Ventorino Kingdom - Germination 1
[Ventorino Kingdom - Germination]
Late at night, a woman was running through the streets of the capital.
"Haa, haa…."
She was panting hard, over and over.
But it wasn’t because she was running fast, and it wasn’t because the weather was cold, either.
"Hhhaa… hhhaaa…♡"
Excitement.
The white-haired woman was aroused.
The capital, the most crowded city in the kingdom, was nearly empty in the dead of night, and she was wandering its streets dressed in nothing but a thin negligee and a single pair of panties. The translucent fabric made it so that, if anyone so much as came close in the dark, the pale flesh beneath would show through. It was a dangerously indecent outfit.
Setting aside how exposed it was, the chill wind should have had her shivering—but the delicious, crawling thrill writhing through her whole body made her forget the cold entirely.
Ahh… I have to go faster, even faster…♡
A beautiful virgin running through the streets in such a perverted getup. What would happen if someone saw her—especially a man?
Huh, h-heehk…♥
Just imagining it made her panties slick with heat.
And if he recognized my face… what would he do to me…? I’m a princess of this country…♡
As a princess, Clara couldn’t help herself.
Before she began having strange dreams and discovering a new kind of pleasure, she had been an utterly ordinary girl. Unlike the neighboring country of Ulstrow, Ventorino had never developed much in the way of romance novels for women, or erotic fiction. They had begun importing a little here and there recently, but cultural exchange in that area was still limited.
Because of that, her sexual knowledge had hard limits. So did her imagination. At most, she could picture herself being dragged into some back alley and taken by several men. But even that was enough to make her lower belly throb with sharp, electric pleasure.
The image of a group of men using rough hands to tear through her negligee and underclothes, to touch and fondle her body.
The pleasure she had been holding back came crashing through her mind like a tidal wave.
"Haa, uh, ah… h-heuheut…!"
She stopped in her tracks, her body twitching as she came. Through panties already soaked wet, the princess’s nectar and juices splashed onto the ground that commoners always trampled underfoot. The more she imagined filthy, obscene things—and the more the risk of being discovered thrilled her—the more intensely the princess grew aroused.
After freezing in place for a moment, Clara came back to her senses and hurried on again. Of course, she had not slipped out of the royal castle dressed like this. She had worn a thick overcoat over it, and now she was on her way to retrieve it.
"Hngh… almost… there…."
Step by step.
As she drew closer to her destination, she felt relieved, disappointed, and aroused all at once.
The relief of being able to hide this dangerous outfit soon.
The disappointment that this thrilling, exhilarating, pleasure-soaked situation was coming to an end.
And finally, the excitement of wondering whether the coat she had carefully folded and hidden there was still waiting for her—or whether someone might be there already.
All of it swirled together inside her.
But that storm of feeling didn’t last long.
Clara had reached the destination. This back alley held one of the secret passages leading to the royal castle. It had been made during the restoration, when the half-destroyed palace and capital were being repaired and revived after the demon attack. There were at least seven or eight places like this in the capital, and no one knew the location of all of them.
Because they had not all been made by the same person, even the royal family’s three members besides Prince Alfonso each knew only parts of them. Some locations overlapped, others didn’t. Naturally, the people who built them all disappeared without anyone knowing.
"Hhhaa… there it is after all…."
As she slipped the hidden coat back over her shoulders, Clara muttered in a voice that sounded like relief and disappointment at the same time. Then she flinched at the feelings that had slipped out of her without her noticing.
"…How did I end up like this…."
A sigh leaked out between the princess’s lips.
Even she herself found the situation so pathetic that all she could do was laugh bitterly.
She was the kingdom’s noble, only princess, and yet here she was, wandering the night streets in a state close to nakedness. It was not the first time, either—given the familiar ease of her movements, by now it was already the fifth. And it was certainly not going to be the last.
The first time had been the day after the captain of the guards’ funeral. He had already been one of the kingdom’s most highly regarded men, so he had plenty of support from the people, and on top of that he had become a hero who died protecting the king and royal family from those vile demons.
