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We rushed through the castle gate and into the deserted front garden. It was dark and quiet. In the sky, clouds covered the moon, cutting off its light.
We hadn't run head-on into any monsters on our way here. None of them had paid any attention to us; they had all been fornicating lewdly, obeying their instincts.
Just remembering it made me sick to my stomach.
The air felt thicker and heavier. It seemed to coil around me. I sensed — even if I wasn't consciously aware of it — a dense aura, a feeling of unfathomable pressure.
My body sensed the change and froze before I had a chance to think. The powerful monster the messenger had told me about — maybe even the leader of this invasion — was coming toward us.
...So she's putting in a personal appearance.
I readied my halberd and prepared for combat. As I did so, it appeared out of a deeper darkness.
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Hero."
Snow-white hair that seemed to assert its presence in the darkness. Captivating, almost translucently pale skin with runes drawn on it. Pointed ears. Such red eyes.
Ample bosoms. A beautifully curved waist. A round peach bottom. Long, slender legs.
The succubus in front of me had a body like womanhood personified. It was indecent, unrealistically beautiful, and evil.
It was — barely — covered by a jet-black bondage dress with red trim and decorated with crimson eyeballs. That only added to the evil impression.
The lone succubus — she had no retinue — was hovering elegantly in the air ahead of me, wings spread.
"...You the boss?"
Even just facing her, I could feel her overwhelming mana. In terms of raw power, she was stronger than any Hero in Lescatié. And when it came to monsters that strong...
"Yes. I am Druella... daughter of the Overlord."
A daughter of the Overlord... A lilim. The most powerful of the succubi. It was said that just the sight of them was enough to charm men into willingly offering their bodies.
I'd come up against a real big shot, but that didn't mean I could afford to lose.
"...Elt, run."
I glanced at Elt for just a moment. He was focused on the enemy in front of us, spear in hand. Or rather, he was paralyzed by the sight of her. His stance was in shambles, his body was stiff, and naked fear was creeping its way across his face, but his eyes had not yet lost the will to fight.
An ordinary man would have been charmed on the spot, but it seemed he was managing to hold out. That, however, did not change the fact that he was practically defenseless. I had to get him away from here as soon as possible.
Shit...! I screwed up. I might as well have brought him along just to slow me down. Why didn't I, of all people, realize this might happen...?
I should have come alone. It was the kind of mistake I normally wouldn't make. Why, at a time like this...?
Beating myself up wouldn't help.
"Hee hee... Do you really think I'd let him?"
As soon as I told him to run, the lilim snapped her fingers. I sensed her mana behind me, where Elt was.
"Elt!?"
By the time I turned around, a magic circle was already glowing under Elt's feet. He was trapped inside a wall of red light.
"Coward!"
Realizing that turning to look behind me left me totally defenseless, I turned back to the lilim. If she'd taken advantage of the opening, I would have lost. I'd shown my back — even if only for a moment — to an enemy I knew was strong enough to make that certain. The knowledge made me shudder and curse.
My enemy had a hostage. The situation couldn't get much worse.
Could I abandon him? Abandon Elt? No, I couldn't. Elt was my pupil, my subordinate, my drinking companion, my friend, and my comrade in arms. I was closer to him, got along with him better, and enjoyed being with him more than anyone else in Lescatié. He was irreplaceable.
I was the only person here who could stop the lilim. I knew that I couldn't afford to lose. Of course, I also knew that I couldn't afford to bring personal feelings onto a battlefield.
I still couldn't steel myself to abandon Elt. I didn't want to. I didn't care if that was unworthy of a Hero, or selfish, or conceited.
Even if I didn't abandon Elt, however, there would still be no one left to protect him. Even if I surrendered, I had no guarantee he'd be released. In fact, I was certain he wouldn't be.
No matter what I did, I had no hope of saving him.
Shit...! What should I do? He wouldn't even be in this mess if I hadn't brought him here...
For a moment, hesitation, regret, impatience, and anger at myself dominated my thoughts. The lilim must have noticed.
"I will not harm him... I swear it on the names of my mother and father. I only want to him to see you. Now, if you care to try me, I'll be your opponent."
She grinned fearlessly and generated a mass of pitch-black mana in the air. It writhed, shrinking and changing shape until it was a rapier that came to rest in the lilim's hand. The blade was jet black. The hilt was white, matching her hair, wings, and tail. The sinister weapon was adorned, like her clothes, with imitation red eyes.
Then, still hovering in the air and grinning fearlessly, she beckoned to me with her free hand. There was overwhelming confidence in the gesture that had nothing to do with holding Elt prisoner. It seemed to say that she had no fear of losing.
