Damien sat upon a simple throne set within the former City Lord's mansion. He let out a yawn, having just gotten done with audiences with newly appointed ministers and other officers who replaced the executed Nobles who previously held positions of power within Valen. Originally, it should be Linia taking care of this as the wife of the City Lord. Of course, officially that was also the case. But it was just pretense and everyone went to him for orders. As did all the paperwork. 

It was the least he could do, right? Take responsibility for his chaos, at least for a while. 

Anyway. 

First, he'd taken all the surplus wealth the city lord had gained from his years of corruption and directed it towards Valen's infrastructure. 

For example, several schools had fallen into disrepair under Evered's rule in favor of funding military power. Which would've been fine in more recent months, but this had gone on for the last decade or so, maybe longer, during times of peace. 

He should've been building up the quality of his city's inhabitants. In time, he'd be paid back for it as a new generation of competent citizens came into play. Poverty would've gone down as higher education gave more options to the young citizens both within and without the city.  There'd have been a better sense of discipline and virtue, too. 

Overall, the quality of life would improve with a more educated populace. A failing school system was the first sign of a falling society. The fact those who lead nations seem to so often forget that fact always baffled Damien, so he took the time to fix that here while he had the opportunity.

Next, he took the pillaged valuables taken from the other corrupt Nobles and started having the roads fixed. There were way too many potholes for his liking in this damn place. He wasn't about to have people break a damn leg just because Evered couldn't be bothered to fill in a fucking hole.

Thirdly, Damien started building public bathhouses. A lot of people in Valen didn't have things like a shower or a proper bath. They just used buckets of water and pieces of cloth with some soap. They wiped themselves down, then threw in the gutters outside. 

Not all cities had indoor plumbing, and Valen was one that went without. Damien had Linia, who was now the highest ranking authority since he deposed her husband, sign off on the construction of pipes to bring water to the citizens' homes. But there were other things going on right now and such a task would take several years to complete anyway so that was going to start sometime later. 

For now, the bathhouses would be a quicker alternative. They would hollow out some of the mansions owned by the previously executed Nobles and use the plumbing they held. The baths would be enlarged and there's be showers installed too. 

Damien, of course, would allow some profit to be made by charging a small fee and a higher fee if one wanted to bath in separate rooms where brass tubs would be placed. Of course, they'd provide food and drink at an additional cost...

Well, in any case it was a good thing. Luxuries would come at a cost, but it'd improve hygiene regardless and would be a nice way for the city to earn a profit. Since they'd be made from converted Noble estates, the cost would also be minimal compared to building them from scratch. 

Finally, he had a few support groups set up. Incest really had become a problem in the wake of his orgy. The families holed up in their homes had...well...

Let's just say love that transcended familial bonds had bloomed. 

Other people who get reincarnated into fantasy worlds wind up as heroes and have fun adventures with happy-go-lucky teammates. Even the ones who become villainesses or mob characters from some story or game just end up overturning flags and building harems. 

So why the fuck...am I sitting here having to deal with affairs of state?!

He quietly simmered with annoyance, feeling the whole situation was entirely unfair. Honestly, what had he done to deserve this? 

And I don't even have a single goddamn cheat.  

He sighed yet again, lamenting his misfortune. 

I miss Bea. She gave the best head for whenever I was feeling down. 

Damien idly fingered the crystalline object in his hand. It was something he'd taken from that Carstairs woman, Hannah, some time ago. Apparently, it was an egg of some sort, something her father and others searched for with great interest, but Damien had no idea why. Well, neither did he care. All he knew was that it'd been something Bea's ring had reacted to once, which is why he took it.

He thought it the key to waking her...but he didn't know how. Looking into its depths, there was a vague figure. The "shell" encased around it was a soft, semi-translucent white when he'd first found it. Now it was starting to turn black on one side, with bits of red. Meanwhile, the other half started growing beads of blue. He wasn't sure what that meant. 

As he lost himself in his thoughts staring into it, Vera, who stood at his side, took a curious glance. 

"Where on earth did you find a Devil embryo?" She blinked. 

Startled, he asked, "You know what this is?" 

The girl nodded. "I've never seen one, but mother has. I have her memories, remember? That's definitely a devil embryo." 

Damien gaped at her. 

Fucking hell, I forgot all about that...

Damien had been pretty lazy in asking Mary about the thing when she was with him. It just slipped his mind. It wasn't surprising considering they were being chased, then he got busy planning the orgy. So when Mary suddenly left, he thought he'd missed his chance. It was only now that he realized he could've asked Vera instead. 

Things had been so emotional that day, though. He forgot all about that little tidbit of information. Too focused trying to wrap his head around the fact she was his half-sister, he supposed.

