Author Update; 

So... the guy programming my website ran into problems. Its not even close to being done. I'm trying to see if the guy can even finish. Turns out not everyone on fiver is a professional. I do like the guy but if he can't finish then I can't use the site. So that's something stressful right now. 

But I have some other things I'm working on. 

I'm going to have another book release soon. I'm trying to decide which one though, as I have a couple that are actually close to being ready. I hope to announce which one next week, after having a few days to go over it. 

I still plan on having another free story up on my website if it can get done, and already getting that ready. Plus, I believe I've learned a lot and much better in my progress as a writer on current and newer stories compared to when Kidnapped to Another World was written. 

Thank you very much for your support. 

 

 

 

Chapter 179

 

Is this the prisoner ending in some RPG games?

Its not as glorious as that one game makes it sound.

All kinds of pieces of garbage and refuse are being thrown at us while we’re being paraded through the streets. We’re all locked in cages like mob trophies. The dwarves get a kick out of throwing trash at prisoners I guess. And a lot of the soldiers are there to not only watch us but also to keep the mob from swarming our wagon cage cells.

Sometimes the pieces of garbage can hurt also because when they throw them they are strong.

It seems that they’ve had this vampire problem for awhile but it was all kept secret and couldn’t admit it, so now they want to take advantage of the chance to gloat. And the vampire problem being kept secret may be why the crowd is all riled up now; they want revenge. We can hear the harsh sounds of the booing crowd go on endlessly while they make the carts we’re in go extra slow to show off.

“Wow, I had no idea they had a vampire problem,” I noted mostly to myself.

Mallory is quiet and tight lipped right now. So while she sounded like she was loyal before I’m not sure what she’s really thinking or if that was only conditional loyalty while I was on top. Come to think of it, there’s nothing actually making her part of my team yet, so I don’t know if any of that is fake or verifiable.

Sylvie next to me is quiet.

I can’t believe this? How did it become like this?! We’re innocent! I’ve been fighting evil all this time! How could it become so bad, so fast?

And the worst part of this is they want us to kill each other so they have us all in the same cage that is something like a metal box on wagon wheels pulled by a slow moving golem and escorted by dwarven city guards with me and Sylvie thrown in the back with Mallory. I think they know putting a bunch of vampires in tight spaces next to non-vampires full of blood isn’t a safe idea. In one of the other carts two vampires are already fighting and biting each other like crazy to fight over space while drawing blood from blows that keep escalating. The crowd jeered and laughed as the two vamps in that cart keep maiming each other with no end.

I had no idea the two vamps in that one cart had, even start fighting each other that fast, and its almost like two sharks fighting over a small tuna. They’d also encouraged it by making them fight over bits of food, after wounding them both.

This whole time tons of garbage has bounced off my jacket.

They’d laughed about it before throwing us in here with Mallory, hoping for the same thing and are jeering her on. Ahead of us to make sure nobody tries anything stupid that same war twin that has arrested us is waving to the crowd like he’s in a parade with a smug look on his face.

And the beautiful but short seductress loli faced big boobed Mallory looks hungry while she’s staring at me with red rimmed eyes. That makes me nervous. I remembered what I’d seen of her friends eating their brethren and I don’t want that to happen to me. I’m pretty sure she’s stronger than I am too.

Sylvie is standing guard over me like a guard dog, and looking like she’ll make a vampire look like a kitten but that doesn’t change the fact that we have no idea how Mallory will react. And Sylvie has a disadvantage because she’s so large in a small cage making it hard for her to even not bang her elbows on the cage walls.

Will Mallory try to test my combat skills? Or what if she decides that she wants to be the ‘Prince’ and take my spot. In an evil organization theoretically any one of those 12 or 13 spots of daemon princes could be supplanted by a challenger from below. It’s very possible the daemon realm would have a system like that where the Prince system is determined by combat, not by blood inheritance. The blood inheritance might even be able to be stolen! Sylvie has been blocking out everything except watching Mallory.

And I have no idea of what Mallory’s values are either, except for blood since that’s what vampires eat. And since she’s a vampire, I doubt she has any values.

I’m still trying to accept that vampires are real actually. But when the vampires were killing each other earlier they did bite each other a lot and those teeth look pretty harsh with two canine teeth on either side, not just one. And sometimes they’d try to drink from each others blood, let alone others. They resemble wild dogs that are hyperactive. There’s nothing romantic or sexy about watching vampires eat. It’s gross and disgusting and shows they aren’t even normal.

Mallory couldn’t stop them. And even if she had tried it would have just made the dwarves torment her to death instead.

