"Mom! Can you make the horses go slower?" Alex asked out loud.
"You guys want to go to the capital in two weeks instead?" Katherine questioned.
"Never mind."
After sitting in the wagon for a while, Alex and Sophia started getting used to the shakiness.
The road also became much smoother, as it only had an occasional bump rather than a constant jump.
However, the three quickly became bored, as it was still too shaky to do anything besides look at the outside.
"Mom! I'm bored!" Mary complained.
"You can come out with me if you want... One at a time!"
The other two quickly sat back down to their bench, with Mary going to the front to be with Katherine.
After waiting for Mary and Sophia's turn, it was finally Alex's turn to go up next.
As he slowly stepped to the front, Katherine quickly pulled him back to her lap.
"Be careful. Don't stand in the front, or else you might fall over." Katherine warned as she held onto the two horses' reins.
Alex nodded in agreement as he began examining the view in front of him.
On the left was an empty field. But slightly in the distance was a giant forest that even overshadowed the road ahead of them.
On the right was a small creek. It was the same creek that traveled all the way back to the town that they came from.
Meanwhile, ahead of them was a bunch of plain and smaller forests, with a dirt path wide enough for two wagons to ride side by side.
"This feels like fantasy so much..." Alex murmured.
"Hm? What did you say?"
Katherine asked out loud as the wind made it almost impossible for the two to hear each other's murmur.
"Nothing... Mom, can you teach me how to drive this?" Alex asked out loud this time.
"Sure, just hold onto this and pull back a little when you see a rock on the road."
Alex waited patiently, keeping his eyes on the road, for the rock to appear in the path.
After waiting for almost a few minutes, he finally got the chance to pull back.
The horse immediately slowed down a little, making the wagon jump a little lower than usual.
"Good job. Now, if you pull all the way back, the horse is going to stop. Never do that unless there's an emergency."
Alex nodded in agreement, as it almost felt like driving a car, albeit without a gas padel.
"Now, to make a left turn, you only pull the left reins. And for a right turn, you pull the right reins.
But since we're just going straightforward, there's no need for that." Katherine explained as she took back the reins from Alex.
"I see... How about telling the horse to go faster?" Alex curiously asked.
"It's already going at its max speed... I don't recommend whipping the horse if that's what you're thinking of."
"Why not?"
"Because the horses have memories too. If you're doing it for a short distance, it will probably be faster for the first few times.
But in the long term, it's going to hurt the horse... And we're going to rely on these two horses for a long time."
"I see..."
"Of course, if you're riding on the horse directly, you can just gently knock on the horse's stomach with the back of your feet."
After sitting on Katherine's lap for a while, she suddenly pulled him back a little, letting him lean directly onto her chest.
"You don't have to be shy, Alex."
"Thank you, mom..."
Alex soon started to get a little sleepy, closing his eyes as Katherine's body almost felt like a real bed.
It was soft where it needed to be yet firm enough to support his neck without putting any weight on his shoulder.
"Alex is so tall already... It's almost up to neck now," Katherine thought to herself as she pulled both reins a little to make the trip less bumpy.
As Katherine focused more and more on Alex's face, her heart suddenly skipped a beat as she imagined him as her husband for a second.
"What am I thinking? He's obviously always going to look like Paul. He's your son, you idiot."
Katherine quickly shook her head, getting everything out of her mind as she shifted her attention back to the road.
"Alex! It's my turn now!" Mary complained as her loud voice appeared from the back of the wagon.
"Okay, okay!"
Alex quickly got up from his mom's lap, not noticing the change on Katherine's face as he headed back inside.
---
After almost eight hours of nonstop sitting in the wagon, it finally came to a stop.
All four of them immediately jumped out of the wagon, walking away from each other in silence before meeting back up after a few minutes.
"Ahem, Mom, where do we set up camp?" Sophia curiously asked.
"Inside the wagon... Let's eat something before going to sleep. Can you three pick up some branches?"
As Katherine headed to the far back of the wagon to get food, the three quickly headed to the nearby forest outskirts to get a few pieces of wood.
After gathering a few branches and a loose wooden log, the three headed back to the wagon.
But to their surprise, a whole tent was already there, with a whole campfire setup.
"Surprise! Did you guys actually think we're going to sleep in that small wagon?"
Katherine asked as she quickly grabbed all the wood from the tree before starting a fire in the pit.
"How did you set all these up so fast?" Sophia asked curiously.
"Magic! Do you guys want to learn this?"
All three of them immediately nodded their head, so Katherine snapped her finger again.
Right before their eyes, the tent and the campfire disappeared again. Then, with a snap of a finger, it reappears again.
"You guys will learn it in the future when you become an archmage with dimensional magic.
Anyway, let's start cooking the food."
Katherine started the fire up again, putting the food into the pot before making water out of thin air.
"Mom, you're an archmage?!" Sophia asked in excitement, as none of them knew her actual capability.
"Hell no. I just specialize in dimensional magic, so I have it earlier." Katherine replied as she began stirring the vegetables in the pot.
"What's an archmage?" Mary curiously asked.
"Archmage is the second highest possible mage. Mom, did I answer that correctly?"
"Yes, Alex. You studied your book pretty well, didn't you?"
Alex held his chin up proudly, feeling a little happy to be complimented by Katherine.
"I-I know that too." Sophia chimed in, not wanting to be left out.
"Yeah, yeah, you did a good job too..."
---
After the three of them finished eating, Katherine snapped her finger to make the campfire and pots disappear.
Next, she went over to the stack of hay that the horses had finished eating and gathered it back into the wagon.
"Mom, why don't we just put everything in your dimension?" Alex curiously asked.
"Because there's a limit to how much I can put in it... Anyway, let's all go take a bath now."
All three of them looked a little confused by what Katherine meant until a giant wooden bathtub appeared before them.
With a small chant, the entire bathtub was soon filled up with water, with steam flowing into the air.
"What are you guys waiting for?"
Katherine quickly began to take off Mary's clothes before putting her inside, then got inside the bathtub herself.
Sophia didn't hesitate and took off her clothes before getting inside, leaving Alex standing with his clothes still on.
"Alex?"
Alex thought for a second, then took off his clothes before jumping into the bathtub as well.
The hot water immediately rose all the way to Mary's chest as the four of them sat in the bathtub in silence.
"We haven't taken a bath together for so long," Katherine murmured as she leaned back in the bathtub.
"Yeah. I miss us spending time together like this so much," Sophia murmured as a rush of nostalgia rushed into her mind.
"The three of us literally sleep on the same bed every day..." Mary murmured as she submerged herself in it before getting back up.
As the three girls relaxed in the bathtub, Alex's story was completely different.
Both of his hands were covering his crotch, with his eyes looking to the side, trying to avoid looking at their bodies.
"Alex, are you okay?" Katherine curiously asked after noticing his head tilted to the side.
"I-I'm fine."
Seeing Alex looking a little nervous, Katherine moved all the way to be next to him.
"It's okay, Alex. You don't have to hide yourself. We're all family here." Katherine whispered as she pulled his hand away.
After a short internal fight in his head, Alex eventually turned back around to face the three of them.
"Look, it wasn't that hard."
After he got used to seeing Sophia and Mary's bodies, which were as flat as cardboard, Alex accepted her point.
But Katherine's voluptuous body was making him think of something immoral.
It was starting to make him a little scared, as his mind was once again treating Katherine as another woman rather than being his mom.