The world of swirly, unconscious darkness was interrupted by a warm, wet feeling somewhere beneath me. I grimaced and swiped at the air, half-asleep, but touched only darkness. I resisted the pull into the waking world, but the wetness dragged me kicking and screaming into the world of the living once more.

----------------------------------------

I opened my eyes in the usual bed and immediately realized three things, but could only process one at a time.

First was the fact that Queen Daiya was still leaning over my side and staring down at me. Her eyes were perpetually narrowed slightly, with her long eyelashes giving them a dark outline that truly resembled the menacing glare of a villainess made only more severe by the way her full, black lips were curved ever so slightly into a frown. The phrase 'resting bitch face' had been made to describe the expression Daiya always wore, except it was less of a 'bitch' face and more of a 'thoroughly unamused queen about to sentence her jester to death' face. The tiara of diamonds embedded into her forehead only made the regal allusion more compelling.

"Good morning," I said.

"It is a morning," she replied flatly. Nice.

She was technically naked, her gray unmarked torso stretching up above me, but I knew not to read into that. Dwarves gave no fucks about nudity, and in fact had no conception of sex whatsoever. They bred by mining themselves out of the rock and forming bodies through psychic energy. Being unclothed meant nothing to them. They only wore clothes at all for practical purposes (e.g. armor) or ceremonial purposes (e.g. her queenly robes). We humans especially wanted clothes to protect our skin from miscellaneous obstacles and insects and stuff, but that wasn't a problem when you had literally rock-hard skin.

"So, do dwarves sleep at night or not?" I asked.

"We understand the value of rest. We spend nights thinking, or at times simulating a form of sleep by clearing our minds of thought."

In other words, dwarves did not have to sleep, and she had just spent possibly the entire night staring down at me while thinking. OK. "And tonight?" I asked.

"You are an interesting human, Heir. Perhaps the most interesting human I have seen in my millennia ruling my dwarf holds. I was contemplating your existence."

"Well, I can say you're the most interesting dwarf I've seen in my singular day of living in the dwarf hold."

Love Point Gained! Daiya +1

GAAAAAAAH NOOOO WHAT?! Dwarves aren't supposed to be able to feel love! She shouldn't be gaining love points! Fuck this! FUCK THIS!

Her lips curved ever so slightly upwards, which meant they ended up as a flat line still devoid of any emotion.

"A joke. Dwarves do not tell jokes. Humans do not tell me jokes. As I said. Interesting," she said, voice still flat.

I knew from experience that the earlier love points were the fastest. Rose's love points blasted up to "crush" level within a few days of us traveling together, and Sophia... Well, actually, Sophia had seemingly started out with 4 love points? She went up to Infatuation the first love point she got after becoming a companion. That was weird. I should ask her about that later now that she has all her memories. Anyway, point being, it seemed even a woman literally made of rocks from a species that did not have any conception of romance, love, or sex was still going to rapidly fall in love with me. Somehow. I wasn't even sure if that was biologically possible. Actually, maybe there was still hope. Maybe dwarf love was completely asexual and aromantic. Fingers crossed.

Moving onto the second thing I noticed. Rose was pressed against my right side like always, her head buried above my shoulder such that I could feel her nose against my neck and her lips brushing against my skin. That was normal. What wasn't normal was the fact she was completely naked. The warmth and smoothness I felt beneath the covers indicated her fully tanned, curvy body was wrapped around me with no clothes whatsoever separating us, and her upper body peaking above the covers confirmed her tank top was nowhere to be seen. The covers had fallen a little, leaving her the top half of her bare breasts and their nipples completely visible as they pushed against me.

Bare breasts. Nipples. Fully visible. Rose, naked, clinging to me.

I looked up at Daiya. She was still staring down at me, unmoved. Eeeeeh. I didn't know rock psychology well enough to understand this. Actually, the more I thought about this, the more weird it was. Surely it wasn't right for a queen to be standing around in my room all night, even if I was the Heir. And surely she would have a thing or two to say about Rose being... actually, nevermind. Dwarf culture. They didn't care about nudity. It would be culturally insensitive of me to say she should care about Rose's nudity.

