Chapter 218: The Fox and The Vixen

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༺ The Fox and The Vixen ༻

"Ubeub… Uuh…"

"...."

Miho, who had climbed on top of Frey, pressed her lips against his, tears streaming down her face.

– Smooch, smooch…

After moving Frey to his room and onto the bed, Miho hovered over his body. She tightly closed her eyes and fed him her fox bead.

At some point, Frey's body, who had been moved to the bed, was covered by her; in such a position, she closed her eyes tightly and melted the fox bead in her mouth to feed him.

"…Gulp."

She swallowed the unknown energies flowing out from his body along with his bodily fluids.

"Puha… Puhe…Puheee…"

After a while, Miho detached her tongue from his mouth and slumped in exhaustion.

"...Slurp, slurp."

After collapsing on top of Frey for a moment, gasping for breath, Miho, with a tearful expression, retrieved the small shrunken bead that had been inside Frey's mouth.

"I, I put it all in… Not even a drop left. All completely…"

Completely worn out, Miho only managed to turn her head with much difficulty and spoke in a hollow voice.

"So, please… let me stop this now… I feel like…"

"Come down."

"Ugh, uheuk…"

Lulu's order made Miho tremble, and she slowly moved away from Frey.

"Haa… Haa…"

After struggling for a while, Miho, lying next to Frey, covered her eyes with her arm and gasped heavily.

"Heugeuk, huhuu…"

Soon, she burst into tears.

"You don't know how much I've gone through to collect all of that… I really, really tried so hard to become a 'nine-tails'… but for that kind of person…"

"Come down to my side."

"Eiikk…"

Miho slid off the bed at Lulu's command without even having a chance to cry out.

"How is the result? Will he recover?"

"Ugh…"

Lulu asked her while holding Miho's shoulders, who was still in a daze. Miho, who had been staring blankly at Lulu slowly responded.

"I don't know either. I can't predict the outcome. Even if there's a possibility, it's still something that isn't supposed to happen. But, for now, he has certainly recovered at some point…."

"So, in any case, the treatment worked, right?"

"Y-yes. It was impossible, but his vitality has recovered at some point. Yet, I'm not sure if it's permanent…"

"Don't be so negative."

"…At the very least, he has narrowly escaped the threshold of death."

Only after saying those words could Miho escape from Lulu's grip.

"Puhe… Puheeet…"

Miho struggled to regain her composure even after being released, and she soon became aware that Frey's bodily fluids had entered her body.

"Ugh, uuh…"

She sobbed as she realized that the fox bead she had diligently accumulated over the past ten years had been transferred to her enemy in an instant.

"…Did you call it 'fox bead'? To develop it, you need to accumulate 'vital energy,' right?"

Lulu questioned her like that.

"So, how do you accumulate vital energy?"

"....."

Miho unkindly glared at Lulu for a moment in response to her question, but then, overwhelmed by Lulu's authority, she quietly lowered her eyes and began to explain.

"Th-there's a way to accumulate it by collecting dew. The morning dew is rich in the earth's mana, making it ideal for accumulating vital energy."

"…How long does it take?"

"I-it takes about a year to accumulate enough to be useful."

"That's too long…"

Lulu, who frowned at that response, asked another question.

"What's the second method?"

"I-I have to have intercourse with a male…"

"....."

"Eikk… Th-that's to… To transfer the fox bead… I have to have… intercourse… with the person I intend to give it to…"

"Next."

Lulu's voice was ice-cold as she forced the information out of Miho, her Magic Eyes exerting their power. Miho, her eyes brimming with tears, continued hesitantly.

"L-lastly… I extract life force directly from people. With my ability, I grab the target's heart and squeeze it out, like squeezing milk."

"Hmm."

"This was the method Serena requested to torture… I mean, persuade the bishops. It's very painful and agonizing."

Upon hearing this, Lulu flashed a bright smile and grabbed Miho's hand. "So, if you extract from more people, the bead will grow faster?"

"Y-yes, that's right. But I… I only extract from bad people! For example, the person lying there right now…!"

"....."

