Chapter 10: Reflection

September’s double vanished in the hot spring. 

“You have some explaining to do, September,” April told her.               

“I’m not sure if I do,” The Witch Queen responded to her. 

“What happened back there?” April fully confronted her. 

“Nothing,” she said, looking the other way.

“Nothing? It was something pretty important, I think. He was in the hot spring with you, right? You were all alone with him. I’m starting to become jealous now,” April admitted to her. 

“Are you fighting for me now?” Junk interrupted them, desperately hoping to understand what the hell they were talking about.  

“...” The Witch Queen didn’t want to say anything. 

“Something happened earlier before Junk arrived, right?”

“What do you mean?” September asked April. 

“The Lord. I felt his presence as I was dreaming,” April felt differently. She felt like the brave and strong Minotaur who was venturing with them deserved to know. After all, he was in this just as much as these two were. 

“What Lord? What is that supposed to mean? I heard this kingdom had a countless amount of Lords anyway.”

“Not just a Lord, Junk. The Lord,” April explained to him. “His name Monsoon. Lord Monsoon. He’s found her,” directly referring to September, “he’s found us. We have to move and leave this town at once,” the elvish ranger told the others. She was pretty adamant about this. 

“You are talking as if you are assigning orders now,” the fallen Witch Queen said to her. Completely stern and emotionless. As purely as a matter of facts as humanly possible. 

“It’s not about that, September. It’s about surviving, and it’s about keeping you alive until you can retake your place in the kingdom as the legitimate Queen,” she explained.

“I’m not scared. Lord Monsoon can stick around for as long as he wished. He can continue to follow us. I don’t care. We are going to continue what we are supposed to do. That’s all,” September explained to the others are the three of them walked outside the hot spring here in the town of Silverstream. At this point, September was wearing nothing but a thin, white towel around her body and her typical witch’s hat on top of her head, which was a fascinating contrast: The always serious, at times cold, and nonchalant magical woman with the tiny and comical towel wrapped around her body. A tiny towel that could barely contain anything about her and about her voluptuous shapes. Her big tits were popping above the upper rim of the towel, and it dug in the soft skin of her chest.

“I know very well that you are not scared, my Queen, but we are talking about Lord Monsoon here,” April said. 

“We can defeat him. I’m sure we can,” she replied.

“Where is he now?” the Minotaur asked the two of them.

“That is a great question. You’re right, Junk. Where is he now? He made his presence known to you and then vanished? It doesn’t make any sense,” the elvish ranger asked The Witch Queen.  

“He’s gone. I can no longer sense the source of his mana. You two have nothing to fear at this point,” she said.

“I wasn’t scared. I was never scared,” Junk said.

“I was. I am. Are you sure he’s gone?” April asked her.

“Yes, April. I am sure and certain of it,” she said to her. 

“I just don’t get one thing, September. Why leave us in the back of the inn? You pretended to be going to sleep, and then what? You thought we wouldn’t notice that you had bailed out on us to get someplace? At least it was not our first rodeo in Silverstream, you and I. Huh? I had a decent idea as to where you would go,” April said to her.  

“I simply needed to relax for a bit. Meanwhile, I very well remember giving you two a decent job to do, which was to produce some first offspring for our new army. Did you do the work that I commanded you to accomplish?” The Witch Queen partially changed the subject and asked them a pretty important question.

“We‒” April tried responding to her question. 

“‒Don’t bother,” The Witch Queen interrupted her, “I already know the answer. I’m aware of these sorts of things. I can sense it. I can feel it,” she said as she touched the now pregnant belly of the ranger. A pregnant belly that definitely didn’t look like one, since the impregnation had just occurred around an hour ago or so. 

“Did we do a good job, then?” April asked her.

“A decent one,” she replied with.

“You two are arguing about this Lord and whatnot, and I really don’t care about things like that. What I’d like to know is what are we actually supposed to accomplish here?” Junk directly asked September Autumn. 

“What do you mean, Junk?” April asked the beast. Not fully understand the question he was asking her Queen. 

“We are travelling together, collecting souls. I get that part. We are also hunting and collecting monsters to forge a bigger and better army. I also get that part. In order to make more and stronger monsters, we have to breed. I get that part. I like that part a lot. From my point of view, I have to stick around to survive with the help of the Queen’s milk, mana. It makes sense. But are we trying to accomplish outside of that? Where are we going? What does all of this mean?” Junk asked.

“We are forming the team back together, Junk,” September soon replied to him while crossing her arms, covering her big tits a bit and pressing against them. Looking even more serious that way. As if she needed to. 

“What team? The three of us? What are you saying?”

