[It feels like it's been a long time since we've been able to just sit around and do nothing.]

"Really? Weren't we doing that every night on our way to the last village?"

[Scarlet meant sitting around without any worries.]

"Worries?"

Sometimes I envied this spirit's emptyheadedness. Not having a care in the world aside from her own desires.

[It's already been a few months since then.]

[I really liked it when you patted me on the head like that.]

Alicia's voice echoed my own sentiments as I gently combed the former unresponsive woman's hair as she slept with her head resting on my chest. Epione's head lay on my shoulder as she slept on my other side.

[We'll be able to do that again in the future. Probably less than two years if we're lucky.]

[Two years? That soon?]

[Probably. Though one never knows what the future holds.]

Especially when it came to debugging, any estimate was generally half what was really needed.

But still, while getting pregnant and giving birth to Alicia's new body seemed like the most viable, or rather, the only viable solution so far, I had trouble actually committing to it. In the end, rather than being worried about making it work, just the act of becoming pregnant was scary.

It wasn't something that I should have been able to experience, as my original memories were that of a man. Even if physically it was possible, that was completely different from embracing such a thing mentally.

(But it's for Alicia's sake. It's the only safe solution.)

I tried to convince myself that it was true. For sure it was by far the closest thing to being a sure possibility. I had hardly even started trading the path for any other solution. Yet no matter how much I tried to convince myself that this was the way, my logical mind kept reeling back from my emotional heart, scared and unsure that this was something I could actually do, let alone wanted.

Maybe it was because I was raised with the knowledge that I couldn't ever personally experience pregnancy, that it was easy to talk about it from purely an outsider's perspective. But when it came to to thinking about it from a personal perspective, perhaps I didn't even have the foundations needed to even start considering it properly.

It was possible I was wrong, and that it was something all women had to face at some point in their life, but I felt like I never had a chance to soften the blow through years of puberty that any normal woman would have had.

(What did she think about this whole thing? She spent most of her life thinking about this sort of thing, didn't she?)

Claret had spoken a lot about her original master. So many stories about her that it was as if my head was filled more of her life than my own despite living two lives.

(But in the end, she never ended up having a family.)

As strange as it was, that seemed to have been the truth, despite dedicated so much of her life towards that cause. That bastard managed to do it, even if calling it a family was pushing things pretty far, he did manage to spawn offsprings.

The only answer to that was that her method of investigation just wasn't good enough. That she had put her energies in the wrong direction that somehow led her away from the answer rather than towards it.

(But it's not my problem.)

In the end, she was already long since dead and such debates belonged to historians, not someone who was filled with current worries rather than past ones.

But still, I barely knew these women yet it was surprising how soothing it was to let them rest like this.

Hell, I was by far the youngest in this room for that matter if you only took my current life into consideration, yet I was the one acting all motherly.

The more I thought about it, the weirder my life seemed.

But it wasn't like I was dissatisfied by it in the slightest.

Or rather, for once, there was meaning and value to it. I had things to actually look forward to, things that drove me to work hard, to push myself. Things other than to just pay the bills.

No, when I thought about it things weren't really that different at first. I dove into that dungeon simply for the sake of it. To feed myself and enjoy the thrill of gaining levels and skills. But that was it.

At least until I met the spirits, then Alicia, then everyone else.

On Earth, there wasn't really any need to do anything you didn't want to as long as you paid your bills on time. It was easy to get disconnected with others and get by with only the bare minimum social interactions.

Virtually all my connections back then were superficial and I ended up forgetting about them when I stopped meeting them, whether it was at school, work, or anywhere else. I could hardly remember any of their faces, let alone their names.

The direction of social technologies and customs on Earth encouraged large numbers of weak connections, but in turn, that meant that there wasn't any reason to do more than superficial things. You showed off nothing but the best parts of your life to others for nothing but vanity because it was easier than sharing your real life. Not when you weren't even showing your life through anything but some short videos and a few words.

But here, such things weren't an option.

While being able to talk to someone at a distance was invaluable, it was clear that we on Earth had forgotten some valuable things that we had depended on through the millennia, and that was physical connections.

At the very least, it felt like that was what was missing in my life.

The glow of a genuine smile unfiltered through digital medium, the sound of a person's voice about mundane things without anything inconvenient cut out, the warmth of another's touch without any ulterior motives behind it.

It wasn't like this world lacked dirty and gritty things. It was just as full of it as Earth was, perhaps even more so due to how harsh and primitive this world was.

But it felt like the connections I had made in this world were more real than any on Earth, despite how short my associations were with so many people outside of Alicia.

"Either way, I wish I could just fall asleep like this."

[I loved falling asleep in your arms.]

[Does that mean you don't want to become a vampire in your new life?]

[No. As long as we're together, I don't care what I become.]

[I see.]

Well, it wasn't like I felt different about it. Having her reborn as a vampire was definitely the easiest.

[You won't miss the things you could enjoy as a Human?]

