Chapter 12: Birth of a Harem Knight! + Down on the Farm

The next morning I woke up with that notification in my face.

Feat Option unlocked: Harem Knight. Would you like to select this feat?

"What the fuck is a Harem Knight?" I mumbled in a whisper only I could hear. I took a deep breath and stretched, accidentally inhaling a chunk of Daisy's silky golden-brown ponytail. "Sounds fucking awesome, though."

As if in response, another notification glowed in front of my eyes.

Harem Knight: 7th Level Feat

Prerequisites: Receive eagerly offered sexual service from five or more women in a single twenty-four hour period after defeating a level-appropriate monster.

Bonuses:

So, the question was: Should I take this feat? Fucking obviously, yes. It synergized beautifully with my cultivation method and made me hotter to pretty much all women. Maybe that’d be a waste back on earth, but here, where the population was predominantly female, and I benefited in a very real way from banging said female population, it was a no-brainer.  Obviously, I needed to let Autumn know eventually, but I decided to keep it to myself for the moment.

I accepted the feat almost instantly, and immediately felt the difference as my muscles bulged, my tummy tightening into an even tighter six-pack. The Elfmaid’s Favor did not have this effect even though it was a +2, which struck me as odd at first, but it was easy to write off. That buff was temporary, the result of a magic blessing. This feat physically seemed to physically alter me on a fundamental level.

I looked around the musky cabin interior, still lying on my back. Embers glowed faintly in the fireplace. Daisy’s head rested atop my chest, and May Belle was using my left shoulder as a pillow. I restrained an adoring chuckle as she snored ever-so-cutely in my ear. Meanwhile, the two elves were both completely naked and wrapped up in each other for additional warmth—apparently they gave up on having an equal share of me as the holstaur girls were still rather possessive... and also known to kick with their hoofs in their sleep.

Autumn, though, was nowhere to be found. Light poured in through the one window we left open, and I pried myself out of the arms of my women to get up and take a leak outside the cabin and see what Autumn was up to, if she was even around. Cats had the tendency to wander, but they always came back, so I didn’t worry overmuch.

To my delight, Autumn was appearing on the horizon just as I finished pissing, escorting a flock of sheep to our fields with the help of Heather, the satyr girl who’d lost her sister not long ago. She looked well enough, but there was still that bit of lingering sadness behind the eyes. That look never really fully went away after you lost someone so precious to you.

“Morning!” I shouted, waving at the two of them, completely forgetting that I was as naked as the day I was born. Autumn giggled upon seeing me, while Heather’s jaw went slack and she clutched her cheeks as she blushed bright red.

“What a wonderful way to start the day,” Autumn shouted across the field.

I sighed, not bothering to cover myself. “My clothes are all messed up anyway. I need some new stuff.”

“I’ll, umm, have mom make something for you,” Heather called back sheepishly.

“Thank you! And sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable. I can go put something on,” I said, gesturing to the inside of the cabin and starting to turn on my heel, but I was cut off.

“No, please!” she shouted with surprising power. “I mean, umm, no that’s fine, no need.”

I laughed at that. I crossed the field to get closer to them, tired of the yelling, letting it all swing freely as I sauntered up to the little satyr girl and Autumn. The whole time their eyes were fixed on either my six pack or my dangling you-know-what. That knowledge made me feel pretty powerful.

“So what’s with the sheep?” I asked, gesturing to the flock that was scattering itself on my land.

“The grass is too tall to plow,” Autumn noted. “After everyone fell asleep last night, I started working on sawing wood and building a plow we could attach to a mule or something, but we need the field taken care of first.”

I beamed at  her, my eyes wide. “Wow,” I said. “You’ve been listening.”

“Of course,” she shot back at me, almost looking offended. “I heard every word of your plan and memorized it to the letter, and now I’m executing it. As your catgirl liaison to the gods—and a woman eagerly awaiting your mark—it’s the least I can do.”

The sheep were efficient. By midday my entire plot was cleared. The tall grasses that littered the field before were now digesting in the bellies of the cute wooly beasts.

“So, you mentioned horses,” I noted later on. By the time of day that this conversation occurred, everyone was doing an assigned task. Daisy and May Belle were fixing up the well, Etherea was shuttling clothing, furniture, tools, and more to our cabin with the help of several other townsfolk, and Ivy was blessing the fields so that they would yield a bountiful harvest.

“Yes, what of them?” Autumn asked. She and I were working on fastening the plow to Blue. He was not in love with the idea, but I hoped it’d be a temporary solution until we had access to some more traditional beasts of burden.

