“I wish to schedule her.”

“Impossible! A sister can’t be selected.”

“What happened to choice?”

Cornelia let out a wince. “It was decided 1^st sisters, mothers, and other first order relations are not allowed. I’m sorry, this is written into the bylines!”

It wasn’t like I didn’t understand, probably better than most people. In the past, incestuous relationships were tolerated as a side-effect of the previous system. With the government executing greater control, that included a control over incest. This world did have some understanding of DNA and genetics, but if it was compared to my old world it was lacking. Perhaps, I understood more than most the complication of inbreeding and the horrific side effects that can start to build.

Many of these side effects could be easily resolved with magic, but not all of them. I’m sure that there were some who had been bothered with the incestuous underbelly of the old system and immediately sought to cut it out as soon as it was offered. Even if they didn’t consider the genetic side effects, there were also psychological issues, such as the unhealthy relationships formed between mothers and sons. At the end of the day, I personally thought the primary issue was just plain jealousy. Women who didnt have a brother were jealous that the brothers showed preferential treatment to their sisters. This wasn’t always the case. There were some rotten apples, but as a general rule, brothers treated the sisters just a hand better than anyone else, and it probably irked some women, who decided to outlaw it.

This is why it only went as far as 1^st order. Cousins and half-sisters, who didn’t face the same kind of affection typically, were not outlawed. If there weren’t at least some personal issues that were being worked out through that law, then I didn’t know what was.

“Then, I want her information.”

“Clyburn, the catalogue cannot be used to stalk women.” Cornelia responded stubbornly.

“I was going to be the father of Hannah’s baby.”

“That act was outlawed two years ago, the day you were brought in.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“She could have made herself available. Your aunt and half-sister were present. If your actual sister didn’t feel fit to be there, that’s not something we can help. You’re not in a position to make demands.”

“I’m only in a position to make demands!” I shouted back. “If I had my freedom, then I wouldn’t be asking you for a damn thing!”

Cornelia shuddered and took a step back. It was the first time I had lost my cool in a long time. I very rarely yelled these days. It felt like personal failure. I had known it would be difficult out here. Perhaps I had been too naïve. I had thought I’d be able to handle it. Yet, I ended up breaking down in not even one day. Then again, I had a lot to be rattled about.

“Are you done now?” She demanded icily.

“Yeah, we’re done.” I turned and entered the room, closing the door.

My best friend was dead. My mother lied about dad’s death. Hannah was prostituting herself out for a baby. It was just too much to deal with in a single day. I slumped down on the bed in the dark. I lost track of how long I was sitting there. I didn’t even notice when tears started falling on my hands. At some point later, there was a light knocking on the door. I didn’t feel like answering it.

“Do you want anything to eat? I’m cooking?”

I didn’t answer her. She left after a minute or two, and I curled up on the bed. It wasn’t long before I slipped off to sleep. My dreams were dark and turbulent. If I had to remember any one of them the following day, I wouldn’t be able to recall. However, I would say that they were likely nightmares, and I wasn’t able to sleep well.

“Clyburn…” A light voice whispered near my ear.

My eyes opened. I admittedly understood the feeling. During the darker times of my previous life, when I drank a lot and ran my body quickly to death, I woke up in similar situations. In my world, it was called sleep paralysis. People claim that they saw vivid hallucinations and even ghosts during those times. As to what I saw, it was usually an ominous shadow that climbed over the bed and tried to strangle me.

Yet, this sleep paralysis felt different. First off, I felt extremely awake, my eyes were wide opened and quickly focusing on the black room around me. Second, I didn’t feel foreboding or panic. Rather, I felt a powerful sense of calm. A figure emerged from the darkness, a pretty girl with short hair. I didn’t feel afraid at her appearance. Rather, it was almost like I had expected her. That was odd, seeing as the last time I had seen her was nearly two years ago, and she supposedly died. 

“Charlie, what do you want?” I was surprised to find my lips were able to move and I was able to talk.

That was something I was never able to do in a normal sleep paralysis event. Then again, this wasn’t really a sleep paralysis event, was it?

“Is that any way to greet your wife, hubby?” She asked.

“You haven’t aged a day.”

“Hehe… such a sweet talker.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“He even plays to my masochistic side…”

“Are you a demon?”

“You’ve asked that before…”

“Are you in my mind?”

“So many questions, did you ever think to just listen? How about you ask something new?”

The Charlie today felt different from the Charlie in the past. She was still taunting and mischievous, but there was a certain edge to it tonight. It felt like she was worried or rushed. I could only just make it out at the edges of her eyes. It was a feeling of exhaustion.

“What am I to you?”

