Chapter 16: Chapter 15: Home Is Where The Danger Is

“I swear my own system just likes messing with me.” Carl huffed as he withdrew some levelling stake from his armlet. “Giggles, make yourself useful and plant these four in a square, needs to be about forty-five by fifty.” He ranted as he dropped the four stakes next to the lad still kicking his legs in the air.

“All that build-up… For nothing…” Gillian wheezed before rolling over.

They eventually marked out two areas, the one Carl had asked Gillian to do and then a large two-hundred by three-hundred space that overlapped it.

Standing side-by-side again Carl tried again, without the theatrics this time. “Activate ski-”

[ SYSTEM NOTICE : VIABLE LAND DESIGNATED… ]

[ ACTIVATE SKILL NEO ADMINISTRA? Y/N ]

“Yes, gods dammit! Activate the damn skill!” Carl roared, as Gillian held his already aching stomach and stifled a new bout of laughter.

[ NEO ADMINISTRA ACTIVATED ]

The moment it activated the system screen seemed to manifest physically and visibly before him. broken into a multitude of slide bars and options. “Ho-ly-shit.” Gillian deadpanned, barely speaking through the shock of what he was seeing.

“Carl, seriously, you can change soil fertility, atmosphere, change bloody materials, don’t know what this “DIV” is that some of it costs but ten doesn’t sound a lot.” Gillian rambled.

“It really isn’t but it only recovers at one point a day, so in those terms I have to be careful… However, we can do this place up better than I thought, I just hope everybody likes it.”

“DUDE! You can even create a gate room that only household members can use. It costs a hundred but that is definitely a must so we don’t need to trek all the way out here every time, or even stop at the SAT-Station.”

“Yeah, but won’t it be, like, impossible to use without the updated coordinates?”

“Trust me, I got a plan. Consider this my sign of fealty… Oh mighty lord, king of mine, Emperor Carl… You have a terrible name for an emperor.”

“You are an idiot, but yes do it, this is gonna be awesome. It says I can activate it from anywhere with “neo administra” and automatically gate to a pet. So why don’t we try to get back to Mum’s suite now?” Gillian clubbed his head.

“Are you damaged!? If we do that, every incursion sensor in the place will go off. We need to go back to shield your wardrobe and only open a gate there, or do you want to start a new incursion war already?”

“What do you mean war?”

“Carl, for a genius you really are thick! If the humans arrest you, every half-breed is gonna run home and tell their family, then their going to talk to their ancestors… Do I need to remind you in particular of your dear mum’s heritage? What do you think she would do with someone with your skills?”

“Okay I see your point, let’s not risk getting Grandma Lillim excited.”

“Please don’t ever call the mother of all demons “Grandma Lillim” again, I nearly wet myself.”

“She isn’t bad, just a bit passionate… About slaughter, torture and blood-shed.” Carl chuckled, if only to hide the terror he felt thinking about her. She was nearly as terrifying as the man that killed the wyvern, but at least she looked the part as well. She was clearly built to kill by whatever force created her, that man was so unassuming it made his aura of omnipotence almost doubt itself.

Carl decided to finish getting the house ready for when people started moving in, or just wanted to hang out with good friend natural gravity.

Inside the area, Carl changed the atmosphere and air to be a match for any wide open fertile field on earth, the air inside the borders was so refreshing it tasted weird after the harsh Lugarian environment.

The open ground that was reserved for the menagerie and fields, had the fertility set to about 75% according to the system, enough to grow food for the members and herbivorous pets, but not get out of control.

Carl had spent about 525 DIV in total and only had the same left after making Levi and the ring. Carl didn’t understand DIV at all, the values required seemed almost random when he left it up to the system, but when compared with what 999 turned Levi into, the ring didn’t see two thirds as impressive and the house and atmosphere changes seemed more impressive than the ring.

“I’m starting to worry about what kind of stuff that ring can do.” Carl muttered as he put the finishing touches on the buildings.

The two buildings he decided to make were a bath house that drew water from an underground aquifer the system noted, which was also heated by an underground magma vein, perfect for a natural hot spring. The other building was the main house and it was pretty extreme.

It had three levels above ground and three below ground, the top two were the ten bedrooms, each as large as his currently was, they were each soundproofed and only the assigned resident or people they appointed could enter freely. They were also constructed out of special Succubus scent blocking materials, which Carl genuinely only chose for her own comfort since he had no plans to stop anyone having a romantic life.

The ground floor was normal living facilities with a dining room set-up that could double as an operations or meeting room. The first floor below ground was a gym and training room, the second was a workshop that included an elevator to get things into the open from underground and the third was their very own gate room.

