A Mother's Surrender
"Was it wild animals from the forest?"
Karlson, captain of the village guard, shook his head at the question from Cecilia, the female guard who served as his lieutenant. He was studying the corpse with a careful, unhurried eye — a body so thoroughly gnawed and torn that little more than bone remained.
The dead man was Belton, a woodcutter who worked the timber beyond the edge of the village. A local had stopped by the cabin today, found him like this, and that was how Karlson and his guards had come to be standing over what was left of him.
"No... no. If you only looked at what had been done to Belton, you might think that. But his wife and daughters are gone. That doesn't fit."
"Bandits, then?" Cecilia asked carefully, still looking down at the body beside him.
Karlson stroked his chin.
"If they took the wife and the daughters and cleaned out the house besides, that would be the most likely explanation. But..."
He swallowed the rest. An uneasy doubt had settled in his gut.
Bandits? The village they lived in was a backwater among backwaters. What would a robber even want here, in a place that had never seen a precious thing or a spare coin in its life? On the map, mountains closed them in on three sides; the village sat in front, and behind it lay the unexplored forest. Anyone from outside who wanted to reach this cabin would have had to pass through the village first — and Karlson had heard nothing about any strangers coming through of late.
An inside job was hard to believe, and the way the traces of the missing women had been so cleverly covered up was stranger still. It didn't feel impulsive. It felt planned. And those hidden traces only made it that much harder to guess who had done it.
"What is it?" Cecilia asked again, more carefully this time, watching his face deepen into thought.
"It's nothing."
Karlson stood, shaking off a line of thinking that had nowhere to go.
"Let's start a search."
"Yes, sir!"
Cecilia saluted and moved off with the other guards to comb the surrounding ground.
Karlson watched them go and sighed inwardly. Hah... this is worrying.
They called themselves a guard, but in truth they were little more than a neighborhood watch. A village this remote, this far from anyone's interest, wasn't part of any noble's fief — which meant no lord's protection, either. The villagers had to defend themselves, and the problem was that there simply weren't that many young men. Women had been pulled in out of necessity, until nearly half the guard was female. On an ordinary day that hardly mattered. But when something like this happened, he couldn't help wondering whether they would actually be able to do the job.
Karlson turned his gaze toward the forest. Aside from the occasional wild animal wandering too close to the village, it had never given them any real trouble. He had lived here a long time himself, and even he had no idea what was actually in those woods. An unexplored forest was dangerous country, and there had never been a reason to go in.
But if something like today's incident happens again, we'll have to take a look in there.
He stared a moment longer into the dark between the trees, then turned and walked away, his steps heavy.
Is it just my imagination? I feel like I've gotten a little stronger — just a fraction, but it's there.
I had made it back to the Dungeon with the three women in tow, and the sensation was distinct enough that I put the question to Seongha.
It is not your imagination. You share experience points with the monsters born in the Dungeon.
So that means... I got the EXP from when the Servant killed that man?
That is correct.
Well now.
That was a windfall. It meant I didn't have to kill anyone myself — the monsters I created would farm experience for me automatically. And experience translated directly into my own capabilities, which meant I would keep getting stronger.
Come to think of it, how am I supposed to check my own condition? I can see the Servant's status window. Shouldn't I be able to see mine the same way?
You cannot view it yet.
Why not?
I do not know the reason either. I am sorry.
If Seongha didn't know, there was no way for me to find out.
"My— my husband! Where is my husband?!"
The cry from the woman bound in the corner yanked my awareness back into the Dungeon, into the present. Venati — mother of two daughters, wife of one husband. Work in the sun had browned her skin, but the softness of a woman's flesh was still there underneath. Those full breasts I had noticed from the start were only the beginning; her hips drew a lush outline even through her clothes. She wasn't a beauty, exactly, but her face was pleasant enough. As a woman, she had more than enough to offer.
Two children and a life of rough labor had left a stubborn streak in her, but at the end of the day she was still just a helpless woman. She had hounded me the entire way here about where her husband was. I had used the daughters as a shield and shut her up for the time being. But we were safely inside the Dungeon now. I could tell her the truth, and watch that face of hers twist.
Even so, I took a breath and let myself settle. As Seongha had said — if you wanted to keep living, you needed reasons. All kinds of them.
I gave the Servant's waiting belly a few casual pats with the back of my hand.
"Hhhuuuaaark—."
A thick, rolling belch echoed through the Dungeon. Venati didn't understand the sound at first. Then, slowly, she did — and her face went rigid. Her pupils dilated, widening with horror, and that frozen expression began to crumple. Fear, rage, terror, grief — all of it living on the same face at once.
I watched the changes with real pleasure, and let myself picture what was coming for her. The same woman who had come at me with an axe in that cabin, all fire and fight, reduced to despair with an unwanted child in her belly. I could already see it.
"You... you demons—!!"
