Chapter 56: On Relationsheeps (1/2)
Congratulations! For repeatedly surviving a werewolf’s bite, you earned the [Silverfang] Personal Perk!
[Silverfang]: When biting a mono-type Humanoid, you can infect them with the Curse of Lycanthropy if they fail a moderate Vitality check. On the next full moon, unless the curse is dispelled, their species permanently change to werewolf (Humanoid/Beast).
But when pushed, it turned out he had none.
Considering his life path, consorting with demons, helping a dragon take over a country, indulging a bit with the flock of the Moon Man, and becoming half-monster himself, he should have seen it coming.
“I knew that Perk would work that way!” Chocolatine gloated next to him.
The worst thing was, that night had been the best Victor ever had. Screwing the human race had never felt so pleasurable.
“My Karma score is going to take a huge dump for this,” the vizier said. Miel would be so mad.
“Just falsify it!” Chocolatine happily suggested, like a grown-up shoulder devil. “I’m sure it can be done with the right spells. Malfy can help with it.”
Bad influence indeed. “So, uh… where do we go from here?” Victor asked. “Your brother will show up and wed us at gunpoint?”
“Silly, Croissant would kill you if he learned. Or he would try, and fail.”
“I figured, but that doesn’t answer my question.” In truth, while Victor had grown rather fond of her—a lot more than he thought he would—he didn’t want to settle down with anyone right now, and liked his bachelor lifestyle. On the other hand, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings either.
Chocolatine drew the blanket towards herself. “No tying down.”
“No tying down?” Victor raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“Except with ropes! I want foreplay, tension, excitement!” she began to rant with a disturbing, crazed face. “You breaking into my temple with a whip at night with a mad gleam in your eyes! Strolling on your horse and abducting me to the desert to have your way with me on the sand!”
As she described her weirdest and truly disturbing fantasies, Victor backed away until he had reached the end of the mattress. Her formerly cute face morphed into the purest expression of psychotic obsession.
“No, no, I have a better idea to spice it up further. We will need chains, a sacrificial altar, an electric slime, a sheep, and a knife!”
...
In hindsight, this may have been a mistake.
A huge mistake.
“But, but you start by using that Perk on me once a week until the end of the mating season.” She moved to bite his shoulder, Vic stopping her with a hand.
“I’m going to drink a healing potion downstairs first.” She took out a fifth of his HP, and the raid battle had taught him the importance of remaining in top shape at all times. Also, he needed some breathing room.
Victor put on a dressing gown and escaped the room while Chocolatine cheerfully hummed to herself, letting out a breath of relief after closing the door behind him.
…
…
He BLEEPed up.
Victor knew he shouldn’t have bred with the crazy, but he still did.
He needed to skip town. No, the entire country. He had to escape!
Charlene informed him many churches had started encouraging adventurers to discover new lands, even starting to build exploration fleets. He had to take the first boat and run, run, run!
America? Antarctica? Anywhere!
No, no, Vainqueur would summon him if he vanished without warning! He was trapped!
Think, Victor, think!
Buy time. Drink a potion, satisfy the wolf-fiend’s appetite, and then find a way to get out of this mess alive.
The fearful Grand Vizier moved downstairs to his dining room, where his undead servants always kept a stockpile of healing potions on the table. He found Allison waiting for him there, alongside a cadre of skeleton butlers. “Al?” Victor raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing in my house in the middle of the night?”
“I was done helping Vainqueur with his [Geomancer] training, and came to visit,” the dryad replied. “He grew angry when I told him he had to make seeds grow with magic instead of something more ‘bragworthy.’ He called it minion work.”
“But he still did it?”
“He tried, but I had to promise he would unearth a precious metal mine with this new class first,” Allison replied. “Since Ishfania is an alternate Iberia, I’m sure we can unearth some in the south.”
There was more money to make from developing a country than going quest hunting. Halloween and the confrontation with Icefang was less than six months away, and while Vainqueur disdained undragon-like activities, his hatred of his rival and desire to outshine him outweighed his pride.
Once they had stabilized Vainqueur’s new empire, Victor guessed they could turn their eyes outward.
If he lived that long.
“Vic, is something the matter?” Allison asked him with a worried gaze. “You look like a soldier volunteering for a suicide mission.”
“I am,” Victor replied, reddening, as he finished the bottle.
You have recovered all your HP... for now.
“No, seriously, what’s wrong?” The dryad insisted. “I am your friend. If you are in trouble, I will do anything to help.”
“I slept with Chocolatine.”
Allison marked a short pause. “Slept, or slept-slept?” Somehow, she made the question sound like. “Have you considered suicide?”
“Slept-bred.”
The dryad looked at him with a mix of astonishment at his stupidity, pity for his cruel fate, and a strange kind of awe for his boldness. “Vic, you are a lion-hearted man,” she finally said. “But you are also an idiot.”
“You helped set up the date!”
“Yes, a friendly date, so she would stop pestering you and move on. I didn’t think you would actually cross the point of no return.” Allison shook her head, biting her lip. “You know it’s mating season for werewolves until the end of the month?”
A chill went down his spine. “She said she was on the pill.”
“Not to transform into a werewolf during the full moon, but not for that part.”
Victor’s eyes turned empty, as a hellish frost seized his heart, and crushed his hopeful spirit.
“Thankfully for you, I don’t think a half-dragon and a werewolf can have children,” Allison tried to reassure him. “But to be sure, don’t do it again until June. She’s upstairs right?”
“You have to save me,” Victor begged her, “You’re her best friend and a priestess of the goddess of love. Relationship advice is your job.”
Allison joined her hands, furiously considering the matter as if her friend’s life depended on it. Because it did!