Chapter 128 - Two Blades and a Tail IX

Claire narrowed her eyes in an exaggerated display of scrutiny as she looked between the celestial and the glowing blue box that depicted his latest command. It was a ridiculous request. They were too powerful. She would need a perfect storm to take out even one, let alone three.

“Well? What do you say?” asked Alfred. He was playing with his fingers, rhythmically tapping their tips against each other as he awaited her response.

“I have questions.”

“And I won’t be answering them,” he said. “There isn’t all that much to it, child. Slay them, and you will be rewarded.”

“I refuse,” said Claire. “It’s not worth the effort.”

Zelos was the greatest obstacle. She had sparred with him when he taught her to use a sword, and it was clear even from a brief, educational encounter that he was by far and large her superior. For one, his weapon of choice was exactly that; he wasn’t stuck building up his mastery from scratch with an unfamiliar tool, and unlike many of the others, he had failed to inherit any poor habits from a lost class. If his testimony was anything to go by, the other men on the list lurked in the same realm. All four of them had kept most of what Alfred had tried to take. Though their levels had been lowered, their classes were retained and their lost powers eventually regained; they were every bit as strong as their thrice-ascended racial classes suggested.

Archibald was the easiest target. He had proven on multiple occasions that he was utterly inept in personal combat, but not for no reason. As an artificer, he specialised not in close quarters, but conquering his enemies from afar with unknown devices of his own making; Cadria’s focus on the once forbidden art had taught her that the greatest of his kind were often unpredictable, capable of overwhelming almost any foe if allowed sufficient time to prepare. If she wanted to end him, she would need to catch him off guard, away from all his ravens.

The cat-sith and the goblin had yet to reveal the full extent of their powers, but she had already seen enough to know that they weren’t to be casually trifled with. Beckard had demonstrated, through the use of his strange gauntlet, that he could attack at a speed she was unable to perceive. Frederick had shown that he had a way to resist her force magic, and his race was one known for disproportionate feats of strength and resilience. Goblin kings were often said to be able to lift giants with just one hand and fell castles with their bare fists. Victory was impossible lest she was able to poison them before they met on the battlefield. The newest neurotoxin in her kit would only simplify the process, but only if it worked. She could do nothing if they proved resistant.

“But I might consider it. If you explain,” she said.

“Stop asking questions, and I’ll throw in an extra reward” said the celestial. “How about this? I’ll modify Sylvia’s mind so she follows your every command.”

Claire flashed the human a glare. “I can easily get her to do my bidding even without your interference.”

“That would’ve been a much better bluff had you not been on the verge of tears just earlier this morning,” said the old man.

“It was just a mood swing,” lied the lyrkress. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said, with a half-chortle. “Despite how I may look and sound, I’m actually a woman.” He tapped his wand on his nose and transformed into a wrinkly old witch. His features turned slender, and effeminate, but only for a moment. The facade crumbled almost immediately, with the old man descending into a cackling fit of laughter. “All joking aside, I would really rather not have to explain the circumstances. If you don’t want Sylvia to obey your every whim, then I can have it replaced with another reward. Name your price.”

“I want an explanation. Paid in advance.”

The celestial sighed. “So stubborn, so very stubborn.” He stuck the tip of his wand into his mouth, swapping it with his pipe only after failing to fill his lungs with smoke. “Be reasonable, Milady. I’m already giving you far more than your time’s worth.”

“Liar.” She glared at him again. Another intentionally overdone display. “They’re all thrice ascended. I’d be close if not already ascended by the time they die.”

A smile crossed the old man’s face. “I didn’t think you’d catch that.”

The entertained smirk was met with a silent frown.

“Quite unfortunate, but no matter,” he said. “How about this, then? I’ll replace it with a total of 150 levels, free for you to distribute between your classes as you see fit.”

“And an immediate explanation.”

Again, he sighed. “I can give you a brief one, but nothing too detailed.”

Claire frowned and crossed her arms. She didn’t think that he would so easily yield the upper hand, but the conniving old bastard was distracted. He kept glancing at what she assumed to be an invisible box, and his wand never stopped moving, even when he held it in his grasp.

“Good enough.” She took a breath and narrowed her eyes, focusing her gaze on his expression.

“They’ve been toying with magic that I’ve expressly forbidden,” he said. “I told them that death would follow if they continued to experiment with it, and I fully intend to deliver.”

“Why not do it yourself?”

Alfred sighed. “If I could, I would. I’m under oath not to personally harm any individual still undergoing my trial.”

“You need a proxy to bypass the contract?”

“Yes, and it’s either you or a horde of lords, and I’d rather not wipe out the entire population. It took them quite some time to put the citadel together, and I can only imagine how long another group would need to establish a similar set of social structures.”

