"I said I'm sorry, but did you really need to go that hard?" Sera asked, patting her waist. She was never going to underestimate man again.
"You did hog me, and although that's not what we agreed on, I'm quite sure the results were a great show." He said, Xera nodding while blushing a bit and Mari basically not stopping to look at anything else but his ass. "Maybe next time I'll give you some too." He giggled, still appreciating the pain. Even though orcs had magical properties to turn this kind of thing easier, it was still his first time, so of course it hurt.
"DAD! THERE'S A SUSPICIOUS LADY BY THE GATE THAT WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!" Clair exclaimed, clearly far away, but still imediatly summoning said entity.
"I told you not to go answer the door sweety, we were just getting out of the bath after training. If they don't have a life or death bussines or an appointment then they can wait for the maids to finish their training. And you are... The slut that robbed Sera, how unexpected. Do you want to come in and try to take something more out of the girl you fooled or did you just notice how you shouldn't have broken up with the sweetest and most innocent person on town? Seriously, even my daughter could rob her blind, there's a reason people hadn't done it yet." He scoffed, turning around and taking his daughter away before the woman could regain her senses from the unexpected assault. Then he came back after getting Claire out of earshot.
He caught the chestnut haired woman by the chin bringing her quite close to the bars on the gate.
"Listen close little bitch, I know what you thought of doing to Sera. No one would care if you changed things up after she went into debt. Now I care. And I'm going to make you regret every second of existence if you remain in this city. I will give you a day. If I hear about you one more time, I'm going to find you, cut you up a new face, change everything in your body and use it as a doll for whoever bids higher. Get out." The whole threat was delivered with pressure to her skull, but his expression, tone and eyes were completly flat.
The librarian ran, terror flowing through and out of her body through snot, tears, sweat and piss. Aki's Intimidate skill would have leveled up from this if it'd not already been at level 10.
"Who was it?" Asked Mari, Sera behind her.
"Just another noble's courier. Sent her off before she could drop names." He shrugged.
"I know everyone here is exceptional, but should you really be treating a noble's invitation like that?" Asked the confused orc.
"No need, we're building our own brand and have more than enough capital to start. If one of them considers being polite for once, then I might..." *Tunk Tunk.* Turning to the gate, the semi naked humanoids saw one well dressed young man sweating a bit.
"Hello, is this the Alastor's party base?" He asked with a calm smile. He seemed in a hurry tough.
"Yes, I'm the leader, this is our scout and this our tank in probatio." He quickly explained. The man, didn't seem to be there for pleasantries.
"I am sorry to bother you so close to lunch hour, but word of your healing have reached the ears of my master. You are one of the best healers on the city and we require all the aid available. My master would gladly give you a generous reward even for trying to heal his son, so..."
"Say no more." Aki was already acting, serious face and pants on. "I will talk payment with the parent, show me my patient."
*****
"And then I scammed a contract out of them, granting me honorary knighthood in exchange for preference when choosing contracts." Boisterously laughed Aki while braiding the left side Sera's hair. "And would you look at that? You look absolutely stunning with braids on your side."
"Like a princess warrior in the books!" Exclaimed Clair, who'd been braiding the right side.
"If you weren't mine I'd feel bad about not looking womanly enough even if I put on the same clothes." Xera nodded with a small smile over her book.
"I wish people like you would appear more. Seriously, whenever someone comes over is just to try and seduce me like I'm some cheap woman." Complained Mari. Who was laying on the the combined lap over the sofa.
"We all love mom though." Clair cutely said, caressing the cat ears in front of her.
"NYA! Clair, you're so precious!" Exclaimed Mari, throwing her arms around her daughter as everyone warmly smiled and acted like Sera wasn't blushing so hard her neck was greener.
*****
"And I'm capped. Let's ignore this new skill and job completly so I can keep doing what I was doing." Muttered Aki as he received several notifications, one of them mentioning a 'Pornography creation' skill, which he'd certainly max out later on because it was very interesting.
Right as he stored the statue of his two wives, someone banged on his studio's door. More like they were banged to it, but that is a semantic battle he was not interested in.
"Am I to assume you are someone sent to assassinate me?" He asked, not actually expecting an answer and holding the would be assailant's forehead.
"This, that, mommy issues and brainwashed. I can tell you here and now, I passed through at least twenty guys that had it worse than you and only two are actually as bad as you." He said and yawned. There's a reason psicology had been synonym of torture for a long ass time. "I see, someone put a contract for me, since you're all here maybe I'll finally play that." He mouthed, quickly taking care of the five man that had tried to enter since they'd all been taken down by traps. Sometimes Aki wondered how many people his house would capture if he left for a month long vacation. Most traps could reset themselves after enough mana was accumulated to power the mechanism around it, but really, there's only so many idiots that would try.
