Hands of the Goddess

 

Kris tried to quickly take stock of the situation now that the ogre was dead. His HP was about half, but he was more concerned with the others. Celica was full, Mibu was also full, and Paddy's was currently being healed back up as she sat down, catching her breath. He couldn't tell the fenrir's, but it was at least feeling well enough to lick Paddy's face.

Kris looked over himself. He had burns on his arms (and it felt like his face), and his clothing was burned up, but his dragonscale armor was fine, presumably having done it's job.

Mibu then came over to Kris to heal him...until she ran out of MP. “Come on!” she shouted angrily.

Kris tried to calm her down. “It's okay, I'm not gonna die.”

Mibu started crying, “I know, but...”

Kris hugged her, accidentally getting soot all over her, although she didn't seem to care.

Mibu seemed to calm down a bit.

The fenrir gave a growl, it's nose in a chest.

“Really!?” Mibu said, running over.

Out of the chest, she pulled three glass vials of blue liquid.

“MP potions,” Celica said. “Those are valuable.”

Mibu instantly grabbed the stopper, opening it and downing the vial. She then came over and went back to healing until Kris.

“How much are these?” Kris asked, grabbing one of the other two.

Celica blushed, “I think around a gold each, depending on supplies.”

Kris slapped his forehead, “Mibu, we could have paid off the rest of the loan!”

Mibu shook her head, “You're more valuable. Plus, we still have two left.”

Kris sighed and blushed, “I guess that's true.” He thought for a moment, “Actually...isn't this all stuff that the ogre stole? Probably from caravans it wrecked.”

Mibu shrugged, before digging into one. “No reason to leave it here.”

Kris nodded, “Guess that's true, too.”

“Umm...” Paddy said, pulling something out of another chest. It was the gold item they had seen earlier, a large golden goblet. Around the bottom edge were several gemstones (with several missing). “This has to be worth enough to pay off the loan, right?”

Celica nodded, “It should be, it's gotta be least a few gold. It's literally made of gold.”

Kris sighed, “We struggled all this time with a four gold loan, and here we are making it back with one trip.”

Mibu shook her head, “Yeah, but think of all the work we had to do to get to this level,” she said with a fist pump.

Kris smiled, “You're right, I shouldn't gloss over everything we did to get here.”

Paddy and Celica smiled back.

“Awoooo!” the fenrir howled behind him.

Kris turned around to pet her, “Yes, you too...” he said, then saw the book from earlier.

“A Goddess tome!” Mibu shouted excitedly. The others crowded around as Kris opened it.

Inside...was not a regular spell. Instead, it was a short passage.

 

Behold, I bequeath unto thee the power of the Hands of the Goddess, to bestow a Status Screen unto a new race of peoples. Choose a lover wisely, then go forth and multiply, spreading your issue across the land!

 

Wha-what!?

Mibu read over his shoulder. “Bestow a Status Screen? Like what everyone has?”

Celica blushed, “It's saying you can 'create' a new race. Is this how new beastkin were created? Maybe cyclops too?”

I can create a new race!? Wait...

“Choose a lover wisely, then go forth and multiply,” Mibu said excitedly. “The Goddess is telling you to take a mate and have children!”

Everyone looked over at each other, then at the fenrir.

“Wait wait wait...” Kris said.

Mibu shook her head, “You have too! The Goddess is telling you too!”

Kris's eyes went wide. Is that what this is!? Is the Goddess really telling me to do this? Or maybe I'm being tested?

Paddy seemed thoughtful. “Is this how I was created? Did I have an ancestor that was a bear, who fell in love with a human, and got turned into a bearkin?”

Mibu nodded, “That's so romantic!”

Celica seemed to be deep in thought. “If that's the case, it feels like we have a moral obligation to use it. We can't be the gatekeepers of humanity.”

Kris shook his head, This feels way above my pay-grade...unless I'm right and the Goddess is testing me. “Look, we can't just...turn her into a beastkin without her consent.”

Mibu immediately turned to the fenrir. “Do you wanna be like us?”

The fenrir just stared at her.

Mibu pointed to her ears and tail, “You'll still have these, but you'll walk on two feet.”

The fenrir growled a bit.

“You'll be able to come with us to the city that way, too. A beastkin isn't a problem, but a fenrir is.”

The fenrir seemed to like this, growling a bit and wagging her tail.

“Oh, and you can mate with Kris.”

This seemed to win the fenrir over, it bounded over to Kris, licking his face as he held onto her, trying to calm her down.

“Well, she obviously wants too.”

Kris sighed. “Alright, alright. Are you two okay?”

