The Playwright's Satisfaction
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stay like this. Several months had already passed since the brothel owner, Arto, lowered my rates and assured me there was no need to restore my virginity by force. At first I had been suspicious, but he kept his word.
While the summer sun blazed overhead, my shattered mind—adrift in the labyrinth of broken memories—had begun to mend. Fortunately, no bounty hunter who had seen the wanted posters ever caught me.
The crude clients who came specifically seeking a virgin no longer arrived by the dozen each day. They still came, but only one or two at most.
In their place arrived a different sort of customer—men and women whose tastes ran elsewhere.
Painters and mathematics professors, university students and poets, lawyers and clerks—people who could read and write, who lamented the times or spun their own philosophies. Awkward intellectuals, every one.
Astrologers and philosophical authors rarely carried heavy purses, so the fee per client dropped, yet their numbers rose. Many of those penniless fools even left tips.
The old pimp truly knew his market. Educated whores were rare, after all.
That did not make the work easy. I now had the added burden of feigning interest in their useless chatter. For instance—
“Hah, h-how is it, Miss Karin?”
The gaunt man asked, gazing at me with naked hunger. I had seen that face several times before.
Iskil, the playwright. His body was more bone than muscle. If I were speaking as a whore with any genuine concern, I would have told him to save his money and buy twenty days’ worth of bread instead. But of course I said nothing of the sort.
His expression, however, was one of deep satisfaction. I felt the sweat dripping from him onto my face, my breasts, my stomach.
“Y-yes… It’s good… You’ve improved a great deal, Master Iskil… Eheh.”
With my legs wrapped around his waist, I squeezed tightly so he could not easily pull out, and gave him the answer he wanted to hear. A lie, of course. It was not nearly good enough to warrant such praise.
Iskil’s member was ordinary, and the way he moved his hips betrayed how little experience he had with women. After all, he had been a virgin until he met me.
Yet there was no reason to tell him the painful truth when my livelihood depended on selling both my body and my smiles.
…Not that I disliked it, either.
After enduring so much brutality in such a short time, my sense of pleasure and pain had warped far beyond that of ordinary people. As long as no one cut pieces off me or took my family away, I could call it good enough.
To some, this was the lowest of lives, something they would never even glance at. In that sense, a whore’s existence was, for me, almost embarrassingly comfortable. And besides—
This man did not see me merely as a vessel for lust. He liked me as a woman.
Even someone as numb to romance as I could tell that much. Working as a prostitute had sharpened my instincts about people.
Iskil tried, however clumsily, to stimulate the places that would bring me pleasure rather than simply chasing his own. It did not feel like much, but the effort alone was enough.
After spilling what little seed he had deep inside me, Iskil seemed to have exhausted every ounce of strength in his scrawny frame. He pulled me close and drew the blanket over us, clearly intending to fall asleep right there.
Whether he slept or not, the bell would soon ring to signal that his time with me was over, and he would be thrown out.
“Miss Karin. Do you happen to know anything about His Majesty the Emperor?”
“You mean His Imperial Majesty Lucretar III…? I know of him. I even saw him from afar when I graduated from the academy.”
Far more than from afar—I had stood close enough to hold his hand before the hero party departed on their campaign. Still, the part about seeing him at graduation was true, so it was not a lie.
“I see. What do you think of him?”
Was he planning to write some absurd play? Dramas featuring the Emperor were not easily written. I smiled faintly and deflected.
“When I lived as a mage, I was always traveling, so I never had the chance to learn much. Now… well, look at me. But if I must give an opinion…”
I let my words trail off, as though I possessed some profound insight, and watched him grow impatient.
“You may speak freely. I won’t report you.”
“…He seems pitiable.”
“The Emperor?”
I gave a bitter smile. I could not tell whether it was acting or genuine.
“At the academy we sometimes did group projects where students were divided into teams. The team leader had no real authority, yet was expected to handle all the administrative work alone. The position of elected Emperor is not so different. The real power lies with the archdukes and marquesses who hold the right to vote, while the Emperor merely wears the crown and shoulders the responsibility.”
I deliberately did not specify whether I was speaking of the magic academy or the group assignments I had suffered through on Earth thirty years ago. There was no need.
“Is that so. In such an environment, no matter what sort of person His Majesty is, he would have little opportunity to reveal his true character or express his views. He would always be checked by the great nobles of comparable standing. I suppose I ought to include something like that in the play…”
While he sank into thought, I held him close and acted coy—partly out of gratitude that he treated me gently and spoke with me, and partly because I wanted to raise my price even a little. There was no point warning him that writing satirical plays under a monarchy was dangerous.
Still nestled in my arms, Iskil seemed to remember something else.
“Come to think of it, the mention of electing an emperor reminded me—I heard a story about one of the prince-elector archdukes who holds the right to vote. A rare case: a young and beautiful duchess. Apparently her entire household was destroyed by some fearsome witch, and she alone survived to inherit the title by force.”
“……”
“Perhaps the shock was too great, but they say the duchess cannot even bring bread to her lips. Nor meat. A duchess of her standing cannot imagine a lavish table and lives only on thin gruel. I wonder what terrible thing she went through… Ah!”
I pressed my head against his nose. I did not want to hear any more of that story.
“Come to think of it, Miss Karin always… smells wonderful. Truly… like the scent of freshly baked bread in the morning…”
He pulled me tighter, and we soon fell asleep—before the bell rang to announce that my time had been bought out.
That was how I lived.
The work was more satisfying than when I had been selling my virginity, and according to Arto, the proportion of clients who left happy had increased. Tips proved it; finding a clever woman willing to play the part of intellectual companion was no easy task.
