Chapter 15: [REVAMPED] Onwards to Acquama Town! And More Waifus!

[Wolftron] was dead, the illusion created by [Queen of the Hive] fading.

Akira had leveled up from the encounter:

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Name: Akira Maximilian

Race: Urban Squirrel

Level: 2

EXP: 138/188

Class: Illustrious Merchant ★★★★★

Guilds: N/A

< Strength: 3 => 4 >

< Agility: 3 => 4 >

< Stamina: 5 => 6 >

< Willpower: 5 => 6 >

< Dexterity: 1 => 2 >

< Charisma: 6 => 7 >

< Luck: 8 => 9 >

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Stat points: 3

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His excitement swiftly fizzled when he saw there were no new skills. But still, he thought long and hard about how best to spend his stat points: figuring that he should seek to maximize the success rate of his [Love Prices] against inanimate targets, since that's what he had used it for the most thus far.

However, the system was designed so that every ten points in an attribute increased the amount of points required to raise it by 1. So he could only raise his <Luck> by 2.

The whole process took way longer than Akira would've cared for.

He grumbled, "I hate when characters in webnovels spend hundreds of words deliberating over their stupid stats."

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Luck increased by 2!

< 9 => 11 >

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Kiko had leveled up again, too.

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Name: Kiko Amagiri

Race: Kappa

Level: 2

EXP: 34/112

Class: Silt-Sunken Druid ★ ★ ★

Guilds: N/A

< Strength: 5 => 6 >

< Agility: 7 => 8 >

< Stamina: 5 => 5 >

< Willpower: 5 => 5 >

< Dexterity: 7 => 8 >

< Charisma: 1 => 2 >

< Luck: 4 => 5>

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Stat points: 2

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After watching Akira distribute his stat points, she suddenly had an embarrassed look about her.

"Ah, I forgot to use up my stat points from last time!"

She consulted Akira on what to spend them on, and after a bit of discussion it essentially came down to 3 choices:

<Dexterity> would increase her damage with the <Plainwood Bow>.

<Agility> would increase her survivability.

<Strength> would increase the effectiveness of her [Watermorph] ability.

"I think more damage is good," she came to decide, upon further deliberation. "But I don't want to be a complete sitting duck to attacks either."

"Like how I couldn't dodge [Wolftron]'s cannon shots?" Like a deer in the headlights.

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Dexterity increased by 1!

< 8 => 9 >

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Agility increased by 1!

< 8 => 9 >

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The casualties inflicted by the [Wolftron]'s devastation…were considerable. Half a dozen pig-people had been torn to bacon, farmsteads and fields were burned and razed. Though the entire encounter had taken place within the illusion caused by [All in the Family], there were real-game world consequences to its destruction.

Vash, Akira, Kiko and Melissa—in that delicate order—were all sitting in a row along a garden wall made of stacked rough stones, watching the villagers clean up the mess left behind..

"We've really made a mess of things here, haven't we?" Akira lamented.

Kiko faced him, gently touching his hand. "But we saved a goddess from crippling alcoholism, and now we've married and adopted her."

"Are we married?" Akira questioned, scratching his head. "Shouldn't there be a ceremony?"

Kiko leaned across him, curling her arms around his voluptuous torso, her lips pressed against his cheek so that he could feel the graze of her teeth as she spoke, "you called them 'necessary sacrifices,' before. It could've been much worse if we simply left them to starve, and didn't do anything."

At her other side, Melissa bristled and stood up. "It's all that perv's fault for letting the wolves into MY illusion!"

Then Vash stood up, outraged. "You're the one who left me without a word, BAY-BEE!"

"Quit calling me that!" Melissa said with a spine-chilling glare, crumbling his resolve like a fistful of granola. And told him, "because I'm not your baby anymore!"

Then, suddenly beaming, she clinged onto Kiko's back so that the three of them—Akira, Kiko, and her—were arranged almost like a line of Matryoshka dolls, except that the tall slender Kiko, if sat at her full height, would easily loom like a limp old-England streetlight over the head of her comparatively squat and wide husband-wife. To be sure, the image wasn't exactly a Rockwell painting; and yet there was a certain impeccable, tidy cohesion to their unit, which not even Vash—for all his unrequited, artery-blazing lust—would dare to try to tarnish.

"I've never seen you this happy," Vash said, and the three all looked up into his strangely serene eyes…wondering precisely who he was referring to, if not all of them at once.

For all they'd done for her in her time of need, Melissa felt indebted to the pig-people of Hogs' Landing.

She would devote a solid part of that morning to showering their fields with her [Harvest Bless] skill, traveling by air in her [Pollination Form] as the farmers trailed below: directing her from field to field for her to scatter her magic like fairy dust. And once she was finished, months of negligence on the goddess's part had not dampened the good peoples' spirits of gratitude:

"Goddess, bless you!" Herb Hogsden said to her. "I always knew you'd one day return to us!"

Melissa smiled, remembering all the times when Herb carried her home to the temple while she was passed out drunk.

"I'm leaving on an adventure, with my mama and papa. But I want you to have this—"

She touched her finger to his forehead, and he could feel a pleasant warmth spreading all throughout his body.

"Goddess! What is this…"

"I'm granting you access to my [Harvest Bless] skill."

Hearing this, Herb was overjoyed: broken free of his [Rusty Farmer] roots!

"Thank you, Goddess! Thank you!"

As for Akira's services to the village, the farmers ensured that she was justly rewarded: pooling together a modest sum of 18 Gold, which the shrewd businessman gladly accepted, as well as a sack of…beets. [Red Beets], to be more specific, which he was told were used as the primary ingredient in the making of [Health Potions]: an always-valuable commodity in this world.

