Book 7, Chapter 156 (1/2)

Descendants

When it came to Alice, “fulfilling traditions” was a difficult task. Even though this time went much more smoothly than the last few, he needed to activate his truename to quicken the recovery of his energy. It was through pure strength of will that he even managed to remain standing with his wobbly legs.

Overcoming any saint was no easy task, but Alice was a particularly powerful fighter. Thankfully, she had already exhausted herself to the point that she barely managed to put on her clothes. As they tidied up in silence, she turned to him and asked, “When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Oh… Why don’t you bring me along this time?”

Richard paused for a moment, “I want to, but you’re the only one who can suppress our enemies in Norland. If the outer shields fall, the portals in Blackrose will be under threat.”

“Sigh, alright, I understand. Don’t worry, this land will always belong to us.”

Richard nodded, his recovering mana now put to use to clean up the study room quickly. Alice blushed and started to help, but she suddenly stopped and asked, “Richard, we’ve mated so many times. Why aren’t I pregnant yet?”

Richard felt a slight shiver in his heart and tried his best to keep it from showing, “I was thinking about that too. Maybe it just didn’t take the last few times.”

“Then… we should try more often,” she said through gritted teeth. She had always felt an impulse to run away whenever she thought about this matter.

However, Richard ignored her reaction while deep in thought about other things. It was common knowledge that powerful beings found it difficult to have children, and it was far too much of a coincidence for none of his partners to get pregnant after all this while. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much research into this subject and especially no solutions. Even with blessings from the Goddess of Fertility, one had to rely largely on luck and mating like lunatics to increase their chances.

For the family head of the Archerons to have such problems was a huge deal. Things would grow very complicated in the future if he didn’t have a qualified descendant of his own, but thankfully there was a silver lining right now. It could also be seen a sign of his extremely powerful bloodline.

This wasn’t the first time he had thought about this, but the problem also partly stemmed from the kinds of women he had been with. Sharon, Flowsand, Alice, and even Rosie to an extent were all powerful themselves, which lowered the chances of success further. Of course, it was possible for an exceptionally powerful bloodline to drain a common mother before they were even born, so that wasn’t the best of options either.

However, many men did end up mating with a multitude of common women; while there was a possibility for either the mother or child or both to die before carriage, there were also quite a few examples of commoners carrying to term successfully. Gaton himself had more than ten concubines, with everyone outside of Elena herself being less than level 10. He had only managed to leave two brothers and four sisters in total, which showed just how difficult it was.

Snapping out of his daze, Richard smiled, “Don’t worry, I’ll think of a solution.”

By this point, Alice had returned to normal as well, “I believe you should find a number of weaker women to increase your chances. Some generals are already discussing your legacy.”

“Heh, I have a thousand years ahead of me or more, this isn’t important right now. If anyone plans to use this to threaten the stability of our family, you should know how to handle them. Your generals have no fucking business interfering.”

“I’ll… give them a warning,” she nodded curtly, quietly heading out of the study.

Looking at her back, Richard suddenly called out, “Wait!”

“Hmm?” she turned around calmly.

“Umm… Sorry. I’ve been in a bad mood with the Scholars, and that was hurtful. I… hope you don’t take it to heart.”

The Archeron war goddess stared at him expressionlessly, short red hair waving around like flames. Richard felt more and more anxious, but it was only when his own gaze started to flicker that she laughed, “Have you never apologised to someone before? Why is it so hard?”