WIEDERGEBURT Act V: Chapter 4

Seeing Erica so close made me feel nostalgic. This woman had always been one of mine and Kari’s closest friends. The two of us had gone on so many adventures with her, faced life and death with her, and even traveled to another realm with her. It would not be a stretch to say she was like a sister to us.

Of course, the current Erica did not even know me.

“Eryk? What an unusual coincidence. Your name is quite close to mine.” Despite the situation she found herself in, what almost happened to her, Erica proved her mettle by smiling at me. “My name is Erica Kjærlighet. I am a member of the Battling Valkyries.” She paused to eye Siv, then smiled when the girl hid behind me. “Can you introduce me to your young friend?”

“Of course.” I gently coaxed Siv to stand beside me and placed an arm around her waist. Siv seemed overly eager to snuggle as I drew her close. “This is my wife, Siv.”

“Your wife? You two… are married?” Erica asked in shock.

“I know what you are thinking, but Siv is actually older than me,” I said with a frown.

“What? Oh, no. I wasn’t about to harp on you over her age.” Erica waved her hand in front of her face as if warding away the accusation in my tone. “I was merely surprised because she looks like a dragon. I’ve heard some dragons can transform into humans, but I have never heard of a dragon marrying a human.”

“Well, you are close. Siv here is related to dragons. However, she’s a bit… higher in the pecking order than an ordinary dragon. Normal dragons don’t have a human form like she does.” While it was clear from how Erica tilted her head that she was confused, I decided discussing the drakvar was something we should save for another day. “Anyway, my companions are coming. Let’s get your other two members inside so they can rest. We’ll travel with you to Midgard. I have business there anyway.”

Erica pondered my suggestion for a moment before agreeing. It wasn’t long after she agreed that the wagon being pulled along by the Giga Monster came up with Kari at the reins. She had the same reaction to Erica that I did. However, when I informed her of what happened, she quickly helped carry the woman’s two companions into our wagon.

When Erica stepped into the wagon and found the other two beauties inside, she became stunned. Lin was still lounging on the bed like an indolent queen waiting for her manservant to feed her grapes. Her skimpy outfit revealed so much skin it might have been better if she was naked. Fay was sitting on the couch with our son, who stared at this newcomer with curious eyes.

“Mom. Who’s that?” he asked, pointing at Erica.

“That’s a friend of your daddy’s,” Fay answered with a soft smile.

“Daddy’s friend?”

“That’s right.”

Siv took a seat next to Fay and Raul as Kari and I set Janet and Karen on the bed. I was glad we had the foresight to clean our bed sheets. Lin sighed as she scooted over and allowed the two to take her spot. As for Kari and I, we just grabbed some pillows and found a spot on the floor.

Erica did not sit down. She remained standing and eyed the women now surrounding her with an off put expression. I had the sense that she was disappointed or perhaps angry at something.

“This is quite the group of beautiful women you have, Eryk,” she said, frowning at me. “I had not realized you were such an indulgent and lecherous man. To think you would sink your claws into so many women when you already have such a cute wife. I cannot believe I thought so highly of you after you rescued me.”

“Huh?”

I was incredibly confused for a moment—until I realized Erica didn’t know I was married to everyone here. She thought Siv was my only wife and that these women were people I had cheated on her with, or perhaps she assumed I had enslaved them all? I didn’t know what she thought, exactly, but I knew I needed to say something so she wouldn’t misunderstand.

“I believe you have misunderstood our relationship,” Kari said before I could. “Eryk is married to all of us.”

“… What?”

I don’t think I’d ever seen such a blank look on Erica’s face before.

Since Kari was the one who said it, we let her explain how the five of us came to be married. Erica at first listened with only a half-hearted expression. As time wore on, the look on her face became more intense and passionate, until Kari finally finished explaining how our relationship came to be. By that point, she had placed her hands on her cheeks and released a dreamy sigh.

