Thirst
"My lower belly feels so heavy. Ugh… And it keeps dripping onto my underwear. Disgusting."
A person's happiness is relative.
In other words, something one person considers a misfortune can look, to someone else, like a happiness far beyond their station.
Usually, when that kind of contrast arises, the one who feels fortunate ends up envying the one who insists they're miserable.
"I shouldn't have let him finish inside. Right?"
"Uh…"
"Every time I move, it just keeps dripping out of my pussy. So gross~ Ah, right — you wouldn't know, Sloan. You've never done it. And you never will, either."
Sloan, who clung to her virginity with near-fanatical devotion, was left speechless. How was she even supposed to respond to that?
"What's it feel like?"
"Like pissing yourself, I guess? Except Vallit's semen is thick. Viscous. Like pork fat."
Vallitics lowered his head. She really didn't need to put it that bluntly.
"That's what high-quality semen feels like. You'll understand once you fall in love someday."
"I'd rather not know…"
"One load of Vallit's is enough to get you pregnant. Good thing I kill off all the sperm with magic. If I hadn't, I'd be waddling around with a swollen belly by now."
"Aha."
Sloan, whose intellect had taken a steep dive from her obsession with killing, couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. So she simply laughed it off.
Grind.
The "misfortune" Camilla described sounded absolutely horrific to Elisa. This filthy bitch… was she seriously going to keep up this transparent little act? She was practically begging to be murdered.
Getting jealous, are we…? An ugly elf bitch like you dared lay a hand on Vallit? You turned into a female and still couldn't even protect your own male! Go masturbate for the rest of your life. You'll never get near him again.
Camilla reactivated her Marionette magic.
"Th-this hurts more than I expected!"
Marionette forcibly commandeered the target's movements, wrenching the body into unnatural positions and seizing control of every individual muscle. Once those muscles were driven past any workable angle, the fibers tore. Vallitics was more flexible than he looked, so his joints had been spared so far — but still…
"Every time you do this, the muscle soreness is insane!"
"Lylie can just heal you, can't she? Right?"
"Yes… Ah! Before we do that, may I give him a special potion of mine?"
Lylie rummaged in her robes and produced a bottle of darkish white milk. To Camilla, who was well-versed in potioncraft, it looked like ordinary milk.
"You're calling that a potion? No way. That looks like milk squeezed from some animal."
"A m-monster?! This is a potion!"
"I never said monster."
Lylie's eyes darted left and right. Uh… how was she supposed to argue her way out of this?
"Look closely! It's full of holy power!"
"Hmm…? Well… you're not wrong."
"See!? This is a specially refined potion made with holy water produced by our ch-church!"
Camilla examined the potion Lylie had handed over. It really was packed with potent holy power. Ordinary healing potions used troll blood and were consequently saturated with demonic energy — so a potion brimming with sacred power was genuinely unusual.
"I'm more surprised you know how to make potions at all. A Saintess learning this kind of thing?"
"Y-yes!! As part of a well-rounded education…"
Talents who resided in the Magic Tower were expected to master more than just standard spellcraft — potion-brewing, enchanting, and the rest. Camilla, who prided herself on being the finest potion-maker around, had never seen one of this quality.
Is it just because the ingredients are that good…?
Come to think of it, she'd never encountered a potion made from holy water before. Without much suspicion, Camilla passed the suspiciously holy-power-laden white potion along.
"Drink up quickly! It'll heal your wounds fast."
"Uh… but last time, didn't you say this was just milk? And now it's a potion?"
"Ah — ahahaha! That's a different one! Just drink it already!"
Vallitics found the white milk deeply suspicious. Where exactly had she milked this much from? There hadn't been a cow or goat in sight for miles.
"…Gulp. Gulp."
But just as Lylie had promised, the holy-power-saturated potion worked spectacularly. It raced through the torn muscle fibers, knitting them back together in an instant, and even the searing lower-back pain that had been tormenting him vanished without a trace.
"Thank you for the drink…?"
