I’m sure everybody’s heard the stories of Demon Queen Gluttony. The demon who rampaged across the world for over a thousand years. The Wandering Calamity. The Black Death... ‘Mom’ as I prefer to call her. My sisters told me about how feared she was across the land. Even now that she’s been out of action for over twenty-four years, I know the long-lasting effects of her rampage are still deeply ingrained into people’s hearts...

Mom wasn’t the only one who had an impact on the world though. There were others. Throughout history, there have always been seven of them. Seven of the biggest, baddest, strongest individuals this world has to offer. Mom is one of those Seven—Gluttony. It’s a title she’s kept for over a thousand years. But, while there has only ever been one Gluttony, the rest of the Seven have come and gone over the years, changing hands after every death. Natural or untimely. Nobody can keep that title forever after all. Well, except Mom, of course...

Completely engulfed in flames, the Warden lets out an ear-splitting howl. It echoes across the room, shaking the very ground beneath our feet. The guards that had accompanied him at first are now scattered, cowering beneath the beds and desks of empty prison cells.

There’s no doubt about it. The Warden is one of those Seven. Although I can’t know for certain, I can instinctively feel it in my muscles. Not only is he one of the Seven, he must be Cursed like the rest of us in Curse Ward too. There’s no way those flames could be anything other than the result of the Warden’s own Curse—a bizarre power he would have had since birth. The Curse Ward seems like a fitting place for us to duke it out.

“Cursed...Cursed, huh?”

I roll the word around inside my mouth but it still doesn’t feel right. Who decided that we were ‘cursed’? Who decided that being born a little different from everybody else was a bad thing? I don’t feel like I’ve been cursed. Not once, not ever. In fact, if anything, I feel...

“Fwahaha! Truly blessed! Blessed with being born to a strong mother and kind sisters! Blessed with new friends who make every day fun! Blessed with being able to fight one of the Seven right here and now!”

I smile at the Warden in sincere gratitude for every moment that led me to this point. I truly do feel blessed right now.

“Fwahaha! Come at me! Wrath!”

The Warden—Wrath of the Seven, crouches low to the floor like an animal. A crouching start. His actions seem weirdly calm but his eyes are clouded with a burning rage. He’s going to charge at me with everything he’s got. My last attack already cleared the path between us so there’s nothing to get in his way.

I better give it everything I’ve got too...

—I throw up.

Something long and hard forms in my stomach, slowly forcing its way up into my throat. I grip it with my fingers and squeeze out the long metal pole. A wider segment at the end gets caught in my throat for a moment before I yank it the rest of the way with a wet pop. I hold the thing out in front of me with both hands. At the head of the pole is a flat, thin metal—it’s red with the word ‘STOP’ painted on the front—in the shape of an eight-sided... shape.

“... H-hexagon...?” I test, a little unsure of myself.

“Octagon," Mei-Mei sighs from somewhere behind me.

Gripping it with both hands, I sling the ‘STOP’ sign over my shoulder—awaiting Wrath’s next and final charge. Silence settles over the Curse Ward as we stare at each other from across the room.

—And then he makes his move.

Wrath kicks off the floor and sprints toward me like a burning comet, tearing up the floor with every step. Saliva drools wildly from his teeth-baring maw, evaporating into nothing against the heat of his roaring hellfire.

Tightening my grip on the metal—I feel the seams of my clothing start to tear under the pressure of all one thousand one hundred and twenty-four of my muscles being flexed past their absolute limits—ready to swing.

“Do it! Gorilla!”

“Dedicate your heart!”

“B-big sis Pepper!”

I smile as I feel the friends I’ve made shout encouraging words at my back.

Wrath closes the distance in an instant and lunges at me.

—And so I swing.

“S-sir! It’s Lust! She’s—!” A new guard suddenly bursts through the Curse Ward entrance and pauses in shock at the chaotic scene in front of him. “... Eh?”

Wrath comes to a complete stop, the flames engulfing his body immediately disappearing and his expression turning from rage to confused worry. “... Eh?”

My STOP sign whiffs through the empty air, failing to hit the charging target that unexpectedly stopped before entering its range. “...Fweh?”

“What did you just say?” asks Wrath—the Warden, a slight panic in his voice.

“I-it’s Lust, sir. She’s... laughing.”

After hearing this unexpected report from the new guard, the Warden has become visibly nervous now. All signs of his rage are no longer visible at all.

“Is she awake? Has Lust awoken?” he asks anxiously.

“N-no. She’s still asleep. She’s just laughing.”