“I understand the situation now. I apologize for jumping to conclusions. It is just that whenever I see a man who seems to be playing with women, I get a little defensive.” I would say she was more than just a “little defensive,” but I knew it was better to keep my mouth shut. “However, now that I am looking at you five, I can tell you all have a deep bond with each other. The fact that you have been together for so long and traveled so far is proof of your strong love for each other.” She gave me a discerning gaze. “And you are quite the lucky man to have so many beautiful and strong women in your life.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” I said as I let my gaze travel to the women around me, first Kari, then Siv and Fay, and finally Lin who had slithered over to lay her head on my lap. I placed a hand on her head and began stroking her hair, which caused Lin to hiss in pleasure and lightly thump her tail against the floor. “I’ve been incredibly blessed to find four amazing women who love me despite my faults. You could say I’m four times luckier than most people in this world.”

Erica seemed to find my response amusing. Well, I was just that judging by the smile on her face.

After the situation settled down, Erica finally felt comfortable enough to sit on some pillows and tell us about what happened. Kari and I were pretty shocked when we heard about how Erica’s squadron leader attempted to kill her. This was not something we knew about from our past life. Granted, neither of us had delved too deeply into Erica’s past, so we did not know whether this had happened before or not, but if it had, then I now had to wonder whether my interference had even been necessary.

It has often been said that human growth is determined by adversity. Those who face and overcome strong obstacles grow stronger, while those who do not never grow. I had just rescued Erica from an obstacle she might have moved past without my aid. Had I inadvertently weakened her? I didn’t know, but the idea scared me.

During her explanation, Karen and Janet woke up, and me and my wives had to re-introduce ourselves. While Janet seemed accepting of my polyamorous relationship, Karen expressed quite a bit of disgust.

“You disgusting lecher,” she accused. “You sit there and claim to be better than those men who tried to take advantage of us, but how are you any different? Look at all the women you’ve enslaved to your whims!”

While I understood there were some people who didn’t accept polyamory, and I would never deign to tell someone how to live their life, hearing someone so openly scorn my relationship and insult both me and my wives pissed me off.

I was just about to lay into this woman, but someone beat me to it.

“How dare you!” Fay hissed as anger surged in her eyes, making them look like a bonfire. “My husband saved your life, offered you safe passage back to Midgard, and this is how you repay him? By accusing him of being a lecherous fiend who enslaved me and the others?! Who do you think you are? You know nothing about the hardships and struggles the five of us have been through and overcome together. Don’t think you can accuse someone like that when you don’t even know the first thing about them!”

“What… but I… that’s…”

Karen stared at Fay in shock, unable to form a proper sentence.

Erica sighed as she placed a hand on Karen’s shoulder. “Please forgive Karen. She means well. It is just that she has seen the darker side of polyamory. I am not at liberty to share what happened to her, but because of what she has experienced in the past, she is leery of people who have entered a relationship like yours.”

While Fay did not look convinced, Raul began crying when he felt the tension in the air, so she had no choice but to settle down. She sat back on the couch and placed Raul on her lap. As she began rocking our son, I continued running a hand through Lin’s hair and sighed.

“Let’s just settle down. In the end, it doesn’t really matter to me whether someone outside of my wives approves or disapproves of us. Instead, would you mind if I ask some questions? We just arrived in the Northern Plains a few days ago and aren’t aware of the current situation here.”

“I do not have a problem with this,” Erica said with a nod. “You did save us from those men. I shudder to think about what would have happened if they had managed to capture us.”

Janet and Karen, who were now sitting behind Erica, both shuddered as if they were imagining what might have befallen them if I hadn’t arrived.

“What is it, exactly, that you would like to know about?” asked Erica.

“We want to know about the situation with the Six Great Sects of Midgard,” Kari said for me.

“Six Great Sects?” Erica smiled as though amused. “I believe you are mistaken about something. There are currently only five Great Sects. They are the Alchemist Association, the Poison Sect, the Paladin Sect, the Healer’s Sect, and the Spiritualism Research Sect. At present, there is one spot open for one of the other sects to become the last of the Six Great Sects and take the remaining seat on the Council of Six. It has caused a lot of upheaval recently.”