Of course the whole capital had fallen into mourning. Even though it was a royal funeral in the broad sense, he was not a member of the royal family, so the funeral was over in a single day. And that night, every tavern in the capital made a killing.
The next day, in contrast, the hangovers kicked in and people took a brief rest, grieving his death at home. Naturally, the night streets were far less crowded than usual. When Princess Clara heard that, she slipped out of the royal castle on her own, without even expecting it of herself, carefully avoiding the eyes around her.
That first experience had been nothing short of euphoric.
It had been far more thrilling, heart-pounding, and blissful than the first kiss she had shared with her fiancé, Lloyd. That intense memory drove her to keep forcing herself out, five times in the span of a single week.
"I’m really a pervert… hhhaa, I can’t believe I’m already looking forward to tomorrow night… ahhh…."
With her coat properly pulled on, her mind felt a great deal clearer.
And because of that, worry crept in.
Being caught by someone, being insulted for her perverted clothes, being treated like something filthy and taken apart—that fantasy made her dizzy with excitement, her lower belly tingling with pleasure. But what if it actually happened?
There was anticipation in that thought, but fear was far stronger.
What if she were abducted outright and her disappearance as princess became public? What if she met someone who recognized her face and blackmailed her? What if Lloyd, the man she loved, or her family found out? The things that would follow were so frightening she couldn’t even imagine them.
One or two times might be enough to avoid discovery, but if this kept happening, the odds would rise exponentially. And if she, worked up and half-mad with excitement, made a mistake, that would be even worse.
"……."
As she ran through all the worst possibilities one after another, the high from her night stroll faded into gloom almost at once.
"Haa… I don’t know anymore… For now, I should just go back to the castle…"
Then, from a little way off, she heard footsteps.
"!!"
Startled, she fumbled and quickly hid herself. She had already put her coat back on, but being discovered on a night walk would not be good for a princess, whether the person recognized her or not. And besides, no woman alone outside at night would fail to feel afraid.
Not long after Clara hid herself, a broad-shouldered man in a robe from head to toe appeared.
"Hmm, I thought someone was here… Did I mishear that?"
…Huh?
It was the voice of a middle-aged man. To the princess, it sounded strangely familiar.
He turned his head this way and that, casually scanning the area.
"…Maybe I’m too on edge. Well, there shouldn’t be anyone coming to a place like this. It’s not like there are houses nearby, and this passage is sealed off."
After muttering that, the man approached the blocked wall. He fiddled with something in a perfunctory way, and a passage barely wide enough for one person opened up. Then he disappeared inside. The passage vanished along with him.
"……Wh-what…?"
Left alone in the alley, Clara stared blankly at the spot where the passage had been.
No matter how she thought about it, the man she had just seen was her father, King Marc of the Ventorino Kingdom.
That voice, thick and weighty and unmistakably familiar. The shape of his body, clearly similar. The line of his jaw, visible for an instant when he looked around. Even the way he used a secret passage known only to the royal family of Ventorino. That was more than enough evidence to be certain.
The problem was the smell.
"That scent… Lloyd said it was definitely…."
Clara remembered.
Her fiancé Lloyd had said he hated that smell.
So she had reassigned the guards who were escorting her and carrying that scent with them. If it had merely been some strange, unpleasant odor, that would have been one thing—but Lloyd had said this was the smell of a brothel in the pleasure district. That was why she remembered it so clearly.
In other words, if someone smelled like that, it meant they had gone to a brothel.
Father… sneaked out of the royal castle and went to a brothel…? Leaving my beautiful mother behind…?
The princess felt her mind going faint.
She simply couldn’t believe it.
Of course she knew the rumors. That her father and mother had not gotten along for years, and that each had been having affairs on the side. But she had never believed them. That was only natural.
What daughter would believe rumors that her parents were cheating? Especially without seeing it herself.
