The girls ended up talking among themselves while we were in line for funnel cake. As for me, I found it next to impossible to pull my eyes away from what I was looking at.

I saw Window and Luca in the distance. They were standing in front of a game booth and it looked like Window was desperately trying to win a prize for Luca by throwing baseballs to try and knock over pins on a rack. I couldn’t see too clearly given the distance, but I did see Window try… and try… and try again while repeatedly failing. Meanwhile, Luca clung to her side with one arm while pointing at the pins with her other. She was even hopping up and down a little.

They looked adorable.

I would have gone over and joined them if it wasn’t for being on a date with the others, plus I wanted to give Window a chance to be cool in front of our daughter. The two of them having some special bonding time together on their own was important, too. So, I silently cheered for Window to do her best from afar.

I’ll spoil you or something later if you win, I thought.

The next second, Window threw the baseball and knocked down all the pins with a single strike. Luca jumped up and down from excitement while the other people standing nearby clapped for her determination prevailing in the end.

Wait… can she still read my thoughts even if we’re not in Vala’s universe?

I forgot if she could or not. If she couldn’t, then that was extremely conveniently timed.

But even if she could, I planned on keeping my word.

Next, I saw Luca point at one of the massive, stuffed animals even bigger than she was on the wall. The teen working the booth handed the toy over to Luca who immediately began showing it off to Window by shaking it around with excitement. It looked like a giant, white unicorn with a yellow horn and pink hair. It’s so fluffy… I could almost die.

Then I realized something.

I realized something that was an absolute travesty.

Despite how fluffy the bees were back in Vala’s universe… I never cuddled them. I never even got to hug them! They were basically giant bees the size of dogs covered in incredible amounts of bee fluff!

I needed them.

I needed to hug them.

That was why, as soon as I was done spending time with everybody, it would be time for a group cuddling session with the bees. I wanted to drown in their fluff.

The only problem with that was that I might end up covered in pollen and be violently sneezing throughout it.

Then I thought of something else.

“I think I just had a great idea,” I said.

“What, Muffin?” Honey asked, holding onto my arm. She sounded so sweet and caring… but, in a way, she almost sounded concerned that I had an idea. I figured she was more interested than concerned, but I wasn’t sure.

“I thought of an upgrade path for the bee tower. Imagine if their stingers can get upgraded to be covered in pollen, and pollen basically inflicts a poison-like debuff that makes the enemies sneeze. Every sneeze drops their health a little. So it’s like a DoT debuff. I think that’d be pretty fitting, right?”

“You should tell Window and Vala about that later! I think it’s a cute idea… but, um… if we’re on the topic of upgrading the bees… ca-can we upgrade them to produce honey? Like… what… what if the upgrade comes with honeycombs we can harvest every day?”

“You just want some honey, don’t you, Honey?”

“I’ve never gotten to try honey before, but I really want to…”

“Don’t worry, Honey. We’ll get you some honey.”

Honey lit up with an excited smile as her short ears twitched atop her head.

She was adorable.

Then there was Clawdia. “Hmph. When do we get a cat tower?”

“Do we really need one if we already have you?” I asked.

“Of course, nya! It’s not fair that everybody else gets a tower!”

“Vala doesn’t have a tower.”

“W-well… then we need a dragon tower to make things fair for her, too!”

“But if we get a cat tower and a dragon tower, wouldn’t those end up belonging to somebody else instead of either of you?”

“That’s—well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that our species are fairly represented among the towers! Nyactually… if an upgraded cat tower results in another woman, then she can be my servant! That’s it! We need a cat maid tower!”

“I think maids is already the zombie queen’s thing.”

“Just because she’s a maid doesn’t mean that the cat tower can’t be maid-themed! Besides, you’re a man! Are you really going to complain if there are too many maid girls? Is there really a limit on how many can fill that trope?”

“Well, you’re not wrong. I dreamt once about living in a mansion where I had dozens of wives who all wore maid costumes for me.”

