“You reincarnated here as a cute girl to seduce men into slaying the Demon King for you! That’s hilarious! Oh, I am simply dying over here!”

Viela fell forward on the table into a drunken mess, her tight, bulging top nearly bursting at the sides with every laugh.

I had to facepalm with both hands. “It’s not that funny, and that’s definitely not what I said.”

The good news was that this was another incredibly busy night at The Age of Depravity, and my inebriated foxy companion laughing herself silly beside me didn’t draw the whole tavern’s attention among the cacophony of other rowdy drunks. Plus, the ‘head succubus on duty’ recognized me from two nights ago and offered to let us drink for free.

The bad news: I lost count of how many drinks Viela had downed by now—and the fox spirit wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

She finally collected herself after a minute, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Forgive me, you should have told me earlier~! I thought I’d already seen it all, but you are definitely a first!”

“I’m serious about this, you know!” I said. “A lot of stuff has happened, but I’ve come pretty far in just three days!”

Viela scooched right up to me and put an arm around my shoulder. “You can’t stop there—I need all the juicy details! So what’s it been like? You’ve got a sexy body like me; any boys or girls fall in love with you? Have you gotten to ‘know yourself’ down there yet?”

“Wh-Wh-What?! You can’t just ask something like that! And shouldn’t you be at least a little surprised at this?”

Viela burst out laughing again, her fox ears tickling my cheek as she leaned her head on my shoulder. “Oh Beryl, you have got to get to know me better! I’ve seen more results of transformation potions than you’d ever believe, and I’m something of a shapeshifter myself!” She composed herself, sitting back up and gazing into my eyes. “So, isn’t there something you want to ask me? I can help you with all kinds of things. It’s just like I said: you can tell big sis Viela anything.”

I gripped the handle of my second mug of ale even tighter before anxiously gulping it down. Or was that my third? I didn’t even know anymore.

“Well,” I began after a moment, “there was this one little thing I was kinda… wondering about. Just hypothetically of course, if you happened to be alone with another girl for a night and you both, um, really liked each other, what would you… how would you… Wait, no! We are not having this conversation right now!”

I thought she would go hysterical again for sure. But when I turned to look at her, Viela appeared lost in thought, a smile spreading across her face.

“So that’s what it is,” she hummed to herself, staring at me with a knowing gaze that made my hairs stand on end. Then she wrapped her arms around me with a shockingly gentle touch, pressing her warm body against mine. “Say Beryl, do you want to be a ‘shapeshifter’ like me?” she whispered in my ear. “You might be a pretty girl right now, but I only need one night to turn you into a woman.”

Oh God, I just knew this fox was going to be trouble!

“Seriously, this is not the time! There are even people staring at us now!”

She never got a chance to answer. All at once the whole room jumped at the sound of the front door slamming into the wall. Three figures stormed into the suddenly quiet tavern: at the back were two men wearing armor painted white and gold, each with a mace and shield rattling at their side. Leading the imposing procession was a proud-looking man with long golden hair that flowed down his back. He carried a tall, bright staff with a small orb resting atop it, and his body was fully covered by regal white robes that were trimmed with silver. At the center of those robes was some kind of spherical, embroidered insignia that looked suspiciously… priestlike.

The man’s piercing amber eyes took one sweeping glance around the room, a pang of unease striking me when his gaze came to rest on the two of us. He started toward us with a brisk pace, the two armored men following him in matching strides, their metal boots stomping on the floor as they went. The three only came to a stop when they were directly across the long table from me.

Fortunately, I was more than tipsy enough to keep my cool. “Can I help you?” I asked the one in front.

The robed man stiffened at the casual address. “You are speaking to Thaddeus Elron, preeminent archpriest of the Holy Order of the Church of Animus.”

Ugh. He looked like exactly the type of pompous prick who got off by giving that pretentious introduction to everyone he met.

I cleared my throat. “Can I help you, archpriest?”

The thin line of his lips twitched ever so slightly, but Elron continued anyway. “I have received reports of an unlicensed, unregistered fox spirit in the area.” He thrust a finger at Viela. “Is she yours?”

Unregistered? I groaned. “Trust me, man: nothing about her ‘registers,’ if you know what I mean.”

Viela erupted into more unreasonably loud laughter. “Oh, spare me! This one is too much!”

Elron was not amused. “If you had the means to perform a summoning, you should already know the regulations. Ignorance is no excuse regardless, but I will take care of the registration and allow you to pay the license fee at this time—should you be able to. Failing that, I will be… returning her.”

More bad news: this prick had ‘killjoy’ written all over his grumpy face. Would he really unsummon Viela like this in broad daylight? Well, it was definitely nighttime now, but that was beside the point!

“Alright then, how much is this license?” I asked, moderately confident with my modest sum of remaining gold.

“Two hundred gold,” he stated flatly.

“T-Two hundred?” I stammered. “That’s insane! Do you really expect people to carry around that kind of money?!”

He smirked. “No, I don’t.”

Oh I see what’s going on here, mister ‘archpriest!’ Yeah, real funny!

“Do you not see all the freaking demons around us?” I nearly shouted, gesturing with my arms at the room full of succubus barmaids. “What about the literal Demon King? I don’t suppose that big guy has his own giant license?”

Elron’s faced soured as though he just ate a whole lemon. “That one has an… agreement with us.” He had to strain to force out the word.

“Oh, yeah?” I replied with a raised eyebrow. “Well then, how would I get my own agreement with the Church?”

“You can start by providing mana to power all the reanimated horses in the city,” he stated flatly.

“And how exactly do you expect me to do that?”

He smirked. “I don’t.”

Okay, to hell with this arch-prick!

“Come on, Viela,” I whispered to her with my magical getaway plan in mind. “Let’s get out of here.”

When I reached for her hand and turned to look at the fox spirit, a chill ran down my spine at the way she was grinning at the three men across from us.

“Oh, my,” she began in a sultry voice. “You handsome boys look really stressed out. Don’t you know that’s no good for your health? Why don’t you three let loose tonight and drink with us pretty ladies for a spell.”

Before I realized what was happening, Viela reached a hand into her top and pulled out an object from between her breasts that looked like some kind of playing card. She pressed it to her lips and a magic symbol on the card lit up with her mana, her eyes glowing with a disturbingly familiar pink light as she blew a kiss with it toward her targets.

Wait, no! Bad foxy!