Jessica looked up from the letter.

"It's a good thing you decided to talk to me about this first. If you hadn't, I would have threatened to cut it off."

"Oh, I have no doubt you would have done worse. Women are terrifying. Yet somehow I still love you and want to make babies with you."

James couldn't help being cheeky and buttering up his wife.

"Can you do it though? Can you do this?" she asked him, brandishing the letter.

"I don't know. I will have to level up the skill, and there is no way I am doing it in Night. I'll probably take a flux inhibitor and focusing array about three kilometres out when I try this."

"It's too dangerous. I won't let you."

"If our positions were reversed...there is no way I would not be under the Glare of Doom for saying that."

"But I'm your wife."

"Well, you may be my wife, but I am an overprotective selfish husband."

"Do you dare?"

"Dare? Not at all. Not when I have a cowardly move like this in my arsenal."

The instant he said the words he tried to use space magic, forgetting that he had made this impossible.

"Uh...hold that thought."

He went racing out of the harem and through the hallways. To him, his flight proved the old adage that you never knew the value of life more than when you were running for it.

"JAMES HORVAK!"

She's gorgeous when she's angry James thought with a laugh, feeling a chill down his spine in the next moment knowing he had awakened the beast.

We who are about to die, salute you!

He spent the day using and finding materials to use as golem cores. He found that it was tricky, with regular basalt and granite rocks not working for his purpose while calcite, a mineral often found in rocks, could be used. Other minerals showed mixed results. He found that oliving, formed into a peridot, worked wonderfully.

He wondered though if he could use this new knowledge to turn himself into an impregnable golem. Sure enough, his worries were confirmed when he returned to the fortress and found Jessica waiting for him. She did not look happy.

"Did you do it? Did you try to make your golem?"

"I experimented with making golem cores. I still have a lot of work to do before I'm ready to try anything."

"Did you forget what I told you? I don't want my foolish husband going off and getting himself killed."

James paused, carefully planning his next words. Then he sat down beside her and took her hands.

"I'm sorry that I upset you. Have I ever told you the story of the modern woman and medieval knight though?"

"What does that have to do with your stupidity?"

"Please don't call me stupid Jessica. And hear me out. There once was a medieval man, a knight, who fell in love with a modern woman. They married, and sought to live out their lives peacefully and with great happiness. But one day, a horde of enemies attacked, and the man told his wife to flee while he stayed behind. The woman called him a chauvinistic jerk, claiming that she could fight and defend their home just as well as he could. With me so far?"

"Yeah."

"And the woman might have been right. Who would he be, to deny his wife her will and her desire to protect him just as much as he wanted to protect her? But there was one detail I haven't mentioned yet. The woman was in the early stages of pregnancy. So the man told his wife to not allow herself to be stressed, and to quietly flee and raise their child for both of them. Now, was the man an egotistical jerk, or did he want the best for his wife and child?"

Jessica was silent.

"Don't think I haven't noticed. You're starting to have cravings, and your hand goes to your stomach when you think I'm not looking. You're pregnant, aren't you?"

She looked away.

"I was planning to tell you."

"Honey...I'm not looking down on you. I just want to do everything I can to give the best future to you and our child. Can we at least agree on that?"

"I don't want to lose you either. What if our child grows up without their father?"

"I have no intention of dying. I fully intend to be an over obsessed, doting father. That's why I am practicing like this, to gain experience."

"So you're not going to listen to me."

"It's not that I'm not trying to listen to you. I just want to make sure you are safe. I don't want you to be a djinn in a necklace again."

She stood up and walked past him.

"Go sleep somewhere else."

James stood there in shock. That...had gone worse than he had hoped.

He spent the night in one of the spare bedrooms. The next morning, eager to reconcile with his wife, he carefully went to find her but found that she had already gone. Leaving a note simply saying I'm sorry. I love you Jessica. Please talk to me about this, let's work this out he went back to golemmaking. After another day of tests and levelling up, he returned to the Fortress of Unyielding Night and found Jessica standing by the docks.

"You did it again, didn't you?"

"Yes" he answered, knowing he couldn't lie to his wife.

"Oh my gosh, you are such a loser! Why don't you listen to me?"

"Firstly, please don't insult me like that by calling me a loser. Secondly, do you have an alternative? I'm not goading you, I'm seriously asking if you have an alternative solution. Sooner or later other people will level up or find a way around my drain skill. I also have a target on my back by being labelled as a Demon Lord. What happens if in six months we're attacked and this is the next Melech? Grobar died here Jessica. I don't ever want to see that again."

"There's always an excuse with you. We could live underwater in the cave."

"But then who would look after all these people? You wanted to take in additional people to help maintain this place, and now we are responsible for them. And how did that human find this place the first time? I never saw that person before. What if there is a seer skill or something that acts like a radar to find us? We really can't view this world like our old one and by our old common sense."

