Chapter 54: Shopping

The beasts were not all to powerful on the own, being easily dispatched by both Kurome and Seryu in a timely manner. The last of which had its body cleaved in twain with a single downwards slash of Yatsufusa bringing an end to the beasts assault on the village.

Slashing her blade through the air the blood that coated Yatsufusa quickly flew off before she returned the katana back into its sheath. Her head swivelling left and right taking in the surrounding bodies of both villager and danger beast.

Just from a quick once over she could tell the casualties weren't too extensive, only seeing four human bodies littering the floor surrounded by a dozen of these strange humanoid danger beasts.

"That's the last of them." Seryu approached Kurome and said, blood coating her cheek and part of her uniform as well as dripping from Koro's mouth.

Seryu herself took in the situation, sadness in her eyes at the deaths. "We should find the others. See if they need back up."

Kurome nodded, "they're close." She said.

"How do you know?" Seryu asked looking around.

"I heard Rubicante from the east. I also saw Run flying," Kurome lifted her hand and pointed over the buildings to the east where thick plumes of smoke were rising, "and where there's fire. We will find Bols."

"Oh," Seryu muttered blinking dumbly at the red haze over the roof tops, "I… uh, I should have seen that."

Kurome shrugged and began to walk, making swift steps with Seryu and Koro in tow.

Just walking through the few blocks let them see the havoc of broken walls and shattered windows, a few unlucky bodies who couldn't find somewhere safe to hide littered around.

"This is horrible," creaking metal sounds came from Seryu as she clenched her fists tight. The streets were empty, a few of the braver peaking through blinds but none daring to even leave the safety of their walls.

Such destruction was not commonplace, often left to radical attacks by Night Raid or other insurgent factions within the capital. Even then, that was centralized to single buildings or estates or just a few damaged walls.

It didn't take long for the smell of fire and heat to start blistering against their skin, the sound smouldering wood and collapsing buildings soon joining the indicators of destruction. The stench of burning flesh blended together with the smoke the closer they got.

"Seryu! Kurome! Thank god! Are you both okay" As they entered an open street, Wave ran up to them, relief on his face. "You two ran into these things as well?"

"Mnn," Kurome hummed pulling out a candy from her pouch, rolling her shoulder to get a better grip on her bag with her other hand. "Weak."

"Maybe," Wave rolled his eyes and looked back to Bols who was dealing with the fire Rubicante made. "Doesn't change what happened." He sighed, "how were casualties on your side? You get everything?"

"I believe so," Seryu said, "I saw at least twenty dead on the way here. This village is in ruins. We should send for security forces to keep this place safe until defences can be fixed. How could we let this happen?" her teeth ground together.

To their side Kurome's eyes had locked onto the burning building. It being the very same shop she had gone to just earlier today. Everything inside smouldering into ashes, she could even see a vaguely human shape within the fire covered in debris, their skin turned black by the heat.

***

The store had been filled with a strange assortment of mannequins and shelves. The smell of oils and hemp filling the air, lingering within Kurome's nose and only growing stronger the further in she walked. A hand held tightly over her Parc's third eye blocking his view were he still watching at the moment.

Her head swivelling side to side taking in the various articles on sale. Thin ropes and thick ropes. Leather straps and metal rings. Many a combination of all three. Some even having added components of small logs or balls in the centre of a leather strap.

Passing by a oddly feminine mannequin, Kurome's feet came to a halt. This wasn't what had brought her inside, but it had certainly gotten her attention enough that it earned a light flush on her cheeks.

If one word could be given to what was worn by the canvas woman, it was revealing.

A corset made up the whole of the top, resting just below the maniqueins breasts leaving them exposed with a second, much thinner strap running up the centre of the chest connecting to a thick collar. Another two straps held to just below the armpits with rivets raising to the sides of the collar.

Hanging off the front of the collar was a large and shiny ring.

From the bottom of the corset a fourth and final strap—all of which held buckles somewhere along their lengths—that connected to the leather panties. Numerous studs of metal dotting it giving it more texture than just plain shiny leather.

All Kurome could think about was how the Mannequin looked like a slave being degraded and humiliated. Her hands dropped from her neck, allowing the dark, iris-less orb hang freely while her hands travelled to her chest, fingers trailing along the underside of her breasts.

"Good choice, Young lady. That's one of my best works," a mans voice sounded besides her causing her to jump and nearly tear Yatsufusa from its sheathe. Only stopping when she saw the man who spoke standing white his arms crossed a hand stroking along his chin.

"Who?" She asked.

The white-haired man tilted his head to her, offering her a soft smile, "ah, right. Apologies. I'm the owner of this store. Nobuhito, you can call me." Them man bowed his head to Kurome. "I am also the creator of all these tools." He held his hand up to the so named 'tools.'

Kurome's tensed body relaxed at his admission, her hand making distance from Yatsufusa's hilt.

Nobuhito looked to the garments that had taken Kurome's interest, "so tell me. What's a pretty young thing like you doing looking up at these tools. These certainly ain't the type of things for the weak of willed." He said continuing to stroke his beardless chin.

What could she say? Really she had come in on a whim, barely even thinking about what was inside. Yet she still found herself fantasizing wearing this costume. "I…" a single word escaped her lips as her blush grew stronger.

Nobuhito tilted his gaze up to her, his eyes crossing over the red leather collar and black marble hanging from the buckle. A grin growing on his lips. "Ahh, I see. Would you like to hear more about this piece?"

