Becoming Monsters

Dr. Akisame Honda - Uzume’s older brother and Honoka’s uncle - presented himself as a tall Japanese man with immaculate posture, pale eyes, wild hair and a thin mustache. He wore the same outfit Honoka always saw him wear, an odd fusion of East and West clothing: white dress shirt tucked into dark slacks draped in an open and wildly patterned yukata. Although appearing outwardly serious and severe, his family knew his demeanor hid a dry wit and loving spirit. Outside of her wives and parents, there wasn’t a person on earth Honoka loved more (a fact that filled her older brothers with adorable jealousy).

“Uncle Aki!” Honoka yelled as she ran and jumped into his arms. The older man appeared ready for it, but let out a huff of air when he caught his niece and shuffled his feet to keep standing.

“I see you’ve got a few things to talk to me about,” Akisame said quietly, holding Honoka at arms length and getting a better look at her recent growth. “Should I be concerned?”

“Sorry, yeah, it has been an interesting month,” Honoka replied bashfully, rubbing the back of her head. “And I don’t think so. I’m more worried about Diane.”

“Where’s the pregger?!”

Akisame and Honoka winced as Shilo Honda, Akisame’s second and much younger wife he married after the death of his first, ducked under the temporary plywood gate and stomped into the courtyard, followed by her children Kenneth and Miu. Widely known for lacking a filter or tact, many of the subdued Honda family stoically endured her dynamism. It helped that the boisterous woman was so likable, friendly to a fault with everyone.

Also, no one wanted to offend the nine-and-a-half foot tall (2.9 m) polar bear beastkin woman who bench pressed firetrucks for fun. Seriously, those guns hanging off her shoulders were illegal in the state of California. And while the body fat content of this lovable aunt was greater than the average bear, nobody would call the woman overweight (if they knew what was good for them). Thicc was the word best describing Shilo, breasts nearly bouncing out of the UoF Women’s Wresting Team t-shirt and thighs swallowing the gym shorts she stretched into.

“Mom,” Ken mumbled with teenager exasperation, so strong was his angst that it must be a Class Feature. A brown furred fruit bat beastkin, the thirteen year old embraced his Race and went full I am the night with his collection of goth and stylish black on black. He slouched with his hands jammed in the pockets of his custom sleeveless hoodie while leathery arm wings flopped at his sides. Tailing behind him, with almond Asian-American eyes wide enough to pop as she stared around the compound and dungeon, was the nine year old human Miu. Braided flax hair held back with a tiara, wearing a blue dance leotard with matching tutu and large combat boots, in every way she was the opposite of her brother while radiating sunshine and rainbows.

Before Honoka could finish a round of hugs or other greeting rituals, Diane entered the courtyard with Quinn and Dolly. They had quickly changed into casual clothing (tank tops and sweats, though Dolly seemed strange wearing red sweats on the back end of her cat body), all hesitant to make a wrong impression with Honoka’s family. Fortunately, Shilo had no such compunctions.

“Oh man, you are about to pop!” The excitable polar bear ran over to Diane and picked her up, hoisting the terrified and screeching woman’s bulging tummy up to one furry white ear. “And you’ve only been carrying since this morning? I am so jealous! When I got knocked up with Kenneth, I couldn’t sleep for days at a time, my bladder shrunk to the size of a cherry pit and I was getting up to pee every five minutes…”

“Mom,” Ken exasperated again, harder, walking up to Honoka for a low key fistbump.

“N-nice to meet you!” Diane said shrilly as she was put down. The succubus was only the first victim, Shilo leaving nary a girl unaccosted as she pounced around for bone-breaking hugs to every surprised wife, Honoka getting the added bonus of slobbering bear kisses to boot.

“I’m sure you are tired from the flight, maybe I could show you…” Honoka gestured everyone towards one of the doors inside, but Shilo waved Honoka off with a loud raspberry and ducked back outside the gate where Honoka noticed trolleys of large crates and suitcases.

