monster girl coexistence. Because the high government of Sentora only had power over military and diplomatic issues, domestic policy on monster girls were often left to the various regional governments that existed in Sentora, each of which offered unique and interesting solutions of their own. Despite this however, there were several common sense policies that soon became universal.

For both monsters and humans, polygamy was legalized and became a more accepted practice. Because males were so outnumbered to their female mates and because males too often chose the lure of monster girls when given the choice, polygamy was deemed necessary to continue the human race. There were even suggestions to make polygamy mandatory, but in the end it was argued that such a violation of personal freedom was not worth even the continued survival of humanity, especially when other more promising options had yet to be explored. Secondly, a compromise was reached between the two species in which humans allowed only a certain number of their male population to given up to monster girls to try and limit their ridiculously high growth rate.

In order to try to enforce this policy, segregated human cities placed walls around their settlements and restricted monster-human interactions to that of trade and other non-sexual relationships. Furthermore, because of the constant kidnapping of male soldiers and guards by the more aggressive monsters, the Sentora military and regional police began a heavy recruiting drive for human women who were far less likely to attacked or kidnapped. Taking a page from their monster counterparts, human wives began guarding their husbands and sons jealously and men rarely traveled alone outside the walls of their settlements if at all.

On the side of monster girls, laws against eating humans, which have been in place since the dawn of human-monster coexistence, became more heavily enforced and the punishment for breaking the law, already punishable by death, was now punishable by the death of their entire clan. Strangely enough, it should be noted that this change was premediated and enforced not by humans, but by monster girls themselves against their fellow sisters. Knowing that the future of their own species depended on the survival of humanity and inspired by the actions of humans all over Sentora who marched in solidarity against the atrocities of New Ilias, the vast majority of the monster girl population cooperated with many of the measures humans took.

Sadly, this was met by a backlash of a small minority of extremist monsters who called for a return to the old ways, envisioning a world in which humanity would be domesticated to be bred and eaten like livestock. Ironically calling themselves the Humanitarians (as a play on the word Vegetarian), this group was declared Enemy #1 of the state and was hunted with extreme prejudice by both humans and fellow monsters forcing the Humanitarians into hiding.

o0o

Hi, my name is Kimihito Kurusu. You might be wondering why I just gave you this long lecture about the history of human and monster relations, most of which is common knowledge for just about anyone who hasn't lived under a rock his entire life. In a way, all of these events are partly responsible for my current predicament. You see, I live in place called the Nippon republic. It's a walled city state located somewhere on the southern coast of the Yamatai province, a peninsula on the Eastern most region of the Federation, and one of the largest ports in the world. I'm the oldest of 7 siblings and while you might think that's a lot of children, it's not that surprising when you learn that I also have 3 mothers and a father with a very high libido. Quite frankly, I doubt they're finished with only 7 and there's probably already more on the way.

Like most walled settlements, the Nippon republic has a fairly complex relationship with its neighboring monster girl communities and villages in that interactions with one monster girl species could be drastically different from how we might interact with another. For example, like most other human settlements in the Yamatai province, Nippon has a very special relationship with neighboring elven cities and villages that date back hundreds of years. In exchange for helping the city by providing protection for our walls and more importantly our trade routes, samurai and kunoichi elves, usually the eldest of their sisters (or sometimes the prettiest to entice the husband candidate) are invited into the village every year after the Lunar New Year celebrations to search for potential husbands.

They're introduced to potential candidates in traditional omiai or matchmaking sessions and if an elf meets a man she likes, then her family will go the man's family and make an offer for him. Gifts are exchanged, customs are observed, and usually there's a huge wedding celebration before the man is sent to his new family to consummate their marriage. Sometimes, the whole matchmaking process isn't even needed since Nippon also throws a lot of festivals that invite both elves and other monster species and future couples can meet that way. Not surprisingly as a result, there's even been a few elopements.

