Chapter 21 Double pregnant
The orc barmaid put her hand on Tems' belly before using one of her skills to scan her for sicknesses. The gnomish alchemist was on the side, mixing two vials of pee with something before the pee changed color. “Yep, both of them are pregnant… Can I have this excess urine? It would be a good catalyst for making fertility medicine.”
The barmaid was one of the few people with a subclass as a midwife. The village didn’t have a doctor, but the skills she gained from her barmaid and midwife classes had some overlap. “Tems is extremely healthy, especially for a crossbreed, and Silk has a calcium deficiency. I can see that’s already improving now that we have the fresh milk.”
The two often paired together to solve problems a single doctor could do by themselves. The orc barmaid, whose name was Roka, was surprisingly soft, at least compared to other orcs I’ve seen. Orcs also tended to get more battle-focused classes, so it was weird seeing this curvy orc taking care of two pregnant women. She was a bit on the chubby side, and had mostly brown hair, with strands of black in the front. Freckles speckled her face, which was another oddity to other orcs, and so were her piercing deep blue eyes. Her appearance made me believe she wasn’t fully orc but possibly had an orc and half-orc set of parents. Her tusks looked to be filed down to fit more perfectly on her face, as they didn’t jut out like other orcs I’ve seen.
She wasn’t just the barmaid but also its owner, the bar also served as the village inn and the doctor's office. She was moving outside the room as she served people beers while also taking care of my wives. Her diagnostic magic was some of the first support magic I’d ever seen. From what I heard, her class also made the building she worked in more comfortable for people, hence why the wooden chair I sat in felt softer than my bed.
The gnomish alchemist named Millicent lucked out with her name. The two gnomes I knew from the city I grew up in were named Walnut and Rumbletummy, so having a normal name wasn’t normal for most gnomes. She had a thin, pale body, sleek silvery hair she wore in a bun while she worked, and thick goggle glasses with a bird beak mask that looked like a smaller plague doctor one.
She wasn’t conventionally beautiful but more cutesy. She looked like a doll brought to life, and she had the slight madness that gnomes were known for. Gnomes might have been small, but that only made their enemies underestimate them. Walnut survived an explosion, and Rumbletummy won a fist-fighting contest where he beat out a hobgoblin and full-blooded orc to win. Gnomes were known for their resilience and were surprisingly one of the best tank races on the planet.
I didn’t doubt that resilience helped Millicent in breathing in poisonous fumes from her alchemy, she didn’t make much medicine but instead made most of the poison the village's hunters used to catch game or kill monsters. She asked again, the mask muffling her voice slightly. “Can I have your pee? I’ll cut off a silver from both of your bills if you do.”
“Tems not mind.” “Yeah, sure.” Tems and Silk both responded at the same time. “Isn’t the cost of the test only a silver?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Indeed, it is, but that’s before we take in the price of the vial, which I’ll have to sterilize after I use the potions. So the price has risen a copper.” I pull out two copper coins from my pocket and hand them to Millicent before giving the orc girl a big smile.
“That’s good news. I’m a little afraid that both are pregnant at the same time, but I’m sure we can work something out.” She gave me a side eye before mentioning it. “Yeah… I’ve heard stories about you. Let’s keep the nighttime activities to a minimum so you don’t accidentally hurt them.” Fuck… I didn’t think of that. “Kobolds can mates even when pregnant.” “Yeah, I’m pretty sure the bonus stats I’d lose from not having sex would hurt me more than having sex. Just got to be careful.”
Both my girls talked at the same time again, it was like their brains were in sync with each other. “Just… Be careful, okay. I’ve had complications before and… I don’t think I can handle losing another.” She shuddered remembering the past, healers were rare, and out of the hundred or so villagers, not a single one had the ability to reduce the risk of childbirth.
Only improving stats would reduce risk; the higher the mother's endurance, the less likely anything bad would happen to her, and the more likely her child would also be born in a healthy condition. Silk and I still had another two or three weeks to max out the benefits from enduring bond. Right now, because she’s my wife, she gains twenty percent of my stats, but after we’ve had sex for fifty days in a row, that amount would max out to thirty percent.
I had almost two endurance, so the benefit having sex provided was equivalent to forty levels, which was with me almost level fifty though. Soon, I’d pick a level fifty skill and reset, which would reduce the bonus I gave, but it was still better than nothing. Food also played a huge part. The wife who lost her child most likely didn’t have access to the higher quality of foods I brought; the birth rates around us would not only skyrocket, but the risk to the parent and child would also go down as the nutrition level improved.
“Alright… I’ll be careful.” I couldn’t put myself in her position. I couldn’t imagine trying to help a family give birth to a child only for the worst to happen. Just the thought of that happening turned my stomach and made me even more worried about my own family. I was pulled out of my downward spiral as Tems grabbed my hand with both of hers with a big, silly smile on her face. As I looked at our hands entwined, I felt my other hand being grabbed and turned to see Silk looking at me with her face starting to blush.
This was a good thing. I didn’t plan on being a father so soon, but I was happy it was happening. We made our way back home and kept up the daily bonus of having sex from resetting. The next week, we got into a new routine of me taking better care of them while I worried about them working on the farm. It was still too early for either to be showing, but Tems would give birth sooner than Silk because of her race.
I didn’t know when, but it was going to be within six months, most likely while Silk would give birth along the timeline of most humanoid races. I was a nervous wreck, and the cute clumsiness of Tems now caused me heavy amounts of distress. Silk finally got sick of it as she spoke up after we had sex that day. “Stop worrying so much. Tems is a fighting class, her body is naturally stronger than the housewives. Her people are fine giving birth in dirty tunnels with no equipment or knowledge to help.”
It was just words to me. I knew that we had better odds, but there was always that one-in-a-million chance something could go wrong. I needed to get comfort zone and sexual healing, which were level twenty-five skills, before they got too pregnant. After I picked my level fifty skill, those two were the next ones I needed to worry about.