Texan In Another World

Parts were easy enough to get made, they just took lots of time. Mike only had the one blacksmith making the parts for the Handgun and Rifle. Even before Mike knew about controlling magic he was looking over his options of defense. Mike still had a 5.56 round that he had made from a bullet that hit his friend. He had intended to fire it back at the enemy during his next rotation into combat but ended up getting hurt, which led to his use of Cannabis.

Mike had watched his friend pa.s.s away, one by one people disappeared. When Mike got injured in the army, he didn"t have an easy time. When he got out, he even went through a divorce. It was never easy to pick up the pieces of your life after you"ve fulfilled your usefulness to someone or something; Mike loved and idolized the military, but if you went to individuals it was just like the public. Some people were good, and some people were just outright contemptuous.

To fight oppression, One must have the right to bare arms. The wrongful concept of denying defenders weapons that equal the oppressors means that the public is left unarmed, while those that hold the law in contempt would be the only ones with better weapons.

A War, if nothing else, is a fight against forces. The stronger the weapon, the greater the chances of victory in all battles. The Rifle was one of the greatest weapons of the modern world, If Mike could make an enhanced version of it he might have an easier time fighting off his enemies.

"The test of power is how it is wielded, those who believe in caste systems and micromanagement of the population have no problem taking our lives." Mike was creating a diagram on a paper that looked like the parts he had.

When he was done, he took a knife and carved them out. Like a cardboard cutout he started fiddling with design options.

"Mike." Jodi brought over some food to the table and the girls sat down around him to eat.

Speaking softly, Jodi asked a few questions about why he was so defensive and postured like he was about to be attacked.

She was always stuck in the system, and the system believed that ignorance was bliss. The less the public knows, the better off they are. Without knowledge, they depend on the governing body to take command of their lives if they weren"t already enslaved by it.

Mike put down his work and swept it aside.

"I didn"t mean to lose focus on where I was and what was going on. This world is much more different than I could have ever imagined, But."

"But, On my world, in my homeland, We fight against slavery and what others around us claim as injustice. Its important that others know the benefits of peace, but the measure of a governing body cannot be claimed by how it appears. The measure of a governing body is decided on how it treats its people, its young, its old, and its prisoners."

"Slavery... feudalism... royalty, these are things that are rare on my world. Whenever reports about them come into the public view, outrage contributes to action whenever atrocity happens."

"I might not be able to change this world, but I can choose not to be a part of that s.h.i.t. That"s why I ripped your contracts. I know we"ve all been.. well, getting along. But I wanted to clear it up, I don"t want you just because I freed you, You don"t have to be with me, and you don"t have to do anything I say."

Mike picked up a large piece of meat and placed it on his plate.

"These look tasty Who cooked them this time?" Mike sliced the meat and it was rather rare.

"Me, me, me, me, ME!" One by one the girls all had a piece of meat ready to hand over.

Mike couldn"t understand at first and then he just decided to take them all. The pile of steaks was ridiculous, Mike would never eat them all.

"Thank you girls so much for your hard work. Tomorrow we have to be on alert still, but with the herb"s y"all found earlier we can try a few things.

Mike tore a piece from each stake and put the rest in front of the girls with a smile and a grin.

"This way we all have something to share."

Dividing the meat was a good idea, it help to build the bond they had. The first to start crying was Rissa, then it spread to the others like wildfire.

Mike looked over at the girls and noticed their sad faces, he couldn"t explain it so he just asked.

"What did I do?"

"Please don"t cry, Look.. I"ll try to eat it all." Mike motioned to get the meat back but all the girls covered their plates and turned their nose away.

With a completely confused expression on his face, Me asked again.

"Come on, I"m not abandoning you and my stomach can only hold so much meat... what do I need to do to make it better?"

It was not in the books on the culture, Mike couldn"t put his finger on it.

Mona spoke up, it was clear she was baffled at Mike"s replies.

"Pick one!"

Mona sounded upset and continued.

"Pick which one was better!" Stamping her foot, Mona and all the girls looked back at Mike.

Mike instantly got the point. "Oh." he smirked and continued speaking.

"Well, Let me talk about them." Mike cut a piece off the first steak.

Biting into it he could taste what reminded of him of hickory, sweet and smoked. The exterior was cooked and the center had a ring of red, it had been cooked rather well and retained a lot of its flavor from the meat.

Explaining the details as he was eating wasn"t all the hard, he just had to praise them all. When mike had finished eating off all the different meats, He was curious as to why the girls were still tapping their foot.

"No chance I can get out of this huh?"

Mike smiled and the girls all shouted in unison, "NO!"

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Morning approached and the winner of the steak compet.i.tion got a solo session in the bedroom, Mike and Rissa were pinned together like pieces of a sawhorse.. breaking it apart would take a little more than a gentle nudge.

The girls all slept in a pile with Mike on the bed, It was the new normal. He was aroused every time he thought about it for a while, was laying in bed with them, or had their tails brush up against him.

Mike got dressed alongside the girls, getting ready was a time for foreplay to them. Mike had to fight off Mona with a nibble on the neck and a promise of later.

Getting into their lab they set up another 16 plants in a square formation, Prince Troeg had noticed the success of the planter grown plant prior to its extraction and had the floor below the grow site to be excavated and tilled according to Mike"s instruction.