“So, there are normal animals of every kind here? I mean, I see birds all over. And other weird things like faerie dragons and squirrels with horns and bug eyes. I definitely spotted some normal-looking rabbits when we were on our way here, but I don’t understand which animals have monster girl equivalents, and which animals are just animals.”

“Oh, I see,” she grinned. “Yes, there are animals of all types. There are holstaurs, for instance, but there are also normal cows. One is an animal, and one is a monster girl, or more specifically a beast girl.”

“What’s the difference between a monster girl and beast girl?” I asked. The term beast girl came up in my feat text, and I figured it'd be crucial for me to understand the concept.

“Just what it sounds like. A beast girl is a female humanoid version of a normal animal. A monster girl is more related to a monster with magical or mystic origins, such as hydra-girls, rusalkas, and so on. You fought an owlbear. There are owlbear girls, too.”

I nodded. “So why did you call May Belle and Daisy monster girls before? Why do they call themselves that?”

She shrugged. “It’s the more common nomenclature. There really isn’t all that much difference in the end.”

We finished hitching the plow to Blue, and he got to work dragging it along the field. We wanted to start small, so we only really bothered to prepare one acre of land. I smiled with satisfaction as I watched my boy do his work, and after very little time that acre was done.

"What a waste of a dragon," Autumn chuckled. "We really need to get a mule or a horse or something."

But the day passed by quickly. By noon I wasn’t nude anymore, much to the chagrin of my girls, as Etherea had brought me a selection of clothes—used but clean garments once worn by Mercer, the breeder in town. They fit me perfectly, but remembering his current physique I was able to guess confidently why he was willing to give them up. Furthermore, Heather's day-drinking MILF of a mom, Vale, swung by to take my measurements and promised more luxurious outfits in the days to come.

At the moment I was wearing a blue tunic top that cut off a few inches below the elbows, and on my legs I wore a tight pair of brown leather leggings that hugged my groin snugly. My package was prominently displayed, and for about an hour after the twins noticed this detail, they got precious little work done on the well as they basically obsessed over trying to steal looks at it.

“On second thought, this outfit isn’t so bad,” May Belle grinned, practically drooling as she took in the sight of me. “And… did you get, like, way hotter overnight?”

I grinned, knowing full well why they all felt that way today. “You’re just biased because you love me,” I chuckled.

“Gods help me, I do,” she sighed openly, and she pecked me on the cheek and pretended to get back to work.

Even after we finished fixing the plow to Blue, Autumn followed me around, asking me if she could massage my shoulder muscles again and again. She always included that word, “muscles”, in the request each time, emphasizing it. At one point I heard her swear under her breath as she kneaded my back while I was knelt down, pulling rocks out of the field that the plow couldn’t remove on its own.

“Oh, fuck me, he’s so fucking sexy,” she mumbled quietly, and I pretended not to hear it but secretly grinned to myself like a dog with a treat. I was starting to hope they got used to the change sooner rather than later.

By the time the sun had set, we had had a simple field, all weeded, plowed, and ready for planting, but we still didn’t have a watering solution, and I grumbled a bit at that. I let Autumn go too far ahead with the field-work before I had any irrigation handled. A lot of the day’s labors would be undone by the time we came up with a fix for this predicament, I thought.

“Fuck,” I groaned, looking over at Etherea as we all sat in front of a fire pit we’d dug and prepared outside our cabin. “We need to dig ditches to get water out here, and fast.”

She looked at me curiously. “Why, though? You have a wood elf right here.”

I looked over to Ivy, perplexed. “What does that mean? What can a wood elf do?”

Ivy blushed to make eye contact with me like she was talking to her high school crush. “Oh, I think she means because I can make it rain, like this,” she said, and she raised a hand to the sky. The clouds didn’t budge, and the stars were still visible, but droplets of rain started to pour out over the field in front of us.

My mouth hung open, utterly speechless. “You can just make it rain?!” I asked in shock.

“Yes, of course, but only over a small space, and only for maybe an hour a day, but it should be enough to water your crops.”

“That’s amazing,” I gushed at her, my mouth flapping in awe. “Thank you so much. This will work until I take your home back for you. Still, I'll need to figure something—”

She shot me a pathetic look and hastily averted her eyes with an expression of bitter sadness. I cut myself off and gazed around at the others to see if anyone else had registered that I had said something rude or offensive.

“Ivy, did I do anything wrong?” I asked when no one else spoke up.

“No, it’s just, I didn’t realize you were in such a hurry to be rid of me,” she whimpered softly, looking out at the rain that was pouring over my fields.