Speaking of, Damien had given up the idea of searching for Mary pretty quick. He had no idea where she'd gone, for one, and even if he did know she had a wide head start. 

Not that it would've stopped him, but he figured she had her reasons. And besides, he trusted she'd be safe. He didn't know what combat skills she had, but at the very least she had the ability to escape at the first sign of danger.

The only one with the power to restrict the woman was his mother, and she was nowhere around.

"What's it do?" He asked excitedly. "I heard it being called an egg...does it hatch a Devil?"

Vera was caught off guard by his fervor, wondering why he was so animated all of a sudden. "Well," She responded after a beat, "Yes. It's usually something they use to revive themselves in cases of death. Though, they're very rare since only higher Devils can form them and the process is incredibly difficult, not to mention draining. They could end up losing half their vitality and power, maybe more, so few are willing to do it. And even if a Devil creates one as insurance thinking they were going to die somehow, they'd need immense levels of power to hatch. So its really a gamble. The presence of Devils here isn't great, either. Hence there's not really anyone to even attempt hatching the embryo for whichever Devil this belongs to," She shrugged. Then paused, thinking aloud. "If there's any Devil with a fair chance of having their embryo hatched in a world like this, it'd be..." Vera trailed off with a frown. 

She stared at the embryo intently for a moment, then shook her head. "No, it wouldn't be him."

Damien rolled his eyes. "Don't start with the pronoun game, Vee. Who were you thinking of?" 

The young girl seemed troubled as she spoke the name.

 "...Balthazar" 

Damien gave a blank look. "The fuck kinda goofy-ass name is that?" He scoffed. Sounds like some try-hard DnD character. 

Vera glared. "It's the name of an ancient Devil God who  once nearly conquered all the Thousand Worlds."

"Never heard of him," Damien replied. 

"Yes, well, he was far before even your mother's time so it's not surprising. Plus, only glimmers of his influence exist here in the form of cultists."

"Huh," Damien grunted, unimpressed. "So, why do you think it wouldn't be his?"

"It just doesn't make sense for it to be, that's why. It must belong to some other Devil who was passing through and met their end. Maybe they pissed off your mother one day. Who knows? And in any case, this isn't a pure Devil embryo either. There are other energies mixed in. Otherwise, it'd be a solid black."

Damien rubbed his chin in consideration. 

"....Bea was a human. It shouldn't have anything to do with her." He looked up at Vera. "Could a human learn how to create one themselves?"

Vera folded her arms, thinking. "Maybe...I couldn't really say, mother never encountered a situation where they have. But there's a few similar methods that result in essentially the same thing. Why, did Bea react to it?"

"Yeah, its why I took it to begin with. Found it in that auction house. The Carstairs woman and her posse were sent after it."

"I see. At least that establishes there's a connection between it and Bea, but how is another question," She pondered. "Did she ever say anything about her human life?"

"Eh, not really. We mainly just fucked. She was--" He stopped.

"She was what?"

Damien cleared his throat. "Well, there's a reason we got along so easily...I suppose given all the talk about other worlds, this won't surprise you much...but actually, Bea originally came from a different world herself. A long time ago, she fell into a portal that brought her here."

"Yes, okay, and? What's that have to do with your easy relationship?" Vera looked at him with growing suspicion.

"Ah, it's that we coincidentally...came from the same world. Her and I. So..." He gave an awkward smile. 

Vera's mind blanked. "I'm sorry, what?" 

"I mean, you had to think it was strange how I'd sometimes make weird references or inside jokes with her, right?" He led on patiently.

"...Yes, but..." She stopped. And all at once, things fell into place. "Oh. " Her lips felt numb. For the first time in forever, she looked at him as if at a stranger. 

Not because this changed anything between them, but because she realized, now, that what she knew about him was probably only a fraction of what she thought she did.

"So you were...." The girl trailed off.

Damien cocked his head, feeling something off with her demeanor just now. 

Vera was silent for a moment. She closed her eyes for a moment, asking, "Which one were you?" Her voice was quiet, almost too quiet, with an odd tone mixed in. Almost as if in trepidation.

"Which what?" He frowned, not understanding her question. 

"I mean, which God were you?" She gulped, fearing the mere utterance of the words.

Damien rolled his eyes. "The fuck? Vee, I'm not a God. The hell are you talking about? I was just a regular dude. What nonsense are you spouting?" He promptly flicked her forehead. 

"Ah!" She cried softly, cradling her new wound tenderly. "What was that for!" 

"Being dumb," He replied with a snort. "Why're you saying such idiotic things? If I were a God, trust me, I wouldn't be hiding it."