I decided to delay waking up Rose slightly to investigate the third thing I had noticed. It was what had woken me up in the first place: the warm wet feeling around my lower half. It was kind of like the urge to pee, which was why I had woken up so readily. I flipped over the covers to reveal what was causing the feeling.

Doing so exposed Sophia, lying beneath my legs and sucking my morning wood with a glazed, half-asleep look in her eyes. The smell and allure of my morning wood must have tickled her unconscious mind and compelled her to start sucking despite being asleep. It was like sleepwalking except for sucking dick. She was sleep sucking. At least she was wearing her translucent dress instead of being naked.

I put the covers back down to hide her from the light of the world; creatures of the darkness were best left ignored in proper company. I looked back up at Daiya. Still unmoved. Still resting bitch face. Perfect. If she wasn't going to question Sophia sucking my dick, I certainly wasn't going to volunteer and start the conversation myself. Though I really, really did want to ask what her thoughts were. Maybe from her perspective it would be like seeing someone suck on a random rock on the ground.

Anyway, with the three things investigated, it was time to move on and wake up. There was a lot for us all to talk about, no doubt. I would wake up Sophia... in a second. Rose seemed like the easier start. I turned to my side an- FUCK! My dick bent a little in Sophia's mouth. Holy shit. Her mouth was locked onto that sucker like a fucking wrench. I simply could not move her head. She was too strong. Her sucking intensified into a fervent whirlpool with her tongue at the center, as if she was afraid I was trying to escape. Jesus she was making this hard.

I resisted the urge to kick her off the bed and, instead, simply took an alternative approach. I leaned as far to the right as her firmly positioned head would allow and then just shook Rose's shoulders gently. She was no deep sleeper, and her eyes blinked awake soon enough. She lifted her head off my shoulder, looked around, then gave me a slight smile.

"Morning," she said.

"Are you not disturbed by the towering stone golem looking down at your naked form right now?"

"Dwarves are not bothered by nudity," she replied.

"She speaks truly," Daiya agreed from above.

"Yeah, but... Aren't YOU bothered by it?"

"No? Why would I be?" she asked, with all the confidence of one who knew they had the stunning body of a supermodel. "Are you bothered by it?"

"No." I looked down at her. Yeah, still perfect. "I confess I liked the tank top more, though."

"Oh?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah. The contrast creates emphasis. Prevents nudity from becoming dull and banal. Sometimes, the hint of what's beneath can be more alluring than what actually is."

"Hmm," she murmured thoughtfully.

Either way, though, this was a conversation to have later, and perhaps while not being stared down by a stone golem with no concept of sexual arousal. Rose crawled over me to get out of bed, and as her bare heart-shaped ass passed in front of my face, I realized something. I was totally okay with this. I was really not bothered at all by a hot naked girl crawling over me. I was not bothered by the bitch-in-heat smell emanating from her slick pussy. I was not bothered by the fact an elf princess was sucking my dick beneath the covers on pure slut instinct. I was slightly bothered by the fact a stone golem physiologically incapable of love was apparently gaining love points for me for trivial reasons, but that was more just from a sense of betrayal than anything, like the world itself was conspiring against me. I didn't feel particularly antagonistic towards Daiya potentially throwing herself at me one day.

Was this it? Had I self-actualized into a chad? After so much doom and gloom, had I finally accepted the call of the Hero and became a womanizing chad that embraced casual sex with royalty like another might casually embrace their best friend in a friendly hug after a long trip overseas? There was nothing scandalous about it to me anymore. It was just like, yeah, this is life.

I laid in bed for a minute, then realized Sophia would be down there sucking forever if I didn't cum on command. Sex Level 100 was surprisingly annoying at times like this. Maybe there was some way for me to turn off cum control or something. There was a hint of artificiality to me just snapping my fingers and cumming on command; there was no emotion, no love. I closed my eyes and focused. CUM CONTROL! I declared in my mind. CUM CONTROL, DEACTIVATE! CUM CONTROL, ROLL OUT!

I didn't know what did it, but Sophia's tongue pressed against my lower frenulum, and with that huge wads of cum blasted into her throat against my will. Cum Control had deactivated. Hell yeah motherfucker.

