Even if I am not around, I am sure that the other girls will take care of that, especially Kreno. Now is not the time to think about that kind of thing, now is the time to pay attention to the kids. We move inside and sit down, and as soon as I am sitting the kids swarm over me.

  Luckily, they are still shrunk down so I don’t get completely buried by them, but it is close. I grow a second set of arms, use Divided Mind to control them, and pet all of the kids. Even with four arms, I am constantly switching between kids to try and give all of them equal attention.

  They finally start to settle down after about ten minutes, but then they start fighting over who gets to talk first. Each of them wants a turn to tell me what they did during the week that we were gone. To stop the fighting, I pick them one by one and listen to what they have to say.

  The girls, instead of helping, are all sitting around the table sipping tea and chatting. As soon as I realize they are telling Bella about the honeymoon, I tune them out. I do not want to know what they are telling her, it is probably embarrassing stuff.

  The kids are making enough noise that it is easy to ignore the girl’s conversation. They each want their time to talk to me, even if they didn’t do anything while we were gone. By the time all of them have had their turn, it is about time for lunch, which distracts the kids.

  It is only now that I realize that the table isn’t big enough for all of us to sit down. So, the girls get the table and me and the kids sit on the floor to eat our lunch. There is a lot of talk and laughter as we are eating, but the kids get hyper again once they are done.

  So, I return to my normal form, shrink down to their size, and lead them into the play area. My plan is to run them around, playing tag, until they run out of energy, but it doesn’t work. While they do settle down somewhat after playing for hours, they do not get exhausted.

  In fact, by the time Lin calls all of us to dinner, I am the one who is almost completely exhausted. It is bad enough that I am tempted to ask Sero to use her spell on me to restore my stamina. Luckily, that doesn’t end up being necessary, the food helps to restore me enough to function.

  It has the opposite effect on the kids, by the time they are done eating they are almost nodding off. I lead them over to the nest and put an anime on, it only takes a few minutes before they are sound asleep. I can’t really blame them, I almost fall asleep myself, but Lin comes over to get me.

  She helps me move the kids around so that I can get out of the nest and join the girls. As I approach the table, I notice that Bella and Kreno are sitting next to each other and seem closer. They keep leaning into each other and whispering things that make the other laugh.

  I was expecting them to get along, but I wasn’t expecting things to move this quickly. I sit down at the table and drink some tea as the girls continue chatting around me. Luckily, they are talking about things other than the honeymoon so I am able to relax.

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  Sero says “Your kids are too cute!”

  Bella says “They are only that cute when Ash is around!”

  “Did they cause you problems while we were gone?”

  Bella says “They were alright the first couple of days, but as more time passed they got more and more difficult. Kechara, Asuna, and Mulan did their best to help me, but I will not be doing that again!”

  “Understood. I doubt this kind of situation will happen again. Thank you for taking care of them and I am sorry that they caused you trouble. If it helps, we have a nice tropical island where you can go and take a vacation.”

  Bella says “That sounds nice, but vacationing alone isn’t as much fun. Can I steal a few of your wives to go with me?”

  “Well, we all have things that we need to take care of, but once I get the gate set up it shouldn’t be a problem. Although, I plan to take the kids there tomorrow, so you might want to wait a bit. I figure they will get bored of it after exploring the island and playing around for a day or two. There isn’t much to do there except relax and kids aren’t much for relaxing.”

  Bella says “That’s the truth! Trying to keep the kids entertained was the hardest part of the week. The only time I got to relax was when they were watching anime. Don’t even get me started on how hard it is to keep up with them when they are in a playful mood!”

  “You don’t need to tell me that.”

  Bella says “Yeah, well, unlike you I am just a human and I can’t even keep up with them for five minutes!”

  Lin says “Well, you won’t have to anymore, at least not on your own.”

  “How attached are you to being human?”

  Bella says “What? You already enhanced me.”

  “I am talking about becoming half something else, like I did with Lin.”

  Bella says “I don’t know. I will have to think about it.”

  “That’s fine. There is no rush. Just let me know when you decide.”

  Lin says “I will tell you how it feels and the changes it causes. We can talk about it later.”

  Bella says “Okay.”

  Sero says “Do you think the kids would mind if I went over and cuddled with them? I just can’t resist all that cuteness!”

  “Go ahead. They won’t mind at all.”

  Sero grins at my answer and rushes over to climb into the nest with the kids. She cuddles in with them and in just a couple of minutes she falls fast asleep, which makes the others chuckle. After a bit of discussion, Lin and Kreno leave with Bella and the rest of the girls head to bed with me.

  Without Sero’s spells, the fun doesn’t last as long before all the girls are sound asleep. I only sleep for a couple of hours and once I wake up I sneak out of bed to do some work. The first thing I want to work on is upgrading the training room in the castle.

  I already put some thought into how to change the enchantments and what to add to them. Part of it is similar to the defenses that I made for the island, it will keep our fight from damaging the room. That is the easy part, adding healing and safeguards to protect the kids is quite a bit harder.

  I still manage to finish the enchantments after a couple of hours of work, well before dawn. Next I gate over to the quarry to collect the waste stone that has piled up since the last time I was here. I take it with me back to the castle to start shaping it into obelisks and enchanting them.