Amazon Apocalypse 2: Chapter 28 (Patreon)

The first thing I did when Bridget, Sakura, and I returned to my farmhouse was check on my stats. I'd gained a few levels and had points to allocate. I quickly spent them, bolstering my Intelligence stat once again. Both my class and race were coming along, albeit slower than before.

My level might have been much higher without my death curse forbidding me from getting experience points from monsters, but most of that missing experience had gone to Bridget and Sakura. If I wanted to, I could get it back any time I wanted.

In fact, Bridget and Sakura both seemed quite eager to give it back to me.

The two of them clung to my sides while I checked my status window. I wasn't against a little fun, and I shared a few kisses with them. But they needed their levels; I wanted them to hit the D-ranks like me sometime soon.

The last time I'd let the two of them have their way with me, I'd lost an entire day and they’d each lost more than a dozen levels. I couldn't let that happen right now. There was simply too much to do—starting with checking in with Gobgob.

She and the rest of my goblin assistants had finished making the Mana Bomb templates I’d requested. All that was left now, was for me to put the finishing touches on to make the final product and to reap my job’s level up rewards.

I didn’t forget to ask Bridget to cook up a big batch of treats. It didn't really matter what they were, but I wanted to pack as much food as I could into my Bag of Holding. I had a promise to keep to Cyra, after all. She'd be the one paying for my return, after all.

I had no doubts that Myrina would soon be contacting me, now that the minimum amount of time back on Earth had passed for the System to allow my return.

"How are those Mana Bombs coming, Gobgob?" I asked upon entering one of my spare barns.

I’d had to look around for the goblins, but after a bit of searching I found them in here. The integration had copied both my house and my barn, along with most of the things inside them. The trouble was that the System hadn't been all that logical about how it had done so. Which meant that each of the barns was a little messed up.

This particular barn’s ceiling was about two feet lower than it should have been. I nearly bumped my head on the doorway walking into it. The roof inside was tall enough once I was past it, though the shelves I'd purchased weren't all that useful. Maybe the last few feet of the barn and its shelves were buried underground, but I suspected whatever lay underneath this barn was likely some mishmash of the wood and the dirt it had been overlaid with.

Fortunately, the goblins didn't mind the missing height. In fact, they seemed to prefer these workbenches to the full-size ones in my original barn. My original workbenches were too tall for them, but these benches that barely reached my shins seemed just the right height for the short, green women.

Looking over the rows of goblins stooped over the low tables, I felt bad. The tiny workers looked a bit too much like child laborers lined up in a sweat shop churning out little widgets one after another. But it wasn't a sweatshop. Besides, instead of making toys or trinkets, these goblins were building handmade explosives to sell to merchants in a foreign land for a steep profit.

Yeah, who was I kidding? That just made it worse. Thankfully, Gobgob saved me before I could fall victim to excessive introspection.

"Chief Humie! Gobgob have your copper boom boom balls," Gobgob announced.

She reached up to grab my finger and led me through the shortened warehouse to a crate in the center of the room filled to the brim with Mana Bombs. I picked one of them up. The wires were bent remarkably well. The goblins had managed to make the bundles even smaller than I had for the example I’d left them. It took nimble hands to make such neat bends.

By making the balls smaller, the goblins had saved quite a bit of extra wire, allowing them to create more mana bombs than I’d expected. They'd gone from something roughly the size of my fist to about half that size.

"Impressively done," I told her. "But now for the real test."

I focused on my job. With a thought, I activated it. My mana filled the bomb to bursting, and soon it was ready to explode with energy.

Your Artificer level has increased to Level 11!

New blueprints are available.

"Well done, Gobgob. Well done all of you!" I called out with a big grin.

I opened up my Bag of Holding and started pouring Mana Bombs in, much to the interest of the goblins. I didn't bother explaining about the bag. I figured they already took me for something of a powerful, if enigmatic, figure. Having a magic bag that could fit far more than its size indicated was perfectly in line with their perception of me.

