Alex acted quickly as he watched his love cry in pain and hold her hips in pain. He grabbed some medicine that acted like morphine and force-fed her and waited for it to act.
She slowly calmed down but continued to weep. Alex bent down to her again and held her head in his hands. He brushed her hair and kissed her gently, telling her it was alright and that she was okay.
He reminded her to focus on his voice to calm down rather than the pain and let her relax. He wasn't sure when it happened, but her weeping suddenly sounded more like laughing to him and he turned to her with worry.
Grace was rubbing her eyes while she had a bright smile on her face. She had a hard time hiding the joy written on her face but it only made her master more confused.
"Are you alright baby?" Alex held her hands to prevent her from wiping her eyes too hard.
With red eyes closed, her lips curled up beautifully causing her cheeks to form small dimples while she hiccupped quietly. Her tears kept coming down and she sniffled one last time before answering him.
"I felt pain for the first time in my life, Master. Thank you." Grace sincerely thanked him before quickly getting out of his grasp and latching on to his neck again to kiss him.
"I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!" Grace kept repeating as she kissed her master eagerly.
Alex was very confused, but with how happy she looked, he couldn't help but smile too. He felt his heart flutter as she showered him with affection. This was the most emotion he had ever seen out of her.
She was normally very serious with her work as his slave, but now, she was acting more like a woman in love. She smiled beautifully which made his heart skip a beat, and he noticed how she didn't refer to herself in the 3rd person multiple times.
This was the most important to him since it always felt like she was undermining herself, believing that she was an object, rather than a person. He was glad that he was able to make some progress toward making her more like how a normal person should act.
After she came down from her giddy feeling again, he reminded her about her condition again and she quickly began healing herself with the help of her master. She wasn't able to feel the pain of her master moving her pelvis again which was odd, and disappointing for the slave girl, but it allowed Alex to move it where it needed to be.
Grace turned pale as she used her magic to speed up the healing process of her body, healing her pelvis until it was safe. She didn't have as big of an essence pool as Sharla did, so they had to take several breaks for rest and Alex fed her so she could keep up her strength.
She was bright red most of the time, she found it strange to feel embarrassed by her master's treatment, but she didn't complain about it because it made her feel wonderful inside. Similar to her strange reaction to pain, she couldn't feel many emotions.
Through unknown methods, she no longer felt pain and lost her feeling of humanity thanks to the asshole who's name started with a "G" but wasn't important enough to remember.
When the sun was completely visible to the outside world, Grace's pelvis was finally healed well enough to consider her out of danger. Alex then used his own medical expertise to help ease the "pain" around the rest of her body.
He gave her mostly topical treatments for the bruising she had all over her. It wasn't from him punching her or anything, but he had just put too much pressure on those parts of her body for a long period of time.
They were lucky nothing else broke, but she needed a lot of rest still so Alex refused to let her move for the rest of the day, even if it meant stalling the progress of the quests. Grace felt awful since it meant her master would have to pay a massive fee without her help but he assured her that she was priceless.
He got up to clean up the mess they caused yesterday after settling Grace comfortably in a blow-up mattress full of blankets and pillows. Grace quickly fell asleep after letting herself go beyond the limits of her body last night.
As Alex was getting himself dressed in his armor clothes, he narrowed his eyes at Grace since he felt her aura flare up. Turning around, he widened his eyes as he saw the unmistakable green glow of essence swimming around her like spirits.
He could feel her aura growing slowly but surely, and her once pale face, getting more color again. He sighed in relief and happiness before leaving the tent to let his girl evolve in peace.
He had gotten information on how the process normally worked from the couple who owned the inn. It normally works by the essence in the surroundings, surrounding the evolver who is usually in a sort of temporary coma while the body is strengthened.
Alex's evolution worked a bit differently and he wasn't ever able to really understand what was happening to him during those times. However, Alan had once told him that essence did try to enter his body, but was unable to.
He wasn't sure of what was causing his own condition, but Grace's seemed normal. In fact, it seemed like there was a lot of essence surrounding her which was good. She would get stronger and be able to use magic for longer.
On top of that, it meant they could spend more time together intimately without her getting tired or injured as much.
*Screeeecchhh!!*
Alex heard a metal grinding sound after exiting the tent and looked up slightly to find his Ego weapon flying around his head.
"I hope you had fun hunting last night." Alex smirked as he could still see dried blood on it.
He didn't care who or what it killed, since he gave it orders to kill anything that came too close and he meant it. He hadn't lost all his senses at that point so he was serious with those orders. Whether they were humans or not, he didn't care.
Those people could only blame themselves for getting too close.
