I wake up on my bed with Maxia sleeping beside me while holding hands. At first evil thoughts of getting lewd with this girl passes through my mind then the thoughts that I already did begin to take their place.
The room is clean and she is dressed. There is no way I did something, did I?
“Maxia, wake up!” I say as I shake her.
“Hmm… What?” She says as she wakes up.
“The sun is up, time to wake up.” I wake up when the sun reaches my window even if I don’t use my astral projection to stay awake.
“Let me sleep a little more, I almost didn’t sleep these past few days. You are evil leaving me.”
Now that I think about it, she still needed me to sleep.
“Sorry about that, but it looks like you managed.”
She doesn’t respond to me and lies down on the bed again. I hold her hand and she soon falls asleep again. After around an hour she wakes up again and we can start our day.
Everyone in the mansion is awake now so we take our turns in the bathroom and go eat breakfast.
“Lady Lucia, I found my answer.” Zelfina says to me as we eat. Probably about her weapon of choice.
“And what is it?”
“I want to use a rapier.” Not something I would pick for myself. It’s hard to get a good rapier. They are too fragile when made with common metals so they can’t be used like other swords.
“Fencing? I had some lessons on it.” Sophia says.
“Feel free to teach her if you can.” I say.
After that we all finish eating and not five minutes later Grace comes to the door. She was waiting. I can feel it.
Monica let her in and we all sat on the sofas in the living room while the kids put some bags on the floor.
“We finished a few days ago but you weren’t here for us to truly finish.” Grace says.
“I remember something about doing it all in one go.”
“Yes. I will now cast a spell to make these clothes your clothes. Hold still for a moment.”
I do as I am told and she cast the same spell as before. Me and the bags grow a little.
“This should be enough. The clothes are clean so you can use them anytime. Your footwear is also in the bags.” Grace explains to me.
“I will take a look at these things as soon as I can.”
“I wish we could see to it but we have to go now. Our other clients will probably get angry if we take too long.”
“I wish you the best.”
And like that she leaves. I wave as her horses pull the carriage north, leaving the city. The kids didn’t even show up, probably sleeping.
I go to my room to sort my clothes. Most of my underwear is the same I am wearing now with the exception of one, a sexy black laced lingerie that as long as I didn’t have an erection would magically hide my dick and make me not feel it. It came with a letter that besides the effects of the lingerie had a message from Grace.
“I hope this helps.” I don’t really know with what, but it will help.
Next were my dresses. Two were made, a dark red and a dark blue one. The blue one is made mostly from a material I can’t identify, it’s something between silk and cotton, but that's all I can identify about it. It is a princess style strapless dress with a very thin frilly skirt if you compare it to the amount of cloth put into the skirts of most dresses I saw. It’s length goes all the way to my feet stopping just before my knees. The bodice was made with a corset and a bra that will accentuate my curves even more. The dress also came with a pair of gloves that goes all the way to my biceps in the same color as the dress. The shoes for this dress are a blue high and low heel made with shining leather.
The red dress is my combat one. It’s made from some type of leather, the color is also appropriate. Red blood will not change the color of this. This dress is a mini dress with a removable second skirt that you can put above the first one, somewhat like my old dress where the front of the dress would be small but the sides and back would look like a long skirt. The mini skirt length goes just above my knees and the long one stops at the middle of my calf. The bodice is a shirt that by very little doesn’t cover all of my shoulders. The middle of it has a thicker layer of leather that grabs the attention to the center of my body while clearly separating the middle and the sides with a line if you are close enough to see. The dress came with boots made from the same leather, it’s a low heel and goes all the way up to my knees, stopping just before them. The sole is made from some type of rock that doesn’t heat up normally.
After trying every piece of cloth I got once to see if everything really fits me I clean them with a spell and put them in my wardrobe.
After all that I started to help Sophia prepare the office for our war meeting. Not more than an hour later Jackelinne, her father, Jack and some other people I don’t know are announced by Monica.
“Welcome to my city governor Ilius, I hope the trip wasn’t bad.” Sophia says as she greets the people.
“Hello.” I say.
Jack is dumbfounded. Half of it is probably my older appearance and the other half is what I gained along with it. After a few moments Jackelinne pinches his butt and he comes back to reality.
“Hello Lucia.” She says to me.
“Hello B-Lucia.” He says to me nervously. He then hands me a large sack.
“May I ask what is this?”
“Oranges.” Jack explains to me.
My eyes light up a little. I've been dying for some oranges for a while now.
Sophia guides Ilius and Jackelinne to her office along with me. Jack came here to sell some things and the others are people that the adventurer’s guild sent as bodyguards. They will not help with our talks for now.
