Naturally, I bought the Dimensional Pocket ability on the spot.

I didn’t know for sure what I was going to do with the ability yet, but having it meant that I could finally bring items back and forth, as well as store things. Now that the idea of just selling gold from this world to make ends meet back home was not critical, I could think more practically.

Based on my experience with the other abilities the system had granted me, I knew that it would grow with time. This was further confirmed by the fact Dimensional Pocket had follow-on skills attached to it that were blurred so I couldn’t see specifics yet, as well as a mastery bar.

I was excited about the potential that this would unlock, but I also realized that it was going to be a bit before I could use it to full effect, too. Ten pounds or a cubic foot of space wasn’t a whole lot, but since I was the only one who could access it, it was very secure.

I immediately planned to load my valuables into the pocket when I got home, as the bottle of tiny gold ‘ingots’ I’d been preparing for the jewelry making made me nervous just sitting in my sock drawer.

Once the ability finished unlocking, I activated it to see what it did.

My mind was flooded with a sudden awareness of what the Dimensional Pocket contained, which was nothing at all. I knew that I just had to think about it and push something slightly forward to add it to the pocket.

To experiment, I stored the bottle holding the other nine pure mana crystals, wanting to save them since I had the security now.

The bottle took up about a third of a pound with its load of crystals, and it vanished from my hand less than half a second after making the gesture, just fading out of sight like it was falling away into darkness. Another gesture, this time pulling towards me, and the bottle reappeared in my hand.

I knew I could consume the mana crystals while they were inside my Dimensional Pocket instinctively, but decided not to. It would be better to save those other nine for later, maybe to help push my Shape-Shifting up a rank when it got even harder to develop by use. The mastery boost seemed a great way to circumvent the painful part of training a skill, the only issue was the inherent randomness that the System used. Also, I wasn’t hurting for SP at the moment.

Checking my interface again while the girls talked, I confirmed that I still had a bit over three and a half thousand SP sitting there and waiting to be used. I was in the middle of debating what to use them on when my line of thinking came to a halt, interrupted by my lover’s voice.

“Liam, what do you think of doing a short overnight trip this weekend up to the ruins? Shayla really wants to see the statue and Jane wants to see the initial station area. I know a weekend trip wouldn’t be long enough to really explore the complex more, but we could at least have a look.” Kassandra’s question came in a chattering burst of excitement that threatened to bowl me right over. A state that was further exacerbated by my dwarf lamia when she slammed into my hips, going full speed, wrapping her arms around my waist to snuggle into my side.

Blinking down at her in surprise, my brain taking several long seconds to engage and process what she’d said.

“I mean, if you think that it’s wise sharing the information of that location around right now?” I asked after a moment, my mind whirling. Both Cariad and Cerebaton had asked me to double check the ruins for them before the locals started to excavate them. I didn’t know either of these new girls enough to trust them with sensitive information, so I had to hope my girls knew what they were doing.

“It’s fine. I think we can trust Jane and Shayla, which is why I told them about the statue and the ruined station with the blocked tunnel.” Rieka joined the conversation at a more leisurely pace, stepping around the much larger Shayla to smile up at me. Rieka winked meaningfully while she spoke, which helped me to make the connection about what she said.

She only mentioned the station, not the ruined research facility. Okay, so they are still playing it safe, I thought before turning my attention back to Kassandra. I smiled down at her while stroking her curly red mess of hair.

“Sure, I’d be happy to go camping again with you four.” My statement brought smiles to the lips of all four women, though Shayla’s was a bit more tentative as her wings fluttered behind her. My next statement got a roll of the eyes and a stuck out tongue from my noble-born dwarf lamia, though. “Though you need to make sure to bring more than just the one tent this time, Kass.”

<><><>

“I know that you said to bring a second tent…” Kassandra’s tone was full of affected innocence as we tromped along the road that led to the coast, her scales rasping quietly over the hard-packed dirt.

“Kass!” I growled warningly. The smaller woman winced, but before she could continue, Shayla intervened.

“It’s partially my fault, Liam.” Shayla’s voice was small, and I immediately felt bad for raising mine—like kicked-puppy bad. “I’m nervous about being out in the wilderness like this, and I asked Kassandra and Rieka if they didn’t mind if I shared their tent with them and you.”

“And I don’t want to be alone in my own tent,” Jane piped in from her spot on the other side of Rieka.

The mouse kin woman still watched Kassandra with wariness, but had no problems talking with Rieka. I had to wonder if it was the whole mouse and snake connotation that was making Jane nervous. While I knew my noodle had a robust appetite because of her body mass and length, despite her short height. She didn’t actually eat other people, as far as I knew.

Taking a breath in to protest, I paused because I couldn’t actually find anything to really protest about. So instead I just let the air out in a long wheeze that made both Shayla and Kassandra giggle at the flapping noise my lips made.

“Fine, as long as you two consented to it. Kass has a bit of a trickster habit…” I said after I finished the long exhale.