“Oh, no, not at all! But I thought you wanted to go home, right?” I asked, trying to clear myself, waving my hands furiously to demonstrate my sincerity.

Daisy scoffed at me. “Humph! You don’t know women at all, do you? You’re absolutely hopeless sometimes.”

“Someone spell it out for me like I’m an idiot, please,” I groaned, feeling my cheeks redden and become flustered. I was fucking something up in real-time, and one of my girls looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“Bucky, you still don’t understand, do you?” Autumn asked sweetly, sidling up to me and cupping my face in her hands. “She’ll likely never want to leave you. None of us will.”

“All we want is to be with you,” May Belle said, smiling up at me. “Safe and loved by a worthy hero. Every one of us who’ve known what it feels like to be embraced and cared for by you, we can’t imagine living in a world where you’re just a memory.”

“It’d be like living a day in heaven and then leaving it for hell,” Etherea shuddered. “I’m entirely uninterested in that.”

“You, too?” I gasped in confusion, but it didn’t do to just sit and gawk. I had to take responsibility for them. They looked to me for their happiness now, and it was always going to be that way, apparently. To be clear, I wouldn't have it any other way. “Well, then you’ve put your faith in the right man.”

They perked up, beaming at me in plain adoration, each of their gorgeous eyes fixed on my own.

“I’ve got big plans for this sanctuary,” I said, nodding at Autumn. “This will be our little corner of Lusteria, our slice of heaven. I’m going to purge these lands of monsters and dangers and make it a safe haven for monster girls and elves alike. You’ll never want for anything again when I’m done.”

There was silence, and they all looked at each other, some smiling, others with worried expressions.

Finally, it was Ivy who spoke. “These lands are very dangerous. You will have to work hard to purify them.”

“Not really,” I said, and at least three of them cocked their heads like confused puppies in unison, which made me chuckle. “The way I figure it, it’s a territorial thing. All I have to do is establish myself as the biggest predator in those woods, a hunter-killer, and soon all the other predators and monsters will run off to find safer homes. It’s just simple ecology. Daily monster hunts, once I have a weapon. That should do it.”

Autumn considered it. “It might work, actually,” she conceded, “But only when it comes to beasts and monsters. Demon armies, greenskins, and servants of the Witch Queen won’t be so easily persuaded to pack up their things and go.”

“In fact,” Etherea added, “It’s very possible that you’ll get yourself noticed and draw their offense.”

“Then I’ll be ready,” I said. “I have some tricks up my sleeve I haven’t tried, and lots of skill points to burn. I’ll level up Beast Bond and train some falcons to keep an eye on our lands and report any suspicious movement along the perimeter. If anything approaches us, I’ll go in quiet, take out their leader in the bloodiest way I can think of, and drive the rest of them back.”

“It’s a good plan,” Etheria agreed, “but to be ready for that kind of attack you’d need to level up significantly. Maybe around Level 20 would that be a realistic goal, but you’ve only begun your journey. You can’t be over level 3 or so, correct?”

Daisy and May Belle laughed raucously. “That’s so cute!” Daisy snorted. Their musical chortles enhanced the fireside atmosphere magnificently, and I couldn’t help but be drawn in, laughing myself. “He’s level 9 already,” May Belle cooed proudly. “Did you forget he gets XP through sex?”

Etherea gasped. “I thought that was a joke!”

“As did I,” Ivy confessed. “In that case, why are we not astride his loins right now?”

“Good freakin’ question,” Daisy said, grumbling and tossing me a dirty look.

I held up my palms, trying to calm her down before the whole group turned on me. “Whoa, whoa, I’m always down. And yeah, if we’re diligent enough, Level 20 could be just a few days away.”

“Perhaps,” Autumn said, “But I highly doubt it. XP in Lusteria grants diminishing returns when you overdo the same activity, and XP requirements spike as you level. By the way, you can’t gain levels that are multiples of five until you acquire a feat. Those levels are feat granting levels, so you have to spend a feat point to gain one, unless it's gained through other means.”

“Like marking a holstaur?” I winked at Daisy.

She blushed. "Humph!"

“Precisely. So we need you to unlock a new feat as soon as possible or you won’t be able to reach level ten even if you have enough XP.”

“I’ve already earned and selected a feat,” I said in a low tone, flashing a wicked look back at her.

She melted under my gaze, grinding her knees together excitedly, but still managed to ask me, “How?! What prerequisites did you meet?”

“Well,” I laughed, eyeing the girls amorously, “It would be more fun to recreate the circumstances than to explain them.”

virgilknightley

virgilknightley