As he exited the glade, Alex looked back to the wolves and the destruction he’d caused with Blade. The small crater he’d dug was certainly an example of poor usage of force – he’d killed one wolf in exchange for hours worth of mana regeneration whereas Erin had killed eleven and didn’t even appear to be breathing deeply.

While there’s probably a lot to be said for being higher level, it’s still pretty glaring that I have to learn how to use my mana more efficiently if I want to retain a pool of mana even in emergencies. I always want to be able to use more magic so that I’m never caught completely defenseless.

He turned his head forward and continued following Erin. She had been speaking for a few seconds and it took him a bit to process what she’d said: “So, Phoebe rushed to get you here. I’d guess that means that you’re from a world where time flows more quickly than in Marin. We haven’t had an abundance of Travelers for quite a while but the process is pretty well-known. What did she tell you about Marin?”

A small game trail opened up while Erin was speaking and they turned down it to the right, heading slightly West. There were still an abundance of oak trees with only the occasional maple and very little undergrowth due to the tree canopy blocking the sunlight. Where the canopy was broken by the death of an older tree, very small patches of the white-and-purple lilies and blue tulips would be growing alongside the three kinds of grasses he’d spotted in the glade. It was an old-growth forest with trees whose trunks were mostly wider than two men standing abreast.

As Alex’s mind caught up with Erin’s message, he replied: “Pretty much nothing. She said only that civilization was basically collapsing and something like she was sending me to try to help out. Oh! She also mentioned that practicing my skills would increase my level in them and allow me to grow personally as well – 3 skills before level 10, and 5 thereafter are needed to attain the next level. … And that’s basically all I know.”

A few moments passed in silence while Erin processed those statements. They walked down an embankment into a dry stream, then back up the other side before she responded, “Well … that is pretty much nothing. I’m not sure that civilization is collapsing, but things have gotten harder for quite some time. In my mother’s mother’s mother’s time, the roads were much safer and well-traveled; the dungeons’ forces attacked far less frequently. I’d guess there were probably more people alive then too because farming could be done on a much larger scale. But we’re still doing ok. There’s still enough opportunity for people to grow and get stronger – it’s just a more dangerous world out there so people have to be far more careful. The dungeons’ changes are responsible for most of the new danger, but they can still be handled with care. We’ve just been learning how to deal with it.”

“There are more immediate concerns, though, that you should be aware of.” she continued “The most important is that, whatever your customs on your previous world, sex here has become quite different than most Travelers expect. People won’t change their expectations just because you’re a Traveler, though, so you’d better be aware of how things work here. First, some background:”

“Many generations ago – at least 20 that we can count – men ruled the world. Men and women, despite what some would like to believe, are different in more than just biological ways. One of those differences is that men tend to enjoy focusing on one thing to the exclusion of almost everything else, including even eating and drinking, whereas women tend to enjoy doing multiple things at the same time. This tendency to focus that men have allowed those whose focus was gaining power to attain and keep it.”

“But, like in all things, too much of something can cause problems for intelligent beings. Too much bread and you’ll grow fat. Too much rest and you’ll grow lazy. Too much power and you begin to despise others. Many of the men of that age grew to despise women for not equaling them in power.”

“Slowly, the men changed the world until women were little more than objects to be traded back and forth. The vast majority of women were enslaved and rape, torture, and even murder of women became commonplace. Women called out to the goddesses and prayed diligently to be saved. These prayers and devotions gave the goddesses enough power to finally do something.”

“The goddesses gathered together and cast a great spell. They changed men. No longer would a man produce roughly equal numbers of girl and boy babies, but each man would produce far more women than men.”

“Those men in power panicked when they saw the trend and realized that in a few generations women would be far more powerful than them just due to their numbers. Wars tore across the world. Some tried to maintain the balance of numbers by killing massive numbers of women. To counter-attack assassinations targeted the most heinous offenders and, eventually, even the strongest men of the old powers fell."

"Now, though men and women both hold power, most men simply don’t have the time to focus on doing much more than keeping the population going. The goddesses were a little too effective with their spell and so the ratio of births of women to men has been raised from about even all the way to seven to one.”

…

Alex hesitantly replied “So, you’re telling me that most men today are too busy having sex to do much else?”

Erin looked back and grinned. “Basically. The goddesses also actually increased men’s libido and even their bodies so that they could handle the greater need of their wives. Finally, they tied physical beauty directly to your base attributes so, while each person is born exactly as they are, as they grow in power their bodies change to be the most ideal version of themselves.”

