Cloude just froze there, looking at the empty spot where his best friend stood moments ago before his body was snatched and taken elsewhere to fill a bug monster's belly. Only the head remained on the dirt floor. Charmma and Downna are hugging each other, sharing their pain over the tamer's link. I don't know what he told them to make they feel like that, but the goblin girls' feelings are genuine.

He gave up before he even set foot in this hole. I've used that same blade in combat to dispatch over thirty trained knights in minutes, and it was just as a blade. He would have a good chance of defeating Mittens if he used the sword do deal ice damage.

"Strangga, get that head for me." My enemies serve me twice. In dying and in death. I read this in a card game somewhere.

Someone small buries her head on my back and cries, "I am a murderer. I killed my friend."

"He was no friend. He was blinded by his greed, envy and lust. And this shitty ingrained prejudice. There is no talk. No common ground. We gave him enough time to make a choice. We showed him enough to base the choice. He blinded himself, believing the lies he was spoon-fed since small were true. Even Cloude right there is blind. He is being kept by us but he is well-fed, clothed, clean and warm in the dead of winter. He can walk around for short periods, talk to the inhabitants, speak his mind. He has not been physically tortured, raped, or fed sewage."

Cloude turns to look at us. Now that I have his attention, I repeat the same words.

He points at himself and asks, "Me?"

"Yes, you. We haven't doped you in MP-draining poison either. All those things are what your realm, the realm of humanity do to their prisoners. Tell me, by the standards of your people, are you a prisoner? Can't you imagine out there hundreds of peasants and farmers that would love to be held prisoner just like you are here? Three meals, a bed without bugs and hot water every day?"

"This is not what I want for myself!"

"Then make up your mind! Have you looked over there?" I point at a sword stuck to the dirt ground of the pit, "What is there?"

He throws his arms in frustration, "It is the Shining Blade, what about that?"

"Wasn't that your life goal? To become a magic swordsman and wield that sword?"

"Yes! But if I go for that blade you will kill me." His head wavers between looking at the blade and looking at me.

"And just because you might die you give up. Some adventurer you are. I'll be honest with you. In a few minutes, that Shining Blade is going into my item box and will never again see the light of the day."

"So what? Even adventurers won't go against insurmountable odds."

"Says the guy that led a suicide attack on a horde of orcs."

The last statement triggered something inside him. Cloude turns his back to me and runs for the blade. The goblins were going to give chase but I raise my open hand in a signal for everyone to wait.

"Increase weight." I chant right before he touches the blade.

"You are the biggest liar ever, Grendel." A still clinging at my back Helen whispers.

Cloude's body build is not that much and he is with a villager level 5 stats plus some meager scraps from his inactive jobs. He tried and pulled and grunted, but the sword did not come free. It is just like an arthurian myth.

Desperate, he pulls and struggles until his hands are covered in sweat even in this cold winter. It is an inevitable development that he would force too much, slip and fall on his butt.

"What will you do when you get that sword, Cloude?" I taunt him.

"I am going to kill you!" He goes at it again. His neck is popped, his temples are red.

"I can't be killed by a sword. Somebody way more skilled than you tried that for a whole night."

I realise now I see something of myself in Cloude. I want to lift the Curse from him, but honestly, just giving a person the ability to have faith doesn't automatically make them have the same faith as you.

"Gaaaaaaaa!" Dismiss increase weight.

Ka-shiiiing! The sword comes out and flies up. It goes into a spin and out of control. Cloude follows the sword with his eyes, pats his hand on his clothes and puts a hand in the path of the blade.

With a twist of his wrist, the grip falls square on his palm and he holds the Shining Blade up, triumphant. It is almost like it decided to fall straight into his hand.

I taunt him to get him out of his stupor, "Is it now the part where you kill me?"

He roars and runs to attack me. There is no light, no element coming out of the Shining Blade at all. Even with his experience and the support of the skills, he is fighting with just a teenage boy body specs. He managed to cut me three times out of a few dozen swings. Helen has moved back a little to give us some room, but I haven't moved my feet.

"Oh, dear, these shallow cuts are so annoying..." {Irritating Banter}.

He swings at my infinite regrowing HP pool, and I will zero his stamina.

He enrages even more and his attacks gain power but lose precision. Again and again. He can barely stand now. The dormant Shining Blade is sharp but does not display its full glory without the hands of a magic swordsman.

At a point where I just shoved my hand against a thrust of his and let it slide down until I grip the guard, trapping it between my bones. "What is the point of this?"

"I want to kill you!"

"For what reason?"

"You took Marcy from me!"

"Are you an idiot? Marcy is by my side because she wants, not because I forced her! You never had her! What the fuck were you thinking, that she would have to hook up with you for lack of choice next Autumn? You are only alive because she considers you her friend. What friend are you, right?"

"If I kill you Marcy will..."

Helen that is a bit away from us cuts in and points up at the VIP seating. "Marcy will turn you into a pincushion! She even already has the bow drawn."

"And here is the cherry that goes on top of the cake. When you leaked information about us, you allowed the guild and the kingdom to plot against us. They turned Julius into a puppet and sent him after us. It was your betrayal that got mother-in-law Mercy abused in jail. It was your betrayal that caused 200 knights of the realm to lose their lives. It was your betrayal that killed Julius."

"Waaaaa! Burn troll! Firebolt Firebolt Firebolt!!!!" He unlocks the magic channeling powers of the Shining Blade to cast the firebolts straight at my cut hand. The hand is badly burnt and is ruined, but I don't blow up from the inside. It only works on minotaurs, sorry.

I yank the sword from his hand and make it vanish into the item box just like that. Rigiht after I kick him flying into the pit walls. He didn't faint.