“That was just because I was working to get Rieka to relax more,” Kassandra protested again, pouting cutely up at me. “If I hadn’t intervened, it would have taken her months longer to get her to open up and admit she liked you.”

“Kass!” This time it was Rieka who was protesting. Kassandra just giggled while Shayla blinked in confusion. Jane seemed to get the underlying message though, and blushed.

“So you are…” Jane stammered out slowly, with Rieka steadily growing more and more crimson in response to the question.

“He’s with both of us,” chirped Kassandra helpfully, a wicked grin twisting her normally angelic face.

Rieka growled at her friend, and the fierce noise had Kassandra quickly squiggling away, giggling furiously the whole time. Rieka gave chase, her playful growling at her friend rising in volume as the two raced up the road away from us.

“Liam?”

Shayla, who had been walking close on my left-hand side while Kassandra was on my right, tugged on my sleeve gently. I turned to meet her depthless black eyes, the only discernible points in them being the reflected light from the sun overhead.

I cleared my throat and took a moment to organize my thoughts as the large moth-winged woman paced at my side, her head tilting curiously while those fluffy antennae of hers stroked the air only inches from my face.

Deciding that honesty would be best—since I sure as hell wasn’t embarrassed by my relationship with my two lovely ladies—I chose to deliver that honesty as gently as possible.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Kassandra wasn’t just teasing. She and Rieka are both in a relationship with me.” I paused to let her absorb that, and Shayla just blinked a few times, her antennae stilling for a moment before I felt one brush my forehead lightly. Behind me, I heard Jane squeak in surprise. “We haven’t really defined anything yet, but we are together. I’d appreciate it if you two kept that to yourselves though. Rieka has things hard enough with being a princess before we add in the issues of a relationship and the pressures of that.”

“I understand. We won’t spread it around, Liam.” It was Jane who spoke up this time, and I glanced over to find her smiling up at me, the fluffy tip of her tail dancing in the air over her head while her rounded mouse ears twitched. “Right, Shayla?”

“Of course!” Shayla was quick to agree, nodding rapidly enough that her antennae swished through the air.

We lapsed into silence as Rieka finally caught up to Kassandra, who made the mistake of slowing down to look behind her. The two of them tumbled off the road into the soft grass in a giggling and squealing pile.

I glanced over to check on Jane and Shayla, to see how they were taking Rieka’s more relaxed and playful side. Both of them were smiling while watching the two friends wrestle.

Shayla had been slowly drifting closer and closer to me during the walk, occasionally glancing up to see if she was crowding me. I always made sure to meet her shy glances with a smile and she had ended up where she was now, one hand lightly clinging to the back of my left sleeve while she walked nearly on top of me. If I was Kassandra or Jane’s size, it might have felt a bit oppressive to have someone so large looming over me. Since we were roughly the same height, it just felt nice though.

Jane, for her part, drifted over to walk beside me, taking Kassandra’s spot. While we’d traveled, the mouse kin woman had started out slow. Jane, much like Kassandra, was not much of a morning person. But once we’d gotten on the road and been moving for a bit, she’d warmed up and finally woken fully.

Now Jane was asking questions about many things. It had actually been her questions about the conditions of the camp, and what I could do with my earth magic to help set it up, that had spawned Kassandra’s admittance that she had, again, not packed a second tent into their dimensional bag.

Thinking about the dimensional bag reminded me of my own Dimensional Pocket ability. I’d carefully stocked it with valuables and tools in the days leading up to the trip. I had the bag holding my pearls and the gold—since that was far safer than leaving them in my shitty apartment—the bottle that had my other nine pure mana crystals, and my spare hunting knife.

Something I’d wanted to store in it was my dad’s old rifle. But when I tried to insert the rifle, the System alerted that it was too large for the storage space. I still had his old .357 revolver, which I’d cleaned and tucked into the pocket without a problem, along with a box of ammo.

I intended the pistol to be a tool of last resort, as I didn’t want to use it if I didn’t have to. I’d questioned my girls about it in the past, and they had nothing like firearms here. And considering the kind of danger that firearms presented if the unscrupulous got their hands on them, I didn’t want to risk it. Magic and my Shape-Shifting had served me well, but if things went wrong… well, I’d put my trust in Samuel Colt as my father had, and sort things out afterwards.

I’d also made sure to spend a chunk of my remaining SP to slowly boost my stats over the course of a few days.

I’d bonded with Shayla and Jane on Wednesday afternoon, and they’d told me of the plans to head out early Saturday, overnight, and then come back Sunday.

So I’d used Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night to start bringing my physical stats up in stages so that I didn’t overstrain myself like I had before with the mental ones.

The System hadn’t yelled at me, and neither had Cariad, so the slower rate had apparently worked to keep from hurting myself. I still woke up sore and ate far more than I normally did, but the results of the power boosts were obvious beyond my stat sheet, though I did peek at it again and smile.

