It is around night time. Shaula doesn’t know what time it is exactly.

She walks through the city towards a place that Claris and Hila pointed out to her. A red light district in a working class neighbourhood of Linis.

The slums of Linis are basically every area far from the city gates and on the outermost ring of the city of Linis. The working neighbourhoods are in the second outermost ring.

In Linis, as well as all other areas within the Holy Sapioran Federation, prostitution is illegal. As a result of this, the brothels in the city are located in buildings that have fronts for their operations, predominantly in working class areas.

However, streetwalkers cannot go to working class areas to perform sex work because they don’t have the territory right that the larger brothels do.

The street walkers have a more difficult time as a result, being forced to work in impromptu red light districts established in the slums.

The threat of being captured by city guards is always burdening them so the area where the red light district is located changes every month.

Street walkers have to be able to deliver excuses for why they’re loitering on the streets. They have to be able to look out for undercover guards masquerading as customers. They need to be able to make money to survive.

Shaula sees some of the girls in this area. A great deal of them are beastkin. Virtually zero human street walkers are present in this red light district, which extends along the street from one intersection to another along a badly maintained road half a kilometre in length.

Inalim’s operation also takes place in the slums however and some of their work does involve street walking in order to find johns. As a result, Claris was able to provide the current location of the red light district to Shaula.

Shaula had actually wanted the location of Brai’s brothel but none of the girls knew where it was. Apparently, the location is only provided to people who come into contact with Brai’s drug dealers or Brai’s family and friends like, for example, Inalim, Brai’s nephew.

So, Shaula, having very few leads on how to actually find Brai, is seeking to ask for help from any of the prostitutes working along the red light district. She’d rather try that first before looking for a sleazy drug dealer at the very least.

She walks past beastkin women with fluffy tails and animal ears who try to entice her. They’re perfectly fine with female clients who might understand their bodies better than the male ones.

Shaula doesn’t intend to partake however.

Sigh, why did Ajax drag me into this? I really just wanted to have some fun, fighting and destroying evil. Oh well, now that I’m involved, I wouldn’t feel good if they got hurt or died because of me killing that guy… Let’s try to deal with this as quickly as possible so I can get to my main mission.

Shaula notices that there are street lights sparsely distributed along the length of the street. Ajax has told her about these lights which were placed in operation by the city government using magical crystals of some sort.

There are also other lights along this street to better illuminate the gaps between the city lights; these other lights are torches lit by fire. It gives the area an odd feeling.

It makes it appear darker, sleazier than it should be… Although, perhaps some of the point of seeking prostitution services is the sleaze and the point of having done wrong or taboo.

Shaula used to be afraid of such fire. But now, she can’t help herself from wanting to stick her hand into it to feel the odd sensation of fire devoid of heat.

She looks at a tall torch to her right, staring at the fire and… notices someone on the other side of the street. A race that she hasn’t seen before.

She enhances her vision. The woman cannot see her. She has fine, light-blue feathers instead of hair and human ears, not animal ones on top of her head; her hands have sharp claws instead of human fingernails.

She also has a long tail. A tail about three times as long as the tails on the beastkin women Shaula has seen… one that reminds her of the tail of Darius, her beloved raptor friend. Thick and powerful.

Oh, right, Ajax called those raptors land dragons… Well, I suppose they look pretty dragon-like… I wonder what kind of race this woman is?

Shaula notices a man nervously walking up to the woman. The woman herself is tall, about Shaula’s height of five feet, eleven inches actually and the man is shorter, maybe about five feet, eight inches. But, a human nevertheless...

Huh… she’s found a john then… 

Shaula directs her hearing towards the prostitute and her john talking across the street.

“So, how much do you… do you charge?”

“Eight copper an hour.”

“Ok, umm, where do we…”

“You can pay me when I get to your place.”

“My place? Oh, well… I live with my parents and--”

“Ok, then we’ll find a room at an inn. That’ll be four copper more if you have it.”

“Oh, that’s… that’s expensive…”

“Tell you what, special offer, six copper for my services but no penetration, minus the room fee of course.”

“...Eight copper is fine.”

“Alright, whatever you want. My name is Angelidis. We can meet at the Prala Inn, room five, you know where that is?”

“Y-Yeah. Uh… May I… uh...”

“What?”

“M-May I… touch you right now? J-Just to… sample the goods, as it were?”

Shaula narrows her eyes. Angelidis also does the same as she looks at the man nervously smiling with indecent intent.

“No, I’m afraid not, I’m looking for customers right now and if a guard is watching, they’ll arrest me if they see anything out in the open.”

“P-Please? I-I won’t… I’ll be gentle!”

“No. Meet me in two hours and we’ll have all the fun you want.”

