Rykard was back in the pce he belonged: his personalized bathtub.

  It had been further expanded in his absence, the backrest adjusted in shape so up to two haremettes could sit comfortably behind him while two more took his sides. A change that still made it so his harem of now seven women barely managed to share his body between them. Miyo and Vyra were behind him, Mena and Tena by his side, leaving Hey and Lyvia to tend to his cock while Helenn glided up and down his torso, washing his chest with her huge tits.

  There was no room for another haremette in the shallow bathtub. Not an argument to end the expansion of his harem, but a reminder of the limitations of physical space.

  “You will stay today?” Miyo asked.

  Rykard was mid yawn when he answered with a “Yes. I have earned that much.”

  After a month out on the road, he did not feel like leaving the comfortable rest of his Estate in a hurry. At the very least, one day of downtime would be taken, more if he felt like it. His pregnant harem queen kept her face calm and collected as ever, but her fox tail was wagging with delight at having her man in the house.

  Reason, however, was ever a strong trait of the vixen.

  “You should analyse our geopolitical situation before you make decrations about the duration of your stay,” she advised. “Then you will know how many days of downtime you can afford.”

  “Considering I have acquired a steed that I can use to traverse the world rapidly, I think I can mess around a tad more.” The comment got Rykard’s ear pulled. It did not hurt. His Miyo knew their boundaries.

  “Conjure the map, Rykard,” she told him in a cool demand.

  The king smirked quietly to himself. It was ever nice to still have people that could talk to him this way. The list of those who deserved to was exceedingly short. One would struggle to expand it beyond those in this room.

  “Alright then, first, the old map,” Rykard conjured an illusionary picture of it from memory.

  “And now, the new one.”

  “It appears everyone caught up while you were busy,” Miyo observed.

  Rykard’s good mood took a minor dent at that revetion. It was true all around. His previous, comfortable lead had been turned into a third pce. That Altana and her swarm overtook him was barely surprising, but that the mage brat was now ahead of him was bothersome to a high degree. She would rub that in his face when they next met and the st thing he could allow the smug lightning mage to have was a win. She might get ideas that she actually was worthy of bragging to him.

  That he did fall behind was not completely surprising though. He had spent his time much further away from his base of operations than others and all the travel had simply cut into his time budget.

  “Do you think it might be time to attack a fellow Contestant?” Miyo asked.

  Rykard hummed. The vixen had read his thoughts or simply come to the same conclusion as him.

  The cosmic stag allowed Rykard to get to anywhere within his territory in three days and moved about three times as fast as he would under optimal conditions outside of it. In other words, out on the Grid, he could get across three sides of a Hexagon per day on average, faster or slower depending on Starlight Wandering All World’s mood.

  This also meant he could ride to the edge of his coast and set over to the unknown Contestant outlined in green in roughly six days. “At this point, only an alliance of contestants may threaten me,” Rykard thought out loud. “If Ben does ally with anybody, it would be his closest neighbour.”

  “A neighbour that also seems intent with connecting with the third person in the north-eastern corner of your world, milord,” Vyra lend her observation. “”Two unknown Contestants may be able to present a threat to you - or at least cripple the development of New Eden enough to create other headaches down the line.”

  “Optimal would be to attack Benhuldran himself, but his water wall makes that an unattractive prospect for the time being…” Rykard uttered. “I could also randomly set out to the Contestant to our south-east.”

  “I don’t see an immediate tactical pay-off for that,” Miyo advised.

  “Albeit that any Contestant taken out of the game will leave more space for your to cim in the long run, milord,” Vyra added.

  “Why bother with them now?” Hey asked in a haughty tone.

  Lesser men would have said that a face decorated by cum and drool would have robbed the succubus of her elegance, but to Rykard she perfectly retained the charm of a lioness. She was serving the head of the pack, after all, and there was nothing shameful in that act.

  After licking a drop of his seed from her red lips, the succubus continued. “Let them gather their strength. It will make it more entertaining when you inevitably crush them. You have other obligations. May I remind you of the promises you made?”

  Rykard gnced around the harem. Developments since the Divine Game had not given him the time to fulfill the requests by Miyo, Helenn or Hey. Now that finally nothing else was going on and with the birthrate of his realm expected to skyrocket in the coming months, it was perhaps wise to seek the boons of the goddess of fated submission and Lady Lust herself. Finding a worthy folding fan for Miyo was a task of no lesser importance.