As they continued on the game trail, Alex pondered these revelations.

Honestly, this sounds like some teenager’s wet-dream instead of reality. Far more women than men surely means that most men have multiple wives and probably even have quite a bit of sex outside of marriage. Meanwhile, women would be extremely protective of their chosen mate so the men are likely highly-protected to the point where most of them simply stay in or around their house being waited upon and having lots of sex. And while this would be too exhausting for a normal human male, just coincidentally the goddesses responsible decided to “enhance” men to be able to handle it.

It’s surreal is what it is.

Not a bad plan, though. Most men wouldn’t really progress beyond their teenage fantasies and would be virtual slaves to their own sex drives. That would certainly cut down on the number of men trying to gain power – why bother when they’re waited on hand and foot, protected, and willingly given all the sex they could desire?

While he was ruminating, Erin turned off the game trail and approached a rope tied to the base of a tree. She lowered a deer and three rabbits down out of a tree. She’d simply slung the rope over a branch high enough to keep the game away from local wildlife. Alex didn’t know much about hunting, but he could see that the animals had been field dressed – this removed their stomachs, intestines, and other organs which held acids and wastes which could contaminate the meat. It also accelerated the cooling process of the animal, preserving the meat for even longer. As a bonus, by removing those organs, the weight to be transported was significantly reduced.

As Erin untied the animals from the rope, Alex volunteered to carry the rabbits. He wasn’t sure how long he could carry the deer, but she was obviously expecting to carry it before she saved him anyway.

Erin giggled at him and held out the twine which bound the rabbits together.

For the first time since arriving on Marin, Alex considered his own clothing – it had changed quite a bit from what he was wearing at work. Dress shoes, slacks, and a polo aren’t terribly appropriate for clambering up a tree so he found himself thankful that Phoebe chose to place him on Marin with soft leather boots, heavy linen pants with a tie of some sort holding them up under his heavy linen shirt and belt. Brown linen pants and a tan linen shirt certainly matched most medieval fantasy literature or first-level RPG gear.

Since the belt was tight enough around his waist, he looped the twine around the belt on his left side and tied a simple overhand knot to keep it attached to the belt with a second overhand knot to act as a stopper. The rabbits wouldn’t go anywhere until he untied them. He noticed that the rabbits and the deer all appeared to be victims of her bow: each had a hole about where their hearts or lungs should have been.

Alex waited until Erin lifted the deer, whose hooves had been tied together, onto her back and then asked “So, lots of women and very few men. What should I expect when interacting?”

Erin gave him a full smile then and he noticed that her teeth were white: not something he had expected from a low-tech society.

Still, quite a nice smile.

“Let’s go, and I’ll explain on the way.” She started walking back along the game trail to the East. “In Scottstown, we’re actually a couple of days’ travel away from any other significant settlements so women can't just travel to see mates. There’s a village just one day south, but it’s populated by women exclusively. They’re dedicated to the Goddess of Harvest and so the followers leave the settlement for a while if they have a male child who is coming of age.”

“As for Scottstown, there are about a thousand people. There are 65 kids below the age of 16, there’s 60 men, and those men mostly have 7 to 10 wives with some women just occasionally seeing a man for baby-making. There’s only about 40 women who don’t have a match of some sort, and some of those aren’t interested in sex – like Granny who’s 135 and tired.”

“Some of those women would only be interested in making a baby with you. Some would want to have you as a husband. Some would just want sex. They should tell you up-front what they want.”

“While you could choose not to have sex at all, it’s going to get harder and harder for you the longer you live here.” she giggled “Quite literally, as it turns out. That libido thing was done in such a way that if you don’t have a woman you’ll eventually need relief every four hours or so. That makes it difficult to get anything else done.”

Right, so not having sex is not really feasible for men here … this really is more and more like some weird fantasy.

Alex replied “So … I pretty much don’t have to approach anyone, they’ll just let me know what they want?”

“Certainly”, Erin said, “Women know that, in this world, there’s too much competition for a man to hope that one will chase you specifically. We have to be forward.”

“Hmm. I can see that. And if I did specifically want to get to know someone?”

Erin’s head turned and, blushing, she said “Well, it’d be a great honor for that lady. It’s not impolite to ask if she’s taken, but you’d be expected by everyone to choose some kind of further relationship if she isn’t. You don’t get someone’s hopes up and honor them like that just to drop them into despair.”