“Phbbt! Aki is so excited his darling niece is having a baby he can hardly contain himself.” Pushing two carts into the courtyard, the woman didn’t strain any more with thousands of pounds (deep furrows in the dirt testifying of their actual weight) than if they were a pair of strollers. “Toss the kids anywhere so they can play with their phones while we examine your child.”

“Yes, I can hardly contain myself.” Akisame said deadpan and straightfaced, forcing a giggle out of Honoka.

Shilo proved her Strength score must be in the thirties by casually picking up each trolley and ascending the steps to set them down inside, barely fitting them in the wide hallways of the interior.

“Quinn, can you show my cousins to a pair of empty rooms and scrounge them some food if they want it?” Quinn nodded, but Honoka wondered why the otter woman distractedly checked her phone for the third time in as many minutes. Wifey Senses tingling, Honoka turned away as she lead the group inside, talking directly to Ken and Miu. “I have a step son and daughter around your ages, but it is late and I’m sure they would love to hang out with both tomorrow.”

“Cool,” Ken replied noncommittally, trying too hard not to sound interested with modest success. He and the silent Miu followed Quinn through the door and down another hallway, the otter chatterbox already firing question after question at the children. Dolly went with them, perhaps thinking what came next was a private affair (though Honoka didn’t think that).

“So, didn’t have enough time to shower, huh?” Shilo asked slyly, waggling her eyebrows as she maneuvered the trolleys inside the wide hallways towards one of the larger hosting rooms in the complex, Honoka knowing how much space all of Uncle Aki’s equipment would consume in floor space from a warning text she received earlier today.

All the logistics was distracting enough that the hosting niece didn’t register what was said immediately. When Honoka understood what Aunt Shilo was talking about, her dark skin turned three shades brighter red, eliciting a roaring laugh out of the polar bear woman. Diane and Akisame shared a sigh that communicated some kind of secret empathy for their spouses, the two instantly bonding over their respective mates.

********************

It would take time to set up the equipment Akisame brought. Honoka decided to stop putting off an important conversation and excused herself, promising to return quickly. Diane was uncharacteristically flustered, Shilo attacking her with questions frank and embarrassing enough to make a succubus blush. Honoka grinned and blew a kiss before escaping.

The main or East building was the smallest of the four buildings in the compound, but also the most elegant. Carved directly out of the cavern wall, it evoked the spirit of Petra in its elegant and epic design. Other than two hosting rooms and stairway access to the massive basements, the building was a collected suite spacious enough for two naga to move and live comfortably with the rest of their family. When Arun - Padmava’s deceased husband - built the place, he probably imagined growing old here, surrounded by family and renting out the other apartments in a happy little community away from whatever worries troubled the world above. If he hadn’t died a year ago, it might have happened.

Honoka didn’t find anyone in the main living room or Padmava’s bedroom. Tiptoeing through the rooms, she deduced everyone was probably trying to sleep this late at night. Hearing something further inside the building, Honoka moved down another hall and located the naga in her sewing room.

“Knock knock,” Honoka said softly, entering into a room covered in bolts of fabric and the various machines and other tools needed to make most types of simple clothing.

“Eeep!” Padmava started as her whole body flinched in surprise. “Don’t look!” the large naga hissed as she used her long body to coil around whatever she was working on, snaking an irritated forked tongue in Honoka’s direction. “Absolutely no peeking!”

“Well now I’m curious,” Honoka purred, exaggerating leaning over to spy an idea of whatever secret project was in the works.

“Nope! This is a birthday surprise and you are not allowed to see it.” Padmava shut her machine she was using down and unraveled a nearby bolt of shiny red fabric to drape over the entire table. “In fact, I’m close enough to finishing I am hanging a No Honoka sign on the door.” The motherly naga put this to practice as she shooed a laughing Honoka out and led them to her main sitting room for some late night fruity drinks.