This was something Kari and I had never heard about before. I only realized now, at this very moment, that we didn’t know a lot about what happened in the Northern Plains before we arrived. In our previous lives, we had come around a decade later. The situation with the Six Great Sects had already been resolved by then.

Kari and I shared a look. We needed more information.

“How is the last of the Six Great Sects being determined?” I asked.

“It was decided through a majority vote that the Sixth Great Sect would be determined by martial prowess,” Erica explained. “There is a tournament coming up two months from now. Any sect can register up to five people. The sect that emerges from the tournament victorious will be chosen as the last of the Six Great Sects.”

***

It was decided unanimously that we would all travel to Midgard with Erica, Janet, and Karen. There was a lot we wanted to ask our now reacquainted friend as well. Kari and I, especially, wanted to understand what the situation was since we had arrived several years “ahead of schedule” as it were.

Since we couldn’t leave Erica’s carriage on the road, I used some sturdy ropes to tie the harness of the carriage to the end of our wagon. It would be pulled along from behind. I once again had to thank our foresight in choosing a Giga Monster as our beast of burden. Anything weaker would not have been able to pull a several ton wagon and a carriage.

While our wagon was quite large, it was not big enough to let three extra guests sleep inside, and it wasn’t like we had any bedding for them anyway. All we had was the couch and a futon. The girls had also decided they didn’t want the three women now traveling with us to sleep in the same space. I think they had become a little hostile of Karen thanks to her callous remarks.

During the day, Erica, Janet, and Karen would spend time in our wagon. Erica had grown especially close to Kari and Lin. Of course, Kari and Erica had been best friends back in our previous life, and so my wife knew a lot about this woman, her likes, her dislikes, and her slightly strange sexual preferences. I was certain Kari was using what she knew to her advantage.

Janet and Karen seemed to become fond of Fay despite how she rebuked one of them. I think it was because they caught us sparring one day and became enamored with Fay’s martial prowess… well, though I say they caught us like we’d been sparring in secret, the truth is they’d been woken up by the explosions of our early morning spar. Janet, Karen, and Erica had rushed outside in their undergarments, expecting an enemy attack, only to discover the heated spar between me and Fay. I’ll never forget the hearts I’d seen in Janet’s and Karen’s eyes that morning.

At present, however, our group had stopped for the night. We’d driven off the road and found a nice clearing with relatively flat land. The evening sun dipping below the horizon looked like it was reluctant to leave. The sky was painted in multiple hues of color, like a master painted had liberally used large brush strokes across a canvas.

We were making dinner. The scent of grilled food filled the air. While all the meat was made from the same animal (cow), each type was being cooked with a different seasoning based on the taste preferences of my wives. The meat seasoned with cumin powder and garlic powder and the ones seasoned with thyme, sage, and celery were the most numerous. They were for Lin and Siv, our heaviest eaters.

I was fortunately not cooking alone, which would have taken several hours. Fay was standing beside me and helping season and grill the meat. Our hands were covered in meat juice as we rubbed the spices onto each slab before placing the meat on the grills we had set up.

A little ways over, Janet and Karen were watching Fay like a pair of creepy stalkers.

“Ahhhh. I can’t believe we’re going to get to try out big sister’s cooking!”

“Mmm! Mmm! I can’t wait!”

“If only that stupid man wasn’t in the picture, I could have big sister all to myself!”

“I know how you feel! That man should die!”

“You sure are popular,” I muttered with a sigh.

Fay gave me a pained smile. “I really don’t know how that happened.”

“Janet and Karen love strength,” I said, withholding a second sigh as I finished adding mustard to Kari’s serving. “Strong women are people they respect and want to follow. In my previous life, that was Kari and Erica. Hmph. They were very fond of my wife back then, and it looks like they’ve grown fond of my Second Wife in this life as well. I should have realized this would happen.”

“You know them very well,” Fay murmured.

“They were almost always by Erica’s side back then, and we went on a lot of adventures with them.”