For now we’re just trying to not be knocked to the ground by the unrest of the crowd while moving through the streets.

Mallory in contrast is glaring at everything and everyone and started to look disoriented; maybe vampires are psychologically messed with a lot when there’s huge crowds like that in a small space. She doesn’t attack us though but I can’t discount that it might happen. Like what if the guards decide not to feed her and use her to cut down on the number of prisoners in whatever place we’re going? But she still hasn’t relaxed and is watching us too closely too.

She hisses at anyone that throws trash at her outside the cage, even trying to jump at them hitting the metal bars of the cage which scares them and because of that more people throw trash at her than me. When she strikes the bars of the cage she’s nimble enough that she doesn’t just bounce off but in the blink of an eye is hanging from the bars while trying to slash at people. Then the city guard dwarves escorting us end up beating her off until she lets go with long pole arm weapons.

If it weren’t for the thrown trash this might be an interesting way to sit in Sylvie’s lap.

Because Sylvie is like a huge rail thin beanpole that I can basically use her legs for chair arms with her arms and legs protectively around me almost like I’m using her for an armchair as I sit in her lap absorbing the soft warmth and feel of her safety and soft alluring flesh. When a girl is like eight and a half or nine feet tall and you get to sit on her lap it’s very cool and stylish too under normal conditions. Think of it like sitting on a living throne that’s hot and sexy. She also likes to snuggle and it feels peaceful except for the tumult around us as she protects me. Sylvie has a way of sort doing a fox version of purring with me sitting on her too because of the soul link we have; at least that’s my hypothesis. Plus it’s hot that she’s in a micro mini skirt with one of our school uniform shirts tied around her ribs daisy duke style. So her legs feel warm under me in a sort of protective and sitting pose. And I can use her arms to wrap around me for warmth if I need too because she’s so tall.

This strategy I’d started to also shield myself from the crowd throwing stuff at us. Plus, Sylvie’s larger build and long tall skeleton keep her more able to weather it without harm than me.

Sylvie’s eyes radiate fierceness in their bright color as she keeps an eye on Mallory.

We worry that Mallory will lose her cool and attack us at any second. I have no idea how she’s able to weather our current predicament though. She’s tuned out the thrown garbage around us.

The other fighting going in between inmates in the other metal wagon cages with wheels behind us is still going on even after we paraded through the streets for at least an hour of hell. Some of them are looking at us, leering at me and Sylvie making me thankful I had the luck of being in a cage with Mallory instead of them. You would think such an ordeal might galvanize their resistance to the dwarves but they haven’t caught on yet; some are squabbling and fighting with each other in their cages.

It keeps going on while Sylvie is psychologically shielding me from the shame and impacts of thrown garbage. Somehow another two hours pass, now we’ve been paraded through the streets to collect garbage in our hair.

When this guy arrested us too he didn’t have me exit the dream state the normal way either, so I had to de-summon Sunghee and the others because I’m the one holding the money and she could get separated from me easily if I didn’t. I plan to de-summon Sylvie when it’s safe too. I can’t let them lock her up, even if it causes me difficulties.

And in a world like this if you get separated from your people you might never find them. There’s no telephones, or radios to call them. And you might miss each other in slow laborious traffic with no modern vehicles. The dwarves are suspicious of how our other allies have escaped no doubt but I’ve been tight lipped about that, not answering them. As long as my magic isn’t active they shouldn’t be able to trace that.

The dwarven townspeople are mad as hell. That angry if focused on me especially, listening to the one war twins accusations of our betrayal. Without the shielding of Sylvie around me a lot more stuff would be hitting me including some rocks. And the dwarves have done something to the cage to make it so I’m having trouble casting magic in this thing. That’s my biggest concern.

I have no idea what the war twin mage said but we’re basically seemingly being displayed as proof of being traitors against the dwarven people or something like that, is what I suspect. Every time those guys talk and point at us the towns folk get madder than and madder with everything continuing to escalate; only the fact that there’s dangerous vampires is keeping the crowd from tearing us up and the wagon cages also. The dwarven officials have their work cut out though. They are both trying to restrain people from mobbing us and at the same time keeping them riled up enough that they make sure to get a guilty verdict from popular opinion being that we’ve done something. Some of the guards are noticeably scared now, I realized, seeing that they can’t control this well if we stay out on the streets.

And we can’t hear anything or understand it anymore because the city guard people ripped up the disposable dwarven language enchant item I had.

This is awful.

If only we hadn’t ran into Mallory.

