“You are more nervous than I,” Anastasia says.

I smirk. “What can I say? These are our first children.”

She rolls her eyes. “And hopefully the last ones.“

“Why don’t you feel nervous? I thought giving birth was a big thing for women.”

“Maybe if I had a human child. These are small enough that it’s not hurting too much. It’s just gross.”

I observe her stomach with my skills. There are six souls inside, one of them Axi’s. It’s starting. I take the first goblin out and place it to the side. Second one. Third one. Then, it’s Axi’s turn. She is coming out. I tremble. Will she be alright? Will she have her memories intact? Maybe at least some of them…“She is coming out,” I say. Soon, I see it. Another goblin, just as confused. I check, it’s a female. Good enough for now.

“Axi?” I ask. She opens her eyes.

“Smag?”

“Axi!” I hug her.

“Why are you so big?” She is fine!

“Oh, it’s not a big deal.”

“Anastasia? Are you giving birth? But I haven’t seen you with any male… Can a person become pregnant on their own?” She asks with worry and touches her stomach.

“It’s Smag. We had sex. His children.” She points with her hand.

Axi frowns. “Why didn’t you tell me? I mean, I don’t want to have children, but I wanted to see you with Smag!”

“Sure!” Anastasia says it with a smile. “Smag, can I be your girlfriend now?”

“Don't you want to return to humans? You can go.” I say.

"I'm serious."

"So do I."

She sighs. "I don't want to. I can't."

Axi hits me in the face. I barely feel it; she is too weak. It's rather adorable.

"Don't be mean to Anas! She is part of the tribe now, so she is going to birth goblins like any female."

"Please, spare me," Anastasia says. "Becoming your girlfriend is enough."

“Girlfriend?” Axi asks, and Anastasia starts to explain.

“It’s practically what you have been doing with Axi. You only have sex with each other.”

“What? That's impossible! I want to have sex with Smag, too! I thought we were friends!”

“I mean, you can also be his girlfriend, so it’s fine.”

Axi takes a few seconds to think. She doesn’t seem stupider. I wonder about her stats.

"That's stupid. Your explanation doesn't make sense. Also, why are you also so big?!" Axi asks.

“It’s not us, idiot. You are small. Check your status screen and tell me the changes.” I tell her.

“Hey! Don’t forget about me! I’m still in labor!” Anastasia shouts and gives birth to another goblin.

There is only one left, anyway.

“What?! NO!” Axi shouts.

“What happened?”

“My stats! They are gone! Only useless ones like Intelligence, Will, and Affinity are the same. The useful ones are gone!”

“How about your title?”

“It’s still here.” That means Axi should have similar strength to me, at least when I’m not using Vitality Buff. Also, it probably means those three mental stats are somehow stored in the soul.“What about your skills?”

“Hm… No!” Axi shouts again.

“Are they gone?” It’s not even such a big deal. She should still have her caps, meaning it’s just a matter of earning Experience Points.

“No, skills are fine, but my traits are all gone! I only have Iron Stomach, and only at level one.” So traits are about the body, so they got reset. Honestly, this means she should have a few stat perks. She probably has more strength now than me. This is ridiculous. She is such a monster. It's a bit strange that her punch was so weak, though. Did she only use part of her strength and didn't expect to be so weak? Alternatively, her stats may be nerfed until she grows up.

“Then it’s no big loss. With your remaining combat power, you should be able to relevel fast. I will help you too. As you see, I evolved in the meantime.”

“Yeah! Let’s have sex!” I frown.

“Nope. You are a child. Wait until you grow up!”

“I’m not! It’s just my body.”

“Don’t worry, it’s just two weeks,” Anastasia says as she births the final goblin. I doubt Axi’s child body is even capable of feeling sexual pleasure. Her mind may be that of an adult goblin, but her body is simply not.

“Anastasia is right. Just wait two weeks until you are an adult.”

“Fine…” Axi grumbles. “By the way, why is Anastasia tied up?

“It’s Smag’s fetish.”

“It’s not!”

“What’s a fetish?”

“Don’t corrupt her!” I shout.

I let Anastasia go. I’m a bit worried, but she hugs me. “Don’t do that again. Please. I’m on your side.”“Fine,” I grumble. “I will believe you.” I don't really, but I suppose she deserves some level of trust.Anastasia dress up and picks up weapons. Axi also tries to take her old ax, but it’s too big for her.

“I have your core, Axi, but I think you should absorb it after you grow up.”

“But… I’m fine?” She says, and I watch in astonishment as she moves earth mana. “How?”

“I still have the Earth Mana Control skill. I just lost the affinity trait and the core.”

"So you don’t have your own earth mana, but you can still control environmental mana?”

“Yes. It’s way harder, though. I will need to train to create my soil armor.”

“This shouldn’t be possible." Anastasia starts. “Do you think she could absorb another treasure for another mana type?”