The boys spent a good fifteen minutes jumping up and down in place, chanting “We got our own gate room” over and over with stupid grins on their faces.

When they composed themselves they sat down in the middle of the sterile white room.

[ WOULD YOU LIKE TO EXIT CONSTRUCTION MODE? Y/N ]

“Yep, think we’re done.” He said with a grin as the two nodded each other.”

[ CONSTRUCTION FINISHED… PLEASE NAME LOCATION ]

“Why does it make me name everything?…” Carl groaned, sinking in on himself.

“Call it “Neo Primordia”, your system built this place and it’s customary to name a place after the guy who built it, why it was built or who watches over it. “Neo Primordia” kinda hits all three and you don’t have to na-”

“Name will be “Neo Primordia” anything else?”

[ SETTLEMENT NAME “NEO PRIMORDIA” CONFIRMED ]

[ SYSTEM NOTICE : YOU HAVE SIX PEOPLE WANTING TO JOIN HOUSEHOLD ]

“Six?”

“What’s up? six what?”

“People want to join my household.”

“Yeah? Klaire, obviously, Lydia, Danielle, your two mums and me… Six, right?”

“Danielle and my mum Leanna won’t want to join until we can stand-up to the governance committee with no fear. Lydia, maybe she said as much and definitely Klaire and you have to because I beat you in three seconds flat.”

“Maybe because you want them to join?”

“Then Darren and Dani-… Wait, I wonder if it’s them?”

“Dude, I’m gonna hit you again if you try to build tension on purpose.”

“The beast supplier who saw me make Levi said he was in no matter what, where or when and Blaine the guy who I chat with about future pets, maybe they already decided they want to join me just to see more like Squidge and Levi.”

“Could be, give them a call and ask.”

“Nah, now’s not the time. Let it simmer, we’re keeping this quiet for the most part until graduation, we’ll say we want to take Lydia on as a medical professional and familiar go-between to the committee so her joining doesn’t raise alarm bells. If we snag the supplier and a well established keeper right off the bat, they might look a bit closer.”

“See. You were born to be top dog.” Gillian chuckled. “Seriously though, we best get back, I need that paper to have any hopes on the final.”

“Speaking of which, what happened with the material exam?”

“Well, I got distinction, I found some incursion glass and that clinched it for me, figured I’d come back early and revise for the others test coming.”

“Smart. You need to after skipping classes to prep for gathering.”

They then returned up top to coax Squidge into flying them back to the receiver base and then hurried home.

They rushed through the maze of hall ways, took several elevators, winding their way through the colossal space station, then when they got through the first door they heard sobbing and froze as they wondered what was happening. They quickly swapped shoes for slippers, then rushed through the inner door and what they got was the sight of the ladies all crying and eating ice cream.

“What the hell kind of cult meeting did we just walk in on?” Gillian gasped as half a dozen slippers pelted him and Carl both.

Carl, who was slightly more familiar with such scenes, having grown up predominantly around women, gathered up the slippers and approached with more tact. “Hey, hey, hey, what’s happened, have we missed something?”

“This is your fault you know!” Klaire half howled as she took her slipper still sobbing.

“I know, I’m an idiot and like all idiots, I don’t know what I did. Please tell me, so I can apologise properly.”

“You’re taking my babyyyy…” Danielle sobbed

“And she’s taking ourrrsss…” Leanna and Alisha sobbed.

“And you’re both taking the adorable peeeetss…” Lydia sobbed.

“And I don’t want to be away from you because you’ll forget meeee…” Klaire sobbed.

“Ahhhh… I see, Daniell, I’m not taking Klaire, you’ll be able to visit whenever you want. Mums, likewise and we can visit the SAT-Station without raising alarms so we can see you all here whenever. Lydia, you can join our household immediately under the optional programme as our medical advisor and go-between…

Klaire, I could never forget you, to do that I would have to forget one of the most important people in my life and the girl I’ve loved for almost as long. I’ll never forget you I’ll be waiting for you when you finish and come home to me, I’ll even put it in the contract.” Carl’s speech was artful, the desperate creativity that blooms only in a man after a lifetime of being at the mercy of the “fairer-sex”. A phrase he found ironic given that the ones he grew up with were mostly overpowered monsters.

Yet it worked, the speech had tugged on the heartstrings of each woman, not aggressively but gently, as he sealed their bleeding hearts…

They all made their way to him, abandoning ice cream for and tears to embrace him and for a moment the world seemed like it would survive and no more tragedy would befall their home that night.

Then they heard slow clapping emanating from the doorway, where an awestruck young man grew teary and applauded the masterful aversion and had so recently brought peace and in the process, asked death for the next dance.

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