Chapter 2
A year later, I returned to the inn where I had parted ways with my friends — empty-handed, with nothing to show for the journey.
Contact with the others had gone silent somewhere along the road, and that left a quiet ache. Still, the steady exchange of letters with Elysia had been enough to keep me steady.
Elysia's late… Where did her last letter say to meet?
I drew the folded paper from beneath the armor over my chest.
To my dearest friend, the Hero Kanna,
Over the past year I have rooted out corruption throughout the capital. The endless cases of human trafficking and disappearances have finally been wiped clean, and His Majesty the Emperor has declared my work complete and granted me leave to travel.
At last the time has come to keep my promise to you. There is one final matter I wish to settle myself, however, so I may arrive a little late for our appointed hour!
If I have not reached the inn by the time we agreed, please deliver this letter to a tavern called the End of Pleasure. Speak to the bartender there — he will understand. The place looks shabby, but it is a secret branch of the Imperial Intelligence Department. Simply follow him down to the basement when he guides you!
The End of Pleasure. The name alone made me grimace. It sounded less like a tavern and more like some cheap brothel.
The thought of wandering the capital's back alleys, a foreigner asking directions by that name, set my teeth on edge.
But it's Elysia's request…
Swallowing her pride, the Hero asked her way from street to street until she stood before a shabby three-story tavern.
This really does look like a cheap brothel…
Hwaaang♡♡ — squelch, squelch—
The End of Pleasure was thick with the wet sounds of flesh and the moans that went with them. Calling it a tavern was generous; the ground floor held little more than a small bar. The second and third floors were clearly rooms rented by the night for pleasure. Even after I stepped inside, a man and woman kept coupling without the slightest concern for an audience.
Have they no shame…? No — the woman looks thoroughly trained.
Looking closer, the woman carried the marks of uncommon conditioning.
Shabby as it is, this really must be a secret base of the Imperial Intelligence Department.
Averting her eyes from the shameless scene, the Hero handed Elysia's letter to the bartender.
"I came on a friend's introduction. Please check this."
"Ah, an honored guest. Unfortunately, your friend is elsewhere at the moment."
"Once her business is finished we will guide you. For now, the message was that you should go pay your respects to the Sun."
The Sun… a code name for the Emperor.
In the early letters of the journey, Elysia had barely concealed her dislike of him. Now she overflowed with loyalty.
I suppose that is what knighthood means…
Besides, if a strategic asset like the Hero slipped into the capital and left without so much as a greeting, it would put the Emperor in an awkward position.
For Elysia's sake, if nothing else, I should go.
"Very well. I'll see the Sun first. Will someone guide me?"
"At once. A carriage will be prepared."
Before long a fine carriage — utterly out of place in that alley — arrived, and I rode it to the audience chamber.
The moment I stepped down, the familiar space where we had walked together after defeating the Demon King opened before me. I passed along corridors lined with sun-themed masterpieces and sculptures, the Empire's symbols, and entered the throne room. There the Emperor sat in solemn state upon the throne — a man of middle years who looked, somehow, younger than when I had last seen him a year ago.
"It has been some time, Hero. You seem even more beautiful than when last we met."
"I offer my greetings to the Sun of the Empire. I have come on a matter concerning the Captain of the Palace Guard."
"Captain of the Palace Guard…? Ah, Elysia. She is finishing her final duty as we speak."
He can't even remember a post he himself appointed?
Then again, the Empire had no shortage of titles, and she also held command of the Imperial Knights. I shook off the faint unease and listened.
"It should be finished shortly. We have a little time — what do you say to accepting that honorary post you refused before?"
That lifelong Imperial Servant title Elysia mentioned receiving, or whatever it was called.
Back then I had refused because I meant to leave this world. Had I known how things would turn out, I might have taken it at once and hunted the Four Heavenly Kings alongside the Empire. But now, with no idea how long the final journey with my comrades and the hunt for Lilith would take, I had not the slightest intention of settling here to work as Elysia had.
And I was, after all, a person of another world. That fact still sat uneasily.
"I am humbled. In the end I am a human of another realm. Once I finish this last journey with my comrades, I will return to my own world."
"And rather than a small title, I would prefer to leave behind a great peace — and then be forgotten."
The Emperor's brow creased with something like regret. Then a light, almost amused smile touched his face, as if a pleasant thought had just occurred to him.