The Warden breathes a short sigh in relief before turning back to me. He opens his mouth to say something, but then simply clicks his tongue in frustration.

“We’re done here,” he says as all the other guards nervously come out from hiding and salute in acknowledgement. “Confiscate all unregistered items and leave them in my office.”

“Yes, sir!”

At his words, the guards begin taking things out of the cells, things that I had thrown up in my time here—books, clothes, and all—and slowly file out of the exit.

“What about these bottles of urine, sir? Should we confiscate these as well?”

“... Leave those here. I don’t want that in my office...”

Fweh? Wait, they’re leaving? Just like that? But what about our fight? What about... Fweh?

“Ah! My pentagon!" I cry out as a guard snatches the STOP sign from my hands and walks away. Behind me, Mei-Mei mutters something inaudible under her breath.

“And bring that too,” the Warden adds, pointing to the metal corpse of the horned rabbit still impaled to the floor. Saluting again, several guards start pushing and dragging it awkwardly across the room and to the exit. I don't know how they're even gonna fit that thing through the door...

“Wait! I haven't read that volume yet!" Bran cries as he desperately clings to a guard's leg—his precious dragon maids being stolen away from right in front of him.

“Stop snivelling! It’s not that important!” I yell at Bran, before turning back to whine at the guard whose leg I’m currently clinging to. “I haven’t worn those clothes yet! I was saving them for when I felt especially cute!”

Just like that, the Warden had decided to call off our fight and confiscate everything in our cells. I know it had something to do with the message he received from the guard that came in but right now I’m more concerned about all of my cute clothes being stolen away than whatever that message was.

“S-sir...” One of the guards addresses the Warden, softly sniffling as she wipes tears from her eyes. “I don’t think you should confiscate their belongings... It’s wrong...”

—It’s Ginger. Despite being verbally abused by Bran, sexually harassed by me, and traumatized by the general chaos from today, she still has the heart to speak up against the Warden.

Fwah~! An angel! A true angel! I don’t care if she’s married! Marriage is nothing but a promise. People break promises all the time! The future is uncertain! And both elves and demons live very long lives! Anything can happen!

“Tch.” Seeing the expression on her face, the Warden sighs and then clicks his tongue. “... Fine. Tell the men to leave the clothes behind. But only the clothes.”

Ah... A Goddess... A true Goddess...

I gratefully hug the pile of dropped clothes to my chest as Ginger runs off to tell the others.

As the last of the guards finally make their way out of the exit, the Warden approaches me again, looking more annoyed than enraged right now.

“Look,” he sighs. “I don’t know what you did here today to make the mist and the metal creature appear, but that isn’t important anymore. I’m willing to look past it as long as you don’t do it again. Do you understand?”

Fweh? Just like that? I wonder what that guard said to flip the Warden’s attitude this much...

“Keh! How lenient of you,” Mei-Mei chimes in from nearby. “Why?”

“... Because of Lust.” The Warden scowls. “If you know the name ‘Wrath’ then you must know the name ‘Lust’ as well. Right now Lust resides somewhere in this prison. Asleep. Today’s events appeared to have roused her slightly and under no circumstance is she ever to be woken. That can not happen. Do you understand?”

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Ah, Lust is another one of the names I had heard about from my sisters. One of the Seven—along with Gluttony and Wrath... Hm? Wait, Lust is here too!? Two of the Seven, right here in Surstrom Spire with me!?

“Keh-heh! All that howling and you want to warn us about waking the neighbours?”

“The noise isn’t the problem!” The Warden snaps back defensively at Mei-Mei’s words. “Where she is, she will never hear a sound. No noise should ever stir her. Nothing can ever reach her. Except... bloodlust.”

“Fweh? Bloodlust?”

“Yes. It’s the only reason she hasn’t been executed yet. Any intention to execute that animal in her sleep has been met with laughter. She can feel it. I fear that making a serious attempt at her life would only draw her from her slumber, and waking her is not something we can ever risk so forever she will sleep. Our fight must’ve roused her lust for blood. Something I didn’t foresee happening...”

“... You started it though,” Bran complains from somewhere beneath a nearby table.

“...”

He’s not wrong. And guessing by the Warden’s silence, he probably knows it too. It wasn’t the mist and the metal bunny that roused Lust. It was him... And maybe me a little bit too...

“So?” Mei-Mei adds. “Why tell us? Aren’t you giving us a little too much information here? I mean, all you’re doing is exciting our gorilla. Look at her. She’s going to be up all night now because you told her that.”

