WIEDERGEBURT Act VII: Chapter 42

Alen Yeager sat at the healm of his ship—the Northstar Star—and stared into the void of space in the front viewport with his chin resting on his hand. The helmsman steering the ship made a starboard turn, tacking the vessel so the interstellar winds was hitting their port side instead of their starboard side. He ignored the shudder of their vessel and addressed his second-in-command.

“How’s our heading?”

The second-in-command, a woman who’d lost the use of her eyes during a battle some thousand years ago, looked at the navigator. She was a tan woman. Her skin was rich like honey and possessed a golden sheen. A pair of scars ran down her face, marring her otherwise unblemished beauty as they traveled from the top of her head to her cheek.

She wore skintight clothes. The all-black outfit with golden epaulette on either shoulder was the standard outfit for all members of Lord Yama’s interstellar navy, though he would admit they looked particularly stunning on her.

“We are still on course,” she said after a moment, a white bang shifting to hide part of the visor she wore. He didn’t understand the device she wore, but he knew it was because of this device that she could “see” everything happening around her. It had something to do with the Concept of Life—so he assumed.

“Good. Good.” Alen nodded once as he shifted again, setting his left foot down, placing his right on his knee, and adjusting himself so he was once more comfortable. “Estimated time to our destination?”

“It should take about ten more years, sir,” she said.

“Well, that’s not bad, I suppose,” Alen muttered. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes. “And you’re certain the Sekbeist Overlord is there? I’d hate to travel all this way on a wild goose chase, Felicity.”

Felicity merely shrugged. “Lord Brahma said he sensed the Sekbeist Overlord’s unique Spiritual Power on a remote planet on the very edge of our solar system.”

“That’s fine then. Lord Brahma’s senses are the best among all of Lord Yama’s entourage. If he says the Sekbeist Overlord is there, then that’s where he is.” Alen felt like gravity was tugging at his lips as he frowned. “Still, I wonder what the Sahba are thinking in sending us after him. None of you have mastered a single concept, and I’m not strong enough to fight against a man who could give Lord Yama a run for his money.”

Lord Yama was the supreme ruler of this galaxy and considered one of the eight ultimate rulers of the universe. Few dared to contend with him, and even those considered his equal would not fight him in open confrontation. That the Sekbeist Overlord did so and held his own for a time just proved how formidable this lowly pirate was.

“You’re Lord Yama’s granddaughter. What do you think his intentions are?” he asked suddenly.

“I don’t believe they intend for us to fight him,” she assured him. “I believe he just wants us to confirm that he’s there. I’m certain one of the Sahba will take care of him.”

“That’s reassuring to hear, coming from you,” Alen said.

***

Waking up to someone sucking my dick was always a pleasant experience. I groaned as my eyes snapped open, my entire body coursing with electricity and fire as ropey spurts of sperm shot into the mouth of whoever was giving me head. It wasn’t Lin. I’d recognize her tongue anywhere, but my brain was so foggy that I couldn’t immediately figure out who it was.

The covers were already pulled back, and a pair of dragon wings were the first thing I saw when I came to. I followed the contour of those wings until my vision inevitably settled on a beautiful woman with silvery green hair, a petite body, and emerald eyes. Said woman’s cheeks were currently bulging as she drank my seed.

The sight was enough to make me hard again.

“Siv,” I groaned as Siv removed my dick from her mouth with a pop. “Good morning.”

“It’s afternoon,” Siv corrected. She sat up, shifted forward until my cock was resting between her pussy lips, and began rubbing herself against me. I groaned at the sensation. “But good afternoon, Eryk.”

“Mmm… where are the others?” I asked as I placed my hands on her hips.

“Already working. We decided to give you a break.”

“I appreciate that.”

We’d been working hard for the last eleven years to restore our world to what it was before the Sekbeist arrived. Our first step was tearing down the barrier that kept all nine realms isolated from each other, which we did with Hriemdar’s help. The Dweorg was very fortunate. Fray’s Valkyries had rescued him in the nick of time. It was suspected by Kari that his mind would have snapped if he’d been enslaved by the Sekbeist any longer.