Wait a minute. Mallory must have a language enchant of some kind. We might still be able to communicate with her. After all, she’d communicated with us just fine before. I guess I can’t lose anything by talking to her can I? Maybe I can learn something. I’m trying to not blame her too, and antagonizing a vampire seems like a stupid thing to do.

So I attempted to make contact, to gather small time information.

“Why are they making a big show of this?” I asked Mallory.

She shrugged, “I didn’t know that guy was that powerful. Sorry bossss.”

She’s calling me boss? What? Is it a trick?

Since she’s a vampire I have to be a bit suspicious for self preservation at first. She’s not fully under my control. I’m sure of that; and there’s no protection from slave collar enchants or the soul prison crystal enchants either. In fact why does she even seem to act like she is under my thumb? It could be a trick. But I don’t want to spoil anything either.

What does it mean?

Does this mean being some kind of dark prince means I’ll acquire other minions also?

I should try to be diplomatic. The next few things I say to her could mean the difference of having an ally and not having one.

But that means a temporary ally doesn’t it?

“Eh…it’s not your fault really. We didn’t know he was going to be there or act like that or be unstoppably powerful either,” I said finally.

Surprisingly Mallory is being nice to us.

“For being a human I guess you aren’t pure trash after all. You’re a bit polite and have good mannersss. Although you don’t sssmell completely human and that hasss me curioussss,” Mallory said. She seems to regard us coolly as if she’s trying to figure out whether she’ll kill and eat us or help us.

I wonder which it will be.

Even if she called me boss earlier, her actions say to not trust her.

Ah, she doesn’t like humans too? It’s like Fox and Doppel-chan huh? Why can’t I run into normal girls? It’s always something weird or crazy lately huh?

And the dwarves don’t like it that Mallory seems to be looking up to me; they’ve watched for that and seen it somehow with their shrewd perception skills. That then further intensified their scrutiny of me though they aren’t asking me anything right now. They had hoped her and us would kill each other. And they can’t figure out why our cage isn’t turning on itself like the other vampires are already. I’m sure they think if we’re too friendly that we’ll plan an escape or something. They rattle the cages when they catch us talking to each other so we had to whisper and look like we’re not talking.

Wait a minute…is there some kind of anarchy enchant that promotes in fighting on these cages, I suddenly wondered. That could be the case. Ironically the pheromones may be protecting me from that and countering that but there’s no guarantee that it will continue to do so.

After a little bit of sniffing Sylvie identified the enchant glyphs in the cage of what we think is the anarchy glyphs. Then we revealed it to Mallory, who also is surprised.

“So that’s it. I was surprised the other vamps turned on each other so fast,” she noted.

“I wonder if it’s the stress that makes the other vampires turn on each other too? It shouldn’t have boiled over this fast right?” Sylvie nodded at the other cages.

“Could be. They are weak willed mostly because they are young. It takesss them time to master themselvesss as they figure out the anguish of living with your sinssss,” Mallory shrugged it off.

“So they’ll probably have some kind of trial huh?” Sylvie guessed aloud.

“Probably yes, and we’ll deserve what they have coming to us. It will likely be some elaborate wealth building execution scheme, which is what dwarves like to do. You acquire a lot of sins as a vampire,” Mallory sounded a bit sad somehow.

“Yeah pretty much that sounds like what a society heavy on laws would do,” I said.

“What kind of scheme?” Sylvie asked guardedly.

“Then they’ll execute ussss one by one for sport. They may have heard us when I called you a prince, sorry. Dwarvessss like to come up with ssssome fancy way to do it that will give them more money though, as I ssssaid before. They’ve captured ssssome of ussss in the past so it’ll probably be to the death arena fightsss,” Mallory said.

“Eh? Really?” Sylvie said.

“That doesn’t sound good,” I said.

“Nope it’s not bosssss,” Mallory said while looking into my eyes. She’s acting a bit obsessive while staring at me now and that makes me uncomfortable. I avoid her gaze.

“Ah that sucks. I don’t really care for being executed,” I said.

“Naturally neither do I,” Mallory said.

“They’ll probably execute you last bossss. Since you are more special and look lesssss dangerousss,” Mallory said to me.

“I don’t get it. Why does she think you are boss again?” Sylvie’s eyes narrowed.

But when we pried at it, Mallory wouldn’t talk anymore or give her reasons.

I’ve had to give up on the garbage in my hair. Every time I pull some out, then two more shots from angry dwarven townspeople hit us. And because dwarves believe in skills and work they don’t miss as much as you’d think when hazing would be criminals.