Paddy smiled and nodded.

Celica sighed but also smiled, “Not exactly how I thought we'd get our next member...”

Kris sighed again, “Well, guess we're doing this.”

He stuck the book into this status screen, and suddenly his hands started glowing brightly. He carefully grabbed the sides of the fenrir's face, and the light transferred from his hands to the fenrir.

Suddenly, the light grew so bright they had trouble looking at the fenrir and took a step back. After a moment, her shape started to morph and change, until it seemed to be standing upright.

After a few moments, the glow faded, and standing there was, undoubtedly, a fenrirkin woman. She had silver hair down past her shoulder blades, with the same fenrir ears with white tips at the top. She was completely naked, with large breasts, somewhere a little larger than Mibu's, and she was tall, probably slightly over Kris. She also had well-muscled abs, arms and legs.

The fenrirkin woman blinked a few times, looking at her hands in disbelief. “I'm like you!” She then seemed surprised at her own voice, it was a bit sharp and rough, sounding like a slightly mature woman. “I can talk! And not just growl.”

“Wow...” was all Kris could say, in disbelief.

The woman looked at Kris, getting a huge, fangy grin on her face. “Mate with me!” she said, jumping on top of him.

Kris tried to pull her off of him as she kept licking. “Not now, not now!” he said.

The woman looked sad, “You don't want too?”

Kris blushed, “No, I will, you're gorgeous, just not right now!” he said as he tried to pull her off.

The woman seemed confused, but stopped and got off. She then went back to inspecting her body. “Do you like this form more? I wasn't pretty before?”

Mibu whispered something into her ear, causing the fenrir woman to blush slightly. “Oh...”

Kris stood back up, as Mibu took off her coat, putting it around the woman.

Kris noticed something still on his status screen.

 

'Name Your Lover'

 

“Oh...” he looked at her. “Do you have a name?”

“Name?” she asked, still seeming a bit surprised by her own voice. “Like how they call you Kris?”

Kris nodded.

The woman shook her head. “No...”

Celica elbowed him. “Giver her a good name! You created the fenrirkin race, it's the least you can do!”

Kris nodded. Uh...I'm not very creative. What are some wolf names from my world...or just something that sounds 'wolf-y'. After a few moments, he asked, “Uh...do you like Lupa?”

The fenrirkun woman's tail wagged. “I'm Lupa?”

“If you want to be.”

She blushed, and started nodding. “If you are giving it to me, I want it.”

 

Mibu proceeded to talk with Lupa while the others continued looting the ogre's cave.

“I was worried we might have to teach you how to talk, but...you already seem to know how to just fine,” Mibu mused.

Lupa nodded. “When... Kris...bathed me in that light, I felt a bunch of stuff rushing into my thoughts. I already understood words and meanings, but now I can...articulate them properly. I also saw visions...”

Mibu seemed confused. “Visions?”

Lupa nodded, “It was hard to grasp, they came at me so quickly. I saw the mountains here, a city, that purple dragon, some goblins...”

Kris was taken aback, and looked over. “Were you seeing...my memories?”

Mibu nodded, “That must be it.”

Lupa continued, “Those were all solid, but then they started getting blurry...one of them was a bunch of humans like Kris, sitting in a room facing the same way while another human talked. Another was looking up at a large castle, except it was as tall as a mountain, and made of glass.

The blood ran from Kris's face, and he paused, memories of his previous life combing back into his brain. I haven't though about it in forever, but...that's gotta be one of my classes, and probably a skyscraper!

Paddy noticed Kris's change in demeanor. “Kris...what's wrong?”

“It's...it's stuff from my world.”

They all looked at Kris.

Celica grabbed her chin. “When you used the tome...did it transfer your knowledge to her?”

Mibu asked, “Do you know the way to Coburn?”

Lupa thought for a moment, then nodded. “We go back out of the mountains, then towards the west.”

Kris looked at Lupa, “How much did a chicken dinner cost at the local diner near my parent's house?”

Lupa was confused. “Uh...two gold?”

Kris sighed, “No.” Not least because we didn't use gold. “It seems like maybe it gave you some of my basic knowledge, and some extra memories got mixed in during the transfer.”

The others nodded, but Lupa seemed confused. “Can we mate now?”

Kris sighed, patting her head. “Wait until we get back, okay? I promise we can then.”

Lupa wagged her tail then nodded.

Mibu gave her a thumbs up, “I like your attitude.”

 

They finished looting the cave. Besides the goblet and two remaining MP potions, they had recovered three loose gold, as well as a few dozen silver and copper. Nothing else seemed valuable enough to bother with, so they stashed those away and gathered at the cave entrance.

