The next day Cless was awakened before sunrise by a stream of horrendous notifications.

> Johnnie Graham, Samuel Wilkins, Eugene O'Brien, Matthew Pratt, and Elmer Love broke the contract and suffered the consequences. This notification has been broadcast to all contract participants.

The next one was for Cless alone.

> Johnnie Graham, Samuel Wilkins, Eugene O'Brien, Matthew Pratt, and Elmer Love have died. Cless earned 1,500 Experience Points.

Damn idiots. They tried to rat their mouths and paid the price. Divine punishment, was it? Cless had doubts. Was she too harsh? WIth that gang of rapists? No. But she knew things would be hard. Probably some of the boys were panicking right now and trying to speak. And they say girls are bad at keeping secrets. In Cless' opinion, it was all down to the individual. But her musings on human nature were interrupted by yet another notification.

> Douglas Jones and Gerald Lindsay broke the contract and suffered the consequences. This notification has been broadcast to all contract participants.

"Oh no, dear God, no!" Cless clenched her head and prayed. Tears flowed down her face.

> Douglas Jones and Gerald Lindsay have died. Cless earned 300 Experience Points.

Didn't these people learn to keep their freaking mouths shut? How many more were going to die from divine punishment? Cless sat curled in the bed and hugged her knees. She kept gazing at the far wall waiting for another row of notifications but none came until sunrise. She heard a knock on the door.

"Cless, are you awake?" It was Karen's voice.

"Yes, aunt. I'm coming."

Cless stood up and unlocked the door. Karen barged into her cramped room. "Here. A barmaid uniform for you. Dress up, you are on cleaning duty this morning. It means taking a bucket and scrubbing the bathing room. Here is a copy of the key to the staff door. Take a bath after you clean it up and then put on your uniform. Come through the staff door when you are done. Scram, new employee."

Karen finished with a joking tone and a smile. Aunt Karen, Cless meant. Cless smiled, took her bathing supplies from the dresser and a clean set of underwear and went for the bathing room. She hung a wooden plaque painted orange on the door, to indicate the room was being serviced. She got inside and locked the door giving access to the common area.

After she finished scrubbing the whole area clean of any mold or soot, Cless took a well-deserved bath. She still had dried blood on her. Terrible. She dumped the water, checked the whole room and aligned the tubs and buckets. Satisfied with her work, she dried herself and dressed in her new uniform. She unlocked the staff door and was going inside when she remembered to backtrack and reset the door for the patrons. There was nobody waiting for the room to vacate. Cless found it strange. If she knew when the bathing room was going to be the cleanest, she would try to be the first to use it. Well, in a way she was.

She went through a cramped corridor with a few slits near the roof for ventilation and illumination and got out in the larger corridor between the kitchen and the pantry.

"Did you remember to lock the staff door?" Karen's voice came from the kitchen. Cless looked behind her but yes, she remembered locking it.

"Yes, ma'am." Unsure of how to address her aunt slash boss, Cless went for the formal.

"Here in the inner section of the inn, you can call me aunt, my dear. In the common area you can address me as 'boss'," Karen chortled. "I am no madam, I assure you!"

"Yes, aunt. What should I do now?" Cless remembered her scheduled appointment with the twenty... makes it nineteen boys she contracted yesterday. "I'll have to leave mid-morning to meet some people, is that okay?"

The sounds of breakfast being prepared stopped and Karen's head popped from the door frame, "You, meeting people? Where is my niece?" Karen asked with a big grin.

"Oh, you mean aunt! Can't I have some friends? I'm going to meet my classmates, just that," Cless dismissed her aunt's concerns with a fake pout.

And after reflecting a moment, she found herself amazed with the effects of her improved intellect. She had no right to be this joyful after the horrors of the past twenty-four hours but the fact was, she was.

"Aunt, does Intellect increase mental fortitude?" Karen had vanished and Cless entered the kitchen. The smell and sound of frying bacon and sausages assaulted her senses. Cless discovered herself quite hungry.

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Between the sounds of frying grease, Karen spoke, "Hum... Intellect? I guess it does, some mages I know are very resistance to mental attacks and social skills. Say, Cless what is your Intellect score?"

"That would be a twenty, aunt," Cless answered with some concern.

Karen whistled. "You've received your Skills a week-ish ago and you already have twenty Intellect? Let me guess, your Strenght and Agility are in the gutter."

"A low six on both counts, guilty."

"Well, get them to ten fast. Or you are going to suffer. Stats lower than ten give you hefty penalties. You'll see how better you get when they are all ten. In fact, for long-term, you should put all of them on a twenty."

"Okay. Raise Strength and Agility to ten, noted." Cless mumbled absentmindedly.

"Cless, do you have any magic Skills?"

It was an incisive question. All Skills were magical, but Karen was probably talking about Mage-like Skills. The ones that granted Spells.

"No, aunt. If by magic you mean the spellcasting ones, I mean."

"It is fine. You are what, level one? You'll get a ton of stat points really fast."

"I can see that. It is really fast to level up to ten, right?"

Karen prepared a plate and served Cless. "Here is your breakfast. Eat fast but don't rush it. Just get a good pace going. We are soon serving the patrons in the taproom. Agility six, right? You'll have trouble balancing plates. Carry the breakfast plates one by one out, do you hear me? Don't break my crockery. It is all wooden but it will break if it crashes down.