We all sit down and begin to go through everything we managed to find as well as reports we managed to get from Degrada. Most letters are using coded language like saying apple instead of something else. Most of them were targets of some sort. You don’t ask someone to kill a parrot for 750 Kir or steal a bucket for 300 Kir.
We try to separate things between us and go that way until it’s lunch time. Monica prepared some sandwiches for us along with juice from the oranges. We start to discuss what we found as we eat.
“There isn’t really anything that helps us now. All the letters came from the same person and only have assignments that are marked as finished.” Sophia says.
“You said yesterday that Lucia had already killed the head of this entire thing, right?.” Jackelinne says.
“Let’s hope so.” Ilius says.
“I don’t think the girl that fled us will come back for revenge. She has something she needs to do and you were just a means to an end”
“What do you mean?” They all ask.
“She just needed money, it looks like.”
“For what?” Ilius says.
“I have no idea, she just said she needed money.” If I had to guess it would be to pay someone else for something but let’s not make assumptions.
“Looks like this will go nowhere.Most of what we found doesn’t have information on places and the ones that have are not from our kingdom. If this was an organized group, I don’t think we should look further into this if what you said is true.” Jackelinne says to me.
“Let’s hope that no one comes after any of you again.”
“I hope so.” Ilius say.
After that we organized our things and delivered our report to the guild. We couldn’t really find anything that would qualify as proof of anything so we had to let the guild do their thing and hope for the best.
Ilius left early and alone in a less suspicious carriage leaving Jack and Jackelinne here. After a few minutes, due to pure coincidence, everyone that lives in the mansion happened to be at the same place for one reason or another. We all gathered on the sofas in the living room and started to chat.
“This place is more active than I Imagined.” Jack says.
“It’s actually pretty calm here, most of the time anyway.” Mess says while looking at me.
“May I ask who these ladies are?” Jackelinne asks, pointing to Maxia and Zelfina.
“My name is Maxia, I am here to learn magic from Lady Lucia.”
“My name is Zelfina, I am here to learn how to fight from Lady Lucia.”
“I didn’t know you were a teacher, what else do you teach?” Jack asks out of the blue.
“How to love a woman.” I say, joking.
Zelfina and Sophia become red, Maxia starts to laugh along with Mess, Alfina is confused and Jackelinne is grabbing Jack in a way to indicate that he is hers.
“Don’t worry Jacky, your future husband may have the body of god but I have no intention of stealing him.” I say to try to give both of them some credit. I didn’t see before but Jack is ripped for someone his age. In a few years he will be a living statue if this continues, I guess all that work on his fields actually does something.
“It was Lady Jackelinne, right? I understand that you are the daughter of the governor but who is this boy?” Zelfina asks, pointing to Jack.
“I am a farmer, and a damn good one at that.” Jack says.
Both Maxia and Zelfina are in shock.
“Why the face? What matters the most is love, isn’t it?” Jackelinne says.”
“I have to agree.” Sophia says.
They both just agree after hearing Sophia.
“Next year we will marry and we will have a bunch of kids.” Jackelinne says with passion in her eyes. Jack seems to be looking forward to it, with mostly pure intentions.
“You should probably hold on having kids until you are around 20 years old.” I say.
Every woman in the room looks at me with a strange look.
“Why?” Jackelinne and Sophia ask.
“I wish I could explain how I know this but I will trust that all of you will just believe me on this one. Jack and Mess also knows about this, a woman's body is capable of having children way before she can actually handle it without damaging it. If you are still growing that means your body hasn’t matured yet. Healing Magic could probably help but I have no idea how much.”
Jackelinne looks at Jack and he nods his head along with Mess.
“Mom once said that when you get older you can have your kids. Sophia is the older one here, so she will have a baby soon?” Alfina asks out of the blue.
“No.” Sophia says.
“Yes.” I say.
“What?”
“If Maxia finishes her training you will probably have a kid in a year or two.”
“I didn’t know Sophia had a husband.” Jackelinne says.
“I don’t.”
“Not for too long.” I say.
“You are giving me too much hope.”
“Hey, Maxia can already survive the worst part of all of this. She will heal or die trying.”
Maxia is a little nervous after hearing this. This is good, this will prepare her for what is to come.
“I wonder where the others are.” Mess says, referring to us, reincarnations.
“Ignoring Alfina as she is a special case, I know of 6 more people.” I say.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“What are they up to?” Jack asks.
“One is a proud lady of the night, one is making weapons, one is some kind of fortune teller, two are adventurers and the last one is probably the girl I fought near Degrada and she is not ok in the head.”