“Oh? Better one… but you’re still not listening…” She responded, putting her hands on her hips in a mock admonishing tone.

I sighed, closing my eyes and then reopening them. “Okay, tell me then.”

“That’s better.” She let out a giggle, sitting on the side of my bed.

“So, once again, what do you want?”

I could feel the pressure as she sat next to my feet. My mind was clear right now. If I was truly sleeping, it was the most vivid dream I had ever experienced in my life. Plus, since I was conscious of dreams, I should have been able to do whatever I wanted in it. If it was my dream, I’d just tear off Charlie’s clothing and giving her a rough spanking on her butt.

“Why do I feel like you’re thinking something rude?” She suddenly pouted. “Can’t I just be here to see an old friend?”

“We were hardly friends.”

“Lovers, then?” She giggled.

“Cut the crap. You didn’t come to see me once in two years. You got what you needed out of me back then. You wanted the Male Extension Act to go through. Whoever you are… whoever you work under, you caused that event.”

“You’re the one who activated the explosives. Weren’t you the one who caused the events that followed?” she offered coyly.

I sneered. “Of course. You appeared when I was mentally at my worst. You manipulated my emotions. Is that form even yours, or just something you borrow to look sympathetic?”

“Back to demanding answers instead of listening again.”

“If you’re just going to keep running this conversation in circles, then you’ll have to excuse me. I have some much-needed sleep to catch up on.” I closed my eyes, the only other part of me I could control at the moment.

“H-hey…” I felt her moving up my body.

I could feel her hair tickle my face, suggesting that she was directly over me. I suddenly had a strange feeling, like if I opened my eyes suddenly, it wouldn’t be a little girl I was looking at, but something else. As to what Charlie was, I was still working that out. For the last two years, I had assumed she was a stress-induced hallucination. I had asked everyone I knew who has encountered Charlie, and not a single one seemed to remember the conversations or events I described.

Even Brooke, who had been with me through demons, couldn’t remember Charlie. Before I was forced to leave thanks to the MPA, I had a serious conversation with her about it, hoping to dig out some distant memory.

“Clyburn…” She had let out a sigh. “I can’t explain everything I saw that day. There was certainly a scary looking place under Matahari. Ashley was clearly alive, and so was Rebecca. However, Mia survived that day too and we thought she was dead, so I can’t say there is anything supernatural about any of this. As for the likes of demons and demon lords, I don’t know if I can accept that. I will be by your side through all of it, but perhaps we should keep these… events… as a closely guarded secret.”

In short, she wouldn’t say I was crazy, but she didn’t want to hear about such things either. She was a blunt person who was used to handling the problems in front of her. She could handle a riot, an assassin, or a direct attack. Ghosts, curses, and demons were another matter entirely. They were outside her ability to understand.

At least, there was still Lilith and Mia taking care of it. They even had Angela, but I couldn’t say how reliable she would be. I just hoped Mia could keep the two of them under control. Lilith was a bit of a disaster, barely even able to look after herself. Angela wasn’t much better. She was a troublemaker with a bit of a psychopathic feel.

“The demons are back in town.” Charlie’s words broke me out of my thoughts like an anvil.

“I know…” I responded simply.

The image of Rigor’s head played through my mind again. The me of a short three to four years ago would have broken down completely over that sight. However, after Tinya, after the Day of Wrath, after the pirates, the demons, and the brutality of Matahari, after seeing a young girl trying to murder me in turn lose her own life, the loss of a friend, a head on a pike, seemed almost trivial. Maybe I was growing callous.

I didn’t feel that was completely true, because that image put a boiling rage inside me. I had only met demons once or twice, but I was starting to hate them with a passion. That hate probably should have been directed at Ashley and Rebecca, yet I couldn’t seem to bring myself into hating those girls, even though they were the likely ones who did it.

True, the police had claimed the work looked like my father’s killer, but that person was supposedly in prison already. Anyone could have looked up the event ten years ago, found out about that killing, and staged it to look similar to get my attention. In fact, who would have that ability, if not a demon? Either Rebecca or Ashley, probably both, were back in town, and they were trying to taunt me by murdering someone close to me. I was almost certain of this. Yet even then, my anger were at demons, and not the two women possessed by demons. If I could save them, I would try.

Charlie’s words had only reconfirmed my desire to contact Lilith. If the demons were here, and they were killing people, then Lilith was the best equipped to deal with this situation. Well, it wasn’t like I’d be getting any help from… my eyes fell back on Charlie who was standing near the head of my bed. She hadn’t changed in appearance. She wasn’t some dark or evil monster. In fact, she was still the pretty little girl who had bullied me on various airships for a week or so.