Angelidis turns her back and starts walking away in search of more customers to set appointments with. The man stands there for a moment and trembles.

He suddenly runs after her and smacks Angelidis’ ass. His face deforms into a hideous smile. Angelidis turns her head to look at him, being careful not to strike him with her tail.

Her gaze pierces through him. The pupils of her green eyes contract into slits. They had just been circular black pupils before.

“I’m afraid I won’t see you now, get out of my sight please.”

“...Wh-What? I-I just… I was going to do that to you later anyways!”

“Later is later, now is now. Right now I asked you not to… and so now you won’t arrive to what’s later.”

Shaula smiles. The man however is irritated.

“Y-You… you vile draconid! All I did was touch you! You’re there to be touched!”

“No. I am here to feed myself. What are you still doing here, insect?”

“Y-You c-can’t speak to me that way!”

The man jumps back from Angelidis and raises his palms towards her. His hands produce a glow. She flinches in anger and walks towards him, raising her sharp, black claws in preparation for a fight.

“Yoltri Mei! Sphere!”

An orange ball of fire materializes out of thin air, and from Shaula’s perspective is about as large as a watermelon. The man shoots this fire ball towards Angelidis. It’s not very fast, but too fast for her to dodge from this distance.

She crosses her arms in defense of her body, closing her eyes in preparation for the impact. But… 

Angelidis opens her eyes. In front of her is a woman wearing a blue dress with a skirt that extends just below her knees. Her right arm is raised towards the man, without any burns. The man’s face is in shock.

“H-How did… how did you… with your bare hands… Th-This place isn’t supposed to have anyone but weak demihuman women! Who are--”

Shaula elegantly sprints to where the disgusting man stands. She gently touches his face with her right palm.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!”

The man steps back from Shaula. He clutches at his face. On his left cheek is a large burn. Not very severe but disfiguring nonetheless. A burn in the shape of Shaula’s right hand.

The man runs without even looking back. A coward through and through.

Oh, shit… did I go too far? Is that shithead going to call the guards now or something? Yeesh…

Shaula looks around to see the reaction of the nearby streetwalkers. She can’t really see a reaction because all of them are walking as far away from this street as possible… They don’t want anything to do with the sudden eruption of violence.

“Oh… shit… D-Did I do that?”

“I’m afraid so… Thank you for saving me, human but I didn’t need your assistance. An attack of that level is child’s play. It would not even burn my skin.”

“Oh, well I kind of guessed that, but I really didn’t like that guy… so I gave him a punishment for his insolence towards my friend…”

“Ha! Well said! My name is Angelidis; what is yours, friend?”

“My name is Shaula! Good to meet you.”

Shaula and Angelidis meet for the first time; their meeting is amiable and fortuitous.

~

“Ah… You wish to know the location of Brai’s brothels.”

“...Wait. He has more than one?”

“Yes, Shaula, he runs two of them. Are you looking there to find work?”

“W-Well, yeah… I’m not very confident in my ability to earn money independently…”

Shaula lies in an effort to keep Angelidis in the conversation. It would be more productive to claim to be a prostitute looking for a procurer to protect her rather than to admit to being a person hostile to them.

If Angelidis doesn’t want to get involved in what Shaula is up to, Shaula would have to find one of the girls who ran away from here.

“I would have to disagree… Your combat skills should be enough to defend yourself against the scum who normally try to take advantage of us. Also… if you’re new to the city then I would advise you to be extremely careful. Newcomers are taken advantage of by brothels run by humans, even if they’re human themselves.”

“I know but… I really just have to introduce myself to them. It would be the best for someone like me. I’m… I’m not good with money or…”

“Sigh… You’re not a very good deceiver, Shaula, and if you won’t tell me your true intent then… whatever, this is common knowledge anyways. Brai’s brothels are located near...”

Angelidis shares with Shaula the location of the two brothels that Brai runs.

Both brothels are residential apartment buildings where prostitutes live in each room and regularly receive customers through Brai’s connections; most simply arrive through the network of drug dealers that Brai commands. He’s not merely a brothel owner.

Payment is enforced through Brai’s enforcers before the men meet the prostitutes and the buildings are located in the working class ring of Linis, not the slums.

“Again… Be careful, Shaula.”

“Angelidis--”

“Just call me Jelli.”

“Ok, Jelli… You work for yourself, right? How… How do you do it? Isn’t it… Isn’t it difficult? Having to walk up and down the streets looking for men… What if you meet any who can actually harm you? Do you… Do you really feel alright doing this?”

“I do, Shaula. The men who could harm me can also harm any of the spineless men who would act as my pimp. So, I simply decided to cut out the parasitic middleman.”