[I'll...miss some of it, but I want to stay with you more than that.]

[Thanks.]

I continued to pat this woman's head as I enjoyed the warmth of their bodies until Epione woke up and took over caring for the other one so I could get to work on breakfast.

 

"So, ummm, it's a bit hard to say it lightly, but has everyone thought about the abortion?"

After breakfast was done, I asked everyone about the most pertinent thing.

Frankly speaking, I didn't really want to do the abortions, but denying it would be denying these people their rights.

Not like rights were guaranteed in such a medieval society in the first place, but I didn't want to be the one to deny such a thing. Especially to these people who were forced to live without rights for so long.

That said, it was still snuffing out life. Innocent life. Even if from a scientific perspective that a fetus was little more than a type of parasite.

(Yea, no. I'm not making that comparison ever again.)

Such a thought just made me queasy instead of helping to make me feel better about this whole ordeal.

Twelve women approached me.

"I guess I can take it that you are the ones who want to go through with the abortions?"

All of them nodded, while everyone else looked on from a distance.

"You do understand that once I start, it's irreversible, right?"

Once again, they nodded.

"I'll have to check you out to make sure that it's safe to do. Alright?"

"We understand."

"Alright. Then starting with you, lie down in front of me and I'll start the examination."

With those words the one I pointed at came up to me and laid down on the cold stone floor.

I put a hand over her lower abdomen and slowly rubbed along it.

The feeling of a slight, mostly minuscule bump, was transmitted to my hand. Or maybe it was just my imagination running off. It was so slight it felt like it could be either.

Since obviously such a physical examination without proper equipment was useless, I activated [Scan] to have a look.

[Hmm...]

[Is this it?]

A series of windows opened up as I was scrolling through this person's data. One was the section of data that pertained to this woman's core and beside it was a snapshot of the contents. Along with that was another section of data that also pertained to a core, but the snapshot that went with it was tiny. There was very little data inside of the core container file.

I'd never seen such a thing, though it wasn't like I went around checking people's data indiscriminately. I did prefer to respect people's privacy after all.

But it certainly was strange to see such a thing.

[These are both the data for this person?]

[They are. Maybe the second one is for the baby?]

[Maybe.]

Or rather, it was hard to see it as anything but.

I scrolled through my own copy of the scanned data and found the entries that Alicia discovered in only a handful of seconds.

This person definitely had two cores, as normally impossible as it should have been.

The obvious conclusion was that the second core was for the fetus, and the fact that there was some data in it rather than none meant that there was probably a soul within it already.

(So there's no denying it. She's definitely pregnant, and she doesn't want to be.)

"I've confirmed that you have a child within you. This is your last chance to back out. Are you sure?"

"I, I am. I can't bear the thought of carrying that monster's child!"

*sigh*

I couldn't fault her logic. It was much better to carry the child of someone you loved rather than the child of a rapist. The child's innocence had no place before that point if the mother didn't want it.

"The procedure might be painful, but you need to bear with it. Alright?"

The woman nodded, giving me the final confirmation.

I moved my hand lower down her body and pushed a pair of fingers inside of her.

(Now that I think about it, this is the first time I've touched a woman here.)

I hadn't even touched myself there as of yet, and despite that, the first time I inserted a part of my body inside of a woman's nether region was not my own, but another's despite having the same equipment.

(There's probably a ton of things that I don't know about my own body, now that I think about it.)

I've never really made any time to explore my own body. Initially I spent all my time fighting monsters and making everything I needed to make my life easier. And after I met Alicia, my life was spent mostly for her sake.

(Well, it's not like I can investigate when anything I do would be exposed immediately to a little girl.)

Despite that, it wasn't like I really regretted anything, but I did lack experience when it came to a lot of things. I only had theory to go on and lacked a surprising amount of life experience.

(But almost every day I've been getting tons of experience in every conceivable field lately.)

Maybe someday I'd have some experience in almost every field?

It was an interesting thought, but I could only do what I could, and right now that was performing an abortion with next to no knowledge on how they were performed.

Once I pushed my fingers in as far as they could reach, I invoked [Lunar Magic] to extend my shadow further into the body, exploring the shape, then penetrating through the uterine cap. Once through, I prodded the cavity within, exploring the shape and identifying what I could feel to the best of my limited abilities.

I latched to the sole unusual protrusion I could find and removed it out of the body and into my hand and pulled my hand away.

Averting my gaze from it, I incinerated the tiny bulb of flesh I had extracted before cleaning it with some water and returning my fingers inside the woman's body.

This time I applied some healing magic in case I did some damage before pulling out once again.

Staring at the woman's status screen, her HP dipped by a single point during the extraction before it was restored back to full from my healing spell.

I next went through her data once more and confirmed that the second core file was now gone. It seemed like everything went as planned.

[Can you check to make sure that the core file is gone Alicia?]

