The Traditional Festival Revival: Quests Cut Off
"Ah, you mean Priestess Veronica? She's already notorious among us female slaves. These days they say the moment you so much as linger near the village on a quest, she materializes like a ghost and nags you to offer up prayers of repentance. Most of the commissions I take are dungeon-related, so I don't run into her much myself."
That was Elesa's testimony.
"What a pain. I mean, what the hell is that woman even doing? Does she get off on harassing people or something?"
"Well, she is a priestess. She's just acting according to her own moral code. In a way, maybe we're the ones who ought to feel guilty."
Elesa offered a wry smile as she defended Priestess Veronica in her own fashion, but I couldn't accept it. Not even a little. The only reason Elesa could say something like that was because even she wasn't completely free from the clutches of the common-sense alteration.
What the hell was so wrong about a cock having a little fun with a pussy?!
"Anyway, as far as we're concerned, all we can do is keep our heads down and avoid friction as much as possible. Priestess Veronica holds the strongest voice in the local community. Even the village chief can't hold a candle to her religious authority. There's a practical reason for that, too — there isn't a single young person in that village who hasn't received her grace."
"Uggghhh! That damn pussy! A hole that ought to be squealing the second you stick a cock in it, strutting around with her chin in the air — looking at that just makes my guts twist!"
"...I don't know what to say, Astera. You're really something. There aren't many female slaves whose loyalty to men runs this genuine. Not that long ago you were a complete amateur who couldn't even follow a single order from a man. Human growth really is amazing."
Elesa lowered her gaze, a faintly bitter expression crossing her face.
"Someone like me is only doing this female slave thing because of a personal wish. It's... kind of embarrassing, as your senior."
"Ah, come on... th-that's not..."
I knew what this world originally looked like, so loyalty and respect toward men came naturally to me. Receiving this kind of praise when I was enjoying that cheat-level advantage felt awkward as hell. And as someone who knew the original story, watching Elesa dismiss her own purpose as a mere personal wish left a sour taste in my mouth.
Wanting to rescue a mother kidnapped by monsters was nothing to belittle. The reason Elesa avoided other commissions and prioritized dungeon-related quests was to gather information about her mother — she slaughtered dungeon monsters and collected whatever news fellow adventurers brought back. And through all of that, she still fulfilled every last one of her basic duties as a female slave.
Because her purity as a female slave ran a little thin, Elesa kept this fact a secret from the other slaves. If a man asked, she wouldn't be able to refuse to answer — but there weren't many men who took an interest in the personal circumstances of some random female slave.
I wanted to tell her that working for your family was nothing to be ashamed of. But if a complete stranger like me suddenly knew Elesa's situation, that would look plenty suspicious too. So I took the long way around and comforted her instead.
"What's wrong with having a personal wish? That's just going to become part of the story that dresses a female slave up."
"The story that dresses a female slave up?"
"Yeah! Men are drawn to female slaves with unique, distinctive settings, you know? If it's just the taste of a pussy, they get bored easy! When this female hole has a story that other female holes don't — a history, a past! That's when fucking her has a special flavor! S-so, like, putting down your own pussy-value like that... maybe you shouldn't...?"
Damn it. Opening my mouth to sound smart was fine until I remembered that I was fundamentally a socially inept loser with zero talent for persuading people. The more I talked, the more the strength and conviction drained from my voice, and by the time I wrapped it up the whole thing had gone limp as an old man's hard-won erection. Even I couldn't tell what the point of it had been.
Embarrassing. Should I just die?
"...Astera, you talk like you're a man. Like you've got men's feelings all figured out."
"H-huh?!"
Oh no. I'd forgotten that the messenger matters more than the message. What persuasive power could a nobody of the Tissue rank like me possibly have saying something like that? I opened my mouth to make excuses, having realized my own stupidity a beat too late.
But the character of the beloved heroine I'd once adored was far beyond anything a worm like me could measure.
"As a senior I ought to be the one guiding my junior, but I ended up being the one who got led. You've surpassed me."
Elesa said it with a faint smile.
I'd thought I'd let go of about half that lingering attachment, but now I wanted a cock so badly I could lose my mind. I wanted to pound Elesa!
Anyway, it was the perfect chance to flip a mood that could have turned gloomy. I hurriedly steered the conversation back.
"A-anyway! That priestess or whatever she is might be throwing her weight around now, but it won't last! You can't just dam up human desire and expect it to stay put!"
"That's true. There are already plenty of regulars in that village who come looking for us female slaves. As long as they decide to let her sermons go in one ear and out the other, it's no big deal."
We cackled together, trash-talking Priestess Veronica and her pointless crusade, and our friendship grew that much deeper.
