Chapter 338 - Debts and Dues II

109832 - 8 - 4 - 7
Dear Diary,

There are only three days left in 109832. I can’t believe how well this year has gone! I’ve gained a whole seventy levels and I’m already almost 100. Lina and I wanted to keep training, but Master said that it’s important to take breaks, so we’re celebrating the winter festival with everyone else. Some of our cousins are going to be visiting tomorrow. My uncle is really creepy and I hate the way he keeps trying to grab Lina’s tail. I finally unlocked the berserker class last week, so maybe I’ll just enrage while Master isn’t looking.

Lia

___

The sounds that accompanied the Sunakprathesian morning inspired nothing but overt confusion. The forest’s beasts howled and roared as soon as the sun inched over the horizon, signalling the start to a long summer day. The warmest season wouldn’t last for much longer. Fall was almost upon them if the wind was anything to go by, but the forest showed none of its signs. The trees were still lush and their branches were lined with half-grown fruit.

While their relationship with the local wildlife was largely mutualistic, not all of the trees were so patient as to sit in the dirt and absorb their fill. It was not at all uncommon to encounter an individual capable of movement. Some were more like animals and fled once their mimicry was seen through, but others were more monstrous and attacked everything they happened across.

Whether something was considered a monster or not was based on its level of aggression. Plants and animals never attacked without purpose. Wolves were classified as animals in spite of devouring children and livestock aplenty, as it was only to feed themselves that they enacted such violence. While the same could not be said for the murder machines known as ants, most tiger species fell under the wolves’ umbrella; they mainly attacked to purge intruders from their domain. They were happy to back off and avoid the risk of trading blows so long as no trespassing occurred.

Monsters, on the other hand, were more like Boris before he was tamed. They attacked whatever they encountered, even if the cons greatly outweighed the pros. Retreat and submission only came to mind if they felt like they were thoroughly outclassed. And even then, some species would press forward regardless, their survival instincts silenced by the urge to kill.

Smarter species could fight back their violent impulses and evaluate their circumstances more logically. The ability to be tamed was a result thereof. Individuals with even greater intelligence, such as those capable of writing in the system’s secondary numerals, could even find themselves lost in the pursuit of alternative interests.

That particular trait then begged for one to draw the line between an intelligent monster and a dysfunctional person. And in fact, it was too difficult a separation for even Flitzegarde to determine. Arachne served as the classic example. The species was incredibly aggressive right after birth. Their minds were locked behind a mad fog that drove them to attack everything that moved. But after just a few weeks, the frenzy would fade, leaving a working member of society in its bloody wake.

Goblins were just as troublesome. Scholars could not quite decide the point where their mindlessness abated and there existed many amongst the populace that protested their large-scale extermination. But despite the common misconception, it was not as if they strictly grew less ferocious following their ascensions. The opposite was sometimes true as well, even if far less common. One could easily argue that there was never a difference between monsters and people to begin with. And that was exactly what Claire told herself as she watched the adventurers that had shared their campsite overnight.

The party was a mixed bag of different species. And while their identities certainly garnered some interest, it was their meal that stole her attention. She had certainly heard of slime-eaters before, but it was her first time seeing the practice in person—like arachne and goblins, slimes were another species that often skirted the line.

Generally speaking, they were considered to be more monstrous and aggressive if they grew up in the wild, but they could quickly soak up knowledge if raised in the presence of other intelligent creatures. In fact, slime babies learned to walk and talk much more quickly than human ones, and as evidenced by their presence among the royal maids, they were easily employable. That was why her interest was piqued as the other party boiled one such creature alive.

It tried to escape; the gelatinous blob extended its tendrils in a bid to work its way out of the pot, but they kept the lid on tight and scooped any bits that escaped right back into the container. The struggle lasted for the better part of a minute, but the slime eventually collapsed and succumbed to the burning heat.

