Riverside 3

~~*~~

"Father, I wasn't wasting time and I want to show you what I can do on my own," Reinold said sternly. He had a small chat with his father and then left with Yuli. She had the wolf cub in her arms and a sunhat on her head. The shade of the sunhat obscured the small bandages on her neck.

If Alisha could describe the town of Riverside in a few words, it would be beautiful and noisy. For a small town, they seem to have many buildings in the urban area. It felt like a small city. Her Monster Sight and other senses were being overloaded.

The active market street they entered the town on had many stalls, stores, shops, and people playing in the streets. Many of the businesses had an open storefront that sold goods to the people outside. This ranged from food, produce, newspapers, and gadgets.

The town seemed to be crafted for tourism and trade. It showed in the care and artistry in every structure she saw from the statues to a common light pole. Reinold dropped off Yuli in a quieter part of the town and turned the wagon around to head across the river.

Alisha inquired to where he was going. Again, Yuli was somehow surprised at her lack of knowledge. Reinold was heading to the headquarters of the Free Association of Seutaria in Riverside.

"The Free Association of Seutaria?" Alisha asked.

"The Association is the organization that coordinates efforts of mercenaries and freelancers for monster subjugations and other requests. They are a very powerful organization and have many mages," Yuli answered.

"Monster subjugation request?"

"Yes. Before the Association was established, the army of a country would have to subjugate monsters which led to costly battles. Now, there are many guilds of freelancers and mercenaries with powerful mages to slay monsters so fewer people die."

"Yuli, you seem like a powerful mage."

"It is nice of you to say but a person cannot call themselves a mage even if they cast well. It requires a lot of training and practice. They are practicing scholars but you will find few who decide to subjugate monsters for a living."

So, this was the reason why one possessed freelancer was more powerful than a platoon of soldiers, at least in terms of monster subjugation. The power difference between mages and non-mages was too great! Her surprise was immediately replaced with concern. The 'mercenary' sigil she saw in the forest with the axe, sword, and shield was the Association. An independent international organization was stealing the strength of other nations. The history of her previous world taught her how well this would go.

"What's the difference between freelancers and mercenaries?"

"Freelancers are people who subjugate monsters for themselves and mercenaries are part of the Mercenary Guild."

"What are those?" The cub lifted her head and looked at the cables being held up by the street poles.

"Those are pressure lines. They provide the pressure needed to run machines throughout Riverside."

"Are they common?"

"They are usually found in larger towns and cities but, yes, they are common."

"Machines that run from pressure? How do those work?"

"A lot of people have micro-gear computers and gadgets now, like blenders and ventilation." Alisha did see many different appliances in the house hooked up to an outlet on the wall. The light switches in the house made sense now. It wasn't electricity. Looking around, she saw boilers with steam engines to create the pressure like the one she saw in the manor. It was a decentralized energy network.

"They use magic for streetlights? I saw oil lamps outside around the farms."

The questions kept coming. Alisha was like a curious child learning about the world and she technically was. Yuli found her questioning to be adorable.

After a year-long absence, Yuli was returning to her life in her hometown. Alisha had so many more questions but that would have to wait until the end of class time. On the edge of town by the river, the small single-story school was at the end of the road and opened up to the valley beyond it.

There were only two classrooms in the school and Yuli was in the upper-class where the town's adolescences were taught about the world and their magical abilities. Yuli seemed popular and had many close friends in the class. The slime could tell because as soon as the door slid open, they were swarmed.

"Yuli's back!" Everyone welcomed their friend back. Yuli did look a bit uncomfortable being surrounded and so her friends soon spoke her thoughts and pushed them back. They were concerned about her injuries so being too physical wasn't an option. It seemed the whole class was very close to each other.

"You seem to have good friends here, Yuli."

"They are the best!" She declared with great excitement.

"If they touch me, I'll going to bite them."

Yuli was startled and quickly voiced Alisha's warning to everyone else. They frowned and complained but quickly gave up. They wanted to touch her fluffy fur. Too bad! She wasn't so cheap to lend herself to anyone. It was her cute and fluffiness and no one else's!

