The Nuns' First Battle
We gathered in the residential area on the fourth floor to discuss Horana's proposal. "We are all prepared. Now all we need is real combat!" Horana declared, her red hair tied back tightly and her bright crimson eyes sparkling as she struck a confident pose before the family.
My brother, watching her with his arms crossed, spoke up. "No matter what you say, isn't it still dangerous?"
"Yeah, it's only been a short time since the training started," someone added.
"Still, it's necessary, nya. Real combat is the best form of training there is, nya," Charlotte chimed in.
"Hehe, I agree completely. If we stay by their side, they'll be able to experience real combat more safely."
"Hmm."
Seeing that my brother still looked troubled, Horana patted her modest chest and said, "We cannot remain inside the mart forever. Venturing outside is inevitable."
Horana was usually a lively, energetic young woman, but she would occasionally slip into a stiff, military-like demeanor. She had once said something difficult to understand about how imitating a favorite character gave her confidence.
After pondering for a while, my brother finally nodded. "All right. We'll accompany you and limit the fights to small numbers of monsters. Does everyone agree?"
"Yes."
With unanimous consent, the women's first real combat outing was decided.
The first training objective we selected was the extermination of the plant monsters roaming around the mart building. The creatures had grown fat on the corpses of the men we had previously thrown from the building to their deaths. Since they refused to leave the area and continued wandering nearby, we decided to eliminate them as both a necessity and practical training.
The twenty-five women assembled on the first floor, heavily armed with various weapons purchased from us and assorted equipment they had crafted themselves.
"Everyone is fully prepared, correct?"
"Yes!"
"I will say it again: if it feels dangerous, retreat immediately. You must not get injured or die during survival training."
"Yes!"
Horana stood before the women in sturdy clothing, gripping an iron rod with a hunter's dagger secured at the end, and delivered the precautions in a firm, commanding voice. In a remarkably short time, the power of the slave Abaddon that had seized control of their brains had allowed the women to complete their training at an accelerated pace.
Before her stood the defense team, each carrying a large shield fashioned from overlapping frying pans, paired with the attack team who wielded dagger-spears identical to Horana's. Twenty-two of the twenty-five women were paired up, two served as medics carrying recovery items such as potions, and the last—the most physically robust among them—was responsible for area attacks. She carried explosives in the cheapest, smallest subspace pouch available and filled her backpack with Molotov cocktails.
Once all preparations were complete, Horana turned to look at Madam. Apart from the symbiosis with the Abaddon, Madam had thoroughly won the women over and become their de facto leader, which explained the gesture.
When Madam nodded from beside my brother, the women opened the locked iron door and began moving outside. As prearranged, the shield team took the lead, followed by the attack team maintaining tight formation. The disciplined advance was impressive to behold.
"Nya, training only started three weeks ago, yet the level of completion is remarkable, nya."
"Everyone showed incredible enthusiasm."
"It reassures me that they'll survive well after we leave."
My brother watched the women's movements with a satisfied nod.
We followed slowly behind them as they advanced, until we finally encountered the plant monsters. The creatures possessed roughly human-sized bodies and waved their limbs about. According to the information Horana had provided earlier, these were the most common type of monster. They walked on three thick root-like stems and delivered simple physical attacks by swinging the branches attached to their trunks.
Being so common, however, their numbers were overwhelming.
"At a glance, there must be over seventy of them?"
"Exactly eighty-four."
"There are eighty-four of them just in front of the mart, nya? How disgusting, nya."
When we had first surveyed the coastal city from the air, the areas we thought were simply overgrown with vegetation had actually been gathering points for these plant monsters. There were truly that many. It seemed my brother's theory that their sheer numbers had driven humanity to extinction was correct.
Our ultimate objective was to eliminate every plant monster surrounding the mart and secure the territory. Taking into account their tendency to release spores and reproduce rapidly when simply killed, we devised a straightforward plan: incapacitate them first, then burn them to death. We now faced them with that strategy in mind.
"Do exactly as you were trained! Attack!"
"Yaaah!"
At Horana's shout, the battle commenced.
Thud! Thud!
"Stab them!"
"Slice them off!"
Squish! Stab!
Just as practiced, the shield bearers held against the monsters' assaults and pushed forward while the attack team severed the plant stems to halt their movements. The waiting throwers then lit the ends of their bottles with lighters and hurled them with all their strength.
Crash!
The Molotov cocktails—fashioned from the abundant liquor bottles in the mart—streaked through the air trailing flames before shattering against the plant monsters' trunks and erupting into fierce blazes.
"The fire's caught! Everyone be careful!"
As anticipated, once their stems were severed and they were set alight, the immobilized monsters could only stand in place and burn to death. Horana, confirming the sight even as she fought, shouted with renewed confidence.
"Excellent! Continue exactly like this!"
While the humans executed systematic defense and offense, the plant monsters mindlessly swung their branches, hindering one another. They failed to capitalize on their numerical superiority and fell one after another. The victory came more easily than expected.
"Impressive. It went far more smoothly than I anticipated."
"By stopping their movement, we eliminated the risk of the fire spreading, nya."
Fire was indeed the optimal weapon against plant monsters. The issue had been their mobility—if a burning creature charged, it created problems. Fire was dangerous to humans as well; if it spread to us or the building, there would be no way to extinguish it, risking a catastrophic blaze. Killing the monsters by overusing fire only to set the mart alight would mean our own deaths.
A few monsters still managed to burst white spores from their flower-bud-like heads, but the flames consumed them before the spores could travel far.
