Chapter 25

“I will give you this one chance,” Steve said to Beatrice after swiping Tabitha away like a bug. “If you surrender now and hand over the fox girl, I will take you to captain Gamesh. He practices holy magic, and he might be able to cure you of your deformities.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Beatrice said while still wondering what to do.

The succubus’s only accomplishment thus far has been that she was the only one that succeeded in actually drawing blood from Steve. The 25% Physical Attack boost from [Sharp Claws] Skill brought up Beatrice’s Physical attack to 15, which seemed enough to chip at Steve’s health, but Beatrice did not hold much hope that that puny number would be enough to cut through Steve’s Shield of Dignity. She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to cut through his armor.

That was the consequence of devoting so much of her attention to Eros Craft Skills, even though that did pay off in its own way because Beatrice managed to gain 11 levels in less than 24 hours while having lots of fun and with minimal fighting.

If Combat Craft was not cutting it, and Eros Craft was out of the question since Beatrice had no desire in engaging in any sort of sexual conduct with this particular opponent, that left Mischief Craft as the only remaining option. However, Mischief Craft Skills had a particularly nasty drawback in that they could be resisted by high-level enemies. And by each passing second, Steve proved himself to be just that.

This is my wish-fulfillment world! Beatrice reminded herself. I will not be undone by some prude who can’t handle a girl with a big, fat dick between her legs!

“So be it!” Steve shouted and charged Beatrice.

“Ah!” Beatrice was quickly running out of options. Putting all her faith into her status as a Saviour and a hero of her wish-fulfillment world, crafted for her by the Goddess Luluna herself, Beatrice raised her arms forward and pointed the palms of her hands at Steve as if intending to block all eight of his spears with her bare hands. The succubus channeled her recently acquired Mischief Skill and shouted “STRIP!!”

As Steve ran at Beatrice, his armor vanished in an instant. His helmet, purple cape, boots, pants—everything except his spears and magic shield was gone in an instant.

“Wuah!” Steve lost balance because of the sudden change of weight and misplaced a step, causing him to stumble and fall face first at Beatrice’s feet.

Beatrice was stunned herself for a split second—shocked that her Skill worked so well. But the momentary lapse passed and Beatrice lunged with her Sharp Claws at Steve’s exposed nape.

“GARGH!!!” Steve grunted like a beast and knocked Beatrice’s claws away with his shield.

Beatrice leaped back to avoid the same fate as Olivia and Tabitha while Steve rolled on the ground away from Beatrice before jumping to his feet.

Beatrice cursed her own inexperience with combat. If she did not get surprised by her own Skill and delay her attack or if she did not waste her [Extend Claws] on a pointless attack and waited for a better opportunity, Steve would have been dead already. Instead, they were both again at some thirty feet away from each other, though this time Steve had no clothes to speak of.

“Defective Monster! What did you do!?” Steve shouted and covered his nakedness with his Shield of Dignity.

“D-do you ... You have no willpower, do you?” Beatrice asked.

“I have tons of willpower!” Steve protested.

But the [STRIP!] Skill’s description was quite clear.

Great Willpower or E-Rank and higher protective spells are required for the target to remain unaffected.

Beatrice smiled. Steve was literally wide open for her attacks. With no armor to protect himself apart from that annoying shield, Beatrice only needed one slice across a major artery. The only issue was Steve’s offensive capabilities. But since it turned out that Steve’s willpower was so weak that he could not even withstand an F-Rank Skill, Beatrice had an easy way to finish.

“What’s that behind you!?” Beatrice pointed behind Steve’s back and ran forward.

“As if I’d fall for such an old trick!” Steve said and prepared to take Beatrice on.

But that was exactly what Beatrice wanted. Her only goal was to reduce the distance from her opponent from thirty feet to twenty feet, and as soon as she was in range she cast her [Daze] Skill.

“H-huuuh?” Steve’s expression changed the moment he was hit by Beatrice’s [Daze] Skill. The hard look of an experienced, vicious warrior transformed into that of a deeply confused, drunken fool.

