“This, I have missed the most,” Rykard hummed.

He was back in the bathtub, with his harem all around, covering him in soapy water. It was the kind of service worthy of a kind and another one of the list of things that would become less frequent as they moved from merely showing to gravid. Perhaps impregnating them all around the same time had been a bad idea.

Miyo seemed to be of similar thought. “Rykard, may I request that you seal your fertility for the foreseeable future? This household will be busy enough with our six children. It will be workable, if you expand your harem somewhat in the interim, without impregnating them all as well, but if you keep knocking everyone up the day you seduce them…”

Her voice trailed off. Enough had been said. Rykard hummed thoughtfully and considered. It was indeed true that there would be drawbacks if he just kept impregnating women as he added them to his harem. There would scarcely be a moment where the harem could just relax if there was a child for every woman either currently underway or already born. There would also be much less time for moments like this, if everyone was a mother or too pregnant to serve him.

Rykard knew he was on the egomaniac side of things, but he would never tell his haremettes to prioritize sex with him over his own children.

On the other hand, stopping with the impregnating for the time being meant he would have to justify to future haremettes why they had to wait. It also meant he would have less children immediately. Both were, all things considered, rather minor factors.

Minor or not, the choice was still his. They would bow to his decision on the matter, although they would no doubt grumble about it if they went unheeded forever. He could either stop now, later, or never, if he was willing to bear the consequences.

“You are right,” Rykard responded ultimately. “I’ll apply the necessary magic. Better if we space things out a little bit. Wouldn’t want the children to be surrounded by stressed out mothers.”

“And we wouldn’t want their father to go without service,” Miyo purred. “This is the wise choice.”

“I’m prone to making those.”

“Well… by and large,” the redhead answered, amusement swinging in her calm voice. “There was that one time, not all that recently, where you decided to walk straight towards a lightning mage.”

“Trust me, that worked out ultimately,” Rykard answered with a wide grin.

“Can we hear about that? Ever?” Telana asked.

“Crude as her tone is, I too would like to know what has transpired in detail,” Vylara added.

Heyla hummed something agreeing, the sound vibrating around his cock. The succubus hadn’t had her fill yet and was granted the privileged position of cock-cleaner by the other sex slaves. They were such a harmonious group, even if not all of them got along as splendidly as Rykard would have liked.

“Certainly… you two are going to like this,” he grinned at the fraternal twins.

Retelling what had transpired was a lengthy affair. There was much to report on, from the kind of people the other Contestants were, to reporting on what it had been like to meet Teyla. The twins were understandably focused on that part of the story and picked apart his description of the conversation he had with the goddess in as much detail as possible. Helenn was more interested in his description of Maliande and the way he had attempted to tame her. Vylara was most interested in Altana and Heyla in Tess, all for understandable reasons. All wanted to hear about the combat and how he had decimated his opponents. They all knew better than to question his tale, but here and there Miyo threw in the less complimenting facts about his approach.

In the end, he described to them the rewards and what they had gotten. “Right, so we made out like bandits,” Helenn summarized.

“It all worked out remarkably in our favour,” Rykard agreed. “The competition was overseen by a goddess vaguely favourable to us, the game was a straightforward fighting tournament, giving me the favourite status from the start, and my diplomacy had it worked out in such a way that we were granted the only true sea on the map right now, complete with a canal between them.”

“What about the separation of fresh and saltwater?” the shortstack asked. “Wouldn’t it mix in the canal? Maybe? I want to see that!”

“Considering Teyla said they were going to be lenient with that one, I assume they either plucked the Hexagon from somewhere that already deals with the same dichotomy of water variety or at least have the necessary facilities to deal with it.” Rykard waved off. “In any case, I’ll now check out my progress and then you can give me your report. After that, I’ll decide what to do next.”

Mild growth this time around, it seemed, but enough to elevate his abilities above 10 universally.

Same went for his mental capacity.

“You should sort out that issue where the number appears on the text,” Miyo pointed out.

“I’ve tried but each time I try, the magic bugs out on another level,” Rykard sighed.

Rykard felt like he had made advances in Conjuration during that Divine Game that helped him pull energy from the Conjuration Realm to aid him in other schools of magic. It was the kind of thing that did not really show in the numbers, but that he just knew to be the case.

Another showcase of mild but constant improvement.

Nothing much to say here, he was just getting better.

“Now, tell me how my nation has been doing,” Rykard asked of his haremettes.

Success begets success, so they said, and so it was in this case.

All of his haremettes reported of advances across every field of the nation. The arts were forging ahead, the military was slowly coming into existence, the economy was growing and so was their favour with the gods. They admitted to having had fairly little to do with the economy, that one was just running on its own at this point, but Vylara in turn reported a resounding success in matters of national stability yet again.

The vampire lady was really showing why she had been chosen as the VanRaab to be sent to this new world, making her family name proud through these repeated breakthroughs. This time around she had, as lead negotiator regarding the Hexagon that Rykard had left them with, managed to immediately get them to help out with some projects other Hexagons had been struggling with.

It turned out that the Hexagon of Buiga was populated by a kind of golem, who also called themselves the Buiga. These golems were from a world that frequently knew war and had a corresponding martial tradition that made it easily to integrate into the hierarchy of the nation. Apparently they were soldier-builders, although more the latter than the former.