“Ah I see the courthouse ahead,” Mallory said.

The dwarves keep shouting all kinds of weird profanity at us. At some point the city guard had to even protect us from mobbing. Then people tried to knock the golem pulling the cart around so that they could try to force the cart to stop and surround it.

This looks dangerous.

“Oh sounds like you guyssss are famoussss,” Mallory said.

“Yeah you’d think they would be more grateful,” I said.

Sylvie also wholeheartedly agreed with me.

So it seems that Mallory is good with dwarvish? She doesn’t seem to bother to confirm it. But she speaks and understands them quite easily.

“Is that so?” I said.

“We’re not that famous. We’ve actually done pretty well,” Sylvie said.

“Hmm, and that’ssss coming from a feral foxkin huh? Thisss isss weirder by the minute,” Mallory countered.

Sylvie’s face turned into an unpleasant look. She doesn’t like what Mallory said. What does that mean? Is there something Sylvie hasn’t told me?

“What’s that mean? A feral foxkin?” I asked her.

Sylvie wouldn’t answer. She won’t look me in the eye. Mallory has caught on that Sylvie doesn’t want to explain it either, so she’s shut up about it.

It’s something bad huh? Or something different; and all this time I thought I’d had Sylvie finally figured out. Now I can see I have a long way to go to figure her out.

“Um, sssso? Ssshe hasn’t told you? That’sss interessting,” Mallory chuckled.

“Sh-shut up! It doesn’t matter! We’re connected!” Sylvie objected.

Mallory stared at her. “What? With him? How?”

She stared back.

But Mallory shrugged and didn’t want to push it any further. She looked away and is watching the dwarves again.

“So what are they saying outside?” I asked again.

“Yeah, they keep saying something like kill the traitor? Oh and there’s some mention of betraying Sssvinn’ssss trust, who’s sssome kind of other hero type? Does that ssssound right? My dwarven kind of suckssss sssince I haven’t been in this city long and thisss dialect ssslightly deviatesss from their normal common dialect,” Mallory sounds so casual about this. I think she’s just saying that to be polite and underscore herself to look less of a threat.

So I asked her about it.

“That sounds close to it. You know Svinn right?” Sylvie asked me.

I nodded.

“Oh that? Well I’m usssed to fighting for my life and thisss issn’t any different. They will ssstake me out and use sssunlight to kill me. But this town I guess they have what three armies of goblin types outside sssieging them? So that’s why they are so freaking mad and want to hurt usss,” she explained as we saw the city guard barely keeping the crowds back that want to kill us.

“I can’t believe this. We just saved a lot of them several times and they changed their opinion so fast,” I exclaimed.

“It can’t be helped bosssss. Ssssorry about that,” Mallory said.

Weird.

So how far does this go? How far will she still think I’m her boss? It must be from the daemon prince thing. How long can we last imprisoned together? Maybe I should play along until I can make sure which. I’ll have to be careful though. She seems to be suffering from an almost drunken like effect that the anarchy enchant on the cage is feeding to her as well.

And wouldn’t that be more trouble than anything else if she’s a vampire?

“So Mallory I don’t understand why the vampires were fighting when first met. May I ask you about that please,” I said politely.

She nodded, “Ah, that. Well bosssss, I can give you a ssshort answer. Well there were two covenssss basically. My coven, of which I’m the leader and the other coven wassss led by that Julesss guy. Well I was the leader anyway. But now that it’s come to thissss I don’t know if any of us will come out of it alive. He’sss the one, you know, that you sssaw me rip hisss heart out in front of you?” she said it casually like she was describing clipping lawn grass or gardening.

“He had it coming though. He split hissss coven from ours and stole a bunch of good people over to hissss side…freaking traitor bitchesss…” she mumbled the last part.

Weird girl…

“Well any way we’d been fighting with them for yearssss over the territory of the dwarven city sssee? We both like it because there’sss no ssssun here ever, since it’s underground. Although the downside is that dwarven blood tastesss trassshy in a way compared to human blood, because they have a high mineral content in their blood. Oh where was I? Anyway, I’d wanted to take that guy out. Then we hear he’sss on the job to help a big bosssss goblin ssshaman take out a demon prince or demon prince candidate, that’ssss you. We were thinking if we intercept that in the middle we can get rid of Jules, who is a total assssshole by the way. Nobody in hisss coven is happy either. He won’t let them drink the blood of children, and he outlawed elf mutilating, which are our favorite sportsss. What a freak right? Who the fuck doesss ssshit like that to messss with our minds? Damn I hate him. When I get my hands on him…I’ll…” she drones off on some complaints about this Jules guy that make him sound like an actually decent person. And in doing so she sounds even more sadist than I thought she was before.

