Moments later, outside the guest room…

Shien, as well as Greaves and his party exit into the hallway. Sir Vinis bows towards everyone gathered, and departs towards the stairs along with the two guards.

「Well… Let's head back to our rooms and go look for the intruder tomorrow.」

Will says to his party, turning around to face them. Cycelia waits just behind them, holding her hands in front of herself.

「If we find someone suspicious, we'll have the Ministry to investigate them right away. You can rest easy, your majesty, we'll earn our keep.」

He turns his eyes to Cycelia, and nods at her, adjusting his glasses.

「Ah… You can just call me by my name… But, thank you. I have a lot of things on my mind right now, not having to worry about assassins again would be nice. Ha ha…」

Cycelia bows lightly in reply, smiling at each member of the party and Shien for a few seconds each. She lets out a soft, quiet chuckle, though her emerald eyes betray a hint of concern.

「You can rely on Lian's brother if anything happens. We'll start our search the first thing in the morning. Goodnight, your highness.」

Will points his hand at Shien, who nods his head in silent agreement while staring at Cycelia with a frigid, serious face.

「Yes… Goodnight, everyone.」

She bids the party farewell, and turns the other way to head to her room. Will begins walking, soon followed by Greaves with his arms behind his spiky head, then Alicia and Lian.

「…Sister, when you're done with your search later tomorrow, would you like to spar with me?」

Shien asks, following behind them.

「Oh? My lovely idiot brother has come to his senses, it seems. Did you really have to run off for years and turn yourself into an animal before you got it?」

Lian asks, smugly smiling at her brother over her shoulder while they head towards their rooms. Will and Alicia glance at them every few moments, while Greaves seems to not care.

「…I freely admit now, that my pride has led me astray. I never felt like I could outmatch you, and that was a thorn that pierced deep.」

Shien replies with his head lowered, seemingly in shame, but his face remains frigid and expressionless as always. The two spearheads above them bob and weave as they walk together.

「Dear brother… It was never about outmatching me. It was about honing yourself. I hated the clan that took us in, and frankly was relieved when I learned that you ran…」

The spearwoman shrugs her hand and shoulders, turning her smirking face forward briefly before returning it to her brother.

「…But you never even considered how I'd feel about it. You should have told me about your plan, I would have went with you.」

She smiles at Shien, though the smugness in her smile is significantly tempered.

「You have feelings?」

Greaves chimes in, looking at Lian with his arms still behind his head.

「Greaves! Shut up!」

Will shouts, angrily adjusting his glasses. Lian chuckles quietly, stifling a smirk.

「…Of course. And my dear brother hurt them very much so by suddenly disappearing on his lonely sister. I may be from the islands, but I am just a woman, after all.」

She calmly replies with her usual smug tone, turning her eyes from Greaves back to Shien.

「…You are right, sister. But I thought you were going to marry soon, and so I could freely disappear without bothering you.」

He replies after a long pause, looking at his sister with the same frigid and serious gaze.

「Well, you thought wrong. I hated them all for how they were treating you. I would never marry that pig…」

Lian says, shrugging her shoulders while looking ahead above Greaves and his hair.

「…If you think I will go easy on you because I'm a little sentimental, you're sorely mistaken.」

She adds, smirking at Shien.

「I would expect nothing nothing less, elder sister.」

Shien simply nods, speaking in a calm, constant tone. Lian exchanges a brief glance with Will, smiling at him as well before she turns her black eyes forward…

…

A few minutes later, in Straf's room…

Thud.

Straf enters, loudly swinging the door shut behind him. He shambles to his bed and slip his boots off while sitting at the foot end.

「Early new year's resolution… Lay off the booze, lay off the wish fulfillment…」

He thinks out loud, and carelessly throws them to the floor. He crawls towards the pillows and throws the blanket aside, then shuffles himself beneath it.

「…And a little less thighs.」

Straf mumbles as he rests his head on the cloud-like pillow and pulls the blanket over himself, appreciating the softness of it all.

It takes Straf no time at all to become really comfortable to the point where it becomes difficult to stay awake.

「I should make magic guns…」

He slurs quietly at the canopy above his bed, and closes his eyes. Moments later, he drifts off to sleep…

…

A few hours later, well into the night…

Clunk…

「Lily?…」

Straf asks softly, his eyes still closed as he was ripped out of his sleep by the noise of his window opening quietly. A cold, gentle breeze blows in.

「…Ahhh, shit. Nona?-」

Still heavily groggy, he looks at the shape in the darkness approaching him.

「Straf…」

Cycelia's voice gently calls out.