With the nine realms once more free to travel wherever they wished at will, members of the God Race had come to Miðgarðr and began helping with the restoration. They used the concepts of life and time to restore much of the world to what it had been. Sadly, nothing could restore the lives that had been lost.

It was estimated that 20.5 billion people had been sacrificed by the Sekbeist to increase their numbers. Thanks to my mastery over the Concept of Life, I knew there were currently 12.2 billion people living on Miðgarðr, which meant somewhere around a third of our population had been decimated in the war.

That was a lot.

The Sekbeist were still around. The army that tried to destroy Vahn when my wives and I emerged from our closed-door training was not their entire force, but they were small in number and we had millions of Spiritualists searching for them. Tor was in charge of wiping them out. He was very upset that we “had all the fun” without him, and so we’d given him this task to keep him occupied.

The man might be loved by his people, but he was very simple.

I suspected his wife did most of the work managing the realm.

A groan escaped my lips as Siv leaned down and licked my nipple. She lathered it in saliva with her tongue, then lightly bit it.

“You’re thinking about something other than me right now. You should be… only… thinking about… mmm… about me,” she said, panting and moaning once I’d come back.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t be thinking about anything but you right now.” I sat up, placed one hand behind my back for support, the other on the small of Siv’s back, and leaned down to kiss you. “It’s unthinkable for me to have any thoughts other than how my cute wife is riding my cock. Let me fix that.”

“T-that’s better.” Siv’s breathing hitched as I began kissing her back. “K-keep—mmm—keep doing that.”

My wife’s pussy wrapped around my cock like a velvet vice, both unbearably tight and incredibly wet. Her insides were already warm. I suspected she was masturbating while she sucked me off.

“Haaa… haaa… Eryk… am I… the cutest? I’m the cutest… of your wives… right?”

“You are. There’s no one cuter than you.”

“Good. Tell me… I’m cute… right now. Tell me… aahn… mmm… how cute I am.”

“You’re incredibly cute. There’s not a person alive who is cuter than you.”

“Mmmm! Ahhn! Ah!”

Siv threw her head back and moaned as I thrust my hips upward to meet her downward motion. A loud slapping sound echoed around us, though it was drowned out by my wife’s screams. I leaned down again and began licking the sweat off her neck, collar bone, and small chest. Her small nipples were puffy. I took one into my mouth and swirled my tongue around it.

“Mmm! My nipples! So good! Eryk!”

Siv wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me close. Then her legs wound around my waist, hooked at the heel, and tightened. She was close. So close. The sensation of her pussy tightening around me let me know that I just needed to give her one more push.

“Oh! Eryk! I love you! I love you! I love yooouuuu!!”

I grunted as her orgasm forced me to cum as well. I was fairly certain I shot my load directly into her womb. Would she get pregnant? I wondered about that. Siv was a Drakvarian, which meant she would only give birth once she hit a fertile period… and we didn’t know when that would be. It didn’t really matter to us anyway. I think I had plenty of kids already.

Once she and I finished cumming, we took a very quick shower and got dressed. Siv looked gorgeous in her backless white dress. The way the fabric clung to her skin was enchanting. I spent a moment just watching as the dress swished around her delicate calves as she walked across the carpeted floor.

I entered the dining room and sat down at a large table that could sit over thirty people. It was normally full, but Siv and I were the only ones present right now, which made the table seem empty.

The door leading into the kitchen opened before a cart appeared, pushed by a beautiful blonde woman with an enchanting smile. She was dressed in the black and white uniform of a maid. I’d once asked her if she could change her outfit to something less subservient, but she’d given me this look like I had said something stupid.

I never asked her about it again.

“Good afternoon, Master.”

“Good afternoon, Chloe. What’s for break… uh, lunch?”