I dropped off some new copper with the goblins to work on, as well as some of the orichalcum wire I'd commissioned back in town. Thankfully, there had been some old nail-making machinery back in town so the blacksmith there had been able to kludge something together to extrude wire.

It wasn't nearly as fine as the modern stuff, but this orichalcum metal took to the shape fairly well. I suspected it was some sort of copper alloy with a magical additive. Whatever the case, it seemed to conduct mana even better than copper did. I hoped that meant it would make an even better mana bombs.

After all, these things were my big money maker on Myrina's world. And if my last visit had made one thing clear, it was that establishing any sort of influence on Myrina's world was going to take a massive amount of funds. Fortunately, my Artificer job had provided a pathway to those funds. And ultimately a pathway to visiting Myrina while standing on my own merit.

After leaving the goblins to their work, I sat down and worked on finishing off their Mana Bombs until I ran out of mana. Then, I stretched and spent some time with Bridget and Sakura before returning to my workshop to do it all over again.

Your Artificer level has increased to Level 12!

Your Artificer level has increased to Level 13!

Your Artificer level has increased to Level 14!

You have achieved mastery over the blueprint 'Mana Bomb'!

All future Mana Bombs will require less mana to create, have a lower failure rate, and take less time.

Achieving mastery over the blueprint was a welcome boon, and with it I completed the first batch of Mana Bombs even faster. Gobgob and the other goblins were nearly finished with the second batch when I came out to get them. I brought them a tray of baked goods, and the goblins stopped working the moment they smelled them.

"Back for more,” I called out. “And this time, I brought you some food."

Gobgob was the first to step forward. Though the mouths of the other goblins salivated, they were still too wary of me to meet my eye, let alone approach. Gobgob grabbed a chocolate chip cookie and gingerly took a bite. Her eyes lit up the moment she chewed it and she swallowed quickly before wolfing down the rest of the cookie before grabbing another one.

"Chief Humie brings bestest hunt ever!" Gobgob shouted.

The others rushed forward to grab a bite themselves as soon as I set the cookies down. I didn't have the heart to tell them that these were Bridget's cast offs. While perfectly edible, each was a little too lumpy or misshapen to send to Cyra. They were perfectly fine to eat, though.

Not that I think Gobgob and the other goblins would have noticed—not at the rate they were scarfing them down. They practically inhaled the things. I left them to their work and collected the newly made balls of wire. This time, a few of them were orichalcum instead of just copper.

I wondered what I could do with them. For a while, I just played around with them. Then I started fiddling with the new blueprints I'd gotten upon leveling up.

What was Kyrina Samhain's chief complaint about my Mana Bombs? Mostly that they were too low-leveled. They didn't pack enough of a punch, given the caliber of monsters she was hunting.

They'd worked fine for me, but presumably I'd run into the same problem as my level went up. It was a problem that I’d need to solve, sooner or later. The only question was how to go about it? How did I make a bigger, more powerful Mana Bomb?

It had to be possible. I had plenty of higher-level items at my disposal. I'd come up with the Mana Bombs when I was far weaker than I was now, after all. Since then, I'd achieved both mastery over the Mana Bomb and improved my job level dramatically.

All I needed to do was figure out how to expand on my current design. I looked through my other blueprints for examples and ideas on what might work, comparing and contrasting what I'd learned about my craft.

What were the Mana Bombs, really? They were a way to store my mana and then release it all at once. Logically, if I stuffed more mana into a Mana Bomb, the explosion would be bigger.

I tried experimenting with that. The first one I tried that with blew up in my face. Then, I remembered the orichalcum bombs. Those were sturdier. And being a magical copper alloy, they stored magic easier.

"A definite improvement!" I muttered to myself. The explosion was about twenty percent larger. I wasn't satisfied, though.

A minor twenty percent improvement wouldn't impress anyone at the auction house, let alone the Samhain Clan. I needed something powerful. Something that was exactly what they needed and then a little more. The secrets had to be buried somewhere in my other blueprints.

