Free Time, Rivalry, and Service
Time passed, and after the evening meal—
"Hwaaah~ I'm wiped out~"
"Physical conditioning, sparring, even how to handle magic guns."
"Is it this brutal because it's Margrave Akina? Wonder how other nobles' soldiers have it."
"Still, washing up at the end feels damn good."
Having learned the concept of hygiene from the Earthlings and now required to bathe, the mercenaries had shed their usual filthy look and returned to something resembling normal people.
"We've got free time until lights-out. What do we do?"
"What do you mean, idiot! First thing we do is hit the booze!"
"Yeah, but we can't take mercenary jobs anymore, so we've got no income."
"Oh. Fuck? So once our money runs out, we can't do a damn thing?"
On top of that, they were Lillian's subordinates—they wouldn't receive monthly pay the way Akina's soldiers did.
"Everyone, attention!"
At that moment Lillian—fresh from a long-overdue thorough bath—returned to the Wolf Hall and focused every gaze with a pulse of mana.
"As you all know, we can no longer take work as a mercenary company. I'm sure you're all worrying about money and what comes next."
"……."
The mercenaries expected that their former captain would have a satisfying answer ready.
"I've checked personally. Margrave Akina's soldiers receive five silver coins as monthly pay. I will give you the same treatment."
"That's actually more than we usually made."
"Shame about losing the battlefield cleanup bonuses, though."
"I'm not finished. I've specially requested that the instructors training you select those who perform excellently over the course of a month. Not simply by raw strength—by how focused they are in training, how hard they work. Five people."
Lillian spread five fingers, confirmed she held every mercenary's attention, and continued.
"Those five will receive triple pay."
"Triple!?"
"Of course, it's monthly. Just because you made it last month doesn't mean you'll make it the next."
She still had the completion payment from the kingdom, and they would produce military weapons themselves, so expenses beyond salaries wouldn't be an issue—they could hold out comfortably for several years.
Some might settle for the status quo without chasing the top five, but just having passionate people appear who wanted to enter that ranking made it a profitable deal.
I'll need to purchase various materials from Countess Akina, but… it's too early.
Akina still didn't know about Kaisent's dimensional warehouse.
So rather than announcing they wanted to buy materials right away, creating an atmosphere where they could demand negotiation or cooperation—or simply watching how things developed—was currently the best approach.
"Ah, one last thing."
Because Akina had toyed with her and Priscilla—both of Master rank—with real feeling, Lillian had heard this and nearly forgotten to explain it.
"If you show the card, you can get a twenty percent discount at the taverns."
"Ohh!"
"But anyone who causes a ruckus outside or misses lights-out will be confined for at least a month with no going out, so drink in moderation. Understood?"
"Yes!"
"Then don't miss lights-out—come back on time!"
With that, the mercenaries poured outside in a rush, heading for the taverns to end their day.
The mercenaries who had taken rooms on the second floor of the barracks—Priscilla must have told them—she came down the stairs.
"Tried the food. Wasn't particularly good."
"Right."
The two of them clicked their tongues at the sight of the mercenaries who had been groaning earlier now pouring out without a single one left behind.
"But where's Kaisent?"
"Even at dinner, Countess Akina was clinging to him. Utterly devoted, I tell you."
When Priscilla asked about Kaisent's absence, Lillian answered with a grumble.
She knew it in her head.
He wasn't a weak-hearted child who would abandon them over mere treatment like this.
But seeing a treasure only they had known being cherished in someone else's hands made her insides twist with jealousy.
"Shall we spar among ourselves?"
"Fine. Even if it's only been one day, we've learned where we're lacking."
Lillian and Priscilla's strength was that they had built solid foundations from childhood.
Their weakness was that, having only built foundations, they hadn't learned any special techniques.
That was why Akina had explained she would gradually teach the two of them techniques that a Master's mana and body could withstand.
"I thought watching the techniques humans of this world possess might let me learn something useful, but I gained nothing."
Arty, who had followed Lillian at Kaisent's suggestion and watched the knights' practice, voiced her dissatisfaction.
"Can't be helped. You need mana or human-like muscles, and you have neither."
"If I'd known it would be like this, I should have just followed Master. I'm terribly worried what that giant woman might be doing to him."
"Given Countess Akina's personality, nothing like what you're imagining will happen."