Chloe smiled at my slip, stopped pushing the cart, and removed a plate from the top. “Today’s lunch is a simple open sandwich with a matpakke spread, ham, and cheese. I also have some tea with some tea leaves I’ve been cultivating.”

I loved how she mentioned being the one who cultivated the tea leaves. Ever since I offhandedly said that I really loved Valence’s tea, Chloe had made it her personal mission to create a better tea than him. It was honestly a little funny, especially during family dinners. Seeing the normally polite Chloe glare at Valence was something else.

Chloe set the food and teacup in front of them, then turned my head and gave me a kiss on the lips before she pushed the cart back into the kitchen.

“Are you not going to have anything, Siv?” I asked as I picked up the sandwich.

“I already ate,” Siv said, licking her lips.

I sighed at the suggestive action, but I didn’t say anything. Everyone except Tora had a very high libido, and I was honestly glad for that because I got horny very frequently, though I was certain part of that was just because all my wives were gorgeous. Any man who claimed to be straight would not be able to hold themselves back when faced with so many beautiful women.

Siv and I made small talk as I ate.

“I’ll be helping Kari today,” Siv said.

“She’s still trying to figure out how the ship works?” I asked.

“Yes. Kari believes she has a basic understanding of how it, um, propels itself through space… but she still can’t figure out how to make it work. The last time I was there, she had taken apart a good deal of the inside.”

“So she gutted the whole thing. I hope she knows how to put it all back together.”

Breakfast ended and Siv left via a window. We always left them open so she could just fly through them. In the meantime, I traveled up to the top floor, walked across the hallway, and entered my office.

The office was large enough to host meetings if need be, though I mostly used it to file papers and reports. Lin was currently sitting behind my desk and reading over various reports. She would sign off on something after reading, then place the parchment into the “done” stack. Sitting on the floor beside her was a little girl with tan skin, golden eyes, and a two meter long snake tail.

“Daddy! Look mom! Daddy’s up!”

Lin looked up from her work to smile at her daughter. “Yes, this princess can see that. Good of you to wake, Darling. This princess hopes you slept well.”

“I did,” I said as my little girl slithered over to me. I scooped the child into my arms, and she wrapped her tail around my waist as we nuzzled noses. “And how is my little Isis this afternoon.”

“We are good,” Isis said between giggles. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I basked in the coolness of her presence.

After everything settled down, Lin had come to me and demanded we have a child. I couldn’t say no. Nor did I want to. We traveled to the Endless Desert and asked Queen Medusa to help us have a child, and then we had sex for an entire month after inducing Lin’s fertility and making her go into mating season. Isis had been born two years later. Lamia children took longer to birth.

Lamia women were also much harder to deal with while they were pregnant.

I was honestly glad my wives were also there to help me deal with the very wild moodswings my petulant princess went through during that trying time.

“What do we have today?” I asked after wandering behind the desk.

Despite no longer holding onto her, Isis remained glued to me like a little limpet. Her tail coiled around my chest as she rested her chin on my head. With my hands now free, I was able to place them on Lin’s shoulder and give her a slow massage. She stopped working, leaned back, and the dull thump-thump of her tail striking the floor echoed throughout the room.

“Mmm. We don’t have much work right now,” Lin confessed. “There was a small dispute trading dispute between Midgard and the Endless Desert that this princess dealt with, and she had to write up an after action report for our people.”

“So you’re saying that we are basically free today?”

“That’s right.”

“Hmmm. Then why don’t we go see Fay and the others.”

“This princess would not mind going over to see how their work is coming along.”

“We would like to play with Raul and Kayli,” Isis added.

“Guess that settles it,” I said.

Since Lin was done and it didn’t look like there was anything that needed my attention, we informed Chloe about where we were going and soon left.

Nevaria had been turned into a smoking crater before the war against the Sekbeist. The Sekbeist Overlord, possessing the body of the Great Overlord of the Seventh Realm, destroyed the city. It had since been rebuilt and expanded. The current city was shaped like an oval and was close to two hundred square kilometers long. Lin and I had even done some rearranging of the terrain, pushing back the surrounding Demon Beast Mountain Range to make room for a bigger and better Nevaria.