Occasionally I used Saron’s Clumsy Truth in secret while entertaining clients. I wanted to hear proper stories about my mother.
But it was useless. I heard more than enough about the other prostitutes the clients had crushed beneath them, yet never found a single clue about my mother.
Although there was no longer any need to restore my hymen, I still rewound my body twice a day. Arto sending me two or three unicorn-obsessed clients each day was one reason, but another was my desire to preserve my youth. The age I had been before losing my virginity was the same age I had been just before Zophy abducted me.
Compared to the adventures and abuse I had endured, a whore’s life was easier, yet it was not work one could do forever.
Ordinary people lasted only five or six years before their bodies broke or age made them unmarketable. I, too, would eventually draw suspicious glances if too much time passed.
Before that happened, I had to maintain the most ideal age possible and prevent my value from dropping. Once I had saved enough money and found my mother, I would climb into a carriage and leave this cursed town behind.
Then one day Arto came to my room himself.
“Welcome… Ah, Master. What brings you here?”
“Karin. It’s a named outcall. You can handle it, right?”
“Yes! Where should I go?”
I answered with the bright face of a puppy being taken for a walk. I was genuinely pleased—outcalls paid more. …Though the risk of having to endure some perverted play rose slightly as well.
“A carriage is waiting. Pack lightly and get in. The job lasts five days.”
Five whole days?
While I puzzled over that, the pimp paused on his way out and added one more thing.
“Ah, and bring that grand mage’s robe of yours. From the letter, the client seems to be some astrologer or botanist who’s looking for someone who can use magic. You can’t cast properly without those strange books hanging inside the robe, can you?”
With that, Arto slammed the door shut.
A strange feeling settled over me. Someone who specifically requested a prostitute who had once been a mage—rare enough to be nearly impossible to find even if one searched every brothel in the city. Just how twisted was this person?
Part of it was because I had become somewhat famous.
That was why a small fear crept into my heart—perhaps this client already knew my secret. Perhaps he had learned that the hero Kaira was hiding in a brothel selling her body, and intended to sell me out.
Even so, there was nothing I could do now. If I was going to resist, I would resist after arriving at the destination.
I rewound the time on the bed for a moment. It became as clean as new.
My power was still intact.
As long as I have this ability, there will always be a way out.
With that thought, I donned the robe with several grimoires dangling from its inner lining, stuffed my usual dress, boots, accumulated tips, and dried rations into a travel pack, shouldered it, and left the room.
While I was gone, another whore and client might use my room, and I could not risk them touching my precious books or the tips I had saved.
Outside I wore the robe, but beneath it I had already put on a camisole so I could serve the client the moment I arrived, along with the shawl of a common prostitute—an odd combination.
The waiting carriage was shabbier than I expected. Then again, I was not being sent to a noble’s mansion or a wealthy merchant guild’s party this time.
Simply being allowed to ride in a carriage was already a kindness.
The driver glanced at me with faint contempt before urging the horses forward.
From the angle of the sun I could tell the carriage was heading south. We soon joined the great road that ran north-south through the capital.
This was the same road I took when I went to Waldenheim…
Back then I had been too busy locking myself away to spare even a glance at the road, but now that I had a little mental breathing room, I found myself wanting to look at the capital’s main thoroughfare—though only enough that my face remained hidden from outside view.
The southern highway leading to the river port seemed livelier than the area near the eastern gate, which had only land routes. There were no gloomy red-light districts here, only bustling, vibrant streets.
When Azalia and I had left together, I had not even noticed such sights.
The carriage stopped in front of a two-story mansion.
To someone who had lived in a tiny room above a bakery or in the academy dormitories, it looked grand enough, though the exterior appeared somewhat aged and unkempt from lack of maintenance. Of course, it was far smaller than the Mittenburg ducal residence.
After dropping me off, the carriage immediately drove away. The driver had not been hired by this household; he was the sort who took fares from anywhere—a taxi driver, essentially.
It would not do to stand outside too long dressed in the strange combination of a mage’s robe and a prostitute’s shawl. I pushed lightly on the wrought-iron gate of the front garden. It was unlocked.
It should be fine to go in…
I walked along the flagstones through the overgrown garden. The tall grass brushed against my bare feet outside the sandals. It was a wretched garden, completely neglected—as though no one had ever even considered maintaining it.
At last I reached the large front door.
How does one summon someone in a mansion like this?
I had never learned such etiquette even at the magic academy. Knocking probably would not be heard inside, and I could not shout “Come forth!” the way they did in the historical dramas I had watched on Earth.
After a moment’s hesitation, I pushed the door lightly. Like the garden gate, it was unlocked.
The massive door, which had clearly not been oiled in years, let out an unpleasant creak. Even putting my full weight into it, I had to strain for quite some time before it finally opened all the way, but at least it was open.
Stepping into the empty hall, I called out in a cautious voice, my footsteps echoing.
“…Is anyone here…?”
No answer came, but I heard what sounded like footsteps from a distant room. The house was not empty, then. I called again, louder and clearer this time.
“I’m ‘Friend of the Freemen’ from the Arto Inn. Is anyone home…?”
The distant footsteps stopped abruptly, then changed into hurried running. They were unmistakably coming this way. The owner of those steps had heard me. I waited, somewhat tense, for the person to appear.
“Who is it?”
A pale face peeked over the second-floor railing. I grasped the hem of my robe with both hands and bent slightly at the waist in greeting.
“Hello. I was told someone requested a person, so I’ve come from the Arto Inn. I’m the mage, Karin.”
“A mage? A mage, you say… What do you mean by that?”