OK, so Mallory needs some massive rehabilitation it seems. I guess it’ll be similar to Doppel-chan?

“So you are calling Shun boss because of the daemon prince candidacy thing?” Sylvie whispered to her.

“Yeah pretty much. But don’t worry not everyone knows yet just me and a few really powerful typesss might figure it out, but when they do expect them to try to take it from you. I don’t know how that goblin sssshaman knew about it, but he only told Julessss, because hisss own people would want to steal it from him sssee. But from my end I can get a good life if I become like your henchman right? All daemon princessss need tough henchmen you know, sssso thiss iss like a good chance to raissse my own ssstandard of living, maybe when you get a casssstle you’ll let me have a tight sssspot ya?” Mallory raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Maybe…but we have to know you can be trusted and follow orders,” Sylvie said before I could say no.

What is Sylvie doing…I can’t have a vampire henchmen…they eat people for cripes sakes! Just because Mallory has a nice Loli face and slender body with …stop thinking about her bib boobs, I told myself interrupting my previous thought.

“Don’t worry I’ll figure it out,” Sylvie said.

“Anyway I don’t have anywhere to go sssince my coven and the other one are about to have all their survivorsss dessstroyed…boss…so let me in with you,OK?” Mallory said. she gives us a sweet and innocent smile while also leaning over so her cleavage is trying to entice me.

The eyes she’s making at me didn’t help either.

I have to remember she’s a predator, not an innocent. Although she possibly could become a strong minion?

Not fair…

If Mallory is like this and she thinks I’m her boss…this is like worse than having her for an enemy. If she thinks I’m supposed to take care of her and she’s into elf mutilation and child blood then this is scary as fudge. I mean what happens if she brings home slaughtered children’s bodies or body parts? Life isn’t all cute like it is in the movies.

Now I’ve got a headache.

Technically Mallory is hot but…when you hear that she likes ‘elf bowling’ and drinking children’s blood I’m not sure what to do with her. Elf bowling for vampires involves real elves and their body parts. Plus they consider elves to be a delicacy, according to Sylvie. But they seem to consider the bones to be distasteful and bad manners for some reason.

“Any way Juless iss sssuch a tight asssss. We kind of rebelled you know? And then he formed his own break away group coven. Plus Jules was trying to teach ssssome come back into the light crap. What a ssssham right? And it’sss hypocritical coming from him when he kills more people than we do. Wassss he just ssssaying that to make ussss weak or something? Or maybe a recruiting ssscheme? I don’t get it. I don’t know where he comessss up with scamssss like that but it pisssssed me off too much. But the problem issss he’ssss like way more powerful than two of me put together. Sssso we had to catch him off guard when he’ssss like already fighting ssssomeone elssse nearly assss powerful ass we are,” she drawled on.

Crap…I just realized that I got the bad vampire not the good one. I should have gone with the one that wanted back into the light but she’s not that one it seems. But that might need to be verified too. I mean technically the Jules guy was the one that collaborated with that boss goblin shaman too, so now my head is swimming trying to figure out how that happened.

I’m keeping my emotions hidden while I try not to react emotionally in front of her.

“And that’s when we came in,” Sylvie said.

She chuckled, “yeah pretty much.”

Great. So we accidentally helped her off someone that was good. Or wait…I still don’t get it. If that guy was a killer too, how can he be good? I don’t like this at all.

That’s …awful.

I’m going to punish her big time. Like way worse than Rina punishment spanking. I am probably going to have to do massive psychological conditioning on Mallory if I want to use her. So I’ll have to spank the evil out of her literally.

And do I solve the imprisonment thing first or the Mallory problem first?

The dwarves then fed us through some kind of prisoner processing which involved paperwork of some kind and a whole ton of making sure we have like double shackles on our arms and legs each. They probably don’t normally need the double shackles but because it’s vampires that’s part of it. And Sylvie got extras, except they had to use larger shackles for her and they almost peed themselves trying to get them on both her and Mallory, which amused Mallory some.

We’re trying to buy time while going through it. Though Sylvie doesn’t care because she says I can just de-summon and summon her.

As we go through processing we can see the other vampires before us given paperwork and jail clothes and stuff like that.

“Fudge. We’re actually going to prison?” I exclaimed.

