Chapter 41: Trapped

No words were uttered for the following seconds. Silence had won. Arthur merely waited as his eyes continued to adapt to the darkness, granting him a more transparent and precise view of the space around him. First was the hilt of the candelabra, dyed in a brilliant orange the authentic metallic texture of the creation partially revealed itself to the struggling peasant, no longer just a wisp, a spectral entity. Its figure filled Arthur with a faint glimmer of hope for what was to come. He could see it. He could finally see something physical in this plane of spectral objects. No longer obscured by the darkness, the candelabra shone like a lighthouse, piercing the thick layers of shadow with its vibrant flame that continued to win its battle with the night.

Arthur's gaze perused the lit space, taking note of everything previously hidden from him under the cloak of shadows. He could see a wall painted matt black in colour. Its dark tone appeared to consume all, leaving the absence of light and the mysteriously attached metallic entity as hints to its existence. Though this wall was not the only thing Arthur could spy, a faint outline began to emerge from the corner of his eyes. It wasn't much at first, merely the highlighting of a rough corner, then a seamless straight edge, until eventually, the partially veiled appearance of the structure presented itself to the boy in all its glory. It was brown in colour, a dark shade, though even this umbral tone shone in contrast to the void-like hue that embraced the world around him. A pillar of hope was the only way Arthur could fully describe the monolith that stood before him, undaunted and unperturbed by the eerie scenery it had known its whole life. It stood proud amidst the darkness, its off-brown hue acting like a guiding light to the relieved child. He had finally found it, his way out of this hell hole, the assumed entrance to the Scarlet woman.

Immediately Arthur's body began to move. Leaving behind the solemn Luna, he marched towards the proud structure in an almost trance-like state. Ignorant to the world around him, Arthur simply moved. He no longer cared nor feared the all-consuming void, for he had found his guiding light.

*Step*Step*Step* First, Arthur's steps were skittish. They were slow, almost doubtful of the almost oasis-like structure that stood before him. He didn't get his hopes up. He was prone to hallucinating. All of this could simply be a dream, a wonderland his brain had concocted to escape the depressing mood that had previously prevailed in the inwardly apathetic boy's mind. However, with every rhythmic step, every gentle tap, Arthur's heart only continued to soar. The structure did not shimmer, nor did it crack under the harsh reality Arthur's encroaching figure presented. It remained firm. It held its form. It was real.

*STEP**STEP**STEP**STEP**STEP* With this confirmation of existence, Arthur's previously skittish, scared steps morphed into the gallant run of an overexcited child. It was real. He wasn't hallucinating. There really was a way to escape from this depressing environment. It took no time for Arthur to arrive at the foot of the obscured structure. Only half of its face was illuminated, dyed in a mixture of its original brown and the vibrant orange light of the flame. Anyone else in Arthur's position may have waited, standing patiently for the rest of the door to escape from the umbral hold this realm seemed to possess over it, but Arthur was in a rush. He didn't care if he could only see half of the face of his wooden rescuer. He had to escape.

Immediately Arthur's hands began to move, caressing the veiled structure in search of something, anything, yet, no matter how much Arthur's delicate hands pressed against the timbered monolith, he felt nought but the same, repetitive, grating sensation of wood. Was he looking in the wrong place? Perhaps he was too small to locate the metallic item that would free him from this realm, from this prison of eternal night. Yes, that had to be it. Arthur couldn't find the metallic hump because he was too small. Well, if that were the case, he would just have to search higher. He would just have to feel the entire door, leaving no centimetre unexplored.

Arthur's expression, obscured by the darkness, was manic. His dirty brown eyes quaked with the desperate dying hopes of a broken man. He wouldn't accept this. Arthur refused to accept the fact that he was shut in here, isolated from the rest of the building, with only the company of Luna to keep him entertained. There had to be a way out; Arthur just knew it, and if there wasn't, Arthur would likely break. And that was when he felt it, a cold metallic texture, a chill that flushed through his entire being, the stagnant feel of metal against his brittle skin. Relief momentarily flashed through the mind of the fracturing child, yet it was only temporary. He couldn't be so sure that the thing he felt against his sweaty palm was the sole key to his escape, his one hope of leaving this monochrome world.