"Bring it on, bitch!"
I rushed straight at the lilim and thrust my trusty halberd at her heart. The sound of the tip slicing the air carried in the quiet darkness.
An instant later came the scrape of metal on metal. The lilim's rapier easily turned aside my halberd.
I hastily leapt back to avoid a counterattack, but none came. Instead, the lilim slowly returned her rapier to its original position and spoke mockingly.
"Oh my, look at his face... This must be quite hard on him."
"Shut up...!"
Her tone sounded as if she wanted to imply something about our relationship. It was deeply unpleasant. Elt was important to me, but there was nothing like that between us.
This time, I brought my halberd around in a short, sideways sweep. From her stance, she couldn't hope to block it...!
"Oh my, right on the mark..."
The blade of my halberd was just about to cut into the lilim's wing when it clanged off a translucent black wall that appeared between me and her.
The lilim was still floating calmly, uninjured and without a hair out of place. She flashed a bewitching, chillingly beautiful grin.
"You're not taking this seriously...!"
A wall of pure mana with no incantation. It was a show of strength made possible by the overwhelming quantity of mana at her disposal.
She was on a different level. My experience as a warrior made me immediately aware of the power gap between me and the thing in front of me. I couldn't honestly claim to stand a chance.
But I was still going to beat her. I couldn't afford to lose. Losing would mean joining those monsters, those instinct-driven beasts, those... women. That was the one thing I couldn't bear. Just thinking about it made me sick to my stomach.
And I had to get Elt back. He was in danger because of my mistake; I couldn't lose without setting that right. I couldn't afford to.
I summoned my courage, backed off again, adjusted my grip on my halberd, and glared at the lilim.
Breaking through her wall head on would be difficult... Was there anything I could do to get around it...?
"If you won't come to me... I'll just have to go to you."
The lilim cut my thoughts short with a great flap of her wings. She moved so lightly she almost seemed to have dispensed with the concept of weight.
The lilim appeared to dance gracefully through the air, but she closed distance with the speed of an arrow.
She's fast...!
I had the longer reach. At close quarters, however, her nimble rapier had the advantage.
I tried to capitalize on my longer reach with a horizontal swipe at the approaching lilim.
"Hee hee hee..."
The lilim floated up, seeming to ignore inertia, and glided over my halberd.
I screwed up.
By the time I thought that, the lilim's bewitching smile was right in front of me. A shudder ran down my spine. Then came a flurry of strikes from the jet-black rapier in her hand.
When someone thrusts with a rapier, they can't do anything while their arm is fully extended. That being the case, all I had to do was dodge out of the way, then aim for that opening.
When I tried to put the theory into practice, however... it was the most I could do to narrowly avoid her sharp, precise thrusts. I had no room to counterattack. Because she was flying, she could dispense with the preliminary movement of stepping in. That only added to the danger.
She's not just strong; she's got skill, too...!
"You'll never win if you just stay on the defensive, you know?"
The storm of thrusts was getting more severe. I was stuck on the defensive and being inevitably forced into a situation where I would no longer be able to block her rapier with my halberd. If this assault kept up, I was going to lose. I knew that, but there was nothing I could do about it. The lilim wasn't leaving me even a momentary opening to aim for. My predicament just kept getting worse.
It happened too fast. I'd only just started to think of a strategy to break out of the deadlock when a stab slipped past my halberd and grazed my right leg.
There was no pain. There was no wound, either. Instead, a little bit of strength went out of my leg.
My center of gravity slipped just a little out of balance. That created just a little break in my stance. By the time I realized the opening could prove decisive, it was already too late.
"Hee hee hee... Got you."
The rapier closed in on my right shoulder. My faltering center of balance slowed my body's reaction, and the blade graved my skin. It was deeper than the earlier hit, but there was still no pain. The loss of strength, however, was that much greater.
Then came a stab at my left leg. I couldn't evade it just by twisting my body out of the way. I tried to change its trajectory with my halberd, but because of the weakness in my right shoulder, I wasn't quite fast enough.
The rapier thrust in and pulled back, just missing the center of my left leg. As it did, all the strength went out of the limb. My knees buckled and my vision wavered.
The rapier came at me again. My vision went into slow motion. My thoughts raced, but my halberd wouldn't reach from this unsteady posture, and I was too off-balance to dodge.
A sideways sweep of the rapier went clear through my right leg, which I had thrust out to keep from falling. Apparently, the blade of mana could be used for slashing as well as stabbing. The realization came too late.
The leg went as limp as if the tendons had been severed. Gravity dragged me to my knees. I had no choice but to use my halberd as a staff to prop up my teetering upper body.
