A Promise Forgotten
The darkness slowly seeped in, and with it came a heart that accepted everything. The ship finally docked at its destination port, free at last from any further attacks by schools of fish.
The river had clearly carried us far upstream. Its width had narrowed considerably compared to what we had seen in Drankafen, and the current ran much faster. Forests still stretched across the opposite bank, but unlike the jungle-like shores near Drankafen, this side was said to be a wetland thick with swamps and peat bogs.
“Thank you for the ride.”
We drew the ashen headwind up onto the deck and, before crossing the gangplank, offered our final thanks to the captain.
“We’re the ones who should be grateful. Thank you for saving us. And…”
The captain stomped his foot heavily on the deck.
“…for reinforcing the ship, too.”
Ah, that was right.
Before disembarking, I had cast Kaira’s Bucket Adhesive on the vessel once a day, hoping to grow a little closer to the sailors who had grown distant. Originally a modified barrier spell meant to keep water from leaking out of buckets, I thought it would prove useful on a ship—and from what I saw at the harbor, it had worked quite well. Without anyone to maintain the magic after I left, it would last only about a month, but the sailors had been pleased enough at the prospect of not having to bail water for even that long.
“Then I pray your journey ends safely, you terrifying young ladies.”
We accepted the captain’s half-joking remark with smiles.
We led our horse down onto the pier. After more than fifteen days at sea, we finally set foot on land again—in Limena, the quiet port city at the southern edge of the Light Denomination’s direct territory, where the great river met the sea.
“The ship wasn’t as fast as I expected. Looking at the map, it feels like we moved at about the same speed as a horse…”
“The current gets stronger the farther upstream we go, so we had to fight against it. If we had ridden the whole way, the ashen headwind would have grown tired and slowed down eventually.”
I tried to soothe the pouting Pirel.
The city was not small, yet after seeing Drankafen’s dazzling, bustling harbor, this place felt almost eerily quiet. Since it was under the direct rule of the Light Denomination, the people’s lives seemed far removed from worldly desires.
Looking around the tranquil city eased my mind, so I made a casual suggestion to Pirel.
“We’ve been tossed around on that ship for over ten days. How about we spend one night here before moving on? We don’t know how many towns lie between here and Poscotia, and the Empire’s wanted posters won’t reach us in this territory. We can relax a little.”
Pirel stuck out her lips.
“…You’re just trying to seduce some men and sleep with them again tonight, aren’t you?”
“Eek.”
“What’s with that face? So you really were planning to.”
Pirel’s brow furrowed for a moment, then smoothed out.
“My daughter has turned into this kind of girl. I never raised her this way… *sniff sniff*…”
Her clumsy attempt at fake crying was so adorable that I gently stroked her hair.
“Wh-what? Suddenly?”
“If you don’t like it, I won’t do it.”
Pirel’s eyes widened. Her expression seemed to say, You’re giving in that easily?
“It’s a rare port city, after all. We might not get another chance to eat fresh fish dishes unless it’s at an inn like this. We’re near the end of our journey, so we should try all sorts of things while we can.”
The girl’s face brightened instantly, as if she had never been pretending to cry at all.
“Ehehe, then I agree! I’m going to eat until I can’t eat anymore! …Still, Kaira, no alcohol. It was the same in Drankafen—you get weird when you drink…”
“Don’t worry. I won’t drink.”
Perhaps because the buildings could be built larger in a smaller city, or perhaps because pilgrims often passed through, finding an inn with a stable was easier here than it had been in the great city of Drankafen.
The ashen headwind showed a hint of displeasure. It had finally gotten off the ship and was looking forward to running, only to be shut away in a stable again.
Pirel soothed the horse.
“Just bear with it for one day, okay? I’ll let you run as much as you want starting tomorrow.”
The horse might not have understood her words, but perhaps the girl’s gentle voice worked like medicine; it soon stopped snorting and quietly settled into the stable.
“You handle horses well, Pirel.”
“Well, that’s all I learned in those two years… Ah… S-sorry.”
Pirel fell silent. She must have realized what those two years had meant for me.
“It’s all right. I learned all sorts of things too… So yes, what’s learned is learned…”
I answered bitterly and took Pirel’s hand as we entered the inn.
After receiving a grand welcome from the plump proprietress, we sat down in the first-floor hall. Though smaller than Drankafen, the city was not without guests. Even at this slightly late lunch hour, the hall was half full, suggesting business was decent.
I raised my hand to call the proprietress, who was busy taking orders.
“Yes, what would you like?”
