Chapter 20:

　　Knowledge of Japanese wasn't only useful to be able to communicate with my wives and children, it also gave me access to every manga, visual novel, anime and light novel series that hadn't been translated into English yet. It was a good thing I had a 1,000 year lifespan because there was a lot to catch up on, starting with Oreshura and PapaKiki. I tasked Louise to visit Akihabara and buy everything I needed.

　　I could even finally read the remainder of Solzhenitsyn's Red Wheel series in its native Russian. Cute-sama was the best.

　　Much of my time these days was spent in the hospital ward awaiting the birth of my next child. But mothers took hours giving birth, so I would be happily reading manga and light novels off of my Kindle in the meantime. Once the baby looked like it was about to pop out I would hold my wife's hand and give her encouraging words. Then I'd hold my newest baby in my arms, give it a name, and congratulate the new mother. Once my work was done it was off to prowl the night again with a different wife. I had an unrelenting schedule of sex, otherwise I'd never be able to satisfy all 100 of my wives. Since I was trying to impregnate as many girls as possible as soon as possible, it was always straight into the vagina. The only time I'd slipped around that requirement was when Myusel insisted as my personal maid that she had to accompany me to the giant bath hall, insisted it would be rude to the bath hall if she didn't undress alongside me, washed my back with her breasts, and then insisted it was a maid's duty to wash my front as well. I received a glorious handjob that day which we kept secret from the wife I was supposed to be meeting that night. Well, with Illyasviel's Ruby on my side, I could probably afford to cum twice a day, but generally I thought it was better to stay on an even keel of one wife a night, so that I could truly enjoy my time alone with her and focus on how special she was to me.

　　That being said, I couldn't wait until it was Myusel's turn again. . .

　　Most of the time she was busy cooking meals for the mansion's communal breakfasts and dinners. After that came everyone's laundry, cleaning the dishes and sweeping the endless floors. She might be the hardest working girl in the world, but she never complained and said it was a maid's duty to look after her master's abode. She even found the time to add on the personal touches like washing and cutting my hair, shaving me, and keeping a calendar of which wife I should be attending to today. There were also times she would lay me down in the baths and give me a massage, whenever she said I was looking tired or dispirited. Maids were great. Or maybe it was just Myusel, the greatest maid in the world, who had already accepted a polygamous marriage with me long before we'd even come to this world together. That level of unquestioning service couldn't be ignored, which is why I had chosen her for my harem in the first place.

　　Maybe, after all this time of her serving me, I should find something to give her. Well, the greatest gift I could give her was a child, and we were already working on that. But since that hadn't worked out this year maybe there was something else I could do for her. But what? She already had access to all the interesting manga and light novels we had imported over from Japan. The city was already overflowing with flowers thanks to Cure Flora's influence.

　　How about chocolate? We were raising cocoa plants alongside everything else, so maybe she would like it if I cooked her some homemade chocolate in the kitchen while she was busy cleaning the bath? That should at least give me an hour long window.

　　Plenty of girls in Paradise had a sweet tooth, so luckily there was already a batch of cocoa powder in our pantry. If I had had to roast, crack, temper and ferment the stuff, it would have become a year long enterprise. So once breakfast was finished and the dishes washed and Myusel had safely retreated into her cleaning mode, I quickly whipped out all the ingredients I needed and got to work.

　　After that I just followed the recipe I found online. I heated water in one bowl while mixing butter and cocoa powder in another. Then I poured the mixture into the hot water and stirred, slowly adding milk, sugar, vanilla and egg yolks until everything congealed.

　　Then I poured out the dark liquid chocolate into a series of pans, let them cool and harden, then used a heart shaped cookie cutter to provide the shape of my feelings for her. I thought even this may not get across how much I loved her and was grateful for her daily ministrations, so I wrote 'arigatou' on some hearts, 'kind,' 'cute,' 'sexy,' 'those breasts,' 'I can't wait,' 'your hair is a work of art,' 'beautiful,' 'gracious,' 'perfect,' 'dutiful,' 'pure,' 'humble,' and 'Myusel + Chris forever' on the others.

　　It was hard to see all the letters just by carving indentions so I wrote over the lines with red icing. Then I let the chocolate harden some more, ate all the scraps that couldn't be fit into the heart shapes myself, and found a purple bag to secure my haul to match her eyes. I tied the bag shut with a white ribbon to denote her essential goodness and hid the bag in a vase I knew only she would come across during cleaning. She was so thorough I knew she would discover it, and the message that I knew she would discover it because she was such a hard worker would then also be conveyed. After that I only had to wait.