Planting was easy, they just had to account for how large the plants were going to get without aide and measure an appropriate distance between them.

"The Magistrate location gave us an idea of how wide these might get in this area, So..." Mike measured the distance that was approximately the length of the base of the plant and placed it between each planter.

When he had enough s.p.a.ce between them so that the plants wouldn"t grow into each other or steal all the light, Mike felt better about the conditions he was trying to grow in. Winter would be coming, so he would have to find a light source to offset the hours and keep it in a grow cycle. He sat at his book shelf, it was mostly full now that he had raided the Magistrates" Library twice.

Wondering if more were present, he paid a quick visit to the castle. Mike swooped in and took the few books that had been returned. Mike put a few of the books he had finished back on the shelf, it helped ease the tension the librarian and his attendants kept giving him.

"I"m not stealing them, I"ll be back with them once I"ve gone over what I need from them." Mike clamored out a defense and rushed back to his lab.

The girls had deconstructed a sample of each of the herbs and Mike grabbed the lenses from his telescope and the lenses from his collection. He held them in place with a bunch of thick paper molded to resemble a mounted microscope.

Mike wasn"t sure he would find anything other than basic oils in the separated extractions, but What he did find shocked him and made him feel like he didn"t even know the smallest thing about life anymore.

"What is it??" Rissa rushed up and asked with a worried look.

Mike had a very different look on his face. Looking into the makeshift microscope Rissa gasped and jumped away.

Explaining what they were looking at, one by one the girls came up and took a loot.

Mike was hesitant because of the sensitive nature of the information, but still convinced them all to promise to keep it a secret.

"What herb did this come from?" Mike asked Cara, she had done the extraction.

"Bone Growing Powder... it comes from powerful skeletons, this is what happens when we break it down before its mixed with whatever the Ornia Pill House uses to fuse it into the Bone Growing Powder." Cara had gone over the alchemy books primarily. She wanted to be right beside Mike when advanced and pave the way for something different.

"I see, so that"s what the problem is. They give out the books, but leave out crucial points or ingredients. People gather the majority of the herbs but no one"s successful except the Ornians, and so they sell the unrefined herbs to pay for pills. That is just... wrong." Mike shook his head.

Mike pulled out a book and showed the girls what he was talking about, he had a recipe in his hand that he read out of the book and then he had all the girls read the same pa.s.sage. None of the note in his hand appeared on the books" projected images or instructions.

The girls were literate, somewhat in part thanks to Mike"s repeated verbal lashings when they were idle and fussing about. Each of them took a book and started to write down everything that they could find on paper. A lot of lengthy explanations were eliminated for a better data source on a variety of the subjects and they pa.s.sed them to Mike.

Mike opened each book and held each paper. He found 25 things missing from 14 books as he read them aloud to the girls.

"Why can you see something different that us?" March was just as curious as Mike on the matter.

"I think I can see a different spectrum with my eyes." Mike remembered a huge "old wives tale" of how Dogs were color blind, Mike held up something red, and something bright green placing them together.

Mike grabbed some reddish paint and splashed it on one side of each of the items.

"Which one of these is Red?" Mike just went with a.n.a.log diagnosis. It was unlikely they understood the concept of colorblind.

"They are both red." All the girls nodded after Cara spoke.

Mike nodded as well. "You"re not right, but you"re not wrong either. This one is green, and this one is red. I splashed both of their lower halves with red paint."

The girls all ran up and looked at the Items. They could see a variation on the shade, but it didn"t look like it was much different from the other colors.

"Okay, lets try this again." Mike pulled out a Huge Fan leaf he had saved from the first plant. He had it pressed so it was flat and dry.

"What color is this." Mike held it up in front of them all.

"Red." "Green?" "Red" Rissa asked if it was green while the others all claimed red.

Stopping to think about how best to explain this Mike just ripped off the band-aid.

"You"re All Colorblind. Its a green leaf. Sometimes they get purple and there are even some red leaf plants in my world. But this one was definitely green."

Mike pointed at tree leaves and then cut his finger to produce blood.

"This is red." Smearing it on a light surface Mike marked the difference for them.

Mike pulled out his stash and pipe. Using his fingers as a torch, Mike pushed spirit power into his fingertip in the form of expressed heat. The glowing end of the Nectar collector ran red, waiting for just a moment for it to cool down Mike took a large hit and held his breath.

Exhaling he said with a calm voice. "It doesn"t matter if you"re colorblind, you"ve lived your whole lives thinking it was normal. Just go with it. The only difference in knowing your colorblind, is that I now know Poocha are colorblind."

Mike put his pipe away with the Dabs and pulled out his rifle papers.

Lunch was fantastic and there wasn"t any word about the Linnaeus" from the Castle so it was likely past the point of danger. The miniature sandwiches that appeared in front of him made him feel like another compet.i.tion was taking place. Mike could only laugh at what was going on.

"Momma always said the key to a man"s happiness is his stomach, maybe that"s how dad got fat." Thinking to himself Mike looked at the girls who had lowered their tops to reveal more cleavage.

"Umm... " Mike placed his book down, took a bite of the first sandwich and rushed towards the girls to tackle them all.

He didn"t care who made the sandwiches, If they wanted more of him.. they could have it.