She’s not wrong either. I am very excited to know both Wrath and Lust are in this prison with me. Two of the Seven... I want to fight them! Both of them! At the same time!

“Choco Valentine—Lust is the very incarnation of violence and bloodshed,” the Warden begins. “A deranged savage who wants nothing more than to rip and tear her way through every unwilling opponent that stands between her and the next. She lives purely for violence. I’m sure you’ve heard of Demon Queen Gluttony, the Black Death?”

“Of course!” I enthusiastically nod my head at the mention of my beloved mother.

The Warden continues. “Before her disappearance, Gluttony has always been the strongest of the Seven, surviving for over a millennium even as the rest of demonkind fell into extinction. Lust was the same. They both come from the same era and are said to have clashed many times before. Yet Lust still lives. Do you understand what that means?"

“Lust is strong!” I answer. Being from the same era as Mom and surviving a fight against her? Multiple times? This woman must be a big deal! Even the Warden is scared of her! An incarnation of violence and bloodshed? Neat! Is she cute too? I want to meet her!

“You’ll die,” the Warden says, reading the excitement on my face. “Not just you. Not just me. Every single person in this prison will die. That includes the two behind you.”

“...” The smile on my face slowly drops to a frown as I look back at the two in question.

Mei-Mei might be dead already but she’s probably not unkillable. What would happen if you squished that fat head of hers like a grape? And Bran... Bran’s about as tough as a soggy slice of bread. He feels like the kind of guy who would have his lunch money stolen by a particularly strong gust of wind.

Demons are strong—the strongest. Sure, I worry about my sisters and Mom from time to time, but demons are damn near invincible. I’ve never had to seriously worry about them. I once watched an argument between two of my sisters one morning that started with Beans clawing open her elder sister's belly and ended with Olive choking her younger sister out with her own spilled entrails. They made up by evening and laughed it off over the dinner table together. That’s just everyday, slow-life living for demons. Meanwhile, Bran broke a couple ribs one time and couldn’t pee by himself for weeks.

Fwah... Maybe the hardest part about making one hundred friends is actually the part that comes after you’ve made them...

“Hmph. It seems you do understand after all.” Seeing the shift in my expression, the Warden huffs and turns to leave. “As long as you understand the consequences, I’ll look past what happened today. Remain compliant within your cage and be content with the freedom I’ve allowed you. It is within your best interest to do so.”

Leaving us with those final words, the Warden makes his way to the exit...

“Ah, wait, wait. Before you go...”

Stopping him, I walk over to a nearby clothes pile that was left behind and dig through it. Finding what I was looking for, I toss him an oversized pair of blue denim pants and a green plaid shirt which he catches with a raised eyebrow.

“Wouldn’t want the guards outside to arrest you for sexual harassment, right?” I give a quick nod to the state of the Warden’s current choice of outfit. Specifically, the lack of outfit.

He’s butt-naked.

The Warden’s clothes had burned off sometime during the fight and left behind some hairy naked guy to give us a grumpy lecture about not causing trouble for other people.

Averting his gaze, the Warden dresses himself in silence. Nodding in quiet satisfaction at the perfectly fitting clothes, he huffs one last time—and then exits the doorway—slamming it shut behind him. From the other side, I hear the multiple locks clicking back into place, followed by a muffled voice...

“Tch. Broken rib... Definitely not human...”

... and then it trails off. Leaving the Curse Ward in silence once more.

The Warden—along with all of his guards—are finally gone.

...

“Keh... Keh-heh-heh...”

Mei-Mei cackles mischievously, rolling up her shirt and picking at some stitching in her abdomen. She makes a small hole, barely big enough to fit her hand inside, and reaches in with a soft squelch. From inside her own body, she pulls out a weird device—the same one she was using to track her dismembered hand inside the wall before.

“Keh-heh-heh! You wouldn’t believe what—! Hm? What is it, Bran? What are you— Ow! Stop! Let— Ouch! Let go of my hair!”

Looking completely emotionally and physically drained—almost like a walking corpse himself—Bran had moved over to the cackling dwarf and lifted her off the floor by the twintails.

“Why?!” he complains, shaking her around in his hands. “Why did I almost have to die today?! Why was I almost choked to death?! And why was it by another man?! At least let a woman do it, dammit! Explain!”

“Put me down, you idi—! Ow, ow, ow! Okay, okay! I’ll— Ow! Stop, stop! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’ll explain everything! Put me down!”