「Lia?…」

Straf blinks a few times, and indeed, by silhouette alone, it's clear that it's Cycelia approaching his bed.

「…What's up? Did something happen?」

He groans out with furrowed brows, then rubs his eyes.

Thwump.

She jumps onto his bed, bouncing slightly as she kneels over him. Behind her, a cloud moves out of the moon's way, flooding bright moonlight in through the window.

「Straf… Let's do it.」

She says, smiling at him as she leans in to pull his blanket down a little and begins to untie his shirt to loosen the collar. Confused, he looks at her dainty hands manipulate the string.

「Uhhh…」

He slips his hand out from beneath the blanket, index finger extended.

「Don't worry about anything, I'll take care of you. We have the whole night to ourselves…」

Cycelia says with a soft, reassuring tone, smiling while looking at him with her amber eyes.

「…I'm not sure I feel safe doing anything in a room where there's a window, Lia.」

He replies as she tugs at his shirt to pull it off of him, neither helping her, but neither fighting against it. Eventually, she slips it off and discards it aside. Her grin grows.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

「…What would you like to do first? Do you want to play with me, or should I play with you?」

She asks as she grabs his wrists and starts pulling his hands towards her large, swaying chest. Straf looks up at her face, and the two gain a brief eye contact.

Tap!

A loud noise reverberates in the room when Straf's hand tightly grabs onto Cycelia's throat.

「Hrk!?- Straf… What are you?…」

Her face is twisted into a pained expression, wincing heavily and struggling to breathe, mouth open like a fish out of the water, squinting through the pain with her amber eyes.

「I'm not sure what the fuck this is, but stop using her face.」

Straf growls out, glaring at her while she's grimacing in pain. Her dainty hands are feebly trying to pull his away from her throat to no avail.

「Straf… It hurts…」

She urgently replies through her clenched teeth.

「Last chance.」

His grip tightens on her throat, causing her to wince even harder.

「Hrrkkk… Okkhay!… Okay! Just!…」

Cycelia tries to nod, but Straf's grasp is too powerful to allow her to move her head even a little. He blinks, and the moment he opens his eyes again, he realizes that he is holding onto a woman with purple-hued skin and raven-black hair stretching down to her waist. There are bent, sheep-like horns adorning the top of her head. Unlike Cycelia and her stylish noblewoman outfit, the woman in Straf's grasp is barely covered, wearing what can be best described as a metal bikini with a half-cup bra barely containing her enormous breasts.

「Hnnnghh!…」

The woman gasps for air as Straf loosens his hand upon her throat just enough for her to breathe. She is still grimacing heavily in pain and trying to slip away, but is unable to.

「…I don't mean to hurt you. I just wanted to play with you a little. Help you relax.」

She declares in between her heavy breaths as they stare at each other. When her breathing calms, she starts to gently caress his hand and arm holding her.

「…You're a succubus?」

Straf asks, staring warily into her amber eyes with vertically-slit pupils.

「Yes. I really mean no harm. I just wanted to give you a little reward…」

The woman nods ever so slightly, as much as his hand permits.

「…A reward? For what?」

Straf asks, his gaze drifts lower to her chest, then down to her hips. On her pelvis, just above her metal bikini bottom, there is something resembling a tattoo glowing faintly in a pink, perhaps lightly purple light. Rather than a tattoo, it is perhaps better described as a mark, as it does not appear to have been tattooed or otherwise applied on with something.

「For being nice to her… You'll have to forgive me, but I've listened in on you on your date…」

The woman replies, smiling a little.

「You're the woman from that restaurant? And the store?」

Straf's gaze snaps up to her amber eyes and gently smiling face. Despite her horns and otherwise lascivious appearance, her demeanor is rather ladylike.

「Yes. I have been following you for quite some time now. You're a very kind person, Straf Katastrof Vindict. A lesser man would definitely have taken advantage of her.」

The succubus nods her horns, still smiling. Her gaze is remarkably soft despite how unnatural it is.

「Answer me this… Did you break into the palace a few days ago?」

He asks, intensely staring into her eyes.

「No. There was nothing of interest for me here… Until now.」

She shakes her horned head with equal gentleness, and continues smiling at Straf's displeased face. After a prolonged moment of silence while she caresses his arm, he lets go.

The woman hops off the bed with grace, making nary a sound as she takes a few steps away.

「Ahhhh… What is this, some sort of demonic solidarity? I'm nice to a halfie, and now my reputation with the whole faction is up?」

Straf sighs as he sits up, spreading his hands while looking at her with a slanted mouth. She giggles softly.

「…I'm not sure I understand, but then again, that's only to be expected with you, isn't it?」

The woman shrugs, taking a few steps backwards towards the window, holding her hands behind her back with a broad smile. She places one of her thick-heeled high boots in the window.

