Cursed Heroine

Chapter 48: Making advances

Running into my fellow heroines was an unexpected, but pleasant experience. The two once again asked me how Sofy was treating me in a pitying way. I ended up having to clarify my situation to them in a bit more detail. I don’t really look at the servant curse as a sort of slavery. Firstly, the reversal from abuse safety measure that I put in place works to discourage unjust or severe treatment. I think of my curse as more of a work contract, except in this case it’s enforced by the world’s laws instead of societal laws. Secondly, I hid the curse at first and chose a female to serve so I wouldn’t end up as some man’s toy. Having an intimate relationship with Sofy is like ‘friends with benefits’, except we have a master and servant relationship. I totally don’t mind being played with by beautiful women.

From the time we entered the dungeon until we left, we had only used up fifteen days of our vacation. It’s only the evening of Waterday of our last week of vacation time. We still have three days left to relax before needing to fly back on the fourth day. I brought Flora along with us to eat after we had cleaned ourselves up. Alice was immediately drawn to her presence when we met up at the restaurant.

“What is that?”~Alice

“How rude, I’m not a that! I’m miss Lily’s dryad familiar, Flora.”~Flora

“Ugh, I’ll never hear the end of it now until she gets the tamer skill.”~Mary

“If you can even find one in the shops, they’re usually horribly overpriced.”~Sofy

“We’re pretty broke right now. We just spent the majority of our savings on a small house to live in.”~Mary

“Why can’t we just open a shop and make some more money? You were a businesswoman before, right?”~Alice

“Opening a shop here is much more expensive than buying a house. Otherwise I would have done that first.”~Mary

Originally, my earlier inner thoughts about opening up an auction house were just passing remarks. Their money issues got me thinking that it might be a viable idea. After exchanging ideas for a while, we had hammered out the details.

Since I was going to provide the startup funds, I would be listed as the owner and Sofy would put her Sylva family crest on the business. We would take ten percent for weekly auctions and five percent for monthly. Common dungeon materials would be bought and sold daily, uncommon items such as the less sought after skill crystals would be for the weekly auctions and the monthly ones would be for rare items. 

To help facilitate the sale of divine crystals, Lauren and Brea agreed to become priestesses. Alice declined saying that she had enough difficulty just practicing her qi and Mary was skeptical, saying that she would see how things went for the other two first. Later in the evening, after having a good time with Susan, Kat decided to answer my prayer tonight and thank me for the new priestesses.

“Don’t you usually have a chat with my new additions before chatting with me?”~me

“Not this time dear. If I show myself to such young and impressionable girls, they might end up becoming zealous worshippers like you had initially worried about. Not because of any nefarious means, but just due to the sheer feeling of awe meeting me would inspire in such youths.”~Kat

“That might be bad. Hey, I noticed while flying that the horizon is pretty flat. Is this world perhaps a lot larger than Earth?”~me

“You noticed that, huh? It’s actually not a proper world yet, just a lowest level plane with the potential to grow into a world. My parents traded their most precious treasures to obtain it for me. I won’t tell you more about this unless you achieve at least divine stage cultivation.”~Kat

“Parents? Anyways, could you maybe help Mary and Alice with a little favor. They are receiving quite a bit of hostility due to being humans in the Magic Forest. Especially after the contract changes revealed some of the humans’ more depraved practices. Could you give them disguise sets like mine or something?”~me

“Hm, I don’t want to give them items that might eventually end up in the wrong hands. How about a disguise potion or a bloodline transfusion portion?”~Kat

“Could you mix the two into one? Disguising as a demi would be seen through if their status is ever seen and people would ask questions if two girls who used to be humans, suddenly weren’t.”~me

“Sure, you’ll find the potions in your inventory when you wake up. The pink one is for Alice and the milky one is for Mary. They just need to imagine the physical changes they want when they drink them. Not the race, I’ve already decided that based on what would suit them best.”~Kat

“Are you sure that you really picked what suited them instead of what you think would be the most entertaining? Why do I get the nagging feeling that this world is just something your parents gave to their easily bored daughter to keep her occupied?”~me

“It’s NOT! I’ll have you know that refining a world’s laws is an important part of cultivation for higher ranked beings! Ah! That was a trap to fish out some information, huh?”~Kat

I think that this might be the first time that I’ve seen her flustered. She’s kind of cute whenever her parents are mentioned. Weak point discovered! Now, how should I go about finding more?

