Brandon Varnell
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WIEDERGEBURT Act V: Chapter 1
🕑 Added 2020-08-03 15:14:12 +0000 UTCThe Northern Plains was just as I remembered it. Unlike the arid Endless Desert, with its unbearable heat, the Northern Plains possessed a much milder climate. Temperatures didn’t get very high anywhere here unless it was near one of the active volcanoes, but those were located either much further north or toward the archipelago much further east of here.
We had just left the Endless Desert behind not ten days ago, and I could no longer see any sign of it when I turned around. Most of what I saw behind me was either grassy plains or copses of trees.
I was sitting in the driver’s seat with Kari and Raul. My now two year old son was sitting on my lap and looking at everything in awe. He’d grown quite a bit bigger during our time in the Endless Desert and his hair had grown out more. His vibrant red hair had an unusual silvery tint to it, making it sparkle when it caught the sunlight.
“Wassat?”
“That’s a tree.”
“Wassat?”
“That’s grass.”
“Wassat?”
“… The sky.”
Raul’s new favorite word was “wassat,” which I guessed was because there was a lot he wanted to know. He would always point at objects and exclaim “wassat?” before waiting for either myself or one of his four moms to answer him.
“Raul’s pretty inquisitive,” Kari said with a fond look in her eyes. Raul might not have been born from her, but he was just as much her son as he was Fay’s. “Kayli was like that too once she reached that age. I wonder if that means all your children will be like this.”
Kari tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear, smiling at me and Raul with those beautiful blue eyes of hers. She wasn’t wearing armor at the moment, nor was she wearing breast bindings. Her large breasts strained against the blue and white blouse. It looked like her clothing might rip at the seams, though the fabric thankfully held itself together admirably. We had spare clothes, but they were all the same size. Had her breasts grown this past year? No, I would have known if they had since I fondled them almost every day.
“I think most children are like this at two.” I shrugged at her words before changing the subject. “How does it feel being back in the Northern Plains?”
“Nostalgic,” was Kari’s immediate answer. “So much happened here that I can’t help but feel a little overwhelmed. We spent more than a quarter of our lives in this place. This is where we had our daughter, where we faced off against the Sekbeists, and where we learned many things about this world that most people have forgotten.”
The look in Kari’s eyes changed as she glanced up at the sky. It became glazed over as if she was remembering the past we had shared together.
In our previous lives, before I had gone back in time, Kari and I traveled to the Northern Plains, where we experienced many things together. We met Erica, joined a guild, explored ancient ruins, fought against the Sekbeists, traveled to another realm, met the dwoerg… so much happened here. The Northern Plains was a place I could never forget.
It was also the place where Kari and Kayli died in my first life.
“I also can’t wait to meet our friends,” Kari added.
“You mean Erica and Tungsten?” I asked.
Kari nodded. “Not just Erica and Tungsten, but all our friends in the Explorers Guild too.”
I frowned as a thought crossed my mind. “Do you think we should meet them?” I tried my best to explain as my wife tilted her head and looked at me like she didn’t understand. “What I mean is, we initially joined the Explorers Guild because of your desire to explore ruins. However, I’m not sure we’ll be joining the Explorers Guild this time since our goals are different. What’s more, we might know them, but they don’t know us. It would be weird if we decided to randomly drop by for a visit, wouldn’t it?”
Kari did not say anything for the longest time, but I could tell from the way her face scrunched up that she realized what I meant and wasn’t sure she liked what I was saying. Even now, Kari was a free spirit, someone who didn’t like to be constrained and wanted to explore the world, but she was also practical and wise. She knew that with our goals of stopping the Sekbeists and defeating the Great Overlord of the Seventh Plain, we would have neither the time nor the reason to meet with Felicia, Markus, Donivan, or Axel.
“I guess it would be odd if a couple of random strangers came by to visit,” she finally admitted with a sigh.
I smiled and reached over to place my hand on her thigh. I would have grabbed her hand, but she was currently holding onto the reins, which were attached to the massive lizard pulling our wagon.