“Oh we’ll be lucky if itssss like that. More like right now they’ll sssend us to a court and we’ll be ordered to be executed like I pointed out earlier or die in an arena, dwarves love that, plus they give the proceedssss to re-equip poor military orphans or military groups like it’s some charity thing but that might be a ssscam too. You weren’t lissstening well earlier bossss,” Mallory said.

“I can’t help it. I’m in denial. I was supposed to be like one of their favored people and didn’t think they’d turn on me so fast,” I said.

“Yeah dwarves suck,” Sylvie said.

Turns out she’s right. As we keep progressing through the lines we see them sending each vampire in front of a judge.

So I de-summoned Sylvie. That surprised the shit out of them and there are guards running all over the place looking for her, that are not sure what had happened since I’d done it when most of them were holding back the crowd . That bought some time too. But luckily they didn’t notice it was me that had de-summoned her. They thought she’d used some secret teleport item of some kind.

But I can feel the shackles that they just put on us are designed to block or hinder magic somehow. It’s almost impossible to hold mana for spells and like they make my skin very irritated and almost like a mild burning sensation. I can get through the spell but I can’t feed it very much mana and I’m afraid of even trying to test what would happen if I were to try to throw out a spell now, since the effects are pretty obvious. It’s like there’s a few drops of mana going through still but it’s like there’s a rock in the pipes or something. Then when I tested through the other things I could feel that there’s something blocking my ability to open up the demon inventory box.

And I can’t re-summon Sylvie right now for some reason. Probably that has to do with the mana siphon thing of the shackles too. It’s cut my ability to harness mana so much that it’s really slippery and I can feel the mana still there but I have trouble holding more than a small puddle in my palms if I were to describe how it feels.

Now I’m officially stressed out.

Mallory warned me to not spell cast. They’ll beat me if they catch me, plus she says there’s some kind of trap in the magic shackles they put on me. I hadn’t expected her to look out for me so that comment surprised me. And if they beat me then they’ll beat her to make sure she doesn’t sneak attack them from behind, or so she says.

Is she looking out for me or herself?

I don’t want them to execute her. Or me.

“Hey can you do that for me too? Wherever you hid her bossss?” Mallory asked hopefully. She accidentally is flashing her fangs.

Vampires are hot. This is kind of cool, except for her being an evil type that’s fascinated with mayhem and bloodshed. She does look like the stereotypical adult loli with big boobs though; being extremely pleasing on the eyes.

“Not unless you have an empty slave crystal to give me. I think you know the rest,” I said.

Mallory frowned. “Well that’s not cool. I ssssuppose itss just asss well ssssince ssssomeone hass to guard you. But we may have to be creative to get out of here,” she said.

“You sssshould have brought more ssslave crystals,” Mallory growled.

Actually I’d set up buying two more empty slave crystals right before all this happened. But I hadn’t had a chance to configure them to my mana and get their settings set; plus they are empty. They weren’t cheap either. But with the shackles on my hands I don’t think I can use them can i?

“You should have brought more minions,” I countered.

“Hmph,” she got all pouty.

“Well…yo-you sssshouldn’t have g-gotten captured yeah? Its not bossss like,” she hissed back.

“You know I’ll need you out here to guard me. If you want to collaborate and by my henchman then I need you to prove yourself,” I said.

“Oh…right. Ssso that meanssss I am your henchman huh? Yay!” she feigned a school girl squeal that seemed too real.

Two lawyer dwarves were arguing with the judge on who did what. But it’s obvious the defense guy is a rookie and he’s also really sleepy, while the prosecution dwarf is way over kill and riling up everyone in there to probably burn us at the stake. They purposely gave us the shitty lawyer it seems, and they probably do that to most the criminals going through their courts.

Are we going to die?

Or rot in prison for years on end?

Mallory isn’t giving me any crap for some reason. She’s kind of friendly but that worries me considering her sadist personality.

“Lookssss like we’re up,” she said.

“At least there’s no waiting,” I muttered.

For some reason they are trying her and me as part of my gang I think, or is it me as part of hers? I didn’t have anything to do with that starting that way but that’s how that war twin mage thought it was so we get pulled in as a group. Plus she and I are considered the ringleaders I suppose though I can’t understand what they are saying. They even included some of Mallory’s posse vampires that were in the brawl with us but because they feared having too many of them together a lot of them were done separately. The posse vampires are supposedly proof that we’re gang leaders, according to the lawyers.

We understood though when we heard the crowd of dwarves screaming death chants for execution. I’d heard dwarves chat words like that when they were doing sport of killing goblins before now.

Things aren’t looking good.

Mallory suddenly looked really happy.

