Jake woke up in a shaded grove with a stream gurgling nearby.

It was peaceful, except for the fact that the women were arguing.

“We’ve got to get in the cave,” said Ayla. “They’ll be less likely to see us if we’re in there.”

“We’ll also have nowhere to run,” said Clawdia, “and having to drag your boy here left quite a trail.”

“We carried Master Jake,” insisted Ayla, “and we barely made a trail.”

“Maybe to humans. A neko would pick it up in a second.”

“Our pursuers are human,” said Emily. “I’m more worried about the guards’ bodies. Once they’re found, Xerxes’s men will know that something dangerous is nearby. This place will be crawling with guards and soldiers, most of them better trained than the two we took out, so our survival will depend on not getting spotted.”

Jake lifted his head, was pleasantly surprised by the lack of a headache, although he was still a little weak from getting knocked out. He had pants now, a pair of baggy woolen trousers, but he still didn’t have a shirt.

The air felt good on his bare chest now that he wasn’t worried about death or indecency. And… were those muscles on his chest? Not as big as Todd's, but there was a distinct bulge in his pecs.

“Oh look,” said Clawdia, “Mr. One-Punch Knockout is up.”

Emily and Ayla both turned to look at him, happiness spreading across their faces.

“That was impressive,” said Emily. “Most Masters wouldn’t enter the battle themselves.”

“It was also stupid,” said Clawdia. “If you’d have died, these two would’ve bitched about it for weeks… and we’d lose their precious Connection Multipliers.”

Ayla said nothing, and instead straddled his chest, pinning him to the ground, and leaned down to kiss him lustily. The second her tongue entered his mouth, all his worries melted away. It didn’t matter that he’d almost died. The fact that he was now a wanted man in a brutal fantasy world also didn’t matter. Not as long as he got to experience this woman’s passion.

She’d changed into a more form-fitting outfit, instead of the loose shawl, but she still wasn’t wearing any panties. He could feel the moistness of her pussy as it rubbed against his stomach.

“You saved me,” she breathed into his ear, the air from her mouth tickling him.

But he hadn’t done anything!

“I know you think you didn’t do anything, but you put your life on the line.” She cupped his face with her hand and kissed him on the forehead, then on the lips again, and then on the neck. “You delayed that guard long enough that we could kill him, and you did it as a level 1 male without a job sphere.”

A level 1 male without a job sphere? He understood what most of that meant in FTO, but what were the chances that they meant the exact same thing here?

“Our world and that of the game you’ve mastered are pretty close,” said Ayla.

How did she know to answer the question he was thinking? Was she reading his thoughts?

Ayla winked.

What was that supposed to mean?

“It means yes.”

Holy fuck.

“I hope so. Soon.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Stop showing off how strong your connection is. We get it. Start talking with words.”

“You’ll get your turn,” said Ayla. “He’s here, whenever you decide to take advantage of him.”

“You three are disgusting,” said Clawdia.

“Master Jake doesn’t think so,” said Ayla. He already had a huge erection from Ayla’s mere presence, but her rubbing herself all over him, and the promise that he’d get to fuck both her and Emily soon, made him unbearably hard. She patted his dick through his pants, and smiled down at it. “I want to meet you again soon, little Master.”

Still, all the women in the world wouldn’t do him any good if he didn’t understand what was going on and kept getting knocked out.

“We should explain how being a Master works,” said Ayla.

Damn, that ability was convenient but also terrifying. Could she always read his thoughts?

“Only if our connection is super high, and if we’re incredibly close. Once we put physical distance between us, only your purposeful thoughts directed towards me will come through. And if you enter my body during battle, we can communicate back and forth.”

“You’re doing it again,” complained Emily.

Wow.

Good thing that when he was touching Ayla, he was too busy lusting after her glorious body to think of any embarrassing secrets he might have.

Ayla leaned down and whispered in his ear again: “I have ways of making you think.”

His eyes widened in shock and she laughed with playful delight.

“We’re all going to die if you don’t cut the crap,” said Clawdia. “If anyone comes through here and sees us, we’re going to be incredibly vulnerable, and your supposed Master doesn’t even know the extent of his own abilities yet. Maybe it would help if you stopped stealth-fucking him and focused on our survival.”

“Awwww.” Ayla groaned and rubbed her crotch against his stomach one last time, spreading pussy juice where it touched, then proceeded to get to her knees right above his head— giving him a view of her pussy that made his mouth water — and finally stand up. “Emily, do you want to start? I can’t think straight for some reason.”

“‘For some reason.’ Right.” Emily sighed. “I can explain it, but you’ll need to help him relate it to his world, since he’s been there.”

Ayla nodded.

Clawdia was staring off into the forest, scanning for threats, but her ears were still perked up and listening.

