The Count Comes Calling

A cascade of notification windows exploded across my vision. I read through the text at a leisurely pace, idly groping the breasts of the three beauties sprawled in all their glory across the bed. My original title, Virgin Hunter, had evolved into Virgin Killer. So titles could evolve — that was news to me.

The overall description was the same, but the bonus had been upgraded from "additional" to "substantial." The title's efficiency had gone up. A divine commandment, basically, to go deflower even more virgins from here on out. Once I'd confirmed the title, I added Arme as my slave on the spot.

Agility and Luck were high, as you'd expect from a thief. Arme also possessed a wealth of archaeological knowledge, so her Intelligence was up at mage levels. Three of her stats cleared 150.

The trade-off was that her Strength lagged behind — though it wasn't that she was weak, exactly. The other stats were just abnormally high. Stats befitting the thief of the original protagonist's party.

Arme had a truly unique ability: one that made her skills stronger the longer she maintained stealth. It suited an assassin perfectly.

Solari World originally had no concept of abilities at all. That was something the Unix Cube had grafted on. I was still looking over Arme's slave management window when a new notification appeared in front of me.

A new window opened in front of me. The Shop. It was small and simple, though — a rectangular panel with a single item listed.

The only item in the Shop was a Random Item Coupon. I'd received one as a reward before. I checked my finances. The credits I'd accumulated so far totaled 122,400.

Credits were a critical resource — they could unlock abilities and skills — so I'd been hoarding them without waste. A bad investment couldn't be undone. I had to move as carefully as possible.

The moment the Unix Cube unlocked a new function, a new quest dropped in. I opened the quest window immediately.

A buy-something quest — basically a tutorial. The difficulty was so low I couldn't expect a great reward, but these ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠things were still worth knocking out promptly. There was a certain satisfaction in clearing quests.

I bought ten Random Item Coupons from the Shop. Ten thousand credits, total. Watching the credit count on my status window drop felt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like watching my own blood drain away. Credits were far more precious to me than the cash in my wallet.

It made me weep blood, but I still had plenty left, so I gritted my teeth and bore it. I hadn't thrown the credits away — I'd bought items. Not a loss. The coupons I'd purchased dropped straight into my inventory.

Fuck me, that's a piss-poor reward. I'd just eaten a 9,900-credit loss. Granted, I'd bought items, so coldly speaking I was still ahead — but it felt like I'd been robbed. Anyway, I used the coupons. A C-Rank Random Item Coupon could spit out anything from D-Rank to B-Rank.

The coupons produced one Hard Biscuit, five Transformation Potions, two Watching Eyes, and two Orange Potions. I'd cracked open ten coupons and gotten only four kinds of items.

The Watching Eye was something I put to good use constantly. I could never have too many of those. The Transformation Potion was new — a fun little effect that let you become someone else. And it went well beyond fun. The thing had enormous potential. The five-hour duration was a bit of a shame, but still. I'd spent a lot of credits, and the result wasn't bad.

"Nnhhh…!"

Still lost in the aftershocks of climax, Arme twitched her hips and squeezed my semen out of both her pussy and her ass. I gave her rump a sharp smack, then lay down beside the collapsed women. As a branch skill of Sex Mastery, I'd acquired Harem Mind. A skill after my own heart, every last bit of it. I really was born to be a harem king.

Drowsiness rolled over me. The scent of women's skin tickled my nose in the most pleasant way. Nothing puts a man to sleep quite like a grove of wine and flesh.

"What the hell is this? I feel like I just got insanely stronger."

Arme woke from a dead sleep and examined her body from head to toe, unable to hide her astonishment. She'd offered me both her pussy and her ass as a virgin, and the spec-up had been instantaneous and enormous. It would have been weirder if she hadn't noticed something was off. Growth like that wasn't normal.

"That," I said, "is the power I possess as a Hero of the Sun."

"Your power as a hero!?"

"You already know that every Hero of the Sun has a unique ability, don't you? Mine is Power of Sex. Just having sex with me is enough to make you stronger."

Arme had already accepted that I was a hero, and this only deepened her trust. Well — tell a lie this well-supported and people don't have much choice. I'd already shown her more than enough proof. The explosive growth she'd just experienced, in particular, was an achievement no ordinary method could ever produce.

Once Arme understood that sleeping with me made her stronger, she started seducing me at every possible opportunity. The stray cat who'd sworn she'd kill herself if I ever violated her had vanished somewhere. In that respect, she was every bit the cunning thief.

Of course, it wasn't just about getting stronger. Arme wanted my body for the overwhelming pleasure I gave her, too. It hadn't even been a few days since I'd taken her, and she'd already reached the point of wearing nothing at all around the mansion.

"Arme. You're going to catch a cold like that."

"Haha. This is nothing. The house is plenty warm. Anyway — you wouldn't happen to want to drain the tank, would you?"

She made a stroking gesture with her right hand, swept it through the air, and threw me a wink. In no time at all, Arme had become my ace onahole, threatening even Luna's position. I didn't refuse her seduction in the slightest. I had absolutely no reason to.

For as long as I was in the mansion, my cock never got a chance to dry. Mornings began with a triple blowjob from Luna, Sera, and Arme — in place of an alarm clock. After that, I'd take a nice, satisfying piss in Sera's or Arme's mouth.

Whether it was the training that had gotten her used to my semen and urine, Arme always volunteered as the morning toilet. Sera, who loved my scent to begin with, demanded to be used as well, so the two of them rotated the duty.

We'd eat the breakfast Luna prepared, then start morning training. The point of the morning sessions was to fully embody the stats I'd raised through sex, to make them mine in the flesh.