All eight spears fell on the ground around Steve, and his Shield of Dignity dug into the earth under its own weight as Steve barely kept it upright.

The [Daze] Skill would last a whole twenty seconds, but Beatrice only needed two. With Steve’s shield barely protecting his legs and abdomen, Beatrice had countless angles to finish him off.

I wonder how many experience points I’ll gain from this? Beatrice wondered as she closed in on her first kill of the day.

“H-huh-AARGH!?” Beatrice screamed and covered her eyes from the blinding light that engulfed Steve and repelled the succubus. Everything was white even with her eyes closed shut. Along with the light and the strange repelling force that threw her back, a high-pitched sound assaulted Beatrice’s ears. Like a one-note signal from a TV that was cranked up to eleven.

Beatrice fell on her butt, disoriented and blind from the light that suddenly assaulted her retinas at point-blank range. But before Beatrice could think of what to do, the sound that blasted Beatrice’s ears suddenly stopped and the forest fell quiet, though Beatrice’s ears still ringed in the aftereffect. And although Beatrice was still blind, seeing nothing but huge bright light bulbs, she felt that no more light emanated in front of her.

Slow, light footsteps informed Beatrice that someone was approaching her from behind. Beatrice tried to get up to her feet and face whoever was approaching, but her attempt was far too slow and clumsy to have a chance at protecting herself from any possible enemy and she ended up falling back on her butt, not only blind but also dizzy.

“He’s gone,” Beatrice heard Ember’s voice.

“What was that bright light?” Beatrice asked, still seeing nothing but white bulbs and blurred-out shadows. “Did he run away?”

“No, that was some sort of a teleportation spell,” Ember said.

“I’m surprised you didn’t rush in sooner,” Beatrice said.

“Was I mistaken in thinking that you wanted to test your abilities?”

“Of course not! But it was close...”

“I had a spell already on the move at one point, but you got it under control,” Ember said and crouched opposite of Beatrice. Then Beatrice felt Ember’s hands on her face and her bodyguard said, “Open your eyes.”

“I-I already tried, but I still see nothing but white,” Beatrice said but opened her eyes again. The result was the same—a barely visible shadow that was supposed to be Ember’s face, obscured by huge bright white bulbs.

“You’ll be fine,” Ember said. “The damage is not permanent. You should have some of your sight back within ten minutes.”

That’s a relief, Beatrice thought and then realized, “Wait, how did he use any spells at all? He was done for!”

“That means that he wasn’t the one who used the spell,” Ember said. “The Purple Capes have powerful people among them. If you made the mistake of thinking that Steve was the most that they have to offer, you might want to reconsider your plan of taking on Belmot’s entire forces.”

“N-no ... It’s fine,” Beatrice said and sighed. “I just need more training ... How’s that fox girl?”

“Still out cold.”

“And how are the other two?”

“Oh? I think this is the perfect opportunity to be rid of them both.”

“Ember!”

“Alright, alright, I’ll go take a look,” Ember said without much enthusiasm as if she was asked to babysit two annoying, spoiled children. She slowly got up and added, “But if they’re that weak, there’s not much point in keeping them with us.”

“Olivia did fine one against them all,” Beatrice said.

“She acted foolishly,” Ember insisted.

“Yes,” Beatrice agreed. “But right now, my power level is similar to theirs.”

“That will change quickly,” Ember said. “You’re already faster and stronger than yesterday. Those losers won’t keep up with your growth.”

“Even so, they’re important to me,” Beatrice said. “Go.”

“I don’t see why, if that’s your wish...” Ember’s voice trailed off as she probably went to check on Tabitha and Olivia. Beatrice still could not see well enough to be sure.

Beatrice sighed, disappointed in her performance, as well as the fact that a possibly huge chunk of combat experience just escaped her. Beatrice had several reasons to keep Tabitha and Olivia around. The only reason she wasn’t ready to mention was that one of them was likely a becoming mother of her future child.

“Ghah!” Steve gasped as he fell on all fours against the hard, cold floor. He was no longer in the forest, but he was still naked. The spell successfully moved him away from danger. Steve was in a large, but poorly illuminated room. The only light came through several narrow windows in the thick exterior wall.

