An hour since the last chapter…

Tristain, Royal Capitol, The Doll House

 

“Please! Forgive me!” A man screamed before a loud thumping noise came followed by the sounds of bones crunching and breaking. 

 

A wail that sounded like a pig was being butchered filled the brothel and caused some of the slaves to collapse in tears, but not ones of pain. The manager was a terrible person who was responsible for many of the bruises that were worn by some of the women. Sometimes his “Favorites” would break down mentally since the collar prevented them from being able to commit suicide. Hearing him screaming the same way some of the women did brought them a feeling of relief even if it was coming from that man.

 

Ashton sat on a desk that he had thrown all of the paperwork off of onto the floor, his legs were crossed on the heavy desktop and his knuckles were white from gripping the edges. With a casual sweep from one of her tails, the manager had been left with two broken knees that caused him to blackout. After that Beretta had done something to him... she put some black shadow into him and he had been unable to pass out ever since, he also didn’t seem to be able to die…

 

Looking like a deformed meatball with flaps of skin where his arms and legs had once been was the manager who was coated in his own marinara sauce. This was after many swings from the tails of Kumiho who was laying down next to the desk in her fox form. He looked like a demon lord from the anime he used to watch as he sat down on the desk looking over the meatball who was in a pool of his blood and shredded clothes. A black shadowy figure could be seen occasionally, showing only her bunny rabbit mask as she giggled and collected the fallen pieces of the meatball and pressed them back onto himself.

 

“I am going to ask you again… where did you take the old women from the brothel... If you don’t answer me you will get another… spanking.” Ashton said coldly.

 

“I took them to Father Basil! Artollia needs workers in their camps for the wars! The gold is in the bottom drawer!” He screamed for the second time. “You said to get rid of them after they were no longer bought!”

 

“Kumiho!” Ashton ordered.

 

A tail came down after a beastial giggle followed by another wet crunching noise and pieces of the meatball coming off again. Ashton had no idea how the meatball was able to talk, let alone scream with so much vigor. Beretta immediately began to move around with a small broom and dustpan as she put the pieces of Humpty Dumpty back into his scrambled pile. 

 

“I want to know where Father Basil is... I will be visiting him after this...” Ashton said first, before adding a lie to make Ashe look better. “What I meant originally was... to free them... but you have misinterpreted my words.”

 

“What?! No, you-” He started before Ashton cut him off.

 

“Kumiho!” Ashton ordered.

 

A loud thump rang out as a meatball was sprayed all around the desk and magically seemed to avoid him or the fox next to him. 

 

I feel like some demon lord punishing his misbehaving subordinate! I don’t like this feeling! Ashton reached down and pulled open the drawer of the desk that the meatball mentioned as he rifled around until he pulled out several large bags of gold coins. “I ask… you answer…” 

 

“He is at the Artollian embassy! He is the younger brother of the Cardinal!” The meatball screamed in panic.

 

Ashton whistled when he heard the second part. While he knew that Cardinal Morrens had a brother with the same name, he didn’t want to make any assumptions. This would delay his visit to the illegal slave trader, but not for very long. If the old butler hadn’t died he would have asked him if he was also responsible for the illegal slaving of the people who tried to sneak into the tavern. He had no idea what could be hidden inside of it that warranted such extreme behavior. 

 

Probably the recipe for the beer… He thought this as he found a bag filled with what felt like powder while removing the gold. Pulling it into the magical light, he drew the drawstring and held it up to the light to reveal light blue powder. He recalled what Kasha told him as he decided to order Kumiho to give him another swat for good measure. A grimace crossed his face when he thought of how he was going to get the girls off of the drugs.

 

“Kasha! Come here!” He ordered.

 

Kasha, who was in the hall with the slaves, suddenly felt a chill run up the fur of her spine as she started walking towards the office with her tail and head down. From the moment Lord Grayfield walked into the hall, she had immediately recognized the smell that he had was the same as the priest. She wasn’t under any illusions that things were going to get better for her after she had said so many terrible things about his business. Resolved for death, she walked into the office and felt her breath leave her lungs and her knees begin to shake.

 

Sitting on top of the wooden desk with his legs crossed wearing the large black furry coat he was known for was a man with long oily hair and intense eyes. Next to the yellow wooden desk was a large fox the size of a large horse with 9 long tails that were dancing around the small office. In front of the desk was a mangled ball of flesh and viscera that was still making sounds of pain and despair that she recognized as the manager.

 

“If you want to puke… the trash is over there… I… already lost my lunch as well…” Ashton told her after a moment and pointed to a metal rubbish bin that had already been used.

 

He was not sitting on the desk because he wanted to, his legs had almost given out from the scene of carnage and it was easier to sit on the desk than it was on the ground. When he fell back it just happened to be behind him so he tried to make it look like it was intentional. In contrast, Beretta felt like a little angel when she held the trash can for him and patted his back, he just wished she didn’t disconnect her arms to do it. 