“What about… the other girls here? Are they all fighters like you?”

“Yeah… the girls here are fighters. If they weren’t, they would have left a long time ago to work for men like Brai. The beastkin girls aren’t as strong as me since they aren’t draconids. But… they can take care of themselves and if men like that other one come near them while I’m around… It will be dealt with.”

Jelli raises her right hand to show Shaula her jet black claws. Beautiful and sharp. Sharp enough to easily separate Shaula’s head from her shoulders, let alone the average man who tries to take advantage of or hurt them.

“So pretty...”

“Haha! I’ve never heard a human call them that… It’s been good to meet you, Shaula!”

“Yeah, it’s been good to meet you too… By the way… I’ll find you again, Jelli, we haven’t finished talking just yet… I’ll return with an offer that you might like after I finish what I’ve started”

“Well, until then, Shaula...”

~

Shaula has remembered the scent of Jelli so she has complete confidence that she can find her without a problem.

Currently, she is waiting outside a residential building, one of the two that Jelli had mentioned. The directions Jelli provided rely on street signs written in the language of Sapiora.

It’s so lucky I can actually read these letters… Those church guys are real scumfucks but the language rock was pretty nice.

Shaula is currently in an alleyway to the side of the residential building. She extends her sound perception to pick up conversations within the five floor tall building.

She tries as hard as she can to drone out the sound of women and men engaging in sexual intercourse. She can hear the sound of women being slapped, of women being hit, of… women being insulted for their race.

‘Beastkin’ used in an insulting fashion. Some slurs of beastkin that she hasn’t even heard until now… All of this in between violent behaviour from the men towards the women.

Shit… Should I just fucking storm this place? Is that shithead here even?

Finally, Shaula’s hearing picks up a conversation. A conversation between two men at the peak of the building. They’re talking about… things related to the prostitutes in the building. Some boring information about payment schedules, revenue, etc.

But just enough to make Shaula believe that these two are important to the operation of this brothel.

Shaula keeps listening because one of the men is angry, and the other is nervous due to this seething rage.

He’s angry about something… I have a feeling that… Is he the… 

Then, Shaula hears what she’s wanted to hear.

“Alright, enough, Dalm. Just take care of the rest yourself. Now, tell me what you found out about my nephew’s murder. How close are we to finding out who the killer is?”

“W-Well, sir, Plenty came to us today with the information she had about Inalim’s death.”

“Oh, Plenty… Inalim’s loyal bitch, right? So? What did she have to say?”

Shaula has found them. Brai is in this building. Luckily, she doesn’t even have to visit the second location.

So… Plenty immediately went to Brai, huh… The girls didn’t really like Plenty because of her weird strictness with them and her constant sucking up to Inalim… Inalim’s loyal bitch, ha!

Shaula makes plans to infiltrate the building; she silently leaps to the roof. There are only two men on this floor. But, Shaula does smell a number of men on the floor below them. Smells of iron and metal also make their way to her; armour and weapons.

They’re armed for intrusions from the ground floor. They must not be expecting anyone from the roof… Well, you’re in for quite a shock…

Shaula memorizes the scents of the two men while still on the roof. The older man, Brai, is emitting a different scent from the younger man, Dalm. A scent that she can discern as coming from an older man.

She has Brai’s scent now. She can find it even if he manages to escape her. But, before she confronts the two of them, Shaula continues listening to their conversation. What do they know so far?

“Plenty told us that Inalim had tried to get rid of one of the girls... Claris, I think, was her name. Claris somehow received protection from a young man and woman of unknown origin. The man’s name is Ajax and the woman is named Shaula, from what she told us.”

“Hm. Odd names… They might not be from the area then, right?”

“That’s what we’re guessing, sir. We’ve been looking for them in the area. We… We might have a lead to where they are right now.”

Shaula listens carefully. She doesn’t have much information about the extent of Brai’s intelligence network, but, certainly it must have some strength.

“One of our men working part time at an inn noticed a group of beastkin women walking in a few days ago. They also noticed a human man and woman with them.”

“So? What are you doing about it now?”

“We’ve sent a team to the inn to investigate. They’re heavily armed and they also have expertise in ice magic. Plenty told me that the woman has some kind of advanced healing magic skills and was strong enough to crush Inalim to death with her bare hands. Those ten of them should be enough to handle her.”

“When did they leave?”

“About forty five minutes ago--”

Shaula’s heart freezes in her chest. She stops listening to their conversation. It has no use to her now.

Barely thinking of anything else, Shaula leaps into the air from the rooftop. Her jump from off the roof of Brai’s brothel causes the roof to crack, but not collapse.

Ajax… Ajax… Please protect the girls please, Ajax!!