The sun gently shined down upon the garden. It was a simple but lovely scene complete with several rose bushes and a few flowering trees. The soft scent of roses and fresh earth drifted through the air putting Scott and the girls at ease.

“Would you like more tea?” Scott looked to Mina then to Scarlet. Finally, he turned to the newest arrivals, Rowan and Deanna.

The dark haired centaur quickly held up her hand and shook her head. Deanna, however, gladly took a cup. Mina mimicked Rowan, but Scarlet answered with a simple, “No thanks.”

“Alright, well let’s get started then.” said Scott.

“Fine by me.” said Scarlet.

“Right.” said Mina.

Rowan quietly nodded. She slipped her arms around herself and drew her body down a little. She was nervous about this meeting, and about having clothes. She was unaccustomed to wearing shirts and the one that she had borrowed from Mina was a little tight.

Scott looked at the girls then said, “We need to plan our next moves carefully ladies.”

“Next moves?” asked Mina.

“Yes, I intend to make our family one of the strongest around. This means we’ll need more members. However, it also means that we will need to take control of land and territory.”

Scarlet placed her hands together and smiled in a predatory manner. “Really! We’re going to work on building a kingdom?”

“Yes, but that will require lots of time and resources. Our family will need to be quite substantial in order to hold position as well.” said Scott.

“Well, first I think we should buy the best equipment possible. We also need to locate one more person for our party.” said Scott.

“Yes, I suppose we do. What kind of girl is it that you are thinking of adding?” asked Scarlet.

Scott smiled at her. “We need a dedicated magic user. I can work on fulfilling the roles of ranged attacker and support for the moment, but we need someone who is capable of higher level attack magic, and wide area effects.”

Deanna raised her hand. “Why not go try and find a few girls in the Roxy Woodlands? Lots of strong demi-humans gather there. Beat a few of them in battle and they may think you’re a worthy candidate for being their mate.”

Scott shuddered at the suggestion, but then slowly nodded. “That is reasonably close by and I have been there before. We will need to greatly increase our levels first, however. There are large numbers of demi-human girls there and they will gladly crush us.”

“How did you survive that place again?” asked Scarlet.

He smirked at her. “Dumb luck, mostly. I ran across a few guys who had not been so lucky. As I recall, you helped out with that in the end.”

She grinned at him. It was nice to feel needed, after all.

“Anyway, acquiring a dedicated mage or even possibly a few more girls in general will be possible there. Good idea Deanna.” Scott smiled at the rabbit.

The cheerful girl smiled back at him then giggled. She was happy to have said something praise worthy. She wanted to be seen as useful to her new social circle.

“After that we can save up enough money to buy a small village somewhere. That would let us get some experience at running one and potentially start our war chest with necessary goods.” said Scott.

Mina raised a finger into the air. “So, what do you suggest? The five of us can’t really run a village, much less a kingdom.”

Scott reached over and took her finger. She smiled at his sweet gesture.

“We will need to seek out new harem members, as we already discussed. Perhaps we might even include powerful or useful monsters. Raising our levels and skill proficiencies is the most important thing right now. We need to all be at least level one hundred before we even think of starting our bid for power.”

Mina and Scarlet disliked the idea of sharing him more than they already did, but they knew what sort of person he was when they became involved with him. He was a monster tamer, and now a master of demi-human training.

“So, basically we need to hunt stronger monsters and keep pushing forward?” asked Scarlet.

“Yes. This week I will spend a lot of time planning out hunting routes and looking for interest jobs, between rabbit hunts. We should be able to raise our skills high enough to reach level eight or nine easily. After that we can go farther afield.”

“We could spend the whole day hunting tomorrow just to work out the kinks in our new battle formation. The day after that we could prepare for a trip to one of the cave systems nearby. Clearing those caves a few times would put us easily at around level twelve or more.” suggested the dragon.

“That sounds good. We have this cottage for a few more weeks. We should use it as a base till that time runs out. We can raid the local cave systems and raise our combat skill levels as high as possible. After we are all strong enough to easily defeat the monsters around here we will farm them for parts and money.”

“Traveling money?” asked Mina. She blushed and her ears fell flicked backwards when their eyes turned on her. She was eager to be part of the conversation, but she was a naturally shy girl.

“Yes, and equipment upgrades. Ervice is a small town, so there aren’t many weapons and armor shops. We should get the best equipment possible in the next few weeks then spend the last week earning money for traveling.”