 

A shade was a strange existence that’s true form permanently resided in the shadow realm, while it was able to send a part of itself like a lure to try to drag people into the shadow realm where its true body resided. To defeat one also required going into the shadow realm where you would be attacked by the shadows that lived there which gave the shade plenty of places to hide. It sounded more like a conjoined twin than it did a true part of her because from what he had heard, the main body had different thoughts and feelings. It made Kumiho seem much more normal in comparison but watching her transform had been strange since her clothes just disappeared into thin air.

 

Her transformation had been even more rapid than Natalay’s had been, when her clothes vanished her entire body already had fur erupting from it and her naughty bits were gone and covered. She then rapidly grew until she filled almost the entire room before shrinking down to a more comfortable size. It was not some magical bra that she used but a special treasure that only nine-tailed foxes could use called a fox bead. This blue pearl that seemed to give off an eerie light was floating over the meatball and absorbing his essence so that she wouldn’t need to eat him.

 

“Why can’t I eat him?!” Kumiho complained angrily, causing urine to start leaking from the shaking beast woman. “We had a deal!”

 

“I agreed to help you reach the supreme tier... you told me yourself that this was the same as eating him… I am keeping my end of the bargain…” He said calmly.

 

This casual conversation about eating people while the manager was laying in a pool of gore almost caused her to faint as she kept imagining it happening to her. Looking above the boy she noticed a little girl who was sticking out of the ceiling with long inky black hair that was flowing erratically like it was in the wind. A porcelain mask with a bunny face that featured whiskers teeth and a little pink nose was eye-catching, but in place of its eyes were two holes with large black orbs showing that looked like pits. They seemed to absorb the light and she could occasionally hear giggling that sounded like it was coming from right next to her ears.

 

“Monsters…” She muttered in horror before she noticed the thick collars on the two of them.

 

“That’s right,” Ashton commented. “Now… for the reason, I called you here.”

 

Peeling his hands from the desk he had to rub his palms together to get the blood flowing through them again. While him suddenly rubbing his hands together might have looked threatening, he was going to need to write so he needed to be able to use a pen. Kasha seemed to take his actions as signs for something else as a dead look appeared on her face and she reached behind her and undid the string that was holding her top together. With a popping noise, her top burst open and he was able to see three sets of breasts going from largest to smallest, in the center of the breast the fur receded slightly revealing small black buds.

 

Huh… so that is how it works… Being a man, his eyes would always be drawn to a pair of breasts even if it wasn’t the best timing. 

 

“Now is your chance! Take her!~” Beretta called in his ear.

 

“What are you doing?! Put that back on!” He ordered with his face turning red.

 

A large furry white tail swooped down and grabbed the discarded piece of fabric before slapping over her chest and covering up the sight. This caused Ashton to breathe a sigh of relief before he reached down and pulled out a piece of paper. Setting it in front of him he cracked open a jar of ink and took up a quill as he gave it a dip and began writing. 

 

“We are making some… changes here. You are going to be in charge… from now on.” He said calmly.

 

“Me?!” She exclaimed as she worked to tie the strings on the back of her top.

 

“We will no longer open during the mornings… instead we will only open in the afternoon through the evening. During the day the women will have the option to learn skills like sewing, dancing, reading, writing, gardening, and various other skills. They will be more skilled than most noble ladies.” He said as he wrote it all down on the parchment.

 

“Why do we need to learn that?” Kasha asked with some curiosity.

 

“Because from now on half of the money that the establishment receives will be given to the woman who earns it, and the other half will be used to pay off their debt, and when it is fully paid for they will be freed. If the woman wants to keep working here she can but she will need to pay a small portion of her wages to the shop.” Ashton explained as he finished writing on the paper.

 

“Why me?!” She asked again.

 

“You didn’t try to take advantage of me, you also care about the other girls. A manager needs to understand the job and she needs to know what the selling points of the business are.” Ashton told her calmly.

The muck has the ability to be able to fill in a gap the moment one is cleaned out. People will always desire to make money and they will do it any way necessary, since Kasha would be working for him, he didn’t take the time to use that ridiculous accent anymore. It felt liberating to talk like a normal person would.

 

“The goal here is to show people that the more humane way of doing things is more profitable,” Ashton told her seriously. “You are clawing back the value that a person should have, and you will be able to see it first hand. Whenever a woman leaves we will select a new one to fill her gap and start making her way to freedom. This will be a chance that almost no slave will ever get, where the use of drugs will be prohibited, and if the woman can earn more doing something else then she can work doing that instead.”