In one diagram, I came across a way to store energy more efficiently. "An energy coil! Far better than a well. Why didn't I think of that?"

And in another, I spotted a way to use the mana more efficiently. "Instead of a simple gust of wind, the mana should sweep out in a wave. Perhaps even like a blade...”

I tested several new strategies. The blade was too difficult for my current skill level, but the wave was well within reach. It would be more like a circular pulse that would rip phantasmal creatures apart as it passed.

It would sweep outward like a ring from the epicenter of the explosion, concentrating the energy the bomb contained and doing more damage without increasing the overall energy requirements. It was perfect.

I finished my first prototype. "I declare you an Ultra Mana Bomb!" I proclaimed.

Nearby, where she leaned against the door to my workshop, Sakura rolled her eyes.

"What?” I asked, “Lame? Okay, how about… Mega Mana Bomb!"

"Better,” she snorted, “but not by much. Come on, your dinner's getting cold. You've been working all day." Sakura waved me in.

Following her out through the doorway of my workshop, I looked up at the sky. Had it gotten dark already? And still no call from Myrina.

I was surprised. Today should have been the first day I’d be allowed back. I'd been prepared all afternoon to run for my bag of holding in the kitchen with all of the food Bridget had been making.

I went inside, ate dinner, and fiddled with my Mega Mana Bomb a little more before passing the new design on to Gobgob and the other goblins to work on. They went about the laborious process of converting many of the Mana Bombs they'd already made into the new pattern. But since I hadn't yet charged any Mega Mana Bombs, there was no lost material.

The new and improved design was a bit more labor intensive with its extra features. Thankfully, Gobgob caught on quick. And once I showed her how to make one, she taught the others. Come morning, I'd have plenty more Mega Mana Bombs to make.

"Here's dinner, Carter." Bridget set a plate of beef wellington down before me. That was quite the difficult dish, but Bridget had done a great job. It looked flawless.

"I guess you should call this Monster Wellington, though, because we don't exactly have access to beef anymore," Bridget said with a laugh.

"Mhm. Well, I'd say it's even better than beef, but that might just be because of your lovely cooking," I said after chewing and swallowing my first bite.

Bridget laughed and slid her chair back as Sakura smiled as she dug in as well.

The three of us were sitting around the small table in the dining room just off the kitchen. It was all rather cozy. I'd never dreamed my house would feel so full of life. If I'd known I'd have someone as skilled as Bridget cooking for me, I would have enlarged the kitchen.

I glanced over at Bridget again with a smile to find her chair empty. It was like she'd vanished between bites. I shrugged, figuring she'd gone into the kitchen. Sakura and I ate and joked a bit while we waited for Bridget to come back and join us.

But then I felt a tug on my pantleg.

The feeling was familiar, and soon a pair of hands were working at my zipper. From the darkness under the table between my legs, Bridget held a finger over her lips as she gave me a wink.

I kept my mouth shut, continuing to chat with Sakura as we finished our delicious meal.

"So... how's your leatherwork been going?" I asked Sakura.

"Wonderful!" Sakura shot me a beaming smile. "I was afraid I'd be limited to just clothes and textiles, but it turns out the hides of magical beings can be used for a lot more than you'd think. Some of their hides are tough enough that Bridget could cook out of them, if we ever run out of pots and pans."

"I'm sure such treated hides have good resale value at the obelisk."

Sakura nodded vigorously as she tilted her plate up and let the rest of her monster wellington slide right into her mouth. It shouldn't have fit, but she gobbled it all down in one bite.

"I'd be bringing home the bacon, if it wasn't for you cheating with your ability to charge taxes on every transaction. What a scam!"

I laughed. "This is certainly the first time I've ever been on this side of things. Normally it’s me trying to avoid the tax man."