Venati's eyes blazed. She tried to lunge at me, bound as she was — and the Servant, waiting at her flank, turned the edge of its axe toward the daughters.
"Eek?!"
"M-Mom...!"
The girls' tear-choked cries stopped Venati cold. She looked at her daughters trembling on the edge of death, and then she looked at me, caught between one impossible choice and the other.
That glare only excited me further. I made a show of it — wrapping my arms around one of the daughters from behind, and squeezing her breast hard enough to leave deep creases in the fabric.
"Nooo..."
Fat tears rolled down her face. I could feel her shaking against me in real time, transmitted through every place our bodies touched. The fear of it sent a deep, bright thrill through me. I licked her cheek.
A long, wet stroke.
"Hiiiiiek—."
I felt her whole body shudder at the hot drag of my tongue. She squirmed weakly in my arms; I held her there and went on tasting her, sampling a woman's skin at my leisure. Greedy strands of saliva left a slick, shining trail across that soft flesh. I groped her chest as I pleased, buried my nose against her, and toyed with the female body in my hands like it belonged to me.
"Hhk—!"
The poor little thing trembled in my arms like a baby bird. Feeling that fear run through her made my cock twitch and strain, over and over, swollen with excitement.
"You devil—"
Venati, forced to watch her daughter being toyed with right in front of her, couldn't hold still any longer. The moment she moved, I flipped the girl's skirt up.
And then—
"Gonna fuck her. Your daugh-ter. Her pussy. Eat it right up?"
I shoved my erect cock forward, miming the thrust toward the cunt bared beneath the lifted skirt. The daughter thrashed against her bonds, screaming.
"No!! D-don't—!! M-Mom, I don't want this!! Save me, Mommyyy—!!!"
She flung the words at her mother through a spray of tears, shrieking for help.
"S-stop..."
The desperate screaming filled the Dungeon, and at last Venati let the rage go. She begged me instead. The words I had been waiting for left her mouth, and a smile tugged at the corner of my lips and broke free.
"Stoooop—??"
I laughed in her stupid, staring face, and then, very kindly, I told her exactly what she would have to do.
"Pleeease stooop. You have to say it. Get naaaked. On your kneeees. Head on the grouund."
I crooked a finger and pointed at the floor in front of me. Venati took a moment to understand, and then her face twisted into something strange and ugly.
She would have to get on her knees in front of a monster and plead for mercy. She would have to kneel and beg the creature that had killed her husband and was molesting her daughter. It wasn't even a matter of pride anymore — it was the erasure of her personhood, and I could see the conflict tearing through her from the inside.
"You don't waaant to—??"
She hesitated. I pressed my cock closer against her daughter's spread lips. A wet little sound — the head kissing against her folds.
"Mommyyy—!!"
"I-I understand!! ...I'll do it."
Her daughter's frantic cry broke her. She gave in. Ah — a parent's love really was a magnificent thing.
"Khi-hi-hi-hi!"
I let out a good, long laugh, and settled in to watch as she began, slowly, to undress. She stripped in awkward, shrinking motions, her face flushed with humiliation, rage, and shame. The top came off. The skirt. And then, just as her fingers hooked into the panties covering her sex, her eyes met mine — I who had been watching her little nude show the entire time. And with them, the sight of my cock, standing obscenely, bobbing and twitching like it had lost its mind.
"Hh-hk..."
Venati wiped her tears once, and then, at last, she was naked. I dragged a look over her body, thick with lust. Those full breasts. A frame honed lean by labor, without an ounce of spare flesh. That taut, springy ass. For a moment my vision nearly whited out with the urge to just shove it in and be done — I had to force it down. We hadn't even started yet. It was far too early to lose it. Easy. Easy.
Naked, she edged toward me in small, reluctant steps, then slowly sank to her knees and pressed her head to the floor. Her voice came out broken, thick with tears, each word dragged up by force.
"P-p-please, *sniff*... st-stop... I... beg you... like this... please... *hhk.*"
That swallowed, wounded sound was the last of it. I lifted my foot toward the bowed head of a defeated female, soaked in her own humiliation.
A dull, heavy impact.
"Ghk—?!"
I stepped on her head. My cock twitched as I crushed the dignity she had been born with as a woman under my heel. I ground down, putting my weight into it.
"Ggghhkk—?!"
The more I heard her choke — nose and mouth mashed into the dirt — the higher the pleasure climbed. I went on trampling her, and the curses boiling up from somewhere in my gut spilled out of my mouth.
Another stomp. Another.
"Khi-hi-hi-hik!! You fucking bitch! Look at you!!"
"Hh-hhhk..."
I looked down at the female sobbing under my foot, drunk on the thrill of it — and then, faintly, Seongha spoke, in a voice that sounded almost pleased.
I am glad you seem to be enjoying yourself.
Seongha was right. I was happy. I was glad. I could feel it — that I was alive. That I was a living thing.