Chapter 334: Male Zerg Celebrity × Arms Dealer (End): Ulysses Is Pregnant!??

[After they started living together, they naturally had much more time to spend with each other.

At night, Shamir secretly slipped away to find Ravens and saw him dressed in a white sleeping robe, holding the gemstone dragon egg he had just soaked in nutrient solution and carefully wiping it dry.

A terminal light screen nearby was playing the news as background noise.

Shamir happened to arrive just as the report mentioned that a Tianjia smuggling ship had been seized, along with several thousand prohibited items, including multiple kinds of contraceptives specifically made for males/Male Zergs.

The familiar product names made Shamir glance over for an extra moment. Then he remembered the kind of relationship he and Mr. Ravens had now and stopped caring, turning his attention back to Ravens wiping down the dragon egg.

He always felt that the way Mr. Ravens cared for the dragon egg gave him the aura of a pregnant Female Zerg or a Female Father. There was something uniquely captivating about it.

It was as though his entire presence had softened. The smell of gunpowder and firearms around him had faded, replaced by something sacred and protective. From between the folds of his pure white sleeping robe, Shamir could almost smell the faint scent of milk from a milk-can beast—the same kind he drank every morning, only somehow warmer.

Shamir’s cheeks turned slightly red.

He really liked Mr. Ravens looking like this. It made a Zerg want to bury himself in his arms, hug him, and nuzzle against him.

When Ravens saw him come over, the first thing he did was turn off the news Male Zergs disliked and switch to an entertainment channel. Then he told him,

“The dragon egg should hatch within the next few days. I bought it a whole spaceship of ore. I didn’t know what kind it would like, so I bought some of every kind.”

A whole spaceship of ore!

Shamir’s eyes widened in shock.

Was that even the right unit of measurement?

Did preparing sample food for a pet really require going this far?

Buying so much all at once!

Way too extravagant!

But when he thought about the gemstone dragon that was about to hatch, he also became excited.

“I heard that after gemstone dragons eat ore, they absorb most of the ore’s energy and then poop out crystal-like things that look like gemstones.”

Shamir’s eyes shone as he talked about the rumor he had heard, clearly extremely curious.

Ravens had never imagined that one day he would be discussing pet excrement with a Male Zerg. He felt a little awkward, but still explained seriously,

“They do produce condensed crystals, but the quality can’t really be called gemstones. At most, they’re just shiny stones.”

A gemstone dragon’s stomach was like a high-temperature, high-pressure furnace, capable of melting and absorbing the energy in ore, while the remaining residue was transformed into gem-like crystals.

Gemstone dragons were called gemstone dragons not only because their eggs and scales resembled gemstones, but also because the feces they excreted would scatter in the wilderness and be discovered by Zergs, looking like gemstones strewn across the ground.

Shamir hadn’t expected the rumor to actually be true.

Even if they weren’t real gemstones and were only pretty little stones, that still sounded very interesting.

He had already bought a pet litter tray and a scoop, and he began looking forward to his future life as a poop-scooping pet owner.

He told Ravens that he had opened up a small sandy patch in a quiet corner of the farm. They could dump the stones the gemstone dragon pooped out there and pile them up. Over time, maybe they could even create some sort of strange landscape.

Ravens could tell Shamir was simply being playful and wasn’t genuinely expecting the young dragon to produce gemstones, so he finally relaxed.

At the same time, he thought he had been too careless.

He should have given Shamir more high-quality gemstones to play with.

If he had prepared them earlier, Shamir wouldn’t have been thinking about playing a pet poop-scooping game.

Mm. He would arrange that immediately!

Once Ravens made up his mind, he placed the gemstone dragon egg back into the incubator, then talked with Shamir while leading him toward the bed.

A Male Zerg coming to see him was supposed to sleep with him.

Even if that wasn’t the Male Zerg’s purpose, a Female Zerg still had to find a way to make him stay and sleep over.

At a time like this, continuing to hold a dragon egg clearly wasn’t appropriate.

He had already shown the egg to Shamir, and they had cultivated some feelings toward it together. That was enough.

Even if it were his own Zerg egg, he would have done the same.

Ravens and Shamir had been together for ten years without producing a Zerg egg, and whether they would ever have one in the future was hard to say.

There really was a rank difference between them, and the Zerg race’s fertility rate was what it was. Ravens no longer dared to hold much hope.

He truly was raising this dragon egg as half a hatchling.

Ravens told Shamir what he was thinking while they were in bed, and Shamir was quite surprised.

What did he mean, they might not be able to have an egg, so he was raising the gemstone dragon egg like a hatchling?

Shamir could understand treating a pet like a hatchling.

Many elderly single Female Zergs did that, and some Male Zergs who liked pets did the same.

But them?

Why wouldn’t they be able to have an egg?

There was a rank difference between them, but it wasn’t that large.

Shamir had already risen to B-rank, while Mr. Ravens was super-A.

Super-A wasn’t S-rank. In the ranking system, it still fell under the broader A-rank category.