The young female teacher entered the room had Yuli re-introduce herself to the class while standing from her seat. Yuli then showed the wolf cub to the teacher and class. They all collectively sighed over their fondness towards her. Alisha never thought she would be so popular.

Alisha had to wait in the back of the classroom until they were let out in a few hours. Pets weren't allowed because they could be distractions from lessons but she behaved herself. She couldn't concentrate on the lessons because she couldn't understand a word and soon fell asleep.

***

The next moment Alisha opened her eyes, she was standing in a great library. More specifically, the large library in downtown Manhattan of her previous world. She was looking over the railing to a large study area. She remembered this place very vividly and was in front of her eyes in so much more detail that it surprised her.

"What was that PTSD shit this morning?" The boy spoke and appeared from behind her. "How can you be so emotionally weak that you hallucinate? We killed dozens of people and we did it to protect ourselves, Jun, and Yuli. If you continue this, Black will win."

"It's a gamble I'm willing to make. You don't need me to explain this to you. You just don't understand and want to isolate us again like the coward you are," Alisha faced him and spoke plainly. "It worked out, didn't it?"

Alisha smiled to herself. Even though they didn't know each other well, she wanted Yuli to be a friend she could lean on as she has been for the last twenty-four hours.

"If your emotions are so unstable that it traumatizes you, we'll be vulnerable," the boy warned.

"…I…trust Yuli," Alisha said with difficulty. "So, it'll be alright."

"The boy is right, you know," Black said.

Black appeared behind them which caused the boy to face her. Alisha anticipated her appearance and stood where she was.

"Despite your predisposition against me, I am concerned for you, Charlotte. Your attachment to these humans will hurt you."

"Even so, I don't see your point. I don't trust you. If you were the dominant persona, you would kill everyone."

"True. But not for the reasons you believe them to be," Black spoke in her smooth voice, unperturbed by any human anxiety.

"Black, we need to talk," Alisha told her counter-part. "I have a plan for our future and so for our survival and future security, you should answer my question now. What are you, really?"

Black answered, "I am you and you are me. You're asking the nature of my existence, not of what I am, correct?"

Alisha nodded.

"I am the monster part of you. What you hid within the corners of our mind, hoping not to see the light. It's therefore ironic yet appropriate that I form the basis of our new personality here in this world."

"What do you mean 'our new personality.' I never saw you in our previous world," The boy countered.

"Our reincarnation gave me the kick I needed to surface. My personality was able to adapt to our slime body. I should've taken control but the girl interfered when she saw the possibility of acquiring a female body here."

"What do you mean? She wasn't the dominant persona at that time."

"Or was she?" Black smiled sinisterly at the boy's ignorance. The boy looked back at the girl but she stayed silent.

"Charlotte, what does she mean by that?" The boy asked.

Alisha sighed deeply. She predicted the futility of the question. The boy was never going to change his mind about her even if she answered. She spoke, "I only allowed you control. I was just scared of how other people thought. Didn't you notice?"

"No," the boy firmly denied it. "I'll never accept you are me. You, a weak emotional girl who depends too much on other people. To go against the sex we were born as was just irresponsible."

"You don't really believe that. You were just driven by fear of what others thought of us and you tried to push me aside. Do you know why I was able to steal your dominance so easily? This is what you wanted even if you deny it."

"That would never happen!" He was shouting now. "What you are is irrational! You hesitate and you feel bad for the guys trying to kill us! You let your emotions get to you, and we almost lost control to Black because of you! Twice!"

Again, her male-self took the logical approach which ignored her feelings.

She shouted back at him, "Like you did any better! If things would've gone your way, we wouldn't have met Yuli! You are an angry and sad person and I don't want to feel that way anymore! Even after we reincarnated, you were empty and just started to kill everything just because you were upset!"