The Giga Monster was a Demon Beast our people had captured in the Demon Beast Mountain Range and subjugated with a modified version of the Sekbeists’ control collar. It was something Kari had created using Runes. It moved forward on four massive legs two times the size of tree trunks, each step creating a low rumble that made the earth vibrate. Yellow and black scales covered every inch of its body. It had yellow reptilian eyes and a mouth full of sharp fangs hidden behind its reptilian muzzle.
“Well…” I continued, scratching my chin, “We might need to hire them for their expertise on ruins at some point, so maybe we will see them in the future.”
At that moment, a butterfly drifted fluttered past Raul’s face, causing him to reach out in an attempt to grab it. He missed, but that didn’t stop him. He stretched out both his hands and body as he tried to grab the small creature before it disappeared. I ended up having to grab hold of him so he wouldn’t fall off.
“Butterfwy! Butterfwy!”
He called out to the butterfly as it vanished from his sight, then turned to me with teary eyes. He looked ten seconds away from crying.
“Butterfwy gone!”
“It’s okay. There are a lot of butterflies out here.” I placed a hand on Raul’s head and began ruffling his hair. “Tell you what. Next time a butterfly comes by, I’ll catch it for you.”
My son was an awfully intelligent child. He already knew around one hundred words and could string them together to form basic sentences. Since he was our only child, myself and all of his moms pampered him a lot. I once heard someone say that children learn language by imitating their parents, so we often spoke with Raul and read him stories every chance we had.
“Weally?” Raul asked, his eyes glittering.
“Really,” I said with a nod.
That seemed to settle Raul down, which was something I felt grateful for. I loved my son dearly, but I could not deal with a crying toddler, no matter how many times it happened. Raul was a lot more rambunctious than his sister had been. While he was still a good child, he would cry and scream a lot more than Kayli had. Fortunately, he was not the type to throw tantrums. We only had to deal with one or two of those since he’d been born.
“Look at you acting like a dad,” Kari teased. “You know, I still remember a time when you thought you’d make a terrible father.”
Now that I had placated him, Raul settled down again, leaning against me as he pointed at different objects and asked “Wassat?”
“That’s a bird,” I said to Raul before addressing Kari. “That was all in the past. Given my background, it was reasonable to think I would never make a good dad.”
Of course, I was referring to how I didn’t have parents. I was an orphan who had no knowledge of his background or the circumstances of his birth. All I knew was that I probably wasn’t human, or maybe I was only half-human. My ability to manipulate the elements without dances before reaching the Third State of Spiritualism was proof of that. The Sekbeists reaction to me was further proof. Beyond that, however, I knew nothing about who I was or where I came from.
“Whether or not you were raised by loving parents has nothing to do with whether you’d make a good father,” Kari said softly.
“I know that now, but I didn’t know that back then.”
Kari grew silent and contemplative, which gave me a chance to answer Raul when he pointed at something and asked what it was. He would mostly point at things I’d already told him about. I patiently answered him anyway. A nursemaid that Empress Hilda hired once told me that children learned best through repetition.
During that time, a shadow suddenly flew over our heads. I looked up to see a young-looking girl dressed in a simple sundress flying past us. The dragon wings on her back flapped several times to keep her aloft. She had a long tail protruding from the bottom of her dress, silvery green hair, and vibrant green eyes that glowed with a reptilian sheen.
Out of all my wives, Siv was definitely the cutest. Her skin was so white it reminded me of freshly fallen snow. There were no blemishes to be found anywhere. Covering her skin in certain areas like her legs, feet, hands, and some of her jaw, were silvery green scales that sparkled in the sunlight. A lot of people would often stare at Siv, though it wasn’t because of her beauty so much as her exotic features.
“Siv! Siv!” Raul exclaimed when he saw her.
Whether it was because she heard Raul or another reason, Siv turned after flying over the wagon and drifted down. I shifted until I was sitting in the middle of the driver’s seat. Kari was also forced to adjust a little as our thighs and shoulders touched, the warmth of her skin reaching me through our clothes. Siv gently set down where I’d been sitting, adjusted her tail, and sat herself down on my left.
