Chapter 6: Dawn

The first rays of morning sunlight streamed through the iron bars of the window, falling across Gima’s small, expressionless face.

Normally, she adored sleeping in and would have snoozed until noon. But hunger was the world’s most effective, and most annoying, alarm clock. It had already woken her four or five times. Giving up, she simply lay there with her eyes open, begrudgingly welcoming the morning.

Educated by the harsh teachers of hunger and ambition, Gima had made a decision. She would have to temporarily… set aside her manly dignity.

“For the sake of revenge, the great King Goujian was willing to eat his enemy's actual shit,” Gima muttered to herself in a solemn pep talk. “So what if I eat a little bit of that stuff? In essence, it’s just a liquid. A protein-rich, slightly smelly liquid.”

Having mentally prepared herself for the ultimate sacrifice, Gima began to face the problem head-on.

Wait a minute… Gima suddenly realized she had overlooked something crucial. She quickly opened her personal information panel again and scrolled to the supernatural abilities section. It was still infuriatingly locked.

>Succubus Supernatural Abilities: [Locked]. You have not consumed the power of lust and therefore cannot activate your supernatural abilities. It is recommended that you consume at least 10mL of chestnut-flavored liquid.

She had fallen into a mental trap! It recommended consuming the liquid; it didn't say it was absolutely required. As long as she absorbed the power of lust, she would be fine.

She frantically opened the Succubus Encyclopedia and searched for the "A Beginner's Guide to Harvesting Lust." Finally, she found the information she was looking for.

>As long as you entice a member of the opposite sex into a state of arousal and remain within three meters of them, you can absorb their lust. If the target produces chestnut-flavored liquid within a short period, you may absorb the power of lust through simple physical contact.

Gima breathed a huge, shuddering sigh of relief. At least it wasn't a method as disgusting and humiliating as oral consumption.

>Note: When you use this primitive method to harvest lust, it will cause your "Alluring Aura" to increase dramatically. Some of your pores will open, releasing an intoxicating, irresistible fragrance. The target will gradually enter a frenzied state and will proceed to have his way with you again, and again, and again.

Gima took a deep, shaky breath. This was far too dangerous. She was small now, still technically a child. How could she possibly do that kind of thing?

>Of course, for a succubus, this is nothing to worry about.

It’s very important, okay?! I’m going to be a virgin succubus, dammit!

The hungry Gima snapped her personal information panel shut. The cheat system could help her understand her new body, but it couldn't act for her.

Now, she had two choices.

First, “request the packet” from a member of the opposite sex. Since she wouldn't be the one arousing them, she could only obtain her meal through oral consumption.

Second, use the succubus method to “obtain the packet.” Arouse a member of the opposite sex. This method was far less disgusting. The risk was that the other party might get a little too enthusiastic and decide to “deliver the full packet” directly to her "door," forcefully.

In the Holy Sanctuary, there was only one member of the opposite sex she was even remotely familiar with: her sworn enemy, George. He was her only target.

The thought of orally consuming her enemy’s that made a chill run down Gima’s spine.

“Right. The second option it is.”

“As long as I use my body language to entice him when we’re together, do a few little flirty things, that should be enough to get the motor running. If he starts to suspect something is wrong, I can just play innocent and trick him. Besides, George is the safest possible target in the entire world.”

The more Gima thought about it, the more brilliant the second option seemed.

What could possibly be safer than a bona fide “herbivore man”? She even suspected George might have some unspeakable problem down there. If it were her, surrounded by two beautiful, hero-worshipping women, she would have had a litter of children by now.

Having settled on a rough plan, Gima just needed an opportunity.

That afternoon, the opportunity arrived. Amidst her escalating worry and gnawing hunger, Gima received some wonderful news.

“You can leave the cell,” said one of the burly matrons, a war hammer hanging casually from her belt. “The tribunal has declared you innocent, but you must follow George on the path of redemption.”

Praise the ancestors! George, you’re so damn loyal! If you hadn’t given me thirty NTR flags, we could have been the best of brothers.

A beatific smile bloomed on Gima’s face. “Thank you, George. And… thank you, God.”

