Chapter 409: Breast Milk?!
The courtyard had transformed into something resembling a peaceful picnic, with centaurs sprawled across the grass, sipping from their cups and making sounds of deep satisfaction.
They were even clinking glasses, comparing notes about the incredible creaminess, and debating whether the sweetness was natural or enhanced with some secret ingredient.
It was, by all accounts, a delightful afternoon!
Which was precisely when Luca decided to ruin everything.
"I’m glad everyone is enjoying the milk." He said, his voice carrying that particular tone of someone about to deliver uncomfortable news. "But I should probably be completely honest with you all."
He shifted awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.
"The thing is...I wanted you to taste this milk because of how delicious it is. But if I told you the actual source it came from, you would probably be frightened. So I had to change things up a little bit."
"Oh please!" Riley waved dismissively, not even looking up from her cup. "Even if you told me this came from a pig, I wouldn’t care. It’s too delicious to worry about such things!"
"Here, here!" Another centaur raised her empty cup. "If rats produced milk like this, I would keep a dozen rats. I would name them. I would even knit them tiny sweaters and in return ask for their milk."
"I would milk a scorpion if its milk tasted like this!"
"I would milk a DRAGON!"
"I would milk a—what else is scary?—a SKELETON. Somehow."
Luca’s expression grew increasingly complicated.
"That’s, ah, very open-minded of you all. But it actually didn’t come from any animal at all."
The courtyard went quiet.
"And." He continued, his voice climbing toward a register that suggested he was hoping to speed past this part. "It didn’t come from my world either. It’s actually from your world. Right here. On this continent."
There was a moment of stunned silence—and then laughter erupted from the gathered centaurs.
"That’s even better!" Someone shouted. "Now you just have to tell us where you got it, and we can go get more ourselves!"
"Even if it’s on the other side of the continent, we’ll travel there!" another declared. "For milk this delicious, no distance is too great!"
"We’ll be the Milky Voyagers!"
"I call dibs on expedition leader."
"Wait, no, I want to be expedition leader!"
Luca held up both hands. "You don’t have to go far at all, actually. After all...it’s from the elf village."
The centaurs exchanged surprised looks.
"The elf village? I never expected that."
"I thought they only delivered fruits to us!"
"They’ve had delicious milk like this the entire time, and they never bothered to send us any? That’s not fair!"
"Those cheap elves!"
"I thought we had a trade agreement!"
But Luca was already shaking his head, his guilt apparently deepening.
"I apologize, but this milk is only something that’s recently been acquired from the elves. There’s only one single elf producing it at the moment, so you can’t blame them."
The words hung in the air.
Something about his phrasing made the entire courtyard go very, very quiet.
Sigrid was the first to catch on. Slowly, with a growing sense of dread, she turned her head toward Luca.
"Sir Luca." She said carefully. "What exactly do you mean by ’a single elf is producing this milk’?"
She looked down at her cup in horror.
"Where exactly did this milk come from?"
Luca smiled far too casually for someone who was about to detonate a social bomb in the middle of the centaur village and finally said,
"Oh! Well, it’s Leona’s breast milk, of course!"
The word "breasts" hit the courtyard like a thunderclap.
But Luca didn’t seem to see their their stun-locked faces and went on to enthusiastically say,
"You see, her heavy knockers have been particularly active recently! Women secrete a ton of milk during these stages, you know?"
"She squeezed out a fresh batch for me just this morning, but it was way too much for just one person, so I wanted her to share it with all of you!"
"So, yeah...what you’re drinking right now is her breast milk!"
Luca said, still beaming.
"Fresh from the source! How wonderful is that?!"
The world stopped.
Every single centaur in the courtyard froze in place.
Some had their cups halfway to their lips.
Others were mid-swallow, their throats working convulsively.
A few had been about to take another sip, their mouths open in anticipation.
Whatever they had been doing, they were now completely motionless.
Then—
PHFHHHT!
In one collective, explosive moment, every centaur in the courtyard spat out their milk simultaneously.
The spray was so forceful that it misted into the air like perfume, spreading the sweet fragrance far beyond the courtyard’s boundaries.
Birds in nearby trees startled and took flight. A passing butterfly was briefly knocked off course.
But no one cared about any of that.
Horror spread across their faces as they stared down at their cups, their minds struggling to process what they had just consumed.
"Breast milk?" Riley’s voice came out as a strangled whisper.
"You’re telling me...THIS IS BREAST MILK?"
"Y-You’re joking, right, Hero?" Another centaur stammered, her smile wavering with desperate hope.
"PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE JOKING. PLEASE."
"There’s no way." A third muttered, shaking her head frantically. "I refuse to believe it. There’s no way I just called breast milk the most delicious thing in the entire world. No, no, no—"
She appeared to be having a genuine panic attack.
But Luca simply shook his head, his expression apologetic.
"Unfortunately, it’s 100% true. You just drank Leona’s breast milk."