The way we deal with other neighboring monster girl communities on the other hand is a lot different. When the walls were first beginning construction, representatives from the monster factions and our government negotiated a deal for the continued status quo between monsters and humans. They agreed that every year during spring time, Nippon city would release one fourth of their 18-year-old male population into the nearby forests. The system ensured that no one species faced unfair discrimination due to their looks or human preferences and allowed monsters girls a chance to enjoy the instinctive thrill of the hunt whilst giving them several chances to catch a husband in case they failed during their first attempt. It also saved the Nippon government the hassle of having to worry about letting in potential kidnappers or Humanitarians into the city for matchmaking sessions. Furthermore, since the event was held in spring, at a time when most monster girls went into heat, it also ensured the greatest chance of attraction. It was decided that males would be picked by a random lottery especially after far too many perverts and fetishists volunteered, idiotically enamored at the idea of living as some pampered sex slave. The kind of perverts who were far too attracted to the idea were often the kind of people who repelled women of both species. As the monster girl representatives were happy to point out, no matter how rare males may be, women still had standards.

By now I'm sure you've already guessed how all of this is relevant to me. This year, four months after my eighteenth birthday, I had the 'honor' of being chosen for Nippon's Spring Time Husband Hunt. It happened today when just like every other male who had come of age, I had gone down to the cultural relations office to register and participate in the lottery. After registering your name and information at the front desk, you go wait inside the lobby until they call you up. You go inside a dark room, place your hand inside a small box and draw a ball. If you draw a blank white ball, you're safe. If you draw a gold ball, then you've just been chosen. They take you inside another bland colored room where they take your picture so that your name and picture can be published along side of everyone else that had been chosen in newsletters for monster girls. They do this so monster girls participating that year can get a potential idea of who they're going to start gunning for when the event begins.

Truth be told, my heart sank a little when I drew that golden ball. Contrary to what some people might believe, being chosen to be a possible future husband of a monster girl or monster girls, is not exactly a Cinderella-esque fairy tale. First, it's unlikely that you were going to have much say in who you were going to marry. Unless you happened to be extremely cunning or agile, your wife was going to be the first monster girl to capture you on sight. The kind of life you lived often completely depended on who you were captured by. Kitsunes and Youkos for example, are often renowned for being good wives and pampering their husbands with affection. One the other hand, there are many primitive species who often treated their mates as nothing better than sex slaves for semen production. Those types usually teamed up in the largest groups in the hunt to try to make up for their lack of intelligence forcing their unfortunate husband to marry and service up to 30 wives at a time. Furthermore, with violent types of monsters, domestic abuse was still a harsh reality many men still had to face, despite the combined interspecies efforts to prevent it.

And even that wasn't even the worst of it. One of the harshest possibility that men kidnapped by monster girls or even their fellow humans could face was being sold to the dens. I don't care what anyone says, being drugged up on aphrodisiacs with just enough food to survive while being strapped to a bed so that every monster girl who paid out a few coins could have their way with you nonstop does not sound like a fun way to live. You would barely be conscious and eventually with muscle degeneration and other health problems of being constantly overdosed for sex, you'd probably end up dead before your thirties. These establishments under interspecies law are supposed to be illegal but I guess there will always be people ready to twist a few morals to make a quick buck and while I sincerely doubt that any of the girls officially participating in the Hunt were slavers, there was always the risk of one sneaking in.

My parents for the most part took the news well. Everyone in my family knew this was a reality we all had to face in our world, but knowing that the next three weeks with one of your children might very well be the last isn't exactly an easy pill to swallow. I had broken the news at the dinner table after my parents had come home from work. My father looked up at me with a reassuring smile.

"I'm sure you'll find a nice set of wives and family." He told me. "It's just like train travel. You hear all about the crashes and the deaths but when you actually compare it to all the ones that arrived without a problem, you realize all the bad stuff is practically nonexistent. We just happen to hear about it more since it's more exciting for the gossipmongers."

Unfortunately, it wasn't the adults I was worried about. A sudden clattering of metal utensils falling onto their respective plates accompanied my announcement.

"Onii-chan is leaving." Came a distraught voice, I immediately recognized to be Aiko's. Her outburst immediately triggered similar cries across the table from the younger children. As the eldest of a family where all of the parents had dedicated careers, I was practically a fourth parent to many of my younger siblings.

