Polka Temple, part of the Kingdom’s Church.
Despite its modest size, it boasts a tradition spanning over a century and serves as a vital institution, handling most of the wisdom and entertainment for this small town.
Usually, when people hear this description, they’d retort, “Isn’t Polka’s entertainment just booze and hot springs?” But it’s only the old uncles who get that excited about drinking. While the springs have integrated into daily life for the common folk, they’re far from being the primary form of amusement. Sure, there are some eccentric people who claim that if you can bathe in a spring, life is at its peak, but generally speaking, a bath’s role is to soothe tired bodies and wash away dirt—a truth unchanged even by Polka’s sacred springs, which are said to possess special spiritual efficacy. To call this the ultimate form of entertainment would be like saying “sleep is the highest form of amusement”—a rather bleak prospect if you think about it logically.
But that’s not the point.
Hosting Polka’s various festivals, and constantly conveying music, song, dance, or folklore accumulated throughout the nation to the townspeople—these are the roles of the church temple.
In the big cities, temples were already beginning to be perceived as “facilities for weddings and funerals,” but in this rustic era and rustic town, a temple was precisely something “fun.”
However.
“…………”
Laurier, an Elf from the Gold Clan who had recently taken up a temporary position as a teacher at this very temple, was perplexed.
Her assigned duty was to teach arithmetic to the children. She often found herself scratching her head over how little effort they put into studying seriously, but perhaps due to the camaraderie her short stature fostered, or maybe thanks to the effects of her “whip”—a concept seemingly unimaginable to others—the kids retained what she taught them well, earning praise from the priests and parents.
But lately, non-children had started mixing into her classroom.
It wouldn’t be unusual for an adult to observe their own child’s class; in fact, quite a few parents dropped by for ten minutes or so on their way through work. It was even welcomed by teachers when the children straightened up and behaved properly out of fear of getting scolded or a desire for praise from these observing parents.
It wasn’t that. The reason was that Azel and Rizer, the cat-like sister pair, were inexplicably sitting in the front row during class.
“……Hey, you two.”
“?”
“Meow?”
“Why are you here? I thought you had a job at Schneider’s Inn?”
“Onii-chan said it’ll be okay since he helps out most of the time~”
“No~”
“……Umm. This is really hard to say, but honestly, you’re kind of in the way.”
“Aaah~”
“It’s fine~! Laurie’s stories are fun~”
“I’m not even trying to tell funny stories……this is a lesson for kids, and it means nothing to you guys.”
“?”
“It’s just all stuff you don’t know~”
Azel and Rizer, their flashy tabby-patterned hair swaying in unison, looked on with puzzled expressions.
Hearing this, the children behind them erupted into a commotion.
“No way~”
“Are cat-beasts really pretty dumb?”
“Don’t call us stupid! Nobody else teaches us stuff like this!”
“And if you don’t know it, you can still survive hunting in a desert colony!”
“Aww, that’s cool~. I should move to the desert~”
“You can’t even hunt properly.”
“Shut up. If these dumb cats can do it, I can too.”
“In my colony, we hunt inside labyrinths, though~”
“If you get careless, you sometimes die~. We’re fighting monsters, after all.”
“…………”
Facing Maple’s sisters, who so casually lectured them on the realities of desert life, the boy who had made that cheeky remark turned pale.
When it came to monsters in this area, we were talking about mad wolves. Wolves with bodies like horses occasionally broke into town, as had happened several times before; for those who knew that terror, such carelessness was madness.
“Okay, okay. That’s enough. You’re allowed to listen, but sit further back. The kids’ heads are shorter than yours.”
“Meow.”
“Meow.”
The cat sisters moved to a new seat, looking slightly displeased.
“Hey, hey. By the way, is it true that every single one of you cat-beastfolk gets subjected to some nasty stuff by that perverted Andy?”
Having relocated to a nearby seat, the boy who had gone pale just moments ago quickly recovered, whispering a lewd question to the cat sisters.
“Not everyone, though~”
“Barbara hasn’t had any~”
”…What about the rest of them?”
“Hmm, I don’t know?”
“We’ve done it, though.”
“There! You two, no weird talk during class!”
”…Hey, if he’s already banged Andy, what’s the harm? Let me feel your boobs a little later on, okay? (←whispered)”
“No way.”
“It’s different for Master; he gets to do what he wants. I hate it when you say stupid things like that. Just touch Mama’s boobs instead.”