“If you look at me like that, I’ll become shy.” She said, pulling her hair in front of her face as if to hide it.

“You said the demons are back in town as if you weren’t one of them.” I responded. “If you were a demon, then it would have been self-evident if you were back in town.”

“I wonder…” She smirked, tapping her lips mischievously.

I let out a sigh. “Is that the only reason you contacted me? You wanted to tell me something that I already knew?”

“Be careful, things aren’t always what they seem…” She responded mysteriously.

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Hehe… hubby, admit it, you love me.”

“I don’t even know what you are.”

“I already said, I’m your woman. You’re my hubby. It’s as simple as that.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hmph… still denying it, huh? Ah… i-is it because I haven’t… serviced hubby!”

“…”

“Hehe… hubby is so perverted. If that’s what you wanted…”

“H-hey! What are you doing?”

Charlie had got down to my pants with a mischievous look on her face. She started stroking my pants. I could feel her tiny hands, but I couldn’t even move an inch in protest. Despite being still frozen in place, that didn’t stop a certain part of me from growing.

“Ah! So hard!” Charlie let out a cry.

Even though it had been years, Charlie still wore the face of a ten-year-old girl. Watching her touch me that way caused my brow to furrow. That I was powerless only made it a bit more frustrating. My tongue instinctively went to a certain tooth in my mouth, but I pulled away quickly. I still had some tricks up my sleeve, but I wouldn’t use them on this little girl now.

In that time, she had been playing with my belt, and she had the front of my drawers open. At first, I thought she was just playing, but the farther she went, the more serious her expression became. By the time she pulled my erect cock from my pants, she was acting very determined. Her lips clenched and her eyes were firm. Her hand could barely wrap around my cock, that was the size of it. As she started to lean in, I only then accepted that this wasn’t just one of her dumb jokes.

“W-wait! Stop!” I said.

She looked up at me and smirked. “Say please… Ahhhhhh!”

She opened her mouth and engulfed my cock.

“Please!” I sat up so quickly that I felt dizzy.

Looking around, I could see that I had left the desk lamp on when I went to sleep. There was no Charlie in the room. It was like she had never been there. Had it truly been a dream? I could still feel her mouth on my groin. That… that… well, I didn’t know what to call her. She was certainly something, though. She wasn’t a figment of my imagination. I glanced over at the clock and saw that it was nearly 7 am. It was morning time.

As I flopped down on my pillow, feeling both rested and extremely tired, I began to notice the noises of someone being out and about. It sounded like they were working in the kitchen. In the dorms, most of the guys slept in just about ever day. Even in the mansion, the place was so big there would never be a racket right outside my door. I was going to ignore it, roll over, and go back to sleep, but that previous dream, no, I’ll call it an encounter. That previous encounter left me feeling a bit uneasy.

At that moment, I realized I needed to pee. With a sigh, I flipped off the sheets and got up. Walking to the door, I found it unlocked. That gave me some pause, because I could have sworn I locked it the previous night. Thinking back to Charlie’s arrival, I had a feeling that she didn’t need a key to go wherever she wanted. I shook my head, not wanting to confuse myself any further. I must have just been too emotionally drained last night and forgot. With a turn of the knob, I headed straight to the bathroom without a detour.

However, no sooner had I opened the door then my eyes landed on the body of a naked woman. Cornelia was a beautiful woman, with long legs. She wasn’t curvy like Mother, but she had a lean body that was extremely appealing to the eye. Her hair was wet and tied up with her towel, and it appeared like she had been taking a bath. At the moment, she was shaving her legs, and she was sitting on a stool completely naked. She was almost done, with only just a bit of shaving cream on the side of her leg.

Our eyes met, and the pair of us stared at each other for a moment.

“Ahhhhhh!” She suddenly let out a scream, her hands hiding her chest. “P-pervert!”

“Seriously.”

She ran up and slapped me across the face. It happened so suddenly I hadn’t expected it.

“Y-you jerk!” She stormed out of the bathroom, racing straight to her bedroom.

She even slammed the door. After a moment, I straightened up and then lifted my hand to my cheek, rubbing it.

“Well played.” I muttered.

It didn’t matter. I went into the bathroom and used it quickly. I washed up and then returned to my room. A suitcase of mine had been brought during the night and left outside my door. Considering I left the door unlocked, I wondered just a bit why she didn’t bring it in. Maybe she was just respecting my privacy after out fight the night before.