“Do you have any dishes made with fish caught from the great river?”
The woman smiled broadly.
“Oh my… Of course we do! Plenty of them! In Limena you can always eat them, so why even ask? You must be from far away. Travelers? Pilgrims?”
“P-pilgrims… yes.”
I answered vaguely.
“You look so young, yet you’re already on pilgrimage. Your faith must be deep. Well then, just wait. I’ll bring you plenty, starting with freshwater crabs that came up from the upper Drankiz lake today!”
…Without explaining what exactly she would serve, the proprietress turned and hurried away. I added one more quiet request toward her retreating back.
“And… two glasses of bread-fermented liquor, please…”
I tried to explain myself to Pirel, who was glaring at me with terrifying eyes after realizing I had ordered alcohol.
“I-it’s because Father… because Rasail, whom you like so much, used to give it to me often when I was little! It doesn’t even count as real alcohol at that strength.”
“Hmph. Fine. I like it too, anyway.”
Before the meal arrived, we made two mistakes.
Whether it was the city’s generous spirit or the proprietress’s overflowing kindness, the dishes—beginning with steamed freshwater crab—kept coming without end, and at a price that was hardly expensive.
Only after stuffing ourselves with grilled sweetfish, bread topped with simmered freshwater seaweed, and grilled slices of unsahaeora did the meal finally end. Our bodies, forced to consume far too much food, grew weary instead.
And the second mistake: perhaps because the Light Denomination, which used bread in its rituals, had refined the techniques of fermentation and purification…
…the bread-fermented liquor here was far too strong.
“Kaira… I’m already dizzy… whoa… The fermented liquor we drank at Rasail’s place was… d-different…”
“Hehehehe… Y-yeah. A mistake, *hic*. Right, a m-mistake. The Denomination’s territory… *hic*… is very different… *hic*… yes…”
The proprietress watched us with a mischievous smile.
“Oh dear, young ladies. Already drunk? What to do, what to do. This is the weakest drink in the Denomination’s lands. If you can’t even handle this, traveling will be hard. What a shame.”
I managed to make my request with a tongue completely twisted by the fermented liquor I had gulped down without imagining I would get drunk.
“Um, ma’am, a room… *hehehe*… a room, please…”
“Of course. Here’s the key.”
Already exhausted from the alcohol coursing through her small frame, I supported the barely conscious Pirel and helped her up to the room.
I fumbled with the door with trembling hands, laid the whimpering girl who was babbling nonsense onto the bed—a proper bed, not a hammock swaying with the waves—and cast Nemeros’s Deep Sleep on her.
Then, beside the sleeping Pirel, I rummaged through my bag and took out an old friend: the thin camisole I used to wear every day when working in the capital, a garment that barely functioned as clothing.
I had already marked several men who had been staring at us with sticky eyes earlier. Wearing this, I intended to go back down to the dining hall and seduce them.
Thus, the promise with Pirel was broken.
Seducing the men who secretly harbored lustful thoughts was not difficult at all. Even in a land ruled by religion, the only faith without the commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” was the Denomination of the God of Rest—in other words, the God of Death. The Empire, and most places under its influence, were relatively tolerant of relations between men and women. Above all, there were even brothels officially recognized and protected by the Denomination itself.
That was why things had come to this.
Two men had taken the bait. Lying on the bed with my legs spread shamelessly wide, I—the slender girl being roughly taken by one of them—was me.
“Kuh… Are you… really a mage…?”
Wrapping my legs tightly around the man’s waist as if begging him to impregnate me, I curled my toes and, as if in a trance, like a broken record, recited lewd words that barely connected.
“Yeshhh♡ I-I’m a mage… who angers… *hngh*… Master Cock…♡”
The next man waiting his turn looked somewhat disappointed. Even though he had already taken off his pants, he shook his head and muttered to himself.
“She looked pretty and refined like a proper mage when I saw her in the hall… but this is no different from a whore.”
“Heehee♡ I-I am… *ah*♡ A whore… no… *hngh*?! Yeshh♡ Kaira is… a lewd… whore♡ Punish… this bad Kaira… *hngh*… P-please… punish me… *kh*?!”
While shaking my hips, tongue hanging out and drooling so much that the camisole was soaked through, I spewed filthy words with a face stupid from pleasure. I could not understand myself.
The year in the basement, followed by another year as a prostitute, had cracked something inside me, and the “ritual” I received from the socialite had widened that crack until it shattered a part of my mind. That was the only way I could explain the change.