The cat girls gave no quarter to the boy’s wicked request. His face was completely crushed, turning bright red, while the children around them burst out laughing.
“Enough already…!”
A piece of chalk thrown by Loryie sparked with a screech as it struck both the cat girl and the boy on the forehead.
“It hurt—!?”
“Grrah!?”
“You can do your dirty talk later! It’s math class right now!”
With a single flick of her wrist, she fired off three in a row. Loryie’s unusual skill set seemed to be developing rather rapidly.
Incidentally, as interactions with the cat beastfolk colony increased, the need for primary education grew. Ultimately, Loryie ending up as a teacher at a private academy for them was a story for much later.
“It’s not like we can even approach them, let alone have them help. I don’t think Ms. Jeanne or Selen are in any state to move around properly…”
Fennel said, looking troubled.
Setting Jeanne aside for the moment, there was no way they could make Selen, with her heavy belly, do carpentry work. If she had been light on her feet, it would have looked entirely plausible.
“I just occasionally have to give Peter a bottle feed; that doesn’t mean I can’t handle physical labor.”
“I can’t do carpentry, but I can handle simple designs~ like calculating the necessary lumber. Besides, we don’t need to finish it all in one day. We can properly help out after the baby is born.”
“That is true, isn’t it…”
“It seems you’re already at a stage where giving birth any moment now wouldn’t be surprising.”
Irina and Christie exchanged glances.
“If you’re short on hands, we could call Ms. Marone the cat or Mrs. Milil. Also, while I may have been excluding them based on my vague impression, couldn’t Ms. Orzano and Mr. Seberry actually do carpentry work?”
“Could they…?”
Fennel made a difficult face.
“I hear Gold is originally a clan with many skilled craftsmen.”
“They certainly are numerous, but those children aren’t particularly heirs to the trade…”
“What’s wrong? We could just let them try, couldn’t we? Even if they fail, it just means Jeanne has more work to do.”
“That may be so, but…”
Anxious Fennel. Selen, who had been offered Christie’s chair, sat down looking uncomfortable with the burden of her position, wearing a somewhat knowledgeable expression as she said, “You can’t just say that.”
“Whether it’s this or anything else, if there’s no specialist available, you might as well try anything. Saying ‘I’m bad at it’ or ‘it’s outside my expertise’ sounds like a reasonable excuse at first glance, but relying on someone else to do the work means you’re in a privileged position and being spoiled. If necessary, even if you’re clumsy or immature, you’ll pick up the skills while doing it. ‘The right man for the right job’ is just a proverb for times when people are plentiful.”
“As expected, it carries weight when Selen says it.”
“Look, Apple has learned all sorts of new skills once she felt the need to step up. So you might as well give it a go. There’s no logic in claiming carpentry is strictly men’s territory, and you can always rely on Jeanne or the people from Burodrago for any heavy lifting. If you’re unhappy with how it turns out, you can just tear it all down and start over. Since you’re Longlived, you have plenty of room to practice.”
”……I suppose that might be true. I keep saying the Elf population is declining, yet I find myself still thinking in terms of collective logic more than anything else.”
Fennel admitted as much.
Christine gazed at Selen with a look of admiration.
“I can see why your approach to dealing with people is different, Ms. Selen. Since taking on a leadership role, I tend to get caught up in aptitudes and headcounts.”
“That’s just because Elves live in stability and longevity, which tends to narrow one’s perspective. Anyone would find they can do quite a lot if they try, and it’s not necessary for everything to be the absolute best.”
Jeanne crossed her arms and nodded in agreement (Peter was left in Selen’s care).
“That’s right. Even a girl who’s been Andy’s female slave without ever doing anything naughty should realize she’s more than just what she used to think, especially after being praised by Andy for his requests. A lot of them say it feels like being reborn, but I don’t think it’s good to just cling to your strengths in the end. Since this is a great opportunity, I think you should try challenging yourself to do as many things for Andy as possible.”
“Same goes for building the hot spring hut, and for the naughty content too~”
“If you think everything is for Andy’s sake, starting new hobbies won’t feel like a burden. If you view carpentry and blacksmithing—and even naughty techniques—as steps toward the plays you dream of, it should be fine. …I’d really like to do ‘Hot Spring Duty’ plays once that special hot spring is built.”
“Hmm, Hot Spring Duty?”
“I’d wait by the hot spring all day, and when Andy dips in for a bit, I’d slowly slide my dick inside him, let him rest in the water once he’s satisfied… It sounds like I’m just being used as an accessory~”
“Isn’t that what your Master usually does in the hot spring?”