The rapier pressed the advantage with quick thrusts to both my arms. I had no way of blocking them. The stabs were shallower than the ones to my legs had been, so I was able to keep a hold on my weapon, but they lost the strength to swing it. I was like a feeble woman.
"It's your loss," the lilim declared, floating lightly.
She looked down at me with a face that said her victory was no surprise.
"Shit...!"
No matter how I struggled to force strength back into my legs, all they did was tremble. I couldn't stand. Even if I tried to swing my weapon, the most I could do was drag its weight.
Move... Move...! I've got to fight...! If I don't, Elt and I will be...! So why...? Why won't you move...?
Struggle as I might, I couldn't rise from my knees. I knew I'd lost.
"Elt... I'm sorry... Because of me, you..."
I looked over my shoulder to where Elt was trapped in the magic circle. Because of how often I'd had to back away, he was now directly behind me.
Elt was close at hand. I could see him through the magic circle, paralyzed, watching my defeat. Even in this situation, he looked worried for me. That only added to the shame and misery of my loss.
"Now, I'm going to make you a monster... make you a lovely woman."
Again, the lilim glided toward me. She took my halberd, leaving me weaponless.
Then she circled around behind me, held me under both armpits, and raised me to my feet. That done, she turned again, so that I was facing Elt.
"Wha...? Let go... Let go of me! I don't want to be a woman!"
"I'll make you a woman." The words sent a shudder through my whole body.
"Woman."
Memories of my hateful mother flashed before my eyes. Memories of the woman who crazily, relentlessly abused me. I hadn't known why. I'd just suffered it.
My father was a man of character. He should have saved me, but he'd trusted that woman implicitly. He'd worked himself to the bone for her and me. And as if to mock his trust, she had punched me and kicked me, always careful not to leave marks my father would see. The abuse escalated as the days went by, and my father didn't notice.
When my father was looking, she played the part of the good wife.
As a child, I'd been ruled by fear. I hadn't been able to seek help. In front of my father, I'd acted like nothing was wrong, just like she told me to. I did resent my father for failing to notice, but I also looked forward to the time I spent with him. She didn't hurt me when he was there. And when my father smiled and called me a "good girl," it really did make me happy.
Then, one day, she started going out more. She also stopped giving me the scraps that passed for lunch. I suffered from an empty stomach, but she was hurting me less, so it came as a relief.
Laughing madly, she brought down the kitchen knife and took my right eye. "This is goodbye to you and that boring loser," she'd said.
I saw my father, crying and apologizing. She wasn't there. My father, thin with care, kept apologizing to me until he lay on the floor.
It's all her fault. Casually hurting people, betraying them, deceiving them... I'll never become a woman like her! I'll never become a monster...!
The fear of being a woman that had been etched into me covered my mind like a flood. I flailed with all the strength in my weakened body to escape it. But in spite of my efforts, I was easily restrained and forced to face Elt.
"Hee hee... Shall we let him watch? Now, let's start with... these magnificent breasts of yours."
A mud-like clump of mana appeared under me. Tendrils reached up from it to tie my hands behind my back. It felt disgusting — lukewarm and slimy. Dread shot through me. I twisted and turned, but there was nothing I could do to resist.
Then the lilim touched my breastplate. It came away easily in her hand, exposing the symbols of the "woman" I had tried to suppress — those pointlessly huge, eye-catching things that forced me to face my sex. I could try to pretend they didn't exist all I wanted, but there they were.
To make matters worse, Elt was right in front of me. His face — and his gaze — was angled toward my chest. Then he looked away. A moment too late. It might have only been for a moment, but Elt had seen my breasts. My shame, my anger at the lilim, and my fear of what was about to be done to me escaped as a soundless scream.
The lilim decided to hit me while I was down.
"You mustn't avert your eyes. Look," she ordered Elt. There was magic in her voice.
Elt looked surprised as his eyes moved — were forced to move — to my chest. This time, he didn't look away, even for a moment. He wasn't allowed to.
"Don't look! Don't look...!"
His piercing gaze bored relentlessly into my chest. I couldn't help feeling ashamed, but the fact that I did was proof that I was a woman. I didn't want to acknowledge it. I tried to escape by turning my face away from Elt and shouting. It wasn't enough.
"Oh my... What are you saying? Don't you realize your darling is watching you?"
The lilim ran her fingers down the upper surface of my breasts, almost flicking the nipples as she passed over them. Her touch alone was enough to create a faint, tantalizing heat in my chest.
"Y, you're wro—!"
