The next day I arrived at work early to open up and recount the money before the day started. While I trusted Berry to do the job properly, the fact that she had no way to open the safe and therefore had to hide the money box under a pile of clean sheets meant that I couldn’t be sure no one had broken in and stole from it during the night. The clinic was in the Craftsman’s quarter, where most of the city’s factories were so, while it wasn’t the most dangerous part of town, it did have a much higher crime rate than the noble quarter where I grew up.

Thankfully, the count was correct, and there were no signs that anyone had broke in over night. Even though we had only been open for a month or so, we had already had one drug addict break in and steal the narcotic pain killers I use in the slave section. After that I bought a stone box to store the intoxicating drugs and ingredients in at night, and sealed it with chains and a padlock.

With no customers after I opened up, I started reading over some books that I had Persy pick up for me. The first was the Intermediate Combat Mage manual. With the end of the month coming up I had her register me for the test, so I needed to make sure I knew all of the things in it. I had also had her pick up a copy of the Merchant’s Handbook from the merchant’s guild so that I could take that test in a few months as well. Now that I would be starting a second business, knowing how to run a business would be important.

I only had a few customers all day, so most of my day was spent guaranteeing that I knew all that I would need to to pass my test. When I got home, I was told that we had a guest and that I would be required to eat supper with the family. I had Persy draw me a bath and got dressed into something nice. At seven o’clock I entered the room to find Mother, Father, Sir Philip, Lady Tanya, Lady Marya, and an unknown woman with purple hair. She seemed to be no more than a year or two older than me and quite beautiful. “Viscount Cameron Starshine, this is Baroness Samantha Shadowblade.” the butler announced. I bowed and took a seat. Percy was dressed in her Maid outfit along with the rest of the staff, and Chef and the two maids we hired to replace Tanya and Marya brought out the food.

As we were hosting another Noble, Chef had done his best to prepare a roast duck and several other dishes. I learned through the conversation during the meal that Samantha was in town from the county to the east to try and form a business connection between her father’s import business and mother’s export business. The ongoing goblin uprising had left the nobles of the region short of funds due to decreased tax revenue, so they were trying to find new sources of funding. In this case her father, Viscount Shadowblade, who had earned his noble title by saving the king’s life from an assassination attack, was trying to move goods through the dangerous region, hoping to earn massive profits by restoring the direct trade route. So far he had managed to get two caravans through, but they had lost several guards on each trip. He would need larger shipments, though, if he wanted to afford enough mercenary protection for the caravan to scare away the bandits.

After a very nice meal everyone else dismissed themselves, and I took a walk around the estate with our guest. We chatted for several hours about various topics, though the most interesting one to both of us seemed to be magic and how our styles varied. She was a summoner, spirit summoner, combat summoner, and enchanter, the last of which she used to make valuable products for her father’s company and retainers.

She demonstrated spirit summoning by making a tiny floating creature appear which looked like a fairy but wasn’t. Spirits were fragments of souls that had only part of the original soul’s personality. In this case ‘Creampuff’, as she liked naming her spirits after food, was an Id spirit she had given a thoughtform body to. Essentially that meant that all of its actions were based on avoiding pain and finding pleasure. It attached to her soul and fed on her mana and these impulses, making them stronger, and in return let her access powers of the element it was most closely linked to, in this case fire. Its body, however, was made out of mana and would disappear, returning to her, if it took too much damage. As part of the test for becoming a certified Intermediate Spirit summoner was to merge two spirits together, she also had an animal spirit, a wolf, formed from the merging of an Id spirit and the Ego of a wolf that she found. It, however, was the only time she had been successful merged two spirits, and as such she failed to get her intermediate certification. The Wolf was named ‘Noodle’ and had the elements of Sound and Light. She only summoned it when under threat, however, as it was very protective of its master.

After a few hours one of her servants came to get her, and she went home. She was staying at the nicest inn in town, in the nicest room. Her maidservant did inform me that, perhaps due to Creampuff’s influence, she was more worldly than a proper noble woman should be, but that she had invited me to come and visit her at her suite if I wished. I got the feeling that the maid was not surprised by that fact, and hoped that I didn’t come over.

