~ Chapter 108: On our way to Polis ~

[Shanteya's point of view]

With each passing week, my belly was getting bigger, and I could feel the new lives pulsing inside of me. Knowing the I am pregnant with the children of the one I came to love gave me a wonderful feeling. I was always holding a calm and peaceful state of mind, while deep inside the desire and urge to protect my little ones grew ever larger.

Without even realizing, I became more aware of how I moved, what I ate, what I did, and how I talked. Tamara was kind enough to match my change in sense of taste, while Zoreya and Nanya were always around me to protect me if needed be. At this point, I was instinctively avoiding battle or overexertion of my own body. Although, since becoming an Over Supreme, it became rather hard, might I say even impossible to do so with normal activities.

I had to admit though, my sexual urges also grew, and I desired to be embraced by Illsyore far more often than I usually did. I also felt the need to simply sleep by his side even without doing anything. Normally, we all felt like this, but for me, these selfish desires of mine grew by the moment in the past few weeks.

Tamara and Ayuseya understood this and gave me their turn as well. Zoreya too, she didn't mind letting me have her turn, but she was not one to back away from Illsy's embrace either. To make things worse, out of all of us, Nanya was the only one who did not manage to satisfy her own cravings for a while now, and it was starting to get to her.

Despite turning a bit more aggressive, she was also trying to steal or lie her way into taking our turns. But as luck would have it, she failed miserably every time. We were not upset with her acting like this, we found it to be rather of fun to tease her, at least for now. The fact that Illsy was teasing her as well whenever he had the chance didn't help, and with the appearance of the beautiful Savannah, she was afraid he was going to turn her into his sixth wife.

As much as one would try to believe that was a possibility, the rest of us did not see it that way. Illsyore wasn't acting around the human woman the same way he did when he aimed for conquering our hearts. If he ever felt the need to tease someone, he was locking onto one of us as a target.

But even he changed a bit ever since I told him that I was pregnant. Not only was he more willing to listen to my requests, but he was also acting in a protective manner around me. As one who aimed for the peak of stealth and hidden attacks, I was able to tell that he was always keeping an eye on me.

Illsy was going to be a father soon, so maybe even he was practicing how to do this?

That night, when he released Savannah from her curse, it was Zoreya's turn to go ahead and call out to him to satisfy her own sexual desires. The following day she had a big satisfied smile on her face and was feeling rather relaxed. This only made Nanya a bit more edgy. Well, it was her own fault for betting her turn against Zoreya.

After we had a good breakfast, we got into the car and drove on the path that cut through the forest and went all the way across, on the other side of the mountain. Our target was the port to the south of the continent and once we reached it, Illsy was going to take us to the place he planned on building his Magic Academy. By his initial estimations, it would be another two weeks until we reached it, that was if we reached Polis in about four days max.

Unfortunately, Illsy guessed wrong. It took us no less than six days to cross the mountain because of its sheer size and lack of paths the car could safely travel on. We underestimated how little traveled this mountain path was. Actually, most of these roads intersecting with it were meant for small carriages and foot soldiers, not our big and heavy transportation vehicle. Because of this, Illsy spent more time making roads than driving. At one point he was debating whether or not he should just dig a tunnel straight though the mountain. The one who advised us against this was Savannah.

Apparently, these were all dormant volcanoes, so digging a hole through them would have been really bad.

Speaking of which, after Illsy freed her that night, it was decided that she would travel with us in the front car rather than in the back with the slaves. The reason behind this was simple enough: we wanted to find out what she knew and how well we could place her as a teacher at our academy. To our surprise, she was knowledgeable in every field, which made things a bit harder for us. Savannah was quite literally a Jack of All Trades sort of teacher but a master in all.

We now had almost all of the teachers we needed and enough possible students to have a first class.

We did ask Savannah about why she was enslaved. There was more to the story than we knew, apparently. The Emperor wasn't worried that she might try to usurp him but rather win the heart of the young princes. Being so beautiful and knowledgeable would turn her into a fine candidate, but her background as a fallen noble put her in a tricky situation. Other important nobles desired her hand in marriage as well, but she refused all of them because she just wanted to study and teach. The rejected nobles felt insulted and requested a punishment of sorts for her behavior. Then, the worst thing happened and the crown prince himself asked for her hand in marriage. Of course, she rejected him, but this was the moment that sparked the beginning of her downfall.

