Raising A Few Wives in a Beast Apocalypse

"Well... Didn't expect you to ever initiate a hug..." Mrs C spoke while happily accepting the hug.

She always hoped her son would be more loving. She even considered brainwashing him into a devoted son but thought against it. It wouldn't be him anymore if she did that. He'd be an empty shell... A mere puppet with no real emotion.

Fortunately for her, she only thought about it without saying it or Muku would never hug her like he was doing...

"Thank you mother" Muku thanked her and stepped back. He had to wrestle himself away from her a bit but he expected it so he could easily escape.

"Sigh... I guess this means we're separating again... This is the worst" Mrs C spoke sadly.

"There's no need to be so sad. I'll come see you before I head back home. I know I won't be able to do another trial since the cool down for trials wouldn't be up yet, but that can't stop me from seeing you right?" Muku replied in a consoling voice.

"Aww. You'd do that for me? How thoughtful. What a good son you are. Unfortunately, it's not possible, there are matters which came up I have to go deal with. It will take quite some time to take care of so... Actually, if it wasn't for that I might have kidnapped the two of you for a month... Don't look at me like that. You should give yourself a questioning look if you thought doing such a thing was beyond me" Mrs C told Muku a bit about her plans without getting into detail.

As for telling him that there were no real limits to the trials and she made them up... She was never going to do such a thing. If she did, he'd probably do all the levels and never come back.

Sure, that was exaggerating it, but his visits wouldn't be as stable as they were now.

One could say that he was leaving the Beast World after a bit, so it was okay to tell him right? In response, they should ask themselves, if Mrs C wanted to drag him from the Blue Planet was there anything which could stop her?

The answer to that is, no. She was someone who lived according to her own rules. If she didn't consider Muku's feelings, she could make him do anything.

Anyway, the point here is that, the trial is the only excuse Mrs C currently has if she ever wants to bring Muku back. So there was no way she was going to give it up.

She trusted Raya not to say anything even without specifically discussing it. The little dragon girl was smarter than her age after all...

"Oh? Well, that sucks... Speaking of which, how will I be able to continue the trials when you're done with your matter? I mean, I will be back home by then..." Muku didn't try to pry into the matters she was talking about.

He knew that she would have told him if it was something he should know. And if it was something which needed so much of her time then it should be something way beyond his station. Probably beyond Monarchs too. So yeah, he didn't need to know.

He chose to focus on something he needed to know instead. He couldn't give up on the trials after all. He had gotten so many gains from just two floors. Who knows where he will be after doing all ten?

And that was a strength he couldn't pass up in the constantly evolving world which kept on getting more and more dangerous.

"Oh, that. Don't worry about that. I'll notify you by phone after everything has been taken care of..." Mrs C replied in a reassuring tone.

"Oh okay. I'll be waiting then... Speaking of which. How do I add more contacts?" Muku asked.

"Just tap two phones together and their contacts will be recorded on the other" Mrs C replied.

"Okay. Thank you again" Muku replied gratefully.

"And again, there's no need..." Mrs C replied with her iconic motherly smile.

"Raya, aren't you going to say goodbye to her?" Muku shifted his attention to the little girl who was trying her best to avoid him by making her presence as small as possible since she couldn't leave.

Raya immediately flinched but relaxed after hearing what he said. She thought that he was going to pettily bring up old matters, fortunately, that wasn't it.

"R... right. Ma'am, thank you for hosting us. I hope we meet again as soon as possible" Raya floated over and spoke while bowing mid-air.

She was just as grateful to Mrs C as Muku was, if not more.

"Don't mention it, child. It was nothing. And I advise you to try and use your body as much as possible before the time period is up" Mrs C replied while patting Raya's head.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye. Like she said, I hope we meet again as soon as possible. And good luck in your endeavours..." Muku spoke as he got ready to go through the portal and leave the restricted zone.

There was no need for Mrs C to create a new one for them since they were already in the Outskirts of the Beast Forest.

He was afraid that if he had her create one for them which would lead them to the outside world, they would be thrown into the Middle Zone again.

Unlike last time, he now had a clearer understanding of the horror higher-rank beasts brought. So he wasn't sure he could fearlessly fly through a whole zone full of them...

Let alone R6s, he was scared to death of R5s since the ogre incident. That thing might have traumatised him.

"Goodbye. Thank you and good luck to you too" Mrs C replied then snapped her fingers.

Before Muku and Raya could react, they were gone from the room.

A few seconds after they disappeared, the dragon lady who's always snooping around Mrs C appeared again.

"You'd better think twice before saying whatever you want to say" Mrs C spoke before the other party could say anything.

All the warmth in her voice from when she spoke to Muku and Raya was gone. Her voice was even colder than Layla's.

The dragon lady didn't even flinch though. She was long long used to it after all. In fact, she would have been creeped out if Mrs C's voice was still nice even after Muku left.

"I'm not here to say anything provocative. I just want to ask why you felt like need to send them away when they were going to leave on their own?" The dragon lady spoke.

"You know Athena, there's an old saying in the human world. And that saying is, curiosity killed a cat. And they say a cat has nine lives there. So, doesn't that mean it died nine times from curiosity? So I ask you this... Do you think your one life is enough to survive your curiosity when a cat couldn't do so with nine?" Mrs C replied in her cold voice. It was getting colder and colder as she spoke.

"I'm sorry for asking. I'll be on my way..." The dragon lady named Athena backed off and disappeared.

Inside she was kicking herself for doing such a thing again. She knew Mrs C didn't like being questioned on her decisions yet she had been doing it constantly in recent history.

Did she get confused by Mrs C's nice personality when interacting with Muku or something? Well, whatever, she will never do such a thing again. She was sure that she had used up her warnings and next time would end up badly for her. She might really lose her tail!

.....

Soon after the dragon lady left...

BOOM!

The walls, floors, doors and everything around Mrs C exploded and disintegrated.

All that was left was Mrs C standing in a pitch black void with nothing around her.

"Two huge red eyes opened up from above her and looked at her. The lady didn't flinch or look at the eyes. She continued floating in the void seemingly lost in thought.

"Are you happy now?" A voice Muku would have recognised if he were present sounded.

It was the voice he heard in his "dream" when he was bedridden in the past after a big incident. The same voice which told him to pursue the girls or risk losing them, among other things...

"Do I look happy?.... Though I guess I was happy when he was with me" surprisingly Mrs C replied.

"Sigh. This is why I told you to stay away. Now you're sadder than before the interaction" The voice continued.

"Oh shut up. You're the one who went to him first.

"I won't deny that but I didn't affect his development at all while you... Well, you know what you did. I don't even know how many rules you broke" The voice spoke further. It was calm but urged Mrs C to take accountability for her actions.

"Ha! Rules? And who made those rules? Besides that, what rules can stop me from meeting my son? In fact, do you dare get in the way?" Mrs C replied arrogantly.

"Well... I guess you're right. But you must know that the future rests on his development... Speaking of which, I guess what you did wasn't a bad thing. You sped up the process a bit and even degraded yourself to saying that you're his adoptive mother when you're his biological mother..." The voice casually dropped a bomb.

But then again, there were no other beings present other than the two of them, so it technically wasn't a bomb as they both knew about it.

"That's right. Do you know how much it hurts to be incapable of claiming my son as being truly mine? You have no idea how much I wanted to tell him that when I called him son it wasn't because of some randomly forged relationship. I am his mother and he is my son!" Mrs C exclaimed emotionally then disappeared from the void.

"Sigh... Maybe I shouldn't have said anything..." The voice rang in the void again...