"I'll be back," I said, careful to make sure my tone was convincingly cheerful. "We all have to get married sooner or later. I'll come visit you lots. I promise."

"No!" Her twin, Mana, ducked under the table, and scrambled up onto my lap. "I don't want you to go!"

I hugged them, her, Aiko and a few others into an armful, rocking and hushing them. "Come on now. Marriage is supposed to be happy events. I know, let's got get ice cream from the fridge."

It took a long while to calm them down and the twins were the last to fall asleep as I assured them again and again that no, I was not leaving forever and that yes, I would visit them every chance I could with lots of presents. As I looked down at them sleeping while I eased my shirt out of their stubborn grasp, I made a decision. Inter-species cooperation and the entire Federation be damned… I was coming home to my family.

o0o

Today was the day; the day of Spring Time Husband Hunt. I knew I had to check in and register outside of the gates of the outer-walls by 10 AM, so I had woken up early to get a proper breakfast and make sure all my preparations were complete. I was only taking with me small bag. Pack too much stuff and it would only weigh me down or snag me onto something in the forest. My own sack consisted of a filtration bottle, a week's worth of granola bars, 25 feet of rope, a flashlight, homemade pepper bombs and small knife in the form of a tanto my mother had given me for my 16th birthday.

While most candidates often packed personal effects and any utensils they might need as husbands, my own preparations were not that unusual. For as long as the Hunt existed, there have always been sizable number of adrenaline junkies who relished the thought of testing their skills against the hunting prowess of monster girls or those who were simply picky about who they would allow themselves to be captured by. Thus my own pack would not be seen as unusual to the Hunt's administrators. I had also sewn camouflage patterns on the inside of my clothing, so that when I wore my clothes inside out, I would blend in better with the foliage. I knew it wouldn't allow me to avoid the keen senses of a monster for long, but my entire plan was predicated on the hope that most contestants would assume that all the husband candidates had be captured within the first few hours and give up completely after the first day. I had also hidden a lock picking kit inside the folds of my shirt in case I did get captured and had a chance to escape.

The rules, few as they are, were fairly simple. Besides age restrictions, all monster girls who participated in the spring time husband hunt had to be registered with a local monster girl organization that was recognized by the government of Nippon. This was to ensure that no out of province or foreign monster girl sneaked in to the event and grabbed a husband, depriving one of the local monster girls. Monster girls had to register in teams either with other monster girls who would be their fellow sister wives or by themselves which were usually only common amongst the younger and cockier monsters. Once a monster girl, whether alone or a part of the team, was registered as having succeeded in obtaining a husband, they are forbidden from entering in future competition. This rule was intended to ensure that other monster girls got a fair chance in future competitions and to make sure that teams didn't receive help from people who didn't intend to marry their catch.

While it was not common, male candidates were perfectly allowed to resist capture in the spirit of the hunt. Of course there were limitations. We were not allowed firearms, large blades or any lethal weapons like poison. Smaller blades were permitted on the condition we would not use them on any of the participants and even if someone was stupid enough to try, a tiny blade would have little to no effect and the more powerful monster. All male candidates would be given a small red band with a barcode printed on the inside. When and if captured, the monster girl teams would register their successful hunt to Nippon administrators in front of the gates within 12 hours of capture by delivering those red strips. This ensured that all participants are accounted for. Finally, the Hunt has two end conditions. 1) All male candidates are captured and registered. 2) Exactly five days have passed since the event started. Any candidate who survived those five days uncaptured were permitted back into the village. Since most candidates were usually all captured within the first few hours, I knew most that if I managed to survive the first day, the worst of it would be behind me. Historically, it had been done before, no matter how rare it was.

As I looked over my preparations for what seemed like the twentieth time, a hand shot out from behind and grabbed my bag spilling its guilty contents onto the floor. Alarmed, I whirled around to face my mother, not just any mother but my birth mother, the one who actually popped me out of her womb screaming into this world. In her late forties with a few graying hairs she never bothered to dye, my mom had a stern face that bore a claw shaped scar on her right cheek, giving her an air of unquestionable authority and power.