“So, I’m not on the schedule until tomorrow at lunch, but I’m sure I can…fit you in,” Padmava suggested with a scaly smile, taking a lingering sip from her juice and licking her lips. The effect was slightly ruined as the snakey woman gave the clock on the wall a sideways glance more than once, a small tick that activated more Wifey Instincts in Honoka.

“Maybe in a bit,” Honoka said, staring down at her cup and trying to find words. “Actually, I want to talk to you about…Gwyneth. The lich.”

“Oh,” Padmava replied, body deflating as she slumped back into her cushion and set her drink down on a nearby table. Folding both sets of arms, the naga woman put on a neutral face. “Her.”

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you privately before, I wasn’t thinking. I know the wives signed off on her as a group, but it was only today that my brain put two and two together: she raised your husband’s corpse.” Honoka had so much tension inside she was afraid of breaking the glass in her hand, setting the cup down as she quickly stood and paced. “If it were me, knowing she raised you from the dead and puppeted your skeleton to kill, I don’t know if I could stop myself from beating her to death.”

“I…you are right.” Padmava, so solid and caring, appeared withdrawn, pushing Honoka’s self-guilt to higher levels. “However, are you familiar with karma?”

“I know it in a general sense, but I have a feeling you understand more than I do.”

“I’m not a practicing Hindu like my parents were, but I…um, dharma doesn’t translate well. It’s like I practice many of the philosophies of the religion without putting faith and belief into it.” Padmava uncoiled a bit and used her tail to guide Honoka closer. “Karma is thought to be an idea that if you do good, good things happen. Likewise with doing bad and bad things. It is more about understanding consequences based on actions. Everything is connected and any ripple a person creates will reflect back upon them. In other words, we are free to make any choice, but the consequences of those choices are outside of our control.”

“I understand, I think,” Honoka replied, sitting down on Padmava’s warm tail and gently stroking the scales.

“To me, it is important to look at the whole picture, the entirety of choices and consequences. Using Arun’s body in such a way desecrated everything that he was and what he stood for. But she was under a Binding Contract. Arun died trying to stop the growing slavery and bigotry in the dungeon, and ultimately he was successful through me. She killed hundreds, but her actions in those final moments stopped many of the guild from escaping, possibly bringing justice to thousands. She might have been the one to actually kill Arun and with a few words I saved her life. Now she lives in the home Arun built, a place of refuge my husband hoped would take in the lost and broken so they may rest and heal. Dolly, the one with the most reason to hate and resent her, was the first to accept her.” Padmava paused, closing her eyes and breathing deep in a form of meditation. “My brain hates her, telling me her hands are covered in the blood of my husband and there will be no forgiveness. My heart asks me what would Arun do?”

Honoka reached over and took the lower hands of the naga, bringing them up to rub against her cheek. The guilty Christian had no more words, leaving the final decision up to Padmava.

“I don’t like her,” Padmava said simply, using her other set of hands to gently massage Honoka’s head. “But my choice to hold onto hate will only poison me. If Arun were here right now, he would be the first to offer her a room, just as you did. And if…Gwyneth becomes another wife…I’m not sure. I never got along with Arun’s mother, yet that never stopped me from loving her. I imagine it could be the same.”

They hugged, taking comfort in each other for a few minutes before Honoka’s buzzing phone told her that the machines were installed and they were ready to analyze Diane. The worried wife quickly finished drinking and excused herself, though she noticed as she was leaving Padmava glancing at the clock. Putting it out of her mind, she hurried back to the hosting room and imagined herself as some kind of circus juggler on a tightrope, each ball she threw in the air another one of her wives.

“…and if it is a breech - that’s where the baby is positioned legs downward - then we’ll cut you open with a C-sec. Not as much of a biggy today as years ago, potions make simple surgery like that much safer and…oh, Honoka, glad you’re back.”

Shilo squatted over a pale and sweating Diane. When Honoka entered the room, the polar woman clapped her paws together and rubbed them excitedly, standing and scooping Honoka for another bear hug before the smaller woman could dodge out of the way.

