Chapter 290: 65. Pseudopregnancy Theory (Two-in-One)
“Fisher! Run! Dalasgon is coming! He must be angry because of your rudeness! Hurry up and run. Huh? Are you okay?”
When Emhart floated back up from his shocked state, he saw Fisher in front of the lit flames, staring at the paper in his hands, contemplating something. He quickly realized that Dalasgon might really have responded to Fisher’s words, which meant he truly owed Fisher a favor.
“My God, Fisher, you really are something else! You managed to make Dalasgon owe you a favor. Could it be that Ramastia also owes you one? This is truly incredible. If I had known you had this kind of connection, I wouldn’t have stopped you from flirting with new women!”
Emhart had no shame; he gazed in admiration at the paper Fisher was holding, and his tone became much more respectful, making Fisher speechless with laughter.
“In reality, I have no relationship with him. I don’t even know why he is paying attention to me. This could be a good thing or a bad thing, just like you said.”
“Really? Cough, well, actually, whether you have this connection or not, your behavior would still be morally condemned.”
Fisher chose not to respond, and after thinking for a moment, he tossed the paper he was holding into the fire. As he watched it disappear bit by bit in the flames, he felt even more that Dalasgon needed him to help with something, including that woman from the ocean, Ramastia.
The reason Dalasgon believed it wasn’t the right time yet could only be because he currently did not have the qualifications to touch upon what Dalasgon wanted to accomplish.
After all, since even a deity required his help, it was obviously not something within the realm of his current extraordinary rank. The mythical rank was simply too far from Fisher. The only being he had seen with mythical power was Jasmine’s mother, Xu, but even that didn’t guarantee he understood the extent of the mythical rank’s strength.
Without obtaining more information, thinking further was a dead end, so it was better not to jump to subjective conclusions.
Having drawn his conclusions, Fisher shook his head and stood up. Out of the corner of his eye, he accidentally caught sight of Ilos resting in a room. At that moment, it seemed he saw something unbelievable, and his expression became strange.
“What’s wrong? Your face suddenly looks weird; what did you see?”
Emhart’s previous questioning expression turned to one of shock as he looked in the direction Fisher was gazing, even letting out a curse, indicating his inner astonishment.
Because at that moment, inside the small wooden house before them, Ilos, who was lying down and resting, was undergoing bizarre, visible changes.
Her slender belly, originally wrapped in a nun’s robe, had slightly bulged, creating a very obvious rhythm. Further up, her softness at the chest had also expanded, while Ilos’s own face turned slightly red as she frowned, as if dreaming of something unpleasant in her sleep.
“Wow, Fisher, you really did it! You’re going to have a child!”
Fisher, with a face full of disbelief, opened his mouth, momentarily too shocked to speak. The situation in front of him was utterly ridiculous, exceeding the boundaries of knowledge and experience he had accumulated over 28 years of life.
Was it true that Ilos wasn’t fooling herself anymore?
Was it true that touching her ears could really lead to having a baby?
No, no, at the very least, it should align with scientific or magical principles; having a child out of thin air was simply impossible!
Fisher lingered at the door, appearing somewhat at a loss. Deep down, he knew that Ilos could not have gotten pregnant merely from his simple action of touching her ears. Meanwhile, Emhart seemed somewhat envious and gloating.
“Ha, Fisher, so you finally have your day! I said flirting with all these women wouldn’t end well for you—look at you now, wrecked, right? You know, I’m really curious about how the other women you’re involved with would react to you suddenly having a child.”
“Shut up.”
“Come on, I’m serious! I think this is actually a good thing. Someone has to teach you what it means to take responsibility and pay the price for being a scumbag. I think this unexpected child is a fine example—hey, hey, let go of my face!”
With a blank expression, Fisher pinched Emhart, making him shake in panic, yelling as he did so. While shaking him, Fisher stared at Emhart with a cold smile and asked,
“Do you think just pinching someone’s ears can make them pregnant? If that were true, wouldn’t all Moon Rabbit Tribe members be pregnant? What kind of joke are you making?”
“Is it possible that the physiology between subhumans differs? I’m dying, I’m dying, okay, okay, I’ll stop joking!”
Fisher hardened his face and released the hapless Emhart, who spun in the air several times before finally stopping. Unfortunately, he had no hands to cover his groggy head, silently cursing Fisher the merciless tyrant in his heart.
“But I have no records explaining why Moon Rabbit Tribe experiences this phenomenon. There is, however, a record by your Nali biologists about wild rabbits experiencing ‘pseudopregnancy,’ which might have similarities or correlations with the occurrences in Moon Rabbit Tribe.”
“Pseudopregnancy?”