"You can't pin that on me! It was Black's—"

Alisha interrupted the boy's weak defense, "You know the truth. You wanted to be me! You wanted to be more expressive and have more friends! And, it's all because of your stubbornness that we died!"

"Hey! You cannot blame that on—"

Alisha didn't allow him to continue, "Just admit it! For goodness sake! Admit it! The moment you realized you were disgusted with your own body, you handed me your dominance!"

The boy looked stunned and Alisha was perplexed. Did he not think about that? No, he was just in denial. Alisha smiled with amusement as she approached the boy and got close to him as she chuckled.

"See? Do you recognize it now? The power of fluffy and cuddliness. With such a dreadful male body, how could we enjoy Jun's cuteness? You realized how gross you were."

"Enough," Black said. Alisha paused for a moment as she realized who was talking to her. Black commanded her. She didn't state an opinion or suggestion. Black was commanding her… "Can't you see he had enough? We should get back on topic."

She was right. The boy seemed to be in deep thought and broken… in some essential way. As the dominant persona for so long, he could never imagine a scenario in which he lost his supremacy so he couldn't be prepared for the change in his life.

"You represent our female identity and the boy represents our male identity. However, you both also represent our human identity. I represent no gender and am our monster identity. This is why our human meatsuit is shrinking. The body is trying to adapt to our human identity but is failing.

"Identity is such a misunderstood term as we know. People believe the mind rules all but the body has just as much influence on our identity. However, a strong enough identity could lead to body dysphoria if the identity and body are not compatible. This body is shrinking compensating. As such, you'll never be able to utilize our abilities to the fullest as I can."

"Zephon wanted to kill us," Alisha added. "That's the only reason why he didn't mention the Network when meeting with us."

Alisha was accusing Black of endangering them. Black noticed and continued Alisha's train of thought, "He wanted to conceal his real purpose and prepared a contingency if you said 'no' to his proposal. Zephon planned to use me and my own ignorance of the Network's systems at the time to kill us somehow but he didn't expect for Alisha to have such a strong identity to cling onto her humanity. This, therefore, prevented me from doing whatever he wanted me to do. So, I must concede this point to you. However, what you try to achieve here is impossible."

Alisha didn't understand. Without her, they would've fallen into Zephon's trap. "Why is it impossible?"

"We can never cooperate with each other. Is this not the exact reason why our D.I.D. exists? Even the boy over there in his pitiful state continues to challenge your authority."

Alisha looked at the boy sitting on the ground, listening emotionlessly to their conversation. Alisha felt weak and fell to her knees, clutching the ground and coughing blood in her palm.

"You're starting to feel it more. Our inner monster needs to be fed. That being said, do you really believe that we can have a sustainable relationship with a human?"

"…"

Alisha didn't know what to say. Herself and Yuli were from two different worlds, figuratively and literally. Yuli was the half-elf daughter from a wealthy merchant family and Alisha was a simple low-class high school student from New Jersey. And most importantly, she was a monster. No matter what, there were things she could never do for her. She also needed to protect her from Black.

"I do," Alisha answered.

Black sighed, the conversation was going around in circles and she knew that she wouldn't be able to convince Alisha of humanity's inferiority just yet. There was plenty of time for that so she let it go.

"In any case, what is this place?" Alisha continued her demand for answers from Black.

"Do you not recognize this?" Black said.

"It's our memory palace but…" She emphasized this point to Black.

"This is the same technique Zephon used to communicate with us. This is a space within the Network to materialize memory and the mind. The Network itself doesn't store information as ones and zeroes and instead uses these mental projections. We should think of this as the Network Database which gives physicality to our thoughts and information in the form of these books. In addition, this Dream Space I created is connected to our 'Expanded Space' within our slime. So, we can interact with the objects we absorb."

Alisha couldn't help but feel amazed. Her Expanded Space was the fourth dimension within her slime to store excess slime and objects. This resulted in her ability to shrink and expand her slime body without changing density and to absorb objects. Everything she absorbed was represented by a display on the ground floor of the library.