When I had broken the news at the dinner table, she had mostly stayed silent after offering me some words of encouragement. She was a strong person; made of steel as our family would often like to quip. Having served as a lieutenant in the special forces regiment of the Federation's armed forces, she had fought in missions against both radical New Ilias cultists and man-eating Humanitarians. After deciding that she had enough of danger in her life, she looked towards a more peaceful occupation … as the chief of police... of Nippon… where she took down the triads… and the local yakuza… and the mob... and then chased down a slave ring half way across the continent to save my dad… by herself… … The point is, my mother wasn't the type of person who would start crying uncontrollably no matter what the situation was. But even then, I still noticed that she had been spending more time at home with me over the last three weeks rather than at the station the way she usually did.

She gave quick glance at the offending items scattered across the floor and flashed me a knowing smirk. I blushed, refusing to meet her eyes. Even after all these years, I still could never hide anything from her. I snatched my bag out of her grasp and began picking up its former contents from the floor until an arm gently grabbed my hand, stopping me. I looked up at her, afraid that she disapproved of what I was planning until she pressed an orange cylinder into the palm of my hand. A flare gun.

"I… I know I'm warmest of people." She sounded unsure of herself, a fact which shocked me beyond all else. "But you're my son," she paused before changing her tone sharply. "… and no damn hussy, monster or human, is every going to take that away from me. If any of those bitches so much as bares a fang or raises a first, you use this and I'll come find you. Understood?"

Recognizing the glint in her eyes, I took a moment to offer a brief prayer to any monster girl unfortunate enough to do either of those things. It was good to know that no matter what, you could always count on your family. "Don't worry mother. I'll be fine."

I turned to pull my hand away only to find that it was in an iron grip. My mother's face was stern. "I'm serious Kimihito. You remember what happened a few months ago don't you."

I winced. 12 weeks ago suspected Humanitarians launched an attack on a monster family in a nearby village. Three monster girls had been found in their own home dead with their husband missing. In response, Nippon city in cooperation with the surrounding monster villages postponed the Hunt and launched a 7-week manhunt for the perpetrators. Eventually, with no further leads and the trail having gone cold, the search was called off since all signs of investigation indicated that the murderers were already long gone and with the area declared secure, the Hunt was immediately rescheduled without delay.

"I'll be safe." I promised her.

o0o

I wasn't safe.

The event began at exactly 11:00 AM after all the candidates had bee accounted for and our packs inspected for any illegal items and we were released through the gates into a heavily forested area adjacent to the city walls. We had exactly a 1-hour head-start on our hunters to start dispersing ourselves into the forest before the Hunt participants were released into the forest at noon. I took a brief moment to appreciate the fitting irony of monster girls being released at what was essentially lunch time to capture their potential husbands.

Immediately, I changed from my clothes and turned them inside out so that the camouflage side of my clothing was now facing outwards before running out into the denser part of the woods. The majority of candidates on the other hand, deigned instead to wander closer to the gates, lazily looking for a comfortable spot to wait their inevitable capture though I suspected that their decision was based more on desire and excitement than any realization of the futility of doing otherwise. I saw only a few others, who like me seemed to be intent on putting up an actual fight, though most likely for different reasons than from my own. I decided to follow their general direction. My reasoning was that I didn't have to outrun every monster girl I came across. I just had to be faster than the other humans.

When my watch showed that it was close to twelve, I stopped and checked my surroundings. While I'd never been outside the walls before my entire life, I had spent time over the last three weeks carefully studying maps of the surrounding area, memorizing its layout. A few more miles from my current position and there would be large river. I knew that with the snowy peaks of local mountains melting into rivers under the Spring weather, the currents would be in full force and that trying to ford them would be dangerous to the point of suicide. That's why no one would ever expect it. I had the rope, safety harness and all the other tools necessary to do it. As far I was concerned all I had to follow the river up past the bend to its narrowest point and make the crossing. I would hole up somewhere there over the next few days doing everything I could to cover my tracks. I looked down at my watch to check to see how much more time I would have before the husband hunters would be released into the forest.