“Yeah, your Nali scholars recorded that it’s a bizarre condition where a female rabbit exhibits symptoms of being pregnant but produces no offspring. But I should remind you that many subhuman races don’t share the same animalistic traits. You can take it as a reference but don’t take it all at face value.”
“What causes that? From touching her ears?”
“I don’t feel that’s it; it must be due to other reasons. Aren’t you a scholar studying subhumans? You’ll have to explore this yourself.”
“…”
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
The flames in the fire pit had long since died out, yet it had warmed the small Healing Rot Church throughout the night, only relinquishing this duty to the sun in the sky as dawn approached.
The first peal of morning church bells rang from the top of the church, awakening all beings in this realm. The long ears atop the head of the blonde girl lying in bed trembled slightly at the sound, and the sudden movement cascaded down, waking her expression as well.
“My ears hurt.”
She sleepily mumbled, then a few seconds later, dazed, she held her ears and sat up. Her memories were a bit fuzzy; she vaguely recalled something important happening last night.
What happened yesterday?
As Ilos pondered, rubbing the slightly reddened base of her ears, she suddenly looked down and saw her nun’s robe, which was intact, and her slightly bulging belly.
“Huh?”
Her expression suddenly froze, and the shocking image flooded back her memories of the previous night. Yes, she suddenly remembered that she was packing things up in the bell tower, then saw the monster behind Mr. Fisher. When she accidentally fell from the bell tower, Mr. Fisher caught her by the ears and brought her back.
So, did Mr. Fisher’s touch on her ears cause her to have a baby?
At this thought, the sparkle in Ilos’s alert eyes abruptly dimmed, her slightly parted lips agape in disbelief. She seemed at a loss, staring for several seconds, then her eyes and nose abruptly ached, and tears streamed uncontrollably down.
“Wuwuwu, I… I’ve lost my purity. What should I do, Sister Shalu?”
Ilos gazed pitifully upward, tears flowing from the corners of her eyes, in an instant, she turned into a crying mess, her drooping long ears unable to hold up. She helplessly reached to cover her slightly bulging belly, as if confirming the reality of it.
But the more she touched, the more she confirmed that, at this moment, within her belly, there was a small life connected to her, and he also belonged to that suddenly appearing Nali man.
Just then, Ilos caught a whiff of meat soup from her nose. As she cried, her nose twitched uncontrollably, interrupting her weeping, and she opened her eyes in the direction of the door.
The next moment, a Nali man with a book balanced on his shoulder appeared at the door with a pot of cooked meat soup. Who else could it be but Fisher? Yet when he saw the girl in the room crying while covering her belly, his eyes unexpectedly showed a hint of evasion.
“Mr. Fisher?”
“Uh-huh, do you want breakfast?”
Ilos’s tears hadn’t dried yet, and she initially nodded absently to indicate her agreement because she was genuinely hungry; but a second later, she began shaking her head vigorously, pulling the blanket beneath her to cover her body.
“I want to eat… No, no, no, Mr. Fisher, I told you not to touch my ears! This will make me have a baby. What should we do now? With a baby, I can’t serve the Mother God or take over the church for Sister Shalu anymore, wuwuwu~”
She looked upward and continued crying. Fisher could even see her soft little tongue vibrating slightly from her agape mouth. Feeling a headache, he scratched the back of his head and was about to take a step forward when he noticed Ilos retreat warily regarding any further mischief from him.
Fisher had no choice but to remain at the door, extending his index finger toward Ilos in the room and saying,
“First, you’re not pregnant; just touching ears cannot cause pregnancy.”
Ilos dazedly looked at the serious Fisher before glancing down at her noticeably bulging belly, and then asked,
“Then what is this?”
“… I don’t know. It might be a physiological phenomenon of the Moon Rabbit Tribe, but I can guarantee that simply touching ears absolutely cannot produce offspring.”
“Then how can offspring be produced?”
Fisher looked at the naive and innocent servant of the Mother God in front of him and couldn’t think of how to explain such matters to the innocent Sister Ilos, which reminded him of when he had asked Sister Teresa about adult knowledge as a child.
Only now could Fisher completely empathize with the puzzled and irritable expression she had back then; after all, who would have guessed that he would also find himself in the miserable situation of needing to explain adult knowledge to someone else?
“You just need to know that touching ears absolutely cannot lead to offspring.”
“But… the Mother God also consumed an apple and became human. As her children, don’t we also share similar physiology?”
Fisher frowned, quite impatiently replying,
“You’re a subhuman; according to the Genesis, you are not a child of the Mother God, at least not biologically.”
Hearing this, the tears in Ilos’s eyes built up more and more, ready to spill like an overflowing flood, her expression becoming increasingly aggrieved, as it seemed this statement had caused her significant harm.