I brought the case in and found a change of clothing. By the time I finished dressing and walked out, I could now smell something good coming from the kitchen. When I entered it, I found Cornelia dressed? She had her hair dried and tied up, and she was even wearing an apron as she cooked. When I entered, she shot me an angry look, her cheeks reddening slightly. I bit my lip in irritation, but I decided it wasn’t worth arguing with her.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were in the kitchen.”

“I-I was… but while some things were cooking, I thought I could clean up before we left.”

“I see…”

“Your appointment with the prison has been set up. We’ll be visiting your mother right after we eat.”

“And what about after that?”

“I have somewhere I want to show you.” She responded, but as I looked at her suspiciously, she only blushed again. “Please sit down, eat!”

She brought over a plate of food. It was an omelet, a roll, and some kind of dipping sauce. I took a couple bites, and then noticed that she was watching me, her hands together almost like she was praying. She was waiting for me to say something.

“Ah, it’s good!” I responded, shooting her a weak smile.

“Good…” She exhaled, a wide smile of delight on her face.

It was extremely adorable and made her look extremely cute and innocent. After seeing her naked earlier, one could help but imagine the previous scene mixed with this one, and fall in love instantly with such a woman.

I continued to eat in silence, occasionally watching her out of the corner of my eye. Every once in a while, I caught her sneaking peaks at me as well. Whenever that happened, she would become cutely flustered, and then return back to whatever she was doing in the kitchen. As for me, I was getting a better picture on the kind of person that Cornelia was. It didn’t necessarily displease me. I finished my meal quickly and stood up.

“So, are we going then?”

“You see,” She smiled. “As long as we work together, we can both get what we want.”

She held out her arm to me, but as soon as I heard those words, my expression turned ugly. I walked pass her without taking her arm. Her smile faltered a bit, and she put her arm back down. I pushed the door and walked out into the hallway. My eyes immediately fell on two beauties standing on either side of the door. For the first time since I had been there, I was actually genuinely surprised, and moreso, pleased by my surprise.

“You guys!”

There were two women standing there. They were just a bit older than me, the same as my sister Hannah. One of the girls had long red hair. Over one eye she had an eyepatch. She was wearing a blouse and sports coat as well as a tie. On the other side was a girl with an enormous chest and glasses. She immediately gave a bow, her chest bouncing as she did. She had brown hair, and while she wore a similar blouse and tie, she didn’t have the coat. She had sleeves over her arms thought, and these seemed to have runes written in them.

“Boss’s Brother… ah… I guess you’d just be Boss now.”

“Brianna, we’re supposed to call him Master.” Syph growled.

“Ah… that’s right! Master Bornholdt!”

“What are you two doing here? Wait, you really passed and became body guards?”

Cornelia had joined up out in the hall, closing and locking her door with a click. “They were notified last night to report here in the morning. As I said, Clyburn, I only want to help you. I will do anything I can to make whatever request of yours possible.”

I swallowed my desire to frown at her, and instead the best I could manage, a nod and a weak smile. “Thank you.”

She beamed once again, seeming quite pleased by my little bit of appreciation. She was so beautiful when she smiled, that it even caused Syph and Brianna to become speechless for a moment. They were looking at her with wide eyes and partially opened mouths.

“Syph, those runes, does that mean you’re a combat mage?”

To think, the last time I had seen these girls, they barely had a functioning brain between the pair of them, and now Syph could cast magic? They had both also grown into beautiful women, although they weren’t a match for Lyra or even Cornelia beside them. These were friends of Hannah’s and thus they were people I felt I could trust. Brianna had even given her eyes earning that trust. She had lost it during the Day of Wrath in what felt like forever ago.

“They’re just a few useful spells. I can only really cast them if I’m indoors on the first floor. Even here, I can’t make them work.” Syph admitted.

I still reached out and patted her head. Rather than being upset or pulling away, she closed her eyes and smiled like a cat being petted. In fact, Brianna was looking at the pair of us with a slightly jealous look like she also wanted to be patted.

“I-I learned some stuff too! I was trained in sniping! I’m a marksman shooter!”

“Really? Where is your gun?”

“Ah! They won’t let me have one…” She lowered her head, looking completely miserable as Syph let out a slightly snobbish laugh. “Hey! I may not have a gun on me, but at least I could hit what I’m aiming at and my shots work every time!”

“If you had one…” Syph laughed even more.

I ended up patting Brianna on the head as well. I wanted to ask, if she was able to obtain these two so easily, then where was Brooke, but I didn’t want to ruin the pleasant atmosphere that had formed between the group of us.

“Are you heading out, boss? Ah! I mean Master?” Brianna asked.

“Yeah, we’re going to go to a prison. You’ll keep me safe, right?”

The two girls smiled, and then nodded, saying in perfect unison. “With our lives!”