I walked through the city with my wife and daughter. We were greeted by a lot of people on the way, from the fishmonger hawking his fresh fish and the jewelry stall vendor to random people we passed on the street.

“Good afernoon, Master Eryk and Lady Lin. Of course, good morning to you too, Isis.”

“You’re looking good this afternoon, Lord Eryk!”

“Out for a stroll with one of your wives, Lord Eryk?”

“Have a great day, Lady Lin!”

I had grown used to being greeted by just about everyone we ran into, so I waved back, smiled, and tried to hurry along. Scents from hundreds of different stalls mixed in with the perfume from people we passed. When we finally reached the Alchemist Association, my nose was itchy from all the smells.

The Alchemist Association had become a single entity under the ownership of Feinrea Kuunis, who took control after the war ended. Catherine had disappeared sometime after Midgard was destroyed and no one knew what happened. Many considered her dead. Feinrea had brought the scattered alchemists together with the help of her husband and was now its head.

Being one of the most prominent sects in Miðgarðr, the Alchemist Association’s main office was built to match its stature, a large complex with a massive building in the very center, surrounded by a white wall covered in runes that kept prying eyes from seeing inside. Most of the structures featured a dome-like roof like something from the Endless Desert.

Up the steps we went, traveling into the main courtyard, where hundreds of men and women dressed in alchemist robes walked. Quite a few people stopped to bow when they saw us. We traveled around the main building, passing through several alchemy gardens filled with numerous colorful plants, and eventually reached a single building. It looked like a small version of the main office. The dome-shaped roof had a single chimney with white smoke pouring out.

Standing before the door were two people; one was a woman with a dark tan and the other was an albino.

“I’m telling you, this is all your fault!”

“You are obviously the one to blame for this.”

“How am I the one to blame?!”

“If you hadn’t knocked into me, I would not have gotten those ingredients all over Kayli’s dress.”

“You shouldn’t have been so close to me! And you were the one who bumped into me!”

“Lilac. Sana. What’s going on?” I asked as Lin and I walked up to them.

Lilac and Sana froze at my froze, then slowly turned their heads at the same time, the blood rapidly draining from their faces.

“Oh… Lord Eryk… er… there’s nothing going on here. Nothing at all. Ah ha! Ah ha ha ha ha!” Lilac threw her head back and laughed. Her eyes darted all over the place, looking at anything but me.

“She realizes that her actions merely confirm her guilt, right?” Lin asked Sana.

Sana just sighed. “She is aware. You have my apologies. I was gathering some ingredients for Mistress Fay when this klutz bumped into me—”

“Who are you calling a klutz?!”

“—and unfortunately all the ingredients spilled on Kayli and her dress. The ingredient I was carrying is a type of sludge from Gudeverdenen that stains clothes. Mistress Fay is currently trying to remove the stains while Raul consoles your distraught daughter,” Sana finished explaining the situation without missing a beat.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Lilac mumbled.

“Was too.”

“Was not!”

“I understand the situation now,” I said, looking at Isis. “You want to play with Kayli, right Isis?”

“Yeah! We love our big sister!” Isis cheered.

That was all I needed to brush past Sana and Lilac as they once more picked up arguing like a pair of children. I really wondered how my son dealt with those two when they got like this.

We opened the door and heard the sniffles before we smelled the scent of chemicals in the air. Fay was sitting in a chair and scrubbing a light blue sundress with some kind of chemical mixture. Meanwhile, Raul was sitting with his legs crossed, rocking a pouting and sniffling Kayli on his lap.

“I want Mommy,” she said.

“Mommy will be here in a few hours,” Raul assured her. “Please be patient.”

“I don’t want to wait a few hours. I want Mommy now.”

“How about Daddy?” I asked as Isis slithered down my leg and onto the ground.

