Settlement Time (4)

I checked the windows floating in front of my eyes, then looked over my party.

"Good work, everyone. Let's head back to base camp."

"Uuuuugh... I'm dead on my feet."

"The monsters here weren't that strong, but they were a genuine pain."

The moment I called the raid over, the tension my party had been holding finally bled out of them. Scorch marks covered their armor from collar to greave.

True to the name Thunderstruck City, every monster in the place had been humanoid, and every last one of them fought with lightning. Swing a weapon and a bolt would arc off it at random — or they'd skip the pretense and just cast lightning magic outright.

The dungeon's raw difficulty sat lower than the C-rank we'd cleared before, Hell's Gate, but a single hit of lightning locked you in a brief paralysis. The whole run had been a grinding, irritating slog. We'd pushed through it anyway, stubborn as oxen, and walked out with a complete clear.

Shame I've got nobody who can actually use this.

I turned the thin staff over in my hands. Black scorch marks ran the length of the wood.

A 6-star weapon. The Thunderwood Staff had come out of the treasure chest hidden in this dungeon.

Wisdom and Magic each went up by a measly single point — but in exchange, you could fire off Lightning Spear, a skill with absurd stopping power, three times a day. It was an area spell that dropped every enemy in range into paralysis for five full seconds.

I'd wondered why a 6-star weapon was so stingy with the stats. That was why. The staff had a monster of a skill baked into it.

It was a good weapon. No argument there. The problem was it sat awkwardly with our current roster. We didn't have a mage.

The only person who could even equip it was me, thanks to Uroboros's Avatar erasing class restrictions — and even for me it was a questionable fit. Montblanc and half the people who mattered already knew I fought with a sword. If I suddenly started waving a staff around, they'd start asking questions I didn't want to answer.

Montblanc currently had me pegged as a Magic Swordsman.

A Magic Swordsman was exactly what it said on the tin — a magic swordsman. They could throw magic skills, but their dedicated weapon was a blade. Other classes weren't completely barred from picking up a staff, but using a weapon that didn't match your class cratered your combat power.

I'll just bury it in inventory and pull it out when I need it.

Selling a staff this good felt like a waste, so I decided to keep it. I'd burn the charges in a pinch, then hand it off later when I went to visit my Fairies grinding dungeons out in the provinces. Unlike our party, those kids actually had a mage among them.

Come to think of it, we really don't have a mage, do we?

I was filling the slot myself, more or less — but we didn't have a single person or Fairy with an actual Mage class. And mages were essential for dungeon work. The higher a dungeon's rank climbed, the more the monster counts exploded. Drop an area spell into that mess and a clear that would have been a bloodbath became a walk.

I should pick one up.

Whether I stole a Fairy or summoned one, I made up my mind to get a mage before we needed one badly.

"Alright, let's move. Hey, Telmuer. You've still got the Beast King's corpse, right?"

"Y-yes! I'm guarding it more carefully than my own life!"

"You don't actually need to value it more than your life. Anyway. Good work."

"Th-thank you!"

Telmuer was clutching the Beast King's corpse the way a child clutches a doll, frozen stiff as a fresh recruit on her first day of assignment. Watching us butcher our way through the dungeon had put the fear of god into her.

She was 3-star, but she hadn't eaten many Growth Stones, and it showed. Weak even among 3-stars — and if I stretched it a little, the gap in fighting power between us and Telmuer was the difference between heaven and earth. If we felt like it, we could have killed her in the time it took to blink. Of course she was terrified.

"Let's head back."

We returned to base camp.

A cleared dungeon was as good as a safehouse. New ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠monsters only spawned from the dungeon's mana once we stepped outside. Stay in long enough for that mana to fill completely and you'd trigger a phenomenon called Monster Overflow — the dungeon's creatures breaking out into the world.

No reason to worry about that yet. Three days since we'd killed the Beast King. Two days since we'd cleared the dungeon.

And during those two days, I...

Schlck. Schlck. Schlck.

"Hhk—! Nnh—! Haaah—!"

"Haaah... Bunny. Why does this pussy taste so damn good, huh? It's so tight it's ridiculous."

"Th-thank you, Mas... teeer—!"

I'd been ducking Canisia and working my way through the Beastman Fairies one by one. It was like having a Baskin-Robbins all to myself. The fun was in picking flavors. And because getting caught by Canisia would have been the end of me, the thrill ran hot on top of everything else.

"Shh. I told you not to make any noise."

"I-I'm sorry... but it feels too good... nnh, nnhh~"

Schlck. Schlck. Schlck.

I gripped Bunny's waist and drove into her again. She clapped both hands over her mouth, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠choking back the moans trying to claw their way out.

Every time I snapped my hips, a white puff of fur at the base of her tailbone bounced in the corner of my eye. The tail that had sprouted when she activated her Beastman Transformation. I reached out and closed my fist around it.

"Hgggggk—?!"

Bunny's back arched like a bow and a strangled scream tore out of her. Beastman racial trait or not, sensation ran all the way through their tails and ears — grab either one mid-fuck and they came completely undone.