Marc and Katarina were not fools. Even if they were dissatisfied with each other and strayed, they would not expose that fact to their children. They both loved their children dearly. Alfonso, especially, was still not even an adult. If they made a mistake and left him with a bad memory, he might grow up to become a tyrant or a disastrous king.
So they hid it completely.
"……."
No. No, not yet. I could be mistaken….
Clara’s eyes glimmered wildly. If her father had indeed gone to a brothel, then he would use that passage again. Since he was sneaking around, there would be no reason to use some other route and lengthen the distance to the pleasure district.
Let’s check… let’s check. If he keeps using this passage for about a week, then… I’ll know.
Clara shut her eyes tightly and prayed that she was the one who was mistaken.
But the princess’s hopes were betrayed in vain.
One day.
It took only one day.
Marc used the secret passage again. Clara had come out early and hidden herself, and when she saw her father emerge from the passage, she clenched her fists tightly. She still refused to give up hope. It might be that he was going somewhere other than the pleasure district.
For example, to inspect public sentiment.
It had only been a short time since the demon raid, so perhaps he had come out to check the mood of the people and the condition of the capital. If that was his purpose, there was no reason to go out so late at night, and no reason to use the same passage as the day before—but Clara’s mind didn’t even reach that far.
Let’s… follow him.
Just in case, she had brought a cloak with stealth magic and presence-concealment enchantments. Pulling it over herself, she began tailing her father.
Marc was, as expected, a war hero. Though his body had been greatly worn down, he still proved that a soldier was not yet dead by stopping now and then to glance over his shoulder. His instincts were clearly still sharp. But after so long on these night strolls without ever being caught, he had grown lax.
He didn’t keep a careful watch behind him, assuming no one would possibly be following him.
In the end, with a buoyant spring in his step, he made a beeline down a road he knew well.
"Th-that’s impossible…."
And showed his daughter, in plain view, exactly where he was going—to the brothel.
Chaos.
Her mind was pure chaos.
So the rumors were true? Her father really was having an affair—more than that, messing around with whores in the pleasure district? She couldn’t believe it. High-end brothels frequented by other nobles were knowledge far beyond what she knew or cared to know. Even if she had known, she wouldn’t have cared.
Her fiancé Lloyd, who loved Clara blindly, hated the pleasure district. Because of that, the pleasure district and brothels already carried strongly negative associations for her. Even without that, as a princess it wasn’t easy to like a place like that—or even to think about it neutrally.
"Father went to a brothel… then could it be that Mother did too…?"
And if the rumor about her father was true, maybe the rumor about her mother was true as well.
In the end, even her sixth night stroll was postponed. Clara hurried back to the royal castle through the secret passage, her face deathly pale.
And someone had witnessed all of it.
"Hhheh… this is getting interesting."
-I should report this to that man.
"That man? Call him Master! He’s the master of the contract holder, you know! At least add an honorific!"
-…Damn it.
It was Yueli, the spiritist who proudly called herself the loyal, lovely meat toilet of Valdes.
She had been keeping watch over the princess the entire time. More precisely, she had done so while Clara was out on the streets for her night stroll. The reason the princess had been able to take such risky, half-naked walks safely was all thanks to Yueli. Clara had started her exhibitionist outings without much preparation, and she had nearly run into people several times, but each time Yueli and her spirits had lured them away with illusions.
Irena was at the brothel, helping Rachel disguise herself as a high-class courtesan for revenge. She had taken over one of the rooms there and was managing the brothel, preparing various things.
But Yueli was not suited to that sort of work. Even apart from that, Marc knew her face, so she couldn’t remain near him. Still, wanting to build merit for Valdes, she had taken over one of the jobs Valdes had assigned to another demon and was carrying it out in his place.
"Hehe~ I’m sure Master will be pleased by this."
-His goal is to fracture that family, after all.
"Hon-orific!"
-Haa… fine. That man, then… is that good enough?
"Mm-hm!"
-…….
The spirit who had once been called the nightmare of the ancient age silently shook her head.