“What are you all talking about?” Everyone else asks in some way.
“It’s a secret.” Alfina says. I guess this part of our existence where we can’t tell other people about our past lives is in her too.
“You know a good variety of people.” Sophia says to me.
“I can’t say I know those people. I just know about them.”
“Did the first one you told had any difficulties in life to go to that life?” Mess asks me.
“Didn’t you hear about the proud part? She was selling herself when we were 10 years old and she liked it. She could use some potent healing spells and cast them on herself after a job.”
“You know a lot about this person.” Maxia says to me in a somewhat suggestive tone.
“I didn’t have a normal childhood. I had to go places you can’t imagine.” Just remembering gives me headaches and makes my bad side a little more powerful.
“If you are going to continue to talk about something we can’t talk about, then you should get out.” Jackelinne says to Mess and Jack. They agree before I even have time to say anything, leaving only us girls.
I am not ready for this. I was not raised as a girl, I still find women talking about nothing anger inducing, I have to get out.
“Alright Lucia, what happened to your body? I need a better explanation.” Jackelinne says to me a little angry. Monica is present in the room but she is just on the side doing nothing. She just gave me a look telling me to not say anything about her.
“My body is not normal. Sophia knows about it. One day I had a surge of energy and suddenly I had grown up. This happened before but this time I feel it’s permanent.”
“Lucia has big boobs.” Alfina says. All the women there give me an envious look for a second.
“Monica, can you take Alfina for a walk, buy some candy for her and us?” I say as I give some coins to her.
“Sure.” She responds. Alfina still is a child so I have to remove her from the conversation. A few minutes later she is out.
“Why that?” Sophia asks.
“Because I will tell all of you how to get more beautiful.”
“Couldn’t she hear this?” Maxia asks.
“No.”
“How?” Jackelinne asks.
“The first option is sex. In case you can’t, masturbation.”
They all look at me for a few seconds trying to figure out if I am selling them snake oil.
“Look, when a woman reaches her climax due to sexual pleasure she releases a little bit of energy on the body that makes it more feminine. That energy is what makes your boobs grow bigger, your hips and butt sturdier and your face more beautiful. When I was a mercenary I didn’t see a single ugly woman that was part of the corps and you know why?”
“Why?” Zelfina asks.
“Because all of them were whores. If they had the chance they would be having sex, at least the one that couldn’t use magic. The more you do, the more your body will become what men want.” I say proudly, like I am selling them the holy grail.
“That’s how you became like you are?” Jackelinne asks.
“Like I said, I am not normal. My body right now is a result of my birth and outside forces.”
We all stop for a few seconds.
“Lucia, how do you think I should grab Jack’s attention?” Jackelinne asks in a serious tone.
“What do you mean?”
“He keeps looking at you in a way he doesn’t look at me.”
“That is natural. I grab the attention of his instincts.”
“Then I should start going to bed with him so he looks at me the same way?”
“I suggest you don’t.”
“Then what should I do? What if he stops liking me?”
“I doubt that will happen.” Jack doesn’t show to be the kind of guy who would bail on this kind of girl.
“But…”
“Ok! Do you want to make 100% sure that you will be the only woman in his heart?”
“YES!”
“Then first you need to understand that men will look at other women no matter what. What is important is who they think in the end.”
“Ok…”
“All you need to do is to find a quiet place where the two of you can be alone. Give him a big hug, kiss him and say that you love him with all of your passion.”
“... That’s it?” She asks, a little disappointed. The other girls also have the same look.
“Trust me. If he hugs you back and responds in kind, that man will fight dragons for you.” People here marry for survival for the most part. If you say you truly love someone something will awaken. Also men have a really low defense for this kind of thing, I know first hand. If you can't kill your emotions temporarily as men you can be easily taken advantage of by women who can fake this.
“Lady Lucia, do you have any plans to marry?” Zelfina asks me.
“No, why?”
“You have a lot of knowledge in this area.”
“You could say that.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“I had one, I think. Can’t say our relationship truly happened like a normal one.”
“Where is he now?” Maxia asks.
“Hopefully alive.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before I came here, he was ready to die for me.”
“He must have loved you very much.”
“I just hope that was really his love for me, not something I did to him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Girls, let’s finish this, shall we?” Sophia says as she takes a look at my face. Everytime I start to think about Arnold I get a little sad.
“Ok, before we finish this, what do you think men want in a woman?” Maxia asks me.
