Man Made God 005

  Brandon Varnell

  Illustrated by

  Lonwa _A

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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  Man Made God 005

  Copyright © 2023 Brandon Varnell

  Illustration Copyright © 2023 Lonwa_A

  All rights reserved.

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  Brandon Varnell and Kitsune Incorporated supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce creative works that enrich our culture.

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  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use the material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  To see Brandon Varnell’s other works, or to ask for permission to use his works, visit him at www.varnell-brandon.com, facebook, twitter, Patreon, and instagram.

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  ISBN: 978-1-951904-71-5 (print)

  978-1-951904-72-2 (eBook)

  Dedication

  This page is made in dedication to my amazing patrons. Without them, my characters would never get lewded by so many wonderful artists:

  Aaron Harris; Adam; Alarinnise; Alexander Rodriguez; Armando Pastrana; Benjamin Collinsl Benjamin Morgan; Brendan Smiley; Brennan; Bruce Johnson; Bryce McClay; C.L. Holgrahm; Catcrazy9; Chase Corso; Christopher Gross; Cody Woodard; CosmicOrange; Dane Smith; DeseriDan; Dhivael; Dominic Q Roddan; Edward Grindle; Edward Lamar Stephenson; Edward P Warmouth; ElJako98; Emery Moore; Feitochan; Forrest Hansen; Forrest Hansen; Ine Airlcana; IronKing; Jacob Flores; Jacob Wojno; Jake Fedor; James Leon-Moore; Jeremy Schultz; Jesus; John Patton; Joshua Garrett; Kevin; Lane Watkins; LarC85; Lgikito; Lucid Fayt; Lupus Umbras; Mark Frabotta; Matthew Wallace; Max A Kramer; Michael Moneymaker; Nathan; Nathan S; Nex; Omegapudding; Patrick Burns-popieniuck; Peter Barton; Philip Hedgepeth; Rfael Eriksen; Raymond Tatton; Red Phoenix; Red Viking; Repooc Ilahsram; Riesenhuber Christian; Samuel Donaldson; Sean Gray; Seismic Wolf; Slim; Smudi Corp; Starwarscout Jon; Thomas Jackson; ToraLinkley; Travis Cox; Victor Patrick Bauer; Vigil Gardner; William Crew; XY172; Yuriy Snyadanko; Zach Strickland; Zenn Barger

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  Contents

  Adam

  Fayte

  Lilith

  Aris

  Titania

  Susan

  Kureha

  1. Aris Messes Up

  2. Taken

  3. Rescue

  4. A Family Reunited

  5. Everyone Loves Pancakes

  6. Recruitment Drive

  7. Time Compression

  8. [Mecha Golem]

  9. Declaration of War

  10. Planning

  11. Three’s a Crowd

  12. Seamless Infiltration

  13. Preparation

  14. The Day Before

  15. The Opening Salvo

  16. Cry Havoc

  17. Meeting Again on the Field of Battle

  18. Dog of the Pleonexia Family

  19. A Small Break

  20. Another Attempt

  21. Under the Mountain

  22. Garyck Ironhand

  23. Infiltration

  24. Battle Under the Mountain

  25. A Meeting With Daren Daggerfall

  26. Lexi

  27. Alliance Forged

  28. Back to the Magic Academy

  29. Because You’re a Pervert

  30. Training

  31. Auction

  32. Caught in the Act

  33. Separation

  34. Identity Discovered

  35. Midnight Assault

  36. Light Up the Night

  37. Dawn

  Thank you for reading!

  Afterword

  Sneak Peak

  Manga Page 1

  Manga Page 2

  Manga Page 3

  Manga Page 4

  Manga Page 5

  Hey, did you know?

  Brandon’s LNs

  American Kitsune

  WIEDERGEBURT

  MMG

  Catgirl Doctor

  Incubus

  A Most Unlikely Hero

  Arcadia’s Knight

  Journey of a Betrayed Hero

  Rift

  Executioner

  Follow me!

  Aris Messes Up

  “I want you three to form a harem with me!”

  Aris knew she had messed things up in a big way immediately after she finished speaking. She didn’t even need to look at the others to know how badly she had messed up. Just listening to the stifling silence was enough.

  Dang it, Aris! What were you thinking?! You weren’t supposed to even mention joining Adam’s harem yet! All you were supposed to do was see how interested they are in Adam! You screwed up big time. What was that phrase Dad always used to say? Screw the pooch? Yeah, that’s what you did. You screwed the pooch.

  Aris had always been reckless. In grade school, she had done all kinds of things that drove her parents up the wall. In second grade, she brought home a baby alligator. In third grade, she snorted dirt on a dare, which required a hospital visit. In fourth grade, she rummaged through her parents’ bedroom and found her father’s secret stash of porn. Her dad had been very upset with her.