While several assassins were sent after her, she managed to dispatch them with ease. Then false accusations and bad rumors about her started to spread. One of them was saying that she tried to sneak into the crown prince's chamber and sexually attacked him in his sleep. Although they were all false and even the Emperor himself knew this, as time went by, he couldn't ignore them anymore. To appease the nobles, he ordered her to be sealed and enslaved. Thus, bringing her to her current situation.

When we were several hours away from Polis, Nanya asked all of a sudden “I am still curious as to why you didn't flee the empire when things turned bad.”

“That's because I was a teacher. I had a duty to uphold towards my students. Besides, if I ran away, I would only end up giving proof that those claims were true. I had my hopes placed on the Emperor, believing that he would be wise enough to see through these lies...” Savannah replied and let out a sigh.

“You were wrong...” said Nanya.

“Yes, and I paid the price for it. But maybe it all turned for the better because now I have the possibility to do something good with my life and most of all continue teaching.” she said with a soft and gentle smile on her lips.

Despite being human and someone who lived among the upper stratum of the Paramanium society, she was wise enough not to trust or believe in the human supremacy movement. At the same time, one could say that for a Supreme she did not give the impression of being too strong. I for one saw her as weak, maybe weaker even than that fool Dankyun, yet the fact that she was able to repel several assassination attempts proved that she was not one to be taken lightly.

All this time while we traveled through the mountains, Savannah took the liberty of talking with the slave children and getting to know them better. It didn't take long before she began to teach them various things. Even the older slaves were listening to her carefully. Of course, we weren't bothered by it. In fact, this was a good opportunity to see what she was capable of in regard to teaching others.

Savannah showed a good deal of patience even with those who were a bit slow when it came to using their heads. She always tried to find alternative explanations to the things they had trouble with, and she even drew on the dirt with a stick if needed be. In these few days, she already gave us a good idea of what she was capable off. For now, she was free to teach them whatever she wanted, and the slaves were free to put any questions they desired.

There was something which worried Savannah, however, and that was the fact that the Emperor might have sent people after her in order to make sure the curse and slave collar on her were working properly. It was a possibility which we had to keep in mind, but we weren't honestly worried about it. After spending a few days with us and seeing Nanya race against Tamara, and as a result losing both the race and her turn to sleep with Illsy, Savannah became convinced that as long as we offered her our protection, the Emperor was no less than an insect in front of us.

Speaking of that peculiar race it was from our camp to the base of the mountain and back. No [Boost] spells were allowed, and they sent Ayuseya ahead to mark the spot where they had to turn around. Zoreya marked the finishing line here at the camp. As expected though, Tamara won and Nanya went to hunt some bandits.

Little did we know that she would give birth to the legend of the notorious demoness who hunted evildoers hidden in the mountains. It was a horror story told by the survivors of Nanya's hunt.

[Ayuseya's point of view]

We arrived at the gates of Polis city late in the evening. Instead of going inside, we decided to camp outside to pass the night.

As soon as we got out and started making camp, one guard rushed over to us to see what was happening. There were quite a number of us, so it was normal for the men stationed her to be startled and suspect a possible attack. We also drove here in a rather curious device, stirred confusion and amazement at the same time.

The one to greet the soldier were Zoreya and Illsyore, who explained the situation to him. The story went along the lines of us being a group of traveling nobles who were collecting various slaves. Our intent was only to visit the city during the day and leave before the night set, but given the number of people in our group, we couldn't expect to find an inn capable of taking all of us in. As such we decided to spend the night outside.

The soldier accepted our story, but he warned us that he wasn't going to be held responsible if a group of bandits or monsters attacked us. After wishing us a good night, we continued with our camp preparation.

Since Illsy didn't want to attract too much attention with a building suddenly popping up out of nowhere, he decided to place it underground. He first absorbed a big patch of ground and after putting the buildings inside, he covered it with a sheet of metal. The finishing touches were two tents which hid the stairways leading underground.

All of this was done in mere moments. If this was done by human workers, it would have taken weeks. If it was done by another Dungeon, it would have taken days. So, this speed was a clear proof of how powerful my husband was when compared to them.

Tonight was my turn to be with Illsy, but instead of making love, I chose to invite Shanteya in and have us three simply sleep together with him. For me, it wasn't that mandatory to get in his pants, but Nanya's demoness nature was reaching her limit. In a way, we, Zoreya, Shanteya, Tamara, and I, sort of conspired against her because we wanted to see her flip and jump on Illsy. It wasn't done with ill intention, and it wasn't like we were the ones challenging her to bet her turn. We merely accepted and it was enough. There were several such moments back on the Boss Island, and we found them to be rather amusing.

