The crowd tensed. Weapons were half-drawn. Spells were readied.

Was this an attack? A trap? Something worse?

But instead of violence, the elves simply looked at each other with slight embarrassment. Then, one by one, they grabbed the hems of their tops.

Leona hesitated. Luna gave her an encouraging nod. Nyx shrugged and lifted hers without a second thought. Lulu giggled and yanked hers up.

Soon, every adult elf on the stage had pulled up their shirts, exposing their abdomens.

Their beautiful, toned, slightly rounded bellies were now on full display.

The little children and the elders remained covered, but the rest...they showed everything.

The demi-human crowd gasped.

"What is that?!"

"Is this Plan B?"

"What are they doing?"

A fairy pouted, her tiny arms crossed.

"Are they trying to show off their amazing figures? I’ll admit, elves are stunning, but still..."

A slime girl next to her immediately shrank her own belly to an impossibly slender waist and struck a pose.

"Please. No one compares to us slime girls."

The other races rolled their eyes. Slime girls could change their shape at will—it wasn’t a fair comparison.

Then the goblin queen gasped.

"Look! Look at their bellies! They have pink tattoos!"

Everyone leaned forward. Eyes squinted. Glasses were adjusted.

"By the spirits, she’s right!"

"There is a tattoo! Right over the womb!"

"It’s so pretty..."

"The design is so intricate..."

"And it’s glowing! It’s actually glowing!"

The tattoos were indeed beautiful—delicate, swirling patterns that resembled flowers and vines and something that looked almost like a uterus.

They glowed faintly, pulsing with a soft pink light.

The dark elf matriarch narrowed her eyes, then smirked.

"To be honest, it’s a bit lewd, don’t you think?"

The other leaders turned to her.

"It looks like a mark of ownership." She continued. "Like something you’d put on a slave."

Murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd.

"It does look kind of sexy." A cat-folk admitted, her tail flicking. "Makes the elves look completely different."

"If I were a man, I’d be unable to resist." A harpy added, fanning herself.

The little pony-centaur tugged on her sister’s sleeve.

"But why is he showing us this? Why are the elves obeying him so willingly? Something isn’t right."

The centaur leader turned to the lamia queen, seeking her opinion. But when she saw the shaman’s face, she gasped.

"You—What happened? Are you alright? Why do you have such a look?"

Everyone turned. The lamia queen, who had been calm and composed throughout the entire event, was staring down at the seashells and bones she had scattered on the ground.

Her veil trembled. Her slitted eyes were wide. Her face, usually serene, was pale with shock.

"What’s going on? What do you see?" The vampire queen demanded, her hand inching toward her dagger.

"Is there a threat? A surprise attack?" The goblin queen asked nervously.

The dragonkin queen snorted. "Stop being so dramatic and tell us already!"

The lamia queen didn’t answer immediately.

She stared at the elves—at their exposed bellies, at their glowing tattoos—and her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

Finally, she found her voice. It came out weak, almost helpless.

"...They’re pregnant."

Silence.

"All of them."

She continued, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Every single elf on that stage. They’re all...pregnant."

The valley went quiet.

Then—

"WHAT?!"

"HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!"

"THAT CAN’T BE TRUE!"

"Not only have our races been unable to reproduce for years, but now you’re saying all of them are pregnant?!"

"This is bullshit!"

"You’re lying!"

The ogre leader shook her massive head, her expression disbelieving.

"I don’t buy it. There’s no way."

Even the giant queen, who had been silent throughout, shook her head slowly.

But the dryad queen stepped forward, her eyes wide, her voice trembling.

"No...She’s not lying."

She moved closer to the stage, her leafy hair rustling, her vines trailing behind her.

She reached out and hovered her hands just above the belly of the nearest elf, who flinched but didn’t pull away.

"I can feel it." The dryad queen breathed. "The life force inside her. Not just her own—there’s something else. Something new. Something growing."

She looked up, her expression one of pure wonder.

"They’re pregnant. All of them. I can sense the vitality, the new life being born. It’s faint, but it’s there."

The world seemed to stop.

Then chaos erupted again.

"WHAT?"

"NO WAY."

"YOU’RE JOKING."

"How is that even possible?!" One shouted. "Seeing a single woman give birth these days is already considered a miracle!"

"But you’re telling me the entire village has been completely bred? What in the nine hells is going on here?!"

"And how did the female elves even allow it?"

A nearby giant scratched her head with a massive hand, looking thoroughly confused.

"Didn’t they hate those disgusting wild male elves with every fiber of their being? How could they possibly let those pompous bastards touch their bodies again? It doesn’t make sense!"

She shook her head so hard her tusks rattled.

"I must be hallucinating from all that singing and dancing."

A goblin woman standing on tiptoes to see better squeaked in amazement.

"But...But their bellies were still flat! They aren’t even properly round yet!"

A translucent slime girl jiggled beside her, blushing a deeper shade of pink.

"That’s because they’ve probably just been filled up recently." She said, voice bubbly with embarrassment.

"Give it a few weeks and those bellies will definitely start swelling up like ripe fruits. I’ve seen it happen before...though never on this scale!"

One of the younger dark elves cackled wildly.

"I’m dying! The proud, elegant Silverleaf elves...all knocked up together?

Even the normally stoic vampire queen had lowered her hood slightly, crimson eyes narrowed in rare surprise.

"This...changes things." She murmured. "The Silverleaf bloodline was on the verge of extinction."

"To think an entire generation is now growing inside them..."

