World of Women

“Clyburn! Clyburn! Come, sit next to me!” The fat prince declared, gesturing excitedly as a servant pulled a chair out for him.

He plopped into it and the chair creaked unpleasantly like it was under great strain.

This is the man responsible for all pregnancy in this nation?

I couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for whatever woman had to be under him when he flopped down on top of her. No wonder the women in the village all appeared downtrodden. It was a very strict way of living. I had no choice but to join him. I nodded to the servant who pulled out my chair and smiled, but she kept her head down and acted like she hadn’t even seen me.

As I sat down, a great feast was placed in front of us. There was an assortment of different dishes. I had enjoyed many extravagant meals as a man, but for the number of people present, I had never seen so much food prepared. There were at least ten full sized pheasants, five whole boars, a giant platter of potatoes and vegetables, and an assortment of bread and fruits. A whole roasted pig was placed in the center complete with an apple in the mouth.

The prince, who was sitting right next to me, picked up a large knife and began cutting it. He carved a large chunk and shoved it onto my plate, but then he took an even larger slice for himself.

“I have heard all about you.” The prince declared, already shoving a slice in his mouth. “You might be the most famous man alive, well, after me.”

I sat down, jerking slightly. “After you?”

“Of course, my sweet boy is the most famous man alive. Men want to be him and countless women admire him from afar.” The queen had found a seat across from me, and she gave me a sharp look when she spoke if I didn’t figure out that this was a lie she had told her child that I wasn’t to disagree with.

“Right…” I responded in agreement. “I’m sure you’ve had even more children than me.”

“Haha… thank you, thank you…” he patted his stomach, wiping grease off his tunic in the process. “However, you… you’ve had so many males. Of course, all the males I have are killed, but I still have only had a dozen or so. What is it like having sons?”

“It’s not bad,” I admitted. “It’s nice having someone there you know will carry on the tasks you began. Ahem… I mean, it can be rough too.”

His mother had given me another look. She seemed to want me to dispel the idea that having boys was favorable. He had been nodding, his fat wobbling as he grew more excited, so I quickly changed what I was saying.

“Really? Rough how?” He blinked.

“Ah, there are… um… with so many other men around my women, one might end up taking one of my women. Even my daughters sometimes go to other men.” I quickly came up with a complaint.

My complaint got me dirty looks from a couple of the women who didn’t like the implication they’d cheat on me with their children. I could only give them an apologetic look. I was surprised to see Raven biting her lip as she looked my way, and Lexy was nodding as if I was finally making sense.

His eyes widened for a moment, and then he laughed. “Oh, I don’t care about that. You can have any of my girls you want.”

“Really? I appreciate the offer…” I mumbled although I had no intention of taking any.

“Of course, I’d need to kill any of the women you slept with… just on principle.” He chuckled. “Women who have had more than one man are slutty scum.”

I tensed slightly, but I kept my expression clear. My mother was one such person he called slutty scum. I wonder what he thought of his mother, but she seemed to be an exception, smiling and nodding as if his words were golden.

A girl came to take our plates and replace them with new ones, and the prince immediately started shoveling the food down again. I couldn't help but look at her a bit closer now that I knew she was one of the Prince's daughters. It was hard to believe she came from him. She was rather slim, almost malnourished, and had a downtrodden look. She wasn't nearly as pretty as many of the girls, but she wasn't completely ugly either.

She kept her eyes away from mine and seemed even nervous, and it took me a moment to understand. If I took a liking to any of his girls, he wouldn't hesitate to give them for a night, but to them, it would be a death sentence in the morning. She was probably terrified I'd want her to warm my bed.

"What do you think of the girl?" the fat prince seemed to notice me eying his girl.

I stiffened. "Ahem, your daughter is beautiful, just like her... mother?"

I noticed the queen whispering to the girl and given that she had a position in the castle, my first thought was that this was the incestuous child of him and his mother.

"Not my daughter." His grin grew. "This is my biological sister. Mother had both of us before Father's death."

"R-really..." I nodded, suspecting that there was some meaning to this introduction.

The mom was holding the girl, who was looking my way shyly, and she also had a mischievous grin on her face.

"She is Zoskar's princess. She will be queen one day," the current queen announced while stroking her hair like she was a doll. "She will play the same role I did, birthing the future prince and raising him until he's old enough to take over his father's duties."

"I-I see..." I grabbed a cup full of wine and lifted it. "Then I wish you both luck in a happy copulation."