The last thing Steve recalled was the deformed half-naked whore charging at him, casting another spell on him. A few seconds later, the light engulfed him. But the teleporting spell was not his. And even if Steve did possess the magic abilities to master such a spell, he would not have been able to do anything under the debilitating effects of the spell that was cast on him by the deformed whore.

Steve looked up and saw his savior—sitting at a long but simple wooden table, enjoying her dinner. Even with the standard armor and shoulder pads that all Purple Capes wore, her small figure and narrow shoulders were obvious. Her black hair was done in a ponytail that reached just to her nape, except for the three thick bangs of black hair that fell across her thin face, nearly reaching the tip of her nose. With plenty of eyeliner, dark eyeshadow, and black lipstick the girl looked like some rebellious teenager. And yet, this skinny nineteen-year-old had the mark of a captain.

The captain had a large plate in front of her. And on that plate was unmistakably a well-cooked, humanoid lower leg, that the captain was eating without utensils.

“C-captain Flavna!” Steve kneeled, keeping his head low.

“You had twelve people to bring me a couple of foxkin,” the girl spoke. “How did you end up needing saving?”

“S-she was more powerful than we anticipated,” Steve tried to explain his failure. “She killed three of my men in an instant!”

“My men, not yours,” captain Flavna corrected Steve. “But you lost eight of my men, not three. Who killed the other five?”

“We ran into a ... A strange group,” Steve murmured and looked away.

“Is that right? ‘A strange group’?” Flavna asked as she looked at Steve with utter disgust.

Flavna dropped the leg that she ate and disappeared from Steve’s sight. The next moment she reappeared in front of Steve – as if she had teleported – and front kicked Steve across his face, sending him flying up. She then threw a spinning kick into Steve’s stomach that popped like a gunshot and sent Steve flying back against the wall, smashing into the stone with a greater force than with which he incapacitated Tabitha and Olivia in his fight.

Steve fell face-down, naked on the cold floor, with a giant bruise on his back. His entire body trembled as he tried to raise his body even a couple of inches off the floor, but he started coughing up blood before he could even raise his head to look at Flavna.

“You lost eight men!” Flavna screamed. “You failed your mission! You brought shame to the uniform you wore! And you can’t even do a proper report!?”

“You shouldn’t scream like that,” a man spoke up from the other side of the room. He stood between the windows, obscured by the created shadows. Much taller than captain Flavna, he was not currently wearing his standard-issue armor. He was clearly muscular, but not over-buff muscle-bound like Steve. Rather, he looked strong and agile. With spiky dark blue hair that flowed back, except for a couple of short strands that fell across his dark blue eyes. Like Flavna, he also had a captain’s mark on his chest. Gamesh, the only man of equal ranking to Flavna among Belmot’s entire forces. He was utterly calm and composed, with his arms crossed, and simply added, “It makes your face wrinkly. And it also makes it seem like you’re not in control.”

“C-control?” Flavna asked and brushed away her three long bangs that fell across her eyes. “This little piece of shit was two seconds away from being on his knees, naked, face in the mud, ass to the sky, getting rammed like a common whore! He let some random group of nobodies and a fucking fox make an utter fool of him! Of us!”

Flavna swung her thin leg again across Steve’s jaw, sending blood and several teeth flying through the air.

“All our reputation that I’ve built over the years! All our power!” Flavna shouted at Steve, unable to control her rage as she stomped on Steve’s head and pressed it against the stone floor. “It’s bad enough that you’re a disgrace! You made the Purple Capes look like a joke!”

“They were weaklings anyway,” the blue-haired captain shrugged.

“Not you too!” Flavna shouted, seemingly exasperated as she took her leg off Steve’s head. She then took a few steps toward Gamesh and said, “Our power comes from our reputation. Our reputation depends on the strength, effectiveness, and ruthlessness of my soldiers. The King is getting increasingly difficult to predict. The murder princess just added another charred body to my list of things to take care of! Meanwhile, Belmot is even more useless than usual!”