Jake picked himself up off the ground and prepared to, hopefully, finally understand what was going on here.

“About one in seven women and one in three men ˙have access to their Chi,” said Emily. “Children of Chi users are significantly more likely to have access, but there’s a lot of randomness there, and you don’t know for sure until your eighteenth birthday. When you reach your eighteenth birthday, you Awaken and gain access to your Chi… and your stats.

“So, everyone has a set of base stats. Those include health points, chi points, chi recharge rate, strength, dexterity, and a bunch of others. Those stats grow when you level up, so you become stronger and stronger… but the way they grow is determined by your race, your gender, and individual variation. Most of the time, individual variation is stronger than any race or gender effect, with some exceptions. Nekos like Clawdia are, on average, more dexterous than humans. Females of all species are better at regenerating Chi and a little bit better at earning Ability Points, which in the long rung makes us better and more versatile soldiers than males.”

“That’s why they hunt us down,” said Clawdia. “They want to enslave us and make us fight for them.”

“Wait,” said Jake, “you’re saying that the wars are fought entirely by women?”

“Dick-for-brains had a thought. Hurrah. They do send cannon fodder men into the field sometimes, but yes.”

Why did Clawdia have to be like that?

“It’s not you,” said Ayla. “She’s mostly angry because of culture shock. She’s been away from her homeland only a short while.”

“Wait, you can still hear my thoughts from over there? I thought you said…”

“I’m two feet away. We don’t have to be touching. Our Connection is that strong.”

“Speaking of Connection,” said Emily, “that is what I’m going to cover next. Each Master and awakened woman that wears his collar has a Connection Rating. This is a percentage that goes from zero to a hundred, based on how strong your emotional ties and sexual attraction are. Hatred, indifference, or disgust will put you at zero. Mouth-watering lust or head-over-heels love will put you much higher. Only by maximizing physical attraction, emotional bonding, and trust can you hope to reach a hundred percent.”

Ayla put her arm around him and whispered in his ear, giving him chills: “I think we’re close to a hundred percent.”

“Stop that!” yelped Emily.

Ayla pulled back, giggling. “Get your explanation done and you can taste him. The sooner you’re done, the sooner I can have him again.”

Emily glared at her. “So, as I was saying, Connection Rating feeds directly into the Connection Multiplier and Connection Effects. Having a Connection at all, even if it’s at zero, is enough for the Master to give commands to his awakened soldier.”

“And not just on the battlefield,” Ayla whispered seductively, stroking his thigh. “What would you like me to do, Master?”

“How about leave him alone?” said Emily.

It was true that he needed to hear this. Even more than he longed for Ayla’s touch, he needed to understand how this world worked. “I’m listening,” he said.

Ayla backed off, merely holding his hand now, and Emily started back in on her explanation. “It’s true that a large component of the Connection Rating is physical attraction. That’s why most — though not all — Masters are male. The Connection Rating feeds into the Connection Multiplier. It’s one point five just for having a connection at all, just by putting on the collar, and then four if the Connection Rating is at one hundred percent. That number… it multiplies most of your core stats.”

A number, from 1.5 to 4, that multiplied almost every single stat. That was ridiculously overpowered. Any army that went without it was doomed to lose, unless they had some crazy advantage elsewhere to make up for it.

It started to make sense now… “So that’s why you were willing to put on the collar after just meeting me.”

“Correct. I chose you because Ayla said you commanded Rogues well, and because you were not obviously unkind, and because if I didn’t then I was far more likely to die… and if you were truly evil, Clawdia would kill you and free me.”

Clawdia turned and bared her fangs at him in a grin.

Ayla moved herself between them. Was she protecting him from Clawdia?

“I do not regret the decision,” said Emily. “Though your knowledge of this world is troublingly limited, and you’ve done nothing that would indicate you have the intelligence Ayla claims, you have shown bravery in protecting her, and I do not think you will rape me. That is better than most of the cold-hearted men who gain enough influence to become Masters.”

At the mention of rape his dick shrunk and his fists hardened. “Are all men in this world the type that would…”

“Of course not. But one in seven women are awakened, in comparison to one in three men… thus there are more than twice as many awakened men as awakened women. Add in the fact that a single Master can collect dozens of awakened soldiers and you’ll see that less than five percent of awakened men ever own a single one. The rest are Guards.”

“You get it now?” asked Clawdia. “The Guards might be okay, who knows, but think about the type of person who wants two dozen sex slaves. Then take all those people and let the nastiest ones win.”

He thought of Mike, but realized that Mike was small fry in the wider scheme of things.

“I was caressed briefly by the man you think of,” said Ayla. “His was a chill touch, but I would prefer him over most of the Masters here.”

He knew Mike wouldn’t be the worst, but to think that he was better than most of the Masters in this world?

What could the worst possibly be like?