I plated the sandwiches and slid one across to her. She took a bite, and her eyes actually closed, and she made a small moan that was deeply unfair to make at a man holding hot food.

"Lukas."

"Yeah."

"This is very good."

"Thanks."

"You may live." She nodded in satisfaction.

I rolled my eyes. "Very generous."

She finished the first sandwich in roughly four bites and reached for the second one. I let her.

’Watching her eat my food is doing things to me that I cannot currently process. Filing this away. Something to come back to.’

"You said you wanted to talk about something," she said, around a mouthful.

I had said that. Right.

I took a breath and said, "I want a harem."

Her response to that was a laugh, big, real, head-tipped-back laughter, and she almost choked on her sandwich, and had to wave me off when I started to get up to pat her back.

"Oh, sweetheart," she wheezed. "Finally. I was wondering when you were going to admit it."

"You were?"

"Lukas. You wear it on your face. Of course you want a harem. I would have been disappointed if you didn’t."

I was surprised, but still kept my cool. "...Okay, well, the actual problem is the part after wanting it."

"Which is?"

"Being able to handle one. To be a man worth bringing women to. On both sides."

I wasn’t delusional enough to believe that just because I wanted a harem, I would get one. Heck, even if I got one, managing them wasn’t easy.

She nodded, suddenly serious, the laughing version of her ducking back under the surface. Sugar mommy mode. I sat across the counter from her and let her take the lead, because I was, in this conversation, the apprentice.

"Earth side, I figured that out myself," I said. "I have a plan for that. Selling the bars gets me capital. Bringing tech back from here gives me an actual industry. Once I’m running something real on Earth, the laws about second wives and so on stop being problems, because money makes laws, uh, flexible. That’s a long road, but it’s a road I can see."

She hummed, waiting for me to finish.

"Apocalypse side, I don’t know the rules. So I’m asking the woman who does."

She liked that. I could tell because the corner of her mouth curled up slightly. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"On this side, sweetheart, it’s much simpler than your world," she said. "The old conservative society burned down with everything else in the Fall. Women are no different from men here, and men are no different from women. Everyone fights, everyone bleeds, everyone needs to eat and sleep and not be eaten by something with claws."

She smiled and continued.

"The thing that matters is: can you provide. Shelter, food, safety, a roof that doesn’t leak, a wall that holds. A man who can give those things to a group of women, and protect them while doing it, will not be short on women willing to come live with him. Many would gladly give you their body, their love, and everything else, just for that life."

I let that sit for a second. "That’s... grim."

"That’s honest. Grim is a luxury word, Lukas. The world I grew up in doesn’t have time for grim." She shook her head.

"Fair."

"And you, my sugar boy, are perfectly placed for this. You can bring fresh food in from a world where it grows on its own. There is no one, no one alive on this side of the divide who can do that. Top shelters grow vegetables in lab vats and call it a luxury. You walk through a wall with a cooler. Even one harvest’s worth of real bread will buy you loyalty most warlords spend years trying to extract through fear."

I thought about the slab of beef in my fridge back at the new house and tried, briefly, to imagine what someone in Velham would do for it.

The math was uncomfortable.

"And on Earth," I said slowly, "if I bring back tech, energy systems, water filtration, biofield generators, anything... I get rich there. Rich enough that the second-wife laws don’t apply because rich men don’t follow those laws."

"Exactly."

"So I just have to be... capable. On both sides."

"That’s all." She nodded proudly.

’That’s all. Casually. Just be a multi-world tycoon and apocalypse warlord, sweetheart, no big deal. Sure. Tuesday.’

"Then I need to get stronger first," I said. "I’m still F-rank."

"Mm. Are you?"

I tapped my left wrist where the life monitor sat under the cuff of my shirt. The little screen lit up at the touch.

[Name: Lukas | Age: 24]

[Strength: 31 | Speed: 26 | Endurance: 38 | Reflex: 28]

[Overall Combat Rating: E]

I read the line twice.

Then I read it three more times.

"...Zero."

She was still smiling. "Yes, sweetheart."

"I’m an E-rank."

"Yes, sweetheart."

"When did that happen?"

"Slowly. Over the past few days. The primer’s been working in the background, the training has been doing its part, and you’ve also been killing things, which contributes." She smiled at me over her sandwich. "I told you, you’re not weak. You’re growing. F was your starting line, not your ceiling."

I stared at the numbers. Endurance 38. Endurance thirty-eight. I used to get winded climbing my apartment stairs.

"Damn." I cursed quietly.

"Mm. Use the Core Stone," she said, devouring her sandwich.

I quickly remembered it. "The bank one?"

"The D-rank one you’ve been hoarding in your drawer like a squirrel. Yes, that one. Use it."

I dug it out of my pack. The Core Stone from the big, black-skinned thing that had nearly disemboweled me was about the size of a chestnut, deep red, and warm to the touch. I never quite got used to it.

Zero gave me a small nod. I closed my hand around it.

The absorption wasn’t dramatic like I usually write it in my novels, and I was honestly disappointed. I wanted a flash, or a shockwave, or one of those scenes I would have written into my own novel.

It was a slow, deep warmth that spread from my palm up my arm and across my chest and down into my legs, and a faint, steady pressure behind my eyes, like my whole body was being patched with new firmware. I felt my heartbeat change rhythm and then settle, slightly different, slightly stronger.