And froze.

I shook my watch… and then shook it again. It had stopped. Its treacherous hands had positioned themselves to indicate that it was just before noon. I didn't know how off my current conception of time was. I had been running without rest for more than an hour but I did know one thing. The hunt had already begun. And I had no idea how long it had been since then.

Immediately, as though the world was trying to mock me for my negligence, I heard a man scream not far from me. Instinctively, I crouched even lower. I knew that I shouldn't have been surprised to hear that scream. To the best of my knowledge the hunt had begun in earnest and most species of monster girls possessed superhuman speed and strength. It wasn't unusual for an unsuspecting candidate to be alarmed when he suddenly found himself in the arms of his future wife without warning. But even so, I couldn't help but sense there something wrong. That was not a cry of surprise. That was a cry of fear.

Slowly I crept through woods, sticking close to the trees as I looked into the small clearing where the scream originated. I couldn't decide whether I was more shocked or terrified. In the clearing I saw a fellow man, the most probable producer of the scream I had just heard, begin dragged by several purple tentacles, towards a monster whose green cylindrical body opened up to reveal slimy red flesh.

It was a Roper.

As one of the few man-eating monsters in history, the Roper was notorious for its cruelty. Its primitive brain was incapable of processing even the most basic human sympathy and thus it enjoyed slowly digesting its prey trapped inside her body. The Roper made no distinction between gender or species. To the Roper, all living creatures were food. Despite interspecies efforts to combat the threat, the Roper survived as a pest, reproducing through parthenogenesis, and when the Humanitarians came around, it became one of its greatest allies.

What I did next was stupid. So stupid in fact that had any sane human being witnessed it, they would have grabbed me by the shoulders and shaken me, screaming 'What the hell were you thinking?' The answer would have been that I wasn't thinking. I saw a fellow human being about to be murdered via slow and painful digestion, a human being with his own aspirations, friends and family. Logic would have told me to run. Logic would have pointed out that I stood absolutely no chance against a monster like that and that I would only be giving it a second victim.

Well logic can go fuck itself.

Running along the treeline until I was now facing the Roper's side, I scooped up a rock and threw it at the side of her head. The Roper stopped in her tracks and turned her head at me. For a moment, the world was completely silent as if to highlight the ridiculousness of the situation while we stared at each other.

Finally, she nodded gave a silent 'Itadakimasu', the traditional expression of gratitude before a meal, as she sent several tentacles at me. I ducked behind particularly large tree as branches and bark were violently ripped off into the air.

After the tentacles receded, I peeked backed into clearing to see that Roper's victim was still being dragged towards her gaping maw, albeit somewhat more slowly due to my distractions. Knowing that I didn't have much time, I did two things. First, I threw another rock up into the clearing towards the Roper. As expected, it was knocked out of the air like an afterthought. Second, I threw a pepper bomb at her feet.

The Roper wasn't smart. So far I had only been using rocks to try and distract her. She wouldn't know to expect other weapons and would make the false assumption that it was just another rock. With the round ball-like structure thrown so low to the ground, she properly surmised that it would never reach her to inflict any sort of impact. So she let it roll towards her feet and explode into a world of pain.

The Roper shrieked in agony as pepper spray meant for grizzly bears dispensed in all directions. Taking my cue, I ran towards the man still wrapped around her tentacles and started hacking away at them with my tanto. From here, I could see he had been knocked unconscious. Freeing him the Roper's grasp, I started dragging him away from clearing, while desperately trying to shake and slap him awake.

I saw his eyelids flickered for a moment, his bleary eyes looking around unfocused until it locked on to something behind me. Then a look of horror spread across his face. Suddenly, I felt something slimy grasp my ankle and tug hard, throwing me face first onto the ground and knocking my rescuee of my hands. He looked at me, petrified, looking split between his instincts which told him to run and his moral compass which forbid him from abandoning the man who risked his life to save his. Fortunately for him, I made the decision for him.

"Run!" I yelled at him. "Go get help! NOW!" He nodded frantically, then scrambled out of the clearing as quickly as his legs could carry him. All the while I was being dragged backwards, ever closer to the Roper and my impending death.