The party’s cook, a bespeckled, bipedal wolf with slightly more youth than not, lifted the lid and peered intently into the pot. He swirled a ladle around, raising the slime only when it floated back up to the surface. Once extracted, he peeled away everything that wasn’t its stomach and chopped the massive organ into a series of bite-sized pieces. He went on to fry them in oil before serving them alongside a portion of similarly prepared vegetables. Claire suspected that the dish was most likely like tripe, though the adventurers’ faces revealed a general distaste for its flavour.

Her curiosity dismissed, Claire turned towards their own campfire. Chloe was typically too much of a late riser to involve herself in breakfast, but having woken up early for the first time in two weeks, she was already out and about. She yawned constantly as she tended to the fire and cooked the eggs that they had acquired just the previous day. Like most of the other less convenient purchases, the unborn poultry was slated for immediate consumption. The perishability wasn’t as much of a problem as the difficulty of transport. Like fluffy breads and delicate fruits, they were simply too much of a pain to haul around. They only had one wagon and much of its space was taken up by their clothes and camping supplies. The rest was filled with items that were more calorie-dense or otherwise easier to transport. Nuts, dried fruits, jerkies, cheeses and breads made up the majority of their perishables. Their meals likely would have been much better had Claire engaged her authority skill, but she refrained from showing it off. As a certain cat had once told her, it was the sort of ability that the greedy were sure to covet. And more importantly, the god of the hunt was likely to alter his approach if he discovered its lack of lethality. His first attempt at harassment had already been obnoxious enough to decipher. The last thing she wanted was for him to up the ante and rethink his petty games.

“Is it just me, or have you been more broody lately?” asked the maid.

Chloe spoke in her usual friendly but nonsensical tone; the only other person that was awake, besides Lana, who had been in charge of that night’s watch, was the praying mantis.

“It’s just you,” said Claire, as she continued to brood.

“Of course it is.” Sighing, the maid added a bit of water to her pan before moving over to the lyrkress and planting herself beside her.

“What?”

“Sit still. Stop trying to shuffle away.” She grabbed her by the wrist and pressed their foreheads together. The gesture was followed by a bit of a delay, after which the former human suddenly began to shiver. “Why are you so cold!?”

“Because you’re a pervert.”

“I was trying to check if you were sick,” cried the maid. “How is that supposed to be perverted!?”

“Ask your hand.”

Looking down, the maid found her fingertips in a rather compromising position. The hand had, at some point, crept under the moose’s blouse and crawled up the length of her thighs; the contact was skin on skin, and its destination was certainly not appropriate.

“That was an accident,” she said, as she gracefully withdrew the frozen limb and hid it behind her back. There was little reason to believe the claim given the maid’s history, but the embarrassed, apologetic smile betrayed a genuine reaction. Ever since becoming a succubus, even if an odd hybrid thereof, she had found her hands wandering without permission.

“Pervert.”

“It’s not my fault!”

“That’s exactly what a pervert would say.” The lyrkress thawed the imprisoned hand as she spoke and scuttled away. The sex demon’s tail was getting a little too close to her own. “And I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Great. In that case, would you mind letting me have a few sips of blood?” asked the maid.

Claire blinked. “Just how shameless are you?”

“Almost entirely.”

“I don’t know why I asked.” The moose shook her head and spun Chloe around with a vector. “Why don’t you go drink some of hers instead?”

She pointed to the wolf girl polishing her axe by the cave’s entrance. Perhaps sensing the impending danger, Lana immediately spun around, but there was nothing for her to see. Claire had already returned the maid’s eyes to their previous position.

“She’s too flat,” said Chloe.

“I don’t see why that matters.”

“Flat girls don’t taste as good.”

There was a brief pause.

“Liar.”

“It’s the truth!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I swear in Griselda’s name,” said Chloe. Though Claire was still doubtful, the half-vampire was dead serious. For her race’s members, the logic made plenty of sense. The best meal for succubus was one in line with her fetishes.

