Raising A Few Wives in a Beast Apocalypse

"To think she would be the first one to kill her beast despite her personality" Jade suddenly spoke to no one in particular. There was a hint of disbelief in her tone, but other than that she seemed fine. After all, since none of them chose Freya due to various reasons, not just their bias, no one would be getting anyone's meat.

"Yeah, none of us saw it coming", Emily chimed in, feeling a bit salty. She really didn't want Freya to stand out so much.

"Oh well, stuff happens I guess" Chloe just shrugged it off. While she also didn't want Freya to get closer to Muku, she didn't hold any particular negative feelings for the girl.

"Well yeah, you'd say that. After all, your choice was the second one to succeed in killing, while mine couldn't even kill theirs," Hope immediately replied to Chloe with a lot more saltiness in her voice.

While it was okay to lose. But the fact that her choice couldn't even complete the task really stung. Especially when everyone else's choices at least killed theirs.

That's right, the girls had gathered up after the fifteen women all finished their battles. Of course, not all of them were successful, like Hope's choice, who passed out mid-battle. There were actually five of them who didn't successfully kill their ant opponent.

And the lucky ants were released back to their nest by Muku under the confusion of the girls. When they asked him about it. His answer was "Since they won their battles, they deserve to live a while longer before the eventual death when we wipe the nest out"

When they asked him what the difference in dying a little later and dying now. His answer was, " Isn't it the same with humans and our little lifespan. Are you saying that just because we're destined to die at any moment, we should just die now?"

After that, the girls didn't ask anything more. They felt like he was just displaying his weirdness differently.

While in reality, although Muku really did want to give them a bit more time to live. His main reason was to see whether whatever was hiding in the ant colony that he could barely sense would be aroused by the injuries on the ants or not. Or whether, more specifically, it cared about the bottom-tier ants that weren't even Rank One yet.

If it showed some movements then their plan to get all the women at the stadium to Rank one could be in jeopardy. As there is no way the R1 ants would survive a clash between higher Rank beings like themselves.

On the other end, if it didn't care, then at least for a little while they would be safe to carry out their large endeavour. If they are lucky, maybe it will move after they've already gotten all the women to rank one.

So more than anything, releasing the ants was nothing more than a simple probe.

As for not telling the girls. He felt that he shouldn't baby them too much. In fact, Jade's senses should be more than enough to sense the hidden boss, even clearer than him in fact. But he'd noticed that she'd started to depend on him so much she was losing her vigilance which dulled her senses.

Even the sharpest beast would lose its edge if it lazed around all day. Let alone Jade who was still getting used to her abilities. Especially now when her abilities were weakened with her mana to Beast Aura conversation going on.

His plan was to use the hidden beast not only as a source of much-needed KP but also as a learning opportunity for Jade. As well as the others really, even if their senses aren't as sharp as Jade or even his. They should still be mindful of their surroundings, especially in such a setting where it's almost obvious that there would be something hidden.

{Sigh, I guess I really have been pampering them too much. Should maybe leave them alone for a few days and go out alone?... Nuh, that seems familiar like a recipe for even greater disaster. In all the movies where such a scenario occurs and the dude leaves. When he comes back, someone is either dead or dying. So nuh...the best I can do is be more mindful of my actions from now on}

While Muku's thoughts were all over the place. His facial expressions hadn't changed much. So the girls didn't notice anything. Only Audrey vaguely felt that something might be up but she didn't know how to ask. So she could only look on in worry hoping that whatever was wrong would get fixed. Though even she didn't sense anything related to the hidden boss.

....

Around an hour later...

"Okay ladies, sure you've all rested enough. And Hope has healed all your injuries. So it's time for round two. I'm sure you've all discussed amongst yourselves so now you all should have a better idea on how to properly fight those ants and win.

This time I don't want to see anyone failing. In fact, whoever fails this time won't get another chance" After seeing that the women had rested long enough. Muku immediately proceeded with the next round.

Hearing him, those like Freya were feeling a bit more confident than before. And were sure they could win a lot easier than before. There were still the five who had failed the first time. They felt the pressure increase on their back.

But as Muku said, they had discussed it with the others. So, unlike before, they won't just randomly charge at the ants and get beaten up. So while they felt pressure, they weren't ready to back out yet.

And so, the ladies jumped into the second round. As expected, those like Freya, who had succeeded once, already had an easier time the second time around.

They not only didn't get hurt nearly as much but they also took a lot less time and weren't completely covered in ant body fluids. However, the part about being covered with ant body fluids didn't matter much since they were all already drenched from the first battle.

As for the five that had failed before. At first, things didn't look too good for them. Which was mostly caused by their own nervousness from having failed before.

But after a while, they calmed down and started to properly fight. They even became almost as good as the others. Which definitely had nothing to do with Hope threatening to poison them if they failed again.

.....

Later on in the day...

The women who had been fighting for most of the day since morning, were now barely able to keep standing. They had never worked so hard before in their lives. In fact, they had never worked even half as hard.

But the unfeeling monsters in Muku's group who they thought were saints before, but not anymore. Wouldn't let them go. They wouldn't let them rest for more than an hour.

The worst part is that even if they got injured, they wouldn't let you go since you'd be healed soon after. On top of that, whenever they tried to drag the battle on so that they could expend some of the daylight... A blue lightning bolt that didn't injure them but hurt like hell would strike them on the spot.

They were all regretting their decision to get stronger after suffering so much. But since they had already begun, they could only continue while shedding tears of blood hoping that the day would quickly come to an end.

Their only happiness at that point was knowing that even those who were left behind would also suffer one day. They even promised each other to not mention anything to the others when they got back.

"Hehe, ladies, I know that some of you can, if not all of you, want to quit right now. But remember, the only path to strength is hard work. Even me and my team went through all this. Look where we are at now. Whenever you're about to give up, just look at us and say to yourself, "I can do it! I will be as strong as them one day" Muku gave a motivational speech to the resting women.

"But since this is all new to you, we will stop here for today. You've all killed nine ants each anyway. We'll just take the remaining one each that are needed with us and you can kill them whenever you're ready" Seeing that even though the women were still willing to continue if he said so, especially after his speech.

Muku chose to stop the battles for the day. After all, the women all looked like they were close to dying from exhaustion. He wasn't a complete monster who didn't know when to stop after all...even if he did push them a bit too much. That was unavoidable since there were a lot of them and while he and his group couldn't afford to stick around for too long. They also had some growing to do after all.

...

As Muku was addressing the women...

"Umm, Emily?" Jade whispered to Emily beside her.

"Yeah?" Emily replied in a similarly low voice. Explore more adventures at My Virtual Library Empire

"When did we ever struggle like they did?" Jade asked her confusedly.

"Shhh, shut up! He's trying to motivate them okay! And the only reason we didn't suffer was because the dogs didn't come one after the other nonstop. So stop talking unless someone hears you and they get demotivated," Emily immediately replied in a hushed voice while hurriedly covering Jade's loose mouth.

She wasn't certain whether the women would be demotivated or not after knowing that they hadn't gone through such a hard time. She thought that it was better to be safe than sorry.

Seeing Emily's exaggerated reaction, Jade just shrugged not knowing what she did wrong. But she didn't say anything else.

On Muku's side. He wrapped things up with the women. Then went to grab the needed number of ants, and then they left...