I would die here, I realized. He would never get to the authorities in time. No matter how much I struggled, how much I fought back, eventually, I would be overpowered, made into prey and slowly digested by the cruel whims of the Roper. By now, all four of my limbs were enveloped by the Roper's tentacles as I was lifted completely off the ground and made to face her angry lilac eyes, now accompanied by splashes of red thanks to my pepper bomb.

"Heh."

I would not go quietly. I would struggle to the end. My limbs would continue to flail even as they were being devoured. I would hack at her with my tanto. I would spit into her already damaged eyes until I was finally dead. I will not win… But I resolved to give her such a fight, make myself as troublesome as I could, the next time she felt like eating another human being she would remember me. She would remember me and how much I fought and she would think to herself 'May be I'll go catch some other prey instead.' My death would not be in vain.

She brought me closer and closer until we were face to face. I loosened my arms and masked my face in despair, a task that was not particularly difficult at the moment, to feign surrender. Her eyes were stilling glaring at me as she made the following declaration.

"There won't be any pleasure for you." She snarled, wrapping the rest of her tentacles around my torso. "My digestive juices will slowly eat you alive. I will keep you alive for days while you suffer in agony. You will die, regretting that you ever tried to be a hero."

I smiled. "Knowing how much pain I'm causing you is pleasure enough."

Suddenly, I jerked my right arm back, pulling her tentacles along with it until it was right beside my head. Then, I bit down on it. Hard.

Screeching in rage and agony, the Roper pulled her tentacle back, freeing the arm that still held my trusty knife. Quickly taking advantage of her mistake, I brought my arm down and stabbed her square in the abdomen. The Roper's screams intensified and I felt the rest of her tentacles on my body tighten. Dozens more joined in and started slowly strangling and crushing me through sheer strength. I struggled as hard as I could, but it was useless. I could feel my strength leave my body and my vision darken. (Bad end?) And then…. It didn't?

Before I could even process what was going on, I had fallen onto the earth. But I wasn't the only thing that had fallen. Around me dozens of dismembered tentacles lay on the ground, thrashing uselessly without direction. As the Roper screamed at having her limbs severed from her body, I turned around to look at my savior and promptly forgot how to breathe.

It was a centaur. With their bottom half that of a horse and their top half a human woman, centaurs were known to be proud and noble creatures and this centaur girl stood as a testament to her species. Her golden locks were tied back into a long pony tail. Her four legs, partially hidden behind a black dress-like caparison, were poised for both attack and defense. She wore a sleeveless white shirt that clothed perhaps the largest breasts I had ever seen and in her hands she carried a two-handed claymore which she had presumably used to free me from my restraints. She looked majestic, standing there facing the Roper like a knight of old ready to strike down the ferocious monster.

Quite frankly, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes on my entire life… and I swear I wasn't just saying that just because of her boobs.

"To think you would despoil the most sacred of monster rituals with your villainy!" The centaur swordswoman snarled, pointing her blade towards the Roper. "I will ensure you answer for your crimes! Come and face the righteous wrath of Centorea Shianus!"

"My-my, you certainly seem to be having quite the trouble there, Roper girl." Came a voice from the end of the clearing.

Taking this time to scramble behind the now named Centorea, I looked towards the origin of the voice to see another monster girl. This time, it looked like a woman standing in a green plantlike tube, surrounded by several plant like tendrils, each with tubes of their own.

Great. More tentacles. It looked like this one was a pitcher plant type monster, infamous for being carnivorous. The centaur turned towards her as well.

"Are you with this fiend?" Centorea asked, pointing her sword towards the injured Roper. "Am I to assume then you are a Humanitarian or one of their associates."

"You say that like it's such a bad thing." The Plant girl exclaimed, "Is it really so wrong to embrace what you really are? How sad to see the once mighty centaur race debase itself so they could fawn over an inferior species."

Centorea shifted her sword. "Come test the strength of my blade, villain. We will see whose strength is greater. Your kind, who preyed on the weak and fled from the strong, or mine, who have always stood against even the strongest of evils to defend the innocent."