"But...you were birthed from Muriel's womb...a natural-born. You'd need to have passed through the Under for that, and the only beings who can do that without their memories being wiped are Gods. So..."

Damien laughed in her face. "Vee, come on, that makes literally zero sense. I'd have already beat my mother's ass if that were the case. What would I even be the God of? Amazing orgasms? Drugs? I don't have any memories of being one, either. Or what, you think I'm gonna lie about that?"

"I suppose not," She admitted. Damien wasn't the kind of person to lie about something like that.  "But then how...?"

Damien splayed his hands helplessly. "Hell if I know. But where I come from, there's all kinds of fictions with premises like these and its almost never explained in those stories either. Does it matter?"

At that, a thought occurred to her. "Did you have a family in your past life, too?"

He grinned. "Yup. I had quite a few brothers and a sister. But I was a pretty useless bastard towards the end and got ran over by a...well, I guess you could call it a metal carriage. A shame, I was just starting to get off my ass, too. Ah well, I doubt I was missed much." 

Vera took in his casual, unconcerned air with horror. "How can you say something like that with a straight face?"

Damien raised a brow. "Well, what else am I supposed to do? Cry? Maddox men don't do that. We drown our sorrows in alcohol and women." He said, as if reciting some line.

"But you do that every day."

"So?" He blanked again. "What's your point? Sometimes it's just for fun, alright?"

"Every day?"

"I don't have a problem," He deadpanned. "You do." 

Vera grit her teeth. "There you go again. Why can't you just be serious for once?" 

"Vee, before I got here I remember entering purgatory, having my soul literally torn to shreds, and then being scattered into the ether. With every single piece fully aware and screaming out in agony. " He drolled. "I'm not sane enough to give a fuck about such small things like losing everyone and everything I'd ever loved anymore." Damien calmly folded his arms. "I've wandered the fields of fuckery, Vee. It's barren. I have looked high, I have looked low. I have looked here, I have looked there. But I couldn't find a fuck to give anywhere." 

Bastardizing a certain Dr.Seuss quote, he made it clear that he really couldn't care less. Or maybe that he simply wasn't able to attach any emotion to that personal trauma anymore. 

Vera felt her throat tighten at the thought. Everything he'd just said to her left a feeling of deep unease. He talked about such unimaginable horrors like they were nothing. 

A person's soul was the rawest, most sensitive part of themselves. Anything capable of harming it would be pain unlike anything physical torture could even come close to. Much less...something like having it ripped apart...

She was scared about what that might mean for his psyche. To even think about it was utterly terrifying. 

"Young Master..." Her words were deathly quiet as if spoken from far away. "Something like that...it's not something any being other than a God would be able to come out of whole."

"Whole is a strong word." Damien rubbed the bridge of his nose. "But okay, yeah, sure, whatever. Let's call me the God of lollipops and sunshine, then." He chuckled. "Happy now? Jesus Christ."

This is just some shitty game world from that dumb Love Orgy series anyway, he thought So I should take whatever Vee says with a grain of salt. I mean so what if my entrance was a bit hairier than other protagonists of my ilk? 

Damien furrowed his brows at the thought.

Actually, yeah, why the fuck was it so damn hard?  See, it's not fair! One of these Godly Cunts owes me an explanation. I mean what kind of bias is this? Honestly. 

He gestured vaguely. "Anyway, forget it. Why did you ask that about Bea?"

Vera opened her mouth, not wanting to just gloss over the bombs he'd just dropped. But she could tell he'd had enough and wouldn't bother to continue even if she kept asking. 

"It's just that sometimes there's people who encounter certain events. The human body is very adaptable, you know. Though not naturally powerful, in very rare cases they can absorb certain traits of other races. The beastkin were similar. In ages past, they were human too. But during a terrible war, mages performed cruel experiments to create a race of powerful battle-slaves to use against their enemies. Bea might've been one of the more lucky ones. It's not impossible for her to have become a chimera of some sort after coming into contact with the blood of another race. For example, a Devil."

The odds of her not dying were a billion to one, but it was still a possibility. 

Damien grasped her meaning immediately. "You think maybe she had formed her own embryo sometime in the past?"

She nodded. "It's not probable, but certainly possible. But she didn't seem like a Devil. Devils don't become what she had after death."

Even Vee isn't sure what happens to them once they die, but Bea had become a kind of evil spirit. She must've suffered greatly in her last moments and then left to fester until she had become a tainted soul.

That's how she would've stayed, too, if Damien didn't "cleanse" her. In any case, Vera wasn't sure exactly what kind of being Bea had been while alive. A chimera with the blood of a high-class Devil was the closest she could figure. One who'd formed an embryo but had never gotten revived.

 But then why hadn't she mentioned it to Damien at all? Surely she'd grasp at the chance, even if the power required was so astronomical? 