Once Sophia finished happily slurping it all down, she crawled out of bed and kind of flopped to the ground. She didn't seem entirely awake, but... ah. There she went, standing up on wavering legs. She scowled at Daiya, but then stripped naked anyway to change. I... Okay, surely dwarf culture wasn't enough to explain this. Surely there was some problem with a dwarven queen just standing around and watching a dude and two girls sleep naked together then get changed after a loud blowjob. Surely she had some disapproving thoughts about Sophia's glowing womb tattoo. Surely she would rather be anywhere than here.

I stood up myself, and due to Daiya standing by the bed to look down at us, we ended up face to face. Or face to torso rather, since she was like three feet taller than me. At least her chest was like a bare cliff face and not anything sexual. Also, I kept my pride without feeling like a manlet because she was kind of absurdly thin, whereas my broad shoulders and chest made me like twice her width or something.

"Are you really okay with this? Why are you even here?" I asked. A bit rude, but I was baffled.

"The nudity of humans and elves means nothing to me. I am here because I am curious," she said, as flatly as ever. I was tempted to ask if her subjects were okay with it, but on second thought, this was a matriarchy where the men (?) were controlled psychically. Anyone who had a problem with it would very swiftly be made to not have a problem with it.

I shrugged and got changed. Honestly, I struggled enough to understand most of the women here. Trying to understand a stone golem with distantly non-human emotions would surely be a doomed effort. Best to just let things happen.

Unlike before, we weren't heading straight to the dungeon, so we changed into more casual clothes. Well, Sophia only ever wore her light green blouse and skirt like the pleb archer she was, but Rose and I opted to stick to more comfortable leather armor atop normal linen clothes as opposed to full plate armor.

"Where to?" I asked, assuming plans had been made while I was unconscious. It occurred to me that I had been fully armored when I fell unconscious, yet I woke up entirely naked except boxers that Sophia had pulled down anyway. Someone had stripped me while I was asleep. A mystery, but one unlikely to ever be solved. I felt slightly nervous, though. It was another reminder that I was completely defenseless when asleep, and surrounded by female predators.

"A meeting room has been arranged to discuss the events of yesterday over breakfast," Rose replied.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Okay."

Off we went. Daiya had, at some point, snapped her fingers and clothed herself within an ornate dark-grey dress. Whether that was some magic spell or just psychically creating clothes from thin air, I had no idea. She took the lead, knowing exactly where to go, with the rest of us following shortly behind. Rose walked on my right while Sofia fell back slightly, as if mirroring their bedtime positions. Did Sophia prefer following after me like a dog rather than walking beside me? That was highly plausible. Maybe the Dominate Beast spell engrained an animal-like sense of submission into... naaah. All female elves would probably act the same with their male human mate.

Anyway, we arrived at the room, aaaand... Medea was sitting there casually with Hilda, sipping tea.

"Yooooooooooooooooooo," I said, pointing at her as Rose, Sophia and Daiya took their seats. "What the fuck is she doing here? I thought she died in the explosion or something."

Medea stood up, gracefully, and gave me a warm smile. Her light-blue hair was in the same braid as before, and seemed entirely unscorched. "I survived unharmed, as you magnanimously targeted my staff rather than myself, Heir." That was actually untrue, I had just been lazy with leveling up Throwing Weapons, but OK.

"Uuuh, did she Soul Wipe all of you? Is everyone but me compromised? Am I about to be Soul Wiped?" I asked as Medea strode towards me.

She laughed; a refined, mature sound. "Oh, no, no. I cannot cast Soul Wipe without the ancient staff. It is beyond my power alone," she said with a smile.

"That sounds suspect."

"It's true," Rose said, lifting a hand and pointing at her finger. She had on the Lie Detection ring.

"Hey!" I cried. "I thought you threw that away in a highly symbolic gesture!"

She raised an eyebrow. "That was a previous timeline, and done largely to cap off an emotional moment. It was not a permanent decision. This ring is too valuable and useful to just toss aside for mere symbolism."