The injured Roper shifted towards her ally. "Rafflia… this bitch… she…"

"I know, I know." Rafflia replied, calmly. "But let's not forget the real prize here."

She shifted her eyes toward me, licking her lips as she did so. I took an involuntary step back. This monster girl was much stronger than the first.

Centorea glanced back at me. "Master, you must flee now."

"No," I shook my head. The idea of abandoning a girl, even one as powerful as Centorea, to face those monster alone felt inherently wrong. "I can fight with you."

"Your courage is most admirable." The blonde centaur replied, briefly giving me a small smile. "But you have no defense against the plant girl's aroma attacks. Once she uses it, you will be put under her trance and I will be unable to protect you."

She was right. If I stayed, I would only become a liability. I didn't want her to get hurt because she had to worry about protecting me. Quickly coming to a decision I grasped my flare gun, pointed it to the sky and fired it, sending the bright flare high into the sky. "Good luck." I told her. "Don't die to these guys."

Centorea smirked. "These vermin will prove no trouble. It is not our fate to meet only once."

With that, I ran off in the opposite direction. Hoping that I would see the centaur alive and well after this was over and done with.

o0o

I had run for quite a while, hearing the sounds of a ferocious battle fade behind me as I got further and further until it was finally silent. Coming to a stop, I leaned back against a tree, gasping for breath. It was only then that I noticed a sharp pain in my ankle. Biting back a curse, I realized that the Roper must have twisted it when she pulled me down into the ground. As I came down from my adrenaline rush, I allowed myself to sink down into a sitting position to rest. The flare should have alerted the authorities along with every contestant in the nearby area. With local Samurai and Ninja elves on standby, it would only take a few long minutes for reinforcements to arrive and assist Centorea.

A Humanitarian, two even. Would they cancel the Hunt over something like this? Somehow I doubted it. Now that the Hunt was already underway, there was probably already several male candidates who must have been captured to be husbands of monster girls. The other contestants would probably protest the event being canceled before their own chance to grab a human husband especially when the situation seemed like it was already being contained.

Remembering my fight with the Roper, I slammed my fist into the earth, frustrated by my own helplessness. The fact that monster girls generally tended to be stronger than humans was a reality that humanity lived with on a daily basis. Even so, I hated the idea of being weak, of not being able to do anything against monsters like the Roper or the Plant girl without resorting to numbers or military weaponry, neither of which were guarantees to victory as the slaughter of Remina had proven.

Why? Why did this frustrate me so much? I wasn't a particularly prideful person. It's not like I enjoyed violence either. So why? Why did I want to go back? Back there… so I could fight against evil… so I can fight for what's right… just like she did… oh… … Oh

I wanted to fight… alongside her… along side the centaur girl, Centorea.

I admired her, I realized. I admired the way she fought for what she believed in. Having the strength to protect the innocent and win against injustice. It was an admiration that bordered on envy. I wished I didn't have to run away, that I could do be doing more now that simply pray for her safety.

Suddenly, I heard raucous laughter not far from me. The voices were definitely male judging by their pitch. Strange, I could imagine one or two candidates managing to get this far into the forest but from the number voices I was hearing, there was enough people to set off alarms inside of my head. Staying close to the ground, I slowly crawled over to where I was hearing the voices and peered at them from behind a tree, freezing.

There were three gunmen, armed with assault rifles or other small arms. They weren't men of the Yamatai region and they certainly weren't candidates from Nippon. No candidate would have been allowed to carry weapons of that caliber into the Hunt by the authorities at the walls. Upon a close look, I could make out silver insignias sewn onto each of their shoulders. A rifle crossed over onto angel's wing, it the symbol of the Templars of Ilias Kreuz, religious fanatics who advocated for the extermination of all monsters and branded those who accepted monsters in any way as heretics. Like most Templars, these men wore the gaudy dress uniform, more ornamental that practically protective.