Wishing someone a happy copulation in this world wasn't considered strange at all. It was custom in some places to send letters and gifts to a girl who had a scheduled time she'd be with a man. Card stores even had a happy copulation section.

"Alas... as much as I've wanted to, mother has forbidden me from touching my twin sister." He looked over at the woman longingly, although the girl's face gave nothing away to how she felt about it, her eyes distinctly watching me.

I felt a bit of shock they were twins, but being twins didn't necessarily mean they were identical twins.

I frowned. "Then how will she become pregnant?"

The queen huffed. "Of course, we're not fools. We know that our country needs to breathe in new blood every generation, or even our bloodline will go cold. This is why at the change of every reign; we invite an outside male to come... someone believed to be of exceptional breed stock. Their job will be to create the new prince and princess."

"Is that... possible?" I asked. "Wouldn't there be a thousand princesses and one prince... and that's if she survived a millennia of bearing children!"

"Such a thing is not a problem. I told you... our family is blessed. Every generation, when a female copulates, she will produce one boy and one girl."

"Every time?" I leaned forward with interest.

"I heard about this, but wasn't it a myth?" Lilith asked.

The queen gave Lilith a frown, but then she turned back to me and spoke as if I had been the one to ask. “It isn’t just a myth; it is the history of our people. Other nations often claim us to be poor, or uncouth, but the truth is our nation has outlived them all. Zoskar is one of the oldest countries in the world with the longest successive line of rulers. Amaryllis has only been around a few hundred years. We even outlive Nippon’s thousand-year history. We may not have tons of money, but our nation is rich with history and culture, and it all started with our ancestors.”

“Oh, I love this story.” The prince clapped, his fatty cheeks wobbling.

She smiled. “My son has heard this many times. It all started long ago, shortly after the new world order took hold and the demon’s curse became a blight on this world. Our ancestors used to live on the foothills of these mountains as uncultured goatherders long before we became the nation of Zoskar. After a particularly bad illness, our founder’s village was unlucky enough to have every man perish. Without a man to continue to produce offspring, it was only a matter of time until our people were no more.”

“There were only like two men in the first place. Most men were still being held by the wealthy nations, leaving few for other places.” The prince spoke up.

“Let me tell it, sweetheart,” she cut in before turning back to me. “It all started when a young, but brave woman decided to go on a journey deep into the mountains, where legend spoke of a fallen god who lived deep within the land no woman could reach. She traveled for countless long days and nights. She went through numerous struggles, and on the verge of death, she finally found his palace. Once there, she prayed to him, even offering her own life so that a man might return to their village.”

“And the god granted it?” I leaned forward, my expression controlled but my mind shaken.

The only reason we knew the location of this demon king’s castle is because of recently taken aerial survey images that revealed it nuzzled away deep in the mountains. However, it seemed it had a substantial influence on the entire formation of Zoskar. I never imagined the two would be connected when I came here.

“Not immediately.” The queen smiled, apparently enjoying the attention she was receiving.

I wasn’t the only one looking at her with interest. Lilith and Mia were also watching her carefully, not touching anything on their plates.

“Please, continue.” I encouraged her.

“The god agreed to give her a child, but in exchange, she had to keep her bloodline pure. Only one new male could enter her bloodline a generation. She was warned that the consequences of breaking the covenant would be great. Thus, she agreed and then returned home pregnant with twins, one boy and one girl. The boy went on to become the prince, impregnating every girl in the village, and expanding the size of the village considerably. The girl found a suitable male abroad, and she became pregnant with twins. She was proclaimed queen, and when her children became adults, they repeated the process, and we continued this process until now.”

“Always twins… huh?” I couldn’t help but compare it to the original hero’s story.

Every culture in this world spoke of the male hero, born of a virgin, and who would become the progenitor of all people currently living. Actually, before this all women were virgins. They became pregnant through some kind of ceremony involving seed left by god, but that seed had become stagnant and the society was on the verge of collapse when the male appeared.

It was no wonder their ancestor went looking for the god, hoping to find a new seed. She ended up getting something different entirely. It left me wondering if the hero was also born in this way. Did a woman find the demon king’s castle that would eventually be claimed by Lilith, and similarly get an offer to have a child? If that was the case, she must have broken the covenant. This would be the demon’s curse that makes it so only 1:1000 is born a man.

Who could have guessed that Zoskar was hiding such a secret? This had so many implications. As my brain worked, the queen continued to speak.