“What are you so happy about?” I asked her.

She smiled, “oh thisss isss good. They are only executing some of my minionsss and not me yet. They can’t have too many of usss together from the ssssame gang in that prisssson for fear of a jailbreak, but they really want income from having ussss fight in the gladiator arena sssso we’re good for a little while. They think both of ussss will do really well assss an evil duo team to ssssell arena ssseatss for. We’ll even get promoted and advertisssed, me for my hotness and nice loli face and boobssss and you for being a heroic like epic traitor…this issss ssscrewed up,” she shook her head.

What? This is fucked up.

I don’t want to be anywhere near Mallory. It’s hurting my image to have her with me; I can’t help but feel the despair of having my image of being a goody two shoe destroyed.

“How is that good? That just means they want to execute is the most slow and painful way possible to suffer the most,” I said to her. I wish I could say I was being sarcastically joking but I wasn’t.

They will want ringleaders of evil to die horrifically.

It could be something like being thrown in an iron maiden. Or that one medieval execution where they chain horses to your arms and legs and have them all go in different directions. Or burning you alive at the stake is one of the most popular, but let’s also not forget beheading someone; the most typical classic quickie version. All were very popular methods of torture executions.

But just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse Svinn came and was arguing with the judge.

“Oh Svinn came?” I was hopeful he’d try to defend us.

I was wrong.

Mallory informed me then that he’s arguing against us in the worst possible way, crashing my small sliver of hope.

“Huh? Ssssoundsss like your friend issss the most asssshole of all. He wantsss you dead way more than the other dwarvessss. Oh and he wants your women assss hissss sssslavessss too. In particular he’s assssking about ssssomeone named Rina being turned over to hisss care but nobody knowsss where sssshe isss,” Mallory stated calmly like it was nothing.

What?!

What a betrayer! The nerve of him, when I’d helped him the whole way and even helped his ‘hero’ image!

Fuck him. I should rip him a new necktie out of his intestines.

De-summoning Sylvie was the right thing to do. He would probably try to keep him and any other girls I had as play things. Then Mallory confirmed my worst fears. Svinn was really looking for the lolliest of the girls, but he doesn’t seem to like Mallory because Svinn likes flat chested girls that look under-age. And Mallory is a bit short and only looks underage in the face, but not in the hips and her legs. So in effect, Mallory only looks like a big boobed loli; but she’s actually a fake loli since she’s actually older than you think with her cultivated teenager look being for being a blood predator.

But somehow there’s an unexpected gain for now.

That bitch witch turning Rina into a cat is protecting us from having her stolen by Svinn and the dwarven government! Inwardly this has me partly smiling, though I cleverly conceal it.

“Ssssoundsss like he’ssss a hero classsss too ssso I’d watch out for him in the future. Now that you’ve been outed as a daemon prince thingssss don’t look good for your future in the human and demi-human realms bossss,” Mallory said.

“But he’s not asking to duel me or fight me right?” I asked her in follow up. I mean if he’s a dwarven hero that would be the logical next worry.

“Nope, he probably would have though, if I’m guesssssing hissss personality right but he’sss sssstill totally freaking obsesssssed over getting the government to grant him Rina as a concubine sssslave. And he’sss ssso riled up he can’t let it go,” Mallory concluded.

We continued to hear all sorts of debate. It wore on for a couple of hours of trial, debate, and sorting us out.

“So why aren’t they selling us as slaves? Not that I’m complaining but it seems like you are pretty and hot. Someone would definitely try to get you as a sex slave. I’m not that good looking and male so…” I questioned.

Mallory frowned. “Well…actually they were going to do that and somehow there’ssss an enchant blocking you from becoming a sssslave that they were talking about for ssssome time. They ssstill don’t know why that isss. I think that’ssssss because you’re like a daemon prince but they haven’t figured that out. Be glad they don’t know. Daemon princessss can’t be made sssslavessss and it’s lucky they are totally ignorant of the divine magic code or they’d realize that. Sssso they’ll still have ussss fight. And I think it would have worked for them to ssssell me as a sssslave but when I accepted you assss my bossss then your demon prince authority blocked them turning me into a ssssex sssslave too for me too. But that means I’ll be stuck with you in allegiance until I kill you and take your sssspot or ssssomeone elsssse does. I will probably try to kill you to take your prince authority eventually though boss, jusssst so we don’t have any missssunderstandings. I despise betrayal and dissshonesty ya’ know so I’m tellin’ ya’ up front ya?” she smiled.

This is so twisted.