What the hell were those psychopaths doing this far out here in Yamatai? I didn't dwell onto that question for long as my attention was immediate drawn a figure lying at their feet. A girl… a monster girl to be exact. She had straight red hair that flowed down her back decorated by a D-shaped hair clip on the top of her had. She wore a yellow long sleeved button shirt that was tied together to show off her midriff. Finally, a red snake tail extended out of her dark blue miniskirt, identifying her as a lamia.

Objectively she was quite beautiful, but that wasn't what grabbed my attention. She was bleeding. She was clutching her side painfully near her stomach, her clothing stained in red from the amount of blood that was pouring out of her wounds. It didn't take a genius to figure out that they had shot her.

Suddenly, one of the Templars, a man with dirty blonde hair and a rough stubble on perhaps one of the ugliest face I've ever seen, stepped up towards the lamia and brought down a brutal stomp onto where she had been clutching her sides, where she had been shot. The resulting screams were painful to listen to.

"Would ya look at this lil' bitch." He drawled at his laughing companions, who were egging him on. "Can ya believe there are actually freaks here who actually wanna fuck things like her? Gross ain't it? Some beta fag actually had ta fuck one of these things ta create her."

A grit my teeth, shaking in rage as the girl writhed in pain while the Templars laughed. You don't… You don't treat people like this. The way he referred to her people as things. There's no excuse for this kind of cruelty.

The blonde Templar leaned down towards the wounded girl, this time talking to her personally.

"Ah please. Dun' give me that look." He said to the girl who was glaring at him. "Yer da bad guy here. I'm just a hero an' heroes slay monsters. Yer the one here huntin humans for sport. What gives you da right to simply take human beings for sex, huh? Nuthin, that's what! No matta how ya dress up what ya do with pretty words like coexistence, it's just y'all monsters taking whatever ya want and us humans sufferin the consequences. Your daddy was nuthin but a slave, a beta fag who was probably too busy bein' whored out like a street hooker to be a real man. Then again, ya dun' care do ya. All guys are good as long as they can squirt the semen ya sluts want so badly. Isn' tha-"

"Dude!"

That was it. That was the only warning he every got from one from one of his companions before all he saw was my fist hurtling towards his face after I leapt towards them while they were distracted. I hated people like them. People who deluded themselves into believing that somehow compassion was weakness, that cooperation was submission, that ignorance was independence and hatred was strength.

It wasn't. Coexistence was not something that came from weakness or cowardice. It was strength. It was having the courage to open yourself up to risk for a better future. It being able to fight injustice wherever it was, whether it was against the monsters of Hellgondo, where the strongest monsters often resided, or the fanatics of New Ilias, who possessed military weapons and resorted to cowardly terror attacks than direct combat.

And finally, men who chose to be the husbands of monster girls weren't weak. In fact, it was usually the opposite. The fantasy and image some people had of a monster girl's husband was that of a pampered sex slave. I hated that stereotype because the reality was far different. Since monster girls were significantly stronger than us human beings, they often didn't know their own strength around us. That meant just being able to deal with them on a regular basis required an incredible level of human strength and durability. As a monster girl husband, having sex with them often tested those qualities to the breaking point and you would have needed an incredible amount of physical stamina to even hope of being able to keep up with you own wife.

My mother, like many others, understood this fact from the beginning. When I was 13, she sat me and my younger brother in the parlor and explained to us the responsibilities of living in a society that accepted monster girls. She then trained me, along with the rest of my brothers as they came into their teenage years, to try to maximize our physical capabilities and taught us the self-defense skills necessary to stave off any unwanted advances.

While these men lived inside their own little bubble on their island, deluding themselves of their own strength despite never having endured any serious hardship, I had grown strong by accepting my responsibilities as a member of a society that chose the path of compassion and cooperation.

My fist knocked the first Templar off his feet and right into the second who in turn was knocked back onto the third Templar behind him. As all three men were sent flying back into a tree behind them, knocking them unconscious, I felt a distinct tingle of pride at being reassured of my own strength. I may not have been a match for the Roper girl, but I was still stronger than the average human.

Still, this wasn't the time to be celebrating. That lamia girl was seriously injured and I needed to get her help as quick as possible. Wait… Why is the ground rushing towards me?