 

Seeing the large chest of money, and the pile of gold that was formed from several bags that came from the desk, an idea of how to spend the money was already starting to form in his mind. Learning was something that was barred from commoners except apprenticeships. Nobles all went to an academy where they were taught the things they needed to be able to govern lands so that they could continue contributing to the nation. He wanted to transform his prostitutes into courtesans, but this would require them to all learn a specific set of skills. 

 

If he opened this school to the public, he could both collect tuition and also offer a unique service for women. They would be able to learn from real prostitutes and be able to perform all of the tricks of the trade without ever losing their purity. He did not doubt that after a few years, the reputation of the school among men would make them drool the moment they heard she graduated from there. Mothers everywhere would open their purses and send their daughters knowing it would make them incredible marriage material on the market. 

 

I am no saint… this will be an expensive investment initially… but the gold will change the direction of these women’s lives… and in the end, this will be clean money… By changing their appearance, the slaves would be able to easily take on new identities and could even claim to be graduates from the school. While they would no longer be pure maidens, sometimes a seasoned dish can be tastier. 

 

The slaves would later be taken in selectively only after the slave agreed to the terms and conditions of working here and attending school. He was also hoping to get regular women who were desperate to also work in the brothels if they were pleasing enough to the eye. While this sounded awful the entire industry was vain, to begin with, and there was no changing that. Another change was going to be happening in the brothels from now on.

 

“For your first task, put out a help wanted sign for the psychopaths out there.” He ordered.

 

This sentence caused Kasha to startle for a moment before she looked at him in confusion. “Psychopaths?”

 

It means a person who will smile at you and drink a beer with you one moment then stab you to death the next. Money for them is everything and no boundary is too low to cross. We built things called prisons for them, but the people here are strange and let them walk the streets among them… “Adventurers… it is another name for them.” Ashton could only keep his real thoughts in his head.

 

“Lord Grayfield! I brought the fur you requested!” A happy voice called through the door before some graceful footsteps came towards the office.

 

The voice was so familiar that it caused the little bit of color left in Ashton’s face to drain, soon a dark elf woman wearing a nun’s outfit walked into the office. A smile was on her face and she seemed every bit like a holy maiden. The image of her using her teeth to savagely tear out the throat of a man wielding a musket kept appearing in his mind. The staff she had used to stab the alchemist to death was hanging on her back after having been cleaned and oiled.

 

“Woah! A nine-tailed fox! Is this a variant species?! Is that a shade?!” The adventurer seeing monsters that she had only read about in high-tier hunting books caused some fear mixed with excitement to appear in her eyes. 

 

Dark elves who came from the deep originally worshipped a supreme-tier monster called the spider queen who protected them until her death, which eventually caused the dark elves to have to flee to the surface. As a result of this history, most dark elves did not hate monsters the same way that a lot of the other sentient species did. While the spider queen was not able to confer true spells onto her believers like the gods were, she still held a special place among their hearts. However, what she was seeing was quite shocking.

 

A shade was a terrifying creature to fight because they would drag people into the shadow realm and replace them with an unkillable shadow that would remain until the person either managed to escape, or died. Their true forms were said to mirror the form they showed in the material realm but they were much more twisted looking like the shadows they unleashed on the world. The moment she saw the meatball on the ground an ability popped into her mind called ‘reversal of light and shadow’.

 

Normally when a shadow took damage it would fade away like it never happened, this was because only changes to the real person would affect the shadow. If you cut off the person’s arm then the shadow would lose their arm. A shade could reverse this relationship for a short time and make it so that the shadow would be the one who was the source of the target’s existence. This meant even if you were ripped into little pieces you would be unable to die as long as your shadow existed and the ability was being supplied mana, but you would experience all of the pain.

 

“Kumiho has squeezed him dry, he is out of essence,” Kumiho said as the small pearl-sized bead flew back to her and planted itself on her chest where her breasts would be if she was human. “Are you sure Kumiho can’t eat him?”

 

“He has dirt in him, silly! Why would you eat him now?!~” Beretta replied with a laugh.

 

“Beretta, let him die now… and if you could get rid of him…” Ashton remarked as he felt the bile in his stomach try to rise, but he swallowed it back down.

 

“I can give him to Deltarose, while his essence has been extracted he should make excellent fertilizer!~” She said merrily, as his body soaked down into the shadows on the floor.

 

“Is she another monster too?!” The elf asked in excitement.

 

“A dryad.” The fox said with some disdain.

 

“Oh? What is she bonded to?” The dark elf asked in interest.

 

“A Droseranaea plant!~” Beretta said with a giggle.

 

“Devil’s snapping trap!?!” The dark elf exclaimed in fright. “She wasn’t exterminated on sight?!” 

 

She had met a dryad before when she had gotten lost in the forest near an elven settlement, it was a nice lady who guided her back to her village, she was bonded to an old oak tree. They had a symbiotic relationship where the dryad was able to gain strength and power from the plant and the plant was able to move freely by moving inside of the dryad’s body like a mobile flower pot. Like the plants they bonded with a dryad would usually pick a good spot in nature and settle there while she and the plant grew. This changed though in the case of carnivorous flowers bonding with a dryad because they instead chose to use this opportunity to hunt.