Lupa was now wearing a spare change of clothes from Mibu, although it was a bit tight on her (Paddy's was too loose to wear).

“Are we ready?” Kris asked.

Everyone nodded.

“I can't wait to introduce you to Corinne. Oh, and Misty, if she's in town.”

Lupa nodded, “Can we go get my cubs now?”

The other four's eyes all went wide, looking at each other.

We forgot about her cubs! How do we explain I turned their mom into a beastkin!?

None of them knew what to say, so they just followed Lupa as she skipped through the snow, seemingly giddy at the day's turn of events.

Kris shook his head, An hour ago we were fighting for our life against an ogre, and now that seems like the least of my concerns...

 

They quickly made their way back to the cave from the morning. As they did, two little kids with fenrir-ears ran out, wrapped in Mibu's cloak they had left.

“Mama!” they shouted.

Lupa kneeled down and hugged them. “Little ones...mama is back after defeating the bad ogre.”

Kris said a quiet prayer. Thank you Goddess, that could have been really awkward if they hadn't also been turned.

“Mama, mama,” one of them said. “We were eating the meat, when we started glowing bright like the sun. Then, all of our fur was gone.”

The other one said, “Mama's fur is gone too!”

Lupa laughed, “Haha, we're not fenrir anymore, we're beastkin now. Like Mibu!”

The two little girls ran over to Mibu.

Mibu's eyes glistened. “You're so cute! Come to Aunty Mibu!”

Aunty?

Lupa smiled her fangy grin. “You gotta name your daughters too!”

“My...” I guess if Lupa and I are mates, they're my adopted daughters now?

The two girls looked over at Kris, then ran over to hug his legs. They had bright grins and their eyes looked at him expectantly. “Daddy?”

Kris didn't think he was ready to be a dad. Kris was also overcome by the cuteness of the two little fenrirkin children hugging his legs. Unable to muster a rational reason he shouldn't be their dad, he reached down and hugged them.

Lupa laughed, “Haha, your dad is amazing! Look at all his mates!”

The two girls ran over, giving a hug to Paddy and Celica as well, who both blushed and smiled at their cuteness as well. Celica got out a couple shirts of hers, putting them on them so they weren't naked under the cloak. Even Celica's shirts went down almost to their ankles, but it did the job of covering them.

Lupa came over to Kris, “Well, did you think of names?”

Kris, who had been hurriedly trying to think, asked, “Um...is it okay if I give them names similar to yours?”

Lupa laughed, “Haha, I'd prefer it actually, so I can remember them too.”

Looking at them, the only way to tell them apart was their ear coloration, one had white ear tips like Lupa, and one had black ear tips.

“Okay, you're Lora,” he said, putting a hand on the white-tipped one, “and you're Leona,” he said, placing his hand on the black-tipped one.

Lora and Leona seemed to like their names, repeating them over and over to each other.

Lupa came over and licked his cheek, “Can't say I expected this after how we first met.”

Kris thought back to the time she had attacked a bandit who had been following him and Mibu on the mountain, before they had fought each other. “Um...normally you don't lick people like that.”

Lupa seemed confused. “But we're lovers, right? That's what the tome you used said.”

Kris blushed, “Yes, but even so...”

Mibu came over and kissed Kris. “Like this,” she said after, looking at Lupa.

Lupa seemed interested, so Kris reached over and gave her a kiss.

Lupa's tail started circling in overdrive. “I see...”

Celica came over, “You have to share, though,” and kissed Kris as well.

Paddy came over to get her kiss too.

Lupa nodded. “Of course. A leader's worth is measured by how many mates he has.”

Celica facepalmed. “Did we just get another Mibu?”

 

After bundling the kids in some blankets (Lupa assured them they should be fine with minimal coverings) they started to head out.

“Mama, are we going to the people town?” Lora asked.

Lupa laughed, “Haha, of course, we're people now too!”

Celica looked at Kris. “What are we gonna do about the inn? Lupa is one thing, but the kids...”

Paddy asked, “Should we ask Corinne?”

Kris shook his head. “I don't want to put that on her, especially when she's still easing into this. I guess we'll just have to get a second room until we get that house.”

Celica nodded, “Now that we'll be Steel-Rank, hopefully we can get there soon.”

Mibu tugged his shirt.

Kris leaned over so she could whisper in his ear.

“I gave Lupa some contraception medicine.”

Kris blushed. “Why do you even have some!?”

Mibu shrugged, “You never know when it'll come in handy.”