Cless started to eat with a great appetite as Karen kept her explanation on stats and levels.

"Level ten? No way. it is fast until level five or seven at most, then it becomes a slog. You'll take a year of dedicated delving to reach level ten. Less if you go the crazy and suicidal route, but please don't do that. You are the last family I have."

Cless chocked on a piece of sausage. She was almost halfway to level eleven already. But she did take the crazy and suicidal route. Except the others were doing the suicides by disrespecting an S-rank Skill. No way she would reveal her level now. It would raise all sorts of questions as to how she got that many Experience Points.

"Okay, aunt. I'll be careful, I promise."

Karen didn't see the guilt face Cless was doing. She was absorbed in thought.

"Twenty intellect... You don't have a class so you didn't unlock your magic stat. I wonder how high it is... Maybe I'll get you a mage trainer too. Learn some spells, fling some mojo. I know it is fun. Too bad I can do it only here in the inn."

Cless chuckled, "You are surely powerful inside your inn, aunt Karen."

"You bet!" Karen bragged. "Inside my inn not even a King could beat me. Well, if it was a King with an S-rank Skill like 'Kingdom Domain', I'd be toast. But there is nobody with an S-rank skill in the whole Kingdom. It would — "

Cless choked again, and this time Karen had to hit her in the back. "Sorry, aunt." She whimpered after catching her breath.

Cless turned around and saw the stern gaze of her aunt. "Cless. Why did you choke? Was it something I said?" Those brown eyes were penetrating her. She couldn't look away but she was scared, sweating even.

"I... erm... did..." She could only babble.

Karen looked concerned. Cless felt cornered. Did she do anything wrong? She acted as the precepts of the church dictated. Seize the opportunities presented to you. She didn't force anyone to enter a contract with her. She was innocent. She was the victim. Wasn't she? Deep inside, Cless had doubt. Would she be the villain of the story? Was she guilty of doing something bad and the rape... No! The rape was wrong, she told herself. They should die for that. To treat herself like a slab of meat on a chopping board. To rip her clothes and grope her body like it was dirt out of the streets.

"Cless, answer yes or no but please don't lie to me." She whispered her question, "Is your Skill S-ranked?"

She froze her chest rising and falling without rythm. Cless' eyes were wide open with fear. Karen approached the girl and hugged her, burying Cless' forehead in her chest. She removed the headband and caressed the girl's hair.

"You don't have to fear me. Cless, please tell me. Is your Skill S-ranked?"

She sighed and hugged her aunt back. "I'm scared. I'm scared, aunt Karen. I did nothing bad but my Skill is too strong. They died because of it, but I didn't wish for their death. I didn't want that. I swear."

"You poor thing," Karen hugged Cless tighter and rocked the girl back and forth. "Oh, God why do you test your children so?"

It startled Cless. Karen was not a pious person. "What now, aunt?"

The older woman was anxious in a way Cless never saw her before. Exasperated even. Karen looked around, checked the time and sighed.

"We need to go. This mid-morning appointment, with whom it is?"

Cless didn't know how to answer. Should she lie? It was not fair to her aunt. They were family now, for crying out loud. Family! Cless should ask sometime why she didn't step in earlier but she didn't care. What is done is done and it was God's will to happen so. Maybe Cless was meant to stay protected in the church. She was happy to have someone related by blood, even if it was to the tenth degree. She could feel her aunt's love and care and that was enough.

She decided to tell the truth. "With the boys that I contracted yesterday."

Karen raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "You contracted boys? Is that a new malady?"

Cless tried to giggle but she snorted instead. "No! My Skill is called [Absolute Contract], aunt Karen. Any contract or agreement where things of equal value are offered becomes a binding and so far unviolable unavoidable obligation."

"And it is S-rank, right?" Cless nodded this time. "Goodness gracious. You can't tell that to anyone."

"I don't intend to, aunt." She agreed with a shudder. Cless didn't intend to tell Karen to begin with but the older woman earned her trust. Family, right?

Karen's face got serious. She pulled a chair and sat next to her niece, "How many people died from breaking the contracts, Cless?"

"Including the merchant, eight. I put a secrecy clause in the contract with the boys, and seven tried to break it tonight."

Karen held Cless' shoulder. "Please tell me the whole story. This is bad, Cless. We need to act. But to act I need to know what sort of trouble you got yourself into."

Cless told Karen the full story of her ordeal at the warehouse. Karen's face became somber and somber at each phrase the girl spoke. Tears flowed from the older woman's face when she told of the despair she felt bound to that slab of wood. Of how she offered the boys to either go away or try to stop the rape to stay free. Her face became anger when Cless told the punishment she inflicted on Hector.

"Did I do wrong, Aunt?"

"No, Cless. You fought using your weapons. Your Skill cannot force anyone to enter a contract, isn't it right? They entered the contract on their own free will, they broke the contract on their own free will. The offer must hold equal value before the parties, did I get that right?"

"Yes. It is all correct, aunt Karen." Cless felt a warmth she was missing for quite some time. Acceptance.

Karen stood up and nudged Cless to get off the chair as well. "We need to go. I'll leave to Josefine to deal with Breakfast and call some extras from the Service Guild. We need to go now and visit the priest and the midwife before this appointment with your 'contracted boys'." Karen would've laughed if things weren't that grim. "After that, we'll eat lunch and visit the constable before he finds you. Finish eating, girl. We need to hurry."