　　My reward came swiftly the next day, in the form of Myusel noticing I was staring at her, blushing and looking away. She never spoke anything of it. I suppose to her everything she did for me was atarimaida, unworthy of praise, so it was beneath her dignity to make a big deal out of it. But I still counted the present a success.

* * *

　　"Sakura Mamiya, could you go tell Sakura Kinomoto that we need additions to the school complex to account for the rising population? Instead of just one classroom, hmm, let's make the school big enough for a thousand. The babies can graduate straight from daycare into formal schooling all in the same building. That should take care of the baby boom for now." I called her into the mayor's office.

　　"So you plan on giving us ten children a piece." Sakura Mamiya mused non-judgmentally.

　　"I wouldn't mind that, but I was thinking of our grandchildren. Our kids are going to grow up in the blink of an eye and I've mandated that each of them has to have at least two kids themselves, so you see how quickly our village is slated to grow." I explained myself.

　　Mirajane was tending to our daughter Hisui at home so I now worked directly with Sakura Mamiya to implement city planning. It was good to have backup workers in place at every location.

　　"Lucy will also need to be informed." Sakura Mamiya put a finger on her lip. "But she's at home taking care of Yukino."

　　"You know my daughter's name?" I asked, my eyebrows rising in surprise.

　　"Of course, since we're married, isn't Yukino also my daughter?" Sakura Mamiya asked.

　　"You actually care about your stepdaughters? Aren't you supposed to throw them off cliffs, lure them deep into forests, feed them to bears, steal their food and beat them with chipped washbasins?" I asked.

　　"I think Cute-sama understood that being fine with polygamy meant also being fine with the children of polygamous marriages. So I like all my stepsons and stepdaughters at least a bit. But even without her intercession, shouldn't you trust me a little more?" Sakura Mamiya retorted.

　　"Okay, you're on." I summoned up a list of my sons' and daughters' names and started scanning for the absolutely most obscure ones.

　　"So you still need to check a list to know your own children's names." Sakura confirmed my failure as a father non-judgmentally.

　　"Say what you like, but there's no way you're any better." I prophesied. "Mai's son's name is --"

　　"Shou." Sakura Mamiya said.

　　"Are you sure that's not Orihime's?" I taunted.

　　"No, that's Kazui." Sakura Mamiya held both of her hands in front of her clasped together and gave me a triumphant smile and a daring glare to try again.

　　"Yui's son is named--" I tried again. No one could remember this one.

　　"Takashi." Sakura Mamiya replied instantly.

　　"MOMO's son is--" I baited.

　　"It's a daughter and her name is Sakura, just like mine." Sakura Mamiya smiled happily. "I especially love her."

　　I gave up and rested my forehead upon my lovely oaken desk. "How? How? I don't remember any of their names. . .when did you even grow so close to your other wives. . ."

　　"Don't worry, Christopher. None of us expect anything from you." Sakura Mamiya reassured me, putting a hand on my shoulder.

　　"When you say it so kindly it hurts even more." I whined.

　　"Then, what do you want me to say?" Sakura Mamiya asked.

　　"Say you love me." I proposed.

　　"I love you Christopher." And then she lifted my chin off the desk with her fingers and kissed me on the lips. "I'm sorry my tone of voice doesn't convey anything. But surely our nights together can give you some clues." Sakura Mamiya gave me a troubled look. She was genuinely worried beneath all that emotional armor.

　　"I love you too. I hope our days together convey that." I said, brightening up happily and seizing her hands between mine.

　　"More or less." Sakura Mamiya gave a small smile. "But I think your children would like it if you could at least memorize their names by the time they're five. If you don't remember the name of our child when the time comes I think I'd feel really hurt. . ."

　　"I'll work on it!" I promised her.

　　"First work on getting me pregnant." Sakura Mamiya gave me a flirtatious smile and then was out the door to work again.

　　I summoned up my list of baby names and started drilling fervently. And to think this was only the first 31.

　　Kuon took her place at my desk. "I'll go take care of Yukino so that Lucy can install the extra plumbing."

　　"Thank you, that would be a great help." I smiled up at her.

　　"If you forget our child's name it won't be me who is feeling hurt, just so you know." Kuon smiled sweetly.

　　"Eavesdropping is a bad habit." I responded, and then I turned back to my baby name list with ferocious intensity.