Arthur's dainty fingers soon wrapped around the chilling handle, taking in both its shape and weight. It felt heavy, like a large chunk of wrought iron crudely attached to the wooden monolith. Its placement was off. It was weird. Like the many windows that plagued the cartoonishly large building, it propped up in a place one would least expect, in the dead centre of the standoffish object. Its mechanics were unknown to the blind child, who could only pray that this piece of metal would free him from this seemingly eternal realm of torment.

'Finally,' Arthur gleefully sighed as his outstretched hand gave the metal knot one firm twist. Arthur waited with blind reverence for the door's response, the ever-encroaching sound of a firm click followed by a loud creak. Arthur prayed to hear such a sound. He wanted to feel a seamless turn, as smooth as silk and as euphoric as sex, yet, fate was cruel, and what greeted the child's obscured senses could only be described as the opposite of what Arthur wished for.

The turn was not harmonious. It was jarring. It felt wrong. The door rebuked Arthur's attempt to escape. It barred him from entry into the sinful locale with a dull thud.

*Thud**Thud**Thud**Thud**Thud* Arthur continuously pulled against the inert object that refused to heed his desperate pleas. Attempt, after attempt, Arthur used all his strength to attempt to turn the arm that denied his very existence. It was like Arthur was in a frenzy. He knew the truth, he knew that the door would not open, yet he kept on trying. He was stubborn. He wouldn't accept this fate. Arthur couldn't stand the idea of living in this darkness for another second. He needed to see the light, to see himself. To know he had not regressed.

However, no matter what Arthur did, no matter how much he pleaded, the door remained steadfast in its refusal. His strength was useless. He was useless, a mere child before the dauntless object.

Arthur's heart sank while his hands fell, retreating back to his side. He couldn't do it. He had been bested by a door of all things, locked out by the mana-enriched object that he simply couldn't dent.

"What's the deal with this place…." Arthur mournfully commented, his head filled with nothing more than depressing thoughts. Arthur hated being weak. Arthur thought he had cast aside that facade the moment he swore to pay no heed to the morals that plagued his previous life, yet, here he was, weak, broken, trapped in a prison shrouded by darkness, destined to be eternally tortured by none other than his own overworking mind.

However, at the very exact moment Arthur begrudgingly released his sour grumble of self-hatred, things began to change. Not in his immediate vicinity, the door remained unopened, locked by some mystical mechanism, but by Luna, he felt something change in the obscured demeanour of the seductress. He could feel it. Her twin tails that blended in perfectly with the void-like darkness fell still before they shuddered, blowing a gentle breeze of freezing air in the direction of the inquisitive boy.

Arthur could read her. Of course he could. Despite being obscured by the prevailing darkness, every movement and motion her tail produced, he sensed them all against his exposed skin, and, thanks to his time playing "the gate to Avalon", he could deconstruct from them the emotions that were currently plaguing the scarlet seductress mind. Fear, anxiousness, and worry, such blights occupied the mind of the beautiful Luna. Her tails told Arthur so, but why, his comment served little more purpose than small talk, a feeble attempt to keep himself occupied in the maddening space, yet here she was, experiencing emotions that he never thought possible from the head of the red light district.

Luna's face, hidden by her veil, twisted. She wasn't ready for such a question, and her mind had taken to extremes. She couldn't deconstruct what the boy said, what his purpose was with the broad query.

Did he mean the brothel? Surely he understood what the point of such a place was, then, was he asking her what the point of her brothel was, what the scarlet woman stood for, why she had spent her life constructing this locale. At such a thought, Luna's mind turned sour. She liked Arthur. She couldn't deny that, but she wasn't ready to answer such a heavy question. Not so soon after meeting him, she wasn't ready to spill her heart so readily.

Arthur could sense that something was wrong. Luna's body had frozen under his nonchalant question. He had struck a nerve, delved into something he shouldn't touch, not yet at least. Luna still hadn't opened herself up to him fully. She still wasn't in love with him. 'Interesting,' Arthur curiously thought, taking note of Luna's stern silence, 'There's more to her than meets the eye,' he continued. Luna was more than a 2d character designed for little more than fan service. She was something else, something more. She was haunted by an existence Arthur couldn't understand. Something scared Luna enough to hold her tongue, whether it be her past, a person, or her future.

"By place, I mean this room, by the way, I know what the purpose of a brothel is, but this room, I have no idea what use its existence serves." Arthur continued, his statement bringing back the seductive motions from the fox lady's twin tails.