“Dear, try not to smother your niece.” Akisame was in one corner of the room, kneeling within a glowing transmutation circle. The colors fluctuated for a few more seconds before they stabilized with a sharp crack. Standing, the tall Japanese doctor brushed off his yukata and came around to a table with a lot of spinning crystals. “She still needs to answer some questions. You can smother her after.”

“Fine, but I will collect my cuddles after.” With an exaggerated gasp for air, Honoka was released from the plush white fur prison and grinned up at her touchy-feely aunt. Then the moment was over, Shilo becoming all business: a trained nurse and Akisame’s assistant. Walking over to the spinning crystals, she plucked one of them out of the air and deftly placed it upon Diane’s swollen abdomen.

“That...tingles,” Diane commented, her breathing heaving and skin flushing. “I mean, is it supposed to...tingle?”

“It is a Thaumian Echo Resonator,” Akisame said absently, intently studying the floating crystals in front of him, each flash of color accompanied with him jotting something in a small notebook. “I’m taking a baseline measurement of your thaumatic Racial energy so I have something to compare to when I check your child. You and your child are interwoven, so the readings I’ll take will be the combination of you and your child. If I know what readings are purely yours, I can extrapolate your child’s.”

“Oh...oooh...that clarifies everythiiiiiing!” Diane tried to stretch out on the cushion, her hands gripping tightly to tough fabric, bare feet curling. The yellow sweatpants she wore dampened in the crotch. She would have squirmed away entirely, but Shilo calmly held her in place with one hand.

“You’re a succubus,” Honoka said, ogling the show, “your thaumian energy is sexual. The TER crystal is right now poking and prodding that energy, bouncing it around your entire body. Same thing happens to me every time, makes a bit of a mess.”

“Which reminds me,” Akisame said, casually nudging a bucket from under the table towards the suddenly nervous Ymirian. “Going to need a sample.”

“HahaaaoooOOH!” Diane obviously tried to arch her back, but the weight of her pregnancy with the strong arms of Shilo holding her down kept her in place as she convulsed in orgasm, her legs locking together and drenching in the fluids spreading through the inner half of her sweats. However, as the minutes continued and Akisame continued measuring readings, Diane did not stop. Instead, ecstasy turned into pain as the orgasm stayed locked within her body, her mouth silently begging for it to end. Shilo, with all her Strength, now leaned onto Diane with both arms to keep the crystal and succubus in place.

Honoka would have been concerned if either her uncle or aunt showed signs of worry, but both appeared calm and professional as they continued their readings. Not seeing much reason to put off her own sample collection, Honoka grabbed the bucket and went to a corner of the room. It might be more casual nowadays with her sexual activities so out in the open, but it still felt weird to do this in the same room as her aunt and uncle. Both of them knew everything about her, even more than her parents. Shilo had been the first to take detailed measurements while Honoka covered her face in abject horror. Akisame risked his career to forge the documents stating her Race and Class were Giant and Architect. And while Uncle Aki hadn’t learned much about her Race and Class, what little Honoka did know before a month ago had come because of his thorough tests.

“Still, there is a certain amount of ick,” Honoka mumbled, putting everyone else to her back and unzipping her pants and maneuvering the erect Beast outside. As far as Honoka was concerned, this would be a medical procedure. She had been soft a half hour ago - Dolly made sure of that - but with Diane moaning and squirming on the ground, deliciously pregnant stomach taut and glistening with sweat, Honoka was ready for another deposit in the spank bank. Embarrassing boner in front of family? The Beast laughed at such silly concerns! Honoka felt bile rise at the thought, she was depressingly sure she would get off from an amateur video made by her parents, such was her libido at this point in her life.

Peeking around to make sure no one glanced her direction, Honoka rapidly choked the chicken until her abdomen bowed her over and girlchowder splashed into the bucket. Then kept splashing. As much as she attempted to modulate it otherwise, she filled the bucket and then painted the corner of the room. Whatever grunts and groans she articulated were blanketed over by Diane’s own oral manifestations, so Honoka wasn’t worried about immodest noises. She still bit her lip to keep it as quiet as possible. Finished, Honoka took the bucket back to her uncle, then excused herself to clean up in a nearby bathroom.