Alex blinked … “That makes a weird kind of sense. Okay, I’m changing the subject now. Those blue flowers I keep seeing that seem to be leaking gas: what are they? Is the gas dangerous?”

Erin turned back around and kept walking while explaining “Ah, those are mana flowers. I’m sure there’s another name for them, but they’re used in basically every potion to increase the mixture’s longevity and they’re very heavily used in mana potions. The “gas” is just mana that’s heavily attuned to the flower.”

“When something collects mana, it colors the mana with a little bit of its essence – in the case of the mana flowers, the mana is literally colored blue but a literal color isn’t always present. Mana is colorless and basically invisible when it’s neutral, but the coloring that each collector adds to the mana makes it much easier for that collector to manipulate the mana and harder for the mana to dissolve back into the sea from which it was collected.”

They passed the spot where they’d joined the game trail originally and Erin and Alex continued to converse as they make tracks towards town. After about two miles, the game trail came close to an overgrown path. It looked almost large enough for a small car, like a Volkswagen Beetle, to traverse but not large enough for anything else.

The lack of an overhead canopy allowed a kind of purple bush to grow up alongside the roadway and push out into the packed earth. These bushes formed a natural hedge on both sides of the path and, very occasionally, one would appear to be trying to grow in the middle of the path itself. Those bushes in the path were either very small, or beaten down.

I bet that this road does see some regular cart traffic, but only very occasional foot traffic. Alex thought.

He could now clearly see the smoke from the town’s smithy as a black billow over the horizon to the East. It appeared to be coming from just over the horizon, but Alex knew that appearances could be deceiving with columns of smoke – especially if you didn’t know what was being burned. Nonetheless, he began thinking about what he’d do when they got to town and suddenly realized he had a problem.

“Uhh. Erin, I’ve got a question.” Alex started out uncertainly. Hearing the hesitation in Alex’s tone, Erin stopped and looked back at him.

She’s slightly flushed. Probably from exertion from carrying the deer.

“Yes?”

“Though I plan to make money by gathering herbs and making potions, how can I deal with shelter tonight? Or a meal for that matter. Or, like, a container for water or some basic tools to collect herbs? I have no money for any of that and no time to collect or make anything today.”

“Oh” Erin huffed. “Well, you don’t need to worry about room and board for the first week. I’ll cover it for you with Marta, who owns the West Inn, and you can pay me back after you get your turnips in.”

“After I what?” Alex asked.

Erin blinked. Then she giggled for a few seconds. “It’s a saying, Alex. It means after you get the benefit from investing into a new skill. In this case, you’ll be investing time and money into Potions and, eventually, you’ll be able to make enough to support yourself. After that, you’ll finally make enough to have some spare. You can pay me back when you've got spare funds, not before. A week is more time than I expect you’ll need unless you end up choosing 12 wives immediately.” She gave him a look after that last phrase and paused before continuing “And if you do that you’ll never be able to leave Scottstown because some of those women will not risk you leaving town if you’re their husband.”

Alex gulped at that.

I have no intention to be tied down to this tiny town when there is so much to see and do in this brand new world. I’ll have to be sure to tell anyone who wants sex that I’m not staying here forever. I don’t want to hurt anyone when I leave.

Erin turned and continued their journey. They walked for another few minutes in peace. Alex was thinking about the weird social situation and all the pressures that had been created by the goddesses’ spell working. As he pondered, he stared into the middle distance at Erin’s back.

Not really paying attention to where they were walking and thinking about other things, his gaze wandered until it focused on her bottom. As his thoughts began to move in circles, his brain kind of switched off and he began to pay slightly more attention to his eyes.

Erin has a nice butt. Not too big, but not too small. Her hips are swaying nicely too … this is nice.

He was somewhat mesmerized by the motion and just kept staring for a while. Erin noticed the extended silence and glanced back, but blushed when she saw where he was looking and faced forward once more. The slight hitch in her step didn’t affect Alex’s gaze at all.

Alex thought Hmm … I think that her hips are moving more than is really natural for a woman. He blinked once. She’s definitely sashaying … but almost so little that it’s unnoticeable. She’s a natural at this and elegant in the extreme.

Wait! Why am I staring at her butt? I don’t even look at women’s butts – I’m a chest guy!

