As usual, they engaged in a bout of absolute debauchery.
Infuriated that he wouldn't let her step onto the battlefield, and that upon his return he hadn't come to see her first but instead stayed to fuck the goat maids and the newcomer, the centaur girl couldn't sit still. She brought the goat mom and the others to catch him—no, to join the orgy.
In the end, Al worked his heart out, feeding and filling his entire harem until they were stuffed. By the time he was done, it was already dawn the next day.
The boy stood up from the tent filled with fragrant, beautiful flesh. He gently pulled his left leg out from under a horse hoof draped over him. The centaur girl suddenly opened her red eyes and looked at him.
"You're leaving?"
"It's not time yet. I can still relax for a while."
When the Great War broke out, Al would definitely have to stay in the military camp for a long time. Even though he had the All-Knowing Blessing to provide a god-view of the battlefield, the situation would be ever-changing. He had to ensure he could control the situation at any moment.
"We... haven't been out alone for a long time."
His adoptive mother blushed, her upper body rising slightly as she gently grasped Al's hand.
The boy responded: "Let's go out together tomorrow... just the two of us."
He reflected for a moment. Ever since the refugees entered the forest and he got the widow—not that it was the widow's fault—
he truly hadn't gone for a stroll alone with the centaur girl in quite a while.
Though they had their one-on-one sessions in bed.
But clearly, after eating heavy feasts for so long, perhaps the centaur's nature still preferred a more casual, free-spirited type of happiness.
Al thought back to when they first met. Back then, Alina wasn't his "adoptive mother" yet. She had gone from a mad, wild, and irritable centaur to someone who caught feelings for him. She had bashfully yet normally confessed their bond and the recognition from the Bloodmother, and then took him to that clear spring where they...
Wait!
Al suddenly felt something was wrong.
Dammit, why am I starting a flashback memory lane session for no reason!
He knew a trope from the early century internet: if a character starts an unprompted flashback, it usually means they're about to be written out or die.
So he hurriedly shook his head, tossed the fantasies aside, and after a good snuggle with the centaur girl, he said he was going out for a walk.
The centaur girl truly stepped into her "adoptive mother" role this time, patting his head and telling the boy not to wander too far.
Then she couldn't help but laugh out loud, turning to snuggle into a fragrant, soft embrace—the big horse-girl and the little goat-mom snuggling together to sleep.
Al did a quick cleanup and changed his clothes. He originally didn't want to bring guards, but considering the unlucky vibe of the flashback, he took a squad of bodyguards out to be a "street drifter."
He cast an auxiliary spell on himself. As long as he didn't do anything to draw extra attention, he would be ignored by others, his presence minimized. The guards all bore his blessing mark and could sense the Everchosen's presence, so they wouldn't be fooled.
To outsiders, it looked like a squad of Al's Khorngor Bodyguards was just strolling through the camp. No one dared to scrutinize what they were doing. Without noticing Al, mortals would only move aside upon seeing such a fully armed squad of guards.
Al strolled from the west of the tribe to the east. Having just finished an orgy feast with his harem, his heart—now in a slight "sage mode"—had calmed down.
At dawn, many people were already active in the tribe, either busy with work or pausing for leisure. A resurgent scent of domestic life seemed to linger at his nose.
He was in the midst of it, yet felt a faint sense of loss. He clearly stood above ten thousand people, with hundreds of thousands of tribesmen and refugees obeying his every command. Yet he felt he couldn't blend into the atmosphere he saw before him—the one influencing these hundreds of thousands.
For Al, whose education was vastly different from the traditions of the Old World, this was actually depressing.
He didn't truly believe he was a "born noble" with "divine right to rule" or that this was "the family estate of my ancestors for hundreds of generations! (by Chaos time)."
Even by the standards of his past life, the current Al was undoubtedly a cult leader, possessed a debauched private life, ran a tribal theocratic dictatorship, was a warmonger, and practiced nepotism... a mountain of black marks. But the person inside him, raised under the banner of the United Earth Government, had foundations that wouldn't be easily eroded or twisted.
Al never hid the pleasure he pursued. His views on his own rule and his subjects hadn't changed either:
Make himself happy, and try his best to make everyone else happy too.
He wanted to live, and live well; and he wanted as many people as possible to live, and live well.
"If there's an opportunity in the future..." Al thought. If he successfully moved into the cities and conquered the kingdom with the tribe, he intended—provided his authority was legitimate, stable, and couldn't be shaken or usurped—to perhaps hide his identity, change his appearance, and immerse himself in the common towns and villages.
As an (overpowered) ordinary person, he wanted to experience a different, completely contrasting path of life.
The slight loss instead ignited Al's fighting spirit. He soon turned his thoughts back:
"Currently I have an army of tens of thousands, a harem full of beauties, the Four Mothers' blessing from above, and am a Chaos-certified Everchosen. Below me are over a hundred thousand subjects obeying my royal command. My every word and action can win the submission of millions; my every thought can manipulate the future of millions. Now I only wait to crush the Greenskins, follow the plan, enter the 'Pearl of the South,' seize the southern military and politics, incorporate its hearts and territory, raise the southern braves to be my vanguard, and seek the southern beauties to be my concubines. All under heaven, is there any land that isn't the King's?..."
Not long after his physical climax, Al felt like he was having a mental climax. The more he thought, the more excited he became, so he hurriedly reined in his mind.
He just felt inexplicably invigorated!
Good! Very spirited!
Must work hard toward this goal!
If I can't even handle the Greenskins and the Estalians, then I should stop daydreaming and think about how I'll die when the End Times come.
Walking and stopping along the way, he arrived at the military camp. The troops were assembled and garrisoned, but at this hour, there were no drills.
Al recalled that Beastmen possessed a battle instinct. Since the current supply of resources was overall very tight and scarce, increasing training would increase consumption. This consumption was hard—it couldn't be compensated for by faith and fanaticism alone. The demand for training could be left alone for now and addressed once they developed further.
However, the training level of the human legions seemed to be on the low side as well. Forget the conscripted militia reserves; the regular six-thousand-man Auxilia Legion only drilled about once every three to five days.
To Al, this was very hard to understand. Upon inquiry, he found this was the standard training intensity for the Kingdom's standing army.
The Tercio drilled more, but it was mostly ritualistic and traditional. After all, no one expected a true major war to break out one day. Their hypothetical enemy, the Tileans, were at a similar level, and as for the fragmented and loose Bretonnia, they were unlikely to launch a large-scale invasion of their southern neighbor.
Al could only remain silent... Thanks to the frequent high-intensity wars and various monsters in the Old World before the last victory over the End Times, most regions, if translated to Earth's medieval era, would be considered high in martial virtue. Military-related literacy—the traits needed to be a soldier—was as fundamental as eating, drinking, and mating. It was an essential capability for the vast majority of people (men, mostly), not something that required mandatory training.
After the End Times, this trait had declined, and it was especially so for the Southern Kingdom, which had been relatively more harmonious before the end compared to the northern Empire of the Old World.
Al wasn't the type to just do things on a whim. He liked to be prepared. When he couldn't provide better material supplies, incentives, or other temptations (like patriotism or room for upward mobility), he wouldn't rashly interfere with this status quo.
Though it was a bit of an eyesore.