Although it was not the foot in the food of an agricultural empire he had originally set out to achieve, it was nonetheless a hopeful start.

The future looked bright, for the party of three…or maybe four.

"We're going to Acquama Town," Akira told Vash when it was just them and Kiko and Melissa, standing on the outskirts of the village where the road parted two ways.

"You can join us, Vash-senpai," Kiko said. "As long as you keep your hands to yourself."

Vash tipped the wide brim of his wizard's hat. "I'm afraid there are some habits that will just never die." He chuckled. "AND SO, your senpai must respectfully decline!"

Melissa stood in front of him, hands stiff at her side and expressionless like a soldier.

Silently, she extended a hand toward him for a shake. Keeping it formal.

Glancing at her hand, then back at her face—a slight smile forming in spite of herself—he gave a slight but resolute nod, his lips pursed in amusement. "Catch you around…goddess."

Flashing a "peace" sign…at first, it seemed as if he would leave it at that.

That he would then turn and walk away, until he disappeared off into the sunset: off to resume his life of solitude, beginning a new quest for love in earnest.

However, it was not so. Not just yet.

Because Vash was ever a man full of surprises, acting whichever way his soul compelled him:

Wordlessly, he plucked off his hat and planted it on Melissa's head.

"Wha—" she made a confused sound, the brim so large that it fell completely over her eyes.

So she lifted it up, but by the time she did Vash had already set off walking down the road, hands in pockets and rapping under his breath with a whole new swagger to his step, his huge red afro blooming like a flower through the snow after a long winter. A picture of a man who was finally free of the shackles of his own heart, and the wolves that were constantly prowling at his door.

A picture that Melissa couldn't stand at all.

"HEY! Just you wait a minute—"

She chased him, angry that he would so freely give up something so valuable as his hat…failing to notice that this impromptu "farewell gift" was the lesser of two offenders in this regard…

The other gift had been given to Akira as Kiko watched, stunned.

"It's…his [Scorchbrand Slugger]," she said, incredulous. His signature weapon, given up so easily.

While holding it, Akira had a serious look about him while running deep calculations in his head.

"Here"—he handed it to Kiko after a few seconds, with all the casualness of lending out a hammer or indeed any other tool. "Take it. Your stats are more suitable for close combat."

Kiko gasped. "But…Akira, Is it really okay for us to accept something so precious?"

"He gave it to us for a reason," he said. "Wherever he's going, he probably won't need it. Maybe he won't even leave this low-level zone." He looked out across the horizon: at Melissa, as she was returning to them with tears sparkling on her face; at Vash, who was barely now a speck.

"No way!" Kiko still insisted. "You saw me: I was completely useless in that last battle!"

Akira ignored her pleas. placing the [Slugger] in her hand and closing her fingers around it. "It's not just about having a better <Strength> stat: I've also seen how well you can fight when you're being pushed to the limit," he said, caressing her face. "I need you to be my knight. While I'm leveling more slowly, with less skills at my disposal, there'll be times when my [Love Prices] will fail or just won't be enough. That's when I'll need you to harness the power inside of you."

Kiko fumbled her lip, looking like she was about to make another protest. But instead simply nodded, with a determined look. "For your sake, Akira…I will."

"For Melissa as well," Akira added. "She's a goddess, but her skills are mostly for utility."

Kiko averted her gaze from him, smiling in embarrassment. "R-right…I'm a mother now." She giggled. "It's so strange…like everything's happening in fast-forward."

Akira held her close. "Not everything in this world has to make logical sense."

Suddenly, Kiko was quiet. She had a serious expression, like something was weighing heavily on her mind.

"What's wrong, babe?" Akira asked.

"Um...about when you were kissing Melissa-chan, before—"

"Kiko-chan!" Akira gasped. "Are you jealous already? This is only the first girl in my harem!"

"N-no...I was just going to say..."

"Monogamy was never on the table, alright! That's not how the Maximilian rolls."

"I know that…'' Kiko turned her face down, holding her hands tightly against her chest with her lips twisted in distress, her cheeks glowing redder than a beet and becoming so hot that the water in her [Kappa Shellmet] was visibly starting to steam. "It made me feel...real good, like butterflies in my stomach. And I don't know if that's okay, if it's weird or what but I"—she looked up, into Akira's waiting gaze, her voice raised to an uncharacteristically high volume in her extreme distress and frustration—"I WANT TO SEE OUR FAMILY GROW EVEN LARGER!"

Akira was speechless with awe. (He'd really struck a gold mine when it came to the first girl!)

All he could do—all he had to do—was embrace her and join their lips together in sweet passionate love.

Before departing from Hog's Landing, the two would be wed in the [Pure Queen Bee Temple].

Melissa's attendant presided over the ceremony, with Melissa herself acting as the flower girl and all the villagers gathered in attendance. Groom and bride both were loaned a [Wedding Tux] and [Wedding Gown] respectively. Akira promised he would have a ring once he'd made his fortune in Nirvana, and Kiko believed him wholeheartedly.

The matrimonial vows were recited. Akira and Kiko kissed again, being met with boisterous cheers and applause this time.

Afterward, they would choose to spend another night to best enjoy their honeymoon.

Much unbridled love making would ensue through all hours of the night, with Melissa later joining in on the storm of chaotic fondling. Grasping. Touching. Licking. Tugging. Squirming, moaning, whining, kissing, massaging, fondling and muttered "I love yous" and tender compliments. A night of unrestrained sensual delight between three beautiful maidens.

In other words: the concept of "family bonding," taken to its greatest extreme.