"I-in any case, I can't just extract from anyone. Not many can endure the process, so it's reserved for criminals…"

"I'll provide them."

"…What?"

Hearing those words, Miho tilted her head in confusion.

"I know a lot of bad people. They used to be the ex-masters of my maids… but now the Demon Kin— I mean anyway, Master has them imprisoned."

"I feel like I just heard some strange things right now—"

"Anyway, you can extract from those people."

Miho made a doubtful expression at that statement.

"And if that's not enough… you can extract it from me."

"Wh-what?"

"Extract it from my heart. In the future, I'll regularly catch criminals for you to extract from, but on days we can't find any, you can extract it from me."

After saying that,Lulu said this with a serious expression.

"Not all at once like earlier, but give it to Master in halves. That way, you can recover the fox bead faster than by collecting dew."

"B-but…"

"You don't want to?"

"N-no, I mean… Are you sure it's okay?"

While staring at Lulu like this, Miho asked a question.

"Just as I said before, squeezing the heart causes extreme pain. It's not something you can forcefully endure… Uwaa?"

After a while, she continued her explanation with a doubtful expression.

"What are you doing right now?"

Lulu took Miho's hand and placed it over her chest, then with wide-open eyes, she made a request. "Try to squeeze it now."

"Try to squeeze it now."

"What?"

"Just give it a try. Extract my life force."

Lulu spoke earnestly as she closed her eyes. "I belong to Master. My body, my life, it's all been his from the beginning. So, if it's just my life force, I can, of course, offer it to him."

With a trembling voice, she said that.

"…Alright, then."

Miho, looking at Lulu with one furtive glance after another, decided to drop her hesitation and then firmly grasped her heart.

"Aheuk…!"

A piercing scream echoed throughout the mansion.

"Aaargh!!!"

"S-see, I did say you won't be able to endure it."

Lulu continued to scream as if her body was being ripped apart. Miho, bewildered, tried to pull her hand back. But…

"K-keep… going…"

"...?"

"I will… save Master…"

Hearing Lulu's tearful words as she clutched her hand, Miho continued the action while closing her eyes.

"Aaaaah…!"

After a while….

"Haa, haa…"

When Miho finally released her hand from Lulu's heart, Lulu collapsed to the floor in an exhausted state.

"You'll continue to become desiccated. This is only a temporary measure. There's no guarantee that your master, whose insides have already started to rot, will survive. Still…"

Looking at Lulu with a pitiful expression, Miho tried to persuade her, but…

"Huff, huff."

However, even in that state, Lulu had crawled onto the bed with great effort.

"Lick, lick."

Nestling next to Frey, Lulu gently licked the face with closed eyes.

"Heeuk…!"

She grabbed Frey's hand and began to choke her own neck.

"Only you can control me… Only you can possess, and only you can kill… me…"

She had been so anxious all day that her old habits of self-harm and self-destruction which had been buried for a long time, resurfaced.

"Therefore, if you die…"

While licking Frey, who had his eyes closed as if he were dead, Lulu choked her neck by using his hand.

"…I'll die with you."

She tightened his hand around her neck, whispering in his ear with a faint voice.

"So, if you don't want to kill me…"

She continued in that manner until, by chance, or perhaps because he had heard her voice, Frey's hand, which had been choking her neck, loosened slightly.

"…Please stay alive."

She stopped strangling herself as if she had expected it, and let out a happy smile.

"Just as you saved me, now I'll save you. I'll give you my heart. I'll give you my life force. I'll pour it all into you until there's nothing left of me."

She whispered as she put her cheek on his hand and nuzzled it.

"…Until I've lived up to my fate, I want to live as your pet."

For today, she was similar to the heroine of a novel.

"So, let's live together for a long, long time, and when the time comes, let's be buried in the same grave."

Not just a simple novel but a tragic romance novel that would make one cry until their eyes turned red.

.

.

.

.

.

"Phew…"

After a while.

"What an ordeal this is…"

Miho, who had left Frey's room, sighed deeply and descended to the first floor.

"Perhaps, Could it be that Serena was… looking for this?"

She muttered with a desolate expression.