Singing the song he had in mind ended up killing all five assassins and turning them into servile ghosts. And getting Apprentice singer to level 100.
"And I bid you adieu." He bowed, his teeth coming back to normal before he dispersed the ghosts, he'd order them around later. First he needed to change his job to apprentice knight, which had great bonuses that went well with his times two multiplier on apprentice jobs, and then give report/pray to Ark explaining how he got the demonology skill.
Thanks to his 'holy' tipe skills, that would not cause any difference in his daily life, the knowledge he had wasn't going away though.
All that done, Aki decided he needed cuddles, so when he saw his daughter being teached to draw by Sera, he smiled and swiftly sat on her lap, kissed her cheek and ruffled Clair's bangs before kissing her forehead and laying on the she-orc.
"Dad has spent enough time holed up, so I'll be just here watching you two. Your father's hugs are great." He said, wrapping and arm around himself.
"Father? Sera looks more like a mommy though. Also, isn't father just for men?" Asked the child. Aki just kissed the confused giantess and giggled.
"That's something from her culture sweety, though I doubt this one would dislike being called mommy. She does have a pee pee though." He said, brushing the underlines under the truth.
"Mommy!" She experimented, imediatly getting a tear filled hug for her efforts. Clair and Aki just giggled at how cute their new family member was.
*****
Another weak passed since Clair was adopted, the cultists finally starting to think that suicide charging wasn't the best idea. That was a shame, because Aki was milking each and every one of them for XP.
"Well, since things have calmed down, how about we go get those three and start their job terms while going for another delve? We're pretty much running our of gold to throw at the guards that come annoy me." Aki asked.
"I just checked the house expenditures, we have literal ten big gold coins on reserve and eighty more of those that we are free to spend. Not even the house was this expensive when you bought it." Complained Mari while throwing him a sharp look.
"I was just trying to get the mood on, you boring cat. If money was all that I wanted I could sell my body parts, knowledge, basically everything." He said, leaving out the prostitution joke. "We're going to show you guys the city!" He smiled.
And so they did, three or so days on the road thanks to the monsters they ussed as pulling force for the various wagons they brought . Several people tried to followed them through the woods, but they were quickly offered to the driads or put down for XP.
"Hey, they did end up growing the giant tree I suggested." Aki quipped as everyone but he and Xera gaped at the outer wall and the tree that had become visible only after they passed the canopy. It was so big it should've been seen all the way from Gray tower, the city they'd been. "Hope it doesn't intefere too much with the iron mine bussiness. I did find other kinds of deposits there, but i've still no clue what was actually there." He murmured while they approached the gates, quickly getting inside thanks to Aki having a pass to the anti-teleportation arrays and passing the gate while the guards were still flustered that they'd come back.
There was no such thing as stopping the sovereigns when in a monster town after all. Aki and Mari would later have to catalog all the things they were going to leave around here, plus the amount of money they'd inject into the economy through the public employees and services. At the time, the place had a couple thousand habitants, but that was constantly increasing with tribes from further and further away joining constantly. And yet the place was very sparcely populated, having been renovated to hold more and more people in and out the mountain range it was so close to.
"You mean even normal orcs are comming here and becoming citizens?" Asked the green lady.
"Yup. After I acquired skills to strenghten subordinates and followers, they aparently gain enough a bonus to inteligence that their own culture just kicks in and makes them behave. The more they function in society, the more 'brainy' they become too. Lizardman were always simply xenophobic, and goblins are cursed, so when you get them bellow a strong leader, they fit right in. Kobolts are a bit bellow in the hierarchy, with they pretty much being as smart as dogs before they rank up, but when they do, their surroundings apparently makes it so that their atributes are more balanced on the mind side, creating a cicle where they will eventually be smart enough to be citizens from the moment they are born like some of the other species. There are also 'civilized' races around, but they get a lower bonus since they don't all submit like the monsters do, nor are they as numerous. Their magic and expertise certainly helped a lot though, so even if someone wanted to they can't easily discriminate." He explained, pride on his face for all to see. It was one of the few times he really looked like the embodiement of the sin, releasing a bit of his presence and allowing all on the city to feel he was proud of them. It was a deep, soothing feeling that encouraged many, like they'd just heard the first laugh of their firstborn and decided that they would take care and cherish it with their lives.