Chapter 63 – Alicia’s Growth (2/2)

(Someone kill me.)

We arrived in an empty fountain room for the next floor, my hand lightly rubbing my lower belly as my mind was filled against my will with thoughts that came about from Alicia and Claret's words.

The thought of touching, much less eating, those orc testicles made me want to hurl. But even beyond that, the very idea of becoming pregnant was something I had difficulty wrapping my head around.

Logically and conceptually speaking, it was a simple story. I was a woman, and while I didn't understand how my body worked in countless places, if I were to have a child, it would be as a mother, rather than a father. I would be the one to carry that child, for however long it took before reaching term.

If it came to wanting to go through that experience, I could confidently say that I never even considered it between both of my lives. At least until it was brought up earlier in the day.

My eyes went to the room's exit, but I wasn't really feeling up to continuing immediately.

<Let's take a break.>

<<Okay.>>

I quickly formed up a stone bathtub and transferred the fountain's water into it and heated it up until it started filling the room with rich steam. Stripping down and tossing my clothes beside the fountain to be washed later, I stepped into the hot water, savouring the feeling as the warmth seeped deeply into my bones.

<Here you go Claret.>

<Thank you Master!>

I made and tossed a large mana treat to the dark spirit that was staring at my nude form. Fortunately, once she caught her meal, she focused herself entirely into enjoying it and stopped watching me so closely.

Technically I didn't have anything to be embarrassed about, as we were both woman, and even beyond that, different species. But it was like being stared at by your cat while you were naked. No matter how much you understood in your head that the cat didn't have any sort of sexual attraction towards your nude form, the fact that they refused to look away still made you feel uneasy about it.

Now that the cat, I mean spirit, was distracted with her meal, I turned my attention back to myself. I levitated over my bag and took out a bar of soap.

<Ah! This soap!>

<Aha, you remember it?>

<How could I forget?>

The soap I pulled out was made from cocoa butter and orange essential oil. It was the favourite of Alicia's, and I held off this entire time from using it. It was supposed to be her exclusive scent, but now that she was inside of me, I thought it might be good to use it myself so she could enjoy the scent.

I lathered myself up carefully before rinsing myself off. A quick sniff confirmed that my body emitted the same scent that Alicia loved.

Next, as a bonus, I pulled out the hair oil Alicia made before and gently rubbed it in to my hair. It had been a while since I last used any hair oil, so even as I applied it I could feel the difference it was making.

<It smells really nice.>

<It does.>

I had to agree with her. I secretly liked the mixture Alicia had come up with, but avoided using something too similar so that it could be her exclusive scent. For now though, using it myself was the closest thing I could do to letting her enjoy it.

Personally, I thought the scent was pretty childish, but I still liked it quite a lot.

If it was for Alicia's sake, I would move mountains. It felt like there wasn't any lie in that thought at all.

(Move a mountain, yes, but somehow this feels even more difficult than that.)

I hefted up a breast in my hand, feeling its weight as the majority of the flesh spilled out of my small palm. Next, my fingers traced the lines of my body, from my pinched waist to my flared hips.

There was no doubt that my body was incredibly sexy, but that also meant that it was practically tailor made for having children. Wide hips for easy childbirth, bountiful breasts for plentiful feeding, as well as a small stature and attractive face to encourage protection.

It was frankly depressing how much my body suited having babies from at least a purely aesthetic standpoint.

In the end, my hand ended laying over my belly once again.

It was a bit ironic, when I looked back, I actually had quite a lot of experience when it came to childcare. I spent a lot of time helping out children of various ages at the orphanage, and even raised Alicia for a year. I've even experienced what breastfeeding was like due to her early nighttime habits.

On one side, I had already experiences almost all the most difficult parts of raising a child, but on the other hand...

(While I would do almost anything for Alicia, but this really is a high hurdle for me.)

From a practical standpoint, if it was somehow possible for me to bear a child, it was most likely both the safest and most effective method to go for. Growing a body like a test tube clone or a magical homunculus involved a countless unknowns unless if I discovered information about someone who had successfully done it before. But that also presumed that the outcome was something that would be acceptable for Alicia's body as well.

(It's probably impossible.)

I couldn't see how it could be even remotely safe enough for me to accept it as a possibility.

(But the alternative...)

And that presumed my body was even capable of bearing a child in the first place. I've never experienced a period in this life, but since not all creatures experience them, it wasn't really a reliable factor to base any presumptions on. Apparently most mammal species on Earth didn't even have periods.

That said though, the fact that I spontaneously appeared at my final appearance in the wild without any parents suggested that vampires didn't breed like that at all unless if I was missing something somewhere.

Claret did seem to be pretty certain that both vampires and spirits spontaneous appeared from concentrations of mana.

(Actually, maybe that's an option?)

If I could figure out how to create a new vampire through the condensation of mana, then that was a better option.

(But then again, how would I insert Alicia into that body before another soul appeared?)

That was the biggest problem with that solution. Rather, the other problem of not knowing how to make the mana become a vampire instead of a spirit was almost as big of a problem in the first place.

(But the soul bit is an issue no matter what.)

If I couldn't control or at least prevent a different soul from entering the body, it was all pointless.

But if I had a choice...

(Creating a body by compressing mana in a single spot is most ideal.)

For me, that was the best solution if I could manipulate the process to fine tune the resultant body. It was the best...for me...

(But Alicia might not like that so much.)

I pulled my knees in and wrapped my arms around them, resting my chin on them while squishing my boobs in between.

<Claret, could you remind me what it was that your old master wanted the most?>

<Huh? A family of course. You wanted that more than anything in the world. You always talked about wanting a family.>

Thinking about it, considering that vampires weren't born from copulation, I could understand that she was likely jealous of the other races having families. Of all the things she was capable of, it was the one thing that eluded her no matter what she did.

As a former human, the idea wasn't novel in the slightest. In fact, I was one of the weird ones for not really being interested in starting my own family.

(But now that I have one, I can't let it go.)

It was a bit ironic how things went, even if my family wasn't really anything like a normal family.

But the most important thing, was that the previous Scarlet was unable to make a family of her own. I didn't know everything that she tried to do, and most likely Claret didn't either, but it was likely that the issues for it ran pretty deep.

<Alicia, if I could create a new body for you in the same way spirits or vampires naturally are born, would you prefer that over spending most of a year sleeping while I was pregnant with you?>

<...If you think that's best.>

(She hates it. She really hates the idea.)

I had no doubt of that. She was doing her best to not be selfish, but the way her voice quivered in my head left no doubt in my mind.

There wasn't really any options for me at this point. I simply had to do my best to find a way to make Alicia's dream come true.

<I don't know if I can even get pregnant, but I'll promise you that if it's possible, I'll do it. Alright?>

<Okay!>

I could only sigh internally to how excited the little girl sounded.

Ninetailed_Furball

Hi everybody! It's your usual furball! (/◕ヮ◕)/

Sorry I was a little late. Too many distractions lately make it so difficult to get enough progress on the chapters until I'm pretty much pushing against my release schedule! (_ _)

That said, this was an interesting chapter for me to write. Didn't quite go how I expected it to, but I'm relatively satisfied.

Hope you guys enjoy it at least! I have great expectations for the comments. Last time was pretty great! ＼(◎o◎)／

Now then, see ya! (≧∇≦)/