“You said you were better.”
I finish puking into a nearby waste bin. Of course Green doesn’t understand why I’m freaking out. My stomach turned on itself the moment Leaf told me that. I need to do so many things before the baby comes and yet I feel paralyzed and unable to do anything. I’m petrified… What do I do!? Where do I start!? One thousand worst case scenarios run through my head about what might happen to my unborn child and I can’t handle it.
The fire elemental lord! I should have killed him when I had the chance… Even if it cost me my life I should have tried to destroy him before… If I knew I had a child on the way I would have thrown myself at him much harder than I did… FUCK! I rush out of the room at that point. I need to make sure that if he shows up there is no chance he could make it to Leaf. I need to have a safe room prepared far away from here that only has one portal scroll that Leaf will carry on her at all times.
No, I can have someone else do that. I rush into the enchanting room where some of my men are making equipment and other things for the war. I yell into the room.
“SOMEONE GET ME A DAMN SET OF PORTAL SCROLLS!”
Wait… I can just have her hold a portal scroll that will teleport her to our house in my home town and just fortify that. Wait… The second she teleports she can tear up the scroll on the other side and there would be no way for him to know where she went. Instead of adding fortifications I should work on making it more comfortable. Wait… If she has the baby and then he shows up she might not be able to teleport with him or her… THIS WONT WORK! As I think this I get tackled by someone.
I see Gobber on top of me and everyone else in the room come running after him. Leaf continues to scold me now.
“What did I just say about overexerting yourself. Please calm down.”
“But I need to prepare for the baby. So much needs to be done before the baby comes. I need to make sure we can keep our baby safe and everyone knows that our baby needs to be protected over everything else.”
A thousand things run through my head that need to be done before the baby comes. I need to smooth all of the edges off the walls in the cave part of the fortress. I need to make sure everyone knows I’m going to have a baby so they know not to touch or hurt… IF ANYONE HURTS MY BABY I’LL FUCKING KILL THEM AND THEIR FAMILY! Wrath laughs in my head when I think that. Gobber must have seen the anger in my face because he gives me a concerned look. Oh shit, this is the same look he gives me when Wrath takes over.
“Alright, I get it just get off me… I can wait a few days before I start making changes to make the fortress safer. I also need to plan escape routes for you two in case we’re attacked. I guess… For today I can go around and ask for advice from other fathers about being a father.”
Gobber stands up off me and gives me a hand up. I question Gobber first.
“Well Gobber, you’re a father. Do you have any advice for me as a future parent?”
“I… I don’t know what to say… A few days ago I would say try to teach them what you can… Try to protect them the best you can… Every day it feels like they just get better than me, Hilda junior evolved today, that's over four months earlier than I did… I have a feeling that all of them will soon follow her… I’m so proud of her but at the same time I’m sad at myself that I couldn’t teach them more… I feel weak even though I know I’m not.”
He looks somewhat defeated. Gobber hasn’t really ever been smart, his children are starting to outshine him in that category. Well, they outpaced him already but he realizes that is something he is lacking. He reminds me of me more than ever with how much he worries for his children. Him and his wife make a good couple. Hilda is a strict parent but it shows in the ability of her children and with how lenient Gobber is they can still do what they want to when it’s just him watching them. They are stronger than if Hilda was the only one raising them and smarter than if it was just Gobber. Zergnar butts in.
“Why does that matter? As a male, your job is to have as many strong children as possible. Let the wives handle all that little stuff and just focus on having children and getting stronger. My wife who keeps track of how many children I have isn’t around but the last time I asked that I have 107 children. That was a month ago so it is likely more now.”
I give him a side eye now. I hadn’t been keeping track but at that number Zergnar’s progeny makes up about 20% of the child population in the base. He boasts now.
“Recently I’ve found out that one of my human wives is pregnant. I had to put in more effort to her pregnant but that means soon I’ll have children with every race I’m married to. Some of the bugbear’s have tried to talk to my wives so I may have more wives here soon… Why am I telling you this again?”
“Because I have a child on the way.”
“Oh right! Sorry, my attention span has been awful lately… Hahaha! If you need me to hold you down again or spin a yarn of wisdom I’ll be checking on my griffon.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
He pats me on the shoulder and leaves as quickly as he came. I can’t help but laugh at his carefree attitude. I feel a little more calm now. I don’t think it will all work out if I don’t care like him though but for now I can prepare over the course of her pregnancy. The war might have already ended by the time she has the baby. I’m terrified but I can think again. Today I’ll spend the rest of the day with Leaf.
Lance’s point of view
I’m surprised that Kite hasn’t shown up yet… Well I mean he did just have his arm ripped off but at the rate he was teaching yesterday, we’re going to need all the time we can get to teach and train them. That being said, the few that did get their new classes I have fighting others to try and gain some experience with their class. Sparring only increases levels in very low increments compared to actually fighting/killing men/monsters. An entire year of sparring might get them twenty levels in warrior. Compared to the fastest methods of leveling, you could get that much from a few days inside of a raid. Or that much from a single day of a magor conflict.