Kurome inadvertently found her head bobbing to his question. "Yes…" she whined.

"This piece was originally made on commission a few months back for some rich brat up in the capital. Only she and her family ended up getting the axe, literally in the girls case, heard they'd found her body with an axe stuck in her head. Night Raid? I believe they said done it?"

"Ever since it's been stuck in here. And as you can see…" he nodded to the empty store, something wholly unusual for such a busy village so close to the capital. "…I don't get much foot traffic. Not many come to an old leatherworker specializing in objects of desire nowadays."

"That's the basic history of the piece," he mumbled, "getting onto what it is, as I'm sure you can see it's a harness blended with a chastity belt. Ain't sure what chastity the brat was trying to keep. She seemed as vile as they came when I met her. Leather's high grade, Special grade wyvern leather at that. Dyed black with a good varnishing of Kaiser frog oil. So, you won't have to worry about dirt or sweat getting stuck to it for the first few years of use."

"Seven holes to a strap. So plenty room for to grow into," Nobuhito looked Kurome up and down, "should still fit you if you're interested in that. Inside of the pants has a softer cloth lining that'll need to be washed every now and then to prevent any bugs from spreading about the naughty parts."

"Other than that, all parts are removable from each other. Collar comes off the corset, corset comes off the pants. That's about it for this piece. So, tell me. It take your fancy?"

She didn't know. Or, well, she did. It absolutely got her 'fancy' as he put. But would Parc like it? Her hand hovered by the inert marble. She was his pet, his puppy. Did she have any right to buy something like this? Her body was his. He didn't give her permission to think of wearing such a thing.

"It… It does," she gulped stroking her collar happily.

Nobuhito's lips parted into a toothy grin, "at's a girl. Tell you what, I'll let you take it for free. The girl I made it for paid me upfront for the piece so money's not an issue. But if there's any changes you want done, that will cost you."

Kurome's lips fell open as she looked over the outfit, pausing at the collar. Nobuhito noticing where she was looking, smirked, "yours is small enough to fit under it. So long as you take that bauble off and don't tighten it too much. No need for any changes there. Anything else you can think about?"

Kurome's lips quirked up happily at that. "There, there is," Kurome gulped nervously, lifting her hand to point at a mannequins at the back of the store. She needed no words for Nobuhito to get what she was getting at.

"No need to worry miss. At'll work perfectly.

***

It was rare for Kurome to feel sad for someones passing. Let alone a civilian she had met only once. And yet here she stood staring sadly at his cremating corpse, watching as it turned to ashes in Rubicante's fire.

"…ur…e… Kurome!"

Said girl jumped at Wave's sudden screeching in her ear. Yatsufusa swiftly finding itself ripped from its sheath and held to Wave's neck who found himself sweating profusely as the blade dug into his neck.

"Please don't kill me." He squeaked out.

Narrowing her eyes, Kurome pulled the blade away and resheathed the Katana, "you surprised me. Don't surprise me."

'I was calling to you for like, five minutes!' he wanted to retort.

"R-right, sorry. Just. We're planning to start heading back to the capital now. We want to get our report back to the general as soon… as… possible…" Kurome walked past him towards Run, Bols and Seryu, "and she's gone…" Wave looked back to the fire with a frown.

"She is seriously acting weird recently…"

***

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If you haven't already guessed, I have a slight S&M fetish. You can expect more of that to come in as the story goes on. While I have little to no experience with it in both knowledge and experience (Yay to 19 years of virginity and girlfriendless life) It is probably one of my more prominent fetishes alongside monstergirls. (If you haven't already guessed from the other story aptly titled Monstergirl Rancher))

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Okay so i've got 2 questions for you all today, one of which I am unsure if I should even be talking about so I'll just start with the latter one first.

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Question 1. Do you want Parc going into his home world (The one with his aunts and mother) to be a full arc before moving onto Shokugeki no souma? or would you rather I just do a few chapters in there and toss him into the new world? (Ps. I would be turning the terraria world into the true, inbetweener world instead of a mix between his homeworld and the terraria world.) I'll probably hear what you all have to say, but I'll probably be the final voice in the matter depending on what I really want to do.

Question 1.2. Little add-on because i'm curious. In the terraria world, do you want me to genderbend the male npcs and make female variations of them? mostly just to keep his little 'harem mansion' (More like towns with how 1.4 does things) pure and unsullied by male hands? (Ps. The first guide would be male until he gets sacrificed to our god and emperor wall of meat chan.)

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Question 2. let me preface this question with this capitalized sentence. EACH AND EVERY GIRL/WOMAN PARC FUCKS IS OF LEGAL AGE (In holland. aka 16+). Now that that's done. I've been struggling with the idea of having girls with more 'petite' frames. and by petite, I mean PETITE. Once again, all of legal age (in holland). I personally, do not mind it... too much, I have a size that just shuts me off completely and by gods at that point I wouldn't be able to justify it as 'stunted growth' or 'naturally small framed.'

My main reason for this being a whole question is because I have this whole Kuroinu x Kyonyuu fantasy plot working in my head and one of the Kuroinu girls is very, very small, a halfling name Luu Luu. And just thinking about her unnerves me a little, not because of the diddling, but because its hard to justify the diddling in my head and putting it to paper and thereby handing it out to the public.

What do you all think? Yay or nae to small girls (Ps. I'm not going to use loli, because of how that word is literally used to refer to less than legal girls.