I mostly trained skills. Back in the real world, Light Control was about the only skill I could actually use. Solari World was the place where I could hone my skills freely. Thanks to the repetition, every skill level crept up a little.

I trained hard, but strangely, there was no sign of the weight coming off. The real culprits behind my body were Luna and Sera. Luna was in charge of my meals. She always laid out high-calorie food, and she cooked it together with Sera. Both of them were decent cooks — competent enough. Between meals and snacks, Luna and Sera made sure my mouth was never empty.

Luna and Sera alike seemed to be fond of my soft, ample flesh. I'd mentioned losing weight once, in passing, and Luna had gone completely serious and told me there was no need. Sera said she liked being able to catch my rich body scent anywhere, or something to that effect. Luna would gaze at my belly fat with affectionate eyes, the way someone looks at a reminder of home. Hard to work up the motivation to diet when they carried on like that.

And so we kept at our training, steadily and without fuss. Then, in the middle of preparing for the next dungeon raid, I received an unexpected visitor.

"A pleasure, Sir Walker. I am Eden Coulon — the lord of this territory, such as I am."

A powerfully built man with a magnificent, lion-like beard fixed me with a pair of brown eyes that seemed to look straight through me. Behind him stood about ten guards, each carrying a silver spear.

Count Coulon had personally taken the trouble to come to our house. There had been no appointment of any kind, so I had no choice but to greet him looking somewhat dazed. Fortunately, we had just finished training. If he'd shown up in the middle of sex, it would have been extremely awkward. I bowed my head toward the master of Coulon County, who was watching me with a steady gaze. It had been a long time since I'd bent my neck like this.

"It is an honor, my lord. I am Derick Walker, a slave merchant. That a noble of your stature would grace this humble dwelling… I have committed an unforgivable discourtesy. Please forgive me."

I lowered myself as far as I could go, for starters. Picking a fight with a noble — the lord of the territory, no less — wouldn't even get me my stake back. On top of that, the man was being exceedingly courteous. There was no need to make an enemy of someone like this.

"Such excessive humility. This is a fine mansion. The garden is well kept, and there isn't a speck of dust in the entrance hall. A house tended with real affection, I should think. I'd like to show it to the head maid at the castle. It hardly matches the word 'humble.'"

The Count answered my modesty with almost theatrical warmth. A humble noble… that was a rare specimen. Eight out of ten nobles in Solari World were complete scumbags. Come to think of it, the setting materials had mentioned that the lord of Coulon County was a man of excellent character.

I called the details to mind as I led Count Coulon to the parlor — a room with a quality sofa and a small table. I'd spent a full five gold furnishing it, so unlike my show of humility, it was a place I could proudly present to anyone.

Luna brought us tea. Overwhelmed by her beauty, Count Coulon gazed at her for a long moment with an expression of frank admiration, then turned his head away. He clearly had something he needed to say in confidence.

"The matter is urgent, so I shall be direct. Sir Walker. I would have you aid me in this territorial war."

I'd expected as much. There was no other reason he would come looking for me. I took a beat, sipped my tea, and then opened my mouth, unhurried.

"The territorial war with Count Ernest, I presume?"

"You are a merchant who has turned a profit selling a great many combat slaves, so I expect you have some grasp of the present situation. The war will begin within three days at the earliest. We have made considerable preparations. Count Ernest has been eyeing our territory for a very long time, you see."

"And the reason you came to me in person is that Count Ernest's forces are stronger than expected."

"Just so. I cannot give you exact figures, but according to our informants, their strength exceeds what we had originally estimated. It is not a favorable situation. For the future of this territory, we must join forces."

Count Coulon admitted his disadvantage without the slightest fuss. A thoroughly un-noble attitude. It meant either that his temperament wasn't that of a typical noble, or that the situation was extremely bad. In his case, it was both.

I was a slave merchant — a different class entirely from the serfs bound to the land. Even Count Coulon could not confiscate my property or force me to take the field.

Well. In a territory, the lord's word was law, so if he truly wanted to, there was nothing stopping him. But that would mean taking on an enormous political risk. If word spread that the lord of Coulon Territory arbitrarily seized a free merchant's property and conscripted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him, what merchant would want to trade here?

Even in the real world, almost no sane country nationalized a functioning company. The ones that did were countries already circling the drain.

"So you are asking me for help. But I am merely a slave merchant. At best, I can assist with logistics. Of course, logistics are extremely important in war."

"You are a merchant, and a mercenary besides."

Count Coulon murmured it with half-lidded eyes fixed on me. So he'd looked into me. As the master of this land, information about my mercenary work would have been easy enough to obtain.

"An E-Rank mercenary, my lord. Not the caliber of force a Count would seek out in person."

"Forgive me, but I have looked into you in some detail. I am told you completely cleared a highly difficult dungeon. Guild policy has you at E-Rank for the time being, but your actual ability is said to be C-Rank or higher."

A C-Rank mercenary was equivalent to an official knight. Not an overwhelmingly impressive force, admittedly — but from Count Coulon's perspective, even a single such person would be precious. By now, soldiers would be deserting his army in droves out of fear of the coming war. So of course he was trying to gather every combatant he could.

And what Count Coulon really wanted wasn't Derick Walker the mercenary. It was Derick Walker the merchant. The only reason he was bringing up the mercenary side at all was to persuade me. Nothing more, nothing less.

I had downplayed myself as a mere slave merchant, but the wealth I possessed was nothing to sneeze at. War was a gold-devouring beast. Count Coulon was cornered enough to show up at a slave merchant's house without a word of warning.