As her fingertips flicked my nipples, something sweet tingled down my spine. It was completely unfamiliar to me — I had never even masturbated before. Still, I knew immediately that it was pleasure.
Surprise and fear of the strange pleasure assailed me, as well as revulsion. Even so, I couldn't repress a little gasp. It sounded almost like I enjoyed it.
My nipples were swollen, erect, and ached faintly by the time her fingers left them.
I don't think of Elt that way...! I couldn't... love him, or anything womanish like that...!
I mentally denied the lilim's words. Loving a man would make me, unmistakably, a woman.
"I am not wrong," the lilim retorted, adding insult to injury. "You turned your back to me out of concern for him. You gave me enough of an opening to finish the fight then and there if I'd cared to... Would a warrior like you be so distracted by a man you didn't care for? And it looks as though you couldn't bring yourself to abandon him, either... Hee hee..."
As she spoke, she gripped my nipples and rolled them back and forth between her fingers. Her every movement sent an electric shock of pleasure racing through me and made my body twitch and jump against my will. At the same time, I was losing so much strength that I couldn't have moved deliberately if I'd wanted to.
I grit my teeth and tried to keep quiet, but I couldn't stop gasps from slipping out. Heat was also building up deep inside me, and my skin was starting to flush. I could feel my nipples getting even harder as my body sought pleasure. I didn't want to acknowledge it. I didn't want to admit that I was enjoying it like a woman.
But I had no choice. It was a fact. And that fact was drawing out the hatred and fear of womanhood that had been etched into my heart and making it grow.
The lilim's words had shaken me. It was true that no one could take Elt's place in my heart. Still, that didn't mean I had feelings for him as a woman. I cared for him as a subordinate, a student, a friend. Of course I was scared of losing him. Most of the time, I could have rejected the idea out of hand. But there was a part of me that thought, "maybe," just for a moment... and I was desperate to shake it off.
"Besides... Even though you should have come alone, you went out of your way to bring him along..."
While kneading my nipples between her fingers, she was slowly, but surely and thoroughly rubbing my chest. Every time her index and middle fingers sunk into my breasts, they rubbed my nipples, which were sandwiched between them, and made my body jump with pleasure.
And, as she kneaded my breasts, a hot, syrupy pleasure, different from what my nipples felt, assailed me. The two pleasures overlapped, reinforcing each other as they gradually built up in my body and made it flush hotter and hotter.
The gasps that I tried — and failed — to stifle were gradually turning into cries. Cries that sounded uncomfortably like the pleasured moans I'd heard from monsters on my way here. A woman's cries.
I'd never made sounds like that before. It felt genuinely unpleasant. It horrified me. I wanted to cover my ears, but I couldn't.
It was true that bringing Elt here was a mistake I would normally never have made. At the time, all the reasons to bring him with me had come straight to mind. The reasons to leave him behind hadn't. I should have realized that.
Still, that was just a coincidence. I told myself that the lilim was trying to shake me, and her words had only happened to hit their mark.
"The look on your face says you still want to deny it... My, aren't you stubborn."
The lilim took one hand off my breasts and turned my head so we were face to face. I was forced to meet her gaze at close quarters. Her crimson eyes were smiling. That woman — my mother — had certainly never looked at me so kindly.
The lilim's words seemed intended to admonish me. Her other hand, however, was still violating my chest.
The swirling pleasure was steadily building up in my body. My moans were matching it by getting steadily louder. I couldn't hold them in.
Then the lilim made me face forward again.
"Look there... See? He wants you..."
I saw Elt, his face flushed, staring eagerly at me. His chest heaved restlessly, telling me that he was breathing heavily. When I looked down, I saw a huge swelling on his un-armored crotch. He looked both strained and apologetic.
When I looked back up to his face, our eyes met. His gaze seemed to say he was sorry, but flames of lust smoldered in his eyes.
He hadn't lost his reason. He was desperately struggling to suppress the impulse. Even so, his lust was reaching me through his gaze...
Elt had been my emotional support, and now he was lusting for me. He was seeing me as a woman.
I looked away — too late — but I couldn't get the sight out of my mind. I ordered it to disappear. I tried to focus on something else. It was still there.
It felt like someone I'd trusted had betrayed me. It felt like the world had collapsed. I was in despair.
"Ah... Aah...!"
In spite of that — and against my will — the pleasure the lilim was giving me continued to build up, intensify, and swell.
"Oh... You're about to cum, aren't you? He's watching. Hee hee hee..."
Then the swelling was suddenly bursting. Something was coming.
"Ooh, eee! Aaaahh!?"