Their battalion had been stationed in the Exile Hexagon as an offering to the gods and were interested in only two things: buildings things and eating minerals. They reproduced asexually by splitting after growing large enough, which also solved Rykard’s issue of leaving them around his women. They wouldn’t get bad ideas because they were biologically incapable, preventing them from needing a smacking from the women they may have harassed.

At the current moment, there were only a few hundred of them. They had slumbered in the cave at the centre. Likely, it would take them decades to expand their numbers. Their reproduction was slow, even with a vast amount of minerals on offer. Food was secondary for them anyway. Vylara reported that the eating minerals part they were interested in only because it was mandatory to keep them moving and building.

They wanted to build monuments all over Rykard’s realm. All they needed was a direction, materials, and a place to build. Vylara had taken it upon herself to assure materials were already delivered to the Estate. “The first expansion should be able to be build as soon as you travel to their realm and take their leader's oath of fealty, milord.”

“Splendid accomplishments, Vylara,” Rykard praised her, for praise was entirely appropriate here. He pulled her in his lap and began to clean her instead. The harem reacted to the shift in focus, and soon all hands and tongues were working on the pale women instead. She blushed, practically melting at the multi-sided attack.

“Now then,” Rykard changed the topic, after impaling Vylara on his cock. Even while gently fucking her, he spoke in a casual tone. “Here is what I will do next…”

He let the anticipation hang in the air for a moment, before giving the expected answer.

“...I shall go to Buiga and take their fealty. They’re only two days away, that should be a quick affair. After that, we’ll see.”

Nods all around. Shortly after breakfast, they began their preparations. Rykard made that journey with Helenn, just because he felt like it. If all went according to plan, it would only take 4 days at most anyhow.

And all did go according to plan. It was almost boring, truth be told. He simply set out over the mountains that surrounded his Estate, followed the Grid up to Buiga, and was greeted by a camp they had put up specifically to welcome him.

The Buiga were tall beings - universally. All of them were exactly two metres in height and of a slender, long-limbed build. Two arms and two legs made them humanoid, even if their heads were fused into the top of their torso, without a neck to differentiate it. The uniformity in dimensions was interesting, but they had plenty of individuality through their specific marbling. Each of them was a fusion of stone with veins of metal and what kind of metal they had eaten gave them specific hues.

Negotiations were short, really short. They just asked Rykard if he was the king and if he promised to give them plenty of work. After that, they knelt before him and swore their fealty. Just like that, they were made compliant. At that point, they sent a contingent of their people to follow Rykard back home and serve as his permanent workforce for house expansions. Fifty of them, just for himself.

Buiga, by itself, sadly had little in the ways of resources, just trees that grew stone fruit that the Buiga found delicious but had no other value. They were open to have the land be colonized, since they had no intent to stay there beyond the harvests once a decade. Unless Rykard gave them specific work, they would just be a roaming workforce of builders.

They did only ask what kind of structures he wanted them to focus on.

Rykard gave them orders to defend on sturdier and easily defensible structures. Best if every Hexagon was its own little fortress, that way he wouldn’t need a standing military as direly - or he would find it easier to recruit militarily minded people. In either case, that was currently more necessary than more wealth or shinier houses.

With that done, Rykard returned back to the Estate again, having stopped for barely thirty minutes. Four days in total, spent for a thirty minute talk. The duties of a king sure were weird at times. At least, he got to use Helenn the entirety of the time. The view was also considerably better than out on the wider Grid. On one side were the evergreen trees of Halyfa, on the other the lustful Whisperwoods.

Once home, Rykard got another map update. Two days weren’t a long time, so he did not expect much to have changed. A few new Hexagons summoned here or there, as his fellow returners picked up where they had left off.

Some expansions here and there. Altana’s swarm had already desertified three of the new Coastal Tiles, while Maliande’s nation had colonized one of them, just as the Huldran Empire had. All around however, there was very little to-

‘Where is the Ravenmantle Guild?’ Rykard asked himself.

The borders of the nation had vanished, complete with the icon that pointed at the origin point of a Contestant. This could only mean one thing: that Tess and her entire guild was out of the running. Had there been someone to take on the mantle of Contestant, Rykard would have expected the borders to stay, or at least the icon, but neither were there. All that remained were the Tiles already placed.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Tess said her guild was trying to depose her… did they get her?’ A great anger rose within him. That woman had been hot as hell, not to mention interesting and powerful. In due time, he would have had her as one of his. ‘Stay calm,’ he cautioned himself. ‘I know nothing about this situation… I could travel there and check, but it’s two months away from here…’

Rykard pushed the issue aside for the moment and headed into his Estate, to discuss the next move. Of course, Miyo advised against checking. It would be a cataclysmic waste of time without any tangible return on investment. “If she is alive, she will come to you sooner or later,” the redhead analysed calmly. “You have made a pact. She will want to cash in on it.”

“You’re right,” Rykard admitted with a long sigh. The matter would weigh on his mind for a little bit. Could the dwarves have done this? No, the distance between them was too large to be bridged in the 2 days between the two map updates. “One Contestant less is ultimately a good thing. This will annoy me for a while, but answers don’t always come when I choose.”

“Indeed they do not,” Miyo answered. “What is your next, reasonable, move then, my love?”