Henrek and Hope sat across Utarou in his study. It’d been a week since Hope arrived and she’d been glued to Henrek’s side the entire time, with every other touch starved knight leering at the waifish woman lustfully like Joelson had.
“My liege I-”
“No, No, don't call me that. I’m Utarou.” Utarou declared, he hadn’t stopped smiling since he declared his ambition to create every monster girl himself, he also hadn’t left his study since then either.
“Ahem… Utarou. I still don’t understand how you intend to create these ‘monster girls’ you talk about, and more importantly what you intend to do with Hope.” Henrek said defensively, Hope grabbing his arm anxiously.
Utarou smirked as he grabbed a large sheet of parchment paper that was covered in plans and pages ripped out of books.
“Legacy Skills, I’ve wasted an entire year not considering the possibilities! Though research into Legacy Skills is woefully lacking so who can blame me. Look at this, I can only find one reference to improved vision skills at all.” Utarou explained, pointing to one of the ripped out pages with several lines underlined.
“Individuals wishing to improve their sight must first increase their capacity for generalized perception, as such investing in perception based skills is integral to unlocking the sight skills branch.”
Utarou then had a line linking to another ripped out book page that discussed Legacy Skill mutations.
“Parents with many Skills should be cautious when choosing a Legacy Skill for their child. Should the parents both have highly developed branches of a skill tree that are entirely different, the opportunity for a dangerous mutation dramatically increases. People of the far east warn of a Legacy Skill which causes strange deformations in the children of Chi masters. As such the Church's wisdom should be followed. Invest in poison or disease resistance for your child’s Legacy Skill.”
“Mutations? Strange deformations? Your church is holding you back! I bet they’d call those beautiful cat eyes of yours a strange deformation!” Utarou proclaimed with glee, Hope shrinking down slightly.
“O-oh… I don’t know.” Hope muttered, looking away from Utarou, she felt quite anxious being integral to whatever plan this strange man had, though he’d given Henrek strict orders to make sure she had anything she wanted which had kept her comfortable at least.
“So… what are you going to, uh, marry Hope?” Henrek asked awkwardly as he looked down at the white haired woman currently burying her face into his shoulder.
“God no! That’d lead to incest down the line, I don’t do any of that.” Utarou gagged.
“Incest?!” Henrek exclaimed.
“Look, right now Hope’s Legacy Skill is ‘Night Vision’ right? Her children will probably inherit that, unless she levels up a few skills. We’re going to push your Legacy Skill beyond for your children to something like ‘Cat Eyes’, now once we have Cat Eyes we can start with Cat Ears and Cat Tales until we have the new Legacy Skill…” Utarou grinned as he pointed to the complex diagram he’d drawn, all leading to a crude drawing of a Cat Girl.
“You… How many years do you think this will take?” Henrek asked as he finally comprehended the timescale Utarou was thinking on.
“100, maybe 200 years. Of course I’m planning on finding more individuals like Hope here, with skills we can invest in to create every single monster girl imaginable.”
“U-Umm… W-what will you want from me… then?” Hope muttered, looking at Utarou with her large yellow eyes.
“Have kids! Make a family! But most importantly, I need you to level up your skills. I still need to learn how these Legacy Skill mutations work, but I want you to invest every skill point you get into, can you open your inventory please?” Utarou asked, Hope nodded and opened her palm revealing her skill tree.
She didn’t have much XP and had only invested in basic poison, cold and starvation resistance skills without going deeper than one skill down any line.
Utarou moved to the perception branch, which had a unique skill thanks to her Legacy Skill.
“Improved night vision, perfect. I want you to keep going down that line. Whatever gets you better cat eyes.” Utarou nodded.
“R-really? A-and… t-t-t-to have kids with who…?” Hope asked, she was expecting to be treated like property, she was born a slave.
“I don’t know, Henrek maybe? Just make sure they’re someone with strong perception skills… Or maybe reflex skills… Hmm this is tough, I need more data still…” Utarou pondered, the drop of Henrek’s name caused him to flinch as he looked down at Hope, who was still clinging to his arm while blushing intensely at the thought.
“Y-you aren’t going to force anyone onto her right?!” Henrek demanded, slamming his fist onto the table.
“What? No that’d create generational trauma, I need to make sure her descendents like me.” Utarou explained, nodding with a self satisfied grin.
“That’s kind of creepy dude.” Henrek shuddered.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. And a world without a single cat girl is a desperate world.” Utarou declared bleakly.
“I don’t mind…” Hope muttered, still clinging onto Henrek who groaned internally, he’d decided from the moment he saw her laying in the snow he had to protect her, but seeing how quickly and deeply attached she’d become to him was making him worried.
“We can talk about this later but… Utarou, sir… You’re really just asking Hope to have kids? Nothing weird?” Henrek asked cautiously.
“Well and investing in those perception skills, I want those kids to have cat eyes. First phase in the cat girl plan.” Utarou clarified.
“Right… I suppose that’s alright then.” Henrek sighed, crossing his arms.
“Alright chop chop then! Henrek I’m officially giving you two a room. The sooner you two get at it the sooner I can collect my data.” Utarou declared, causing both Henrek and Hope to go bright red.
“H-Hey isn’t this a little fast?!” Henrek shouted.
“I don’t mind…” Hope muttered, a small smirk cracking on her lips.