  Come to think of it… that was probably what turned me into such a horny woman… wait. Never mind that! I’m dealing with a crisis right now!

  Aris’s own reckless tendencies hadn’t been stymied with age. They had actually become worse. She blamed Adam. He would often tell her something was a bad idea and that she shouldn’t do it, but then he would indulge her because he couldn’t say no.

  Out of morbid curiosity, Aris looked at the others in the room. The three other women wore vastly different expressions. Lilith was completely silent. Aris couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Susan’s cherry-red face was amusing enough. It was quite cute, and Aris really wanted to tease the girl, but there was something else that stopped her.

  The expression on Fayte’s face.

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look that cold before. Yeesh. That face could freeze the deepest pits of Hell.

  Aris felt a chill run down her spine as Fayte stared at her with a hard expression. Her face was like a frozen tundra.

  “Uh…”

  For the first time in her life, Aris didn’t know what to say, but she knew she had to say something. She needed to somehow salvage this situation.

  She didn’t think saying “I’m just kidding! That was a joke! Were you surprised?!” would cut it. No, from the look on Fayte’s face, that might make the situation worse. Did that mean she had to be honest? But that would involve telling them her darkest fears. Aris didn’t know if she was ready for that.

  Even so, Aris did her best to explain herself.

  “I, um… what I mean is…”

  “Aris.”

  Fayte’s voice stopped her cold. Aris straightened in her seat. She felt like a student who had been caught cheating by her teacher and was about to suffer a harsh reprimand.

  “Y-yes?”

  “Why would you say something like that? And don’t try to worm your way out of this by pretending that was a joke. I like to think I know you pretty well by now. You’re mischievous, but I can’t imagine you would pull a prank like this. I need you to explain yourself,” Fayte said.

  “I want to have a threesome with you and Adam?”

  “Aris!”

  “Sorry! I’m sorry! I’ll be serious! I promise!”

  “You had better.”

  Ah. She’s got this really commanding presence when she’s mad. That’s… kind of hot. Wait. Bad Aris. Bad. Don’t think about how you want Fayte to tag team you with Adam, strip you down, tie you up, and punish you.

  Aris took several deep breaths to calm down. Now wasn’t the time to get lost in her fantasies. Fayte had just called her out, and she knew this woman wouldn’t accept anything less than the truth. Right now, the only thing Aris could do was be completely open and honest about her feelings.

  Man… this sucks.

  “So, um… you know I had Mortems Disease,” Aris began.

  “I know. I am the one who helped cure you, after all,” Fayte said.

  Aris nodded and clenched her thighs to keep her nerves from getting the better of her. “Right. Well, Mortems Disease is normally one hundred percent fatal. I’m the only person to date who has survived. I have you to thank for that, so thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, stop stalling for time.”

  “Okay. Okay. Just… give me a second. This isn’t easy for me to talk about.” Aris closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. When she opened them, her expression was calm, though her insides felt like they were turning to jelly. “When I had Mortems Disease, I had a lot of time to think. Mostly, I thought about how helpless I was. My muscles had atrophied to the point where I couldn’t move, and my body was slowly beginning to shut down. I’ve never felt more helpless in my entire life, and, well, it made me realize how fragile my life really is. I could die at any t
ime. It could be tomorrow. It could be a decade from now. There’s no telling when or how you might die. It’s not fun to think about.”

  Part of the reason Aris had become even more reckless than when she was younger was that she had realized how nebulous her life was. She could get hit by a truck tomorrow, or get caught up in a gang shootout, or even catch another disease that would kill her. Aris didn’t want to die with regrets, so she lived as if every day was her last one.

  She took another deep breath.

  “More importantly than my own life, I think a lot about Adam and what would happen to him if I died. You’ve lived with Adam for a while now. You should know what I’m talking about.”

  Aris eyed Fayte as the other woman slowly nodded.

  “Adam is… very dependent on you,” she said.

  Aris smiled, but it was wan and brittle. “Yeah. I don’t think Adam could live without me anymore.”

  She thought back on the past. It hadn’t occurred to her back then, but after seeing how desperately Adam had struggled to keep her alive, she understood.

  “When I first met Adam, he had given up on living. He was alive… but he wasn’t living, if that makes any sense. He was like… like… a walking corpse.” She paused long enough to shudder. “You should have seen him. He was in really bad shape.”

  For the first several months after Aris took Adam to her home, he wouldn’t talk or respond to anything anyone said. It took shoving a spoon into his mouth just to get him to eat. She didn’t even want to talk about how difficult it had been to make him go to the bathroom. Adam had been, for all intents and purposes, a living corpse, a body without a soul.