「Please continue being good to her. She's very alone and confused. Someone like you who navigates through troubled times with ease is perfect for her.」

She adds, though her smile appears to become a little sullen as she speaks.

Fwoomp!

Large, black wings unfurl behind her back, appearing from seemingly out of nowhere. Shaped like a bat's, or perhaps a dragon's, each wing at her side is a little larger than herself.

Straf stands up from his bed and approaches her with his brows furrowed. She silently bows her head as if to bid farewell, and leaps out.

Fwomp!… Fwomp!…

Wings flutter loudly as if a very large bird just took off. Straf looks outside the window up at the night sky. The woman is flying away, slowly flapping her wings, far too slow for them to provide any lift. She appears to be lifted by magic, hovering upwards, while the flapping of her demonic wings is simply a formality she has to respect. Straf leans onto the window frame, briefly watching her accelerate and soar away.

「Ahhhh… Man, if only I paid a little less attention…」

Shirtless, he lets out a large sigh outside the window, staring at the moon with his mouth aslant.

「…Would it even count as breaking the rules? I mean… She did take on Lia's form…」

He rubs his chin, briefly thinking before he turns his eyes to his shirt on the floor.

「…Well, fuck it. Might as well do some work.」

Straf shrugs and walks up to it. He quickly puts it back on along with his shoes, and leaves…

…

Fifteen minutes later, outside the palace gate…

Stripe is lying on one of the roofs, watching the two guards by the gates from the darkness.

《My favorite part of this job…》

She sighs, staring at them with bored, half-open golden eyes through the gap in her mask.

Clack.

《…Not. I wish there was a way for me to know when he's going to leave the p-》

Stripe drops her head to the tiles in exasperation, before raising it again. Her golden eyes turn to the doors. She notices someone exit, and squints.

As her eyes track the dark shape, they widen when she recognizes the specific gait.

「…No way.」

She utters out as Straf enters the magic lamp's light. The plumed guards acknowledge him with a nod of their heads, then turn their heads ahead.

《…Is my luck finally turning around!? No way! He's going somewhere outside alone!? At night!?》

She thinks, as she slides down the roof down onto a crate in an alleyway and rushes through the gaps in the light on the streets to follow after Straf. She slinks into another alleyway and finds him again. Without a care in the world, he's walking down the mostly empty street with his hands in his pockets, with the only foot traffic at this hour being vampires and the odd night shift human agents of the Ministry of Security.

He takes a turn, and after looking both ways to ensure no one is looking, Stripe runs across the street into another alley, following Straf closely.

《…Where is he going? There's only warehouses that way-》

She thinks, and then lets out a quiet, shocked gasp in realization, blinking at nothing in particular.

《…They're not hiding their secrets at the palace!》

She rushes behind him as he takes another turn, glued to the shadows as if Stripe was one of them.

《Of course they don't! It's so obvious, now that I think about it! The palace is the first place anyone would look! There must be a secret location with all their weapons!》

With a hint of excitement in her golden, slit eyes, she continues hopping from alley to alley, following Straf while he can't even be bothered to look behind himself…

…

Less than thirty minutes later…

Stripe follows Straf to a street full of warehouses. He approaches the side of an unremarkable one, and casually enters through the unlocked door. Stripe silently runs up, and presses her ear against the door. She can only hear Straf's footsteps heading deeper in, and nothing else. She cracks the door open just a little, peeking her golden eye inside. When she sees that there are no guards inside, she slips in and hides amongst the shadows. There is a gigantic, complex construction hugging the wide side of the warehouse, nearly reaching its roof as well.

《What is this thing?…》

She blinks at it with her brows furrowed, but can't make sense of it at all.

「Right. New money. When it's no longer printed on paper, that'll give those fuckers something to think about…」

Straf says, nodding as he looks over the large machine with his fists on his hips.

「…But it's going to need even more new machines. Ahhhhhh…. Craft.」

His head drops in disappointment with a large sigh, before perking back up. He then begins tapping the thin air.

「Furnace.」

He utters out, and taps the air with his finger. A large cylinder glows with golden light in front of him.

CLUNK!

…Before dropping down on the floor with a deafening noise. Wincing, Stripe puts her clawed hands on top of her head.

《He's a mage?… What is this guy doing?》

She climbs on top of a stack of crates and lies low, observing Straf as he hugs the metal cylinder and carries it to a corner.

「Maaaaaan… I don't want to have to assemble all this shit… Why can't someone else do it?…」

He grumbles, and continues working through the night, unaware that he is being watched from above…