Priscilla snorted at Arty's complaint, then before heading to the training grounds, spoke to Lilith, who had been quietly polishing her bow in the corner until now.
"How about practicing with us?"
"No need. Fighting weaklings like you wouldn't gain me anything."
"Weaklings, huh. You've been quiet until now, so I didn't notice—you've got quite a mouth on you."
Though she had become a woman, the pride of a knight and the rough temper from handling mercenaries still remained in Priscilla, and she directed fighting spirit toward Lilith.
"There are a few ways to deal with an archer who only shoots safely from a distance."
"Pfft. You must not have seen me suppress that giant woman's subordinates in close combat."
"Feels good showing off against the weak and feeling superior, doesn't it? Fine—spend your whole life avoiding strong enemies and bullying the weak."
"While you were crawling on all fours, pissing and shitting yourself, I was fighting to the death on the battlefield, brat."
Lilith—whose personality was so bad that Kaisent had been wary of her from the start, saying she didn't have a "good big-sister smell"—openly sneered at Priscilla.
"……."
"……."
As pride collided with pride and the two glared at each other, Arty picked something up through her sound-focusing parts and turned her head.
"Sorry I'm late~!"
"Kaisent!"
"Master!"
Kaisent, who had only just been released after being thoroughly doted on by Akina, arrived.
"I learned techniques from Countess Akina this time… hmm? Why's the atmosphere like this?"
Sensing the hostile air between Priscilla and Lilith, Kaisent tilted his head.
"Ah, it's nothing."
"Hmph."
The two brushed it off, but Kaisent—who had sensed not just the atmosphere but the fighting spirit they had released—thought for a moment, then spoke.
"Whatever happened, when you need to fight each other, sparring it out isn't a bad idea."
"Kaisent?"
Lillian was startled that instead of stopping them, he was even bridging the gap and telling them to go at it.
This was, as explained earlier, because he had anticipated that Lilith's personality—lacking any "good big-sister smell"—would cause some kind of problem.
"If it ends half-heartedly like this, bad feelings just accumulate. Lillian, haven't you been through something similar?"
"That's true, but……."
When she first formed the mercenary company, she had separated mercenaries who didn't get along and made a huge fuss, but eventually it exploded into them cutting each other with blades.
When the same thing happened with other guys afterward, she threw up her hands and let them fight under the condition of no weapons—and suddenly they became friends.
In the worst cases, they mostly just ignored each other.
"…No attacks that would take each other's lives."
"Got it."
"Understood."
Lillian trusted Priscilla and permitted the spar.
Then Kaisent warned Lilith.
"Lilith. If Priscilla dies… I won't let it go easily."
"…I said I understand."
Lilith was overwhelmed by Kaisent's presence, but pretended not to notice.
This kid—has he been hiding a vicious inner nature capable of releasing this much killing intent?
At the part about not letting it go easily, she felt killing intent so intense that if she relaxed her tension even a little, her expression would contort.
It was because he possessed a personality that felt greater rage at harm to his precious treasures than at attempts to kill him—but Lilith still didn't know that side of Kaisent.
With that, the party moved to the training grounds and watched the two spar.
"If you'd taken just one more step there, you would have won!!"
The result was Priscilla's defeat.
She still hadn't fully digested the Master realm, so gaps had appeared in various places, and she couldn't defeat Lilith, whose skill was complete.
Still, it was hopeful that Priscilla—who had broken through Lilith's offense, driven it into close combat, and flustered the woman who had looked down on her—still had room to grow.
"It was really close, Priscilla."
While treating her as she seethed over the defeat, Kaisent ran his hands over her body this way and that.
Unlike Priscilla, who was covered in wounds, Lilith—without a single scratch—openly sneered at Priscilla and headed for her room.
She was highly skilled and one of the few women in the mercenary company, so she occupied an officers' quarters on the second floor alone.
The officers' quarters on the first floor were to be shared by Lillian, Priscilla, and Kaisent.
"Still, we learned where we're lacking, so it's fortunate. Right?"
"That's true, but… I really wanted to win……."
From the first time she saw Lilith's eyes, she hadn't liked them.
Eyes that seemed to dismiss them as "primitive savages."
A way of speaking that held no respect.
She had wanted somehow to land one hit and proudly shout, "Never look down on humans again, pointy-ears!"
