I must admit I’m a bit puzzled by the reaction of the girl I just saved. Before, she was always gloomy and hiding her face behind her long and dark hair. These last few days, she was acting a bit more cheerful when no one was around. And after I saved her, she was humming and skipping all the way back to her home instead of just walking. I was hoping for some kind of gratefulness for saving her, that is why I had waited for Bertrand to take action before stopping him, after all. But I didn’t expect her to be that cheered up. Me saving her should not have been so impactful on her.

Speaking of Bertrand, he is not dead, instead he is recuperating in the cell I had originally made for the pirates. That place is rich in my mana, has a water stream and a thorny blackberry bush. I’m planning on forcibly claiming him, but that will have to wait a bit, as I have to focus my attention on something else for now.

It is finally happening. The Marm woman who was on the verge of giving birth is having her first contractions. The woman, who was keeping the future mother company, rushes out of the house to wake up other women, so they can help. I am very excited to see the results, as it is the first time a sapient being is being born in my Domain.

The Marms are obviously used to assist parturient women. Two women take care of the soon to be mother in her bed, while some others run around fetching buckets of fresh water, others boil water with cloth in it. An old woman is also present, who seems to be the chief of the midwives, as she’s the one ordering all the others women around.

While they are rushing to prepare for the birth, the woman in labor is having a painful time, as, even if she has a lot of moral support from the other women, she is still the one that has to push. This is visibly a painful action as she’s screaming and swearing a lot while also releasing waves of tasty mana with each contraction.

Hmmm, that’s gooood.

I enjoy the flow of tasty pain mana for several minutes before it runs out. At the same time there is a big wave of mana surging through the room. The taste of it is incredible. It tastes better than regular pain or even than an orgasm.

For now, I class the tastiness of mana in several categories. Growing in tastiness they are: simple pain like cuts and bruises, simple pleasure like massages, great pain like bones breaking, great pleasure like orgasms and finally death. But now, I can add the birth of the sapient being to the list, just between death and orgasm.

The child is born. The midwives wash him and the exhausted mother carefully with warm and wet pieces of cloth. After the cleaning, they give the baby to the mother to allow her to breastfeed the little Marm.

I can now see it’s a boy. And unfortunately, it is not automatically mine. Maybe it is because the mother is not mine either. But at least the bubble of mana around the newborn child is thinner than around any other Marm. It’s almost as thin as the animals’. They have a bubble of mana around them too, but it is thinner than their skin and I have to focus on it just to see it. For the little Marm here, I think I can claim him pretty easily.

Like I’m used to do with the animals now, I gather my mana around the little boy. It is rather hard to do, as he is so close to his mother that her bubble interferes. Strangely enough, his bubble is slowly getting thicker by the second. I stop my actions and think back on the strange tastiness of mana.

The mana released when a sapient being dies in my Domain is so tasty that I’m sometimes tempted to just kill everyone. I understand better now, how some dungeons can turn rogue and attack everything outside their boundaries. Usually, they are young dungeons and are quickly subjugated by the local Seconds. But sometimes, when they are located in more secluded places, they require a Third to join the expedition. I fear that when the world learns about my existence and particularly about my sapience, they will send more than just one or two Thirds to deal with me.

But, If I can build up enough strength to fend off the pirates with their Third captain and the Seconds in his crew, I think I will be able to resist the following attacks. I also have the feeble hope that they will rather send diplomats to try to negotiate with me. Unfortunately, it is more likely that the diplomats come after the warriors.

It also raises another question. How do the usual dungeons not lose themselves in a spur of destruction? Why do they not simply send creatures out to bring back sapient beings and kill them where they can taste their pain and death? There must be something preventing them from doing so. Is there some kind of organization controlling them? Will they come for me too?

A few minutes after, the baby is taken from its mother and put in a separate bed. Now that he is away, his mother’s bubble is not disturbing me anymore and I can see that the child’s bubble has stopped reinforcing itself. Is it linked to the breastfeeding? Or is it simply due to the physical closeness of his mother? Fortunately, it is not as thick as other sapient beings, it is just a bit thicker than previously.

Anyway, I can resume claiming the baby Marm. Once again I gather my mana around the child and start to pour it into him. I do it slowly with a lot of care, since I do not wish to poison him. I focus my mind on this task and as I feel myself getting closer to success, the baby starts to cry. That makes one of the midwives still present in the room reach for him, disturbing my work on the child. She hands the baby to the mother that holds him in her arms.

The little Marm stops crying and falls asleep there. Like earlier, the task of claiming him is made harder by the presence of the mother, but this time his bubble is not growing stronger. So, does it mean that when the baby is drinking his mother’s milk he is also absorbing part of her mana? Is that what makes his bubble thicker? It is quite logical when I think about the fact that when someone or something eats or drinks something infused with my mana, its bubble grows thinner.

I stop trying to actively pour my mana into the little boy. I’m waiting for him to be put aside again. And twenty minutes later my patience is rewarded. One midwife takes the baby away to let the mother sleep in peace. Once the baby is in his bed again, I immediately resume pouring my mana into him. But, this time I go even slower and gentler than before.

The operation takes one hour, but I finally manage to claim the child. He is my second claimed sapient being! His mother named him Maklin, like his dead father, and he is my first Marm. More importantly, it means I can claim sapient beings with relative ease if they are still babies. Maybe I could try my luck on the children in the village?

The mind of my new Citizen is somewhat different than all of the minds I have seen until now. It is not filled with the instincts and simple thoughts of the animals, even a newborn one’s. It is not like Franziska’s mind either, which is strong and hard to see through. For example, I can easily take control of the animals, but for Franziska it is much more difficult and all the sensations I can obtain through her are blurry. When I visit her in her mind, she always feels my presence and can also resist it a bit. Well, if I truly wanted to invade her mind and take over her body, I could, but it would be uncomfortable.