At the same time, I noticed something fairly odd with all of us, especially Nanya. Despite her desire to jump on Illsy at any given moment, she was always circling around Shanteya and putting on a protective air. It was as if she was unconsciously protecting her. The el'doraw and the others simply took it as being a good friend. However, even the rest of us were acting the same, and deep inside, I felt like the babies Shanteya was carrying were the same as mine. I really couldn't shake this feeling off, it wasn't like I wanted to either.

When it came to polygamous relationships, the main worry between wives was how they would act when one of them ended up pregnant. How would they treat the child? Would they greet him or her with hate or love?

In all of the stories written in my books, there were very few polygamous relationships which ended well. Hate, greed, and jealousy were always there when the husband paid attention to one wife or another more than the others would have wanted, yet at the same time, they all fought to make him theirs. Relationships similar to ours with Illsy were quite rare, and some would consider them impossible.

That was because they all believed there had to be a favorite wife. A man couldn't possibly fall in love or care equally for all of them at the same time, but this in itself was a ridiculous notion which didn't apply to us. Illsy's love was unconditional and so was ours.

Even if Nanya acted a bit possessively towards him, we all knew that was just her demoness nature speaking and that in reality, she had no problems with us. Actually, even I was the same from time to time because the dragoness inside of me wanted Illsy as her personal shiny loot.

The following day, after packing our camp, we entered the city. But now long after we drove past the city's gate, Nanya shouted: “Illsy, stop!”

“Wh-What?!” he asked as he looked back worried, first at Shanteya and then at her.

“What's wrong?” Zoreya asked.

“That...” she said and pointed at something outside.

Following her gaze, I spotted that which caught her attention, and it made me gasp and tear up at the same time.

“Keltaru?” I whispered.

[Guard A's point of view]

For us, guards, the days that went by while protecting the gates of Polis were nothing but a repeat of the previous one. The merchants came and went as they pleased. The nobles demanded for them to be the first to enter and ignore the line. The commoners were searched for any illegal wares they could bring within the city's walls.

Once in a while, we would see a few ruffians trying to stir trouble with us, claiming to be clean or demanding we don't search their wares, but they never got past us.

This being said, it didn't mean that was always the case. Nobles often brought in illegal wares, but us guards could do nothing to stop them. We let them pass, noted down that they refused to be searched and then we let the inspector who came from the capital to deal with them.

Today, however, I came to notice something rather strange. In the late evening, a weird carriage stopped just outside of the city, not too close, but not too far either. From within it a lot of young people stepped out. Among them, I saw those of other species, including elf, el'doraw, and draconian.

I had good eyes, so I was able to spot their unique features, but my buddy had no idea. At first, he thought they were mercenaries, especially when one of them wore a heavy plate armor and carried around a big shield.

He went there to check them out but returned shortly after. They were a bunch of traveling nobles looking to collect slaves. As long as they didn't make any suspicious movements, there was no need to be on guard against them.

From afar, I saw them set up camp. They placed only two tents down, which meant that the rest of them were going to sleep inside the strange carriage. They ate at a big table, which I had no idea where it came from, and the food was a fish stew. How did I knew, well the wind blew the scent our way, and I caught a whiff of it. My stomach gurgled in response.

Later, after they ate, they sat down and had a chat.

For some reason, the woman with long black hair screamed 'NOOO!!! How could I lose?!', then the others started laughing.

Afterwards, they decided to go to sleep, but I did not see them head towards the carriage but the tents.

The draconian woman entered first in the first tent, which could barely fit her size.

She's probably the one who will have the late-night guard shift. I thought, but then I saw another woman enter after her.

“Hm?” I blinked surprised.

Then another entered.

“Hmm?”

There were three of them? In that tiny tent that could barely hold just one person?

How? I thought.

Then another entered... and the man...

How could they FIT?! I was screaming on the inside.

The big armored woman stayed outside. And she... she was guiding the others into the other tiny tent.

“Hmmm? One... two... three... four... five...” I stopped counting out loud as I watched how ALL of those people entered in that one tiny little tent.

There were 34 in total if I wasn't mistaken. So how... HOW could 34 people fit in that one tiny little tent?!

Lastly, I saw the armored woman who DEFINITELY couldn't enter in either of the tents slipping in without any problem inside the first one... In that moment I heard my commonsense shattering and felt like I needed a barrel of something strong to drink to forget what I just saw... It was impossible... absolutely impossible...

I'm seeing things... Yes! I'm seeing things! Otherwise, the next thing I'll see will be a Dungeon who walks around like normal people and Imps as strong as a Supreme! I told myself as I was rubbing my forehead.

That was a very long night for me...