Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

The last one fell the ground face first, mask shattering to reveal a skinless visage, just like the rest, this ironic puppeteer soon disappeared into a flurry of spirit life, just like the other soldiers, they didn't leave anything behind, making it seem as though the cave had never been full of enemies.

Milo glanced around, but there was nothing else to see here, the artificial cave only stretched down to this small room, it had been nothing but an attempt at concealing troops around, a rather poor attempt but one nonetheless.

A small pebble detached from the ceiling and bounced over his head, followed by great amounts of dust and gravel all over the place.

'Unbelievable…' the place was collapsing, coughing up dust as he swiftly made his way out, although he had avoided getting his clothes damaged, he now looked like a chinchilla after a dust bath.

A single tap on his clothes and it was like a cloud was risen, he would definitely need to get that off somehow, otherwise he would have to explain to Helena that he walked into a suspicious cave without properly thinking about it.

'I should probably come home for the day' he thought, he had already gone pretty far from the house and for a little while already, Milo had to help his wife out, especially since there were five children wandering around the home now, and since the twins were less than a year old, they required close attention and were rather demanding of her as they were perfectly in synch when it came to wanting to be breastfed.

Even with magic, dealing with children was a difficult job, so Milo decided to head back, trying to figure out how to get rid of all that dust on the way there.

When he finally spotted the house, he noticed someone arriving from a simple dirt path, Milo had gotten to know the talent holders and elemental champions a lot better over the years, so he raised one hand and called out to the visitor.

"Ah, hello to you too! Perfect timing, I was looking for you" the man in question was the champion of wind, Forven, the blond man, typically very composed approached Milo whilst clearing his throat.

"I need advice, from one man to another" he said.

"Huh, alright? What is it?"

"Like… Let's say someone was getting steamy with a woman they like very much, and got a bit too lost in the moment, and ended up making the mistake of not… Huh, extracting themselves, like at all- What are the odds that this will result in a lifetime responsibility?"

Milo blinked a few times, scratching the side of his face awkwardly, a wry smile on his face as this took him back years ago, he had done exactly that but luckily, nothing had resulted from this rather poor judgement of his.

"Mmh… Depends on a few factors actually, it is kinda up to chance though… So, who is it?" he asked, already having a clue.

"Dasato… I am pretty worried for her though, her injury has healed pretty well but Minli said that they wouldn't be functional enough to feed a child until a little while still… And I know how much she stresses about that, so…" truthfully, the possibility of a baby wasn't what was scaring Forven the most, even in the current, uncertain environment of the realm.

Instead, he was afraid for Dasato.

"Don't worry about that, just reassure her, it isn't necessary to properly raise a child" Milo wasn't much of a talented confidant, so he could only try to offer a solution rather than support.

"Of course…"

Both of the men stayed silent, just staring at air.

"So you two finally hit it off? Good for you man! Literally everyone could tell a kilometer away that there was this sort of tension between you two"

"Everyone?"

"Everybody"

"Damn… I honestly had no clue if she would say yes when I asked her to be my wife…"

'You started by asking her in marriage?! Talk about skipping steps…' but it was coherent with how the wind champion was, always straight to the point.

"Anyways… There's no need to worry, this might not result in a pregnancy at all, and if it does, I am sure you'll be fantastic" offering some more reassurance, the two of them exchanged a few more pleasantries.

"I meant to ask, why are you covered in dust?"

"A cave almost collapsed on top of me"

"Huh, weird, I thought there were no caves in this realm?"

"There are not, was the work of some invaders"

"Invaders… Me and the guys have been going out to hunt some down, it feels like they have been increasing in numbers, lately… The worshippers have been saying the same thing, the undeads are probably preparing something" spoke Forven.

"Do be careful as your place is away from the rest of us"

"I will"

The champion of wind smiled a little bit.

"It was nice speaking with you, I guess I overreacted a bit, and also" with a casual flick of his wrist, a gust of wind washed over Milo, blowing all of the dust away.

Soon enough, the champion bid his goodbyes and Milo finally went through the door of his home, as per usual, his three oldest were running around, seemingly having boundless energy whilst Helena watched, making sure that none of them ran into a table corner or something, although doing anything about it would be rather difficult with the twins latched onto her.

"I'm home" he said, looking down at his wife's chest, even now, he could not help but admire these two pieces of art.

Raising her eyebrows slightly, Helena smiled.

"What? Already aiming for a sixth?"

"Heh… That would be a bit too soon, though we could always do a mock-attempt" speaking as walked closer, looking down upon his less than one year old youngest children, there had been no luck for him this time around either, the twins were both girls and from the looks of things, identical twins at that.

Still following the realm's tradition to have a Z somewhere in names, they had called them Zaya and Zally, dressing them up in red and blue to make sure to not mix them up.

Both were currently, holding onto their mother like the world would collapse on itself if they didn't, although to most people, having twins would be rather problematic as a singular child was already difficult enough to handle, but Helena was finding it rather practical as both of her milk tanks were being drained constantly, when they had gotten Lizi, it was often that one would start to hurt as their firstborn would always prefer the right over the left.

With a duo, this was no problem and even then, Milo found that the production was enormous, as since her first pregnancy, there wasn't a single time that slightly pressing them wouldn't result in him getting sprayed by a high-velocity jet.

"You dirty dog… You know what, if you can get these five to bed on your own, I'll let you do whatever you want" she winked.

Milo focused.