For the next several days I didn’t see her, as she was only coming by the mansion and mother’s workshops during the day. As it was a slow day, I decided to take a break at noon and go somewhere for lunch. On my way back I noticed that something unusual was happening. Several dozen men in town were surrounding a woman. As she walked down the street I noticed that she had pink skin, bat-like wings on her back, and a pointed tail, like a scorpion. The men flocked to her and all of them seemed pleased to be in her presence. And why wouldn’t they be? She was a very beautiful woman. Sure she was a few years older than me, but I’m sure Father wouldn’t mind if I took her as a concubine. After all relations with the demons had been amiable recently.

I wished I had amiable relations with a certain demon. That seemed to jog a memory. Beautiful Demon woman, pink skin, wings, tail with a barb. It suddenly occurred to me that she was a succubus, a female of the Cambian race of demons. They were most famous for seducing men and leading them to their doom. Too bad. I didn’t mind the seduction part, but I’d prefer to avoid the doom.

I tried to focus on a spell, but my mind was filled with thoughts of her and what I wanted to do to her. Gods damn it. I slapped myself and got the thoughts out of my head long enough to cast the spell to reinforce my natural thought pattern. That helped clear my head a bit, but it took a few tries before the image in my head was clear enough to cast it at fifth level and block most of the effect.

Now that I was protected I walked up to her. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but the use of mind control magic without the subject’s consent is banned in this city. I must ask you to end your influence on these men at once.”

She smiled and walked towards me. “Are you sure about that, young man?” Her chest bounced slightly and her hips swung seductively as a new wave of magic washed over me.

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It took a bit of effort to brush the effects away, but I managed to do so. “Yes, quite sure. You are violating the law and I must ask you to stop, or else the city guard will need to be informed.”

She scowled and spat. “I hate homosexual men.”

“I’m not homosexual.” I responded. “Just using anti-mind control magic. Now, stand down and end the spell before I make you end it.”

She gave me a grin like a cat gives a mouse and out of the corner of my eye I saw something swing at me. I dodged out of the way, rolling to avoid her tail. If it had gotten me she would have injected me with endorphins, making me feel too good to fight her. Several men stepped forward to defend ‘their’ woman, and I stood back up. “By order of Viscount Starshine, if you aid this criminal in her attack on me, you will be arrested for treason along with her other men.” I announced.

I wasn’t sure if it was because none of them wanted to share her or if they didn’t want to risk being charged with treason, but the men ran. All but one. I heard someone run up behind me and scream something about not letting me lay my hands on her as I sidestepped his sword swing. With him off balance I was able to land a solid kick in his stomach, causing him to drop his sword and collapse in pain. I quickly picked up the sword and used it to parry a second tail swipe at my throat.

She screamed in pain and jumped backwards and I cast the fastest spell I knew. I held my hand towards her and fired of a level five force blast. It hit her in the chest with enough force to crack several ribs and throw her backwards into a food cart before collapsing.

Now that she was unconscious I felt the pressure on my mind lift and the man on the ground realized what he had done. “I am so sorry, my lord. It was never my intention to threaten a noble. She did something to me, and I couldn’t help myself.” He prostrated himself on the ground, begging for mercy.

“It’s fine. Succubi are know for luring men to their doom and making them their slaves. It seems you got the worst of it.” I motioned for him to stand and he did so, once again bowing in the more formal asian, or in this world, ancient style.

“Thank you my lord. I won’t forget your kindness.” I nodded. “If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, you have quite the kick. If you would like a place to practice, I own a gym where you can spar with people of a similar skill level.”

“You teach martial arts, but attacked me with a sword?”

“I have heard of how you are a skilled mage, as you just showed. Against mages, attacking with a weapon is usually the best strategy. I just didn’t know that you were also a swordsman.”

“Yeah, I got my Swordsmanship and Guardsman certification when I was twelve. I don’t have much of an opportunity to use it.”

Someone from the city guard finally got there, and I handed him the man’s sword. “Make sure you put a mana draining collar on her before she wakes up. I can then heal her and wake her up. You should hurry, though. I broke several of her ribs and might have punctured a lung.”

The man ran off and returned a minute later with two female guards, a Knight and a commoner, who put the collar around her neck. It drained her mana down to a pressure of one and dissipated it into the air, so that any spells she use used would be too weak to do much. Once the collar had finished its job I set her ribs and started healing her chest. It was quite a nice chest, but I was able to avoid staring at it as I healed her. Thankfully none of the ribs had done much more than scratch the outside of her lung. After I was finished there, I used Flash Heal on her tail. Someone else could fix that later.