"From now on, you will be tossed into a stone jail. A cold, dark, damp, filth stone jail I am making just for you. You will receive meager jail rations. There won't be any torture though. If you want to get a living at the expense of this community, you will have to pull your weight. I'll issue you a prisoner guild card. If you are willing to work, it will allow you to change jobs during the work, and forcefully change you back once you are done or if you leave the guild field. The monsters will be able to post requests for you, it is up to you if you want to take them. You are found guilty of treason and your sentence will last as long as you live."

I walk out with Helen, but before leaving the pit, I make another ruling.

"And since the meeting was adjourned, I will decide on the subject. I am going to conquer Mirfield."

The monster crowd cheers on hearing of conquest.

After the pit duels, I dug a prison under the back of the hill, the side facing the Syrup Meadow just a little away from the pit. I made sure to find some water source using [Dowsing] and made a small spring. It works to both keep the prisoner hydrated and to keep the dungeon damp, as I promised. he is behind a syrup-hardened roc bone jail door, there is no way to break it without having epic prowess. The lock is magical and it is easier to break the bars than remove or break it.

A few days after the duel at the pit, I find myself in the bootleg guild office on some official business.

"And these are the requestss for the prisoner for you to review, Grendel."

Shraaizar hands me a basket with bootleg guild requests slabs. We had a ton of tree bark of good quality, so they were cut in adequate sizes and the requests are written on the back of the bark piece. It is very convenient and renewable if I may say so.

"But all of these are requests for mating. There is no request for labor." In the basket, there are requests from several female monsters, goblins, devil monkeys and even some flame gorillas to mate with Cloude. The payment is food and the right to return to his home-prison for two days for each request.

"This isss a rare chance for the monster girlsss. Hybrids are very strong, and having hybrid children will make the tribe strong! And you mammalsss like to mate a lot anyway."

If hybrids can have both jobs and racial levels, I can see how that would be very desirable.

The next day there were this many requests. There are at least thirty here. I'm glad that proficiency with human language skill also conveys the ability to read and write. It was a good choice to make the monsters learn it. Monster language has no writing. And most monsters have no name. We just record the guild card number next to the record.

I had to set a law blocking them from taking the guild number as their name.

"Are you sure you want to take the requestsss to the prisoner yourself?"

"Yes, Shraaizar. Thank you for your hard work. But I feel like it is my responsibility."

Leaving the house that is working as the guild office, I go around the hill and into the dungeon. Toppa and Botta are the guards today. The goblins are working every third day at the dungeon. When Charmma and Downa's bellies grow beyond a certain point I'll have to review the schedule. How long does a goblin baby takes 'on the oven'?

Toppa greets me when I come around, "Master! The prisoner complaints he be hungry!"

"Yeah. That is his own doing. He was feeling he didn't deserve to live in that house, so now he is where he wanted to be. Let him be."

"Master, humans be too strange! Why human would prefer worse hovel?"

"I don't know. Feel free to ask the prisoner," I answer as I pass by them. "Hey, Cloude. Rise and shine! How are you doing!"

Cloude doesn't move from the bottom of his cell to answer, "Like shit, Grendel. When are you getting me out of here?"

"When you earn your keep. You should be honored. Compared to what Helen, Mercy and I passed in Mirfield, this jail is top-class. C'mon, there's fresh water to drink and not sewage! There is even a gap where sunlight shines in! You aren't dressed in rotten rags that were wrapping the crotch of diseased beggars! We haven't even shackled you to the wall! First-class jail, I say! Anyway, there are several requests for you. If you take some of them, you can stay out of this place for two days for each request you fulfill."

"I guess I can't complain about working. My skills are becoming dull. So, who needs a warrior to bash something?"

"Not really. Before we get to the subject of your requests, let me tell you we didn't remove a single one from this basket," I open the lock and put the basket inside, "Here you go."

Cloude moves to reach the basket and reads the requests, After reading some of them he goes through faster and faster until after the last one he kicks the basket.

"What kind of joke is this?" He yells at me.

"There is no joke, you know? After word of Charmma and Downna being pregnant with the late Viscount's babies spread, almost every monster girl wants some action and some hybrid babies. And the only suitable male human that is available is you. You can make your own monster girl harem, cheer up! I could even go out and recruit some other species for you."

There are some dudes back on Earth that would burn their figurines to get this kind of live-action job.

"C'mon, Grendel, do you really expect me to go with this crap?"

I'm glad I colored the dots for the party members so I can tell who is who at a glance. One of them is right outside the jail. Why is she here?

"Look who is talking. I was as surprised as you, but work is work. What is the problem? Julius seemed to like it."

"Don't fuck with me! There is no way I am going to do monster girls. I'm not a deviant like Julius."

That might be one of the reasons you are still alive. But I'm sorry not sorry to drag you down.

"Hey, Cloude. Here between you and me, are you a virgin?"

"Of course not! C'mon, I had my fair share of girls already!" Answers a half-bashful half-boasting Cloude.

"Oh, really? While waiting for Marcy to come back you nailed the town girls, several of them?" I use the [Persuasion] skill to goad him into answering.

He boasts, "Yeah. There is no law against, you know? And they liked it!"

"Tell me, what was the craziest thing you did?"

"I had three girls at home one night, dude. It was crazy. I almost had no strength to get out of bed, I had to tiptoe to not wake them up or they would get me and suck me dry!" Cloude pauses for a while staring at me. "Sorry, but why are you grinning? Do you get off hearing of other people's romantic exploits?"

"Hell, no! I am just laughing from hearing you confess all that with Marcy right by the jail entrance. I think she came to pick me up. There are your requests, if you want to 'fulfill' one tell the goblins, they know what to do. Bye!"

I leave Cloude behind, screaming and breaking the request slabs. It is his fault that his value to this monster community is restricted to breeding stock.