But no matter how much I was sure that the file was now gone, I wanted a second opinion. I had promised a proper abortion to the best of my ability, and I didn't want to tarnish that promise by not taking every reasonable precaution I could to make sure it worked.

[I don't see it. I think you did it Scarlet!]

But unlike the little girl's glee at my success, I didn't really feel good about it, but it couldn't be helped. She probably didn't really understand just what it was I had done.

"It looks like the abortion was a success. It will take a bit of time for your body to finish the process and you might not feel well until then, so for now, rest."

"Thank you, so much."

The woman's face looked a little pale, but she lowered her head in gratitude before moving away. Her hand kept touching her belly like she expected to find something.

(Or maybe she could still feel the aftereffects of my probing?)

I needed to be even more careful. I was dealing with some quite sensitive organs after all.

 

In the end, I had performed six more abortions. All of them successful.

Three people though, it turned out, didn't need abortions in the first place. They had missed their periods, but weren't pregnant.

It was probably caused by the intense stress of being trapped here as a prisoner, but I didn't know. I'd never had a period in the first place, so I couldn't relate nor understand.

That said, even amongst such a small sample size, we did find out something interesting. Not all the pregnant people had a second core with data inside. Two of the seven women had empty cores in their data sheets.

If that meant that there was a delay between pregnancy and having a soul being inserted into the body, then I had a way to in for Alicia.

But that said, that was only saying if that was the way we would do it.

In the end, I couldn't stop hesitating on that one bit.

Having someone impregnating me and carrying the baby, Alicia, to term still made a shiver run down my spine.

I didn't know if I could go through it.

 

After everything was said and done, I distributed the clothes I had found.

Despite my best efforts though, almost nobody found a set of clothes that fit. Pretty much everyone's clothes were either too long or too tight for them, but fortunately there were a few seamstresses in this group.

I felt a bit bad about making them work on those scraps and my old clothes before, but things turned out quite well instead. They were able to adjust my clothes to fit the first few people and thanks to that work, they were able to get used to the crude tools I had provided and were able to adjust the new clothes much faster.

At the same time, I resumed the expeditions as well.

Though it was closer to tourism at this point, I did as promised and escorted triple-sized groups to sunbathe in the open room upstairs.

That woman as well, the one that had started to act on her own lately, ended up coming as part of the first group to everyone's surprise.

Since that was the case, we got the others to come as part of the later groups as well. With some luck, lots of positive stimulation could help them recover all their minds.

Unfortunately, aside from the one who was already starting to respond properly, they wouldn't even walk on their own so I had to carry them myself. Nobody else could do it with how much their bodies have weakened.

But this one seemed to have been making incredible progress recovering her mind.

While her eyes stayed unfocused and she barely made any sounds, much less speak, she did assert her desires, however little there were. It was unfortunate that her desires mostly manifested as wanting to stay close to me whenever possible.

Epione had to pull her off of me on more than one occasion and stay by her.

She had become the de facto caretaker for her when I was busy cooking or doing something else.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing though, was the fact that I was so limited in what I could do for her and the others like her. The others would most likely do fine as long as they got a bit of support for the short term but those six that couldn't even properly feed themselves due to the mental scarring they had suffered through needed intensive and long term care.

They simply had no life without someone there to take care of their every needs until their fragmented minds stitched themselves back together.

Over the next few days, I did what I could to take care of each of them. Together with the others who took it upon themselves to help care for the ones who couldn't care for themselves, we fed them, we bathed them, we handled every need that they had.

(I wonder if this is how it's like working in a nursing home?)

While I couldn't help but consider all the parallels, I doubted that most people needed this much care in a nursing home. Only a small minority was this badly off in a place like that.

(But I wonder if they'd be able to take care of these girls until they can get back onto their feet?)

I had the benefit of a decent group to help things along for now, but giving intensive care for a handful of days was completely different from doing it for an unknown amount of time. It was possible that some of them might need help for an indefinitely amount of time.

Simply put, there was no way to know when they'd recover until they showed significant signs of making progress.

(At least one of them looks like she might get better soon.)

Once again I combed the woman's hair with my fingers as she slept with her head resting on my chest.

This time she even managed to put both arms partially around my waist.

If this wasn't progress, I didn't know what was.

(But still...)

[Alicia, you've been pretty quiet lately. Is something up?]

[...Once we take these people back to the village, we're going back home right?]

[That's right.]

[Just the three of us?]

[Yea...no wait, there was that Magni as well, so it'll be the four of us.]

[And nobody else?]

[Is there someone you want to bring back with us?]

[No!]

The force the little girl put into that one word struck me as a bit odd. It wasn't like her to do such a thing. At the very least, it was unlike anything I had seen before.

[Is something the matter Alicia?]

[...We'll be together forever, right?]

[Hmm? Of course.]

At the very least until she was old enough to grow independent. It would be a lonely time for me, but I would be there together with her until she decided it was time to fly the coop.

[Forever then.]

I couldn't help but imagine the warm smile Alicia had at that moment.