NOVEL NEXT Chapter 59 – The Dress Code
The problem with training an army of fifty magically generated waifus wasn't their enthusiasm. It was their interpretative dance of the instructions.
Reed walked onto the Casino Floor, holding a cup of coffee that he prayed was strong enough to handle reality.
"Status report," Reed muttered to himself, leaning against a newly installed obsidian pillar.
It was a disaster.
At the Blackjack tables, three Bone-Maids were dealing cards. Their dexterity was incredible, cards flew through the air like shuriken, but the sound was deafening. Every movement was a Clack-Rattle-Snap of skeletal joints. They looked less like dealers and more like a percussion section having a seizure.
"Too loud!" Reed shouted. "Less rattling, more shuffling!"
The Bone-Maids paused, looked at him with violet fire in their sockets, and gave him a synchronized, sassy hip-pop before resuming at half-speed.
Over at the bar, Luma was trying to be a cocktail waitress.
"Here is your drink!" the slime-girl chirped to a cardboard cutout of an adventurer. She absorbed a martini glass into her forearm, walked three steps, and then tried to "dispense" it. The glass slid out of her gelatinous body coated in a thick, shimmering layer of blue slime.
"Luma," Reed sighed. "The drink is supposed to be inside the glass, not the other way around."
"But it keeps them moist!" Luma argued, wobbling indignantly.
Meanwhile, the Orc Matrons were working security. One of them was currently demonstrating the "Bouncer Protocol" on a wooden training dummy. She didn't escort it out. She put it in a headlock and flexed her bicep until the dummy's head popped off with a splintering CRACK.
"Customer is… pacified," the Orc rumbled, looking proud.
"And decapitated," Reed noted. "We charge extra for that."
And then there was Riva.
The Harpy was perched on top of a slot machine, wearing a vest but absolutely refusing to wear pants.
"Legs need freedom!" Riva screeched, throwing a pair of black trousers at a passing Void Bunny. "Pants are leg-prisons! Riva will not be jailed!"
Reed rubbed his temples. The casino opened in three days. Currently, the mortality rate for ordering a drink was 50%, and the nudity rate was 80%.
"This is unacceptable."
Reed turned. Maira was standing behind him.
The Demon Maid looked like she was vibrating. Her usually pristine uniform was wrinkled. Her clipboard was bent slightly at the corner, as if she had gripped it with crushing force. Her tail was thrashing behind her like an angry cat's.
"The variance," Maira hissed, her eye twitching behind her glasses. "The deviation from the standard is 400%. They do not listen. They do not understand the concept of 'Uniformity'."
"They're monsters, Maira," Reed said gently. "We just printed them yesterday."
"That is no excuse for inefficiency!" Maira snapped. She marched toward a crate of supplies. "I spent six hours tailoring the prototypes. High-tensile silk. Void-weave stitching. Absolute perfection."
She reached into the crate to pull out a sample "Bunny Girl" tuxedo.
Her hand came out holding a handful of grey sludge.
Luma, who had been napping in the crate earlier, popped her head up. "Oh! Sorry, Maira! I got hungry and tried to eat the soft rocks!"
Maira stared at the dissolved sludge of what used to be 500 gold worth of fabric.
She didn't scream. She didn't scold.
She went terrifyingly quiet.
She pulled a red quill from her pocket. She drew a thick, heavy X on her clipboard. The sound of the quill tearing the paper was the only noise in the room.
"Liquidate," Maira whispered, her voice devoid of all emotion. "Liquidate the assets. Burn the floor. Reset the simulation."
Reed's HUD flared.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[Staff Condition Critical: MAIRA]
[Status: SHADOW ROT (Active).]
[Manifestation: BUREAUCRATIC PARALYSIS.]
[Cause: Loss of Control. Excessive Responsibility.]
[Prescription: EXECUTIVE ORDER.]
Reed understood immediately. She was the filter. She was the one trying to impose Order on a dungeon made of Chaos. And she was breaking under the weight of being the "Top."
She needed to be the "Bottom."
"Clear the floor," Reed announced, his voice dropping an octave.
The staff froze. Even the rattling skeletons stopped.
Reed walked over to Maira. He didn't ask. He reached out, grabbed her by the wrist, and pulled her away from the sludge.
"Sir?" Maira blinked, her breathing shallow. "I have not authorized a break. The inventory is—"
"Silence," Reed commanded.
He dragged her off the casino floor, up the stairs to the Mezzanine, and kicked the door to his office open.
The Audit
He shoved her inside and locked the door. The heavy thud of the latch echoed in the room.
Maira stood in the center of the rug, clutching her clipboard like a shield. Her eyes were wide, frantic, darting around the room as if looking for more errors to fix.
"The schedules are misaligned," Maira babbled, her voice rising in pitch. "The Orcs are too aggressive. The silk is gone. I need to calculate the loss ratios. I need to—"
"Maira."
"I need to fire the slime! I need to re-stitch reality!"
"SIT."
Reed didn't just say it. He used [Overlord Mode].
Violet mana flared in his eyes. The command slammed into Maira like a physical weight, bypassing her logic centers and hitting the demon instinct directly.
Her knees buckled. She dropped into the leather chair in front of the desk.
The clipboard clattered to the floor.
Reed walked around the desk. He didn't sit. He leaned against the edge of the obsidian surface, towering over her.
"You are malfunctioning," Reed stated, his voice cool and heavy.
"I am… merely optimizing," Maira whispered, gripping the armrests. Her tail was wrapped tight around her own leg. "I am the Administrator. I must maintain control."
"You have no control," Reed corrected. "Look at you. You're shaking."
He reached out.
He didn't touch her face. He reached up and wrapped his hand around the base of her left horn.