She awoke and tried to cast the spell on the men in the area again, but we were all easily able to resist her, even the martial artist she had enthralled earlier. They stood her up and I walked over to her.

“You will be taken to the city dungeon where you will be charged with multiple accounts of unauthorized use of mind control and the attempted assault of a noble. We can provide you with legal council should you require it, however if you are found guilty you will be responsible for paying the lawyer’s fees in full. Do you understand the charges and your rights?” She spat in my face. “Correction. Actual assault of a noble. Take her away.” I wiped the saliva off of my face with my sleeve and watched as she and the man she had enthralled were lead away. He would probably be interrogated to get his testimony against her, but if he faced charges it was unlikely he would receive more than a week of labor cutting trees or mining, as his actions were the result of being controlled.

I returned to work and explained to my employees how I had been delayed. So many beautiful female employees. Sure, I had promised Father that I wouldn’t bed Persy, but one of the other women would be fine, right? Berry was quite beautiful after all. I almost started to ask if she wanted to see what a noble man’s bedroom looked like when I stopped myself. When I had started this company one of the first employee rules I had put in place banned sexual harassment. Even if I was still ‘energized’ by the effect of the succubus, I needed to control myself. If I wasn’t over it by the time I got off of work there were some very nice brothels in the area. I had never visited one before, as I had preferred focusing on my studies of magic over my studies of women, but given the circumstance I might need to.

I worked for the next five hours, having to push the thoughts about women out of my head every few minutes. A few minutes before closing time, however, Samantha visited the clinic. “I just finished touring your workshop.” she informed me. “I must say, producing luxury consumables for the rich and nobility is a good business model. No doubt you will become quite popular in certain circles. I did have a few questions, though.”

I nodded. “Then let’s go back to my office and discuss the matter.” She followed me there and we sat down on the couch. After I poured her a drink, some good wine I had bought for putting clients at ease, she started.

“The first question I have is about your aphrodisiac. I only heard about male clients that used it. Does it only work with men?”

“There is a different version for women, however, as it is more expensive to produce and the market is much smaller, I only produce it in small doses.”

“In that case, do you mind showing me?”

I nodded and got a sample of both drugs. “This is the female version and this is the male version. They are different colors, so they aren’t hard to tell apart. You or your partner should only take half a bottle every four hours, though, or you risk injuring yourself.”

“Would you be willing to demonstrate the effectiveness of your product?”

I know what I hoped she meant by that, but surely she didn’t mean it like that. “Like, with customer reviews? I haven’t put the female version into wide enough production yet, but I can hand out samples if you want such reviews.”

“No, I meant personally.” She lead towards me and I realized how amazing she smelled. Like roses and lemons.

“I’m not sure I should do that. I believe this is Creampuff’s effect on you.”

She leaned over to my ear and whispered. “I can be your Creampuff if you want.” Ok, that definitely wasn’t misunderstood. She was definitely interested in me.

“Uh, in that case, not here. I don’t want to risk an employ seeing, and here you are a customer. You did, however, invite me back to your suite the other day...”

She smiled. “In that case, let’s head out.”

I nodded and grabbed two other vials off the shelf. “Infertility potion.” I said, handing them to her. She nodded and put them in a magic bag on her waste.

I went to the Slave section and handed Persy the key. The room was empty except for her and it was almost time to leave anyway. “You can lock up tonight, and Berry can count the money. Just insert the key into the lock, inject the key with level four mana, wait at least three seconds, and then turn the key, or it won’t unlock. You don’t have to do anything special to lock it. Give me the key back when I get home. I don’t know when that will be.”

“Heading to the tavern with friends?” she asked. I had done that twice since opening, but always after locking up.

“Something like that.” I went back to the Rich section to meet Samantha and we left.

Two hours later we both lay drenched in sweat on the floor of her bedroom. “I...think we should...have started without it.” I said while panting.

“Me too.” She breathed a few more times before continuing. “We’ll have to try not using it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? In that case, why don’t you move somewhere nicer. This room is nice, but it doesn’t compare to the guest rooms in the palace.”

“Are you inviting me to move in with you?”

I smiled. “At least until you have to leave town.”

She laughed. “I’ll have my maid pack up my things, then.”