“We’re coming up on a city,” she said without preamble.
“Is it a big city?” asked Kari.
“Mmm.”
“How far out is it?” I asked.
Siv tilted her head as her eyes scrunched up. Her eyes were a bit wider and more innocent than Kari’s, Fay’s, or Lin’s. She had a cute nose that wiggled a little when she was thinking. Her soft, pink lips pursed. I resisted the urge to lean down and kiss them, but I still couldn’t stop myself from staring at them.
“About… one hundred kilometers,” she said at last.
Siv’s vision was the best among us. Perhaps it was because she was a drakvar—a race of dragons belonging to a higher realm—but she could see a couple hundred kilometers out and accurately judge the distance.
“How big would you say the city is?” asked Kari.
“Bigger than Nevaria.”
Even in the Northern Plains, there were not many cities bigger than Nevaria. In fact, there were only maybe five or six cities that size. Most of those cities were not in the path that went from the Endless Desert to Midgard, which could be considered the capital of the Northern Plains, meaning we could accurately determine which city we were close to.
“It’s definitely Vhan,” Kari said.
Vhan was the first large city Kari and I visited after reaching the Northern Plains in our previous life. It was a stopping point for many people traveling across the Northern Plains. Several sects had made the city their base of operations. If I remembered right, Vhan’s population was a bit larger than Nevaria’s.
It was getting to be midday, so Kari directed the Giga Monster off the road and parked our wagon close to a copse of trees. A gentle wind stirred the leaves and grass as she went about feeding the Demon Beast large quantities of raw meat, which she summoned from one of many storage rings in her possession.
After getting off the wagon, I set Raul on my shoulders and headed for the back, opening the door and peering inside.
My last two wives were inside of the wagon. Fay was standing over the table where I had set up our advanced alchemy set. Her long red hair had been tied into a ponytail behind her back, allowing me a glimpse of her slender and elegant neck. Fay’s skin was a little tanner than Kari’s and Siv’s, but it was still a very light color. At the moment, it looked like she was grinding some ingredients with a mortar and pestle. Several of the flasks and beakers also had bubbling liquid inside.
Because Fay was wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts that only covered a little of her thighs, I could see how her toned muscles from years of intense training flexed. I would never in a million years say my wife looked masculine. Her muscles contained the perfect combination of hardness and softness. You could even say that Fay was the best of both worlds. And while her chest was not as large as Kari’s, it was still bigger Lin’s and Siv’s.
While Fay worked on her alchemy, Lin was reclining on the bed. The end of her six meter long snake tail moved back and forth across the ground. She wasn’t asleep, which surprised me. There was a book in her hand, and she was slowly turning the pages as her golden eyes scanned whatever had been written inside. I glanced at the title. It was an adventure book about a young man who sets off on a journey to save his home. That must have been something she’d stored in her storage ring.
While Kari, Fay, and Siv all had skin that was white and fair, Lin had dark skin that made her look exotic. She was not as busty as Kari or Fay, but there was something elegant about her smaller breasts. Her hips were the widest of my wives due to her lower half being that of a snake. Her sinuous curves were incredibly deadly, something I could only reaffirm as I trailed the lines of her body with my eyes, from her beautiful neck and slender shoulders, to her taut stomach, wide hips, and snake tail. She had black hair that descended to the middle of her back, long and straight, with bangs that stopped just above her eyes.
Her clothing was a bra with shiny rhinestones and sequins. The beaded tassels hanging down the bra hid only a small portion of her flat stomach, which I had spent many days and nights licking and kissing. A belt with the same rhinestones and sequins glittered as it wrapped around her waist, holding up the long white skirt that covered her genitals.
“Hey, you two,” I called in. “We’ve stopped for lunch. Come out whenever you’re ready.”
“Mom. Food,” Raul added.
At the sound of mine and Raul’s voice, Fay and Lin looked up from their respective tasks to gaze at me and my son.
Lin was the first to react. I had said the magic words, after all. She used a bookmark to mark the page she had been reading, closed the book, and set it to the side before slithering off the bed.