Alex blinked as he lifted his eyes to the deer on her back and then realized he had a small swagger himself because he’d gained a bit of an inhibition to walking. Holy shit, I’ve got a hard-on – increased libido isn’t even remotely descriptive enough. I’ve only been here about 12 hours and I’m already unconsciously staring at butts and getting harder than I’ve been in weeks.

I really don’t have any choice at all. I’m going to have to have sex to just retain my sanity. No solo adventures here. At least not any longer than a day.

After another minute of contemplation, Alex realized that Erin hadn’t told him the most relevant thing about male-female interactions – was she interested in him? Well, I can’t just ask her. I don’t know if she’d want to get married and tie me down here, and I don’t know if she’d be okay with just having sex without getting married. I guess I’d better start there and … maybe … I can get a head start on this tent problem I’ve got going on.

He put a little speed on and caught up to Erin so that they could walk side by side and started trying to ease his way through the conversation as gently as possible. “So, I’m definitely not going to stay here forever, Erin.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I will want to see the world. Explore different places and check out other peoples. Most stories I’ve read about places like Marin include different human-like races which can be friendly. I’ve no idea about the politics of this world or if those races exist but if wondrous things are out there, I want to go and see them.”

“You’ll need to be strong for that. Travel isn’t as safe as it used to be; even if I’m not sure that civilization is ending, I can still recognize that the wilds are getting far more deadly than they used to be. And there are elves, beast-kin, and dwarves among other races which are recognized as intelligent and civilized. Some intelligent races are rarely worth trying to work with, like the orcs. There have been some successful treaties with those races, but they’re mostly of the ‘Don’t bother us and we won’t bother you’ sort.”

“That’s good to know.” he paused for a few seconds before saying “I’m also not too interested in getting married before really getting to know someone, but I’m starting to feel the effects of the goddesses’ spell.”

He glanced at her and noticed that she was definitely more pink than when he’d moved up beside her but he had to continue even though he was furiously blushing himself if the heat he felt in his cheeks was any indication.

“And, so, I find you to be truly beautiful … uhh … so if you’re not involved with someone and interested in sex just for … uhm relief from the spell … I think that I’d very much enjoy your company.”

Erin stopped and turned to him, blush high on her cheeks. She placed her left hand firmly on her hip while keeping the deer in place with her right and asked “Are you asking just because of the inn?”

“… the inn?” Alex asked.

“The money for your first weeks’ stay.” Erin explained.

Alex’s eyes widened completely and he held both hands in front of himself “No, no, no! I honestly think you’re extremely attractive. I’ll be paying back that money as soon as I can no matter what, but I am feeling the spell. A few minutes ago when my mind wandered off I returned to myself slowly and was mesmerized simply by the way your hips moved – and I never looked at women’s butts before.”

“Further, you’ve been nice to me when you didn’t have to and, though I don’t know if our relationship will go anywhere, the spell is hitting me pretty hard already.” he waved to the rather obvious evidence of such just below his belt “… and I figured it would be better to take care of the issue with someone who I sort-of knew instead of a total stranger. And you really are hot.”

“Hot?” Erin questioned, while tilting her head to the side. Her cheeks had pinked even further with Alex’s gesture, but now she was obviously confused.

“Ah, a saying of my own. It just means incredibly sexually attractive.”

Erin giggled and then nearly lost her balance as the deer pulled against her back. She caught herself on her back foot, but her face had been so shocked that Alex started chuckling at the expression she’d made. That set Erin off and soon they were both laughing pretty hard in the middle of the pathway.

Erin giggled again, then she said “I’d be happy to just have sex with you for now. I’m not looking to have a baby, but I won’t be stopping one from forming either. Even if we did make a baby, I wouldn’t tie you down to Scottstown. I think it’s still best if we get you a room at West Inn because the room comes with three meals for the day – you just ask and she’ll prepare them for you if you don’t plan on coming back to eat in the inn itself. Also, your own room will be convenient if you want to host a different lady in the future. Thank you for asking me.”

“You are welcome. You truly are beautiful, you know.”

“I’m only level 12. Some of the women in town are over level 20. Wait until you see them.”

“Hmm. I think I’ll stick with you until you tell me you’re exhausted. I’m not sure I’m ready for the multiple women at once thing. Besides: while sexual appeal might be skin deep, beauty comes from the heart. Let’s get to town and take care of these animals.”

Alex turned and, moving closer to Erin, placed his hand over hers. She shifted her left hand up to stabilize the deer and moved her right down to take his left. Walking hand-in-hand, they covered the last mile to the village, but neither would get much rest that night.