Chapter 163

Albedo sat across from the official investigator and let the filthy insect touch her arm. She kept a smile on her face and resisted the urge to rip his hand off, tear his arm from his body, and beat him to death with it. "Really?" She asked, "How fascinating, you must be so very important."

The Crown Investigator, a chubby man with three chins, beady eyes and a stick up his ass, chortled heavily. "Yes, yes, it's a filthy job but we must keep the Kingdom incorruptible. I take great pride in my work."

"I'm sure you do." Albedo whispered in a dusky voice, her eyelids fluttering, "Sadly my heart belongs to another, a man of supreme wealth and greatness, only someone who rises to the heights of society could truly catch my eyes. Your work is important, but of course you're so underpaid, underappreciated, undersupported, and nobody gives you the respect you're due for your status…" Her honeyed words wormed their way into the man's heart, and she could practically read his thoughts as his deep set eyes darkened.

'She's right… I'm letting myself be used for nothing, everybody else gets rich, I try so hard to stop it, nobody cares. I've got no woman, no proper respect… it's only money and power that brings happiness, and I don't have enough of either… maybe if I just… just for the minor cases brought to me, looked the other way for a cut of the profits…? Just enough to get what I really deserve… it's not like it'll hurt anyone seriously…' His jowls flapped about as he shuddered with frustration and outrage.

Albedo propped her head up on her hand, her chin in her palm, elbow on the table and watched as the doppelganger approached, disguised, to Albedo's near disgust, as someone very close to Shalltear in appearance, the official investigator was hooked. 'In hours he'll be balls deep, in a day he'd sell his clothes for another taste, and by evening tomorrow he'll sell the favor of his office. So much for the official investigation. All I'll need to do is make sure a few 'leaks' about corruption get out.'

She stood up, "Excuse me," she said, resting her fingertips on the table and giving him a respectful half bow, "I have something else I must do, I hope that information was helpful to you."

"Y-Yes, it was." He nodded rapidly and gestured to Albedo's chair as the disguised overseer vacated his presence. Within seconds the doppelganger agent was tittering at his touches, utterly bedeviled, and before Albedo was even out of sight, she heard the official proposing that they go back to his quarters to 'talk' and offering to take her shopping.

'With the information I've provided to him on my successes, the investigators will know whom to take bribes from, the corruption and its high cost will deepen, prices will go up, trust in the courts will decline, everything is going according to my Lord's masterful plan.' Albedo laughed as she sashayed herself out of view, opened the gate, and went to another city to repeat the process.

Albedo stepped out of the Gate and into the city of Wenmark, one of the greatest cities in the Southern Holy Kingdom, with over half of their mines for adamantite, orichalcum, and mithril. It was situated at a large lake at the end of a long river, and it smelled wonderfully of absolute misery and despair.

The trade in elven slaves captured by the Slane Theocracy and sold to their sister Kingdom, almost always led the captives to Wenmark where the demand for back breaking labor was greatest.

The mistreatment of the elf population was worse there than anywhere else, and that was obvious right away. Though to Albedo, it was simply unimportant, what was important was how easy it would be to undermine such a delicate balance. 'My master said to minimize losses, which of course means those who will never properly accept his rule, they can be removed.' Nothing in her mind was less likely to accept the rule of the Allfather than a group of fanatical human supremacists. If they couldn't even accept elves, they would never accept frogmen, or lizardmen, or dark elves, or the many other races that were being brought into her Master's Kingdom.

But first… she had to explore a little. Walking the streets of Wenmark, she saw little to recommend it.

The ores and wealth it promised was considerable, but the humans were especially disgusting. She watched as they swaggered around sneering at barely dressed elven slaves who walked bowed or chained, menial laborers taunted them and, at lewd hotels, elven prostitutes hawked their master's wares from the bedroom windows where they plied the trade they were sold into.

It was the cleanest human city Albedo had yet to see, it had the most wonderful scent of despair, misery, and vice that a succubus could ask for. And yet as her feet clicked over the stone, she could not have felt more disgusted with it all. A crisis or two would be all she needed to bring things to a head, and then it would not be long before… 'Yes, my Lord, my Love, you will join me again… how I long for you… ache for you… to show you… to shower you with my affection… if I can only show you… we'll be so happy…'

Albedo barely noticed where she was walking while she thought, until she found herself in front of what amounted to human luxury, a place called 'The Golden Roan'. 'I suppose I need a hotel while I'm here… this will do.' Albedo mused and looked her reflection over in the glass. Her high class outfit was of woven green and golden silk threads, practical for walking or riding, her shoes were boots that came up to the tops of her calves, her shoulders had a simple crimson cape pinned into place for use in ill weather, even at a glance, she screamed 'money'.

She approached the front desk where a spindly human stared at her for a little too long, mesmerized by her radiance. "I need a room, not for long, just for a week or two." She didn't wait for an answer, she simply produced a handful of gold coins from her coin purse and dropped them on the table without bothering to count them. The clerk's eyes were drawn to the clinky coins and he licked his lips several times in rapid succession.

"A luxury suite, of course." He said and snatched a key from behind him as fast as he could. He rang a bell and a moment later a young half elven boy emerged from a nearby door, he wore iron chains at his wrists and his hands were calloused, but his blonde hair was well cared for and his face made up like a girl would be.

"I have no luggage, just show me to the room." Albedo said with disinterest.

"Th-This way, mistress." The boy wheeled about and hurried to the stairs.

Minutes later Albedo was in a luxuriously decorated room, thick mattress, clean bedding, even a private bath of stone. 'Pathetic. Nothing compared to home.'

Her thoughts were interrupted when a knock came to her door. 'Room service, no doubt.' Albedo realized.

"Enter." She snapped, and a nearly naked elven woman of long golden hair opened the door, closed it behind her, and knelt in deference.

"Mistress, my name is Illyana, the elf designated for the services of this room. Tell me how to please you."

'Oh how convenient, they've provided me with a source of information.' Albedo thought with a tiny smile on her ruby lips, her human guise was quite beautiful to behold, and it clearly threw the elf girl off a little, causing the blue eyed thing to sneak quick glances at her latest guest.

Albedo's succubus pheromones wafted over the slave, fogging her mind and confusing her senses, setting her both more at ease than ever, and also more anxious, all at the same moment. "You can tell me everything I want to know, slave, that is what you can do." Albedo said with a little laugh and sat down on the edge of the bed in reach of the female elf.

She put a hand on the woman's cheek, drifting it under the chin, and tilting her face upward. "Tell me everything… and then… then I will be pleased, and if you're good, you will be too, I think."