“I’m not sure if it’s so easy to cheat the system. There are two options. One, she dies just like a normal monster who tries to absorb another treasure, and two, she actually gets her affinity trait and another mana-type control skill. I thought monsters could control mana because of their affinity trait.”

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This is really strange. Enlightened people store ambient neutral mana in their souls. They can switch it to any mana they are attuned to by willing it. Monster cores provide more mana capacity instead. Also, monsters automatically get an affinity trait, which saturates their vitality with their mana type. I check on Axi, but I can’t find any traces of earth mana in her vitality mana.

Does this mean monsters can also theoretically bond to another mana type, but their body affinity prevents them from getting another? That would make sense. The affinity trait not only helps with magic and changes the body, allowing them to channel their mana type through it, but also allows them to permanently create substance. A human mage can create water, for example, but it’s fake. Only beings with water affinity traits can create real water that won’t disappear after a while. Anastasia told me about it since she has been taught not to drink conjured water. Axi had been able to conjure real soil when she still had her core.

If the affinity trait prevents attuning to more mana types, it’s obvious most enlightened wouldn’t want it, unless they reach the apex and believe they won’t be able to learn more. On the other hand, this means a monster could learn more, as long as it can ditch its affinity trait. Is it that simple?I ask the system about dropping my affinity trait. I’m not going to do so now, but I need to know. The system says that traits cannot be lost at will. Damn. That makes sense.

“I will need to do some experiments, but such experiments would require having two spare cores or treasures. So not anytime soon.” I conclude.

We wait a few days. Axi wants to go hunt immediately, but I disagree. Anastasia back me up. We use the time to spar and train a bit more. After a week, we hunt.

My new power allows me to solo most encounters, making me the strongest member of our party. Anastasia is currently second, but just because Axi is unaccustomed to her lowered power. I had to help her a few times. Our hunt goes well until we find a large group of ants.

“There are at least three 2nd tier ants there. Around thirty ants in total.” We overhunted the ants a bit. For the time being, I believe we should focus on killing predators, but killing another group of ants is probably fine. They should have a queen, so killing those ants won't have a significant impact on their ability to reproduce.

“Let’s kill them!” Axi is eager.

“Can we do so safely?” I muse. We have eight more goblins with us. We should be able to win this, but not without any losses.

“It’s a lot of Experience.” Axi insists. I shrug. The three of us should be fine. I also have my new magic, so I can heal them even from heavy wounds. We may lose a goblin or two, but nothing more serious.

“Fine. The three of us will handle 2nd tiers, and then we will help with worker ants. Fine?”They agree. We start with Anastasia shooting one of the 2nd tier ants. She should be able to kill it with a few more. I shot Vitality Clot on another while Axi jumps forward to chop the last 2nd tier soldier. Goblins attack as well. My attack hits, but only partially paralyzes the monster. No big deal. I rush forward, kill the worker ant on my way, and stab the soldier. With my buffed stats and the partially paralyzed monster, it’s not hard to kill it. I could shoot another Clot, but there’s no need.

In another stab, the monster dies. I start killing worker ants while looking at the fight. Anastasia is going to finish her monster soon. Axi fights with her monster somehow, equally for now. I should probably help her a bit, though for now, I attack smaller ants to prevent deaths. One of the goblins is dead already, and I will have to heal the second one.

Suddenly, I hear Axi’s scream. I look at her, and a soldier ant bites off her ax arm. She is now weaponless. Damn! I need to help her. I shot the Clot spell, but it will be a few seconds until it works. The monster jumps at Axi, and she panics while the monster bites her again. Not for long, Anastasia’s arrow hit the ant in the head, stopping it. My clot spell finally works, but I don’t wait for it; I hit it with my spear.

Axi grabs at the stump of the severed arm. She bleeds severely. I grab her arm and move it back into its place, using vitality to fix it. I push a lot of vitality into her, and she regenerates at a visible speed. I pick her up and retreat. it’s hard to fix her in the middle of a fight. We all retreat. Three goblins died, while eight worker ants survived. I place Axi on the ground and heal her up.“Are you fine?” Anastasia asks her.

“Yeah. It just hurt a lot.”

“You are fine now. We need to recover a bit; I’m very low on mana, but we can continue after.” I say, not wanting to ruin her fun. She waited a bit for this hunt.“I… lost control of my armor.”

“You no longer have the affinity trait. It’s harder now.” I say. She nods.

“I panicked. Then the ant jumped on me, and I didn’t know what to do. I thought I would die.”

“You are fine now.” Anastasia hugs her.

“That’s why we are fighting in a group. You saved me like that many times in the past.” I add. Axi is really a monster. It’s the first time she was on the losing end against another fighter.

After a while and picking up Axi’s ax, we continue our hunt. We spot a small group of six worker ants without any soldiers.

“Axi, go ahead. You need Experience the most of us.”

“Yeah.” She nods and walks forward. However, after a few steps, she stops. What’s going on? I look closer and notice she is trembling.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her.

She collapses. “I… can’t.”

“What?”

“I’m scared.” I’m dumbfounded. Axi?