No sooner had I thought that than a torrent of pleasure began to sear its way through my entire body. It washed over my mind, which had been buried in fear and revulsion, and sent it flying far, far away. My limbs spasmed out of my control. With no idea what was happening to my body, I let out a high-pitched cry.
"Didn't that feel good? Wasn't it lovely? He looks like he's getting there too... We'll have to give him more to look at, now won't we?"
The pleasure subsided, and I finally realized that I'd just climaxed. The afterglow made me feel like I was floating. My mind was blank. The pleasure that had built up in my body was receding little by little, like a tide going out. The hot flush that covered my skin, on the other hand, was intensifying.
Then, the lilim's hand crept down from my chest. It unfastened my trousers and slipped inside.
"Ah... Stop..."
My body was limp in the aftermath of my climax. There was nothing I could do to resist. A weak protest was the most I could manage. I was aware that it sounded like begging, but I had no other choice.
"Your underpants are sopping wet... Here, let me take them off for you."
The lilim had no mercy. Her hand seized on my underclothes as she whispered a fact I didn't want to acknowledge in my ear.
I shut my eyes. I couldn't bear to look. But I could still feel her slowly, teasingly, showily stripping me.
"Oh, he just swallowed hard," the lilim whispered in my ear, so close that I could feel her breath. "He looks so turned on..."
What she said was hard for me to accept. Elt being aroused by me forced me to acknowledge my own womanhood. But even if I kept my eyes shut tight and tried to believe the lilim was lying, I couldn't help picturing the scene she described. My imagination conjured up the look on his face, his breathing, and the light in his eyes as vividly and realistically as if I was really seeing them.
Then, when she had pulled my underpants down around my knees, the lilim's fingers finally crept toward my groin...
"Aah..."
She was stroking me in ways that even I never had. Her fingers were slick and wet. My body was so sensitive after my climax that their touch was enough to squeeze limp moans out of it. My body — a woman's body — was accepting the pleasure in spite of what my mind wanted.
"He's breathing hard. And how he's staring at you..."
The lilim's words tricked me into feeling as if Elt really was staring at me.
No, she's wrong... She has to be! Elt would never...!
I was determined to deny it. Even so, I couldn't shake the feeling.
To make matters worse, the lilim was flicking, squeezing, and rubbing my clitoris through its protective hood...
"Ah... Mmm... Aahn... Aah..."
I'd known it was sensitive, but I'd never really touched it myself. The lilim playing with my most sensitive part now, while I was still feeling the lingering effects of my orgasm, far surpassed anything I'd imagined. It was impossible to describe.
In the blink of an eye, I'd been forced to another little climax. Then another. And another.
I didn't have the strength to move, but my body still responded to the pleasure. Every climax was accompanied by a little, shuddering jerk.
"Hee hee... He's waiting, you know...? Waiting for you to become a lovely woman... A lovely mother..." The lilim whispered gently as the tip of her tail rubbed and prodded the tip of one of my breasts. One of her hands was on my other breast, while the other continued its determined assault on my clitoris. Its attacks were so intense that nothing she'd done before could compare.
"Aah, ahn... Ah, aah... Aah..."
Climax after climax. Sparks of pleasure flew. My body was burning hot. It throbbed greedily, reveling in the pleasure it received and still wanting more.
My body was now totally limp. All I could do was moan. And Elt's image was still burned into my brain.
Even Elt, my emotional support, was looking at me as a woman. Even he was looking at me with lust. I hadn't even been turned into a monster, and I was still being forced to acknowledge my womanhood.
Mana was flowing into me through the lilim's fingers, and through her tail. I knew that I had to resist, but I no longer had the willpower. I could feel the mana coursing through me, turning me into a monster.
Why...? Why do I have to be... a woman...? In the end... no matter what I do... I'm just like them...! Why...? Why...?
I'd thought I'd cast off my womanhood. That was why I'd chosen the path of battle. I'd kept running, fighting desperately. But I could never get away from the fact that I was a woman. Even the person I'd trusted now served to drive that cruel reality home.
Unable to accept that I was a woman, I denied my own existence. It felt like the whole world had shaken. Intense nausea assailed me, but pleasure forcibly overwrote it. I would have much rather thrown up, but I wasn't even allowed to do that. I was helpless.
My heart was sinking, blotted out by black despair. My mind grew distant, violated by mana. When I next woke up, even my mind would be that of a monster — of a filthy woman. Just imagining it made the despair worse.
No... I don't want to be like her... No! No! No...! I sobbed mentally. I single mindedly kept running from the fact of my womanhood, but it caught up to me anyway.
Then, in the midst of my despair, the mana consumed me. My consciousness ceased and dissolved into darkness.
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