I thought back to everything we had experienced alongside those girls. They were present during quite a few of our life and death struggles. I think the only reason they hadn’t traveled to Niðavellir with us was because Erica refused to let them follow her during the reclaiming of Vahn. They hadn’t been strong enough to keep up with us.

At present, Janet was only sixteen years old and Karen was seventeen. They were quite young, but I heard both of them were skilled and ranked highly amongst the Battling Valkyries.

While Karen and Janet were watching their new “big sister” cook, Erica was sitting with Kari and Lin. Siv was in the air with Raul. She held the young boy in her arms and flew through the sky. I could hear his peels of laughter whenever they passed overhead.

Dinner was soon cooked and eaten. Fay and I received many compliments from Erica, Janet, and Karen. I didn’t think our cooking was that great. Even so, we accepted their complements because there was no point in being humble. As the night wore on, those three eventually disappeared into their carriage, and I called for a “family meeting.”

“I’ve been thinking about what we should do ever since learning about the situation here in the Northern Plains,” I began.

The five of us were lounging on the bed. I was sitting with my legs crossed, a pillow on my lap as I played with Siv’s hair. Kari and Lin shared almost half a dozen pillows between them as they leaned against the wall. Lin’s long snake tail curled about as it moved across the bed and extended over the side. Siv was resting her head on my lap as she lay on her side. The sound of her tail thumping against the bed echoed in my ears. On my other side was Fay, who had also crossed her legs.

Raul was asleep in his crib.

“The way I see it,” I continued, “we have two options here.” I held up a finger. “The first is that we can support the Battling Valkyries in the tournament as they climb to the top and take their place as the Sixth Great Sect.” I held up a second finger. “The second is that we create our own sect and take part in the tournament ourselves. There’s not a person alive who can defeat us, so becoming the Sixth Great Sect would be very easy.”

I had been waffling between these two decisions ever since learning about the tournament. In my previous life, the Battling Valkyries had been the Sixth Great Sect, last member for the Council of Six. We had a close relationship with them back then, and so the idea of pitting myself against them caused my conscience to feel guilty. On the other hand, if the Nevarian Braves became the Sixth Great Sect, the benefits we would receive would be astounding. We would also be able to directly influence policies and prepare a stronger defense against the Sekbeists. That sort of influence would be invaluable in the future.

“Hmmm… I’m not sure the second option is viable,” Fay muttered. “Didn’t you say it took several months or even a year for a sect to become established? There’s a lot of red tape involved, right? And with the upcoming tournament only two months away, it might take even longer to properly register our sect.”

“That is true, and I have thought about that,” I admitted with a shrug. On my lap, Siv’s soft breathing as I rubbed her head let me know she’d fallen asleep. She didn’t much care for these issues.

“What do you think, Big Sister?” asked Lin.

“Hmmm…” Kari crossed her arms and adopted an expression of deep thought. “I think… we should help the Battling Valkyries get the position of the Sixth Great Sect.”

“Can you explain your reasons?” I asked.

“There are several reasons.” Stretching her legs out in front of her, Kari proceeded to explain her thoughts. “The first is that we are not an established presence. If we suddenly established our own sect, took part in the tournament, and won, I’m sure many people would get excited over the ‘dark horse’ that suddenly appeared, but it would also cause friction amongst the already established sects who wanted the position of Sixth Great Sect. It could harm our purpose in coming here, which is to establish friendly relations.”

“That is a very good point,” I said. It was also something I hadn’t thought of. While I knew a lot about managing a sect now thanks to the years I’d spent on Brave Vesparia and the Nevarian Braves, I still did not have Kari’s political acumen.

“What are your other points?” asked Fay who, like me, had next to no real interest in politics.