Giving her a few more shakes for good measure, Bran places the squealing dwarf back onto the floor and looks at her expectantly with crossed arms. Actually, now that he mentions it, I'm a little out of the loop on why the things that happened today actually happened too. Joining Bran with arms crossed, I resist the urge to also fondle Mei-Mei’s cute twintails and instead wait to hear her out.

“Keh...I’ll explain everything but I need my stuff first. Where did you hide it?”

“Where did I hide it?” Bran replies, an eyebrow raised.

“Yes? I distinctly remember telling you to hide everything. Which you must have done, right? All the guards found were books and clothes so you must've hidden all the important stuff, yes? Frankly, I’m impressed you were able to hide it so well. So? Where is it?”

“Oh. Right... I did hide it. I packed it all up into a bed sheet and put it...” Bran thinks for a second and then scrunches up his face. “... Eh?”

“What do you mean ‘eh?’ Where’s my stuff, idiot?”

“I... don’t remember?”

“Hah? Are you stupid? How do you not remember?! Did you fall on your head when you passed out from the gas?! Or maybe it was back when you were a child?! Is that when you fell on your head?! Is that when you became so insufferably stupid?!”

As I watch Bran and Mei-Mei continue to fight and argue with one another like usual, I feel a gentle tug at the hem of my skirt. I turn around to see who it is and—

“B-big sis Pepper... I-is it safe to come out now?”

An adorable white-haired wolfgirl looks up at me nervously with her big yellow eyes—a large white sack slung over her shoulders. A grin breaks out across my face as all the memories of my beautiful pudding-bearing angel suddenly click back into place.

“Fwah! Biscuit’s back!”

With Biscuit back from... wherever she had disappeared to, Mei-Mei pulls us all into her cell to talk through every what and why of today’s events.

Biscuit takes the large sack slung across her back and places it gently on the floor. It instantly unravels as the contents all spill out—Books, papers, bottles of oddly coloured liquids, small bags of strange powders, tools, materials, and an assortment of weird gadgets and odd bits and pieces are all piled up on the bed sheet that was previously being used as a makeshift bag to carry them all. Most of this is Mei-Mei’s stuff. Stuff I had been puking up for her these past few weeks.

“Keh-heh! Nicely done! You might be the only other person here who isn’t completely incompetent.” Mei-Mei compliments the blushing Biscuit’s efforts with a quick pat on the head—her fluffy white tail wagging furiously behind her.

"Alright. Explanation time!" Mei-Mei begins. "Just to get this out of the way, I'm— Wait, why is the tree here?"

"I brought them here! They should hear this too!" I slap the side of the dirt-filled bucket housing the small tree.

"They can't. They don't have ears." Mei-Mei complains. "I'm not even sure they have any kind of sense of self or understanding of their situation anymore, let alone actual ears."

"Don't listen to her!" As if shielding the tree from Mei-Mei's words, Bran cups his hands over the sides of the leafy branches near the top where its ears would be if it had any. "I think elves have very pretty ears. I like how long and elegant they are."

"They're not an elf, they're a tree! And they're not your girlfriend either! Stop acting like they are!"

"That's right!" I butt into the argument. "They're our girlfriend!"

"I-I never said anything about a girlfriend! And why do I have to share my hypothetical future girlfriend with a gorilla anyway?!"

"Stop with the gorilla stuff! Pick something cuter already! Like a slow loris!"

"Both of you delusional idiots are—! Again, what the hell is a slow loris?!"

Our heated three-way argument is eventually brought to a close by an adorably fluffy wolfgirl softly pushing a pudding cup into each one of our hands—even emptying one into the tree's bucket. One short pudding break later and we're all quickly brought back on track.

"Alright. As I was saying..." Mei-Mei continues. "I'm breaking us out of here."

... Fweh?

Caught off guard by her sudden statement, everybody responds in surprised silence.

"... W-wait, what?" Bran asks, breaking the silence.

"I said I'm breaking us out of here, stupid. It's a jailbreak."

"... H-how?" Biscuit asks—tail wagging behind her in anxious excitement.

"I'll explain the finer details in a bit. Preparations are mostly complete though. I just need to iron out a few minor issues that made themselves glaringly apparent today."

"Fwahaha! A jailbreak!" I laugh. "When?!"

"Keh... Keh-heh..." Curling her cracked lips upwards, an ominous smile creeps across the dwarf's pale face—her grey, colourless eyes almost glowing with anticipation as they squint under the weight of her wide, cackling smile.

"Tomorrow."