  She understood now that the reason he had been like that was because his best friend, the person for whom he had survived going through hell for so long, the girl he loved with all his heart, had been declared dead. She had been his purpose before Aris. He had endured nightmarish torture and inhumane experiments all for the sake of seeing someone who, upon his return, was no longer present. She could only imagine what kind of hole her death had left in his life.

  “It took months before he began responding to me. I thought everything had gotten better after that, but looking back on it, I don’t think he ever fully recovered. He just latched onto me. He made me his reason for living.”

  While it made her feel good to know there was someone so dedicated to her, it also worried her immensely, especially now that she possessed a firm understanding of her own mortality.

  “What do you think would happen to Adam if I were to suddenly die?” Aris asked Fayte.

  Fayte didn’t answer right away. She bit her lower lip and thought about it. Susan and Lilith were both quiet. Aris glanced at them to see that Lilith, at least, seemed to understand what Aris was getting at. Susan just looked confused.

  “I understand where you are going with this,” Fayte said at last with a sigh. “If you died, Adam would no longer have anyone anchoring him to this world. He would probably stop caring about whether he lived or died and just wither away. Is that why you want us to form a harem with you?”

  “I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to have a threesome with you and Adam, but, well, that’s more or less the reason.” Aris shrugged when Fayte frowned at her. “Look, I can’t help it. You three are hot. If I wasn’t completely head over heels for Adam, I would have done my best to get in your pants.”

  Reactions to her words varied. Susan looked like she might pass out. All the blood had rushed to her face and she was swaying in her seat. Lilith, on the other hand, did not appear to even care.

  Fayte just sighed. “I hate to break this to you, but I’m straight.”

  “I know. And I’m disappointed.”

  “Back to our main topic…”

  “Right.” Aris sighed, shoulders slumping. “You’re not wrong. I’m very worried about what would happen to Adam if I died, so I thought if he had more people he was attached to, he would continue having something to live for even if I kick the bucket. Adam has sacrificed years of his life for me, and I love him so very much. I can’t stand the thought of him losing the will to live just because I’m no longer around.”

  Aris had no intention of dying, of course, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t or couldn’t die. It was just like she had told Fayte. She understood the fragility of life better than most. She would even go so far as to say no one understood how fragile life was more than her.

  The tension eased out of Fayte’s shoulders as she sighed and slumped backward, looking exhausted. She ran a hand through her hair, stopped after pushing the bangs away from her eyes, then completed the action.

  “Well… I understand why you would feel this way. It’s not like I begrudge you for wanting to help Adam form bonds with more people… and they do say that love is the greatest bond of all.” She furrowed her brow to glare at Aris. “But did you stop to consider that some of us might not be interested in polyamory?”

  “I… well… not really,” Aris confessed. She looked away. She didn’t want to see the expression on Fayte’s face.

  Adam had warned her that this might happen, of course, but Aris had pushed ahead anyway. Perhaps her own desperation to prevent Adam from losing his will to live if something happened to her had caused her to act even more recklessly than was her wont. Regardless, Adam’s warning had basically gone in one ear and out the other.

  “I’m going to pretend that our discussion today never happened,” Fayte said at last. “I like you, Aris, and I like and respect Adam, but you have to understand something. I don’t want to be in a polyamorous relationship. When I find my partner, I want to be his one and only. So, let’s pretend that today didn’t happen and continue on as we always have. Sound good?”

  “I… yeah, okay,” Aris said at last.

  “Good,” Fayte said with a smile.

  Aris wasn’t happy with the results, but she knew this was probably the best she could expect, just like she knew this whole situation was her fault. She had ignored Adam’s warning and rushed headlong into a situation she couldn’t control and didn’t take Fayte’s feelings into account. Thinking about it, most people wouldn’t want to be in a polyamorous relationship. Most people wanted to be the only person in their partner’s life. There was probably something fundamentally wrong with Aris for even thinking this way.

  Well, it’s not like I didn’t already know that I was broken.

  She had no qualms about who she was. Adam loved her. That was enough. But now she realized that she couldn’t just rush into things like she had been. She needed to think about her decisions before she made them.

  I’m not going to give up on making Adam grow attached to more people, but I do need to rethink my strategy.

  Deciding not to think about this right now since it wouldn’t do any good, Aris tried to recapture the joy they had before her faux pas. It was much harder than she thought. Fayte was cordial, but there was a clear wariness in her responses now, and Susan was just a mess. Lilith rarely talked to begin with, but now she was brooding even more than usual.

  Whether by fortune or fate, the sound of a door opening and closing came from the entrance hall shortly after their conversation.