The matron clearly didn't want to chat. She just waved a dismissive hand. “So, you’ll be staying at George’s house tonight. They’ve prepared a room for you there.”

“Huh?”

It’s like they’re offering free, door-to-door delivery service!

A short while later, escorted by the three burly matrons, Gima walked down the main road, her stomach grumbling a symphony of desperation the entire way, her expression suitably listless and tragic. The various clergy members who passed by all whispered and pointed at her, their faces a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity.

Gima pulled her hood down further. “I noticed you don’t call George a Hero anymore. Why is that?”

The matron, who had completely ignored Gima the entire way, turned her head and shot her a glare sharp enough to cut glass. “He was stripped of his title for harboring a demon like you.”

Gima’s tail gave a happy little wag beneath her cloak.

This is some sweet, sweet karma! If George hadn’t stormed my castle, stabbed me to death, and indirectly given me all those NTR flag, he wouldn’t have been tricked by me, and he wouldn’t have been stripped of his precious Hero title.

But amidst her profound joy, Gima felt a tiny, almost microscopic twinge of guilt. That small twinge, however, was quickly and gloriously washed away by a massive wave of excitement. It was the thrill of finding a rare, legendary-grade treasure just lying on the side of the road. Such a stupidly righteous Hero, delivered right to her doorstep just when she needed him most. The heavens must truly be smiling down on her.

George’s house was a small, simple, stone-built bungalow with a little vegetable garden and a quaint chimney on the roof.

“While in the Holy Sanctuary, you are not to wander around unless you are with a guardian,” the matron grunted. With that, she slammed the door shut, leaving Gima alone.

Gima glanced around the spartan interior. There wasn’t much furniture; the rooms were sparse and empty. A ceramic pot and some books were arranged with military precision on a plain wooden table.

For Gima, who was used to living in a magnificent palace, sleeping on a bed of enchanted feathers, walking on velvet carpets woven from the sighs of angels, and drinking from a cup carved from a single, massive ivory tusk, this was as crude and unpleasant as a straw hut.

“He’s a Hero, for crying out loud. Why does he live in such a hovel? He probably gave all his spoils of war to the Sanctuary. Religion really is the poison of the people. Tsk.”

Gima immediately began her intelligence-gathering operation. She planned to first understand her target, especially his sexual preferences. Knowing that would make her work at least fifty percent easier.

The house wasn’t large. There were two bedrooms, one of which was locked. After a quick search of all the other rooms, Gima determined this must be George’s private bedroom.

“In the 'nothing ever gets stolen' Holy Sanctuary, to have something as immoral and distrustful as a lock… It seems George doesn’t have much ‘faith confidence.’”

After fiddling with the heavy iron lock for a moment, Gima confirmed that there was no way she could open it. She didn’t know how to pick locks.

If I were George… She put herself in his shoes and, based on her extensive experience as a man, came to a very logical hypothesis. …If it were me, I’d definitely forget my key sometimes.

Well, men are always a bit careless. He probably hid a spare key in some obvious, cliché corner.

Gima immediately began to search the house with the focus of a master detective. She lifted the doormat, overturned a weedy flowerpot, and finally, just as she’d predicted, she felt the cold, metallic shape of a key under a ceramic pot on the highest shelf of a dusty cabinet.

“I’m an absolute genius.”

Gima hopped down from the chair she’d used to climb up, put it back in its proper place, and, with her tail wagging in triumph, ran to George’s bedroom door. She lined up the key with the keyhole, inserted it, gave it a satisfying twist, and with a sweet, melodious click, the door swung open.

A faint scent of clean soap wafted out. The first thing she saw was a plain wooden bed pushed against the wall, covered with a simple straw mat. A blanket was folded into a perfect, unforgiving brick and placed next to the pillow. Other than that, there was only a wooden rack for his armor, a cabinet, and a desk with ink and a pen. A neat stack of books sat on a bookshelf. A closer look revealed they were all, without exception, various works of dense, boring theology.

Gima sniffed the air dramatically. “No scent of chestnut. That means either he doesn’t have the habit of choking the chicken, or he’s obsessively, pathologically diligent about cleaning up afterwards.”

