It was hard to find a lactating woman whose milk wasn’t poisoned but we did. And surprise, surprise, she had a healthy girl. From that, I decided it was revolution time. We bought the breast milk at a premium and secured a supply for the baby girl under my care. Two days later the head matron of the clan was stable enough to no longer need my continued care, but as I stated, the girl was mine.
Crossbow Hand, which served the same purpose as the midhusband back at my old clan, came to talk to me.
“Wyxnos’ mercy, we need to recoup the loss from the surgery you did on the Head Matron,” he accused me.
“The fuck?” I replied, indignant. “I saved the woman’s life and the children she was carrying, why is this my problem now?”
“Well, her patrons aren’t giving donations anymore--”
“You shut up this very instant. They wouldn’t give donations to a dead woman, would they? No, they wouldn’t. So, by saving her life, I actually GAINED the future donations she will earn for your stupid clan. I didn’t cause a loss, see?”
No, he didn’t. It was stamped in his face. “Yes but Wyxnos knows we need to auction the girl. People are talking about what you said, and they are cobbling together cases of girls that survived. Most of them indeed didn’t drink tainted milk, thanks to Wyxnos for that. Some clans are even tasting the milk before giving it to girls.”
Thank Wyxnos, my ass. The uncaring professor and his Armani were up there sitting on the System Core sucking on his thumb. Or the cufflinks. He probably didn’t even remember these gnomes existed.
“I understand what you are saying, but no is no. Nobody is getting auctioned and I’ll kill every clan that attempts to auction a girl now. Including you. Seriously, get this crossbow you have stuck to your forearm and shoot me in the head right now. I won’t move, dodge. Shoot me in the eye so the skull doesn’t get in the way. Point blank. I won’t blink or dodge. it’s your best shot at convincing me to do anything I won’t. See if I die, and then after I don’t, I’m going to make you dual wield crossbows in your forearms. See how you’ll like to tie the straps in your trousers with two weapons for hands. Or you can walk away right now and never mention an auction to me again.”
I had no idea how these steampunk cavemen gnomes knew what an auction was, now that I thought of that. Maybe from something, someone read from a dead Adventurer body. Who knows? What mattered was that Crossbow Hand walked and stopped bothering me.
The gnomes understood fuck all about economics but this time he was right, economically speaking. The idiot wanted to auction the girl. That was wrong on a social and ethical level as she was a sentient being, a person. But once word got out that all you needed to do to birth healthy girls were to stop fucking while pregnant or lactating, the population crisis would be averted.
I thought about exterminating the mutant males (all of them) but then where would I find healthy gnomes? Even if I did, it would be useless. The females carried the gene, their sons would develop mutant dicks as well. The only thing that could work was prophylaxis. Even if only a portion of the females adopted the safeguard measures, the fact they would give birth to healthy girls would convince the others to do the same.
In the short term, it would mean less XXX time for the boys because the women wouldn’t be available during pregnancy and lactation, but honestly, giving birth five times a year was ridiculous. Stupid gnomes and their crazy genetic makeup. But in the long term, more women meant more XXX time overall. Maybe even, gasp, they could reach gender parity and form families.
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Then, despite my warnings, Crossbow Hand stole the baby girl and ran away to auction her. I was out moving my coins to a faraway cave chamber nobody used for anything and when I returned the baby was gone.
A squad of guards stood by the nursery entrance, staring at me. I also noticed all the weapons and surgical tools I gathered were gone. That’s when I placed my second weapon Proficiency in Martial Arts.
> Martial Arts [ 240 / 256 ]. Select 2 Abilities
>
> * Master: Add (Proficiency/30) d8 to your martial arts damage.
> * Kiai Shout: If you shout while delivering a blow, add (Proficiency/5) to the base damage.
I bounced on the balls of my feet and waved my fists in front of me, warming up for some kickboxing. Then I bowed to the puzzled guards and {Charged}. They couldn’t believe I was going at them with bare hands. Their loss. I shouted a {Champion’s Challenge} at them as I dove in with my fists blazing. I roared as the berserker rage took over, not overwhelming my mind thanks to Lily’s immunity to rage effects.
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It was a flurry of punches, ripostes, throws, and reckless brawling. The Great White One knew how to fight creatures with longer reach and perfected the art of closing inside a weapons’ reach to turn it into an advantage. Snowdrop’s fury combined with the feral fighting style Apricot developed when she had to go werecat on people she couldn’t sneak upon. They weren’t fighting just a pissed-off gnome girl. They were fighting legends.
I finished each guard and collected my Exp tithes out of their dead bodies. The nursery girls now avoided me entirely. Where was Lorna? Hopefully, she wasn’t one of them. I pushed that concern aside and rushed to the grand cave, trampling any gnome too slow on their feet to move out of the way. Along the path, I snatched a nice spear.
> [Hardened Steel Throwing Shortspear]
>
> Price: 34 Gold Coins
>
> Damage: 3d20+13
>
> Durability: 345 / 750
>
> An Officer’s weapon from the Great Empire of the Pekothas Continent. Can be used in hand-to-hand combat but is balanced for throwing.