The pony-like centaur bounced on her hooves, eyes sparkling.

"Big sis, does this mean there will be lots of baby elves running around soon? Can we visit them? I want to see the tiny ones!"

The centaur leader patted her head gently, though she herself looked stunned.

"Patience. But yes...this is...unprecedented."

The whispers spread through the crowd like wildfire, a chaotic symphony of shock, confusion, and reluctant hope.

Some were genuinely happy.

"Babies! Actual babies! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve heard the cry of a newborn?"

A harpy clutched her chest, her feathers ruffling with emotion.

"Even if they’re from another race, I just want to see little ones again. I want to hold them, to hear them laugh, to watch them take their first steps!"

Others were more pragmatic, their minds racing with implications.

"The population has been declining ever since mana faded. We’ve all been wondering what to do—how to save our races. And now the elves have produced some kind of miracle?"

A mermaid tugged on her ear, her brow furrowed.

"We need to find out exactly how they did it. This could change everything."

Skeptics crossed their arms and shook their heads.

"One or two elves being pregnant? I could believe that. A dozen? Maybe, if they were all particularly fortunate. But all of them? At the same time?"

A cat-folk’s tail lashed back and forth.

"That’s not luck. That’s not coincidence. That’s...wrong. Something doesn’t add up."

More than anything, though, everyone was simply confused.

The abrupt announcement, the strange circumstances, the way the Hero had presented this as the key to earning their trust—none of it made sense.

But before anyone could voice their questions, the lamia queen slowly raised her hand.

"Hold on." She said, her voice strained. "There’s more."

Everyone turned toward her.

She glanced at the dryad queen, who was staring at Luca with an expression caught somewhere between awe and utter bewilderment.

The lamia queen asked softly, "Do you want to tell them, or should I?"

The dryad queen shook her head helplessly.

"Please. Do it yourself. I don’t have the strength to announce something so...insane that even I still can’t fully believe it."

The crowd grew impatient.

"Come on, tell us already!"

"Don’t keep us in suspense!"

"I’m dying to know!"

"Please, my lady." One of her own lamia attendants urged. "What is it? How could there possibly be anything crazier than what we’ve already heard?"

The lamia queen sighed. She looked at Luca with a complicated gaze—part admiration, part exasperation, but mostly shock and finally muttered,

"The fathers of the children in the Silverleaf village...are not multiple people."

She took a breath.

"It’s actually one single person."

The commotion that followed was deafening.

"NO WAY!"

"That’s impossible! Utterly impossible!"

"How can one single man do something like that? It defies all logic!"

An orc chieftess sneered, her tusks gleaming.

"Bullshit. I could barely believe what you said earlier, but this? This is crazy. Men don’t have that kind of vitality."

A wolf-kin nodded vigorously, her ears flat against her head.

"Exactly! Even among my race—and we pride ourselves on strength and stamina—the males are useless in bed. After one round, they’re completely done. Rolled over, snoring, dead to the world."

A cat-folk hissed in agreement. "Our males aren’t much better. They strut around like they’re kings, but when it comes time to perform..." She made a dismissive gesture. "Pathetic."

The dryad queen waited for the noise to subside, then spoke with conviction.

"She’s telling the truth. All of the life sources are linked. The same energy, the same signature, flows through every single pregnancy. One male. One father."

The explosion of shouts was even louder than before.

"WHAT?!"

"NO WAY!"

"HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!"

"How can a single man do that? It’s not natural!"

"Not to mention—how did the elves even agree to such a thing?"

A harpy crossed her arms, her feathers bristling.

"Those dignified, high-and-mighty elves? There’s no way they’d allow a single man to rule over all of them. No matter how subservient they might be, it couldn’t go to that extent."

A goblin shook her head. "This place is getting crazier and crazier. What is going on?" 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

The leaders exchanged bewildered glances.

They had come here for a simple peace discussion—tea, negotiations, perhaps some carefully worded agreements about the future.

Instead, they had stumbled into a mass breeding event being announced in front of them like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Finally, one fairy pushed to the front of the crowd, her voice cutting through the chaos.

"Wait, hold on." She paused, her brow furrowed in thought. "If all of the elves were impregnated by one single man..." She looked around, her eyes wide. "Then who exactly is the father?"

The crowd erupted again.

"Yeah! Who is it?"

"Who’s this mighty individual who can make all of these women pregnant?"

"He must be quite the person. I want to meet him!"

"Maybe it’s Julius." Someone suggested. "You know, the healer? He was always scheming. Maybe he finally took control of the village and..."

But before the speculation could continue, a cold, sharp voice cut through the noise.

"I-It’s you, isn’t it?"

Everyone turned.

The vampire queen was pointing at Luca. Her face was deathly pale and her eyes were wide with dawning horror.

She looked like someone who had just pieced together a puzzle she desperately wished she hadn’t.

"Y-You..." She repeated. "You are the father of all these children."

The crowd went silent.

Every eye turned to Luca.

The dark elf matriarch’s jaw dropped.

The dragonkin queen’s tail went rigid.

The ogre chieftess’s club slipped from her fingers and clattered to the ground.

For a moment, no one breathed.

Then, slowly, Luca’s face split into the biggest, proudest grin any of them had ever seen.

He clasped his hands behind his back, puffed out his chest, and nodded.

"Yes! It’s just like you said!" He said, his voice warm with satisfaction. "I am the proud, proud father of these children."

He paused, letting the words sink in.

"And also the husband of all these women as well!"