"…She's been asking me to extract from her heart every night since a few days ago?"

Then, she suddenly burst into laughter, shaking her head with a wry smile.

"Nah, that can't be. No matter how much of a genius she is, this isn't something she could just foresee. There's no way she could do that."

Saying that, as she continued down the stairs, she suddenly stopped and furrowed her brow, murmuring to herself.

'No, perhaps it's possible…'

Recently, Miho had been spending quite a long time with Serena. In fact, except for Serena's confidant and Frey, she had developed a more unspoken connection with her than anyone else.

Also, because of that, she had noticed that Serena was different at night.

In the morning, Serena would display a slight tendency towards showiness as well as her cute side. However, at night she would transform into someone dark and full of secrets.

During those nighttimes, Serena could handle unsolved cases from the day and come up with amazing strategies or ideas in an instant.

"What the hell… is she actually?"

Thanks to this, when Miho, who had experienced quite a few strange things after leaving the Eastern Continent, thought about this, she couldn't help but shake her head.

'Now that I think about it, what's the true identity of that Lulu, that dog beastkin?

She narrowed her eyes.

For a while, Lulu had been murmuring while licking Frey. Then suddenly, Lulu looked out the window and began growling. Miho turned her head toward Frey's room, in the direction Lulu had been facing.

'That energy… It was definitely the same as the intense feeling I had in the slave market.'

When she transformed into a mid-boss at the slave market, it was undoubtedly another time of her going berserk, possibly by someone else's influence.

Why did she feel the same malicious ruby-colored energy and intense feeling from Lulu, who was looking down from the window?

"Is there something outside the window?"

Thinking that perhaps there was someone outside the window sent to assassinate that scoundrel, Miho quietly approached the mansion's window once she arrived at the first floor and gazed outside.

"Hmm."

However, what entered her sight was not an assassin.

The area around the mansion was crowded with protesters.

"How pitiful."

Miho unconsciously whispered to herself as she watched how these people of the fiefdom, whom Frey most likely had never seen before, were engulfed in collective anger, throwing stones and shouting.

"Huh?"

Soon, she made a perplexed expression.

"W-What? Did I just say how pitiful…? For that trash?"

Of course, if the frail-looking handsome boy was coughing up blood and collapsed on his last legs, it was only natural to feel pity.

But as far as she knew, he was the greatest scoundrel in the empire and a villain. There was no need for sympathy…Yet why did that thought suddenly arise?

"Purrrr…"

Shaking her head vigorously, Miho reasoned it must have been a groundless thought due to past concerns, like being forced into a kiss or lying atop him. She was about to fall from the window in her turmoil when…

"Hngg?"

She suddenly tilted her head.

"…What's going on there?"

All the protesters gathered in front of the mansion suddenly knelt and lay prostrate.

"…..???"

Observing the bizarre sight unfold, she wondered if some strange occurrence was taking place, like the peculiar events with Serena on their journey. Perking her ears, Miho carefully surveyed the situation.

– Ding-dong…! Ding-dong…!

"Huh? Is that Serena?"

When the mansion's doorbell rang, she approached the entrance.

"We should probably get out of here quickly. This place is very dangerous."

As she opened the door, ready to leave this house, Miho, who had always thought of Serena as eccentric, couldn't help but feel quite cheerful at the thought of meeting Serena, whom she had unwittingly come to rely on.

"Ah…"

Soon, she froze in place.

"Oh my, a cute fox beastkin, isn't it?"

It was the second in line for the imperial succession, the First Imperial Princess.

"…Hiccup."

At the same time, she was also on the top list of dangerous individuals that the Nighttime Serena had compiled.

1st place: Rifael Solar Sunrise

[In summary, a vixen.]

[Her benefactor was none other than Frey and yet she was an idiot who was unaware of this and had fallen into corruption]

And that very person was standing right before her.

She had a stunningly beautiful appearance, yet for some reason, Imperial Princess Rifael gave her an inexplicable shiver.

[She's on the same level as that damn fool Rose Bitch.]

You can read 505 episodes for $10. p.*atreon.com/Astrid02