“DADDY!”

Kayli shot out of Raul’s lap and rushed over to me, the simple white skirt she wore flapping around her legs. I leaned down as the girl slammed into me like a lightning bolt and lifted her into a hug.

Kayli was a six year old girl, making her one year older than Isis. Kari had decided it was about time she got pregnant one day, so she turned off her anti-pregnancy technique, took some fertility pill that Fay concocted, and waited for me to seduce her into bed. She got pregnant the very next day. On that note, when Lin and I returned from the Endless Desert and learned that it took a month of straight sex to get Lin pregnant, she decided we had done it all wrong and seduced me into bed.

We didn’t leave that bed for an entire week.

I think the only reason Kari stopped was because my other wives complained about the smell.

“Daddy, what are you doing here?” asked Kayli. “Don’t you have work?”

“I have no work today, and Isis said she wanted to play with you,” I said.

I set the girl back down, and she finally turned to see Isis. The way her eyes lit up like monster core lamps when she saw her younger sister made me reflexively smile. I wasn’t sure if it was because of Lin and Kari’s relationship, their relatively close age, or something else entirely, but they both got along very well.

“Isis! You wanna play?”

“We do.”

“What should we play?”

“Um. We think we should play tag. Raul is obviously going to be it.”

My daughters turned simultaneously to look at Raul, who looked like a normal human staring into the mug of a dragon. He glanced at me as if asking for help, but I shrugged and smiled at him, which made my son sigh in defeat before a weary smile crossed his face.

“So I’m it, huh? All right then. Guess that means I should count and give you both some time to run, but let’s take this game outside, okay?”

“Kay!”

Isis and Kayli grabbed each of Raul’s hands, and my son let himself be dragged outside. I could have sworn I heard Sana and Lilac still arguing before the door closed again.

“Sounds like you’ve had your hands full,” Lin said into the silence.

“It’s always a task looking after Lilac and Sana,” Fay admitted. “Even Raul doesn’t quite have a handle on them.”

“They sound difficult to deal with, but I think you do a good job,” I said as I walked over to Fay, leaned down, and kissed her cheek.

Fay placed the blue sundress on the currently empty alchemy table, turned to us, and smiled. “So, no work today?”

“Not today,” I said.

“The best thing about being the boss is that all we can delegate all the small tasks to others,” Lin added. “This princess has our team handling most of the day to day affairs, so we only need to deal with the big issues.” She paused and stared at the dress. “By the way, why didn’t you just reverse time to before the dress got stained? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“It would, but I don’t want to use concepts over something so simple.” Fay shrugged. “I think it’s important to make Kayli understand that using concepts like time and space is not something that should be done lightly, especially after the last incident. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you about what happened.”

Fay gave me a look, and I quickly looked away.

“You don’t need to remind me. I know letting Kayli do whatever she wants is not a good idea now.”

“Just how you thought letting her reverse time on an entire building was okay is beyond me. You even praised her for it.”

“I-I was just really proud that my daughter could do something so incredibly when she’s only six ears old.”

“It is because she’s six years old that you need to take a firmer hand when guiding her.”

“Ugh… I know you’re right.”

My shoulders slumped just a little as Fay berated me for not being a stern enough parent, and I knew she was correct. I doted on Kayli and Isis too much. Part of it was because they were my precious daughters, but I think it was also because of how much of Raul’s life I missed. Eight whole years. Those were years I would never be able to get back unless I wanted to redo everything over again—and I didn’t.

Fay’s eyes softened. “I know why you’re so doting on them, but please remember what you told me all those years ago when you scolded Raul. You don’t want your children to become brats when they grow up, do you?”

“I don’t, and I promise I’ll be sterner when they do something wrong,” I said.

Fay nodded. “Good.”

At that moment, the entire building was rocked when something exploded. Fay, Lin, and I rushed out of the building to find smoke rising in the distance, followed by innocent squeals of laughter. It didn’t take a genius to know who those squeals belonged to.