But for the child, the way the sensations are blurry seems normal, like for any newborn. But his mind is almost completely blank. There are no thoughts except for the wellbeing and warmness of the bed he is in. If I had a moral compass, it would bother me a bit to have the following thoughts. But, since I have no morality, I gladly see the fact that I can completely mold his mind the way I want. With my constant presence at the back of his mind, I will make him my loyal protector, at least if I survive the upcoming years.

On the subject of birth, in a few hours I will put an end to the waiting period before the third of my laws becomes effective. The one about forbidding abortion that I postponed a week as to spare the sensibilities of the former slaves.

This explains why there are two women currently speaking with the Gnome Helgyra about undergoing the procedure this very day. Fortunately, most of the women seem to prefer keeping their children or waiting to see how the future Citizens are doing, before making their final decisions on the question. Whatever they are doing, as long as they do not kill their children it means I will be able to claim them soon after birth.

But there is something else that bothers me. When Bertrand screamed last night, people heard him. And now that it is morning, some are looking for clues about what happened. To be precise, Clara, the tall woman, is trying to understand. She is going everywhere in the town and speaks to everybody with the help of a few other people.

Of course, no one has seen anything. At most, they heard the scream and two people have a memory of hearing someone calling after ‘demons’ a bit before the scream. The only person they have not talked to yet are the ones in the maze and the ones meditating, that include the only witness, Laura, and the only one who could ask me, Franziska. That only allows them to guess that one person is missing. Bertrand is nowhere to be found.

While the group of investigators waits to ask the last few people, their members are speculating on what happened. Unfortunately, the most favored theory is that he angered me too much and that I killed him.

In the middle of the afternoon, when Laura exits the meditation room to go pick up some fruit to eat, Clara walks up to her and starts to talk with her.

“Excuse me. Can I talk to you for a bit?” The tall woman asks.

“Yes?” Answers the small one with surprise obvious in her voice.

“I don’t know if you know about it, but someone has probably disappeared last night.”

“... What makes you think that?” Asks Laura.

“Several people have heard a scream in the night, as if someone was being chased.”

“Really? What else are they saying?”

“Some say that they heard a girl screaming and a man calling something about demons before.”

“And you say someone is missing? Is it the man or the woman?” I am surprised by the apparent calm of Laura. She asks the other woman questions, obtaining a lot more information than she is letting out.

“As far as we know, it is the man. We suspect Bertrand to be missing.”

“Who?”

“Bertrand. The blond man that claims the Dungeon is after our souls.”

“Oh, him.” Laura says with an evident lack of respect in her voice. “Why do you think he disappeared?”

“Because we talked to almost everyone. Some are meditating, but we can see who is in the room without perturbing them, and Bertrand was not there. Actually, we could not find him anywhere.”

“And the others?”

“The others?”

“You said that some of the people that you haven't talked to yet are meditating. Who are the others?”

“Oh. Those are the ones in the maze.”

“Do you think they could know something?”

The two women have reached the town’s orchard and continue talking while they are eating fruits.

“I don’t really think they would know more, but the Dwarf could ask the Dungeon for us.”

“It is true that she could ask it. At least, if she agrees to talk to you and if the Dungeon agrees to tell her. In that case, she will tell you the whole truth and not just the part others have heard that night.”

At this words, Clara finally looks like she understands that she is not leading the interrogation and that the other woman probably already knows more about the case than her.

“So, did you hear something last night?”

Laura looks pensively at the apple in her hand. She takes a bite and swallows it before answering.

“Indeed, I heard it all. The woman’s exclamation of surprise, the man insulting and threatening her before running away and screaming. I also heard the growling. Did anyone tell you about the growling?”

“No, no one has talked about that. Did you hear anything else?”

“Before I answer you, tell me one thing. What do you and the others believe happened to Bertrand?”

“We think that he made the Dungeon really mad at him and that it decided to get rid of him.”

Laura clenches her tiny fists before angrily speaking.

“This is only the partial truth. Bertrand is not the victim. I was.”

“What?! What happened?”

“Yes, Bertrand attacked me last night. He insulted me and told he was going to kill me, but the Dungeon saved me. He sent his foxes to protect me from Bertrand.” She says the name of Bertrand like it is an insult.

“Bertrand attacked you?”

“Yes, he did. He is- was nothing more than a piece of stupid trash.”

“And the Dungeon protected you?”

“Yes, I’m not really sure why. I’m not worthy of him and I’m not a Citizen yet, so he did not have to save me.”

“Would you mind staying with me until we can ask Franziska about that?”

“I don’t mind. I am certain that if Franziska talks, she will be able to corroborate my story. I am in no danger with you, if the Dungeon saved me from Bertrand, I am positive he can save me from you if you try to harm me. Even if I don’t quite understand why he cares about someone like me. Also, when I will ascend to Citizenship, you will not be able to hold me against my will.”

“Well… In that case, come with me please.”

“Just a minute, I still want to grab some fruits to eat. I have started meditating before dawn and am still hungry. And by the way, if the Dungeon was taking care of people infuriating him, don’t you think accusing him would anger him too?”

Clara looks at Laura with a strange look on her face. In theory, she is in control of the situation; But it looks more like Laura is allowing her to take control and that if she ever wants it, she can take it back in an instant.

I am pleasantly surprised by the way Laura handled the situation. I had some plans for her, like I have for almost everyone here if they ever become Citizen, but I now think she can become something much more than what I thought. It will depend on how she handles Clara talking with Franziska, but mostly on our first conversation together when she finally becomes a Citizen.