“This princess is coming right now, Darling. She would not miss lunch for anything.”
“I’ll be out in just a minute,” Fay added, though she did not travel over to me like Lin did. “I just need to finish making these alchemy pills.”
I nodded and didn’t argue with Fay as she continued her work. Refining alchemy pills was a task that required all of a person’s concentration, especially once you began refining original pills like Fay was. It was also not something you could stop midway and start up again. Stopping meant you had to dispose of whatever you’d been refining and start from scratch.
Since it looked like Fay was busy, only Lin joined us outside. I stepped back as she used her long tail to leap down from the wagon. She leaned in and gave me a soft kiss before grabbing my free hand and dragging me to where Kari and Siv were.
Human and drakvar were in the process of setting everything up. Siv had brought a long table and several chairs out of a storage ring, along with some silverware and plates. She was currently in the process of arranging everything. Meanwhile, Kari had summoned a large grill. It was made of black steel. Beneath the grill was a hole that Kari had apparently dug out and filled with charcoal, which was already burning.
Kari had already summoned several slabs of marbled meat and a variety of vegetables, which she was in the process of rubbing spices into. It looked like we were having venison for lunch.
“Big Sister, this princess will help you cook! Let this princess help!”
“Sure. Help me rub these spices into the meat, Lin.”
“You can count on me!”
Since it looked like Kari and Lin had the cooking aspect well in hand, I traveled over to Siv and helped her set the table.
It wasn’t long before the delicious scent of meat wafted through the air. The smoke from our fire drifted into the sky and carried the scent on the wind. I would have normally been worried about Demon Beasts attacking us (and ruining our meal), but there were no Demon Beasts in this part of the Northern Plains. Even if there were, our wagon had several Demon Beast Repellent Pellets stashed inside of pouches that dangled from the eaves.
Fay finally emerged from the wagon just as the food finished grilling, and our group sat around the table to eat dinner.
Perhaps because he hadn’t seen his mom since this morning, or maybe because Fay was still his favorite no matter how hard I tried, but Raul chose to sit on her lap. At two years old, he was at the age where he could now eat solid foods, so she fed him small slices of meat and vegetables.
On that note, Fay’s breasts were no longer producing breast milk. Her nipples, which had come out while her body was producing milk, had gone back to being inverted. I thought it was a nice change. Fay’s inverted nipples were like treasure troves waiting to be dug up. Before Raul was born, I used to have a lot of fun coaxing them out.
We took our time eating. While we did have several important missions to accomplish, we were not in a rush.
“This slice could use a bit more salt. Siv, pass this princess the salt.”
“Here.”
“Make sure you chew before swallowing, Raul. You don’t want to choke again, do you?”
“Raul won’t choke. Raul safe.”
Meals were always lively in this family, perhaps because we had so many members. I didn’t talk as much as the others, preferring to listen as I ate my food, though I did speak whenever one of my wives or son spoke to me. After we all had our fill, I felt like it was time for a serious discussion.
“We’ll be coming up on Vhan soon,” I began. “Siv did some reconnaissance and said it’s about one hundred kilometers away. If we maintain our current speed, we should reach Vhan by tomorrow.”
“Vhan is the second largest city in the Northern Plains, right?” asked Fay.
“That is correct,” I said.
“Didn’t the Sekbeist invade Vhan in your previous life?” Fay questioned me further.
“They did.” Kari was the one who answered. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as I tugged on my bangs. “However, the invasion didn’t happen until Eric and I were in our thirties, so we won’t have to worry about that happening for awhile. Actually, when we arrived in the Northern Plains in our past life, we were a lot older than we are now.”
In our previous life, the Demon Beast Invasion had not happened until I was 20 years old, we spent another four years training in the forests surrounding Nevaria, and then another year gathering people together. When the Demon Beasts attacked our safe haven and we were forced to flee into the Endless Desert, I’m pretty sure Kari and I were at least 26 or 27 years old, though it was hard to know since we stopped counting our age after the Demon Beast Invasion. It didn’t help that Kari and I aged far more slowly than normal people thanks to our Spiritualism. At 26, Kari had barely looked old enough to be 20, and at 30, she had only physically aged by about one year.
