Chapter 106 - Cleaning Out The Basement (Part 2)

The Stormfleeces didn't stand a chance, as the stinging stench of their singed fur and spilled blood stained the musty air of the fort prison.

"Fools!" Lorica said, standing triumphantly with her leg propped on one of the Norn corpses. "You underestimated me because of my size, but look where that got you!" She gave a maniacal laugh. "I've killed many a Norn with my masterful swordplay!" 

One was still alive, rolling onto his back clutching its wounded side with a pained groan. 

"Shut it, weakling!" Lorica snapped.

"It hurts! It hurts! Ahhhhh!"

"So pathetic!" Lorica teased, moving over to the wounded bear. "If you won't shut up on your own, then I'll just have to" —adopting a sinister scowl, she turned and sat herself upon the bear's agonized face—"stuff that fat, stupid mouth of yours!"

Like this, the sweet youthful meat of her hindquarters was muffling the ill-fated Norn's cries; he was slowly but surely dying, his mind becoming gradually dizzied with lustful pleasure.

But to pass on to Solemn Guard, the sacred afterlife of the Norns...like this…

A true warrior, consumed by true bliss…

Would be a good and honorable death indeed.

Meanwhile, as the unnamed, proud Norn warrior drew his last, splendorous breaths: Cindy was drawing her blades from the chest cavity of one of his comrades, wearing the blank expression of one who has caused bloodshed many countless times before and thus grown numb to scenes of gore.

And yet...she didn't revel in the act of killing, as Lorica did. But rather, saw it as an action born of necessity: whether it be for food, or survival.

Observing such irreverent behavior...intrigued her.

'Is this the difference between us…?' she pondered as she dislodged her blade from the corpse, letting it fall to the ground. 'Between a warrior and a hunter?'

Vash was catching his breath, smoke still trailing from his palms. "The fire streaming technique I learned from the pizza monks really comes in handy against up-close threats.' He grinned to himself. 'It's good to be back.'

However, it was much too soon to celebrate...

Because then, he glanced across to where Akira was situated: seeing him kneeling, with a firm grasp around the neck of the masked archer who had dared to shoot him at the onset of the fight.

"Not talking all tough anymore, huh?" she coldly taunted.

"G-go to hell, you bastard…!"

"Now let's see that ugly, overconfident face of yours!"

"Wait, no! You mustn't...!"

Ignoring their pleas, the gleeful Akira pulled off the fighter's masked helmet to reveal—

"A girl?!" he exclaimed, jumping in shock.

One with medium-length, autumnal orange hair arranged into two small bunches. A cute, nervously blushing face, with cheeks smathered in brown freckles and a pair of large, round, emerald green eyes.

"S-so what if I am!" she spat, in a lovely Irish broge. "You'd better still kill me for running off my fat lip!"

Akira gave an anxious chuckle. "What?"

"You heard me! Were I a man talking so much shite, you'd be having my sack fried in a pan to feed to your dogs!"

"I don't know. The feeling just isn't the same, knowing you're a cute redhead." Akira said. "And what's with you people and feeding peoples' body parts to your dogs, anyway…?"

"I deserve an honorable death, as much as any man!"

Lorica, who was still warming her fun-sized buttocks on the face of one of the now unmasked archer's fallen comrades, gave a delighted giggle.

"If it's an honorable death you seek, I can have my fun with you next..."

Zhao looked at Vash, as the latter clutched the [Maidé Ball] he'd just been given. "Ah, so that's why. You knew that masked one was a woman all along."

"Of course. In these fantasy settings, anyone who wears a mask like that is probably a woman," Vash exclaimed. "And I know Akira—that he would definitely want to extract revenge from someone who insulted his pride." His eyes narrowed. "Even though, it'd be a total waste."

Before Akira could extract so much as a kiss from her, Vash threw the [Maidé Ball] toward the cute ginger—assuming that the capturing process worked similar to the device in Mockémon. 

Fortunately, and rather conveniently for the person tasked with having to explain all this shit, it did work just as he'd assumed it would: when it abruptly jeld in place, levitating—seeming to "stick" in midair—as it proceeded to fire out a beam of bright, white light toward its target.

"Shit! No! Fuck! I'd rather die than—"were the surprised, ginger-haired Stormfleece's final words as a woman: before the ensuing loli conversion and subsequent capture.

