Egg and Milk

"Hey March! You are back! So, how did the mission go? Did you give a compensation to that unlucky guy?"

"That guy? No! I sent him back home."

"Eh? Wasn't he supposed to continue playing?"

"I asked if he wanted to play, do you know what he answered?"

"....No?"

"If he said yes or no, I would have thrown him into the game again."

"Then why didn't you do it?"

"Because he answered revenge."

"Revenge? Was he pissed off?"

"Yeah. He didn't seem like he was thinking straight, almost at the point of going crazy, so I judged it would be safer to just send him home before he could cause any trouble that would make me regret."

"....Will Boss accept this?"

"There are plenty of players left. It's not like one less will make any difference for now. Actually this will only make things easier for the next phase, so I wished for more of them to drop out..."

"....But..."

"We can't have a crazy guy with that much power in his hands. While the limiter is in place we can easily control them, but once the finals begin and all limits are turned off, I don't even want to imagine the damage a crazy guy could make! "

"..."

"Anyway! If Boss really wants him, he can always send someone to get him back! It's not like this is the first time such thing happened."

"...Sigh..."

"Why are you making that face? Did you lose a bet or something?"

"C-cough! Cough! O-of course not! Well, I got a lot of work to do! I need to get going now! See you March!"

"Damn vultures of the monitoring team, always playing with people's lives!"

-

The scene of the massacre in the ruins of Henrik's old base was still haunting his mind, and that single punch he gave that bastard was far from enough to make such feelings go away.

He wanted to give Henrik a piece of his mind, maybe two or three hours of scolding, like his mother did to him when he was a child, just to blow off some steam and help him lifting his mood again but when he went back to search for the target of his scolding, all traces of him were gone.

Thinking that he had let that guy escape left a sour taste in his mouth. During his trip back to his home, no hour passed without thoughts of regret, making him sigh again and again, creating a wall of depression that forced all girls to stay away.

It was only in the middle of the trip, when a group of cat girls appeared asking to join them, that Apollo's regrets were lightly softened if only just a little bit. After that, when he arrived back home and saw both cat girls and plant girls working together with smiles on their faces that he finally felt all his efforts were not in vain.

Feelings aside, there was no way one could say that his assault on Henrik's base was nothing but an extreme success. Not only had he completed his objective but he also gained a new servant recipe for free, and, as if that was not enough, he also got another 7 crystal cores that would come in handy soon as he created new SoW's to expand his base.

As it happens, Apollo already had in mind what to do with them. First he would build a ranger camp, like the one he saw in the Henrik camp, then a second barrack, a second farm, an upgrade center and a mining camp! As for the two that were left, he had decided to save them now and use them later once new building had become available.

Because 7 cat girls decided to follow him, his base had now a total of 41 servants, composed of 8 cat girls, 32 plant girls and 1 baby boar.

Apollo was quite surprised in finding out that huge egg carried by Jun gave birth to a healthy baby boar. Where all the biology and science he learned at school go? Maybe this world had already stopped making any sense since he was kidnapped that day, so he shouldn't be too surprised...was what he was trying to convince himself as he heard Briony explaining to him...

"So you are saying this little thing came out of that huge egg?"

"Yes, Master! Bacon was born from the Egg that girl was carrying!"

"I don't know what I should be more surprised about. A cat hatching an egg or a boar coming out of it! Just thinking is making my head hurt..."

Technically Yuu didn't hatch the egg, the egg hatched itself alone. That's because all servants' eggs were designed in a way that they can hatch by themselves even without any care of their parents, so that in case the parents get sent to war, the new generation will still be born safe and sound. This meant that being held by Yuu didn't affect the egg's hatching at all and it was simply a pure coincidence that it had hatched at the same time, just like Briony entering the room on that exact moment as well.

"Anyway, why are you calling it Bacon? Isn't it female?"

"Because it looks delicious!"

"...Ugh! Forget it! Do whatever you want! Just make sure it doesn't create any trouble!"

"Thank you, Master! Let's go, Bacon! Let's find something to eat!"

"Eat? Don't you mean drink? Actually, Briony, where are you getting milk from?"

"Milk? What milk?"

"Aren't you feeding Bacon milk?"

"Of course not! Where would I find any milk here? What Bacon likes are green vegetables like cabbage and tulip leaves. Something like milk will only give him diarrhea!"

"Eh? Is that so?"

"Of course it is!"

Once again the world Apollo knew was crumbling before his eyes. Unable to do anything about it, Apollo could only massage his head and try to accept the destruction of the classification system he learned in the biology classes long ago at school.

"O-okay, that's all I needed to know, take care..."

"Right! Let's go, Bacon!"

Now that his problem with Bacon and milk had been solved, Apollo could worry about more important things like the expansion of his base, and that's why he also left his Palace right behind Briony, walking in direction of the Factory to build his brand new ranger camp SoW and distribute the new ranger uniforms.