"Ah, so that's what it is~," Luna absentmindedly commented, her words only serving as fuel for the fire that was Arthur's interest in her. "This room is a sensory deprivation chamber of sorts, one I had built to deal with the more problematic customers. You see, everyone who doesn't work for the brothel has to enter through this entrance, and as you can tell from our brief venture outside, many of our customers are, well, inebriated, to say the least. Drunk people are fine to deal with, but those who are blackout, well, they're a bit more problematic, so I had this room installed to sober them up. When left to one's own devices, the mind can do great things Arthur~ And more importantly…." Luna sensually purred, her voice that previously sounded distant increasing in volume with every syllable that spilt from her enchantingly beautiful red lips. She was moving closer and closer to the frozen boy, though steps remained to be heard. The only thing that allowed Arthur to gauge the distance was the sound of Luna's low intermittent breaths, followed by whatever words she felt like spilling until Arthur began to feel them. Luna's steamy breaths pressed against the child's pale white skin, staining it a vibrant red that was thankfully obscured by the boy's surroundings.

Arthur's body instinctively retreated, pressured by Luna's ever-moving advancement, until he couldn't move anymore. He was backed into a corner. His loosely clothed body fell limply against the monolith that stood behind him. At the same time, he narrowly managed to avoid being concussed by barely skimming under the cursed wrought iron door handle that seemed to revel in the child's torment.

Arthur was trapped, with nowhere to move and nowhere to run. All he could do was stand there. He was vulnerable, prey to Luna's ever-wicked wiles. At the seductress's mercy, his entire life rested in the palms of her dainty hands.

*Bam**Bam* The sound of two hard impacts resonated from either side of the dazed child's head. If before Arthur believed himself to be trapped, now he indeed had no hope of escape. Luna had pinned him, with each hand occupying either side of Arthur's messy head of hair. He had been wall slammed.

He, Arthur, the greatest eroge player of all time, had fallen victim to one of his own tricks. Arthur's worrisome eyes could do nought but focus upon the encroaching mass that was Luna's beautiful face, still veiled by the thick black membrane of silk. What was she thinking? What type of face was she making? And more importantly, why had she chosen now of all times to make her move? Such thoughts passed helplessly through the stunned peasant's mind as he awaited Luna's judgement and subsequent punishment.

"Don't you find this type of environment stimulating~ I could do anything to you, and the world would be none the wiser~" Luna softly purred as Arthur's expression began to change. At first, he appeared scatterbrained, almost scared of the buxom woman's sudden straightforward approach, but as the seconds passed, that facade began to wane, and the true feelings of the pinned boy came to light. Arthur's face began to morph. His eyes that previously quaked with worry and fragility now shone with a teasing light and a faint enchanting purple glow while a gentle taunting smirk stretched across his beautiful face.

In this moment, Arthur appeared like the embodiment of lust. His mere smile was enough to capture the hearts of any stray onlooker (of which there were none), while his sensual breaths filled the enclosed room with a steamy heat, raising both the temperature of the space and the chests of all who found themselves in it by an extreme margin.

Luna initially performed her sensual act in a dying attempt to embarrass the boy who had so quickly made a mockery of all her prior attempts. The situation was perfect, shrouded by night and in a confined space with just the two of them. Luna would have been a fool to pass up on the opportunity, so then why, why was she the one whose face was now dyed in a brilliant scarlet? Why couldn't she handle herself around the enrapturing child who so quickly broke through her myriad of defences, and more importantly, why did she keep on vying for the young child's attention?

And it was when Luna was about to fall to the boy's natural charms that Arthur finally spoke. His taunting lips moved with serene grace while his voice embraced the obscured ears of the scarlet seductress with an unparalleled warmth.

"I know," Arthur stated in a sultry whisper, all the while his head that remained entrapped within Luna's half-hearted wall slam began to move, pressing ever onwards towards the veiled face of the beauty. Taunting her, goading her on, begging her to fall, to join him in this well of lust. "But did you ever consider the possibility that I could do whatever I want with you as well?" The teasing boy continued, raising a dainty palm to the veiled face of Luna and giving it a passionate stroke.