“April and I are the two of the members of a brigade of magical users. At one point, we were together. Working as a team. Originally, that was how we became one of the most powerful parties in the entire kingdom and made our way up in the Guild of Witches. That’s how I became the Queen of the Guild of Witches. Now, as you already know and as I already told you, I was backstabbed countless times until myself and the rest of the members of our elite team were all banned and chased from the guild. Now, they want us dead as well. April is the only member of our old team who is still willing to speak to me and work with me after what happened with the guild. So, what we are doing right now, Junk, as you asked it so nicely,” she was half-kidding when she said that, “is to find the two other members of the old team. Bring everyone back together. Reunite everyone and take back the guild for ourselves. That’s the way to take the kingdom as well,” September explained to the brute-looking monster that was Junk, the Minotaur. 

“I understand a bit better now,” he said to her.

“Does it really make more sense now?” September asked him, still with her arms crossed together, still only wearing the thin towel and her witch’s hat, still looking extremely. Continuing to turn the horny beast on. 

“I’m sure he understood all of it,” April came in, jumped in the air, so she could hug the Minotaur. She smiled.

“I’m not stupid,” he briefly responded to them.

“Nobody said that. Honestly, you are the brightest demon I have ever encountered,” The Witch Queen honestly told him.

“I agree,” April said.

“So, this is all about some popularity concept at this guild of witches as you call it? Why would a guild be connected or tied to the fate of a kingdom? The fate of our kingdom?” 

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” September mentioned to him, “I didn’t even mention the list of conspirators yet,” The Witch Queen added. 

“The list of conspirators?” the Minotaur asked her.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right, that’s right, the list!” April shouted. Jumping up and down like a rabbit. Her big tits moving up and down with her. There was no end to it. 

“Sure. Let me tell you about the list,” September said. 

“Um, I don’t want to interrupt, but it appears that there is some kind of problem,” the three were suddenly interrupted outside by a short, old man with a white beard. He wore a robe. Some kind of ancestral kimono. He shyly walked out of the interior of the house surrounding the hot spring. By the looks of it, he was an employee there at the hot spring.

“What is it?” The Witch Queen asked him. “I paid you already. Right? What is the problem?” September asked him.

“The water you used appears to be… electrified?”

“I have no time for this,” The Witch Queen told the old man, “I have nothing to do with this, it was someone else.”

“The electricity in the water is not the problem per se,” the old man said to her.

“What is then?” The Witch Queen was a bit impatient. 

“In addition to the electricity following the path of the river which is connected to our local hot spring, there appears to be a monster… swimming in the pool of water you were using earlier. Do you happen to know anything about this?”

“A monster?” Junk said out loud.

“Could it be?” April followed, personally curious. 

“Lord Monsoon,” the two last words, September said.

“He is still in there? But I thought he went away,” April said to The Witch Queen. Ultimately, it didn’t take them too long to begin moving and taking the employee of the hot spring out of their way, so they can all rush themselves inside. There was a real stampede. The first one to officially began running was Junk. He led the way. If there was still a monster in there, Lord Monsoon or not, the Minotaur was going to get to the bottom of it. Somehow. Junk nearly trampled over the old man on his way back inside of the hot spring. April, the beautiful and bubbly elvish ranger, followed him closely. She was running as well. The only one among the three who wasn’t running was, in fact, September. She was taking her time for some reason. She didn’t seem rushed by anything too urgent at the moment. Still only wearing her towel and her witch’s hat, she slowly followed the other members of her team and came back inside of the hot spring. Following the intense and soothing warmth of the source of it all, the pool of hot water she had recently relaxed into. The old man who was taking care of this establishment was frightened, to say the least. He never followed them.  

Once inside, Junk looked for this Lord Monsoon. He was nowhere to be found. April searched as well. Nothing. Sure, the employee of the hot spring was right, the pool of warm water was still electrified. It was seen sparking with blue bolts of lightning. It was normal. Especially with the kind of magical electricity that Lord Monsoon used and had, sparking and buzzing all over his body.

“Do you see something?” Junk asked April.

“No. Not yet.”

“If you are looking for Lord Monsoon, he is not here. It can’t be. He is long gone,” the witch said as she slowly, calmly and casually entered the room with them.

“How can you be so sure? He was here not too long ago and the old man said he just saw a monster here,” April argued.

“April. Up to a point, I was an evil and dark mistress. Hoping to one day reign over the four Earths as the ultimate empress. If I couldn’t sense his presence now, I would be the worst witch in the entire world. Believe me, he is not here.”

“Sure. Of course. But the old man said he saw a monster, as April just said,” Junk stepped into the conversation and said. 

“Keep looking. There is definitely something in the water. I can sense it,” September encouraged him to do so. 

For the longest time, it was completely silent in the room. The three adventurers were looking at everyone. Attempting to look at the pool of water in front of them and its content, but the electricity made it that much more difficult for them. However, all of a second, before any of them had enough time to react, something stormed out of the water and directly reached for April. It was a tentacle. No! A tail. A tail wrapped itself around her right ankle and immediately pulled her into the hot water.

“What the fudge is that? Help me. Help me!” the ranger yelled out for help. But it was too late. 

“April!” the Minotaur shouted her name as he was getting ready to dive into the water with her. 

“Follow her,” September commanded him to do.