That meant they were within a difference of two ranks, a range in which Psychic Soothing could be performed.

Naturally, reproduction and having offspring wouldn’t be a problem either.

Shamir thought about their ranks, then suddenly wondered whether something was wrong with Mr. Ravens’s body.

His heart instantly began pounding with fear.

Terrified, he hugged Ravens tightly and hurriedly checked him over, asking,

“Have you ever suffered some kind of physical injury? Or did you get sick? Don’t scare me.”

Ravens froze for a moment before realizing what Shamir had assumed.

The Zerg race placed enormous importance on reproduction and offspring.

Being suspected of having suffered bodily damage that made reproduction impossible was a very serious matter for a Female Zerg.

But Ravens could also tell that Shamir was purely worried about him.

He wasn’t thinking that if Ravens’s gestational sac had ever been damaged, then he wouldn’t want him anymore or anything like that.

So Ravens was actually in quite a good mood as he explained,

“There’s nothing wrong with my body. I was just thinking that since we were together for ten years without having an egg, maybe we really just have no fate with Zerg eggs.”

Shamir hadn’t expected that to be the reason.

He went completely blank.

Those ten years...

How many times had they even done it!?

They were constantly separated for months at a time.

Even if the frequency had been a little higher during that final month when they lived together, that was still only one month.

Compared with the average amount of time Zergs spent trying for an egg, that was nothing.

And more importantly...

Shamir smiled helplessly and said,

“I was taking medicine!”

“Mm?”

Ravens turned to look at him blankly, as though he didn’t understand what he meant.

There were very few contraceptive medications for Male Zergs, and even fewer Male Zergs ever used such medication.

For a moment, he didn’t connect the two.

The two Zergs stared at each other in silence for a while.

Shamir realized he hadn’t understood and found that unbelievable, but still gestured awkwardly as he explained,

“You know... the kind of medicine that keeps you from getting a Zerg egg.”

Ravens’s eyes slowly widened.

The instant he understood, he abruptly straightened up and sat upright, staring in astonishment at Shamir in his arms.

Shamir had originally been lying on top of him while talking.

When Ravens suddenly sat up, Shamir’s face slammed directly into his chest, nearly knocking his teeth.

For a moment, Shamir didn’t even know whether he should protect his aching nose or the teeth he had almost smashed.

He was still hissing in pain when Ravens suddenly grabbed his arms and demanded sharply,

“You took medicine!?”

Those dark red eyes fixed on him were filled with horror, as if Shamir had done something terrifying.

Shamir thought in confusion that he had only taken medicine to prevent a Female Zerg from becoming pregnant with an egg.

It wasn’t as though he had swallowed some deadly poison that would kill him on the spot.

He slowly nodded and explained,

“Since it was a contract, we obviously needed protective measures. You didn’t look like you wanted hatchlings back then either, and our relationship at the time really wasn’t suitable for having one...”

“Is this even about protective measures!?” Ravens could not believe Shamir had thought that way.

Fine.

At the beginning, he really hadn’t considered hatchlings.

Given their rank difference, the chance of producing one had originally been very small.

At first, when he refused to let Shamir leave his pheromones inside, it was simply because pheromones weren’t necessary for the treatment and because Ravens wanted to reduce the possibility of being influenced by the Male Zerg.

Later, he did accept Shamir leaving his pheromones inside.

He liked the feeling of being completely filled by him...

But no matter what, even if they didn’t want an egg, Shamir should never have been the one taking medicine!

“Even if we wanted to prevent pregnancy, I should have been the one taking medicine. What kind of logic is there in making the Male Zerg take it!?”

Ravens glared at him, his gaze filled with both heartache and irritation, thoroughly disapproving of what he had done.

Shamir looked at him helplessly.

Just listen to what Ravens was saying.

This was completely unreasonable favoritism toward him.

“You were my financial backer. There’s no logic in making the financial backer take medicine either,” Shamir said.

Actually, there was another option.

Using a raincoat.

But those things were also extremely difficult to buy.

And in mainstream Zerg society, they were regarded as a punishment inflicted by Male Zergs upon Female Zergs, one of the methods used to torment Female Zergs.

They were even considered more severe than things like whips and knives.

As a contracted lover, Shamir really wasn’t in any position to say that he wanted to use something like that during sex with his financial backer.

How he could possibly explain it to Ravens would also have been a major problem.

After thinking it over, it had simply been easier and more convenient to go directly to the underground black market, buy some Zerg-egg-bye-bye medicine smuggled in from Tianjia, and use it himself.

Unfortunately, Ravens clearly couldn’t accept his reasoning.

He couldn’t believe Shamir had been taking medicine purchased through who-knew-what unregulated channel all this time.

What if it had harmed his body!?

He insisted on taking Shamir to the hospital for an examination.

Being dragged to a hospital in the middle of the night to check whether contraceptives had damaged his body was way too embarrassing.