"Uheheheheheh…"
The holy-power-packed potion tasted fantastic, too. Vallitics almost felt a twinge of regret watching the glass bottle empty out.
This is better than I expected. If it weren't a beverage of completely unknown origin, it'd be perfect. The portion's weirdly small, though.
Feeling a faint residual thirst, Vallitics handed the empty bottle back.
"What? If you've got something like that, you should give me some too."
"Ah — no, you can't!"
"Huh? Why not? I like sweet things too."
"Th-this won't work if the Hero drinks it! How do I put this… it only works on men…?"
"There's a potion that only works on men? What's the recipe…"
Lylie's eyes rolled this way and that as she answered. She absolutely could not reveal the ingredients, so she settled for a convenient excuse.
"That's… a church secret! I can't tell you!"
"What the… Are you making this up? You put something weird in it, didn't you!"
"A-and the ingredients are limited, so I can't just hand it out freely!"
"Well… this might sound a little cold, but aren't I the most important person in the party?"
No matter how hard Sloan pushed, Lylie refused to give up the secret.
She still couldn't say it. Absolutely not. Even if it meant her mouth getting torn open.
"Ah — aah! There's a village over there!"
"Hm? Oh… you're right."
"Whew."
Lucky break? Lylie had found the perfect chance to change the subject. It was equally fortunate for Vallitics, who had been one step away from being violated again.
"A village, all the way in here…?"
"It's not that surprising. The Demon Kings invade for the human realm's resources. They enjoy slaughter, sure — but they also leave people alive as a labor supply fairly often."
"Really? You know more than I expected, Vallit. First I've heard of it."
Of course I do, you lunatic. I'm one of them. Vallitics sneered at Sloan inwardly.
"Hm? Hold on. Something's off about this place."
To Vallitics's eye, the human village looked bizarre.
Humans kept as slave labor usually lived hard, scraped-bare lives. Their masters wrung them dry and, when bored, picked a few out to murder for sport.
But this village looked… decent. Comfortable, even. Was that even possible? Vallitics quietly scanned for traces of demonic energy.
The 53rd, Arches. That freak's territory.
Sure enough — a domain belonging to a fellow Demon King he knew.
Rank 53: Arches of Chivalry. A complete lunatic who genuinely believed he was a knight.
When he'd first arrived in this world, he'd been a bloodthirsty killer who loved devouring human flesh — virgin breasts in particular. Then, at some point, he'd started calling himself the Black Knight and strutting around accordingly.
Arches, of all people, playing knight. Hilarious…
The image of his kin still raving about how a virgin's flesh was the softest, then tearing into it with his teeth, made Vallitics snort with laughter.
"Ahem. Hello? Anyone home?"
"Uh… who are you? Ah! Are you merchants, by any chance? We've got a mountain of fine hellhound hides piled up."
"No! We're not merchants — we're the Hero's party. The Hero."
Sloan thrust her famously broad chest forward with pride as she spoke. She took enormous pride in being the Hero, and never missed a chance to announce it.
"The Hero…? Have you come to meet our knight, then?"
"Yes! I'll chop his head off on the spot! Where is he?"
"Uh… I'm sorry, but that won't be necessary."
Not necessary? That was not the kind of thing you expected to hear from people groaning under a Demon King's tyranny. Instantly, the murder-obsessed Hero prepared to draw her holy sword. These people had clearly been thoroughly brainwashed.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Unlike other territories, our knight clears land for us free of charge and only takes half the harvest. He also protects us, and if we want, he even trains us so we can defend ourselves against monsters."
Considering that ordinary human lords typically skimmed off seventy percent, those were astonishingly generous terms. And he protected them on top of that? Vallitics was freshly reminded of just how much of a freak his fellow Demon King was.
"Uh… is that all?"
"Ah! There is one condition… but are you really the Hero?"
"Aren't you asking that a little late? Anyway, what's the condition?"
"Ah — you don't need to know that."
"Figures."
With a justification for murder now firmly in hand, Sloan smiled with pure delight. At last — she could kill someone.