2. Tutorial (2)
Is Claudia strong? Ask that, and the answer is yes.
Is she reliable? Ask that, and the answer gets muddy — because her very race is hybrid at the root.
The Dragon's Bloodline and the Succubus Scent she carries are powerful skills, no question. Both, though, are only degraded. Leave them unreinforced and each one has a hard limit. Set her beside a pureblood 4-Star built for a single field, and those purebloods reach a higher peak. Kael alone, holding a Dragon's Bloodline that isn't degraded, already performs past the 4-Star line — a berserker who ignores every status ailment there is.
And Succubus Scent? The original skill, the one never degraded, does not inflict Charm at a merely high chance. It inflicts it at a very high chance, or locks the effect in outright.
It can inflict it. Can — not does.
The degraded Succubus Scent is not merely unlikely to land. It cannot be aimed, either. There is no choosing a target and triggering it at will. The effect fires on its own, even in the moments I don't want it, and once you start counting the trouble that follows, the headache comes free. Even so, a half-formed Charm still does excellent work in a fight.
Make no mistake. Claudia can ignore status ailments, turn a battle on Charm, and land damage that punches clean through defense. On theory alone, her ceiling as a damage dealer sits high. Another thing worth marking down: the more she has sex, the further her raw power climbs, with no end in sight. Have sex, and a dedicated power-up event fires. Every single time.
The problem, if there is one...
To make that theory real, you're better off running netorase.
Sex with the player alone makes the conditions for those power-up events brutally hard to meet. Claudia's mother is Lilith, Queen of the Succubi. Succubus blood runs that thick in her, and the vital essence Energy Absorption demands — the quality of it, and the sheer amount — is no joke.
...Still. Lean on black magic, and I can patch this much. A stopgap and nothing more, but a stopgap that works.
Offer a sacrifice, convert its life force into my own potency, and I could shore up what I bring to a bed — or go further and remodel the cock itself. The efficiency still wouldn't touch netorase play.
Even back when I was deep in the game and enjoying it, I had taken Claudia down the netorase path more than a few times. Raise her and the choice is the Pure Knight Route or the Netorase Route, and the latter's ceiling was higher by a ridiculous margin.
Netorase, though. Fair to call it a genre I've owed a great deal, whenever I needed something to jerk off to.
Just picturing it gets me a little hot. For now, though... talk first.
The Claudia I had summoned was staring straight at me.
"Hey. Name's Judas. I'm the one who summoned you and bound the contract. Your name?"
I couldn't give the name I wore in the real world, so I coined an alias on the spot.
"...My name is Claudia von Rosenberg. Claudia will suffice."
"Good to meet you, Claudia."
She answered with a silent nod, and she did not forget to study the contract script cut into the back of my left hand, as if she meant to confirm I was telling the truth.
At baseline, her personality ran hard to the stoic lady knight, blunt to the bone. Watching that same personality corrode and change, little by little, under netorase play — that was the good stuff. I felt myself answer, down below the belt. She noticed. A faint color rose in her cheeks, and shame came with it.
"...Ah. Forgive me. I cannot keep this power of mine in check..."
"...The succubus power, you mean? It's fine. I can take it."
A sweet peach scent was drifting off her, I'll give it that. Succubus Scent is not some botched skill that reaches the contractor, though, so I was not under anything. No need to announce the fact. A convenient excuse had just offered itself, and I was glad of it.
"Judas. What am I to do?"
"Help me get out of here, for a start. We'll think about what comes after once we're out."
"Understood."
She had barely finished the word before a crimson sword took shape in the empty air. She settled into a guard and took the lead.
From there, it was smooth sailing.
Every time a zombie or a skeleton showed itself, Claudia cut it in two with a single stroke.
Damn. Now this is a smooth ride.
Yeah. This is what getting carried feels like.
Familiar defeated Zombie — EXP +20
Familiar defeated Skeleton — EXP +5
Familiar defeated Skeleton Warrior — EXP +10
· · ·
1 bonus stat has been granted.