“My second reason for not wanting us to take part in the tournament is because becoming the Sixth Great Sect would greatly hinder our freedom.” Kari cupped her chin. “We’ll be restricted by many layers of bureaucracy if we gain such an exalted position. We wouldn’t be able to move freely. And what we really want to do aside from establish friendly relations is build up the strength of the other sects, so when the Sekbeist come to invade, we will be able to establish a strong defensive line and beat them back. If we become the Sixth Great Sect and attempt to help the other sects grow stronger, it will be seen as undue interference in the affairs of the other sects. It could also make the other sects suspicious of us since we can’t explain the reason we’re helping them without sounding insane.”

Yet another thing I had not thought of. Kari was on a roll now. I could only sigh in admiration as the woman I’d loved in both lives proved her strong political prowess and cunning.

“What is your last reason?” asked Fay.

Kari wore an expression so serious as she looked at us that we could only gulp in anticipation. A trickle of sweat ran down my scalp as her eyes narrowed. I could feel my heart pounding, waiting in anticipation for what she wanted to say.

“If we become the Sixth Great Sect, our workload will increase, and I won’t be able to explore all the ruins I want,” she said.

I was sure all of us would have fallen flat on our faces had we been standing up when Kari made this proclamation.

“That’s not a good reason!” Fay snapped.

“I’m just kidding.”

“You don’t sound like you’re kidding!”

“Actually, my third reason is because I believe Erica deserves to hold a strong position within the Northern Plains.” Shrugging at what she deemed the least important of her three reasons, Kari continued. “Erica might not remember me, but I remember her. She was my dearest friend after we came here. She helped Eryk and I many times, from helping us join our first sect to establishing our own sect. We owe her a lot, so we cannot take this glory from her.”

I could not stop myself from nodding in agreement on this point.

Erica had helped Kari and I so much in our previous life, so the idea of stealing her glory by entering the tournament and becoming the Sixth Great Sect instead of allowing the Battling Valkyries to take their rightful place felt wrong. It was ultimately these feelings that kept me from being able to make a decision.

“In that case, what do you think we should do?” I asked.

Kari grinned. “I think we should help Erica, Janet, and Karen grow stronger. Fay and I will spar with them from this point on until it’s time for the tournament. We should also begin preparing alchemy pills that can increase their physical strength, widen their Spiritual Pathways, and give them a more stable foundation.”

“I guess that means I’ll be making more Three Way Spiritual Widening Pills, Body Forging Pills, and Spiritual Foundation Pills.” I tugged on my long hair. “Well, I have plenty of ingredients, so that won’t be a problem. Should I also make Erica an Elemental Enlightenment Pill? I have the ingredients.”

The Elemental Enlightenment Pill was a high-tier alchemy pill thought to have been lost according to the Northern Plains’ Alchemist Association. Fay had discovered the recipe for this pill in my past life and taught it to me before she died of Spiritual Poisoning.

“Let’s make her as strong as possible with middle-tier pills first,” Fay said. “She will need to have a stronger foundation before we give her a pill like that. If we give her the Elemental Enlightenment Pill before the other pills can truly take effect, it could cause her cultivation to weaken later on. I’m assuming you two want her to reach the Fourth State of Spiritualism?”

“It would certainly help our cause,” Kari said. “She would also feel indebted to us if we helped her reach the peak of cultivation. That would make it a lot easier on us when we need to ask her for a favor. I think she’d be more willing to use her influence to help further our goals.”

There was Kari’s devious side again. It usually only came out when she was planning on seducing Fay and Siv into our bed, but I guess now that our situation was becoming more serious, she was using it for more than just kinky shenanigans.

“I have no problem with this plan,” Fay said.

“This princess will also help you,” Lin added her own two valis.

“In that case, let’s start this plan tomorrow,” I said. “You three will go to Erica, Janet, and Karen with an offer to spar with them in preparation for the tournament. We can use the excuse that you’d like to see how strong people in the Northern Plains are. I’m sure they will be more interested in sparring regularly if you show them your overwhelming power. Meanwhile, I’ll make the alchemy pills we need. We’ll make them as strong as possible before the tournament begins.”

I looked at my wives, who all nodded their heads in agreement—except for Siv, who was still fast asleep. Everyone was in agreement. It looked like we had a new goal set, and all that was left to do was see it through to completion.