This one came from Silverstreak’s homeland, the good old northern fairy-enslaving Empire. It was huge for a tiny gnome such as me but it was a proper weapon and I could wield it with both hands. One that could kill a thousand gnomes in my hand and come out alive on the other end. Not at once, that much was a given. If I had a smith’s hammer, I could repair it easily.
The auction was underway when I barged into the room. Shouting my {Champion’s Challenge}, I saw Crossbow Hand standing where midhusband once stood, a guilty-looking Nanny holding the baby in a similar stinking itchy fur like the one I was in. All I considered before attacking was “would my strike have any chance of harming the girl?” When the answer was no, I threw my new spear and jumped on the gnomes, crowd surfing as I pounced from head to head after the weapon.
Crossbow Hand tried to dodge and made a perfect heart strike hit his right shoulder. The spear hit with enough force to shatter the collarbone and shoulder joint, making his right arm (the one with a formerly working hand) limp uselessly by his side. He screamed in pain as he moved his left arm to aim his crossbow at me. I tapped my extended index finger on my heart, daring him to take the shot.
He did. I deflected the shot with my bare hand.
> Crossbow Hand shoots you for 298 HP of damage (Base 6d8+21 [54] x5.2 Skill x3,4 Attribute x3 Marksman’s Aim x2 Deadeye Shot x0.1 Titan Skin x0,52 Perfect Parry)
I had a nick in my hand where the bolt head hit. The guy saw only an x0.052 reduction in his notification because I had {Hidden Modifiers}. And he saw that number because he didn’t do anything but stare at me. Until my foot replaced that notification with a new one. Then I climbed on the veteran gnome punched his nose in until I claimed my Exp.
For Killing Level 72 Tinkerer you gained 1.158 billion Exp (Base 237,305 x100 Exp Boost x3.05 Champion’s Challenge x2 Rank x2 Racial Rarity x4 Class Rarity).
You reached Scavenger Gnome level 20. You must level up your Class before you can rank-up. 23 Attribute Points withheld.
I stood on the body of my enemy completely covered in blood, like the savage gnome I was, and roared victoriously. I glowered at Nanny who tried desperately to make the scared girl stop crying. “Keep that girl safe. If you run away with her, you’ll end worse than Crossbow here.” I claimed my spear and looked at the sea of scared or angry gnomes staring at me. They clamored for Wyxnos’ deliverance. I screamed “There's no need to wonder where your goddess is! Because she’s right here. And I’m fresh out of mercy.”
Wrapped around the metal shaft of the spear, my fingers tingled. This cave was a powderkeg of repressed feelings and it only needed a spark to erupt. My display of violence incited their most basal instincts. Fight or flee. I was one, they were many. I should pick a Class combo, do the fusion, and rank-up. I was about to leave a lot of Exp on the table.
I didn’t care a bit. I had a decade of abuse to pay back. And the price was blood. That’s when I had a very stupid idea.
“The gnome that pins me down on the ground is going to be my first man! Come at me!” I brandished the spear.
The powderkeg erupted. Violence ensued. The horny crowd roared and rushed to meet their death.
The only fatality on my side was the spear, it broke almost at the end. Powered by my vocal abilities, my victory shout rang throughout the cave system. The revolution had started.
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Not all gnomes in the cave died. Some fled once they saw my fake level, most fled once they saw I could fight accordingly. But of the ones that didn’t flee, only one remained alive, Nanny. Many, many died. Maybe thousands, who knows? How many? I never bothered to count the kill notifications. From the cave, I went to visit each clan and deliver the news. I met some resistance but I Chuck Norrised (yes, it's a verb now) it out of existence. Roundhouse kicks were on sale. After I dealt with the first few waves of guards with extreme brutality, the rest resigned.
Then they listened. I laid down four rules only. First, no more people auctions. Second, people, both male, and female were free to choose in which clan they would live. Third, pregnant and lactating women were forbidden from having any sexy times. As I delivered that one, I swallowed on my pride and promised them they’d be blessed by Wyxnos with many girls. The fourth rule was that every single metal disk with engravings found on dead bodies was a tribute to me, except if the metal was red, orange, or green. They should be delivered to my current clan that would bring them to my coin cave.
After the initial bout of violence, I cleaned up and took the baby girl with me to show her to the various clans. I told them to have a man taste the breast milk of the lactating woman to check for poison as males found the “Gnome Nectar” repulsive. I told them girls shouldn’t drink the poisoned milk and they would be healthy.
A gnome asked me what I would do with my spoils. All the clans decided that both salvage and personal possessions of the ones I killed were mine by rights of victory. I told them to gather the stuff and store it in a central location. That should be used to pay the lactating woman so they wouldn’t need to get gifts from the sugar daddies. People who wished more healthy girls were welcome to donate some junk to the pile.
Only a long time after the fact I realized I’d created a sort of social security fund for the gnomish women.