We pushed on that way, one careful step after another, and before I knew it we had reached safe ground — the Intermediate Shelter.
True to a tutorial stretch, the amenities stood in a row. A Spring of Healing that restored HP and MP in full. A Statue of Blessing that lifted curses. Even a bed large enough to sleep the night through.
There was no food. I was not worried about that part — I had the Staff of the Feast. I poured mana into the staff, and the skull's mouth made bread and spat it out. I tore the loaf in half and held one side out to Claudia.
"Here. Let's eat."
She nodded without a word, took the bread, and began to eat. The two of us perched on the edge of the bed and finished it off in moments.
"Claudia. Mind if I ask why you decided to become a familiar?"
Once the bread was gone, I put to her the question I had been holding. Affinity needed to come up, even a little, and talking as often as possible was the way to do it. Not that I needed a reason like that. As if I would ever dislike a conversation with a familiar as pretty as Claudia.
"...I wish to grow stronger."
So that part was not far from the game, either. Claudia wants strength. She accepts a familiar's contract so she can pile up real combat. But combat gathered the ordinary way, and swordsmanship drilled the ordinary way, would not have mattered. She had already reached full maturity.
What she needs comes down to two things. The Pure Knight Route, aimed at strengthening the Dragon's Bloodline. And the Netorase Route, aimed at strengthening Succubus Scent and putting Energy Absorption to work.
The Pure Knight Route is a powerful tree. Frontload crowd-control immunity the way Kael does, and she could become his direct upgrade. The problems piled against it, though, are enormous. First comes the blood of a pureblood dragon, and getting that means either killing one or spending a ruinous sum. From that step alone, the difficulty is already close to impossible.
Play it straight, and you only get to strengthen her in the extreme late game — by which point strengthening Claudia hardly means anything. So most people never walk the Pure Knight Route. Not unless you are a unicorn, deranged for virgin pure-love play.
I know a few dirty shortcuts that bend around it at an easier difficulty. Even those are too dangerous to attempt, now that this is no longer a game but the real thing.
And the Netorase Route? She simply grows stronger the more she has sex. Stick her in a brothel and work her, and the power-up events fire anyway. Succubus Scent strengthens along with them, until at some point she breaks past 5-Star and can chew up even a 6-Star.
The snag, if you want to call it one, is how unpleasant it feels to run netorase on a character you actually love. Claudia's face ranks among the very best in Chronicles of Archea, and the reason so many players still turned their backs on her was exactly that.
I eat netorase just fine, so I don't much care.
No. Honestly, it turns me on.
"Claudia. Don't take this the wrong way — just listen. There's a sure way for you to get stronger. It's..."
I laid out her constitution, a succubus's constitution, and told her that sex would make her stronger still.
"...S-sex...?"
Flustered, she went red.
"Th-that is... I have never... joined with anyone. To do such a thing... I am not yet prepared in my heart..."
"You don't want to get stronger?"
"...That... I do. I wish to grow stronger. More than anyone. And to that end... I suppose I must not be choosy about the means. My mother was the same, after all..."
She held her head down and thought for a long while. Then she lifted a steady gaze and made the request.
"...Then, may I ask it of you? Not any other. If it is you, Judas — the one who contracted me..."
"Anytime."
I did not tell her to lie with other men. Not here, and not now. Say a thing like that at this stage, and her affinity would drop off a cliff. It was not that Claudia failed to know her own constitution. She had kept it in mind all along; she had only been hesitating. All she had needed was a reason to take the one step.
"...Judas. I will remove my clothes. Would you turn away for a moment?"
I turned my back. Behind me, cloth slid free with a soft rustle. A moment later, her voice came.
"...You may look now."
I turned. Claudia stood there, bare.
Whoa... tits...
I stared, gone for a moment, and she ducked her head as if the shame had caught her.
"I-if... perhaps we ought to pretend this never happened..."
"No."
I could not hold it. I threw myself at her.