Euphoric, that was the only word that could possibly capture Luna's current state of mind. She felt dizzy, her eyes hidden by a thick piece of midnight black silk turned cloudy while her twin tails shook with repressed delight before they began to dance; their movements were sporadic yet synchronised with the seductress's current heartbeat. It kept on skipping, it kept on jumping, it was forceful, it ached, yet Luna didn't complain, she couldn't, her lips wouldn't respond to her call, they merely gawked at the boy's passionate presentation. Like a fish in the midst of feeding, Luna couldn't close her mouth. Saliva pooled. It flooded her open jaw to the point of spilling, yet she paid no heed to her bodily functions. The sensual appearance of Arthur was the sole thing that occupied the beauty's befuddled mind. His touch felt like lightning, yet it lacked the pain one would associate with the element. In fact, it only provided pleasure to Luna. Her whole body felt like one giant exposed nerve ending, like every pore on her skin was a g spot that could only be reached by Arthur's childish hands.

Luna's current appearance could only be described as shameless. The proud and seductive aura of a leader was nowhere to be found. She was red-faced and caked in her own bodily fluids. Luna appeared to be drunk from Arthur's mere touch.

Driven by lust, her arms inched closer to the boy's shadowed head. She wanted to embrace him, to pull his face closer to hers, to meet him halfway in a passionate display of affection, yet the moment her shaky hands wrapped around the umbral guise that shrouded the child, she was interrupted. Not by the boy she held so close, but by the distant sound of footsteps that crawled ever closer with each and every exhale that left the stammering woman's agape mouth.

Someone was coming, a fact that Arthur quickly picked up on as his attention soon left the sodden woman that shook gently in his embrace and returned to the wooden monolith that stood tauntingly behind him. He would have liked to tease Luna a bit more, to make her entirely fall for him, both in mind, body and soul, but that would have to wait. Arthur still assumed that task to be trivial, one he could accomplish at any time with little to no effort. A belief that the system would forcefully shatter in the coming hours.

Arthur waited with bated breaths. He dared not move. Arthur didn't even blink in fear that if he were to perform such an essential action the sound of encroaching footsteps would stop. Arthur didn't want this to be a dream, and even if it was, he didn't wish to wake from it. He wanted to believe, to live in blissful ignorance, to have hope that someone was here to rescue him from this prison of eternal night. To free him from the illusions his mind created. Seconds felt like hours and those hours felt like days.

{+1 Love (Luna Adeline)}

{+500 Affection points}

In that time, Arthur's vision became plagued by the blue transparent screen of the system that wished to inform its host of the steady yet surprisingly little gain in the affection he had managed to earn from the blushing beauty that dazedly gawked at his ephemeral visage from behind.

At any other moment, Arthur's mind may have latched onto this odd piece of information, analysing it, questioning it, speculating why his seemingly fantastic ploy had only managed to net him a measly one affection? Why did there appear to be a barricade between him and the 80% threshold? However, now was not one of those times. Arthur couldn't have cared less for the system's abrupt appearance. In fact, he didn't even spare the panel a glance. All his attention was focused on more important things. His ears strained to an unbearable degree, honing themselves upon even the slightest of sounds. Arthur heard it all, Luna's heated breaths, the slow yet sensual wagging of her tail that wafted the stagnant air, the distant sound of voices, and most prominently, the almost deafening roar of advancing footsteps clashing against what the boy assumed to be a hardwood floor. The usually gentle motion sounded like the clapping of thunder in the silent plain that was Arthur's empty mind, resonating across the open realm with pristine clarity.

This wasn't a dream nor a figment of the boy's imagination. Someone really was on their way here to save him, to free the prisoner from his cage of boundless suffering. To relieve him of his sin. With each passing second, the deafening sound of footsteps only continued to grow in volume, to the point where Arthur didn't even need to train his senses upon it anymore. Until they came to a stop, right outside the door that had previously barred the child from entering Luna's sensual domain.

Eerie, stagnant, horrible silence filled the void left by the departure of the roaring footsteps. It hurt. It bore deep into Arthur's mind. He knew someone was outside, but he didn't know what they were doing. He couldn't hear even the slightest of motions nor detect the most mellow of breaths. Whoever it was just stood there, staring at the door she had opened thousands of times with utmost indifference.

That was until they resumed their movements. First was a clank, the sound of a rusted key being inserted into a brittle lock, then came a click, one so clear, so poignant that Arthur's previously tense face couldn't help but break out into a relieved smile, and finally came a twist that he felt scrape against the top of his shabby head of hair.