"Hey!" Akira snapped, turning to him quickly. "I wasn't finished with her yet!'

"Precisely. I had to make sure…"

"Make sure of what?"

"That you didn't fucking kill her!"

Akira scoffed. "Oh, please...I would never kill such a pretty girl."

"Something worse, then. Knowing you."

Akira was then silent for a moment, averting his gaze. Trying to appear nonchalant.

"So...she's your woman now."

"Akira! You know it's not like that at all!"

Seeing Vash grow flustered—choosing to shift his focus to looting all the corpses of their gear and hidden valuables—Akira promptly turned chibi. "Oho, you're really missing Kanna, aren't you?"

"Of course I do! But this has nothing to—"

"Teehee! As soon as I turn my back, you're going to use that cute girl to vent your frustrations," Akira teased. "Next thing I know she'll be screaming your name in the middle of the night, cooking you lunches and calling you daddy."

"Hell no! Clearly, if anyone's frustrated around here, it's you!"

"Well, at least I'm open about it."

Zhao chuckled. "There exists an...odd tension, always in the air between you two."

Akira and Vash both glared at him.

"It's nothing!" they both blurted simultaneously, then glanced warily at each other. When, at once, both realized they'd secretly been harboring the same thought in the back of their minds: that, at one point, not so long ago, they'd been large-breasted squirrel girls passionately kissing and making love, fully indulging in each other's sensual womanly fat-swollen bodies on the regular. 

Was this abrupt shift back to normalcy the true source of their recent bickering, though? Probably.

Although neither was keen to admit it:

"It's all in your head!" Vash huffed, turning away with a stern look and stiff upper lip, his arms crossed. "I don't swing that way at all!"

Zhao grew flustered. "Ah, but I never meant to imply—"

"I wouldn't screw Vash even if he was transformed into the single sexiest girl I've ever laid my eyes on!" Akira added, jabbing his finger at the air in emphasis. "Even if his breasts were so huge I could curl up and fall asleep on them. Even if his thighs were thicker than me. Not even if he got a tattoo of my name on his enormous, juicy ass!"

Lorica quickly clung to his side, pulling Cindy with her. "Master has us to satisfy all his needs anyway!" she exclaimed, then standing atop another of the wounded Norns to use as a footstool to french kiss him.

Vash groaned. "Times like this...I wish Deep Karma could just put me inside a regular MMO game world without all this weird sex stuff: just stats and crafting, dungeons, skill upgrades..."

Zhao raised an eyebrow. "Only sometimes? And what of the other times?"

"Other times…" Vash said, trailing off as he bore a forlorn stare, looking down at the [Maidé Ball] in his hand containing the Stormfleece girl. "I do terrible stuff like capturing girls, to make them my battle pets. Then, have the gall to try to justify it."

Zhao touched him on the shoulder. "Friend...you don't have to change parts of yourself, just to acclimate to this world," he said. "Just because you have your own [Pocket Maid] now, doesn't mean you have to be like"—they both looked over at Akira, still swapping saliva with Lorica as she stood atop the chest of the since deceased Norn. 

Both exchanged looks of revulsion, before Zhao decided to change the subject:

"So, what will you name the girl?"

Vash gave a meek smile. "Whatever she wants."

…

Chunhua was no longer alone in the [Sunny Beach].

Just as soon as she had witnessed the capture of the Stormfleece girl, through the television, she excitedly bolted out the door of the bungalow to search for her.

'Great! Now I have to share the same air with one of those filthy Stormfleeces…!'

She would have a straight-talking to them, to set some ground rules. More importantly, to make sure that they know who their senpai is: to treat her with utmost respect and reverence!

She found the Stormfleece girl sunk to the sand, loudly sobbing with her head bowed, in the shade of a gently swaying palm tree. Dressed in a green and white striped tube top with orange short-shorts, her 

The scene alone gave Chunhua pause.

'She's...crying?'

Upon further consideration, it shouldn't have confounded her as much as it did: anyone in her situation, of what was effectively slavery, would feel rightly dismayed.

Chunhua's initial animosity at once faded, with the dawning of this common ground they shared.

'Nonetheless, she is still my enemy…!'

Chunhua bit her lip, trying to turn away, when she heard the Stormfleece speak up—her voice weary, halting with emotion:

"Hah. You're that Cultivator commander."