“I have no idea. Men in general want beautiful, healthy and mentaly stable women. Besides that, everything depends on the environment. A rich man wouldn’t really care if his wife knew how to cook or clean if they have maids.”
“You have a point.”
After this Jackelinne leaves with Jack. The rest of us spend the rest of our day like normal. I train Maxia, Zelfina and Alfina a little.
Maxia is almost at the point where even in panic she would not have to be worried about her mana. Alfina still is full of energy as ever and Zelfina managed to find an old rapier she could use to train by running around the city.
After dinner, before we all went to sleep, I went outside to catch some air and prepare myself for the night. Sophia approached me as I looked at the sky.
“I am a really bad older sister.” She says.
“By what metric?”
“You.”
“I am not really a good role model.”
“Today you were. You were shining instead of your usual fiery but calm self.”
“I actually had a good fight a few days ago, so I am in a good mood.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“All those questions, those girls asked, they are really serious questions, they trust you a lot to ask you that. I wouldn’t ask that to my mother.”
“I wonder what I did to receive all this trust from them.”
“Probably because you are approachable.” She says, recoiling a bit.
“You know that most people really don’t care about you, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Most of the world doesn’t know who you are. If you let the opinion of the few people who know change who you really are, you are not you anymore, you are what they wanted of you.”
“You speak some things I would expect from a wise old man in a mountain.”
“Look Sophia, In a year or so you will just be a pretty noble from the kingdom. You should open yourself to the people more so you will know who really likes you.”
“Do you like me?”
“Of course. You work hard, you take care of the people, you are willing to learn and you don’t abuse your power. If the world had another one of you I would marry her.”
“Thanks Lucia.” She says as she hugs me. It’s a little strange with me being taller than her now.
“No problem.”
“You are really warm.”
“What do you mean? Am I on fire?”
“No, you are just warm, like fresh baked bread.”
I take a second to feel myself. For me I am normal, I can feel my temperature and the temperature around me like normal, why am I warm to her?
“I feel…” I try to say something when suddenly I vomit blood and blackout.
--//--
“Lucia! Lucia! Lucia!” I hear various voices shout at me. I am still on the ground outside.
“She is awake” I hear someone say as I open my eyes.
“Are you ok?” Sophia asks me. I am resting with my head on her lap.
“How much time passed?” I ask.
“A few minutes. What happened?”
“I have no idea.”
I try to survey my situation. My body doesn’t feel weak, I am not tired, I am not feeling any bleeding inside me and my mana is circulating like normal. I cast a healing fire on myself and try to feel if anything is closing inside me but nothing happens.
“I think I am ok now.” I say as I stand up.
“You should rest.” Monica says. She is clearing my blood from the grass.
“Is that my blood?” I ask.
“Yes.” She answered.
“Can’t be, my blood is red.” The blood on the ground is clearly black.
“But I saw you throwing up. That is yours.” Sophia says.
I quickly take Yin and cut my finger. Red blood begins to flow through the cut. I quickly heal it.
“Maybe it was something you ate.” Mess says.
“That would imply that all of us are in danger.” Zelfina adds. We all ate the same things.
“But you are all in danger.” We all hear a voice going by everyone’s reaction. I know this voice very well, it’s that fucking angel. I am pretty sure I killed him.
“No you didn’t, we can’t die like mortals.”
“What is this?” Sophia asks.
“Show yourself you overgrown chicken.” I say.
“I wish I could but I don’t have a body at the moment so I will be borrowing yours for a while. Took a few days to adjust to all this energy inside of you but it will be enough for a while.”
“Lucia, I don’t know why you have an angel possessing you but you should run.” Mess says to me.
I try to fly away but I can control my mana very well.
“So many complicated things, this hurts my head.” The angel says.
“Mess, what is going on?”
“Angels are parasites that can take control of anyone if they so choose if they don’t have a body.”
“She should be honored, she carries the blood of those fiends but still has enough power to sustain me.”
“Mess, how do we cure her?” Sophia asks in a panic.
“There is no cure.” The angel says as I feel my hand move on its own.
“Restrain me! He is trying to use a spell!” I shout as I feel my mana gathering in my hand. I can delay it but it’s happening.
Maxia and Zelfina take Alfina and run towards the house. Sophia does the same with Mess. As soon as the spell finishes a small fire ball goes towards the wall of the city. Not a second later Monica is holding me from behind trying to restrain my movements.
Seconds later I am on the ground, unable to move with Monica above me.
“Lucia, I am sorry but this will hurt a lot.” Mess says to me as I see a rune forming below me and like he said, it hurts a lot.
“Not the worst feeling I ever had, not the best one either.” I feel like a truck is above me.