I looked at Fay.

Fay looked back.

“Now is your chance to be a good father,” Fay said with a vibrant smile.

***

Alen stared at the planet in his viewport. It was vibrant, a combination of green, blue, and orange. There were many planets with the same composition. However, as he stared at it, information appeared on his screen, and the planet split into nine separate layers.

“It looks like this planet is divided into nine realms,” Felicity said. “Each realm is about two times larger than the previous realm. I’m also sensing a lot of incredibly strong Spiritual Signatures down there.”

“You have much better senses than I do. How many and how strong?” asked Alen.

“Most of them have reached the Tribulation level, though several thousand have also reached the Venerable Sovereign and Profound Saint level.” Felicity took a deep breath. “Seven of them have even reached the level of True Monarch.”

Alen’s mouth went dry.

While cultivation went by many different names depending the galaxy, quadrant, solar system, and even planet, the titles were something that had been recognized as the galactic standard. Lord Yama and the Council of Nine Buddhas had created this as a means of making cultivation easier. The beginner stage of the first stage was called Mortal Soul, while the final stage was called True Monarch.

Lord Yama was, supposedly, the only True Monarch in the entire galaxy.

“So… there are seven True Monarchs down there?” Alen tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. “And… one of them is the Sekbeist Overlord?”

When the Sekbeist Overlord attacked Lord Yama, he had only been at the Profound Saint level, and that was only due to his complete mastery of the Concept of Negation. Could he have been training these last five thousand years so he could confront Lord Yama again?

“… No.” Felicity denied with a shake of her head. “It appears the Sekbeist Overlord is not on that planet anymore.”

“What?” Alen gawked. “Then why is that planet still here? Shouldn’t it be a rotting sphere by now?”

The Sekbeist Overlord was a planet devourer. He and his hordes would conquer planets, drain them of their resources, and leave them as empty husks. Alen had been following the Sekbeist Overlord’s trail for over a thousand freaking years now, and every time they came across a planet that monster had been to, it was nothing but a corpse planet.

“I do not know what to tell you.” Felicity shrugged. “He is not there anymore. However, I have defected a signal from the Flying Nimbus. It is still on that planet.”

“This is so weird,” Alen muttered as he considered their options, but there was really only one thing they could do. “Let’s set down close to the Flying Nimbus. That said, let’s try to avoid any cities. It looks like these people have not come up with a method of interstellar travel yet. We don’t want to frighten them.”

“Yes, sir.”

***

Shortly after scolding Kayli and Isis for destroying an entire garden—and making them replant some of the plants—our group traveled to the ship, where we met with Kari and Siv. My First Wife had been covered from head to toe in oil when she emerged from some kind of shaft. She’d been smiling ear to ear as she greeted us, however.

The vessel that the Sekbeist arrived to our planet on was a lot bigger than I expected. Most of it had been buried under the ground—about two-thirds of it, in fact. From bow to stern the entire vessel was close to two kilometers in length. There were hundreds of rooms inside, which we had thoroughly explored. About the only rooms we could figure out were the universal rooms like the kitchen, baths, bedrooms, and so on. There were many other rooms that none of us could understand.

“I think I’m close to figuring out how it all works,” Kari said. “There’s a powerful core in the center of the ship that generates all the power. It’s not like a monster core. I think it might have been made from alchemy, but we haven’t been able to confirm that. Anyway, the core is connected to every section of the ship and controls everything from the lights to its method of propulsion. Speaking of, its propulsion comes from a device in the back and bottom of the ship. It relies on anti-gravity to hover in the air and creates and incredible force to generate thrust.”

“You haven’t turned it on, have you?” I asked.

“Just once, but I didn’t try to fly it. I just wanted to make sure I could turn it on,” Kari assured me.

Fay shook her head at Kari’s excited ramblings and looked almost exasperated. She was probably thinking about how Kari’s daughter was like a mirror image of her mother. They were very similar in some ways. Both were adventurous and loved trying new things. The difference was that my wife was all for letting Kayli do whatever she wanted, possibly because she had grown up trapped inside a cage.