“Is it true, Mr. Fisher?”
Her question was both sincere and sorrowful, the light in her eyes flickering, making it hard to resist wanting to comfort her and spare her further hurt.
And how could the non-believer Fisher explain it?
Should he tell her it’s all a lie because the entire Mother God faith is a deception?
Fisher was indeed capable of comforting others, yet he couldn’t say that—not when he saw Ilos covering her belly.
He sighed, then brought the pot of deer meat soup closer to Ilos, explaining,
“It’s a lie; in truth, the Mother God loves every being on the ground equally. Creatures without intelligence are her flesh and blood, while intelligent beings and subhumans are brothers and sisters. They are all the Mother God’s most favored children, remembered for their unique traits that differ from the Mother God.”
“So, it’s normal for us to have different natures and characteristics. You’re truly not pregnant; the symptoms you show are a false appearance, and I won’t leave until I uncover the truth behind your pseudopregnancy.”
“Now, can you eat soup for breakfast? It’s going to get cold.”
Emhart on Fisher’s shoulder had become so accustomed to Fisher’s high-level operations that he was no longer surprised. After all, this time spent following around this guy had nearly driven him crazy, and he found this easy-to-deceive, naive subhuman particularly effective.
Ilos looked at the soup Fisher had cooked, her body involuntarily swallowing some saliva. She was somewhat hesitant to look directly at Fisher beside her, so she thought stubbornly, since it wouldn’t be good to waste it, it was better to cherish it more.
After a moment of silence, she reached out to take the bowl of soup from Fisher’s hands. Based on her habit, she wouldn’t normally drink from his utensils because of the possibility of having a baby, but since Fisher was already the father of her child, sharing the same utensils shouldn’t be a problem, right?
She took a sip of the deer soup that Fisher had made under Emhart’s guidance, and her eyes brightened as she involuntarily smiled and complimented Fisher,
“It’s delicious!”
But immediately after, she suddenly thought of something, and her previously sunny smile quickly vanished, turning into a pout, because she had just considered whether to keep Mr. Fisher around to help raise the child. But if she did, wouldn’t that go against the teachings of the Mother God?
No, no, no, how could it be like this?
But now that she was having a child, she couldn’t just let it die, right?
Wait, didn’t Mr. Fisher just say something about maybe not really being pregnant?
Yes, the things Fisher said earlier were only partially absorbed by Ilos; her currently overloaded brain didn’t allow her to grasp all the details of their conversation, so she could only extract useful content as efficiently as possible to avoid missing anything.
Watching Ilos, who kept spacing out but did not stop eating, Fisher rested one hand on his chin and drummed his thigh with the other hand before suddenly asking,
“Have you finished eating, Sister Ilos?”
“Uh? I… I think I’m done?”
She looked down at the empty pot and swallowed, unsure whether she was full. However, Fisher had no intention of making her another pot; he simply glanced at her hand that instinctively rested on her belly and said,
“If it’s not enough, I can go outside to get some bread. I saw there’s some left in the cabinets outside. But, Ilos, to understand your pseudopregnancy principle isn’t simple. Therefore, I’ll need to learn a bit about the Moon Rabbit Tribe’s details from you to draw any conclusions. Is that okay?”
Emhart’s expression changed as he listened, sneaking a glance at Fisher, increasingly feeling that the process was reminiscent of his usual research on subhumans.
You brat, you’re actually hoping to use the search for the Moon Rabbit Tribe’s pseudopregnancy principles to study them, right? After all, you’re already sure her condition is pseudopregnancy and not real…
“Is that going to work? If… if I end up with nothing, I won’t be able to serve the Mother God if there are baby rabbits involved.”
At this moment, Emhart, on Fisher’s shoulder, proactively began to explain to Ilos,
“Don’t worry, this guy is one of the top subhuman researchers on the Western Continent. He’s experienced in dealing with various subhuman characteristics. You can try to trust him. And even if he ultimately confirms that you have his child, he will definitely take responsibility, right?”
Fisher cast a blank glance at Emhart, who was speaking exaggeratedly, temporarily ignoring the implicit meaning behind his words. He took out a recording paper and pen from his pocket, directing his gaze to the rabbit nun in front of him, making a rare continuation of Emhart’s conversation while performing a very standard gesture of prayer to the Mother God.
“Sister Ilos, can you try to put your trust in me? The Mother God bears witness; I will not betray that trust.”
The sunlight streamed into the room from the church outside, illuminating Fisher’s handsome profile, making Ilos, a devout child of the Mother God, momentarily unable to discern whether he was a demon tempting humanity from the Genesis or an angel guiding them toward a better future.
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(End of Chapter)