  “There’s also the matter of servants,” Vyra brought up. “Your st pn to procure some has been an unforeseen failure. Perhaps it would be best to ask for a specific thing, rather than making a broad general statement and hoping for the best?”

  “The generalizations have been entertaining, by and rge, but I do see your point. The gods like their little games.” Rykard said. “I’ll consider these factors. I’ll make the decision before I set out again.” He dismissed the maps, marking the end of this topic. “Now, do tell me how my realm developed in my absence.”

  “To begin with the disappointing news, there has been a pse in the erection of new statues and other pieces of art,” Miyo stated. “There was a miscommunication regarding whether building supply priority should go to the Buiga or Aulone and that took time to sort out, leading to the ultimate creation of… nothing, really.”

  “We must also report a ck of further development in the military. We appear to have reached a threshold on what we can currently sustain in terms of fighting strength due to inhibitions in other aspects of the nation.”

  “The economy is doing well,” Hey chimed in. “Keeps on pulsing and trucking along on its own… we can’t really cim any credit there. We just watch it unfold. The people have even began building trade routes and roads to connect them.”

  “For the good news,” Miyo recimed the lead. “New temples were erected under good omens, we have made a few advances in sharing technology between the current Hexagons, and good omens from the Whisperwoods have greatly increased general happiness.” The redhead smiled at the twins. “We paid respect to Tey and she made the flowers of the forests bloom all at once. It was a magical sight.”

  “”The Twinned Goddess provides rewards to those that take on life,”” the twins spoke in unison.

  Rykard pondered the dispy for a moment. What he was hearing was that the nation was moving ahead, but that his women did not get a lot of time to increase their own skillsets. That was on him though. How would they expand what they could do when they were given nothing to challenge them? He needed to work through their requests if he wanted to see them become their best selves.

  As for the king, his growth was steady and irrefutable.

  Rykard smiled broadly at his vast increase in power across all fields. Some had expanded vastly more than others, but none had remained unmoving. More than the raw numbers on dispy, he felt as if he had made a… passive breakthrough in the field of alchemy. Between the pns of the ship he had studied and the knowledge gleaned just from walking about the alchemical segment of Machisma, he understood a lot more.

  The body was a coalescing of various cells and organs, not a monolithic entity of flesh. All within worked in tandem with each other to perpetuate the lease on life. Every part of him was in constant talk with itself, picking up the sck of other systems or dealing with outside factors.

  Carefully maniputed, this internal dialogue could be made to cycle a lingering mutagenic influence in perpetuity. A lesser alchemist would fumble such an injection and permanently alter their genetic code in a horrific way, but Rykard was no lesser alchemist. Once his flesh was steeped in alchemical energies this way, it would go through constant, more efficient renewals. His stamina, the defensive capabilities of his epidermis, and his lifeforce would all be boosted tremendously.

  Rykard would get right onto that experiment after he got out of the bathtub. For now, he let Hey earn herself a third breakfast.

  “So, what do you want to do during your stay?” Miyo asked, once he had stopped spurting his seed down the succubus’ gullet. “I doubt you wish to involve yourself in actual governance.”

  “Not at this point, not in any prolific manner,” Rykard answered. “Maybe I’ll have a look over current affairs and serve as an advisor, if I feel like it. Otherwise, I presume you have everything well under control?”

  “As it stands we are being paid the tribute we are owed. We are fortunate in that you have, your most recent conquest aside, chosen an approach that leaves your new subjects happy to part with a fraction of their possessions. Further, we have very little expenses. The pseudo-feudal structure we have means our armies are cared for by the local power structures.”

  Rykard hummed and rested his head on the soft bosom of his first haremette. “Feudal structures usually have the weakness of loyalty being a deep necessity for a lord reliant on his subjects’ levies.”

  “A much lessened issue with you around, milord,” Vyra purred, prompting him to sample her breasts as his headrest instead. Bigger was not always better, as the situation proved. As soft as her tits were, the sheer size put his neck at a less comfortable angle. He lingered anyway. She was far from uncomfortable to y on.

  “My navy is eternally loyal, Sir,” Lyvia chimed in.

  “That is true, we do hold the most capable fighting force in private hand at this moment,” Rykard said. “So that’s not a great worry for the time being.”

  The bath did eventually conclude, leaving Rykard to pn his day.