Even as I kept bouncing my hips without rest, I sent a seductive glance toward the man standing a little distance away and let out a broken voice.
“Choke… me… Please? With those thick, big… strong fingers… choke Kaira’s neck… please…”
Was I irredeemably corrupted, making such broken pleas?
But… so what if I was.
“Neck… choke… Kill Kaira… *kh*?!”
It felt good…
The man, already fully erect, granted my request. Contact with air was cut off, and the sensation of the world slowly melting washed over my head, gnawing at my brain cells.
“Kuh… Ka, kak… If you do this… *kh*, my neck… will break… *ang*… Yes, this… feels good… so good… I’m going to die… *ah*♡ *ah*♡ *khok*?!”
With my neck still being choked, the man’s rigid member was mercilessly shoved into my mouth. Perhaps he could no longer hold back his lust…
Of course. He had to. I had seduced him this much.
“She’s a real crazy perverted bitch.”
The man who spat those words tightened his grip on my throat and pushed his cock past my uvula. He did not stop choking me.
“Gehk?! K-kuh… *kh*…”
“I’ve heard mages are mostly insane, but seeing it in person is something else. And…”
Ah…
I sensed it. It was coming…
“*Ah*♡ It’s here. It’s here it’s here it’s here it’s here♡ Ahahaha, that, that thing… is coming… Really… I’m breaking…”
“This girl’s throat and tongue are truly exquisite. It’s amazing how it tightens like a hand.”
No. Nooo. *Ah*♡ Not that♡
My movements… nooo… My tongue, my neck… ah, no, *ah*♡
“Wait, Hansel, what did you do to her?”
A flustered tone entered the voice of the man who had been greedily devouring my pussy. The words were directed not at me, but at the man who had been choking me.
“What do you mean? I choked her neck and put my cock in her mouth-pussy. Why?”
“Kuh… No, suddenly inside her… it’s moving like it’s alive… *hngh*…!”
The manhood that had been filling my vagina twitched and spurted hot fluid.
“What? We finally got such a pretty girl to seduce us first, and you’re already done? Were you premature?”
“No, this mage girl… is weird…! Something’s… strange…”
Of course it was strange—she had been thoroughly squeezed by the tentacles of darkness.
“*Puhah*.”
Taking advantage of the moment when the men’s conversation loosened the hand around my throat, I pulled the cock that had invaded my throat out. A sticky thread of saliva and precum stretched between us.
Then, gripping the hem of the man’s shirt whose hips had stopped, I whined. I made the tentacles writhing in harmony with my tongue short and transparent so the men could not see them.
“More… more… Please? Kaira’s pussy… is still… still hungry… Paint Kaira… with your scent, your seed… Please, mister, mister…”
Upon hearing that lewd plea, strength returned to the man. My vagina, already filled to the brim with writhing midnight-colored tentacles, swelled as if about to burst with the man’s warm flesh.
I took the cock that had been pulled from my mouth back in. I had to bestow heavenly—or rather, pleasure from beyond the heavens—equally upon both men.
“*Hngh*… *chu*, *chup*… *slurp*… *chuuu*♡ Ehehe, *hih*, good, *hyo*…?”
“…I think… *kh*, what you said was right.”
Instead of answering my question, the man spoke first to his friend, who was shaking his hips as if to break my body.
“This girl’s… mouth technique is out of this world… *kh*, no…”
With those words, the cock that had been filling my mouth, wrapped in a spiral of shadow tentacles, released its semen in powerful spurts.
Of course, neither I nor the nightmarish appendages extending from my heart had any intention of letting them go after just one ejaculation.
“Hehehe… It’s so good… I’ll make you… understand… with your answer… *hngh*, *kyu*, *kyuok*… *chu*♡ *chuuu*…”
The man looked more flustered than pleased to see his member swell again so soon after ejaculating, but I knew well that such men could never refuse when a cute girl begged so desperately.
Wanting a change of pace, I begged the two men relentlessly.
“Um… Could you… switch…? Switch… please… The one choking Kaira’s neck, switch with the one pleasuring her pussy… Please? Please…?”
And they did so, as if entranced.
Knowing Pirel could never hear, there was no need to hide my moans, and knowing the men were under the control of the tentacles, I could make every demand I wanted—requests that ordinary men with normal consciences would never easily grant, such as choking or beating.
After thrashing in the ecstasy of being thoroughly abused, I finally watched the men, who had been squeezed dry to their limits, gratefully hand over half an imperial silver coin each—money I had not even asked for—before collapsing into unconsciousness from complete exhaustion.