"What did you learn, Kaisent?"
Lillian, deciding to end the Lilith-related topic there, asked what Kaisent had learned.
"In the morning I learned a technique called Helix Flow."
"Helix Flow? That's a technique knights don't particularly favor because maintaining the current requires concentration, isn't it?"
"Thanks to Artemis creating virtual enemies with various powers and weapons, I was able to maintain it naturally while fighting."
The two were surprised that Kaisent had learned Helix Flow, and grew excited wondering how much stronger he had become after learning an all-purpose offense-and-defense technique.
"And in the afternoon I learned knowledge of this world in the library."
"The library? Well, Kaisent does lack knowledge of our world……."
"There were so many books that I scanned them one by one and then read them in the dimensional warehouse. There are still a lot left to read, though."
Kaisent chattered away, explaining what he had done.
Just watching Kaisent smile and talk made Lillian and Priscilla feel the fatigue of being put through the wringer by Countess Akina and the humiliation from sparring with Lilith melt away like snow.
"From now on, mornings will be combat techniques, and afternoons learning knowledge in the library, she said."
"So you'll be able to learn only what you need."
"But Countess Akina didn't do anything weird, did she?"
Lillian, feeling uneasy about Akina's behavior of hovering around Kaisent, asked just in case.
"No. The reason I was late today is that Countess Akina said she wanted to talk with me and we had tea time."
"What do you think of Countess Akina?"
"I think she's incredibly kind and cool. Otherwise there wouldn't be a reason for her to help us like this."
When Kaisent answered honestly, even Arty—who had been listening quietly—made a sulky face.
In the old days he would have been flustered not knowing why they suddenly acted like this, but now that Kaisent knew how to handle women, he spoke so everyone could hear.
"Come to think of it, all three of you—do you remember what I told you before?"
"Hmm?"
"Before?"
"Story?"
Of course, saying it like that, they couldn't even guess what story he meant, but—
"I don't wash my cock except by cleaning it with mouth pussies."
"!!"
The moment cock talk came up, everyone's atmosphere flipped in an instant.
Then Kaisent pulled down his pants and took out his cock—a sweat-soaked erect cock sprang free, steaming hot, revealing its form.
"I worked pretty hard making sure water didn't touch my cock."
"Ah… aaah……."
"Fuhwaaah……♥"
"Cock smell……."
The three began gathering toward Kaisent's crotch with dazed eyes, drawn by the smell of the sweat-soaked cock.
"It's natural you'd worry when I get close with Countess Akina. But I wouldn't leave behind the mouth pussies that clean my cock, would I?"
"Haa… ha……♡"
"Stop."
When Lillian lost her self-control, stuck out her tongue, and tried to lick the cock, Kaisent ordered in a cold voice.
Unable to refuse that command, Lillian—desire to lick the cock immediately colliding with the submission that she couldn't refuse the male who dominated her—trembled, face quivering, drool falling from the tongue she had thrust out.
Satisfied by the sight of them transforming in an instant from beautiful women into bitches, Kaisent spoke again.
"Lick."
"Churrrrrp~~~♡"
"Jjuooop♡♡"
"Chuup♥ Chutsutsutsuut♥"
The three women, desperately narrowing their shoulders as they clustered at the crotch of a boy smaller than themselves, threw themselves at the sweat-soaked cock to bite and suck it.
Delicious♡ Delicious♡
The taste behind the balls aged by sweat is the best♥
Cock♡ Cock♡ Cock♡
At the sight of the women clinging to his cock with reason abandoned, Kaisent smiled at the feeling different from usual.
Different from usual. Finishing a day's work in a place that isn't dangerous makes me want to end the day with sex. So this is a stable life.
During mercenary life, they always had to stay alert to their surroundings, and except when stopping in cities, they constantly moved—an unstable life that easily exhausted body and mind.
In contrast, living in a stable place meant no need to watch the surroundings, so stamina overflowed more than usual.
Mercenary life isn't bad, but making a home of our own would be nice too.
Having felt the need for a stable base, Kaisent could feel another of a dragon's desires—following treasure, a stable nest—rising within him.
Anyway, that's that—I should enjoy this first.
He smiled as he looked down at the three bitches clustered at his crotch, lost in biting and sucking his cock.