"But... But the symbolic power! The meaning behind you no longer relying on magic to trust others! The... The..." I stammered. All that character development, abandoned for the sake of practicality. It was unthinkable. Had she really just tactically tossed the ring aside at the time because she knew it would come back to her in the future and she just wanted to play into the emotions of the moment? No way. That would be fucked up. It would ruin everything.

Rose rolled her eyes. "We are human beings, Malcador. We do not have character arcs."

"Magic is dead, and you killed it," I said, and by that point Medea had reached me. She immediately knelt onto the ground, such that she was pressing her forehead against the ground with both her palms flat on either side of it. She was on her knees, as well, resulting in her butt being held slightly higher in the air as she genuflected. This was the infamous "dogeza" of Japanese culture; the highest form of apology and submission, often done naked by masochists during sex to emphasize the totality of their submission.

orz (<- visual aid)

"O Mighty Heir, I apologize deeply for ever daring to oppose you in any way. I acted only in your best interests, and am horrified to learn that due to the trickery of the goddess I caused you any distress whatsoever. I can do nothing to repay this but offer myself to you in body and soul, as I have always planned to do. If in your endless compassion you forgive me for my unthinkable transgressions, I shall serve as the most loyal servant you could ever ask for," she intoned, punctuating her last statement by kissing my boot.

Medea was probably the most fucked in the head out of any girl I had met so far. She didn't even have love points possibly affecting her mind in some yet-unknown way. She just saw a vision of me when she was young and apparently spent the rest of her life literally worshipping me as a god. It was like love at first sight, if love was an obsession that compelled you to take control of a terrorist organization and spread chaos and suffering across an entire continent in the name of someone you had never met.

I pulled my boot back and gently stepped on her head. She shuddered, perhaps with bliss. "Do you honestly offer yourself up to me?" I asked, mostly for show. Her little display of loyalty in that previous loop really left no room for doubt about that.

"Yes," she replied instantly.

"Let's see about that. Mesudorei ni nare," I chanted. It was the chant for Dominate Beast.

The magic coursed through my boot and through her head to her stomach. Her dark blue nun habit hid her lower stomach, so I couldn't actually see the womb tattoo forming, but her gasps and shudders of delight didn't leave much room for doubt. When the spell was over, I lifted my boot, and she stood up slowly. Once upright, she... uh... she took out a huge fucking knife and cut out the center of her long robes to immediately reveal the pink heart with thorny appendages now magically engraved above her womb. I guess she was too impatient to take the time to derobe. Okay, she definitely won the award of "most fucked in the head" girl so far, which was genuinely a high honor when her competition was Princess "Barks Like a Dog" Sophia and Hilda "eats my hair and nails while I sleep" Hilda.

Medea sighed happily and traced the pink lines of the tattoo with her fingers, pushing into her soft skin in what was a surprisingly seductive sight considering she was still wearing her nun robes and a chaste blue braid. I looked around. Sophia was scowling angrily, clear jealousy on her face, and Rose was wearing an impassive look, though she might have been slightly biting her lower lip. It was hard to tell. Daiya was unmoved and uncaring.

"Okay. You're forgiven," I said to Medea. She nodded hypnotically, still absorbed in caressing her tattoo. At the very least, I didn't need to worry about her plotting against me or anything; her submission was complete down to the very fabric of her soul, proven and bound with powerful magic. There was still the risk of her like murdering people in their sleep and destabilizing foreign governments if she thought it was for my sake, but that was just a risk I had to take. There was probably a reason Rose and Daiya had kept her alive, and that was why we were gathering together for a meeting.

"Anyway," I continued, sitting down next to Daiya but opposite to Rose and Sophia for balance. "I'm glad we can put all that behind us. Like, imagine how stressful it would have been if we had to spend the entire rest of our journey constantly thinking about and being on guard against soul-altering magic. That would have been exhausting. And it probably would have dominated everything, really; that shit is just too powerful to have lingering around. It would end up being the cause and solution to almost every problem."

"Indeed," Rose agreed. "Though we must remain on guard for any other lingering artifacts with such power."