“Great, but where are we heading after this?” asked Scarlet.

Scott shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. We need to acquire more members for our team then make that decision based on our skills. Though, Cordava might make sense.”

“Cordava... The monsters near there are several times stronger than those around here.” replied the red-head.

“Yeah, and they swarm.” said Mina.

Scott made a thinking noise, “Hmm...”

“Well, maybe a stop-over at another small town along the way till our levels are higher? I need to find a larger town with a City-Gate as soon as possible after we leave. I can summon you girls to me, but I can’t send you back to town or a temporary base on my own, yet.” said Scott.

“Maybe we should just stay here till we max out our current capacity in the area?” asked Scarlet.

“Not a bad idea, but how high will we be able to go?” asked Scott.

“Oh, I learned a little about that in my monster habitat guide class at the center. The highest level monsters within a one week round trip are around level forty. If we heavily grind the areas nearby, we should be able to reach that level within two months at most. We could do it faster with a larger, well-equipped, group.” said the dragon girl.

“What about Cordava?” asked Mina.

The centaur placed her finger to her lower lip and made a thinking noise of her own. “I believe the monsters near Cordava range up to level one hundred thirty. They are the second highest in the region.”

“That high? How is anyone alive there?” asked Scott. Most cities and towns did not have powerful monsters right outside the gates.

“I don’t know; powerful city defenses and strong hunters? The high level monsters are all in cave systems or high mountains at the edge of the area. There are weaker things like the rabbits and frogs here, but they don’t really count.” said Rowan.

“So, we can’t really go to Cordava for hunting purposes for a while then. From the sound of it, we’ll have to travel through several smaller regions with stronger monsters before we can go there. We should stay in the Cordava region until we’ve maxed out the hunting opportunities. One hundred seems like a good level baseline for traveling across the continent and we can recruit a lot of people.”

“I’ll check out the local towns and monster levels in neighboring regions if you like. That way you can decide the next one to visit. I can fly, and there are no flying monsters of any note in the local area.” said Scarlet.

“Thank you. That would be appreciated.” said Scott.

The dragon smiled at her master. Mina reached over and ran her fingers through the girl’s hair, suddenly.

Scarlet looked down at her and the minotaur looked up at the dragon. Mina said, “Your hair is amazing, what shampoo do you use?”

“It’s an herbal extract.” replied Scarlet.

“Really? What herbs?” asked Deanna.

It did not take long for the conversation to turn aside completely. Rowan, who had been silent for most of the conversation, joined in as well. She was most curious about Scarlet’s shimmering red hair.

Scott suddenly felt superfluous. It had happened so suddenly that he had no idea that it had happened until it did. The meeting had devolved into idle gossip about hair care products, of all things. It seemed so cliché that he had no idea what to do about it. Most of what needed to be said had already spoken, so what topic could he legitimately bring up?

He would have brought them back to task, despite the fact that the meeting was going to end soon anyway. However, he knew that they were still working out their issues. They did not hate each other, but it was hard to accept that you had to share a man. If it took gossip and hair care secrets to help the team building process, then so be it. There would be several new faces in their group soon, anyway.

Once everyone had gathered together last night, some of the issues had been worked out simply by being in each other’s presence. It seemed to Scott, that a lot of the concerns that Scarlet and Mina had were not so much about sharing him as they were about having to share him with people who they did not know. It certainly was a strange sort of world.

The girls began to chat freely about other topics of stereotypically feminine interest. Soon, for unknown reasons, the conversation devolved even further and a tickle fight broke out between them.

Scott watched his girls play around for a few more minutes then looked away. He was glad to see that they were getting along. Demi-humans and humanoid monsters were naturally subservient if they accepted a leader. They operated on a pack mentality. Scott was considered the pack leader, Scarlet was his chosen queen, sort of like the female alpha in a wolf pack. At least, that was the theory.

From the way that the girls were carrying on, they had decided to get along. The ensuing domestic harmony was an obviously welcome addition to the family as far as Scott was concerned.

They would have to expand, though. He had to strike while the iron was hot. As much as he adored Scarlet, it had been a mistake not to race out and acquire at least one more harem member as soon as possible. He had hesitated due to his upbringing and it had led to pain for everyone involved. Things had worked out, but he refused to allow that to happen again. If he stayed the course, things would turn out for the best. For better or worse, he was a demi-human trainer now.