"We won!"
"Kyaa!"
"Waaa!"
The tension of their first real battle dissolved completely into cheers of victory.
After that initial success, we conducted territory expansion operations whenever possible. The results were satisfying, and we successfully secured the land surrounding the mart. We devoted particular effort to claiming the park adjacent to the building, focusing on erecting barriers with abandoned vehicles.
We moved cars that could still start, blocking every path leading to the park and mart, then slashed their tires to close the gaps with the ground and anchored them firmly. We inspected the entrances of nearby buildings one by one and sealed as many as possible.
The work, carried out alongside continued battles against monsters, concluded as two months approached since the disaster struck. In the end, we secured a substantial territory centered on the mart, encompassing the nearby park and buildings along the main roads.
All the valuables collected within that area went straight into Madam's subspace pouch.
"High Priestess, these are the gold bars we obtained after opening a safe discovered during exploration."
"Oh my, there are quite a few. You did very well."
Horana, the imprint of Goddess Erutina clearly etched on her forehead, bowed respectfully as she presented the box of gold bars. Madam had diligently spread the teachings of Goddess Erutina, designating Horana as the first nun before educating the remaining twenty-four women as nuns as well.
Thanks to the effects of their enslavement, they absorbed the Erutina faith's doctrines like sponges soaking up water. All became official nuns and received the imprint on their foreheads. The nuns of this world, bearing golden-glowing marks, offered vast quantities of valuables to Madam under the guise of tributes.
Madam's subspace pouch, once filled with various religious and hunter items, was now packed with gold and jewels instead, leaving no room for more. She glanced at me and signaled for me to take the gold bars.
Following her instruction, I opened my own subspace pouch to store them and asked, "By the way, how should we handle the other survivor groups discovered beyond the boundary line?"
"Husband said he would personally verify what kind of groups they are."
"I hope they turn out to be moderate."
"We can only hope. It would be an opportunity for our survivor group to grow."
Horana's group had undergone enslavement, become nuns of Goddess Erutina, secured a stable residence, and established food production, yet possessed one fatal flaw: there were no men. With only women in the group, reproduction was impossible, leaving them with no long-term future. Contact with other potential survivor groups outside therefore held critical importance.
"If we cannot bring men into the group even right before we depart, we will need to consider other methods."
"What other methods?"
"Artificially inseminating them with Husband's semen. I am reluctant to have the slaves bear Husband's children, but since those children would only live in this world, we must accept it."
"If everyone bears children carrying Oppa's genes, there will be problems. Inbreeding is extremely detrimental to genetic diversity. It would be better for only Horana to receive Oppa's seed while the rest breed using the variety of genes I possess."
"Oh my, that approach certainly sounds superior."
After consulting with Madam, we decided to proceed with the method I had suggested. Of course, if Oppa's meeting with the survivor group went well, artificial breeding might not be necessary at all.
That evening, Oppa returned from meeting the external survivor group accompanied by Luya, Charlotte, his two concubines, and two nuns. He gathered us at the rest area constructed in the center of the park and spoke.
"They are survivors based at the seaside port. They're quite hostile. Their armament is solid, and they sustain themselves through fishing, so they can function independently. They aren't openly hostile for now, but they aren't friendly either."
"They basically told us to shut up and leave, nya."
"From what I saw, their situation looks similar to ours at the mart. There were only men on top of the containers."
"If they learn about our circumstances, they are highly likely to become enemies."
"Indeed. Sooner or later, conflict seems unavoidable."
Horana's territory was centered on the mart in the middle of the coastal city. To the south lay the territory of those aggressive survivors around the port. Once they discovered our situation—abundant supplies in the urban center and even farming on the rich soil of the natural park—they would undoubtedly covet it.
"Moreover, Horana's group consists entirely of women, nya. To those macho sailors, we would look like delicious prey, nya."
"Hmm. Still, we cannot initiate conflict without reason. For now, we'll maintain vigilance and explore other directions."
He reported that the group possessed firearms acquired from somewhere, making their combat strength formidable.
"Firearms are not particularly efficient against plant monsters, but they are extremely effective against people."
"We should acquire firearms as well. It would be much safer if Horana and the others armed themselves with guns."
"It would be nice if we could find a military base somewhere, nya."
After discussing various possibilities, we decided to explore the northeast, avoiding the southern and western areas dominated by the long stretch of port.
"By the way, nearly two months have passed already, yet there's still no response from Earth."
"The flow of time must be quite different, nya."
"Or the dimensional gap is small, weakening the signal and making it take longer to locate us."
"Hehe, let's wait with positive hearts."
"After all, a hunter's life is like that. Simply surviving without dying is already a positive outcome."
Oppa deliberately laughed loudly for our benefit as he spoke. Honestly, in my analysis, among our family, Oppa himself was the most anxious. The women were content simply having him, so they harbored few worries, but he seemed concerned about being unable to return to Earth because of the women under his care. Everyone had noticed his anxiety, not just me.
Whenever he seemed to fall into a negative mood, Madam would stay close and lift his spirits. Even now, she guided his hand to her breasts, gently stroking his thighs and abs to distract his mind.
"Husband, when we return, rather than working as hunters ourselves, let's recruit them and operate a team."
"You mean establish a guild? Do we have the funds for that?"
"Hehe, we have more than enough money. Also, I feel it may be time to have a child... What are your thoughts, Husband?"
"Huh? A child?"
When the topic of descendants arose from Madam, Luya and Charlotte fell silent and listened quietly, assuming the proper demeanor of concubines.