01.25 - Then and Now, There and Here

About a month had passed since our arrival on the planet of ‘Neu Waldland’.

We had left the capital and port city of ‘Weißfels’ in a short three days, after buying two wagons, tools, and supplies for the journey ahead.

The remaining budget was tight and our far away destination unknown.

We ended up sourcing most of our daily needs through hunting and foraging in the woods, and boosted our funds by selling some of the more valuable monster parts we didn’t need at the few small settlements in between the vast wilderness.

Finding a good place to settle down was eased by Tia and my aerial reconnaissance.

A great place deep inside an old forest, next to a small mountain, near a tiny river with its spring uphill, ended up as our new home base.

I had gathered a few additional Skills for a number of Classes I already knew of by using ‘Know Your Enemy’ on the settlers around us. I planned to unlock them on demand, using ‘Monkey See, Monkey Do’ for myself and ‘For the Good of The Many’ for the others. Those Classes never seemed all that important, but would end up being crucial cornerstones for our future prosperity.

There were still plenty of leftover Class and Skill points from my years worth of quests back in Lichtheim.

I invested about 2% into getting somewhat decent Skills as an Architect and Carpenter, and made liberal use of another 3% by using ‘For the Good of The Many’ on Tia, Kentaro, Alfred, Geber and Reiko.

I unlocked and then boosted their Carpenter Levels under the guise of teaching them some of the basics by practical examples. I had long since gotten good at gauging when to use the blessing and when to refrain.

Lumber was easy to produce and transport with Kentaro’s help Tia’s dragon form. Same with lifting and the final assembly.

Alfred, Geber, Isabella, and Reiko did most of the refining and construction work under my supervision.

A few weeks in, and we were the proud owners of four log cabins, partially made through Geomancy, partially built by us. Three small, and one large one, all with makeshift beds and tree stumps for tables, as well as an outhouse far enough away from the water supply. With a four meter high stone wall surrounding the perimeter.

Right now, the three small houses were shared by Gabe and Alfred, Kentaro and me, and finally Tia and Dawn.

Reiko, Isabella, Akane, Koharu, and Loreley resided in the big one.

There was still a lot of work to do, but the next steps should be easier with an established base of operations.

It was already autumn, and winter was soon to come, so we kept hunting and clearing the surrounding area for later use.

But one issue kept haunting me.

Both Reiko and Isabella had opened up to me, far more in the last month than in all the years before, and I was very willing to reciprocate.

A hug here, a hidden kiss there.

But nothing more.

It felt like my libido was preparing for a world war.

Having three former courtesans around me wasn’t helping either, and I could swear that Koharu’s number of sudden wardrobe malfunctions in my presence was growing by the day.

Tia, meanwhile, disappeared with Kentaro every night. She finally came out clean and declared him as her official mate, and thus off limits to everyone else. Apparently dragons were a pretty monogamous bunch.

She also wasn’t shy about interfering with my own situation, including a stern talk to finally make up my mind, instead of leading on all the other girls.

I had met Reiko first, she was kind of a tomboy and a bit clumsy at times, but in a charming way.

I had spent way more of my time with Isabella, she was a nice girl, smart and curious, and I enjoyed spending time with her.

Both were cute in their own way.

And yet, despite having only known Koharu for a month, she matched my type way better than the other two, and she seemed to enjoy my presence. She was by far the oldest of the bunch, probably in her early thirties.

It also didn’t help that Akane and Loreley seemed to be the second new couple. They were a lot less reserved than Tia, but I guess that was expected with their former trade. And yet I could swear that both were cheating on each other with Koharu.

That, or I had finally gone insane and could no longer discern truth from imagination, or wannabe fever dreams.

The whole thing finally culminated when Akane, probably on their behalf, told me to meet the others after dinner, to, and I quote, ‘finally settle things for good’.

The sun had almost set, and Tia and Kentaro were nowhere to be seen, when I made my way to the big house.

My feet felt like stone, or more like blocks of concrete. If the forest were an ocean, I’d be making friends with the fishes by now.

I still hadn’t made up my mind.

This was pathetic.

I would have jumped at the chance to have any of the three of them as my girlfriend back on earth.

Card games were kind of a sausage fest, especially in the higher competitive tiers.

This called for a coin toss… Or maybe I should have them battle it out rock-paper-scissors style and swear eternal faithfulness to the winner?

I bathed in the last rays of light in between twilight and dusk, took a deep breath for one last time, and then finally knocked at their makeshift door.