In fact, the Ego chain did in fact kill humans. It even played with its food as he clanked happily when they tried to run and screamed "monster!" They were just a few low-ranked adventurers from the Guild and probably wouldn't be missed.
Adventurers died all the time so people got used to losing people close to them, which wasn't healthy but was a fact of life.
"Guard the tent, don't let any living thing other than me near her." Alex gave out more orders before it flew up into the trees to hide.
Alex looked to the horizon where the light fought to enter in between the trees. He took a deep breath of the fresh forest air before looking down at the list of things the two of them needed to get.
Most of it was herbs, unfortunately, but there were several monster bounties which he planned to do quickly now. He wanted to get this done as quickly as possible so he could be back in time for Grace to finish her evolution and so he could spend as much of his time looking for herbs later.
Because he didn't have all the information that Grace had, and couldn't recall it as well as her, he needed as much time as possible to complete these missions by himself.
He put the list away in his ring before fazing out like an instant transmission and disappeared into the forest.
Soon, roars of pain and anger echoed through the forest as Alex began to slaughter the kinds of monsters needed on his list. The 2nd Ring and even many 3rd Rings had no chance to fight back as he was unleashing his power to the full, taking his anger out on his enemies.
He really wanted to let it out on himself, but there was a time and place for that, and a forest was not the place while he was on a time crunch right now.
- - -
Evening came and the forest glowed back to life when Alex appeared back at the campsite covered in blood. He took off his blood-soaked clothes until he was naked and washed off his body using some water and a towel.
There wasn't a river he could find on his trip through the forest so he could only sigh and use this method. He didn't bother washing his clothes, only letting the blood dry naturally as to preserve water, and would have to wear the itchy clothes again tomorrow.
He let the Ego chain crawl back into his skin again, making for an interesting sight as the chain coiled itself as tattoos on his skin. He entered the tent by the time it was all the way back on him and he heard a gentle voice in the back of the tent.
"Master?" Grace asked, sounding a bit tired still.
She had evolved fully, making it easier for her to move around again but she was still weak. Alex smiled as he came up to the mattress while Grace pulled up the covers for her master to join her.
Alex wasn't able to get comfortable as he felt her wrap her arms around him and squish her big breasts against him. She dug into his neck again and she sighed in relief.
"How are you feeling?" He asked as he tried to move underneath her to pull her closer to him.
She helped him out as she replied.
"Grace is fine master. Did Master finish any missions?" She ran her hands over his chest and face as he petted her hair.
"All the monster hunts are done, so it's just the herbs that need to be collected. More importantly, can you move your legs?"
"Mmmm," Grace nodded against his shoulder, "Grace's legs feel really stiff but she can move them a little."
"Good." Alex sighed in relief and kissed her head.
He was worried about her being bedridden like Eva but the power of magic definitely helped her.
He soon felt Grace's lips on his own and she moaned gently. She slowly slid her upper body on top of his and struggled to move her legs over, but it didn't matter much. Alex helped her out a bit as their tongue intertwined and they held each other tightly.
"Promise you won't feed me those penis things again?" Alex raised an eyebrow at his girl, causing her to giggle.
"Hehe... Master said penis." Grace snorted.
Alex smirked and grabbed her butt, making her squeal in delight and making her swollen puffy pussy twitch as well.
"Haha so funny," Alex rolled his eyes, "And no sex tonight, only rest."
He moved her back gently to his side as he felt her body heat up and her try to grind herself against him. She also started stroking his rising dragon but she couldn't do much more than make him uncomfortably hard.
Grace pouted but didn't object. She just grumbled and went back to her happy place and cuddled up to her master.
"Master, how much do you love Grace?" Her words surprised him a bit but he still answered.
"More than anything baby."
"Even more than Alicia and Kaya?" Grace asked the important question so he gave her a slap on the butt as punishment.
She yelped quietly as he answered, "You know I can't answer that. I love you all dearly, and the same. None of you are more loved than the other, its just that I have known Alicia longer than Kaya, while I have known both of them longer than you.
"At the same time, I will be spending more time with you, so to them, it may seem like I love you more when I got back to see them again, but It is just the amount of time we would have together that would allow our love to develop more."
Alex thought he answered that quite well but Grace pouted, not liking the answer. No girl, especially one part of a harem, would like the "I love you all equally" bullshit. Grace wasn't thinking exactly along those lines, she just wanted to be above her rival, Alicia, mostly.
He would undoubtedly have more issues with his relationships as his harem grew, but it wasn't like he would go out searching for women to add. If he happened to come across someone he clicked with just like with his other girls, then he would go for it.
He could only hope that in the future, his girls could get along better than Alicia and Grace do.
He slowly drifted off to sleep with his sexy slave in his arms with the natural nightlight of the forest in the background.