“You can’t really cut loose in the hot spring, so apart from the结界 prison, this is one of the few situations where it works.”
“I’d like to have an all-night slow sex bath without any self-consciousness. Just gentle movement without shaking my hips violently, keeping him inside me the whole time~”
“Hmm. Well, if that’s how you feel about it, wawa… I mean, I’d like to try it too.”
“I’d like a moon-viewing bath where I’m treated to an Ochin-pojiru while someone pours drinks for me… No, wait, isn’t that a bit too vulgar?”
“Now is not the time, Christine.”
“It’s hard to imagine Andy being drained of his bones by Christine~”
The afternoon at the Baronial Manor passed in lively excitement.
“Malone-chan. I don’t want to offend you, but please listen.”
“Yes?”
Around that time, at Mother Mary’s house, Malone and Oregano were helping Mary with her cooking, working toward mastering “Mother’s Taste.”
“If you’re such a nice girl, I think you’d end up with a much better man than Andy. So… maybe it’s best to stop being a female slave and playing those strange games?”
“Huh…”
“I’ve heard that Beast-people get much stronger libidos than Humans due to the phases of the moon. Even if it’s a racial trait, having such an intense period makes one feel inadequate sometimes. I get that. But because of that, you shouldn’t refer to yourself as Drey… that is, a slave. Andy is stupid, so he just goes along with it and spreads it to ten or twenty others… but just because the others do it doesn’t mean you have to, Malone-chan. There are plenty of men in even moderately large towns who would love a shy, cute, earnest girl like you for life. If I need to stop Andy from causing trouble, I can handle him myself.”
”…N-No, please don’t.”
”…No? I thought your treatment under Trots’ male chauvinism was bad enough.”
“I want… I want to have children with my Master here… not be cherished by some unknown stranger, but loved deeply by my Master… That’s the intention I’ve always had, but…”
Malone lowered her head while peeling potatoes.
Seeing Malone, whose ears were flattened as if she might burst into tears at any moment, Mary raised her hands in surrender.
”…Sigh. I always wonder what that girl was thinking.”
With a tired face, she turned back to the pot and slumped her shoulders.
“I told you, Mother-in-law. They all really love Master, and they accept it willingly.”
Oregano smiled while handing over the chopped herbs.
“It seems we’ve confirmed that even the kittens are fine with everything. All that’s left is… hmm, I suspected one of them might be going along with it just because they were swept away. Most of them probably had their first experience being touched, right? Once the heat cools down, I imagine they’d think, ‘What on earth have I been doing?’”
“I suppose so~. It feels like Master becomes even more charming with every adventure… At least we Elves are persistent regarding the opposite sex and not prone to changing our hearts easily, so I don’t think it will cool off that quickly?”
“It just seems like they’re being deceived…”
“That’s only because you’re a mother, Mary. You view them as children, which prevents you from perceiving Master’s charms.”
“Nonsense. I’m sure there’s no woman who values Andy as much as I do? That’s just how parents are.”
「Ah, um… but I suppose that’s different from the feeling we have of wanting to be loved by our Master, or wanting to become part of his life, isn’t it? “Mm… As a parent, I mean, you really want to stop your son before he causes trouble right in front of you, don’t you? And the same goes for those daughters of yours who seem so confused about what kind of son they have. But look at this—it’s basically the state of some king’s harem, isn’t it? That boy is my son, made from the seed of my idiot husband, you know?”
Oregano gave a troubled laugh before her expression grew slightly more serious.
“A king needs many wives simply because he is part of the institution known as monarchy. But our Master… Andy Smythson shoulders the greatest burden anyone could imagine, just to make the woman he loves smile. I don’t want him to feel defeated by that weight, so people gather their strength and offer it to him. He expresses his love for them in return. It’s not a harem established as an institution; it’s a gathering that formed naturally out of necessity. If he is pleased that we are female slaves, then naturally we wish to offer ourselves to him. That is all. I know this way of speaking might sound overly self-conscious, but surely no law created in some ancient age by someone other than us could contain who we are.”
“I don’t think of him as being quite that special, though. My Andy.”
“Even if it were so, I will surely remain his female slave until the day he dies.”
Oregano said this with a smile without a single cloud in it.
The sunset enveloped the town of Polka.
In the south, Andy was once again leaping into an adventure they knew nothing about.
Each of them thought about the day when he would come back to meet them.