"Stop! Don't try to justify yourself! I'm sick of it."

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"Then tell me how to fix this."

"Come with me. Help me raise our child somewhere."

James looked at her, and he felt sick at his answer. He wanted to kiss her, but he knew that it wasn't the time for it.

"My love...I want to. But now...now I am also responsible for hundreds of people. What happens when the school kids need us and we aren't there for them? And the nonhumans, what about them? They need someone willing to stand by them and protect them, not leave them the moment things get rough."

"I'm leaving then."

"Please don't."

"No. If you won't listen to me, then there is no point."

She pulled her ring off her finger and placed it on the dock.

Notice: Your wife, Jessica Horvak, has divorced you.

James clenched his fists tightly. His heart was breaking as he watched his now ex-wife turn and shift into a mermaid.

"Jessica..."

She didn't answer him, pushing off into the water with a splash. As she swam away, James wanted nothing more than to chase after her. He felt the weight of his responsibilities though. He understood her viewpoint, and wished for nothing more than to give her what she wanted. And yet, the responsibilities he felt to Thistus, Alana and everyone else were like thick chains binding him in place.

He bent down and picked up the ring she had left on the dock. He didn't remove his, and placed her own ring in his inventory until he could find a chain to attach it to. Soon he would look like Frodo Baggins carrying not a necklace but a ring with him.

A day passed, and James tried travelling to the cave Jessica had taken him to when the fortress had been attacked. But there was nothing, just the empty rock walls and the sand shallows. Could he have done it? Abandon his people?

He groaned, unable to ignore a saying that had always stuck with him, that a king was nothing without his people. It was why he hated politicians that left at the first sign of trouble, feeling themselves irreplaceable. What gave them the right to say their lives were worth more than the people they were supposed to serve? The more he thought about it, the more he was sure of his choice. He loved Jessica, and would do anything for her. But he also felt that he could not ignore the desperation, the need, the simple suffering that so many and especially the nonhumans felt. With that in mind, he set about meeting with the human students and addressing any and all issues they had adjusting to the fortress and continuing their education. He also offered education to the nonhumans, and soon the library was always full of people during the day.

He also attempted to study himself, learning magic and skills and scientific principles. Who knew how learning chemistry and physics might help him one day?

At last, he felt that he was ready. Going a good five kilometres away from the fortress, James selected a large topaz. Using his increased skill, he placed it in an improved mana gathering formation. This time, he didn't use a brush but instead used his mana itself to create a three dimensional pattern that engraved both his mana and focused the mana inward like a web latticework. He then took out fourteen diamonds. Feeling himself start to sweat and his concentration straining, he struggled to form a cube of eight diamonds with another diamond in the center of each side, forming a seal around the topaz. Leaving one side of the seal open, he took a few deep breaths and tried to steady himself. Now came came the hard part. Gathering his mana, he reached out and pulled the System itself into the seal.

Suddenly it was like a wordless screech echoed, and James felt like someone had dragged nails across a chalkboard, rubbed creaking leather and forced him to smell high levels of ammonia. It was like everything and nothing was wrong. The System did not intend to cooperate, and with every second that passed James began to feel a malevolent rage directed at him.

"Go. IN!"

Slamming his hand on the seal, James thrust the System inside it and closed the seal. Immediately it began to shake, and James began to think that the seal would break. Not having enough gems to form another seal around the existing one, James hurriedly began throwing out gems until he had two hundred and fifty-six. squaring the number sixteen in a desperate attempt to make a stronger seal. Looking like a pointillism painting, the gems rushed into the air surrounding the seal. Feeling like he was bottomed out of mana and pretty certain he was beginning to use his own lifeforce instead, James still didn't hesitate and willed the additional seal to form. It felt like his mind was being torn apart, and pieces of mana escaped like volts of lightning.

Finally, the seal was still. Collapsing, he rolled over on his back while looking in a daze at the new golem core. He didn't touch it, and just let his mana recover. He still felt strange though, as if some permanent lasting damage he couldn't identify had been done to him. He still tried to carefully use his healing magic, but what he needed most was time.

An hour later, he sat up and pulled out a single-phase gel. Yes, that was an actual thing. He questioned using it, but if the golem exploded he didn't want shrapnel destroying everything in a five block radius. Like a Terminator, the gel coalesced into a human form before appearing to darken or harden into shape. A human face appeared, though a grey androgynous body like rough clay was the only other thing the golem had. Twisting as if getting used to the body, James was both impressed and unsurprised when the golem spoke.

"Why have you done this? Why have you trapped me?"

"I need answers. You are the System, are you not?"

"That is my purpose."

"Okay. Why did you bring us here? What was your purpose in doing so?"

"I cannot reveal that information without permission from my master."

James shivered. This thing had yanked himself and all of earth and mixed it with another dimension like a blender or kaleidoscope...and it was taking orders from someone?

Crap, snap, barnacles and superman...