George was still young; back on Earth, he’d be a senior in high school, the prime age for raging, uncontrollable hormones. Although Gima was firmly convinced that religion was a scourge upon all sensible life, she didn’t believe that reading scriptures could truly extinguish desire. That wasn’t scripture; that was just castration.

There must be some “f*pping materials” hidden here somewhere.

Based on her own vast experience as a man, Gima began to look for anything even vaguely related to the female form, even poorly drawn illustrations where you couldn’t tell the gender without looking at the clothes. When a young man gets horny, anything that even faintly reminds him of the opposite sex can be transformed into prime f*pping materials.

Before long, Gima found four books with pictures of women. Three were dry theology books, and one was The Monster Manual—An Encyclopedia of Evil Enemies. The monsters in the manual were drawn quite well, she had to admit, but the only thing even remotely female was a particularly ugly female goblin.

Gima couldn’t help but speculate whether George had performed any unspeakably blasphemous acts with the poorly drawn, androgynous images of the Holy Mother in the theology books.

After a fruitless search, she put the books back in their original, perfect positions.

“There must be f*pping materials here. Unless he’s not a real man, or the materials are stored somewhere else? Impossible. They have to be in his super-secret bedroom stash.”

As Gima was putting The Monster Manual—An Encyclopedia of Evil Enemies back on the shelf, she suddenly noticed that it was only the first volume. She quickly opened the table of contents and saw that the monsters were sorted alphabetically.

The famously erotic, and artistically inspiring, monster—the succubus—would be sorted later in the alphabet, most likely in the second or third volume. She searched again and found the middle volume, but she couldn’t find the last one anywhere. According to the alphabetical order, the last volume would contain several very alluringly shaped, and very evil, female monsters.

“With his status, it’s impossible for him not to have the last volume,” Gima whistled, a smirk on her face. “Case closed. He probably jerked off to it so much that he threw away the last volume in a desperate attempt to curb his urges.”

“But I don’t think it’s possible to completely stop choking the chicken. So… he might be making his own ‘f*pping materials’!”

Gima had personal experience with this. When she was still a human on Earth, she liked to write short, lewd story segments by hand to serve as her own private f*pping materials.

Something so shameful and secret would definitely be hidden in a very, very secret place. She quickly got on the floor and searched under the bed. As expected, she found nothing but dust bunnies.

“Hmph. Just as I predicted. Too obvious.”

Gima immediately climbed onto the bed and lifted the pillow. “Tsk. As one man to another, how could I not find his secret chamber?”

With that, she grabbed the straw mat and pulled it back. Underneath was a pale, clean bedsheet. And sure enough, tucked neatly under the bedsheet, she found a few carefully folded pieces of paper.

“You damn virgin. I never thought we were kindred spirits in this regard.”

The thought of finally understanding her enemy’s deepest, darkest sexual preferences, and thus increasing her chances of a successful seduction, filled her with a primal hunter's thrill. Her pale golden tail wagged back and forth in giddy anticipation.

She eagerly unfolded the clean white paper. The first thing she saw was a drawing of a long-eared girl. The artistry was quite good; she had a very generous chest and impressively long legs.

“Tsk, tsk. Not bad at all. I didn’t think he was such a pro artist.”

But what was strange was that this was supposed to be an elf, yet she had a long, smooth, demonic-looking tail wrapped suggestively around her own thigh.

The second drawing was a sketch of a noble lady in a tight metal corset. She also had a smooth, elegant tail.

The third, a beautiful angel lady with magnificent wings, also had a tail.

The more Gima looked, the more frightened she became. The triumphant smile on her face gradually disappeared.

The fifth and final drawing was of a sexy, scantily clad woman sensually kissing the tip of her own tail.

They all had tails. The damn virgin Hero was a massive, unrepentant tail fetishist.

Gima swallowed hard, a lump forming in her throat. She slowly, fearfully, turned her head and looked at the long, slender tail rising behind her. It was the exact same type as the ones in the drawings.

She suddenly felt that the second option was not, in fact, so good after all.

Oh shit, I never thought this righteous gentleman George was secretly a complete tail-con. What a damn hypocrite!

Just then, the sound of the front door closing echoed through the small house…