“Geh! Stop thinking weird things. You’d have to reach god stage cultivation before we could even physically meet.”~Kat

“Before we can physically meet? That means you’ve already given this some thought. I’d been wondering why you never would tell me how to wear clothes in your divine realm. Fufu, I’ll be looking forward to our meeting.”~me

“I’m not falling for your tricks again! You can just continue to remain naked, I’m not going to tell you even if you tease me.”~Kat

“Who’s teasing? I mean every word. You should be able to see that I’m not lying by reading my mind, right?”~me

“EH! B-but!”~Kat

This is so much fun! Weak point two discovered. She can tease others with a straight face, but becomes flustered when teased herself.

“Y-you! It’s just as Sofy said, you’re incorrigible! Sofy also said that she has to punish you when you start teasing her too much or you’ll only get worse. You just wait, I’ll discuss this with Sofy and find the perfect punishment. Until then, good night!”~Kat

I’m summarily thrown out of her divine realm once again after an abrupt farewell. At least with Sofy being part of the punishment committee, it won’t be too bad. Since it’s Kat though, it will definitely be a new curse. Hehe, I wonder if I can manipulate what the curse ends up being if Sofy were to be subtlety told about some of the things I supposedly ‘hate’.

The next day was spent looking at the available properties. We got a fairly good deal on a place within the middle range merchant area about midway between the dungeon and the wealthy residential area. I handed over to Mary some of my precious ores and gemstones along with enough funds for the auction house’s initial purchasing from customers. My hoard was reduced to about half in a single day! Once again we are going to leave Namiir while only having our gains in control and skill levels to show for it.

<Status> +[disguised stats], -[hidden stats]
Name: Lilia | Age: 20 | Sex: Female
+Race: {Vampire(50%)}{Blood Demon(25%)}{Dragon(20%)}{Dryad(5%)}

Over the academic season, I had maxed out my divine and spirit energies at my current stage and nearly doubled my intelligence attributes. Sense intent reached level three in the last two weeks of the academic season because of the constant attention from those disgusting boys. If Sofy wants to hook up with one, that’s fine with me, but I will refuse to have anything to do with them. I managed to get sense danger and shadowmeld to level up once. Tamer also broke through to level three just by merit of Flora’s damaged soul constantly being dependant on our connection. Also, I’ll make sure to activate the love serum trait later tonight.

<Status>
Name: Sophia | Age: 24 | Sex: Female
Race: {Human(50%)}{Wood Elf(50%)}
Cultivation Stages: {Body: 2}{Mind: 4}{Spirit: 2}{Divine: 2}{Law: 0}
Energy Reserves: {Qi: 1000/1000}{Mana: 24000/24000}{Spirit: 1000/1000}{Divine: 1000/1000}
Attributes: Str: 1000 | Vit: 1000 | Agi: 1000 | Int: 24000

Sofy has nearly reached stage three in body and will probably reach stage three in divine around the same time. Definitely before our next academy break. Tamer level four unlocked a useful sub-skill called dwelling. It lets her familiar be absorbed into her body. Trixy glows and then flows into her like mist. She said that it feels like another energy is circulating through her body and that it actually boosts her own power by having her like that. There’s no discomfort to either of them and the only downside is that Trixy absorbs some of her qi for sustenance.

<Status>
Name: Flora | Age: <1 | Sex: Female
Race: Dryad(Base: Feeder Vine)
Cultivation Stages: {Body: 1(10%)}{Mind: 1(10%)}{Spirit: 0(25%)}{Divine: 0(0%)}{Law: 0}
Energy Reserves: {Qi: 10/10}{Mana: 10/10}{Spirit: 10/10}{Divine: 0/0}
Attributes: Str: 100(10%) | Vit: 100(10%) | Agi: 100(10%) | Int: 100(10%)
Soul Potential: 50
<Skills>
{passive}
[Sense Mana 1]
{active}
[Mana Control 2], [Mana Shaping 1]
<Traits>
[Green Thumb], [Multi-Form]
<Blessings>
[Dryad’s Natural Gifts]
{Fragrance}{Needles}{Symbiosis}
<Curses>
[Tamed Familiar(Tamer: Lilia)]
{Link}

Flora worked pretty hard while we were gone and got her body and mind to stage one with maxed attributes. Her spirit is going up at a much slower rate due to her damaged soul and according to Kat, she can’t become a priestess until her soul has finished healing. She also managed to get her mana control up to level two from all of her flying around.

As we were heading home that evening, I realized that I had completely forgotten to give Mary and Alice the potions today. I was too absorbed in thinking about my lost treasures and how to best use my new trait on Sofy tonight. Oh well, I’ll give them the potions tomorrow. For now, I’ve decided to apply my love serum with my tongue by kissing and licking my mistress into submission tonight.