Monster Girl Ranching in Another World

“Now you are talking to voices in your head?!” Mati exclaimed, and I rolled my eyes.

“I am talking to my friend, Harold,” I groaned, and Mati crossed her arms again.

“Giving the voice in your head a name does not make it better!” Mati said with a frown, and I rolled my eyes.

“Just give me a minute,” I chuckled, but Mati was still giving me a look like I was nuts.

She might not be completely wrong.

‘Harold? Sorry to bug you, but we need to talk,’ I sent into my head, making me feel slightly crazy after Mati’s comments.

There was also the fact that she was watching me like a hawk now. I guess she was waiting for me to start muttering to myself like a crazy person might do.

I closed my eyes and stepped into the center of my mind where Fireden and Windorf were talking.

“Since when does she like sweets?” Windorf asked with narrowing eyes that I could see through the back of his head.

“How am I supposed to know when our Goddess started liking sugar?! I just know what Marly told Harold when he washed her… Oh, Zack! Fancy seeing you here!” Fireden exclaimed, and suddenly, Grogvel and Wataluga formed in chairs at the table.

“Well, this is my head. Where is Harold? Still hiding out with Marly?” I asked, and Wataluga nodded.

“He won’t hear you, I don’t think. He is in Libra’s Astral Plane. You are linked to it, so we can all go back and forth quite easily,” Wataluga explained.

“Good, then maybe you can all help me. I need you to create a place where I can put underwater creatures. It will be temporary until I can unlock Pisces or another Water-based Astral plane. If one of the four rings I had now worked, I would unlock it, but they are still under SkinWalkers control,” I explained.

“Oh? I think that we can probably do that? I assume that you need it sooner than later?” Wataluga asked, and I nodded.

“Since time moves differently here, you should have more than enough time for me to go out. I am going to check out a local bar,” I said but then remembered something. “Speaking of locals, did you all figure out who you were before this?”

“Before? As far as I know, we have always just been what we are. I am sure there was something before we existed, but I have always been an Earth Elemental,” Grogvel explained.

“Is this the same for all of you?” I asked, and the other three nodded.

“I think we only exist in this reality, not the one you came from. I am not sure what will happen to us if you go back,” Fireden said, and I finally sat down.

I hadn’t planned on staying for long, but this was troubling.

There were a good number of people pulled into this. Not enough to populate the countless worlds that had been created, though.

There would be many that would have been generated on the creation; NPC: non-player-characters. The problem was that they were all alive and had real thoughts and feelings.

If I brought everything back to how it was, that meant deleting all the people here.

Now I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

On one side were all the humans that had been deleted. The other side had all the ones that were created in the making of this universe.

Who knew just how many other races out in the cosmos had been deleted with us? How was I ever going to pick which side to save?

“You look like your head is about to explode,” Fireden said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“You all just gave me a lot to think about. Only now are Zero Helsin’s words starting to make sense. While I am trying to save all the people we killed, he wants to save the ones we created. How am I supposed to choose between the two?” I asked.

“Why are you so focused on one or the other?” Windorf asked. “You should be looking for a solution that fixes all of your problems, not one or the other.”

“Easy enough to say, but how am I supposed to achieve something like that?” I asked, and Windorf shrugged.

“How am I supposed to know? You have time to figure it out. No one is holding a blade to your throat to rush to the end,” Windorf said, and I nodded.

I had been getting myself worked up again, and I would be headed on another path like on the island. Nothing but constant pushing to the next goal, but I told myself I would relax and take things as they came.

“You are right, and I will put this on the back burner for now. Who knows, the answer might be somewhere waiting for me, and I just have to find it. To do that, I will just have to keep adventuring until this world has nothing more for me. I will just have to keep pushing forward,” I sighed.

“Yup, and as for what you asked for with Libra’s ring, the rest of us will get on it,” Fireden explained, and I nodded.

“Hey, where is Blaza? Shouldn’t he be here?” I asked, but Wataluga shook his head.

“Harold is purifying him just like with Marley. Harold told me that you can absorb Marly and him after. That will increase the power of your Fire and Water Pacts,” Wataluga explained.

“Well, that is a good thing. I am interested to see what Blaza is like after he comes back. I wonder if he will have a different name?” I asked.

“Hard to say. Marley is different from Blaza. She is whole but very young. Blaza is much older, but only one-third of his full form, similar to us. We are all one-third of our former forms. There are two more parts of each of us that you need to find to increase your power to the max,” Fireden explained.