Truthfully, I felt a bit bad spending so much of the taxes the Obelisk had gathered for me on copper wire to send to Myrina. But apparently, the city council's cut of the taxes easily paid for the militia. All remaining tax income was pocket change for the city’s owner.

My mind went back to Valkyrie’s Watch and the good-sized town I’d seen around it. Did Kyrina have an obelisk? Probably not. Otherwise, people would have been using that instead of the auction house.

I was pretty sure I remembered seeing a large black pillar in the market square of Shadefall City. Cyra, Myrina, and I hadn't had time to look around while we were in the dungeon, but I was pretty sure I remembered seeing one there.

How much would the owner of such a city have made from their cut of all transactions that took place? That city had to have tens of thousands of residents. I wasn’t done following that train of thought, but it suddenly became really hard to think about taxes. Bridget's lips brushed against my cock a second time.

"I bet I could be your tax collector. I'll bring my big stick and wave it threateningly. Hand over the protection money if you value your kneecaps!" Sakura shouted, then stifled a giggle.

I chuckled. "I'm a legitimate operation, Sakura, not some low-level... ah!... some low level gangster." My voice caught as I felt Bridget slip my full length into her mouth.

"You okay, Carter?" Sakura asked, arching an eyebrow. "I'm all done and you've barely touched your food. It's really good, I promise."

"Mhmm..." I groaned through clenched teeth.

Beneath the table Bridget worked my pants down. She had one hand working up and down the length of my shaft as she kissed and fluttered her tongue under my tip.

"Well if you guys aren't going to eat, then I will!" Sakura helped herself to Bridget's plate. "Seriously, what is Bridget up to in the kitchen? Do you think she's prepping dessert? I bet she's prepping dessert. I saw her whipping something up earlier."

"Yeah… ah… maybe..." I grunted.

"You sure you're alright, Carter? You're suddenly a bit less articulate than usual." Sakura stared at me with narrowed eyes.

"Fine. Good. Great." I grunted.

"You don't look fine, good, or great." Sakura stood, then pushed her plate aside as she leaned across the table. "Maybe you have a fever or something."

Sakura crawled across the table until she was sitting on the edge. She flipped her legs on either side of my waist and draped her arms over my shoulders while she pulled herself close. All the while, she was completely oblivious to Bridget sucking away underneath her.

"Your face is red! I knew something was wrong." Sakura poked me in the cheek.

"Maybe it's just because a beautiful woman like you is so close?" I suggested.

Sakura's eyes lit up, and she looked down at her cleavage. It was just about pushed up right into my face.

"Oh! I get it..." she giggled to herself. "You just like what you see. Too bad Bridget's not here. She's going to miss out."

"Yeah..." I chuckled, but not for the reason Sakura thought.

Below me, I felt Bridget stifle a laugh of her own by gagging herself on my hard shaft, taking it into her throat.

"Mhm... well, what if I do this?" Sakura reached to the hem of her shirt and with one quick motion tore it off and tossed it back over her head.

The act revealed her bare breasts to me. Both perky mounds pressed against my chin.

"Better," I allowed.

Sakura gave me a lewd smile as she reached for her cup of water. "You look awfully thirsty, Carter. How about a drink?"

With one hand, she pushed her breasts together. With the other, she poured water down her breasts. Beads of water trickled down her smooth and toned skin. She dipped her finger between her boobs and licked the water off.

"We've got to stay hydrated with all the exercise we've been doing," Sakura whispered.

Then, leaning close she breathed huskily in my ear, "And with all the exercise I'm going to put you through tonight. What do you say the two of us get out of here and take this to the bedroom?"

"Oh... fuck!" I yelped as I felt myself reaching my climax in Bridget's mouth beneath the table. I bucked my hips, my knees thumping into the bottom of the table.

Sakura grinned. "Yeah, that's what I had planned, too. Hey… wait a minute. What's going on under the—Bridget? You rotten cheater!"

<Note>

First sex scene in a while. I just wasn't really feeling it earlier in the book, but this moment felt right.