...Up until this point, we had no idea just how much of an action-oriented fucking bitch Priestess Veronica really was.
One morning, a voice rang out through the guild entrance. It sounded like the death cry that announces the start of a bank run.
To female slaves whose daily fulfillment lay in taking commissions from their clients and becoming organic masturbation sleeves, what kind of shock was a world with no quests? The pussy-bitches who had never once doubted that their faithful days as female holes were guaranteed poured explosive protests onto the guild clerks for neglecting their duty to open the quest board. Naturally, I was right there with them.
"What on earth is going on, Vasilisa?! Does this even make sense? No remaining quests at all? Common sense says that's impossible!"
Vasilisa and the rest of the guild staff were just as rattled by the female slaves' furious outcry. They made their excuses in thoroughly cowed voices.
"Th-that's really not something we can do anything about. The volume of incoming quests has plummeted, and we can't exactly invent commissions that don't exist, can we? The handful that were left got snatched up by the female slaves who arrived first, so there's nothing we can..."
"Quests vanishing overnight? That doesn't make any sense. The guild must have done something wrong!"
This was practically Great Depression-level. There was no way the guild could just sit back and watch without taking any measures! We female slaves spent every single day soaking our pussies over one thought and one thought only — which gentleman's cock we'd be serving tomorrow!
"I-it's not our fault! The village women launched a collective boycott against our guild!"
"They launched a collective boycott against our guild?"
Vasilisa and the clerks launched into an explanation, sweating bullets.
"Our guild takes pride in operating as quietly as possible, without showing itself on the surface — but even so, we can't completely stop word of mouth from spreading."
"Sure. But what does that have to do with this?"
"The village girls designated the men who come into contact with our guild as a threat to the community — as corruption — and they've declared that any man who commissions our guild from now on will face village-wide pressure."
For a moment I couldn't even understand what Vasilisa was saying. And of course I couldn't. It was too absurd.
A man wants to have a little fun fucking some bitches, and a bunch of pussies dare to stop him? No — beyond stopping him, they're declaring retaliation? Are they insane?!
"A-and the men? The men are just taking that lying down?"
"The younger men seem full of complaints, but the ones who are already married can't seem to voice an opinion with their wives breathing down their necks. As you know, local communities tend to treat unmarried men as greenhorns, right? Our biggest customer base is unmarried men, and they can't speak up — while the opposition is just so loud..."
It was infuriating. Was this deranged world of inverted common sense really going to hobble normal people this badly? Why didn't they understand that pussies raising their voices in the first place was the abnormal part?!
"More than anything, the women's side has Priestess Veronica, who holds enormous authority in the village. With that woman applying the pressure, even the men who are privately unhappy don't dare put those complaints forward."
I felt my stomach turn. Our joy — the joy of us female slaves and of the men — had been blocked by a method this unjust, and there was no way not to be furious. We ought to strip that bitch naked, stand her in the village square, and teach her a female's proper place.
Of course I wasn't the only one thinking it. Inside the guild, the atmosphere surged as if a riot might break out at any second.
"We can't just sit here! If that Veronica bitch or whatever her name is is the problem, we just need to deal with her!"
"Let's assert our rights too! Female slaves have the right to offer our pussies to the men who want to fuck them!"
Someone in the crowd said it, and it lit a fire in every pussy-bitch's chest. With this many people gathered, it felt like we could do anything. A little voice in my heart whispered that sitting still after having your rightful privileges stolen was something only suckers did. I was about to — I was about to join them and—
The atmosphere that had been burning so hot froze instantly at a single word from a thick-voiced male trainer.
"You pussies who've got no talent except offering holes to men — who the hell do you think you are, raising your voices?!"
"Eep?! I-I'm sorry! Th-that wasn't what I was trying to—!!"
The gentleman pinched and twisted the nipples of the bitch who'd raised her voice first, dressing her down. Naturally, not a single one of them stepped forward to back her up.
"You fucking bitches, so what if there are no quests? If the village guys aren't commissioning you, you sit tight and train your pussies while you wait! How dare you women raise your voices on your own?!"
The gentleman's roar delivered a tremendous realization to us females. On the surface, what we'd done had looked like solidarity in the name of justice — but in essence, it was the same thing: a bunch of pussies asserting their own opinions. Either way, from the men's perspective, it was insufferably insolent.
To think I only understood that now. Even if I used to be a man, it seemed I'd already been pickled in these females' feeble brains. On top of that, we'd been so fixated on not being able to serve the village men that we'd forgotten — weren't there plenty of men right here who deserved our service? We had been rude to those men.