Did she not want to bother him to look for it? Or think he'd never be able to gather the power needed even if he did somehow track the embryo down?

Or perhaps it didn't matter to her. After all, Damien was able to physically touch her to the extent they were even able to have sex. Maybe she just preferred being a spirit...?

So many questions. They made her headache. Together with Damien's reveal regarding his past life, she couldn't bring herself to think too deeply about anything just yet. She needed time to process.

Damien eyed the embryo with renewed interest. "Do you think if we hatch this, she'd come back?"

Vera wasn't sure. "Possibly. Her soul is in that ring, and its not like reincarnation so she wouldn't lose her memories from passing through the Under. It's just that Devils aren't like other beings. It could mess with her head, change her. You don't know how much influence a physical body has over your personality. Some are just prone towards malice. Though this isn't a pure embryo, it'd birth a pure Devil. Maybe she'd be even more unhinged due to it's impurity, too."

"You mean...she might come back a sadist?" He shuddered. Then considered once more. "Actually, that sounds kinda hot. I'm not against chains and whips." 

Cock and ball torture was out of the question, cuz that shit's just weird, but other than that he was fine. Esdeath and Sheego were pretty sexy, he can't deny. 

"Your first thought is how she'd change in bed...of course it is," Vera's head throbbed painfully. 

I swear he's a walking migraine.

 "But, yes, I guess she could end up being crueler than she was. To what extent, its anyone's guess."

"What're we lookin' at here? Paint me a picture."

"She could either steal candy from children for fun or come back thinking gauging out someone's eyes for looking at her funny is perfectly alright and just.

"My mother, then," He cursed. "Dicks." Damien sunk down in the throne. "Do you think she'd still joke around with me and stuff?" He looked at Vera hopefully.

"....Yes." 

Vera glanced away. That gaze, it was too innocent...she didn't have the heart to tell him the truth. Did Devils even have a sense of humor?

"Alright, then!" He broke out into a smile. "So, how do we hatch her?"

"Oh, it's nothing too hard since it's you. Just eat it."

Damien's smile froze. "What?"

"Eat it," She repeated. "You're a Dragon who hasn't condensed his second core yet. Eat it, and the embryo will take its place for now. It'll devour all your surplus energy until it's time to hatch."

"What do you mean, surplus energy?"

"The Okeanos family are the origin of all mana throughout the known universe. Your body creates it constantly and releases it into the air. Its nothing too amazing right now since your second core is what's supposed to house and further refine that leaking energy, but once you form it after condensing your Dragon essence, you'll be a lot more powerful. 

"My Dragon what  now?" He demanded. "Why didn't I know about this sooner?"

"You would've known if you'd let your mother teach you, " She said. "And what would be the point of me telling you? I don't know how to do it. Only another Dragon could teach you."

"...Ah, whatever. I don't really care, to be honest. I'm getting along fine so far anyway. I don't need her," He sniffed. "Eat it, you said?"

Confirming her words,  Damien wasted no time in popping it into the air and catching it in his mouth. It went down hard, but he gave a mighty gulp and swallowed it whole. 

"Hm. Spicy." Damien rose from his seat. "How long do you think it'd take?"

"Don't know." 

"Helpful, that." He snorted. "Come on, then, let's go. I'm done being responsible. Time to get going. Rex!"  Damien called.

A few beats later, the newest member of his family waddled over from a corner in the room. In his mouth was a piece of hemlock that was being munched on. Damien's eyes glittered. 

"Holy hell, you've become such a chonky bastard!" Damien exclaimed after picking him up had been feeding the animal all kinds of poisonous plants. In turn, it's gained about ten pounds or near enough. Not just that, but it's hair became even more soft and glossy as well. 

In response, the little fatty gave a lazy, half-hearted hiss to show his discontent. As if to say, "This whole operation was your idea."

And he'd be right! Damien loved fat cats! So large and round, like the world's most comfortable pillow. And they came with a built-in lullaby! 

Damien sat the purple-furred chunk of lard on the ground and started rubbing under his chin, his other hand rubbing it's wide belly. In response, Rex let out a series of loud, soothing purrs and began to playfully bite at his fingers

This is better than cocaine, Damien thought with joy.

Meanwhile, Vera stared pointedly at his goofy little grin.

...Cute....

They both continued to lose themselves in each's target of attention for a full five minutes before Damien finally picked Rex up by his armpits and placed him on his shoulder. The big ball of fur hung there all stretched out as if hanging off the edge of a comfortable bed.

"To Reykjavik?"

To her surprise, he shook his head. "Actually, we're making a little detour."

I can't be the only one having fun, now can I?

Its time to bring in the boys.