When Honoka returned, Diane was flopped upon the ground, heaving deep breaths and mewling as she recovered from her marathon. The Shame Corner was clean (ありがとう 、ダンジョンさん) and now Akisame stood in front of another larger machine that resembled a Doctor’s blue box, different dots reading across the front in patterned lights. Shilo hunched behind the machine, slowly pouring Honoka’s jizz into a wide funnel. Honoka mildly wondered if the machine was bigger on the inside.

“I have mostly good news,” Akisame announced without looking away from his light display. “Other than the speed that Diane arrived to term, everything is reading normal.”

Honoka didn’t know how tense she had become over the course of this long, long day. Just hearing those words were enough for her legs to give out and collapse her on the spot, weeping for joy that her strange and complicated Race had done nothing wrong to either Diane or her child. Nearby, Diane also cried. They crawled together to embrace and kiss and sob in the relief of everything. Shilo was missing none of this, quickly joined them in a group hug that got them all back on their feet and laughing in relief and joy. Which is when Honoka remembered what Akisame actually said.

“Mostly good news? Can you elaborate, Uncle Aki?”

Akisame pulled away from the machine, setting one pile of notes next to another on the table and taking a seat, growing more serious (but which Honoka and Shilo knew was just how he normally looked). “I think you all will want to sit down, this is going to get technical.”

Shilo rolled her eyes, knowing how much her husband liked to expound and suggested drinks and snacks. Honoka fetched them and soon the four were again in the office surrounded by machines and munching on a late nosh. Honoka in particular gulped and crunched on a few dozen large red dire chicken eggs and ten gallons of milk, but this was just a snack to the insatiable hunger of Honoka’s tummy.

“For Diane’s sake, I’ll start with a little background,” Akisame said, holding his steaming barley tea and pausing to blow on it before taking a pleased sip. “I came to the States when I was still a teenager to study medicine. It wasn’t a year before my little sister Uzume ran away from Japan and begged to live with me in Florida, but that isn’t very important for this conversation. I graduated with my MD and began specializing in Internal Medicine. If you don’t know what that is, it is a general specialty - an oxymoron, I know - that focuses on coordinating how everything in the body works or dealing with multiple diseases or other problems all at once. Internists sometimes work as diagnosticians and coordinate teams to handle severe and difficult cases requiring multiple doctors with different specialties to come together and heal a patient, which is what I eventually became. I was well respected in the field and became the head of my department at the hospital I worked at.

“When the Change happened, I didn’t see any reason to do anything differently. My wife became a polar bear and my step son was now a fruit bat, but that didn’t make them different people. People still needed healing and for those first few months, everything was in chaos and the world tried to adjust.

“Six months after the Change, Honoka visited me.” Akisame paused, taking a long sip of tea before he continued on. “It wasn’t that she was a different Race or had so many unknowns that forced me to see the world in a new way, it was that when she came to me she was terrified and had lived in terror for six months. I was ashamed to find that, as a healer, I was unable to ease the suffering of my beloved niece, that she had been in silent pain for so long. I became obsessed with studying Status and thaumian effects on humanity, determined to find the answers to the hardest questions.

“Fortunately, I had an excellent Class to help me. As an Enchanter, I could create magical devices where science came up short. I worked with people to help them adjust to their new Races and abilities, giving them the knowledge they required to adapt. However, as time went on, people adapted just fine on their own and I found my studies moving in another direction. I am currently one of the leading experts in the country concerning Racial fetal development and Racial births.”

“That seems like too much of a coincidence,” Diane muttered, her eyes wide when she realized the fortuitous implication of Akisame’s specialty.

“Maybe I was guided in this direction for this very pregnancy. Or maybe it is the reality of our new world that the people in most need of help from ailments brought on by the Status are expecting mothers, and I am drawn to those in most need. I do thank God I am here now to help Honoka when I couldn’t before.”