“Fine.” The lyrkress agreed after taking a moment to scrutinize the former human’s face. A sigh on her lips, she crafted a vial of ice and matched it with a blade of the same material. She moved to slit her wrist, but Chloe grabbed it before she could. “What now?”

“Can I drink from your veins directly?”

“No. Pervert. I’m doing you enough of a favour already.”

“What a shame.” The maid heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I suppose I must settle for a second-rate meal, in spite of the delicacy that sits right before me.”

“I don’t know why you think imitating Ciel would help,” said Claire. “And stop that. I’m supposed to be the one copying people.”

“You let her do it all the time.”

“Because she isn’t a pervert.”

“I swear it’s not intentional.”

“I believe you.”

“Thanks.”

“...”

Claire wouldn’t have minded if the blonde was an ordinary vampire, but she was hardly fond of the moaning fits that followed the maid’s meals. The problem stemmed from her other half. For a succubus, copulation and feeding were effectively the same behaviour. The link between the two activities was wired right into the core of their beings, going as far as triggering the same neural pathways with the exact same intensity. Even her regular, bloodless meals came with indecent displays—Chloe’s body would seemingly tremble with ecstasy and joy each time her tongue was presented a treat—and vital fluids were by far her favourite.

Though Alfred’s antics had desensitized her to the fact that her blood would drive the interaction, she did not want to experience the maid’s convulsions firsthand.

The half-snake froze her wound when the vial was almost full and sealed the container with an icy lid. With her physiology as it was, the maid typically ate in private; Arciel had banned the alternative following a particularly delicious dinner.

Her face all smiles, Chloe got up from her seat and returned to fire. She was just in time for her fried eggs to finish. Shovelling them off the heat, she put them onto a plate piled high with food and presented it to the blood donor.

Claire silently accepted the meal. Her expression was perfectly blank, but internally, she was cursing. The eggs were perfectly prepared; the yolks were so runny that they spilled over and coated her toast as soon as she broke them, in spite of the fact that they had been abandoned for a solid two minutes. It didn’t make any sense. If she were the cook, they surely would have been black as coal, even with all the same conditions.

The cooking skill alone could not have possibly accounted for the disparity. Claire had tried following the former human’s recipes to the T, and she had even asked her to watch as she prepared her dishes. Chloe had personally verified that she was doing everything right. And yet, somehow, the meals she cooked would always catch fire. It was almost like there was some sort of divine intervention at play. And with the circumstances as they were, she was starting to think that the god of the hunt was the one to blame.

“Do you have any blessings?” asked Claire. “Like maybe one from the god of cooking?”

Chloe brought a hand to her lips and tried to stifle her laughter, but a few snorts leaked out regardless. “I have one, but it’s not from Ashbill.”

“Who then?”

The human laughed awkwardly. “A minor god. I actually just received his blessing the other day.”

Claire tilted her head. “That’s not very specific.”

“No one really seems to know him, so I didn’t think there was a point in being explicit,” explained the succubus. “He introduced himself as the lord of life and heavenly creation.”

Claire pinched the bridge of her nose and slowly lowered her head. “Of course it was him.”

“You know him?” asked Chloe, with her eyes wide.

“Unfortunately.” The half-moose got back to her feet and handed the maid her empty plate. “Ask Sylvia about it when she wakes up. I’m sure she’d be glad to talk your ears off.”

“I’m sure she would,” laughed the vampire. “Are you heading out?”

“For a bit.” Stepping out into the open, Claire nodded at Lana, who responded in kind, before spreading her wings and shooting into the sky. It was already well past her usual waking hour, though it was a bit difficult to tell with the day as dark as it was. It wasn’t storming just yet, but the clouds were thick and heavy enough that it was only a matter of time.

Still, the caldriess proceeded regardless. She wanted to find their enemies before they found her. Though perhaps more importantly, her morning flight was already a part of her daily routine, and she wasn’t about to forgo it on account of a little rain.