But even as she said that, right after Mallory said something about allegiance there was a blue screen popup; but I can’t tell what it says since I don’t have Sylvie or Sunghee with me, nor do I have an active language enchant. Plus I had to hurry and close it in case the dwarven mages around us have some kind of espionage skills.

It’s weird that Mallory’s openly admitting she’ll challenge me eventually. And further with Akira and the other people I came to this world who ditched me they were more sneaky and hateful about it in comparison; while a killer vampire wants to be with me until she can try a takeover honorably…it’s like a completely bizarre set of circumstances.

“Mallory…”

“Yeah bosssss?”

“I like your honesty,” I said.

She blushed. “Ahh thankssss. You are ssso wonderful bosss.” She blushed.

The trial continues while we can do nothing. They even summoned people from the inns and other witnesses which they took legal testimony from. Even the adventurer’s that we’d saved at the sacking of that inn with assassins were called in as character witnesses against us which pisses me off. But that seems even weirder than weird. Then they brought in people that were part of gangs that had tried to kill us. How did a bunch of guys trying to kill us suddenly have clean public character records and references like they were good people? And when I asked Mallory what they were saying, she said those guys wanted us dead too.

What a bunch of betraying fuckers.

The icing of the cake was Akira who came in to also testify against us somehow. Suddenly I’m shocked to hear it from him. I knew we weren’t on good terms but this is even more amazing that he’d take a stand against me. While he’s giving testimony against us I can see the darkness and hate in his eyes fixated on me.

What the fudge? He betrayed us too?! It’s unbelievable!

“Oh that guy that testified against you, is pleading for the court to grant him your women in exchange for help ensuring evidence of your guilt too,” Mallory said while pointing at Akira.

…

The lowness of this world never creases to amaze me.

The only good thing was that Saiya the low level earth mage lesbian girl wasn’t with him, and that none of them could access my women or take them since they are protected by my summons system. But it’s also possible they may have some kind of enchant ping similar to how the geomancers track adventurers that could be used for finding my women.

So I can’t and won’t be able to summon them in dwarven territory even if I do break through the mana siphon thing of the prisoner shackles. They say trouble comes in heaps and piles and they aren’t wrong.

Gyle also was scowling and carrying on about something that doesn’t look good, though Mallory said he didn’t want us dead but just to be mine slaves for his family with a limited sentence where we could work ourselves free with good behavior. And she thought she heard him slip up about something like a money tree, but wasn’t sure she got the translation right.

Crap.

There’s no way she could have known that unless she was telling the truth.

Creepy little bitch isn’t he? Why he is doing this turncoat bull shit too, I wondered.

I decided today that I’m tired of dwarves. I’m going to leave the dwarven city if we get out of this.

Sentencing wasn’t fun. It took hours of being embarrassed and going through many paperwork lines and them asking if we were going to admit our guilt yet, which we didn’t. And I thought they’d split us up but they haven’t.

It actually would have been good if they had split us up. If I’m not with a vampire I look more innocent. But I guess I look innocent and because I have some clout with the dwarven military they wanted me to look more guilty and so they’ve purposely kept me and Mallory stuck together even though I barely know her. They think that helps cement the guilty verdict and its an easy gimmick for them to achieve that win. And when questioned Mallory even told them I’m her boss which caused an outburst of gasps in the crowd.

She probably could have had more tact on that, but she has very clear rules about betrayal of superiors and I couldn’t talk her out of it. Shit, that really screwed me. But Mallory looks unfazed and even happy to be acknowledged as my minion.

“Hey bosssss, now that it’ssss on paper its official like,” she winked at me after they sentenced us and showed it to us on paper.

Somehow I need to get free of this cage and escape. And it’s not going to be easy. I have to also do it before this vampire next to me gets hungry or notices I smell a bit too nice. I have no idea what will happen then.

A new horror presented itself too not too long after that.

When they eventually got us into the prison and tossed us in cells, the shackles are blocking my ability to enter the dream state, since that requires huge amounts of mana. That was another major setback that came as a crushing blow to me. I’d thought I might have some form of escape in the dream state but that is wrenched from my grap.

I fell asleep in one corner of the room while Mallory takes the other corner.

“Don’t try to do anything sssstupid, ya’? I can ssssleep with one eye open…ssssort of…unless you want me to cooperate ya, then make sssssure to include me,” she said.

This place is so dark.

I wonder what hell will bring tomorrow.

And hell I feel like mind numbingly hungry but it doesn’t seem safe to try to feed from a vampire girl. Chances are she’ll try to feed from me first and I don’t know if I’ll survive that.