“Never thought I would use this on someone else.” He says.
“I'm glad you can. Now how do I remove this bastard from me?”
“Our best bet would be to transfer him from you to other people using your mana but you can’t use runes.”
“Explain.” Sophia and Monica say.
“The church has a unique spell made so they can send angels back to their bodies faster. If you transfer the essence of the angel from person to person various times, little by little his soul will shatter and when nothing is left he will reappear in his new body.”
“How many people?” Sophia asks.
“Around a thousand.”
“Can’t I just use all my mana?” I ask.
“One can’t truly use 100% of their mana without dying.” Monica explains. I guess there is a critical reserve that keeps people alive here.
“How long will this rune last?”
“An hour in the best case.” Mess says.
“Then be ready to cast this thing again.”
“Yeah… not going to happen. I have no mana left.”
Fuck. At least the circle is keeping the angel shutted up.
Suddenly Maxia appears.
“Maybe she can send her mana to me like she does everynight?”
“That could probably work but it would either do nothing or you would become possessed yourself instead of her.” Mess explains.
“But what if I move my mana back to her?”
“Two people is not enough to break an angel's soul, three or more probably, but I have no idea how many would be needed.”
“Contact the Magic Institute, they must have someone on Maxia’s level right now.”
“It will take too long.” Sophia says.
“Better than doing nothing! I will hold myself back as much as I can.” I can still use a few spells even when I can’t move so the angel can probably make me use them.
“What about us?” Zelfina asks.
“We can help too.” Alfina says.
“You two can’t even use magic.” Mess says.
“Lucia can help us like she did Maxia.” Zelfina says.
“That would not be a good idea.” I say.
“Why?” Alfina asks angrily.
“Because you two would have to learn really, really ,really fast.”
“I will be ultra fast!”
“I can handle it.” Zelfina says.
For a few seconds I think. I can probably do something but everything can go horribly wrong. If I don’t take this chance things will get bloody real fast as I don’t think anyone here besides Monica has enough cold blood to kill me.
“Monica. The second you feel this rune breaking and I am not in control, kill me.” I say in a low voice so only she can hear. She quickly removes herself from my back.
“All 3 of you, come here.” I say to Maxia, Alfina and Zelfina. “If you really want to help, come and hug me as tightly as you can.”
They all come and hug me from the front. The rune is keeping the angel in check so I can freely use my mana.
“Zelfina and Alfina. I will circulate your mana with my own and absorb it myself. Imagine yourself like a river and let the mana pass through you. Move the water of the river towards me if you can, if not, just let it flow.” They all nod.
I begin to circulate my mana and to feel all 3 of them. Maxia is somewhat like me so I can feel her no problem. The other two are as bad as you can get. I force their mana circulatory system open and I can see that they felt a little pain as they both hugged me a little tighter. I begin to circulate my mana first towards Maxia.
“Maxia, Imagine yourself sending your mana to both me, Alfina and Zelfina.” The faster we do this, the better.
After this I begin to circulate my mana trought Alfina and Zelfina. It’s hard to maintain circulation with more than one person at the same time. 3 people are receiving my mana.
When I feel that they are reaching their limit I slow down the process and begin to absorb mana via contact. It’s a little more than what I expected, probably due to the fact they are allowing it.
I have no idea how much time passes, I have to keep my concentration 100% of the time. The rune vanishes after a while but the angel has no control anymore.
At some point even Ice Cream who only shows itself for food and Alfina comes near us, probably after he sensed Alfina.
The sun begins to show itself and Alfina and Zelfina finally are able to do something by themselves, enabling me some leeway.
I probably poured hundreds of times my mana into these girls just to absorb it again.
All of them are exhausted and almost falling asleep when Mess begins to shout.
“STOP! STOP! It’s not here anymore.”
I let them go and they dropped on me, making me fall on my back. Everyone who is awake is cheering.
“Thanks Mess, without you I would probably be dead or at least not being myself.”
“I wasn’t expecting the angel to try to take the body of the one who defeated it. Good thing I never trusted those things. Most of them are douchebags.”
“Well, can any of you help me move them to a bed?”
“Sure.”
Mess, Sophia and Monica helped me put all of them in beds and because I needed to help all 3 of them at the same time with their circulation we had to bring another bed to Zelfina’s room where we put them.
As we are doing this Monica realises that all 3 of them are sweating like crazy. A quick check later we found out they are with a really high fever. Mess creates some ice and me, Sophia and Monica take turns taking care of them. Looks like they can survive a few minutes without me helping their circulation but most of the time I have to be there. I hope they get better soon.