"If that is your will, so be it. Though meeting Elysia may yet change your mind."
"Preparations should be complete by now. Take the carriage again to the training chamber — or whatever they call it, the End of Pleasure. I wish you well on your final journey."
Outside the audience chamber a carriage waited exactly as he had said, and four female knights of the Imperial Order sat mounted as escort.
"You didn't have to go this far…"
"It is the last farewell for the Knight Commander we so respected. We wished to see her off as well."
The visit was supposed to be private; the unexpected courtesy left me flustered. Then I remembered these were people who had spent a full year at Elysia's side. I could not bring myself to refuse comrades who only wanted to bid her farewell, and so I rode with them back to the End of Pleasure.
When we arrived, the place was utterly still — no wet sounds of coupling, no moans. A silence had settled over everything that morning's noise had filled.
"This way, please."
The same bartender opened and closed a set of drawers in a precise sequence, and a stairway to a hidden space revealed itself. The moment the stairs opened, a different sound reached the Hero's ears — ragged, labored breathing that cut through the earlier quiet.
Hah… hah… hah—
It sounded like a beast catching its breath. The noise unsettled me, but Elysia had always loved animals; perhaps she had brought another stray home. I asked the bartender.
"Has Elysia brought in another animal?"
"You can hear it? As expected of the Hero. We keep it here at the branch. A very obedient, adorable little thing."
Ding— ding—
He produced a small, light bell and rang it. The cries cut off at once. Only the soft drip of water remained.
"Truly well trained, it seems."
"Indeed. You will be quite surprised when you see it, Hero."
Trading empty talk with the bartender, the Hero began descending the stairs with the female knights who had come to see Elysia off. I had expected a short flight; the stairs ran far deeper than they looked. The farther we went, the stranger the smell became.
Startled by an odor I had never encountered, I also felt my mana begin to seize and slow. I turned to him.
"My mana isn't circulating properly. Is there a reason for measures like this?"
"It is a space for training. Healing magic, however, has been left functional."
At last the stairs ended, and a chamber of an entirely different order from the shabby tavern above opened before us. A broad corridor lined with barred windows, rooms beyond them lit by flickering torches, and scattered about the floor great metal spheres large enough for a person to fit inside.
The Hero eyed the spheres whose purpose she could not begin to guess and spoke to the bartender.
"You're telling me Elysia is in a place like this?"
"Yes. Prepared for her training. Come, Hero, go on in."
"This is the training ground of that adorable animal I mentioned earlier."
Does he mean playing with Elysia in her training hall counts as training?
He opened the innermost door and gestured for me to enter first. Without much thought, I pushed it open.
What the Hero saw was a room reeking of sex and soaked in love juices. In the center, a red-haired woman thrust her sex forward and worked her hips with desperate, pitiful energy.
"Buhi♡♡ The useless trash red pig assumes the position of submission whenever the door opens♥"
"Kkuiik♡♡♡♡ Kkuiik♡♡♡"
Her appearance was wretched beyond words.
Nipples grotesquely erect and far too long for the size of her breasts hung heavy with piercings that glittered; chains linked those piercings to a clitoris swollen and pierced through on both sides at its tip.
"Hah hah♡ Nngh♡♡"
Psshh— tremble… drip drip drip
Every motion set the chains swinging, endlessly tormenting her clitoris, and from her sex every kind of fluid sprayed without end.
"Impossible — Elysia?!"
The instant I saw my comrade in that state, understanding failed me. I prepared for combat at once. Even with mana restricted in this place, the Hero was still the strongest warrior who had crossed blades with the Demon King's army for three years of life-or-death struggle.
"The Hero cannot use mana. Surround and subdue her!"
The female knights and the man who had called himself a bartender snapped into combat stances and closed in. The Hero put Elysia at her back and faced them.
"I don't know what you've done, but I will subdue you and take Elysia with me."
"The bitch volunteered for this herself. Stay out of it, Hero."
Ding— ding—
Even with an enraged Hero before him, the man's manner stayed leisurely. Keeping the female knights in front, he rang the small bell he had brought earlier. The clear chime rolled through the chamber — and the attitude of Elysia, who had been howling and spraying juices behind me, changed in an instant.
"Aaaah♡♡♡ Please♡ Please♡ I'll do anything…"
"Buhiik♡♡♡♡♡ I'm even doing a proper pig impression."