“You’re fucking insane, you know that?” Tora said.

“I prefer to call myself a genius,” Kari admitted.

“What the fuck ever—ouch!”

“Don’t swear in front of this princess’ kids,” Lin snapped.

Tora grumbled but shut her mouth.

“Ooooh! Aunty Tora got scolded!”

Our mother scolded Aunty Tora.”

Tora glared at the kids sitting on my shoulder, but there was no heat to her look, and she eventually slumped her shoulders. The woman might not admit it, but she was soft on them. I personally thought she might want her own soon. There were times during dinner when I saw her looking at my daughters with this contemplative expression, though she also blushed and stuttered like a virgin when I brought up the idea of kids.

I normally brought the idea up after we had sex.

We arrived home to find Chloe waiting for us, hands clasped in front of her like usual. However, it was the fact that she was standing outside the front door that really got my attention.

“Welcome home, everyone.”

“Thank you. Is something wrong?” I asked.

Chloe considered her answer as she opened the door and let us inside. I set down Kayli and Isis, removed my shoes, and placed them on a rack by the door. Kayli copied me as the other woman also removed their shoes. The only ones who couldn’t were Lin and Isis.

“I wouldn’t say something is wrong,” Chloe began, gesturing for us to follow her. “We have received some… interesting visitors. They would like to speak with you.”

“Interesting visitors, huh? What makes them so interesting?” I asked.

“I do not believe they are from our world.”

Chloe’s words made all of us pause. The first to recover was Kari, who rushed over to the woman with an excited gleam in her eyes.

“You mean we have people from another planet visiting us? What are they like? Do they look funny? Are they covered in slime, or do they have tentacles for limbs?”

“They looked like normal people,” Chloe assured Kari, who merely slumped and looked disappointed.

Chloe led us all to the office Lin and I used when working. A pair of people stood from the couch as we entered. One of them was a woman with white hair and a visor covering her eyes. She was only at the Fourth State of Spiritualism, so I dismissed her and looked at the man.

Plain was probably how I would describe him. He had brown hair, brown eyes, and a solid build. His outfit was a black one-piece suit with gold epelauttes on the shoulders, and it looked like a uniform. There were sects that occasionally had uniforms like this, though most of the sects I knew prefered armor over simple suits. The woman by his side wore a skintight version of the same suit.

The man and woman both froze the moment we walked in. I could feel the way their heartbeats accelerated as they stared at us, though I will admit it was hard to tell if the woman was staring at us or not.

“Hello,” I greeted the frozen pair. “My name is Eryk Veiger. These are my wives. That’s Kari, Lin, Fay, Siv, Chloe, Tora, and these are my daughters, Isis and Kayli.”

My daughters were being very polite and not saying anything as I introduced them, but I knew they would be asking this man thousands of questions before the night was done. Even I wanted to know more about these people. Though it was Kari who’d be keeping them up for the rest of the night with questions.

“We are, um… no. I mean, I am Alen Yaeger, and this is my second-in-command, Felicity Yanluo,” the man called Alen said.

“A pleasure to meet you both. My wife Chloe said you wished to speak with me?”

“That is, um, correct.” A cold sweat had broken out on the man’s skin. His assistant seemed frozen. “We, uh, we came here because Lord Yama, um, that is the lord of our galaxy, sensed the presence of the Sekbeist Overlord from this planet, so, er, we came to investigate.”

“Oh.” I blinked as I walked over and sat down on one of the couches. Kari immediately took my left, Fay my right, while Chloe, Tora, Lin, and Siv stood behind me. “I am not sure why you are after the Sekbeist Overlord, but you can stop searching now. We killed him eleven years ago.”

“What?”

I wasn’t sure if the man’s eyes were bulging because of the news I so bluntly delivered, or if maybe it was because he didn’t know which of my wives to look at, but it was amusing either way.