“That is not true,” Honoka interjected, lightly punching Akisame in the arm with a smile. “You saved my life. You gave me hope for years when I had none.”

“Regardless,” Akisame took some crackers and piled deli meat on them, “I am a doctor with experience dealing with women who are pregnant with Racial children. And aside from the speed you progressed - which I heavily suspect is related to Honoka’s Race - you have all the earmarks of bearing a child with a Legendary Race classification.” Pulling over one of his sheets of notes, he glanced over it before looking at Diane’s swollen abdomen. “Your child is currently healthy and of a normal size for a baby of 40 weeks. I can’t determine what Race specifically your baby is right now - no one can, another mystery I’m working to solve - though the electrical shocks narrow it down to around a dozen possibilities. To explain her size, Diane is much larger than a human pregnancy because many expecting mothers of Racial children grow extra layers of magical insulation between the womb and their bodies as a way of protecting the mother from uncontrolled fetal abilities. Some women grow much larger as their need for thaumian insulation is greater. Although it doesn’t seem natural, it is how the Status compensates for Racial Features in this brave new world. The excess is physiologically similar to fatty tissue and will be absorbed or expelled at the time of birth.

“All this so far is common for a quarter of expecting mothers around the world in the last five years. But in those rare cases of a Legendary Racial birth, there is one major difference. Essentially, the baby requires a certain amount of thaumian energy - known as the Thaumian Threshold - to finish prenatal development. In actuality, I theorize all babies now have a Thaumian Threshold, but in more common Races or human children it is negligent enough not to be noticed. It is noticed in the Legendary Races, because any woman bearing a Legendary child will remain pregnant - stuck in a 40 week limbo - until the Thaumian Threshold is met. The few times I witnessed an inducement or caesarian before the threshold was met - which went against my recommendations and is now better understood in the medical community - always ended in a form of stillbirth.”

Diane sucked in a sharp breath and Honoka balled her hands in impotent fists, shaking as Shilo put her large paws in Honoka’s lap. “Understood,” Honoka said, her mind compartmentalizing the death of other children to focus on her own child. “So, how long will Diane be pregnant.”

“I have no idea.” Akisame studied his numbers and got up, his own anxiety bleeding into a need to pace slowly around the room. “This could be a very long process for you and Diane. Just last month I was a part of a team of consultants throughout the country that helped a woman give birth to the first basilisk in the United States. The poor woman had been pregnant for a total thirty seven and a half months. Before today, her womb possessed the highest thaumian ratings I had ever seen recorded. I estimate Diane’s Threshold is nearly triple that amount, if my calculations are correct.”

“I could…I could be pregnant for the next nine years!?” Diane shouted, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she hyperventilated and gripped around her precious cargo.

“There is one other possibility,” Akisame said reassuringly, looking through his notes to find another sheet. “I ran some tests on Honoka’s semen and I think that is going to be your solution.”

“Of course it is,” Honoka said with resignation as she put her head in her hands. “Just once I’d like to solve a problem without using my dick.”

“You are the envy of hermaphrodites around the world,” Shilo said with a broad smile as she patted Honoka on the back with a massive paw.

“Specifically, the thaumian content in Honoka’s ejaculate is literally off the charts: my machines are unable to read high enough to gauge her current energy levels, which is very surprising because I built them specifically to gather her thaumian readings years ago.”

“I’m over nine thousand!!” Honoka roared dramatically, getting a round of smirks from the Toriyama savvy crowd.

“So, um, do I…” Diane hesitantly started, the otherwise blunt succubus hesitant in what to say in front of Honoka’s family.

“Boink Honoka silly?” Shilo said as she leaned in close to Diane’s face and spread her bear face in a wide leer. “Suck the cream filling out of her chocolate éclair? Get your holes filled by your very own BBC plumber?”

“Aunt Shilo!” Honoka tried to desperately make the thirty year old aunt stop but failed miserably, weakly beating on her thick furry hide, Honoka’s own skin quickly turning the color of a steamed lobster.

