Chapter 18: Arrival at the Magic Forest
We didn’t have any further challenges with bandits for the rest of the journey. Only a couple groups even challenged us. It makes me think that some of the survivors from before must have warned the smarter groups off. The city of Legrace was a sight to behold. Although, it was big enough to be considered a city, it did not have a particularly high static population. Most of the people present were transient. Merchants that were there to trade or adventurers passing through the checkpoint. The city of Wynfel just across the river is a very old dungeon city that is said to exceed fifty floors. This is something that hasn’t been confirmed due to the normally low level of adventurers that enter it. Knowing that some scum in the city may have been informed of our arrival ahead of time, we quickly collect our escort fee and proceed to the bridge checkpoint. We plan to find tonight’s accommodations on the other side.
Although the intents I feel when we are asked to lower our hoods are still filled with lust, there is a much less sinister tint to them than I had experienced before. We pay the fees and walk into a wondrous elven city. The first thing we decide to do after securing an inn for the night is to go shopping. I spent a big chunk of our gold stockpile to obtain enough crystals to get the both of us to peak of stage four in each energy type. Then I buy some local products that attract our attention as well as every available beauty products that I don’t yet have, enough to last for a long while. Sophia once again managed to find one of those novelty shops that had escaped my notice. She only bought a single bottle of something this time, well several bottles of the same thing anyways. She would only tell me that I would find out later what it is. From the look of it, it seems to be some kind of body oil. Finished with our shopping spree, we head back to the inn for the night.
After dinner and a bath, Sophia asks me to use her new oil for tonight’s massage. It has a seemingly familiar minty herb scent, but I can’t quite place it or figure out why it would result in such a buying frenzy. That is, until we stepped out of the bathroom. I found myself instinctively clinging to her while a purring sound erupted from my body. Though the mute curse prevents me from talking, embarrassing animalistic responses still seem to work just fine. The effects of my catkin disguise set are stupidly realistic.
“Suddenly, I feel light-headed, like I drank too much wine. Our meal may have been poisoned, Mistress, but my cure doesn’t seem to affect it.”~me
“Oh, I don’t think cure will work on this particular poison. It’s just a natural reaction after all.”~Sophia
“Catnip! You dosed me with catnip somehow. No, wait. You had me massage you with it!”~me
I managed to only say that last line before my catnip induced euphoria awakened some baser feline instincts I never knew I had. We somehow manage to get into the bed where I proceeded to caress her entire body with my tongue, indulging in my desire for the substance. With the assistance of the nighty’s effect, my actions were enhanced into eliciting numerous moans of pleasure. I ended up licking or sucking on every inch of her skin before she had a chance to actively participate herself. My frisky, drug laiden actions only stopped when we both were utterly exhausted. Even in my altered state, I somehow manage to make use of my blessings to enhance stamina which led to us completely losing track of any semblance of a lucid thought. When we woke up the next day and we manage to recover some semblance of walking ability, we discovered that it was already just past noon.
“Mistress, perhaps you should use that oil sparingly from now on? Only occasionally, when we have plenty of free time?”~me
“Ye-yeah. Not going to complain? That’s unusually accepting for you.”~Sophia
“Oh, I will make sure to return the favor in kind. However, I will need to buy some things first.”~me
“Hmm, I will look forward to your revenge.”~Sophia
Ugh, I can’t wait to wipe that smirk off her face as I…you’ll have to wait until I’ve prepared everything. After we’ve eaten lunch, I stopped by the novelty shop and place an order for some quality goods. I’m not willing to let her suffer by using the lower quality, ready-made goods. Things like this are worth the extra price needed to get luxury tier materials used in their crafting. They reported that it would be delivered to our room at the inn about four days later.
Once I’ve finished placing my order, I meet up with Sophia at the guild. We get information about the dungeon here and look through the requests they offer. The guild in this world is, of course, an existence brought over by heroes, though each guild operates mostly independent from the others. They will ensure that rewards are given when a request is completed from any guild branch, but the guild branch in each location usually belong to whoever is running the place. Requests can only be transferred between locations by request takers themselves in the form of contracts. Magic contracts are not normally used though, except for higher tier requests, as it is too expensive to issue each and every request in such a way. I make a mental note of any unlimited requests for materials from the dungeon. Since the day is already mostly gone, we spend one more, much more restrained, night at the inn before setting off for the dungeon the next morning.
We once again dive into a dungeon. The experience is completely different this time without the elite guards. Before, the guards would deter any unwanted attention simply by glaring at others. This time however, we got accosted at every turn. Usually, Sophia would simply tell them to b***** off. Those who were genuinely wanting to assist the two beauties with the hope of getting into our skirts as a bonus, would generally back off. Anyone who wouldn’t take no for an answer were ended by my blade and incinerated. I have to say that being a melee type fighter is really very messy. Some people make it look easy, but it’s terribly difficult to keep your clothes from being splashed by blood and other disgusting things. Makes me especially thankful that my clothing all has the self-cleaning effect on them. I run out of room in my inventory fairly quickly and am forced into keeping only the most valuable resources for a time. Once my inventory level went up, I resumed my usual hoarding. We make it to a mid level thirties floor in three days before things start to get a little too difficult for us. It takes us only two days to make the trip back to the surface, eliminating a few more pests along the way out.
The entire five days inside, neither of us were able to really cultivate anything except skill levels. I’ve long since activated all my traits except the two new ones I gained when Sophia let me drink her blood. Delicious! Seriously, elven blood is incredibly delicious or perhaps it’s the virgin element. I may need to investigate this for future reference. As we are making our way back to the inn, we notice that there is quite a bit of chatter and the whole city seems to be in a state of alert. There is an especially noticeable decrease in human presence throughout the city. We ask the inn clerk if she can tell us anything about it.
“How could you possibly not know? You are not humans are you? No, you smell different, halfs?”~clerk
I look to Sophia and she gives me a nod. We pull down our hoods to reveal her slightly pointed ears and my special features.
“Half wood-elf and catkin by the looks of you, though I can’t recall a tribe with such beautiful fur. Four days ago, something happened with magical contracts. A new curse was discovered by everyone who held any sort of magical contract called: Contract’s burden. After a few days of investigation, it was revealed that anyone who is under a servitude type contract had lost all spirit energy, unable to replenish it, even by using crystals. Their cultivation speed was negatively affected greatly by the lack of spirit energy. Anyone who is the master of such contracts also had a small amount of spirit energy missing. The amount doubled with each additional servant they had under contract and they started losing servant contracts each day until their spirit was adequate for the number they had. Contracts with only exchange of services by a mutually beneficial agreement were discovered to require only one spirit energy for each contract.”~clerk
“Was this the fix that the Goddess had told you about before?”~Sophia
“Probably, she didn’t let me know what it would be, but this sounds like it fits. The curse part is especially telling, she has been experimenting more with curses recently when she saw what I had managed to do with them. Ask the clerk about the humans.”~me
“That explains the reason things feel different around here, except for the apparent alert state and the missing humans. Why is there a sudden lack of them?”~Sophia
“Some nobles who depended on these servitude contracts lost most of their servants. Most of these types of nobles ended up killed by their former servants. It was discovered that some humans had forcibly captured demi servants and had them smuggling more demi servants over to the human side. The city lord decided to close the border, evicting the humans, until further notice.”~clerk
