In the grand, cozy visitors' room…

「…And Damian had decided to go with her. So we bid each other farewell, and I have returned to the palace just a few days ago… I think that's all.」

Cycelia shrugs her shoulders, and gently tilts her head as she finishes her story, smiling gently at King Nide.

Clink.

The ceramic clatters gently when he sets his teacup down on the saucer.

「…I see. A wraith, a vampire, and a mage like that… That must have been quite troublesome.」

He says, nodding his head with a little grimace of his lips.

「Yes, it was… But luckily Straf was there, so it all turned out well.」

Cycelia nods back in reply, and shrugs with a smile once more.

「This man… Straf. You told me how you met him and the story about the count…」

「Yes?…」

The young king says while he looks at his empty teacup. Cycelia quizzically tilts her chestnut head, furrowing her brows lightly.

「…But who is he? The name sounds familiar. Straf, Straf, Straf…」

He repeats as he thinks, his gaze turned aside.

「Ah… That may be because… Um… I sent you a threat involving him. You know, back during the war…」

Cycelia explains, smiling awkwardly as she taps her fingers together.

《She's so damn cute when she's bashful!》

「…Is he perhaps that one man who had slain Commander Kerul?」

The young man asks, raising his brow.

「Yes, your memory serves you right. He fought with your commander in a duel, which led to your army retreating.」

Cycelia nods her head, and explains.

「Ah. I see… I remember now. The man who can supposedly single-handedly raze my kingdom…」

「Yes… The diplomat may have worded it poorly… But he wasn't wrong.」

King Nide nods back as his brows rise, though his face remains impassive. She smiles awkwardly as she shrugs her shoulders, and explains further.

「So he is your Minister of Finances…」

「Yes…」

「…But he wages war in your name?」

The young king tilts his head.

「He is also the Minister of War.」

Cycelia bluntly explains with a quick nod. His head perks up in mild surprise.

「…He is a minister of two things?」

「Three. He's also the Minister of Security for the kingdom.」

She corrects him, and adds. The king briefly gains a puzzled expression, and he stares at her in silence, searching for the right words.

「…He is the minister of quite many things, isn't he?」

The young man asks, raising his brows in a large yet tempered surprise.

「Yes, he is…」

She nods, smiling a little.

「…But you haven't answered my question. Who is he, this mystery man Straf? An assassin? A mercenary? A vagabond nobleman?」

He asks with his gaze fixed on her big, emerald eyes.

「Straf is…」

Cycelia briefly breaks the eye contact, turning them aside as she thinks with her finger pressed into her cheek just beside her mouth.

「…Quite possibly this era's biggest mystery.」

She replies, and stifles a chuckle as she smiles at him. The young man stares at her in silence, thinking for a few moments.

「…And where is he right now?」

King Nide asks, raising his brows…

…

Meanwhile, in another room…

「Ahhh… Mmmmm…」

Stripe continues moaning with her head tilted forward while Straf rubs her striped ears.

「…Just to clarify, this is a massage thing, not foreplay, right?」

He with his brows raised asks as he rubs his thumbs on the fuzzy inner side of her ears. She blinks a few times, and her eyes finally focus. Stripe briefly looks up at him with confused eyes.

Slap.

Her face twists into an utterly mortified grimace, and she slaps his hands away with the back of her extended fingers, barely using any force to do so. Mostly pushing, rather than slapping.

「…Get your hands away from me!」

She shouts, and covers her black and yellow ears with her clawed hands, staring at Straf's face with huge golden eyes and a tight-lipped expression. Her face becomes visibly flushed.

「Your mouth says one thing, but your body says another…」

Straf nonchalantly replies, still holding his hands up and dangerously close to her ears. Her lips curl inward, and she bashfully breaks the eye contact.

Snap.

「…I did not intend to make it sound like a cookie cutter smut quote. But if you hated it, it sure took you your sweet time to stop me.」

He snaps his fingers and points at her, then speaks after a prolonged pause as he's scrunching his mouth corner to the side.

「S- Shut up…」

Stripe says with her head shamefully lowered, completely red-faced.

「…It's just… No one has ever done that to me before, so it took me a little off-guard.」

She adds, hiding her blushing face from his gaze.

「What, no one's ever touched your ears? Not even the guy who took you in?」

Straf asks as he props his head up on his fist with his elbow on the cozy chair's armrest.

「No… Initially I served as his cover story, but he got attached to me, so when his assignment ended, he had me sent to the Eastern Kingdoms. I was raised by another man, then.」

Stripe lightly shakes her head, keeping it lowered and staring at her hands on her lap.