The training would be going much faster if we had more sparring partners and white mages here. The fights are over within thirty to forty seconds normally and it takes healers minutes to run between the other warriors and heal them so they can spar again. This is without a doubt much faster than the sparring I did training boot camp but compared to the sparring with Kite’s troops, nothing compares. Not only were their constantly strong people around to challenge me but almost every single fight had a dedicated healer to it.
I have the civilians and the prisoners running laps right now. They are given a break if they agree to sparring with any of the new warriors. A few did accept and my men were already weakened from fighting one another but the men who volunteered still stood no chance. You would figure that a single class bumping someone from two classes to three would only give about a fifty percent power increase but it doesn’t. It is all cumulative and still with a very fresh warrior class the men with three classes are in a different league than everyone else.
“Alright, ten of you come and try to take me on now while your sparring partner is waiting for a healer.”
Some of them look at me fearful because they know how powerful I am. One speaks up.
“Uhh… I’d rather not if it’s possible, I’ll just wait.”
“Fine, I wont use my hands and if you can land a hit you can have a break.”
One of the prisoners speaks up now.
“What if one of us can land a hit against you? Will you promote us?”
“Hmm… I’ll give you a high ranking position in the army if you can.”
He steps into the circle and puts his guard up. I sort of recognize him. He was one of the first people to try and fight one of my men and got his ass brutally handed to him. Actually this is also the guy who tried to pick a fight against Kite.
“Fine, fine. I’ll hold back as well and if you ten can beat me I’ll let you have the rest of the time off of training until the war starts.”
Some look more interested now. I manage to get seven men to enter my sparring circle. I usher over a healer to watch over this fight now.
“I don’t know what else I can do to sweeten this deal… How’s about I double your rations even if you don’t manage to beat me.”
With that the last two spots are filled and two more walk over to fill in once two of the people are defeated. The prisoner speaks up again.
“Why is everyone so afraid of this guy? It’s ten against one, I don’t care how strong he is we still shouldn’t have a problem beating him.”
One of my men speaks up.
“You remember how strong that guy you tried to fight was? How he easily beat you lot by himself with only one hand. Well… Lance doesn’t hold back when he fights so think of what happened to you guys except… Worse.”
He tenses up now, it almost looks like he started to shake but managed to stop himself by hammering his leg with his hand. I smirk before the fight starts, my men have all been too afraid to fight me up until now. That new class put some fight back into them and I can’t wait to see how much stronger each of them has gotten.
We fight for about fifteen minutes. All of them are laying on the ground either injured or out of breath. Even without my hands, even with it being ten against one… This isn’t even fun, it feels like I’m beating up children that can’t defend themselves. Maybe I should have tried to get twenty of them to fight against me. The prisoner got the worst of it. He is just so much weaker than the rest, I would feel sorry for him but he is too weak. If he had put more effort in, if he wasn't looking for these shortcuts. Maybe I would respect him. He starts crying now.
“Curse my luck. I have a chance at greatness again but this weak body isn’t good enough.”
“I dislike people like you the most.”
He looks at me now with a look of disdain.
“Do you see what your other prisoners are doing right now?”
He looks to his left and watches them continue to run. As if on cue one them them falls down and starts puking. He still doesn’t understand.
“If you really wanted a second chance you should be willing to put in more effort than other people. Trying to take shortcuts like this… It makes you weak.”
“What do you know? Someone as strong as you wouldn’t understand what normal people have to go through.”
Someone like him is boring to me. Someone like him is going to be a nobody for the rest of his life. I don’t think he is going to fit into this army. No, if I let him live without him changing he's going to cause problems later on trying to constantly try to rise up without putting in the effort. I speak angrily now.
“Stand up… I said stand up!”
He slowly gets to his feet. I think about punching a hole through him just to ease my dissatisfaction with him. I’ll give him one last chance.
“Listen… Two years ago, you might have been able to beat me in a fight. I’ve become this strong in the past two years. Do you want to know how?”
He looks curious now.
“I put in so much effort to get stronger that it was all I could think about. Day in and out I would ignore almost everything except the thought of getting stronger. I didn’t do this by myself either. Many other people around me at that time were also solely focused on getting stronger that I could spar with and strive towards when they surpassed me. If you want to get yourself out of this situation, you should be trying to get stronger and looking for people you can call rivals to beat to get even stronger… Otherwise you’re just going to remain a boring man trying to trick his way to the top.”
I finish talking I take my old fighters stance I learned from fighting in the time tree and spring towards him. I punch him so hard that he goes flying now. I yell out towards the healer who’s been here this whole time.
“Go heal him and tell him to start running. If he gives you any lip please come back and tell me, I’ll kill him myself.”
I sigh as being a general is far more boring than I thought it would be. At least with the war coming up I can show my power and try to make a name for myself and my men then. I spend the rest of the day watching over my men before making my way home. When I get home I take off my shoes and go to jump over the couch to land on it but there are people sitting here. I catch the edge and place myself back behind the couch.
Kite and Leaf are here drinking tea with Trice and Dutchess. Leaf has stopped by a few times but never with Kite... I wonder why they're here?