Name - Liam Cosgrave

Strength - 70

Agility - 67

Fortitude - 72

Willpower - 70

Mental Acuity - 68

Wisdom - 67

I’d boosted all of my physical stats by forty points over the three days, which meant that all of my personal stats were now far and beyond what I had started with so many months ago. When the girls had first summoned me, my strength had been a thirteen, and now it was a seventy. I’d had to resist the urge to crawl under my truck and try to bench press it. I had ripped a quarter in half when I tried, though; snapping it with as much difficulty as if the disc of metal was a cracker.

I would need to buy the Enhance Self (Moderate) ability three more times to max out the boosts it would give to all my stats, but that was only another seven-hundred and fifty points, which I easily had available. I still had a bit over fifteen hundred SP available, and debated buying the Empower Reservoir ability to experiment with recharging the girls’ expended mana coins, but held off for now. I had a mission that would allow me a lot more flexibility without entirely depleting my reserve.

Assist your contracted companions, Kassandra Silverscale, Rieka Coldeye, Shayla Valo, and Jane Carsan, with initial training and introduction to the Ruined Human Research Complex and return them home safely.

Reward - 1200 SP

Kassandra shrieked in surprise and I glanced up to check on them. Rieka was grinning wickedly while tickling the thrashing dwarf lamia, having gotten astride her in a mount position, grass sticking out of her thick blonde braid while Kassandra’s scaled length thrashed in the road as she protested.

This… I thought with a happy sigh as Shayla edged a bit closer to me and I felt her soft chest rub against my arm lightly. This happy moment… this is why I never hesitate to come here. It’s so pure and uplifting to see their joy. And that’s not even including how much I love my girls in general.

<><><>

We made it up to the campsite in good time, around mid-afternoon. Despite the fact that our two newest additions weren’t in the best of traveling condition, they continued on gamely and didn’t complain about the pace we set. Though Shayla slumped into the grass with a tired sigh once we made it to the high meadow that we normally camped in.

Jane was still as lively as ever though, bouncing around the long grass and inspecting everything with an inquisitive air despite the tiredness that took a bit of spring out of her movements. She watched in awe as I once again smoothed the spot where the tent would go with earth magic; the process working much quicker this time because of my higher level of skill with the power. When I opened the fire pit and hardened the earth under it, she asked for a better explanation on how I did so, and I learned that while wind was the primary element that Jane wielded, she also had some small skill with earth magic too.

I took the opportunity to talk Jane through a few ideas that I’d had with earth magic, and she could supply the runes that would work best with what I told her so she could understand it all a bit better while Rieka and Kassandra laid out the round, canvas tent that we used.

All five of us pitched in to get the tent actually up quickly. While she was tired still, the idea of getting to inspect the statue before we bedded down for the night motivated Shayla.

The plan was to check out the spring and the statue tonight and get to bed early. Then in the morning, we would break down camp and head down to look at the entryway for the ruins for Jane. Kassandra also wanted to get the copper map off the wall so we could take that back and start cleaning it up in hopes she could find more locations for us to look into.

So the five of us trooped around the lake, with Kassandra, Rieka, and I glancing up the slope to the higher meadow where the entrance to the ruins lay. I shared a glance with my girls and Rieka gave me a nod and tilted her head in that direction as we came upon the spring.

“Rieka, can you show them where the statue is? I need to take a minute in the woods,” I said to make a quick excuse. My princess nodded with a smile and gestured for me to go ahead. Shayla focused intently on the spring, a sketchbook already in one hand while a stick of charcoal raced over top of it while laying in details of what she was seeing. Jane peered into the water too, her tail flicking curiously.

I jogged quickly into the trees and tuned my senses much higher while I moved. I borrowed the eyes from an eagle to give myself the best vision I could think of, ears from an owl, and then the nose of a hunting hound. It took a long moment to adjust to the sudden rush of information that came as a result, but I could master it after a few seconds. My improved mental scores helped me sort through everything, and what I would have considered to be overwhelming only weeks ago was manageable with a bit of focus.

This whole stat thing is so broken, I love it, I thought while jogging through the trees and up into the meadow. While I moved, I searched my surroundings for any signs of something out of place. I caught the scent of several new animals that had gone through the area, a few deer-type creatures and a pack of large canines within a few days, but their scent had faded. Arriving in the meadow, I quickly cast around with my magic to find the hollow space of the ancient parking area.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I located it and confirmed that the open space remained sealed off. The plug I’d put into place with hardened earth was still there, and it showed no signs that anything had tried to burrow out of it. The shadow creatures that dwelt in the underground tunnel had worried me, but it seemed that they were not trying to burrow out going this direction at least.

I need to ask Kassandra if she found any information on those things, I thought while turning to trot back to the girls while sweeping my senses over the surroundings again. They didn’t feel like that dimensional parasite thing, the one that was from Cariad’s neck of the woods. They just acted like living bits of shadow… which will come in handy if Shayla’s light magic is as effective against it as I expect. Need to have her and Jane show me what they can do before we go down tomorrow, so we can plan.