“Of course, there is always a risk of inviting foreign blood into our nobility. At one point, a foreign male tried to overthrow the prince and become the prince himself. The queen ended up poisoning him to restore our culture. Ever since, it was decided that the prince would be the one to decide on a suitable foreign male to impregnate his sister. After all, it was his nephew who upon adulthood, would slay him and take his place.” She paused for a moment, giving her son a worried look.

“Mom… that’s still fifteen or sixteen years from now. We don’t need to worry about such things at the moment.” He waved his hands defensively.

“Yes, well, for the moment, it’s more important that our princess become pregnant and begin the next generation. So, you see, Clyburn. Our people are special. Everyone is related to the original hero. Such a thing is unavoidable. However, we had another male, and every person from Zoskar has a unique bloodline. We are the most unique people in this world.”

My eyes flashed as a thought occurred to me. As a result of the demon’s curse, every man had a drop of demonic blood. However, if this culture was able to maintain the covenant, wouldn’t that mean their bloodline was particularly thick with demonic blood? If that was true, then this entire country was practically a demonic ground zero. If someone opened a summoning circle here, the entire country might become a demon country, and it’s been sitting right here all this time!

I glanced over at Ash and Becky, but the two were looking off in the distance with disinterest. It wasn’t clear if they had been listening to the story at all. I didn’t know why, but I had a feeling they were looking toward the mountains, right in the direction of the Demon King’s castle.

“So, what do you think, Clyburn?” The prince asked, finally putting down his fork.

“Hmm?” I realized that the prince, princess, and queen were all looking at me, but I had missed the last thing they had said.

“Naturally, I have heard about your exploits. Among men, you are a legend!” The prince declared. “I would like nothing more than for you to become my sister’s mate. Will you impregnant my sister, creating the next generation of Zoskar?”

I finally managed to connect everything they had been saying. I had been so caught up in the legend that I hadn’t noticed what the implications were leading to. After asking that question, every eye was on me. Even Ash and Becky looked away from the mountains to look my way.

“You want me to impregnate her?” I didn’t mean to point, but I couldn’t help myself.

The girl herself blushed, and I realized what I originally had taken as shyness when she was serving us was nervousness over who was supposed to be her future lover.”

“It only takes one time.” The queen waved a hand. “We queens are very fertile. As long as you blow your load in the vicinity of her vagina, she will become pregnant with twins.”

“What happens after?” I asked cautiously.

“For you?” She chuckled. “Nothing. You can return to your… Valiant, content in the knowledge that you will have contributed to a noble lineage that will last long after you do. As for your children, they will become the new prince and princess. When he reaches age, he will supplant my son and the next generation of Zoksar will be born of him. As for the princess, she will eventually become pregnant, perpetuating the cycle from now on.”

My initial instinct was to refuse them. I didn’t want to insult them, but the girl wasn’t my type, and I didn’t want myself or my children mixed up into this weird society. However, I couldn’t help but think about my mission. I was to spread my genes across this planet. This was why I was summoned to this world. Other than the demon king’s legacy, that was my only other purpose.

No place needed my seed greater than this one. If the story she just told was true, and the god’s palace was the Demon King’s palace, then this might have been a nation of demonic initiates. They weren’t demons now, but their bloodline held enough demonic residue that all of these women could become possessed.

However, I only needed to do one pregnancy. If I slept with the princess, I would shatter the cycle. I could make them have only a girl, or a boy, or no child at all. When she didn’t have twins, this would likely destroy their plans completely. However, the best method would be to get her pregnant with twins.

Then, her son would go on to sleep with every woman in Zoskar. His seed would inoculate the entire country. In a single generation, every living person from Zoskar would become my relative. There was nowhere else in this world where I could accomplish my goals so quickly and completely. Zoskar wouldn’t even realize anything was wrong until the next generation, long after the prince and his mother queen were dead and replaced.

There was nothing particularly wrong with the princess. It's not like I had never slept with ordinary-looking women. I realized that this was the best situation I could hope for. After considering it for only a brief time longer, I nodded my head.

Of course, I didn’t speak my thoughts out loud. I was sure some of the girls who knew more understood my intentions, but Raven gave me an icy look and Lexy had a hurt look on her face like I had somehow betrayed her.

“Perfect!” The prince clapped. “In that case, you will all be staying the night here. However, first, shall we enjoy desert?”

As other servants started to bring in an assortment of sweets, the prince had a dark grin on his face. I thought over my decision a few more times. It was the logical choice. Why did I feel like I was missing something? Nothing could afford to go wrong though. I was so close to the finish line. All I had to do was stick the landing.