"Heh. You like that, Bunny?"

"I-I do! It feels so good!"

"Heheheh. Then I'll make it feel even better. Nom."

"?!?!?!?!?!?!"

I fisted a handful of her hair, yanked her head back, and bit down on one of those pretty rabbit ears standing up from her skull. Bunny didn't even manage a scream. She just shattered.

A hot, sudden gush — her pussy clenched and squirted around me like she'd lost control of her bladder.

"Haaah... haaah..."

She hung there panting, face flushed, having barely kept the scream behind her teeth.

Smack.

"Hgk—?!"

"You fucking rabbit bitch. Your Master hasn't even come yet and you already finished? Cocky little slut."

"I-I'm sorry, Master... b-but it felt too good..."

"Shut up. That's your punishment for coming before I do. From now on, if you make even a little sound, I won't fuck you again."

"M-Master! Th-that's— nnh?!"

Schlck. Schlck. Schlck. Schlck. Smack. Schlck.

"Nnh! Hn! Hhk?!"

I snapped my hips faster and brought my palm down on that taut, bouncing ass in the same rhythm. The threat of being cut off — if you could call it a threat — had Bunny fighting with everything she had to swallow the moans tearing up her throat.

I kept burying myself in her still-clenching, oversensitive pussy for another ten minutes, and the pressure at the base of my spine finally started to build. She'd leaked the occasional whimper, nothing loud. She'd also come a second time in those ten minutes.

About time I finished.

I'd been inside Bunny for half an hour. Time to fill her and get back before anyone noticed we were gone.

"Open your mouth."

"Mmph—?!"

I pulled out of her, grabbed her by those rabbit ears, and shoved her down onto her knees. Then I pushed my cock all the way into her throat and let go of everything I'd been holding back.

"Ghk! Ghhk... ngh!"

Having me that deep clearly hurt. She didn't try to spit me out. She just took it, swallowing every pulse as I emptied myself down her throat.

"Kkhh... fucking hell, that's good."

I stroked her rabbit ears while I kept coming, pouring myself into her mouth.

Another sudden gush — her pussy clenched and squirted again, just from me petting the most sensitive spot she had.

"You held out well, Bunny."

"Pwhah... th-thank you, Master..."

"Now clean it up."

"Yeees..."

Half gone, Bunny set to work licking me clean. Every streak of cum on my cock disappeared into her mouth.

Who's next?

I let her suck me while I picked my next partner. The second I finished collecting the Beast King's fortune, we were heading back south. Until I made it east again, I wouldn't get another taste of these Beastman Fairies — which meant I needed to fuck as many of them as I could while the window was open.

"Um... Master."

"Hm? Ah. All done? Good work, Bunny. Shall we head back?"

I'd been mid-deliberation when she called my name. I snapped back, tugged my pants into place, and started to turn toward camp.

"I have something to tell you."

"Yeah? What is it?"

I stopped walking. Whatever she'd just opened with, it was interesting.

"I'll tell you how the Beast King evolved every last one of us into the Beastman class."

"...Now that's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠interesting. So what you're saying is the Beast King gave you the Beastman class artificially. Do I have that right?"

"Yes."

Very, very interesting.

How did you get the Beastman class in Fairy Masters again?

I dug through the memories of my previous life.

In Fairy Masters, picking up the Beastman class had been almost insultingly easy. The company sold a Class Change Tome that let you switch into it as an event item.

Maybe they'd felt the heat from players accusing them of squeezing too hard for cash, because they priced the tome in Gems instead of real money. A thousand Gems a pop. A week of actually playing the content and you'd clear a thousand without breaking a sweat. Not a painful number, on paper.

Look at just that, and you could almost convince yourself the Fairy Masters staff had run a reasonably conscientious ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠event.

That was if you didn't know what came before it.

Those sons of bitches at the game company spent the three weeks leading up to the Beastman tome dumping every shiny thing they had on the storefront — new Fairies, paid costumes, random trait tickets, trait selectors, premium Growth Stone bundles, the works. They burned through every Gem the playerbase had stockpiled and then cheerfully vacuumed the cash out of their wallets on top of it.

And then, with everyone broke, they rolled out the Beastman class.

Fairies with animal ears and tails. The one who showed up as a cat Beastman in the promo video even talked in nya-speak.

How the hell was anyone supposed to resist that?

Players who'd already torched their Gems and their bank accounts looked at that cat-girl nya-speak, teared up, and opened their wallets all over again. For the record, I was one of the ones crying.

On the free-to-play alt I held the line and only bought what I actually needed, temptation be damned. On the main account I'd been paying like a proper whale, so I bulk-bought Class Change Tomes and collected every type of Beastman Fairy they offered.

I made them. I didn't raise them. The moment you hit the Beastman advanced classes, the girls started looking a little... well. A little furry. There were players out there screaming that it was even better that way. I can say with certainty it was not my thing.

"You can artificially cultivate Beastmen?"

Anyway. Back to the point. Bunny's claim that the Beast King had been artificially producing and raising Beastmen was more than enough to hook my interest.