“We killed him. He’s dead. Has been for eleven years,” I repeated.

“S-so I see. Yes, that makes sense. You are a True Monarch, so if anyone can kill him, it would be you.”

I didn’t know what a True Monarch was and didn’t particularly care. There were other, more important matters that we needed to deal with right now.

“Was there anything else you needed from us? Or are you just here to ask about the Sekbeist Overlord?” I asked.

“Um, no. There was one other matter.” Alen took a deep breath. “You see, the Sekbeist Overlord fought and lost against Lord Yama during an attack on the planet Nirvana. When it became clear that he would lose, the Sekbeist Overlord stole one of our vessels and fled. The vessel is called the Flying Nimbus. It was supposed to go to fleet commander Son Goku. We were hoping to, um, get it back… if you don’t mind.”

I leaned back as Kari placed a hand on my leg and squeezed it, letting me know without words that she would like to talk. I gestured for her to feel free. With a bright gleam in her eyes, my first wife turned toward the two, who suddenly looked like they were staring into the sharp fanged maw of an apex predator.

“We don’t have a problem giving you the vessel, your Flying Nimbus, back to you. However, you must understand that thanks to the carelessness of your lord, our planet has suffered terribly. Approximately twenty billion people were annihilated in the war against the Sekbeist. That is why, in exchange for returning the Flying Nimbus to you, I hope you don’t mind if we ask for something in return.”

While Felicity looked like she wanted to say something and was struggling to keep a lid on it, Alen closed his eyes and wore a defeated expression. It was clear that he knew how powerful we were. I didn’t know what size his crew was, but I didn’t think it would be large enough to contend with my wives and I.

“What is it that you want in exchange for the Flying Nimbus?” asked Alen.

“I want you to give us another ship and teach me how to pilot it,” was Kari’s immediate answer.

Called it.

***

Because Alen did not have the authority to give us a ship, and there were apparently laws about giving away ships to planets that were not part of the Brahman Alliance, he said he would need to speak to some Lord Brahma about this request. It would apparently take him several days to get an answer, so we would be stuck waiting until then.

He had then tried to escape to his ship, which was still in orbit, but Kari trapped him before they could leave with an offer of dinner. The poor man was so polite that he couldn’t refuse. During dinner, he was subjected to all kinds of questions about the galaxy, other planets, the infrastructure and governing body of the Brahman Alliance, and everything else Kari could think of. He was so tired by the end of dinner that he didn’t even argue when Chloe offered him and Felicity a room.

A cool breeze buffeted my hair as I sat on a balcony with Kari, sharing in a steaming cup of tea courtesy Chloe, who stood behind us with her hands clasped. The rest of my wives were sleeping on the large bed.

“I never expected we would run into people from another planet so soon,” Kari said with a bright smile. “This is quite the windfall.”

“Are you thinking of exploring the galaxy now?” I asked.

“Why not?” Kari shrugged, took a sip of tea, then set the cup back down. “We’ve defeated the Sekbeist Overlord and brought peace to our planet. Do we really need to do anything else? Lady Fray and Lord Tor can govern the planet, and they have competent people like Mother, Medusa, and Schnee to help. This world doesn’t need us.”

“You do bring up a good point,” I admitted.

I wouldn’t lie and say the idea of traveling the galaxy didn’t have appeal. While the last eleven years of peace had been great, I would admit that eleven years of peace was also terribly boring. The idea of going somewhere no one on this planet had ever been before appealed to me.

“I suppose we can put this to a vote tomorrow,” I said at last. “I’m sure Lady Fray and Mother will be upset if we leave, but it’s not like they can stop us.”

“Exactly. And besides, we can return whenever we want. They’ll still be around, I’m sure,” Kari exclaimed.

“Right.” With a chuckle, I grabbed the teacup and, aware of the smiling Chloe behind us, raised it toward Kari. “To a new adventure?”

“To a new adventure.”

With a beaming smile of her own, Kari clinked her teacup against mine.