I nodded gravely, at which point Medea recovered from her womb trance and sat next to me in a chair. She seemed completely unperturbed by leaving a giant hole in her robes that revealed a pink, pulsating womb tattoo. I noticed Sophia drawing a knife of her own, but I stopped her with a glare. I didn't want to have to ignore two "I'm Horny" bat signals at once.

"So," I said. "Moving on. Why is she alive, anyway? Putting aside the danger of soul fuckery, surely you would have wanted her dead, Queen Daiya."

"Just Daiya will do," she replied smoothly. "I observe that is how you address the other royals in your party."

She... She wasn't wrong, but Daiya was much more queenly than Sophia was princessly, and Rose was still obstinately refusing to openly admit her royal background in most cases. She always gave a small look of annoyance whenever I called her Rosalyn. Meanwhile, Daiya exuded the grace and dignity of a genuine queen. Her mere look commanded authority, and when she looked down at me with her slightly narrowed eyes and hint of a frown, I was admittedly struck with an instinctual urge to follow her commands. She just had that kind of look to her. But well, if she wanted me to call her Daiya, so be it.

"Daiya, why didn't you kill her?" I asked. Medea seemed entirely unfazed by this question. Naturally, she knew what she had done was literally high treason and worthy of an instant execution.

Daiya inspected my face. "Priestess Medea used her Soul Wipe on every Excavator of note in the dwarf hold. She gave them commands to destroy the hold and then themselves if she were ever to pass away or be otherwise incapacitated. Until the damage is undone to the best of her ability, we will need her cooperation."

"Especially since your fifty best Excavators were tragically slain in battle?" I asked. She nodded. "Very tragic. Okay. So, what, we're just going to hang around while Medea undoes the most extreme parts of the brainwashing, and then leave?" She nodded again. "Sweet."

Medea leaned forward. "It will take perhaps a week at best, but likely longer. There are many, many dwarves, I'm afraid." She sighed, as if she hadn't already done the much more rigorous process of brainwashing them in the first place.

"Don't sweat it. I'm used to this. We just chill for like a week then get going. Normal stuff. I was meaning to spend some quality time with Daiya anyway. She was gone for pretty much... that whole time... so I don't know her as much as I would like."

Love Point Gained! Daiya +1

Fuck oooooooooff. I didn't even say anything special. Holy shit. I know there's the whole thing about "you don't realize just how impactful the things you say and do can be for other people," but puh-leeze. A queen that's literally thousands of years old should not be developing love for the first time in her non-existent stone heart just because I called her interesting then said I wanted to spend quality time with her. This was ridiculous. Fuck you.

"And I with you," Daiya intoned. "I believe dwarves have much to learn from humans, and humans from dwarves. I do not believe Medea's sedition would have gone undetected if this hold had been more accepting to other humans. I have long thought the isolationism of dwarvish culture has been to its detriment, and only upon seeing your fiery determination last morning was that confirmed for me."

Fiery determination... Ah. Aaaaah. Okay, okay. My epic friendship speech that I said to power up while fighting Medea had moved Daiya's stony heart and prepared her to be susceptible to any and all praise or interest from me. Okay. I was used to this now. I could see the weave of the world and comprehend how the royal women operated. Easy. It was something I never would have understood in the past, when I was stuck in such a virgin mindset that I thought women had to be wooed through extremely elaborate plots and years of social conditioning to trick them into love. The reality was just that you had to be confident in yourself and bust out suave moves with no ulterior motives, which would in turn win their affections in an honest and immediate way. The friend zone might as well have been called the virgin "you're too slow" zone. Act fast, act confident, and the women moved by your words and deeds would come on their own. In this world, anyway. Maybe my standards for this were being distorted by the Slut Singularity that had apparently fucked with the brain of every single female elf.

With that, I resolved myself to an eventual romance with Daiya. I didn't really know what it would look like, considering she was a golem whose entire species was not supposed to be capable of love at all, but it was coming and by god I would be ready no matter what happened. Maybe she would just want to hug in bed to feel my warmth as I itched to get away from the cold, hard expanse of her flat torso.

"Soo... What now?" I asked.

Rose opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Hilda slamming her hands on the table. Oh shit. I forgot she was even here.