「Two dads, huh? Aren't you lucky…」

Straf smirks a little, and looks at the space just behind her.

「…Where is Lia? I'm tired of waiting…」

He briefly looks over his shoulder at the door, grumbles a little, and lets out a large, exasperated sigh.

「…Say, you have those ears, but what about your tail? You have a tail, right?」

He turns his eyes back to her striped ears.

「…It's hidden.」

She replies quietly in a meek voice.

「What, you mean you can make it appear and disappear?」

Straf asks, furrowing his brows slightly.

「Do you grow weaker if it's cut off, like in Dragon-? Ah I suppose I shouldn't say it with him around here…」

He inquires further, but stops himself when his eyes drift to Greaves. The young adventurer tilts his spiky orange head when their eyes meet.

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「…No, stupid. It's in my pants.」

Stripe replies, stealing quick peeks of Straf's face.

「You mean?…」

His face grows worried, and he points at his groin with inquisitive eyes.

「…No, idiot! My tail is hidden in my pants!」

She shouts back, clenching her fists with an indignant and embarrassed expression on her red face.

「…You have a tail?」

With his arms crossed, Greaves asks over his shoulder while he's sitting on a couch, furrowing his brows.

「She has animal ears, so it'd only make sense if she had a tail too.」

Will remarks, and adjusts his glasses.

「Yeah, I guess…」

Greaves shrugs with a slanted mouth, and they return to quietly watching the two.

「…Well, don't keep everyone waiting. Show me.」

Straf demands with a bored face, pointing his hand at her hip. Her jaw drops in shock, and her golden eyes snap wide open as her slit pupils widen in disbelief.

「…I'm waiting.」

He adds after a prolonged moment of silence while Stripe remains frozen in shock. His voice is enough to snap her out of it, and she bashfully lowers her head, then stands up.

Her clawed hands slowly, reluctantly move to the belt strapped around her waist. Greaves and his party watch on with curious eyes, while Straf still appears bored.

「…Close your eyes.」

She meekly says when her fingers stop fiddling with the buckle. A prolonged, amused, snort-like sound escapes Straf's nose.

「As if. I want to see your tail, not your ass. But I don't mind if you want to show more…」

He replies with narrowed eyes and a large, smug grin. She clenches her teeth in dismay, then looks at Greaves and his party.

「…Turn around! Don't look at me!」

Stripe demands with an angry shout directed at the adventurer party. Greaves and Will reluctantly face forward again, while Lian and Alicia agree to turn their eyes elsewhere.

Content, or, at least resigned that only Straf is watching, she begins to cautiously slide the rear of her pants down. His brows rise when she reaches for something behind her back.

She pulls it out, and lets go, then readjusts her pants higher.

「There…」

Stripe says quietly, and bashfully turns to show her thick, black and yellow-striped tail with a black tip. The color patterns upon it repeat until just before the very tip.

「Oooh. You really are like a tiger! Though, it's more black than yellow…」

Straf nods in approval, rubbing his chin while he looks.

「…Have you seen enough? Can I put it back-?」

She asks in an indignant tone with her golden eyes turned aside.

Fwap.

「Gah! What are you-!?」

「Hmm… Nice and thick, just like the ears…」

She lets out a surprised croak like a squeezed frog when Straf abruptly grabs her tail roughly a quarter length away from its tip.

「Stop! Don't touch my tail!」

Stripe demands, but her demands fall on deaf ears. She tries to turn and push his hands away, but her arms can never quite reach his due to the awkward angle.

「The… Fur? Hair?… Is a little coarse on the tail…」

「Who are you telling this to!? Are you rating my tail!?」

She asks as Straf mumbles something to himself, slowly crawling his hands closer to her hips along the tail. Greaves and his party watch on with furrowed brows sans Lian, who doesn't seem to care all that much. Straf's hands continue rubbing, fondling, stroking, and brushing her tail until they reach its base just above her slightly lowered pants.

「S- Stop! Don't touch me there!…」

「Hmmmm…」

Stripe shouts, but her demands take on an audibly pleading tone the closer his hands get to her hips.

「Eep!」

She lets out a high-pitched yelp, and her whole body jolts stiff when one of his hands let go of the tail, only for him to start thumbing the space under her tail. Will nervously adjusts his glasses with a concerned gaze. Lian and Alicia glance at each other, before returning their attention to Straf. Stripe is staring at him with a completely red-flushed face and shocked, wide-open eyes.