“That’s too many. All you need is two. Maybe three if you break me into being one of—I-I mean, two is enough.”

“Please, finish what you were going to say.”

“Si-silence! I wasn’t going to say anything else! Mo-moving on, there aren’t any support towers right now. That is why there needs to be a cat maid tower. They can uh… help heal the dogs or something. Maybe you place the tower down near a ground unit tower and the cats can heal and take care of any ground units within their range. Plus… I think that’s kind of nice, nya. The cats who once fought against the dogs now healing them in combat! I like it. Hmph.”

“What’s the ‘hmph’ for?”

“It felt wrong saying that much without going ‘hmph’ at all. Hmph.”

“Master,” Delphi said, “he’s still waiting.”

I looked around and asked, “Who?”

Delphi then pointed at the man behind the counter right in front of us.

Apparently, while talking to Honey and Clawdia, we made it to the front of the line. I had no idea how long the worker was waiting for, but he looked confused enough that he must have been listening for at least a little bit.

Once we sat down at a table with our food, Delphi, Clawdia, and Lavi ended up devouring it as quickly as possible. Delphi was the first to finish her food. She wanted more afterward, so she got back in line to order more. Lavi finished her food next, but she was satisfied with just that. As for Clawdia, she realized how barbaric she was eating her food about halfway through and stopped to slow down even though it was clear she didn’t want to. She ended up eating it as quickly as she could while also being as ladylike as possible.

As for Cami and Honey, they both took their time enjoying their funnel cake. Cami only ever took very small bites of her food—tiny little nibbles. She was a very slow eater as a result. Meanwhile, Honey was more like me and ate at a normal rate.

Everybody loved the funnel cake. Of course, any other outcome was impossible. How could anybody not love funnel cake? Not loving funnel cake was on par with committing war crimes. Only a genuinely terrible person could not love funnel cake. How could you trust somebody who doesn’t love funnel cake? A person like that is unpredictable and dangerous. The only person worse than somebody who doesn’t love funnel cake is somebody who doesn’t love the environment.

Moving on, Delphi finished her third plate of funnel cake just in time for Cami to finish her first plate.

“Hey, Cami,” Lavi said.

Cami looked at Lavi while chewing her final bite.

“Maybe you should be more like Delphi if you want to… you know, get bigger. I’m pretty sure all the calories are going straight to her chest.”

“Are they?” Delphi asked, looking down at her chest before lifting her breasts up with her hands. “They don’t feel any heavier.”

I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the sight Delphi decided to give us. After all, as far as I was aware, everybody who was a part of Vala’s universe was just as gay for each other as they were straight for me. We all enjoyed the sight.

“If I eat more funnel cake… will I get to be like that?” Cami asked me.

“I’m not sure if it works that way,” I answered.

“Well… even if I never get my own… at least I still have Delphi’s.”

“We all have Delphi’s on this blessed day.”

Delphi blinked a few times, confused by what was going on, before looking like a lightbulb popped up over her head. Now, if we were in Vala’s universe, a lightbulb would have actually popped up over her head. “Oh! Idea! Because you were talking about towers earlier, right? I have a tower idea!”

“Yeah?”

“A funnel cake tower!”

“How… how would that even work?”

“Okay! So, umm, like… okay. So like, it’s a tower, but funnel cake! Umm, and it would… make funnel cake! And we could eat it!”

“Delphi… you just want a food booth that will make you funnel cake on demand, don’t you?”

“Well… maybe.”

“I have an idea,” Cami said. “What if it’s a clown tower that—”

“No,” I said. “Next idea.”

Cami might have pouted, but I wasn’t going to allow clowns to exist in Vala’s universe no matter what.

“Oh!” Lavi spoke up. “What if it’s like a roller coaster toaster that—”

“A roller coaster toaster?” I asked.

