Frozen in fear Emmy didn’t say anything for a while. I continued to glare at her in silent rage. The very recent memory of me bleeding out on the floor of my chambers. With her and the other 9 standing above me, consuming my soul. Left sort of a sore spot and I was pissed. I’m guessing it showed by the way she stared at me in absolute terror.

Out of nowhere she blurted out crying, “I’m sorry! I told them that it was a bad idea. I never wanted to be part of it in the first place, but I caught them one time and they said that if I didn’t join them that they would consume me too! I hated doing it. When they suggested consuming you, I told them that they were stupid and would end up getting consumed themselves. Then Able said that if I didn’t, he would and Kain would just kill me and consume me before going after you. So, I listened. Then after you started one of your projects we broke into your chambers and surrounded you. Talazod stood right behind me to make sure that I participated. Once you died it took us a month to consume your soul and we thought that you died. Your body vanished and everything. We then were to consume your universe but for some reason nobody could connect with it to consume it. So, I just looked around at your universe and by the Divine your universe is beautiful. I watched it for a long time comparing it to mine and I realized that I’d made a horrible mistake. Just then I saw a flash of light from one of your fruits and decided to take a look and ended up finding you. I wanted to confront you and apologize for what I’d done but didn’t know how to approach you. And then I lost my powers and then you captured me and now I’m gonna die! I don’t want to die. I’m sorry first. I’m really, really sorry!”

By this time her little bunny eyes and nose were leaking profusely and I could feel the sincerity of her words. I placed my hand behind her bunny ears and scratched gently to calm her down. This seemed to work as her crying lessened to a sniffle.

“Ok, okay. I hear and believe you Emmy. So, what were you expecting to get by reaching out to me?” I asked her.

“I don’t know.” she said, “I was just excited you were alive and ended up coming here without really thinking about it.”

I laughed, “Same old Emmy. Ok I’m going to put you down now. Would you like to talk for a while before I let you go back to the divine realm? Only on the promise that you keep my existence and location a secret. Okay.”

“You got it first!” she shouted in glee.

With the immediate threat to my life over I let Emmy inside my domain, and she bounced around in excitement. Looking at all the strange new sights and strange new creatures and structures. Once we made it to my house we chatted for a while. The goblins and Oni bring us food and drinks every now and then. She shifted into her humanoid form, and I noticed that she didn’t have any clothes. With my new mortal form I experienced a new emotion. The desire to procreate.

Emmy asked me, “Why are you turning red? Is that part of this creature's anatomy?”

Looking down I told her, “Well you see. Um. This is new to me so it’s kind of hard to explain.” coughing and catching my breath I continued, “It would seem that in this mortal form I have a desire to reproduce and apparently heat building in my cheeks and in my reproductive organs are signs that this body finds your figure suitable for such a task.”

Emmy tapped her chin, “Oh. I see. Well, I do understand mortals' need for such things. I've never had much interest in it other than the mass production of souls to reap. Would you like to try reproducing with me? I think it could be a valuable experience and a new experience. If I remember correctly the Vorpal Rabbit has an extremely high desire to reproduce in both the males and females. Often producing several offspring.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Whisper who was standing in the corner of the room drinking with Shadow. Dropped his cup in shock, the cup shattering on impact. Drawing both Emmy and my attention. Seeming to realize he was now the center of attention. Straightened up, held up a finger as if to say something important. We waited, but nothing ever came out. Whisper then turned red as a tomato, turned around and walked out of the room. Shadow bowing, then following behind.

“What was that about?” Emmy said.

“I’m not sure.” I responded.

“Okay. Anyways, back to my question. This creature ovulates once every 3 days and has a gestation period of 1 month.” Emmy followed up with.

Emmy ended up staying the night for a few days. During this time nobody seemed to have any questions for me, surprisingly.

When I emerged from experimenting with Emmy I was greeted by a pouty faced Lady Evalina.

“Hello Lord Savas.” she said curtly.

“Um, Hello Lady Evalina. What brings you here today?” I asked in a bit of confusion.

“I came to see how your trip was and if you like the renovations, I helped your buffoons of craftsmen create. I stopped by yesterday as well, but you were. Being entertained by another it would seem.” She was clearly upset about something.

“Oh. Forgive me. I had no idea you’d visited yesterday. I’ll have to inform the chief to better relay this to me in the future. Please forgive him. I believe he didn’t want to interrupt a colleague and my experiment on reproduction and procreation. You see we are both new to this and were curious.” I said, trying to placate her.

Lady Evalina turned several different shades of red before she stopped.

“Wait. You mean you’re not courting her? I’m confused. If you’re not courting her, why would you make love to her?” she said in bewilderment.

“Make love.” I said, not understanding what she meant.

At this moment Whisper put his hand on Lady Evalina’s shoulder and promptly explained the situation to her in a way that made sense to her. I assumed, by judging the body language and gestures they were making. It took her a little while to understand but now they were walking back to rejoin me in conversation.

“I want to be your second.” Lady Evalina said with a perfectly straight face.

Whisper, who was a few paces behind her was catching up and tripped over a step and fell to the ground. After hearing her bold declaration to me.

Not really sure what she meant by that, but I said, “Um, sure why not. Is it different with different species?”

“I’m not sure but we’ll find out soon I suppose. Now come. Take me to your bedchamber.” She instructed me.

More confused that I was at the beginning of this conversation I followed the woman through the house making eye contact with Pan along the way. Pan dropped the box of supplies she was holding. In favor of staring at me with a look of confusion, curiosity, pride, and worry. I had no idea what all that meant but Lady Evalina kept me busy for the rest of the day.

She ended up meeting Emmy during our experimenting and surprisingly they got along pretty well. I remembered hearing that sometimes women tended to not get along with each other and ended up in constant contention with one another. Fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case here. They ended up wandering off somewhere while I spoke to the chief about some changes that needed to be made and logistics involving our weapons and iron supply.

With Rok here we now had a blacksmith and inventor all balled up into one person. He could enchant the weapons but due to the circumstances of how his magic worked. It would only activate for him. What we still needed was a tailor, an enchanter, a jeweler, an alchemist, and dedicated workstations for each of them to properly apply their trades. With Bushda here the construction of the training grounds was going well. Her being versed in different types of combat and being experienced in actual battle gave her some perspective that was invaluable to its design.

With all of that going on I sat there looking at the new skill I obtained from completing the Earth Dungeon.

“Congratulations on completing this dungeon for the first time. You’ve been granted the Clan Management Interface skill.” it read, “With this skill you can now form a clan. All clan members will receive a clan name. Once chosen by the clan leader. If a clan member currently has a family name or surname. It will be replaced with the clan’s name.”