But Ravens was worried about him, and Shamir couldn’t do anything about that.

To reassure him, he could only go along.

“The medicine I took was legitimate...” Shamir still tried to weakly defend himself.

Legitimate Tianjia medicine.

It was all designed for males, with great care taken over dosage and effectiveness. It would be fully metabolized within a single day and had no lasting side effects.

Ravens refused to relax until he personally saw the examination results.

And so Shamir went to the hospital with him in the middle of the night.

They didn’t tell anyone in the family and slipped away secretly.

The examination was also an extremely detailed full-body checkup, covering every possible aspect.

To reassure Ravens, Shamir even added a premarital examination, with particular focus on reproductive function.

The results were excellent.

His body was healthy.

His pheromone levels were very high.

His reproductive cells were extremely active.

In summary, he was very well suited for getting married and making eggs.

Ravens went through the examination report item by item, reading everything extremely carefully.

Only after confirming that Shamir was perfectly healthy and that the medicine had caused absolutely no damage did he finally relax.

Shamir looked at that premarital examination report with complicated feelings.

At this point, it seemed like they had no choice but to get married.

Otherwise, wouldn’t this examination have been for nothing?

He grabbed Ravens and immediately tried to drag him off to register their marriage.

“Marriage” had originally not been part of Shamir’s short-term plans.

In his expectations, he and Ravens were supposed to date for a few years first, then consider marriage afterward.

But now this Premarital Examination Report reminded him of it and made him change his mind.

He had already come to the hospital with Ravens in the middle of the night for an examination.

So Ravens had to go register their marriage with him too.

That was only fair!

Leaving aside just how shocked Ravens was when he learned they were going to register their marriage, Shamir at least felt that seeing Ravens’s stunned expression allowed him to get a little revenge and restore some balance in his heart.

Nice~

(End)]

[I’m the one who feels unbalanced now! (wailing)]

[Not nice! Not nice!]

[Rotten Hands of Rejuvenation! Quack doctor!]

[Originally, Ravens probably wouldn’t have gotten married for at least another ten years! One little interruption like this made Shamir consider marriage early! What kind of luck does Ravens have!?]

[It’s all Tianjia contraceptives’ fault! What kind of nonsense are they smuggling in here?! Tianjia’s desire to destroy our Zerg race has never died! Their own fertility rate dropped, so now they’re using medicine to harm our Male Zergs! They want to reduce the number of Zerg eggs born among us!]

[??? (Tianjia question-mark face) Are you people seriously ill or something!?]

[Fine! Then we’ll sell every contraceptive we have to your Zerg race! We’ll secretly ship all of it in! We’ll make your Male Zergs eat it like food!]

[Devious!]

[Way too evil! Your conspiracy is exposed now, isn’t it!?]

[Investigate thoroughly! @Spaceport investigate thoroughly! Illegal smuggling must be cracked down on severely!]

[Holy shit! Tonight’s news actually reported an illegal Tianjia smuggling case! There were Male Zerg contraceptives among the goods! Tianjia is really doing it!]

The evening news had indeed just reported the seizure of an illegal smuggling shipment from Tianjia.

Originally, it wasn’t anything especially important.

The contraceptives were even among the more inconspicuous small goods involved.

They had only received special mention because they were medication related to Male Zergs.

But now things were different.

As soon as the new chapter came out, countless Zergs began paying attention.

Something that had originally been insignificant suddenly became a major issue.

Most Tianjia had no idea such a smuggling case had even happened.

When they found out it really existed, they were speechless.

But under the Zerg netizens’ collective outrage, the Tianjia’s naturally warlike blood was also stirred up.

Shouting things like “This is for contraceptive freedom!” and “Contraceptives that Male Zergs can use too!”, they launched an online charge.

It didn’t matter whether they had known about the incident before.

The Tianjia had their own arguments.

Among so many interstellar nations, only Zergs couldn’t freely decide whether they wanted to become pregnant with an egg or give birth to one.

Even Tianjia had medicine for both males and females.

But the Zerg race had almost none!

If sex resulted in an egg, then regardless of whether the timing was appropriate or whether they actually wanted it, Female Zergs could only choose to give birth.

Was that reasonable?

Of course it wasn’t!

The Zerg race, already suffering from a low birth rate and heavily valuing reproduction and offspring, was furious.

They tore into the Tianjia all over StarNet.

This was also perfectly normal for the two species.

Neither side had launched an actual offline war.

They were merely tearing each other apart on StarNet.

What a peaceful and friendly method of communication.

...

Ulysses paid no attention to the uproar on StarNet.

There were naturally professional Zergs responsible for dealing with matters like that.

He stared at the newly refreshed test report on the light screen.

At the perfect moment, an intelligent electronic voice sounded, like music from the heavens.

“Congratulations. You are pregnant.”

An Ruo, who had just finished posting an update and was about to go take a shower, turned around at the sound, his face filled with shock.

What had he just heard?

Pregnant?

Who was pregnant?

Ulysses is pregnant!??