「W- What do you think you're doing!? Are you going to molest me since I can't fight back, you scum!?-」

She shouts with an utterly mortified grimace on her face, her mouth quivering.

「Straf, you can't do this just because she's a criminal-」

Will protests the woman's treatment as he adjusts his glasses, but Straf cuts him off, ignoring him.

「No? I'm checking if your tail is anatomically correct…」

Briefly pausing, Straf furrows his brows as if asked something completely outlandish, and nonchalantly replies as he returns to what he was doing.

「…And it looks like it is. Huh. The tailbone actually bends at the end there to accommodate the tail itself… Which means your biology isn't entirely human-」

Straf says as he lets go of the tail, then rubs his chin, pondering it.

「And you had to fondle me there to figure that out!?!」

Stripe screams at an ear-grating high pitch, then clenches her teeth in dismay as she quickly packs her tail tip back into her pants, and slips them fully back onto her hips.

「Ahhhhh… I regret hesitating… I really should have slit my throat. It would have spared me this embarrassment and whatever's to come… I want to die now…」

She drops down to the ground and curls up into a ball on her side, covering her face with her arms. After a few seconds, she begins cackling in a morbid manner.

「Ha ha… Ha… At least there will be an end to this soon. They'll just execute me and it'll be over… Ha…」

She mumbles on the floor, grinning, though her eyes are full of hopeless resignation.

「Uh, yeah, about that…」「Huh?…」

Standing up, Straf chimes in with his index finger extended. Her eyes fill with fear as they snap to his lightly smirking, amused face.

「…You're my property and a forced member of my harem, so you're not getting executed. You'll live a long and healthy life with me.」

He adds, and shrugs his hands.

「Tsk… Disgusting lowlife…」

With her arms crossed around her spear, Lian clicks her tongue and turns her disdainful eyes away.

「…Huh?」

Stripe blinks with a confused grimace on her face, as if she didn't quite hear what Straf has said.

「I said you'll have plenty of time to get used to having your ears fondled. Along with other things.」

「…Huh?」

She says again, with the exact same grimace as a few moments ago.

「I said… You're not getting executed.」

Straf repeats, this time much louder, and much more to-point.

「…Huh?」

「Okay, you're just fucking with me, aren't you?」

He places his fists on his hips, and mouth scrunches to the side when his annoyed gaze turns to at the woman on the floor. The door behind him opens.

「Straf? Ah, there you are… Huh?」

Cycelia walks in, smiling. Her smile quickly twists into a confused grimace when she sees the black-haired woman curled up on the floor.

「…Straf, who is this?」

She asks, pointing at her.

「Your highness, that is the intruder.」

Will replies for him, adjusting his glasses.

「Her?」

Cycelia asks in an inquisitive tone, furrowing her brows in disbelief while she keeps pointing her finger at Stripe. The two briefly look at each other.

「Yup. Took me no time at all to catch her. She's a spy from the Eastern Kingdoms, or whatever…」

Straf turns to face Cycelia and nods, pointing his hand down at Stripe before shrugging.

「The Eastern Kingdoms?… What would the Eastern Kingdoms want from us? That's so far away…」

「Tsk…」

Cycelia remarks, and Stripe clicks her tongue, turning her golden eyes away.

「…Good question. I didn't actually ask her stuff. I was waiting for you to stop by. What were you doing, anyway?」

Straf asks, turning his eyes beneath his lightly furrowed brows back to Cycelia.

「Ah… Sorry. King Rankor suddenly came to visit. A guard let me know you were waiting not too long ago, and King Rankor left for his room just now, so I am finally free.」

「Rankor?- Ah. That asshole who invaded, huh? What the fuck does he want? Seconds?」

Straf asks, spreading his hands.

「N- No, no. He's here on a friendly visit, Straf. We're on good terms now, like our fathers before us.」

Cycelia shakes her chestnut head, and waves her hands in front of herself with a tiny, awkward smile.

「So… Could you tell me what happened?-」

She asks as she approaches Greaves, his party, and the couches. She stops in her tracks when she takes another look at the woman.

「…Straf, what's that around her neck?」

Cycelia points at the iron collar on Stripe's neck while the two look at each other again.

「Oh, that?…」

He turns his eyes to Stripe and glances at the collar with a little grimace.

「…That's just a magic slave collar.」

Straf explains with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. Cycelia's jaw slowly drops lower and lower while she furrows her brows…