"I call in an order a meeting to discuss the rapid and concerning growth of Malcador's harem!" she declared, fists clenched with determination.

"Ight, Imma head out," I said, standing up. Hilda shot me an almost murderous look. "Ight, Imma sit back down."

"I have called you all here today," Hilda began, as if this meeting had been her plan and not just a general meeting for everyone, "because Malcador's harem is growing at an unreasonably fast pace. I was completely left out from the fighting yesterday, and I feel as if I'm being forgotten," she said, a single tear trickling down her cheek. "There are just too many girls gathering around him. There's not enough time for all of us."

"Uh..." I began, but she cut me off with a look.

"This doesn't concern you. Be quiet and listen for now."

"I think it does..."

She pointed at me, and I raised my hands in defeat. OK then. Doesn't concern me. Continue on.

"I'm afraid his bed space is entirely booked," Rose said, checking her notes. What. "His left side will soon be occupied by presumably the beastkin princess, and that leaves only his torso for the demon princess to rest atop. There is simply no more space for any member not of the Five. I presume Daiya will be satisfied with this arrangement."

Daiya said nothing. She just looked at Rose with her resting bitch-queen face, her eternal frown indicating nothing. I didn't know what was going on in her mind, but I hoped it was something like "Do not involve me with your trifling games. I am a member of no one's harem. I shall give Malcador peace and rest." or something. Please.

Hilda trembled angrily. "His bed was supposed to be my territory! MINE!"

Rose sneered. "You had your fun during the road trip. Be grateful you were afforded any time alone with him despite not being part of the prophecy. It is time for you to step aside and know your place, commoner."

I buried my face in my hands. This was quite possibly the worst conversation I had ever heard in my entire life. Sure, okay, I'll accept a harem, sure, casual sex woohoo, but this? This drama was so ridiculous it made my head hurt. Next Rose was going to present a timetable divvying out a sex schedule for each of the Five to follow.

"This is a timetable I created to schedule his intercourse," Rose said, presenting a sheet covered with graphs and charts. "As you can see, I am scheduled for every night as part of his therapy, and you are scheduled for never because your killer vagina must be kept one hundred meters away from him at all times."

Hilda scowled. "That's ridiculous! It's his choice, and maybe he'll choose me!"

"Does that chart include my thrice daily blowjobs?" Sophia asked, interrupting.

"Of course," Rose nodded.

"Good," Sophia replied, nodding in satisfaction and leaning back. That was all she cared about.

By this point, I was actually smashing my head against the table. It was made of stone, but due to my STR and END the table was suffering a lot more damage than me. Medea patted my back soothingly, but it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.

I had never really considered the logistics of a harem. Back in school, I had read about African tribe leaders that practiced polygamy. The one I read about had one main house and multiple side houses, with each wife having their own side house as they alternated between who slept in the main house. It ended up as a cycle where the tribe leader would have sex with a different wife each day, and there was never any direct conflict due to the scheduling preventing any overlap or favoritism. Thinking about it now, that mirrored these harem hijinks pretty closely. This kind of situation, where one guy had five sluts frothing for his dick, could only be managed by strict scheduling and timetabling. You couldn't really wing it, or the elf slut would miss one of her daily blowjobs and throw a tantrum, which would spiral out of control and make the human slut miss her therapy session, which in turn would shift the balance of power to...

I smashed my head against the table again. I didn't want to have to deal with this. Though, then again, Hilda had said this didn't concern me. Thinking about it, maybe that was true. Rose had hashed this all out herself yesterday while I was asleep. Maybe I could just not think at all and let her power-wife her way to managing my harem for me. Maybe her sex schedules would be slightly unbalanced in her own favor, in a kind of sex embezzlement situation, but that was just the price of delegating harem management.

I decided to not think about this at all. I decided to tune out their angry arguing and just wait for it to be over. I would, henceforth, pretend to be unaware of any sex scheduling. I would just let whatever happened, happen. At the end of the day, no matter what Rose wrote on a schedule, I could just walk away and do what I personally wanted if it really came down to it.

I noticed Hilda starting to get up in Rose's face, fists raised.

Please be over soon.