“What’s wrong?” Anastasia asks.

“It’s… I nearly died. No. I died once. I remember. I couldn’t do anything. I killed the snake, but I couldn’t fight the venom. Now, before… It was just the same. I lost my weapon. I couldn't…”

“It’s fine. You don’t need to fight.” Anastasia says, but I don’t think so. Monsters have been designed to fight and kill. I had many close-call situations before, and I’m fine. I thought it was because I’m a monster now. Anyway, it’s obvious it’s some sort of trauma.

I go forward and kill five ants. I leave the last one alive and paralyze it, then I brink it back.

“Kill it.” She looks up, but she still has fear in her eyes.

“It can’t do anything against you. You are completely safe. Just end it.” I say. “Do you want to be defeated by fear? Just kill it.” I say, trying to motivate her. I don’t know much about psychology, but if Axi is like a human, she could even develop a phobia out of it. It’s better to push her.

She slowly gets up and comes closer. “Just use your armor if you are still afraid.”

“No!” She shouts. “I’m not good enough without the core.”

“Anyway, you are perfectly safe now.”

She comes closer, then changes direction and circles the poor monster. I try to be patient. She then approaches it from behind and chops it with her ax, killing it.

“I have done it.” She says it relived. Where is my monster?We return to the tribe. We have enough meat for a while. Anastasia needs fresh meat, but she can hunt small animals on her own around the tribe.

We spend another week at the camp. Most goblins still hunt, bringing me sacrifices. I ask Axi to kill some of them. She doesn’t get the skill (since she knows nothing about it), but the sacrifice works as long as she kills with the ritual dagger and all the runes are in place. She does so, but she refuses to go outside and hunt.

I and Anastasia are worried. After another week, Axi is an adult, and we end up in bed. Axi is eager, and she seems to forget about her fears for a moment. This makes me happy. I spend the most time with Axi, anyway. I and Anastasia want her to get better. It helps to some extent, but she is still afraid of hunting. I give her the core, but she refuses to absorb it, saying she doesn’t need it for now. I wish she did.

I'm keeping Anastasia at a distance. She doesn't love me; I doubt she even wants to have sex for real. I think she has Stockholm syndrom, or something like that. Anyway, I'm not Axi's boyfriend. I'm the most powerful guy in the tribe, so she has sex with me. It's goblin nature. Anastasia is a human, so it's different. Do I want to commit to a relationship? I find that I do, but with Axi. I feel that getting together with Anastasia is a mistake.

“What now?” I ask. It’s not just a matter of Axi being traumatized. The tribe lives forward. I’m the current chieftain, but I would rather not. I want to experiment and further increase my power. I already figured out so many possible experiments for vitality mana I’m starting to forget them. All three of us gather for a meeting

“Axi. I understand you don’t want to hunt. I don’t like having this conversation, and we both think you should try it anyway. We won’t force you, though.” I tell her. It feels like I and Anastasia are her parents. I shook at the thought. Isn’t it? I ponder it and shake my head. If it works like it did in my old world, and children are made up of their parents' characteristics, then Axi isn't my daughter. Her soul is the original one, not related to us at all. I don’t know if this world has DNA; it’s probably some strange mana type, but the original's child’s body has been changed by her soul. At best, we only qualify as surrogate parents. I turn back to the conversation.

“You need to do something, though. You can’t just stay in the tribe and mop around.”

“Fine. I will start creating armors and weapons. I like it.”

I sigh. “Ok. I will teach you as much as I can.”

“Me too,” Anastasia adds.

“Now, what about the tribe?”

“What about it?”

“I don’t want to be chieftain.”

“I can’t be a chieftain,” Axi says. “The strongest goblin is the chieftain.” I reluctantly nod.

“What? You want me to be your chieftain?” Anastasia jokes. Actually…

“You are serious. Just… NO!”

“I surrender!” I shout to the crowd, theatrically falling to my knees. “Anastasia is the new chieftain!” Ultimately, I doubt the goblins will take her orders over mines. She will just be a glorified officer.

“Yeah! Long live Anastasia!” Axi shouts. Anastasia goes beat red.

“Human! No chieftain!” Hobgoblin shouts. “Weak!” He points at me. I shrug. It was inevitable.Both hobgoblins in the tribe, the same ones that challenged me before, challenge Anastasia. She beats them up one by one, though with some difficulty. Her fighting skills are way better, and her stats are probably similar to theirs.

“Congratulations, Anastasia. You are the new chieftain of the goblin tribe.”

“Shit!” She curses.

“What?”

“I got another title. Blighted. It says it’s for willingly entering a long-term partnership with monsters. The effects are the same as before, just without the bonus for monsters. It’s a true detrimental title.”

I sigh. “It’s bad.”

“Actually, not that bad. I’m now part of this tribe. The title does nothing for it.”

“Maybe, but I have plans.” She raises her eyebrow, and I continue. “I want to use you to trade with humans.”

“Are you joking?”

“Nope. Let’s discuss it.”