Maira gasped. A shudder ripped through her body, her back arching off the chair. For a demon, the horns were sensitive, dense with mana nerves, a symbol of their status. Having them grabbed was a declaration of absolute dominance.
"Master," she whined, a sound that was entirely un-corporate.
"You are trying to carry the whole dungeon," Reed murmured, tightening his grip on the horn, forcing her head back until she was looking up at him. "You think if you stop thinking, the world ends."
"It… it will," she stammered, her eyes losing focus.
"It won't," Reed promised. "Because I am here."
He leaned down, his face inches from hers. The Void mana radiating off him was cold, terrifying, and intoxicating.
"I am the Dungeon Lord," Reed whispered. "I am the one who worries. I am the one who commands. You are just the tool."
"I am… the tool," Maira repeated, her pupils blowing wide.
"You don't need to think, Maira. You need to obey. Can you do that?"
"Yes," she breathed.
"Good. Then stop thinking. That is an order."
Reed pulled.
He used her horns as handlebars, dragging her up from the chair. She didn't resist. She was limp, pliable, her brain finally shutting down the endless loops of anxiety.
He kissed her.
It wasn't a soft kiss. It was an audit.
He devoured her mouth, his tongue sweeping through with possessive intent. He fed her the Void mana she was craving, the cold, heavy power that numbed the frantic noise in her head.
Maira made a broken noise in her throat. She clawed at his velvet coat, not to push him away, but to pull him closer. She needed the structure. She needed the walls he was building around her.
Reed spun her around, pressing her chest against the cold obsidian desk. He kept one hand firmly on her horn, pinning her head down, while the other hand slid up the back of her skirt.
"System check," Reed growled in her ear.
"Check… complete, now use me like a tool, master." Maira moaned, her hips grinding back against him.
For the next hour, there was no paperwork. There were no uniforms. There was only the absolute, binary simplicity of Command and Response. Reed took the burden of choice away from her, dismantling her anxiety with precise, overwhelming physical sensation until she shattered.
When Maira finally cried out, it wasn't a scream of frustration. It was a release of pure, white-hot Soul Mana that flooded the room, stabilizing the Void pressure and leaving the office smelling of stale coffee, domanice, and satisfied silence.
Tactical Evening Wear
Forty minutes later, the office door opened.
Maira stepped out.
Her glasses were slightly crooked. Her blouse was buttoned one hole wrong. Her cheeks were a healthy, flushed purple.
But the twitch was gone. Her movements were fluid, calm, and terrifyingly efficient.
"Attention, staff," Maira called out from the balcony. Her voice was steady. "The Uniform Policy has been revised. Assemble."
Reed walked out behind her, adjusting his cuffs, looking like a man who had just defused a bomb.
Down on the casino floor, the monsters gathered.
"The previous designs failed due to… material incompatibility," Maira announced, ignoring Luma, who was trying to look innocent. "We are switching to specialized gear."
Grika ran up, holding a smoking sewing machine. "I did what you asked, Maira! I reinforced the weave with copper wire and misery!"
"Excellent," Maira said. "Deploy."
The Reveal.
Ten minutes later, the staff stepped out.
Seraphine was first. She wasn't wearing a fragile silk dress. She was wearing Armored Lingerie.
It was a bodysuit made of black dragon-scale weave, cut high on the hips to allow her tail full movement. It looked like lace, but when she tapped it with a claw, it rang like steel.
"Acceptable," Seraphine purred, examining her reflection in a shield. "It offers vital protection while maximizing distraction. A tactical compromise."
Luma came next. She wasn't wearing clothes, she would just dissolve them. Instead, she wore a Magitech Collar and cuffs made of gold.
The collar projected a "Hard-Light Hologram" of a cocktail dress over her slime body.
"Look!" Luma cheered, poking her own holographic stomach. "I'm naked, but I look expensive!"
Riva was still refusing pants. But Maira had given her a shiny, gold Sheriff's Badge that pinned to her vest.
Riva was so distracted by the shiny object on her chest that she forgot to complain. She puffed her chest out, preening. "Riva is Law! Respect the Badge!"
And the minions? The Bone-Maids were given velvet chokers and bowties, leaning into the "Gothic Burlesque" vibe. The Orcs were given vests that barely contained their muscles. The Void Bunnies were given trays that magnetically locked to their hands so they couldn't phase through them.
It worked. It was chaotic, it was lewd, and it was perfect.
"My word," a strangled voice gasped.
Reed looked to the entrance. Kaelen had just walked in.
The Paladin was staring at Seraphine's armored lingerie. Her face turned the color of a ripe tomato.
"This is…" Kaelen stuttered, her eyes darting to Reed, who was smirking in his black velvet coat. "This is moral decay! It is… it is obscenity!"
"It's a dress code," Reed corrected, walking down the stairs. "And it's mandatory."
Kaelen swallowed hard. "Is it?"
"Only for employees," Reed winked. "But if you want to apply, I think we have a spare collar."
Kaelen made a squeaking noise and hid her face in her hands, though Reed noticed she didn't actually leave.
"Alright," Reed clapped his hands. "We look the part. The machines are running. The beer is cold."
He looked at Seraphine.
"Now we just need a show. Because if the gambling doesn't kill them, the boredom will."
Seraphine spun her spear. "I am ready to kill, My Lord."
"No killing," Reed sighed. "Entertainment, Sera. You need to learn how to be a gladiator, not a butcher."
He checked the time.
"Next stop: The Arena. Let's teach a snake how to dance."
[QUEST COMPLETE: THE DRESS CODE.]
[Reward: Staff Morale Stabilized. Maira Condition: LOYAL.]
[Next Quest: THE MAIN EVENT.]