The Dream Space was the fixed Network projection of her mind. Everyone had a Dream Space and if anyone became aware of their space, like a lucid dream, they could manipulate the space to their will. If someone accessed someone else's mind through the Network, Zephon for example, they'd be able to manipulate the Dream Space of the other person. The Dream Space could be used for many purposes depending on a person's abilities with magic and their mind.

The Network Database was the reason why Black knew more than she should sometimes. The information and memories from the millions of souls within the Network were at her disposal. Her Dream Spaces was a conduit for personal or general information. However, access was limited to general information due to the nature of souls and what she could extract from people.

Her memory palace was something she was building before coming to Theia. Cayden memorized hundreds of books and information pertaining to mathematics and sciences in preparation for college. He didn't have a photographic memory but still retained the important bits. They were represented as physical books in her Dream Space. Now that she had access to her Dream Space, she could storage them here as if a physical object and remember it forever like a file in a computer.

Alisha spoke, "Inherently, I would already know the things you've told me since we're the same person. Since I'm dominant, I must be pursuing a relationship with humans despite this perceived danger. Even if there are such divisions are between us and them, I believe we can overcome those obstacles."

Black scowled, "…Such a foolish imitation of bravery. For you, that knows nothing of this world and at such an inexperienced age, we'll see how long you'll last. For this reason, I will assist you in your suggested action for this one instance."

With the last word, Black disappeared along with the boy. To further clarify, her human meatsuit was conflicting with her identity, not Black's. Her shrinking human body was trying to be more human, adapting to her identity, versus Black wanting to make that irrelevant by becoming more monstrous.

Either way, this human body was not ideal but it was the one she had.

Alisha couldn't interpret her monstrous desires properly. It was a prodding in the back of her head and was more like hunger. Was it a hunger to kill? No, it was far too broad of a concept to serve as a craving. It was a very specific hunger.

However, if not consuming monster bodies or the act of killing, what fed her during those two months? What was she missing from now to then?

There was a reason why only Black knew of this and not her.

Ignorance was bliss.

***

Someone shook her awake.

"Alisha! It is time to go," Yuli said as she picked her up from her sleep. Alisha yawned in Yuli's arms which was cute enough for the surrounding kids to sigh in affection simultaneously. Yuli's heavy petting was making her sleepy again.

To reiterate, the slime didn't need to sleep but the meatsuit body did. Alisha had her body rest as she studied. She became a lot more familiar with the language in just a few days because of her Expanded Space's time dilation.

"It's so cute!" One of Yuli's friends said.

"Her name is Alisha. Alisha, say hello to Emre!" She growled at Emre in return. "I am sorry. She does not like strangers. Please try to feed her this."

Yuli handed Emre a piece of meat from a plastic wrapper and Emre brought it to Alisha's nose.

"Here you go, Alisha," Emre said it in a cutesy way to coax her to take the meat. It looked like jerky. It was casting an alluring aroma and when it reached her nose, her tail stiffened and her tongue became moist under anticipation. She took the treat and found it tasted delicious with so much favor in just one bite. Her instincts were correct and it was good. Emre had her hand on her but Alisha didn't object.

"Aw! I want to feed her too!" The boy in the group said. Alisha growled again so the boy backed away.

"I am sorry, Winston. Alisha is getting mad," Yuli explained.

"But what about Emre?!" She was still petting her.

"Maybe Alisha hates boys." Yuli and Emre giggled at their friend's expense. After a few minutes, Emre seemed satisfied enough to pull away from the fluffy cub while Winston looked dejected. Yuli and Alisha left the school to meet up with Reinold where he was working.

A Merchant Lord was basically a financier which gave business loans and negotiate trade with other townships and countries. But something told Alisha that they were more important than that.

Outside of the classroom, Yuli was still popular and it had more to do with her cuteness and positive personality than being the daughter of the Benas Alton.

Many people were concerned about what happened to her and what that meant to Riverside. Yuli reassured the town that night that they were safe and she was recovering fine. It was a strange thing to witness so many people concerned for one person, even if it was a child.