As if terrified of something, Elysia attacked the Hero with the chains that linked her nipples to her clitoris.
"Nngh♡ The female slave will bind the Hero."
She rubbed her breasts against the Hero's head, straining to loop the chains around her neck. Of course the nipples and clit still fixed to those chains received the maximum stimulation and fed a mad pleasure straight back into her.
Hi♥ gyaaah hwaat♥ nngh♥
The absurd spectacle left the Hero reeling, but she still struck lightly, avoiding vital points, to restrain her.
"Sorry, Elysia."
"Nngh♡ iit♡♡♡♡♡…"
Even that light check, however, made Elysia react as if her erogenous zones had been struck. The blow had clearly aimed for the back of the neck — yet her sex gushed juices in a continuous spray, and she collapsed unconscious on the spot.
"What in the—?!"
While the two of them played out that vulgar farce, the female knights formed ranks, and the man began summoning a black wand and a spell scroll.
Is that how he controls them?
They seemed to believe I would not immediately target the rear; the knights charging me showed no intention of guarding the man behind them.
The Hero judged in a flash and kicked one of the steel spheres lying nearby, sending it flying.
"Y-you monster bitch. Do you have any idea how important that thing is—"
His panic lasted only a moment. The sphere cut the air faster than any of the knights could react and reached him sooner than anyone expected.
CRASH!!!!!!!
"Gyaaaaaaaaaah!"
The sphere crushed one of the man's legs, slammed into the wall, and shattered — exploding in a spray of pink fluid. At his scream the knights faltered, glancing at one another, but the critically wounded man rang the bell again, and the situation flipped once more.
"You sow bitches — all but one of you bind the Hero's feet. The remaining one treat me and wait for reinforcements!"
The knights who heard it obeyed as if the command left them no choice, faces emptied of will.
Brainwashing of some kind? And if reinforcements are coming, subduing them without killing will be difficult.
I felt the knights were victims as well — yet every second that passed, the Hero's instincts screamed that under no circumstances could that man be allowed to use the scroll and wand.
"Haa—!"
Barely catching one charging knight on her blade, the Hero stepped past her, shook free of the rest, and hurled the sword with every ounce of a Hero's power straight at the man. The throw no one anticipated split the corridor and detonated a shockwave as it flew.
"All of you, stop that!!!! Put your bodies in front of it if you have to — slow it down!!!!"
But no one present could stop a throw the Hero had put her full strength behind. One knight clumsily interposed her armor; she could not absorb the shockwave packed into the blade. The knight who had been treating the man, and the man himself, were both blasted off their feet by the force the sword carried.
Leaving the fallen behind, the Hero subdued the knight she had passed, recovered the ominous equipment, and approached the unconscious Elysia. She began chanting the highest-tier healing magic — the same she had used when they defeated the Demon King.
Ultimate recovery magic — body and mind restored to their optimal state.
It would not remove the piercings or the collar, but any contamination of body and mind by drugs or brainwashing magic would be perfectly repaired. As Elysia's consciousness began to return, I handed her the equipment the knight had dropped.
"Elysia, I'll ask what happened once we're out. For now we break free before the reinforcements arrive."
"…"
Whether she still could not speak properly, Elysia only nodded and took position at my back. Thankfully she no longer sprayed juices or behaved strangely the way she had before.
"Jack's down over there!"
At that moment the forces waiting outside spotted us and came pouring down the stairs.
"I can't properly charge my attacks with mana here, so I can't throw consecutive heavy strikes. That means you have to open the path, Elysia. I'll hold the front while conserving my stamina as much as I can."
"…"
Elysia still said nothing, but the way she gripped the weapon told me she had come to her senses. Recalling the battles of a year ago, I stepped forward to form the old formation with her once more. The warmth of a comrade's back after so long set the Hero's heart burning.
Ding. Ding. Ding—
Thuk!
But the moment the familiar bell rang, Elysia drove the equipment the Hero had given her straight into the Hero's back without a heartbeat of hesitation. The unexpected blow dropped the Hero to her knees. Looking up at the comrade she had trusted most in the world, she managed only—
"Elysia… why…"
"Buhiik, Master♥ The red pig caught the Hero♥ So please — use this worthless hole that has no purpose except spraying female juices♥♥"
Strength left the Hero's body. Her vision flooded red.
The last thing the falling Hero saw was Elysia thrusting her sex forward again, desperately fawning over the collapsed man.