"NOOOOO! IT CAN’T BE!" A mare howled toward the heavens, beating her fists against her chest. "GODS, TELL ME IT ISN’T SO!
"I said it had a real motherly warmth! I WAS BEING POETIC! I DIDN’T MEAN IT LITERALLY!"
Centaur after centaur dissolved into panic, their earlier bliss transformed into horror.
One centaur was frantically scraping at her tongue with her fingers, crying.
"Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!"
But then she wailed in despair: "The milk is so creamy! I can still taste it in my mouth!"
Another had procured a water skin and was gargling desperately, spitting onto the grass in a futile attempt to cleanse her palate.
"The taste won’t go away! What am I supposed to do?!"
"How could this possibly be milk from an elf?" Someone demanded, staring at her cup in disbelief. "It’s so damn thick! If a baby were to drink it, the baby would absolutely choke!"
"How does it even come out of her nipples?!" Another shouted. "Her holes would need to be absolutely massive to accommodate such thick, creamy milk!"
"What kind of breast milk is the Queen of the Elf Village producing?!"
"AND WHY IS THERE SO MUCH?! ARE HER BREASTS REALLY THAT BIG?!"
The scene devolved into pure pandemonium.
The "divine nectar" they had all been praising moments ago had been revealed as something that came from a woman they knew, a woman they respected, a woman whose breasts they had apparently been drinking from.
And it made complete sense now why Luca had described his mysterious "cow" as having only two udders.
Leona definitely only had two. But who could have possibly imagined it would come from her?!
Meanwhile, the little ponies had collapsed into a pile of absolute hysteria.
"BOOBY MILK!" ONE of them shrieked, tears streaming down her cheeks. "THEY DRANK BOOBY MILK!"
"THE SAME THING BABIES DRINK!"
"THEY’RE BABIES! LOOK AT THEM! A WHOLE HERD OF BABIES!"
Nella was no longer standing. Standing was impossible.She had fallen onto her back and was kicking her tiny legs in the air, her laughter coming out in wheezes
"I’m going to tell EVERYONE." Nella gasped, pointing at her aunt with a trembling finger. "I’m going to tell the entire village! ’Big Sis Riley the mighty warrior, slayer of training dummies, drinker of booby milk!’"
"SHUT UP, YOU BRAT!" Riley roared, her ears smoking with humiliation.
Nella cheekily pointed to Riley’s upper lip. "You still have milk all over your lips. You should probably lick it off."
Riley’s tongue darted out instinctively to clean her lips—and then she caught herself, her entire body shuddering with revulsion.
"Damn it!" She muttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
Then she rounded on Luca with murder in her eyes.
"HEEERRRRRO!"
Luca stood there, the picture of innocence, as though he had absolutely nothing to do with the chaos unfolding around him. He even had the audacity to look slightly confused by her anger.
Riley stamped her hooves as she marched toward him.
"What the hell were you thinking?! Why would you feed us breast milk of all things?! Is this some kind of revenge for how we treated you yesterday?!"
She was practically vibrating with rage.
"If it is, then well played. You’ve proven that you’re even more devious than Mavis herself. Not only do you have overwhelming power, but you have cunningness as well!"
The other centaurs rallied behind her, their voices overlapping in righteous indignation.
"We’ve heard stories of malicious people who use dangerous tactics against their enemies, but this is the first time anyone has ever forced us to drink breast milk! "
"How could you do something so cruel?!"
"What kind of monster tricks people into drinking another woman’s bodily fluids?!"
Luca blinked, raising his hands in a placating gesture.
"Woah, woah! Calm down! It wasn’t a trick! Like I said earlier, I genuinely just wanted you to taste my wife’s breast milk!"
The mares gasped, their faces burning even hotter at his utter lack of shame.
"You see, the first time I tasted Leona’s milk, I was completely blown away." He pressed a hand to his heart. "It felt almost selfish, keeping such a divine secret to myself. That’s why I wanted to share it with the world."
"With YOU, specifically. As a welcoming gift."
"A WELCOMING GIFT?!"
"Of course." Luca nodded earnestly. "But I knew most of you would be averse to drinking breast milk."
"I WONDER WHY!"
"So I made a small adjustment to the truth. I said it came from a special breed of cow. And it worked perfectly! Every single one of you enjoyed it." His smile widened. "You can’t possibly deny that."
Riley exploded.
"God damn it, it doesn’t work like that!"
"That’s like telling us you fed us poison that happens to be delicious! Just because it’s the tastiest poison we’ve ever consumed doesn’t change the fact that it’s still poison!"
The other centaurs rallied behind her.
"Tell him, Riley!"
"You basically tricked us to drink another woman’s bodily fluids!"
"And you even called your own wife a cow! I’m telling her the next time I see her!"
"Lady Leona will be furious when she hears what you called her!"
Luca’s confident smile flickered. That last threat hit home—he had apparently not considered the possibility of his words reaching his wife’s ears.