“Make one of the foxes do it.”

“Impossible,” scoffed the old man. “I’d just be brushed off. Most of them are too lazy to follow orders, and those that aren’t would demand something far more unreasonable than a mere hundred and fifty levels.”

“Two hundred and fifty.”

“Excuse me?” He furrowed his brow.

“Two hundred and fifty, and you remove the obsession you imposed on me.”

“Cheeky brat,” he muttered to himself as he kneaded the bridge of his nose.

She was mortal and he was not. No good would come of rousing his ire, but she continued to press him. The man had effectively declared that he couldn’t hurt her; she had no trouble dealing with lords, and she was confident that a horde would do little more than provide a mountain of experience. Assuming the statement to be true, she would only be rewarded, regardless of whether she antagonised him or complied; if the existing lords were anything to go by, then it was not them, but Zelos that was the greatest threat.

“I cannot rid you of your catgirl fetish, and I wouldn’t even if I could,” he said.

“You can’t?”

“Of course not.” Alfred looked at her as he would an inept child struggling with a single digit computation. “I wove it into the very fiber of your being. It isn’t possible to remove it without your soul’s immediate and irreversible destruction.”

Claire frowned. There was no one to call his bluff, no one she could ask for any sort of verification. She wouldn’t have been able to argue, even if he was lying to her face. The only thing she knew about her soul was that it was apparently handcrafted, which as far as she was concerned, meant absolutely nothing. There was no way for her to perceive it or associate either claim with any sort of tangible concept.

All she had to go on was her ability to read him. She watched as his eyes twinkled, as he waved his legs under his desk, and as he took puffs from his pipe. He remained calm throughout the discussion. His hands never trembled, and his gaze never wavered. There was no sweat flowing down his brow. But she felt it in the tips of her ears, the very same feeling she so often got when she had to deal with unscrupulous, manipulative plutocrats with no talent for negotiation.

He was lying.

But she couldn’t call his fib to focus. She didn’t know exactly how he had lied; it would be difficult to pinpoint or explain the inconsistency lest he divulged any further details. And more importantly, it was too straightforward an approach.

He had messed with her mind. It was only fair for her to return the favour.

“If you don’t get rid of it, I’ll kill every catgirl I meet,” she said.

“Impossible,” he scoffed. “You won’t be able to resist their allure.”

“I know.” She revealed her jagged teeth with a wide grin. “All I have to do is let go of my inhibitions.”

The celestial didn’t immediately catch the implication, so she raised a hand to her face and pointed at the scales that covered her cheeks.

“My mother,” she said, her words dripping with malice, “was Sthenian.” It was a threat that played off her blood. And for once, it was not backed by her cervitaurian heritage.

“Sthenian?” The celestial drew a breath from his pipe as he wrinkled his brow. “Ah, yes, that country.”

Sthenia, the nation once ruled by the gorgonian lamias, had been a small but powerful kingdom. The average soldier was of such a quality that any other country would have branded its army as one comprised entirely of elites. And that statement held true, even when the serpentine domain was compared to a country as heavily militarised as Cadria.

As far as economics were concerned, Sthenia was well off. It was one of the 47 territories within the great forest of Tal’ihir, and one of the scant few to border not only the countries both in and out of the woodland, but also the vast treasure trove that was the Ryllian Sea. Par’svaran, its portside capital city was a center for trade; the nation more than prospered from the tariffs it levied from those that passed through its lands. But despite its stable monarchy, ruled by the purebred gorgon line of House Eurylia, Sthenia ultimately fell. It was defeated by a certain Cadrian general, on account of a scheme that left the city undefended and its castle in his hands.

“It nearly slipped my mind, with how short lived it was,” he said. “Only five hundred years or so. Such a shame.”

Virrilius was undoubtedly a brilliant commander, but his strategy was one enabled only through the exploitation of the underpopulation that was Sthenia’s greatest weakness. The snake-ruled country had struggled with a lack of heads since its very inception, with the inadequacy stemming primarily from a lack of males. Sthenians practiced monogamy, but halfbred or otherwise, only one in every fifty was born not a woman. They had to seek mates from outside sources, and it just so happened that they possessed all the right traits to secure them. Lizardmen were attracted to their glimmering scales, humans were drawn to their voluptuous breasts and their hips mesmerized even the shiest of halflings. Though their lower bodies were almost entirely snake-like, their thighs were just pronounced enough for elven men to be unable to contain themselves from stealing the occasional glance. And yet, Sthenia still found itself with a skewed gender ratio and a lack of a population.

“If only lamias were slightly more attractive. Cat ears would have remedied the issue. That, I can say for certain.”