“There are two ways I see it happening. The first is I think every time you allocate Diane, you will increase her thaumian content, though I want to do some light tests right now before you try anything that can harm the baby.” Pausing, underneath his mustache a small smile appeared. “Then there is the direct approach.” Akisame picked up the bucket Honoka used earlier and handing it to Diane. It was still more than half full. “It doesn’t matter how you get it in you, the more you internalize Honoka’s semen, the sooner you’ll be holding a child in your arms.”

That did the trick. With a look of determination that put professional hotdog eaters to shame, the pregnant woman tipped the bucket up and chugged. Honoka’s love cream was as thick and dense as a smoothie with not enough milk, a spoon would stand up if stuck inside. It still had enough motility to slide instead of clump, but Diane eventually had to ask Shilo to help hold the bucket as the woman used one hand to shovel the honey and oat and musky white ejaculate into her stomach as fast as she could swallow. Ten minutes later, with a loud belch and licking the last of it with her fingers, the succubus eyed Honoka’s crotch as if it contained a box of decadent chocolates.

With a bit of nervous laughter, Honoka told her aunt and uncle they could meet up tomorrow morning after finishing those allocation tests. First, Honoka spent ten minutes as a succubus while Akisame used yet another machine to monitor the health of the baby (he said he could tell them the sex, but both women agreed to let it be a surprise). The conclusion of the experiment after allocating back was that Diane was safe to be allocated from, but she should avoid anything allocated onto her. Otherwise, allocation was encouraged to increase her Threshold. Diane agreed, saying she’ll set up the Harmony Chamber for an all nighter.

Honoka then hastily retreated, saying if this was going to happen she would need a much larger snack than just a few eggs and milk. Diane’s impatience simmered for a moment before the succubus tamped it down, blowing a kiss towards her wife as she scrambled up and checked her phone, saying she would get Akisame and Shilo situated. With a bit of relief, Honoka made her way to the downstairs gym and the collected food supplies.

********************

A large snack later (not quite up to morning meal levels, but still bloating her stomach out to the size of a sedan), Honoka was full of energy and horny. Despite the hour, she decided to walk off the last of her meal around the compound, only having a beachball amount of food baby left. Once out into the courtyard, Honoka slowed to an amble and pulled up her Status.

It's back, Honoka thought to herself, worried as she glared at the glitch at the bottom of her Collection. This time, she tried to pull up a submenu from it, maybe gain a better clue of what it was. However, as she focused, the glitch itself broke apart and disappeared. In seconds, it was as if there was nothing there. Even though she hadn’t been heavily allocating all day, her head already sharply stung from a headache that was probably more from stress than Status.

Looking on the bright side, both Miaka and Dolly were only one or two more sessions away from harmonizing for the first time. Honoka was excited at how fast the women in her harem were growing by leaps and bounds. Most of the afternoon had been spent going over the various options the wives possessed, and there were some truly broken abilities only a few points away from adding into the allocation pool.

Or, Honoka thought with a wicked grin, we could just keep adding height, muscle and boobs to everyone until we create the ultimate Giant Woman allocation.

Closing her menus down, Honoka continued strolling through the courtyard, though a paranoia fell upon her out of nowhere. She couldn’t get away from the feeling that she was being watched. Paranoid was a healthy state of mind in the dungeon, monsters able to appear from anywhere causing countless deaths in the last five years. It wasn’t really paranoia if the landscape was actually out to eat you. Yet right now, Honoka would swear she was not only being watched, but followed.

Hearing something behind her, Honoka spun around and crouched into a low guard stance. Nothing was there. Worried she was either losing her mind or rightly sensing danger nearby, Honoka pulled out her phone and made her way towards the nearest doorway inside the complex. It was 11:59 at night, ticking over to midnight as she opened the door and typed a mass text to everyone but didn’t send.

Before the anxious woman could do anything else, hands reached out from the dark hallway and pulled the surprised woman into a large cloth bag, muffling any cry she made.