Lavi took a few moments to think about what she said before blushing and looking away. “I-I meant a roller coaster tower… a-and… it could have tracks that lead onto the paths… and it sends roller coasters flying across the paths to wipe out anybody in front of them…”

“I’ve seen videos of people doing things like that in roller coaster building games. Only problem then is what kind of girls it’s going to turn into. Then again, we have honey badgers for archers. I guess we could put any type of animal or monster there and it’d be fine.”

“What about… rabbits?”

“Why rabbits?”

“I was watching videos online the other day… and I came across this rabbit girl who makes videos, and—”

“A rabbit girl making videos?”

“Well, a virtual rabbit girl, if that makes sense.”

“Wait… is this the same thing that Vala told me about before? Something about a bunny girl who creates crazy machines and commits war crimes while using some sort of virtual avatar or whatever?”

“Yeah! Probably. Any-anyways, we could have mad rabbit engineers who design a roller coaster next to the path that sends the cars across it! So I guess it’d be like another type of AoE tower. Or maybe… like a trap tower? Because the cows can fire on anything within range, but the roller coaster tower would only be able to hit enemies that pass right in front of it. And then we get a crazy engineer rabbit girlfriend once it upgrades. And because it’s amusement park themed, there could be a funnel cake booth built into it!”

“That… actually works, I think. Good idea.”

“Hehe… can I—if… if it’s not too much to ask for… can you pet my head?”

I reached over the table to pet Lavi’s head. “Good girl. And good idea.”

Lavi might have liked to try and be cool and badass, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love to be pampered as much as everybody else.

“So,” I said, “now we’ve got an idea for upgrading the bee tower, and two new ideas for brand new towers. I think Vala is going to be overjoyed that we’ve come up with ideas for making our ‘game’ better.”

Honey tugged on my arm to grab my attention and said, “Honey…I’m here for you.”

“What’s up? You looked worried.”

“With how many new girlfriends we’re going to get… you’re going to have to plan a lot of dates for all of them. So, I’m here for you! I’ve played lots of dating sims, so you can have faith in me!”

I wasn’t sure how helpful she’d be in that regard, but I was happy to have her enthusiasm to support me. More importantly, she had a point that I didn’t really consider before.

Every time we got new girlfriends, in order to give them all equal amounts of attention, I would need to take them out on dates just like the one I was on. It would only be fair.

That meant I had a lot more big dates like this in the future.

Then again, even when it came to people in normal relationships with only a single partner, they still went on plenty of dates together. The only real difference was that I’d be swapping out who I take out. And anybody not going out with me could go out with one of the others, so nobody would ever need to be left behind.

Except for Vala to be lazy and play video games on her own. Though, I was sure we’d get some girlfriends who would happily stay home with her to play games while the rest of us went out.

“Thanks, Honey,” I said. “I’ll make sure to… come to you for your expertise.”

Honey nodded and smiled, eager to help. She looked like she was already planning some dates out in her mind.

“Now, let’s get going before the park closes down. We’ve only got a couple of hours left to enjoy the rides.”

I wanted to make sure that everybody got to choose at least one thing to do, and we were on limited time, so we couldn’t really afford to sit around chatting at the table. Besides, we’d have plenty of time to talk still while waiting in lines for rides and afterward. I figured that we were probably going to spend a night together in a hotel or something like what me and Window did, so that meant we could talk and…

And then I remembered what was most likely going to happen.

Me. Five girlfriends. A hotel room together.

All night to ourselves.

Delphi holding herself back and still excited over me wearing a sweater.

Everybody else wanting to partake in bedroom activities with me, too, since I only slept with Vala, Cami, and Window so far.

I looked down at my crotch and said a mental prayer. Me and my trusty partner were going to need all the help we could get.

Fortunately, there were still some rides before the riding. I just needed to find the ones that were the most thrilling to try and exhaust the girls as much as possible before retiring for the night with them. The more tired I got them beforehand, the more easily I’d be able to tire them out later.

I probably wouldn’t last otherwise.