 

It was said that snapper traps that used a ratcheting arm to lock the trap shut were based on the devil’s snapping traps' vine-like heads that could tear pieces of flesh from their victims. They usually grew on long stalks where close to a hundred of these dinner plate-sized traps could all form. The traps excreted a powerful acid that aided its digestion and could dissolve armor, but the scariest part was a fungus that grew among its vines. It would form a mushroom on the victim's head that could control their thoughts and lead them to the predatory plant, it could also cultivate the spores of other fungi that were incredibly poisonous.

 

“She was too young and stupid! The adventurers tricked her into putting on the collar after they hid it inside of a wreath of flowers!” Kumiho supplied.

 

“Didn’t you just say that you wanted to hire an adventu-” Kasha began but was cut off by Ashton.

 

“No!” Ashton exclaimed loudly, reaching down he grabbed one of the bags of gold from the table and tossed it to the dark elf who was carrying the bundle of fur. “No… I changed my mind.”

 

Looking up, the elf had a stunned look on her face as she held the incredibly heavy bag of gold. A slow and sensual smile began to slowly spread over her face, as Ashton swore he saw dollar signs appear in her eyes. She made a move to reach up and open some of the buttons on her blouse which made Ashton feel incredibly uncomfortable.

 

“I heard you were… looking for workers…” She told him sensually, her eyes never leaving the other bags of gold on the desk. 

 

His instincts told him to deny her, but then he had to remind himself that she had killed three men by herself. One of the things he would insist on is having the women all learn some form of self-defense and exercise. This was so in the short time they had to wait for help nothing would happen to them. It only takes a few moments to do the damage necessary to kill someone, this was something Ashton had come to understand after his short time in this world.

 

Damnit! What the hell did I do in my last life to deserve this treatment? Did I cause an explosion in a mirror factory that set fire to an entire field of four-leaf clovers and frightened a herd of black cats?! Ashton turned and looked at the large fox with nine tails who was looking sadly where the meatball had sat, the word crazy popped into his mind. Then he looked up at the shade who looked like a little girl with long black hair wearing her bunny mask, the word crazy also came to mind. 

 

Then looking towards the dark elf woman who was pulling up her long skirt to try to reveal some leg while she stared hungrily at the bags of gold caused a new thought to pass through his mind. Shit! It is multiplying! “I need an adventurer... who is retired... to teach the girl's self-defense skills so... they... can... defend... themselves.”

 

Ashton found himself having problems completing his sentence when the dark elf began showing some incredible footwork as she bounced on the balls of her feet. She then went into launching a complicated series of jabs and punches at lightning speed that made ripping noises as they traveled through the air. Just when Ashton wanted to find any excuse possible, she began executing a series of kicks that included straight kicks and sweeping whip kicks as well as roundhouse kicks. Her figure and form were incredible and she pulled it off wearing high-heels.

 

The final stunt she showed was an ax kick where she managed to get her leg completely vertical and Ashton wasn’t sure if it was deliberate but the entire time she had been performing kicks, he kept seeing lacey white panties and a stylish garter. To make her point even more complete she then pulled a hidden bagger from between her breasts and began flourishing it around as she spun it effortlessly over her knuckles and twirled it on her palm. Ashton found his foot nudging the white fox next to him who was falling asleep and asking her a question.

 

“Are all adventurers like this? Is there a school that produces these psychopaths?” He whispered.

 

“Kumiho thinks you should just hire her already. She went into heat the moment she entered the room and Kumiho is tired of smelling it.” She muttered in frustration.

 

Looking up at the girl in the bunny mask, what he found was her twitching around shyly with one hand over the bunny’s mouth and the other one covering between her legs. “It isn’t what you think?! I kept imagining what it would feel like if you took her and began to neglect us! Having to watch you mate like rabbits while I could only watch in the shadows!~”

 

Ashton felt himself going pale as her breathing picked up and she started sinking into the shadows slowly to her waist. Ashton shook his head and quickly turned away, the direction he looked at was Kasha, she looked like she was in awe of the elf’s skills. No… is no one on my side?

 

“Big Sister! Are you going to teach all of us to fight like that?!” She had sparkles in her dark eyes and a smile on her large muzzle. 

 

The nun held her fist up in a way that matched a pose he had seen in an anime that featured a sword wielder with a massive black blade. This caused Ashton’s mouth to twitch and he suddenly felt like his grave had just finished being dug. She showed a triumphant smile that caused her long ears to twitch.

 

“Let’s discuss my pay, shall we?” She asked with a smile.

 

Next Chapter: Now Hiring!