Chapter 102 Silk
Third Person Point of View
Silk was born into a large family, and ever since she could walk, she helped raise her brothers and sisters. They were generally poor; the father was a miner, and the mother was a sickly stay-at-home mom. She had a curable disease, but the cost was something that the family would have to save up for years if she were to pay for it.
The disease was manageable enough, and anytime they did save up money, some reason would always appear to drain the funds. The oldest daughter also came down with the disease, which led Silk to needing to do most of the heavy lifting when it came to taking care of the children. A child just out of diapers shouldn’t be the one changing her new sibling's diapers.
Most of the time, that was fine, but relying on a child for everything was impossible and led to many mistakes, which would often end with yelling or even Silk being beaten. Her parents were non-combat classes, but her father had higher strength because of his miner class. It meant that when she was beaten, she would be beaten harder than normal just because her father couldn’t control his strength.
Slowly, she grew more and more competent. The little girls received less love and affection than their brothers, and Silk was very low down on the totem pole when it came to getting any love or respect in the household. She was told she’d grow up to be a housewife just like her mother; everyone expected it given how much child-rearing she was doing.
She had another dream, though, and because of her hypercompetence, she could learn things rapidly. Practicing with the sword whenever she had free time shouldn’t have done anything; it shouldn’t have guided which class she received when she reached the age of maturity, but it did. Most thought what you did as a child affected the class you received, but it was also determined by your personality and what you wanted to be.
She became what she wanted rather than what everyone wanted her to be. A swordsman, her parents didn’t even care. They just thought she’d continue to help raise the children, even with the combat class, and for a few months after she gained her class, she did. But something had to break. Once winter ended and spring began, she ran away from home and began exploring the world.
The problem was… She was broke, and it was hard to make money as a fresh combat class. She had to catch most of the game she ate, and one of the things she didn’t have to do was cook, because her mother and sister could handle it. She lost weight rapidly, almost starving at some points, before she learned how to survive. Working as a guard was terrible for experience, but it was a way to make sure she didn’t starve to death.
A year passed, and she grew homesick. She wanted to explore the world, but that required money to do. So she was going to become a guard in her family's home city and work for a few years to build up the money to explore the country. She wanted to find her home before settling down and really working on leveling her class.
Her trip home wasn’t given a warm reception; no, most of her family hated her now. Her leaving left a huge gap in the family as no one could take care of the children still coming up, and her mother's sickness got worse from the sudden increase in work.
She grew sicker and sicker until she passed. No one thought that perhaps the work they piled onto a child that could kill an adult was the problem; no, it was clearly the child's fault in their mind. She was the reason her mother died, not the fact that not a single male in the house stepped up.
Her father almost beat her to death when she returned. Silk could have fought back; she most likely would have won the fight if they had fought seriously, but she didn’t. She took it, she let her father beat her to vent his frustration, then she left home the moment she could walk again.
She moved to the border to work as a guard because it was the only area she knew would need guards consistently, due to the high casualties. A small part of her didn’t care if she died at that point. She would have lived her life in that slow, tedious way, just waiting for her death, if the farmer hadn’t shown up. Things became far more lively after he did.
Everyone seemed to talk about the new farmer and the delicious food he provided the village with, and she couldn’t help but agree. Food tasted like nothing to her ever since she left home; her mother's food was one of the only connections she had to her, and since she didn’t learn that nothing could compete with it. Things became a whirlwind shortly after; within a year, she was part of his harem and pregnant with his child.
She couldn’t believe it. A part of her never wanted to be a mother, but things were just going so… Perfectly, that she held back her doubts. She never thought she’d be part of a harem, and she had sex before… But not like it was with Dan and Tems, it was new and intense, every night she’d finish her job, she’d get wet and excited just from the thought of her lovers.
More women joined her husband's harem, and she learned something about herself as they did… She was bisexual, and not just a little bit. She would get flustered just by seeing their naked bodies. If you had asked her a few years before if she liked women, she’d have said no, or if she’d ever be in a harem, she’d have most likely hit you. Things didn’t go how she thought they would, but she grew stronger at an insane pace, and that only increased after she gave birth.
The fact was that, due to her upbringing, she disliked child-rearing. Even after giving birth, she’d rather leave raising the children to the other wives rather than do it herself. Sure, she loved her kids, but it was clear that her childhood affected her, as she had changed fewer diapers than her husband had. The small part of her that wanted to die, that thought she deserved to, from causing the death of her mother, started to fade, and with every child added, she felt the knot in her chest, the one that hated taking care of children, begin to unravel.
She loved the children, and she didn’t need to take care of them to show that. All of the ones that showed any potential in gaining a combat class, she began to train. They called her drill instructor, even her oldest child, Samson, did now, and it somehow felt more right than him calling her mom. With a smile on her face, she fought against the children as they played games; she didn’t even realize she was finally living the childhood she hadn’t had when she was a child.
Most of the children viewed her as an older sister rather than a mother, the same way they did with Tems. Which was fine, Cherry and Sarah did most of the heavy lifting when it came to taking care of the kids, and everything seemed to work out that way.