Though the occasional lad was certainly lured in by a serpent’s beauty, most shied away. They knew that the species was one to be avoided. Because right after the deed was the only time the otherwise charming snake-tailed ladies ever felt the impulse that most others described as hunger. The foreign sensation was one that not all of them could fight, and those with less restraint would consume their mates by way of instinct. It was difficult for a potential victim to escape, as they would almost certainly be captured in the serpents’ embrace.

Claire had no idea if she would be affected by the condition that plagued her mother’s bloodline. Her ascension had already taught her to sense and fight hunger, the strange sensation that drove her to crave flesh, but there was no way to draw a definitive conclusion without putting it to the test. And Alfred knew that too. He couldn’t dismiss the chance that she would default to the behaviour burnt into her blood.

“Every catgirl I meet will die.”

The words were vomit-inducing—the thought of losing control and surrendering to the undesired, foreign desire made her nauseous enough to hurl—but she spoke them calmly nonetheless. The words were a weapon, and no self-respecting Cadrian would relinquish a spear out of an emotion as trivial as revulsion.

But that therein lay the problem.

She was the only one that saw it as a weapon.

“Not to worry. I’ve already considered the possibility of a catgirl falling victim to a lamia, and I’ve made it so they’re unlikely to find the experience unpleasant.”

It was only as he spoke that the lyrkress realised her mistake. Humans were known primarily for their voracious sexual appetites. The average hairless ape was considered relatively normal and sported only a few odd interests, but as a whole, their tastes were as broad as the species was widespread. Any concept that could be described was one that would provide some human or another with a sense of gratification. It was often said that those further ascended had a greater array of acceptable terms. And the man before her stood at the species’ apex.

He was just one step away from true godhood.

If he was truly as perverse as he was powerful, then it would only stand to reason that he would think of the consumption of one’s mate as just another, everyday, run of the mill activity.

Claire took a deep breath. She doubted that anything she came up with would invoke his displeasure or disgust. “Fine.” She paused for a moment to steady her voice. “I’ll settle for 250 levels.”

“Then two fifty levels it i—” The old man froze in the middle of waving his wand, but it was too late. He had already cast his spell.

Log Entry 3930

The quest ‘Eliminate Insurgents’ has been altered. The immediate ascension has been replaced with 250 levels to be freely distributed.

“It was supposed to be 150.” He heaved a sigh and scratched the back of his head. “Fine, you got me. I won’t change the terms any further, but don’t think you’ve won just yet.” The magical tree branch was waved through the air again. The motion was lethargic and almost haphazard, but it did its job nonetheless.

Log Entry 3931

You have received a blessing from the celestial of life and creation. Any catgirl that is attracted to you, physically or emotionally, will develop a vore fetish upon the receipt of your touch.

Though disturbed, Claire deigned not to offer him a response. She pretended not to see the intrusive entry and continued on as she would have without it. “Where are they?”

“Catgirls? You won’t find any in here, unfortunately.”

“The targets.”

“Ah, right.” The human tapped his wand against his chin. “It looks like they’re in the citadel for now. You’ll have to act quickly, if you don’t want to miss them.”

The lyrkress crossed her arms. “Then stop wasting my time and send me back.”

“I’ll do you one better than that.”

With another seemingly directionless wave of the magic stick, he sent her mind back into her body. The sudden shift in the scenery left her with a mild migraine, and it took her a moment to adjust, as it had all the previous times.

When she finally raised her head, she found not one but three portals, each with their exits clearly revealed. The first was the one that she had already been aware of, the dimensional tear that led back to the maze. The second provided an entryway into a world with an upside-down marsh, and the third led to a seaside cliff. Why even bother giving me a choice?

She stepped through the final portal immediately and warped straight to Sky Lagoon. She remained perfectly still for roughly a minute thereafter, smiling only as she felt the celestial’s gaze disappear. Victory was sweet, but its flavour lingered in her mind only briefly. It was soon replaced by a flicker of hope. There was a chance that she hadn’t been abandoned.

The lyrkress didn’t dare jump to any conclusions, but Alfred had revealed that Sylvia hadn’t vanished without purpose. It was possible, likely even, that the fox had failed to return in the interest of avoiding the demigod’s gaze.

“She didn’t leave because she was fed up with me.”

Repeating the phrase under her breath, Claire spread her arms wide, leapt off the cliff, and fell into the sky.

“Now I just have to find her.”

Catgirl detector was still unable to mark the sneaky vixen on her radar, but tracking the half-elf’s father provided an immediate response. He was gathered alongside her remaining targets, all of whom were located atop the smallest floating island placed within the artificial domain. They were all present, and the lyrkress was confident that sticking her ear where it didn’t belong would at least tip her off to the runaway fox’s whereabouts.