At the moment, I was 22 years old. We had arrived in the Northern Plains several years early.
“So what should we do then?” asked Fay.
“We came early because we wanted to establish ourselves before the Sekbeist Invasion began,” I started. “If we can build a strong reputation now, then when the Sekbeist finally show themselves, we will be able to mount a proper defense.”
“When the Sekbeist invaded last time, half the reason we ended up in such a miserable position was because we were caught unprepared,” Kari added. “Everyone thought the Sekbeists were cultists who worshipped the Great Overlords. We didn’t even realize they were not human until they forcibly opened a Warp Gate and began invading our realm. By then it was too late and we had no choice but to fight defensively as our forces were pushed back.”
“So we need to establish ourselves as powerful Spiritualists is what you two are saying?” When Kari and I both nodded, Fay crossed her arms and leaned back. “I get what you two want and are hoping to achieve, but how should we establish ourselves?”
“There are two ways to build your reputation in the Northern Plains.” Kari held up a hand and extended one finger. “The first is to join a sect and take on quests. Back then, Eric and I joined the Explorers Guild and took on many quests that involved exploring ruins.”
“Since we’re already part of a sect, I don’t think we can do that,” Fay said.
“Right, which means we have to register our current sect and establish ourselves by completing quests to increase our sect’s reputation. That is the second option.” Kari raised her second finger.
“How do we register our sect?” Fay continued questioning us.
“We need to travel to Midgard,” I answered. “Midgard is the center of the Northern Plains, and it’s where all the sects go to register themselves. Once we’ve registered, we can build a branch office with a Warp Gate inside the city. The Warp Gate will allow us to travel to our main base in Nevaria. Of course, getting registered takes time. There’s a long process involved, so we could be waiting for months.”
When Kari and I first established Brave Vesparia, the process had been expedited thanks to Erica and Tungsten, but we couldn’t rely on them this time since neither of them knew we even existed.
Thinking about it, I wasn’t even sure if they were in a position to help. Erica had been the vice commander of theBattling Valkyries when Kari and I first arrived here, but we had been much older. She was just a few years younger than us, so she wouldn’t be older than 19 or 20 years at present. I didn’t think she would have a high position right now.
“That’s why you wanted to come here a few years before the Sekbeist invaded!” Fay suddenly realized. Her loud exclamation startled Siv and Lin, who were still in the process of scarfing down their food. Both of my non-human wives had eaten nearly four times more than the rest of us combined.
“That’s right.” Nodding several times, Kari pushed her plate away and placed her hands on the table. “The process of building a sect and getting a Warp Gate to connect Midgard to Nevaria could take several years, so we wanted to travel here now, before the Sekbeist invade. That way we can establish ourselves early and prepare for the coming invasion. If we can get a Warp Gate to Nevaria before the invasion happens, we can begin transferring people here to build our forces.”
While no one in the Northern Plains was even aware of our existence, the Nevarian Braves sect was easily the most powerful sect currently in existence. All of our members were at least at the Second State of Spiritualism, and a few like Catalyna, Geirolf, and Earland were even close to reaching the Third State of Spiritualism. I could have included Sigrid Drage, who had already reached the Third State of Spiritualism, but I didn’t trust her.
After lunch, we cleaned off our utensils, plates, and the grill before storing everything back into our storage rings. Then our group set off again.
Since Kari had been driving all morning, Fay took over the task. She sat in the driver’s seat and confidently steered the Giga Monster back onto the road. Raul and I sat with her and listened to her talk about the new alchemy pill she was refining, which would cleanse the body of impurities. She called it the Body Cleansing Pill. It was not even in the experimental phase yet. Her latest pill, the one she had been refining when I informed her that lunch was ready, had not been successful.
Everything seemed so peaceful. So normal. None of us knew we would eventually become embroiled in a battle between sects. We simply had no way of knowing.
