Chapter 1097: Chapter 1096: Contemplating Fiends (1)
Chapter 1097: Chapter 1096: Contemplating Fiends (1)
By the time everything was finished, I was sore beyond belief and regretting giving my lovers the freedoms that they currently had with me, though as I felt the all too familiar and welcome firmness of Jahi's arm as she laid beside me, that thought of mine drifted away as I snuggled into the less sore Demoness.
"We really do need to set some baselines, Kat... you cannot be doing any experimentations with that Lust Mana on your own anymore, not when we don't understand just what it is and how it affects not only you, but the people involved. We just don't know enough for me to feel comfortable letting you frolic about unhindered by worry or restraint."
She peeked down at me as she felt me rustling beside her, but before I could say anything to that she added "And that goes for you two as well, and of course I'll try to hold myself to the same standard... Anything that seems too dangerous, too complicated or too misunderstood needs to be analyzed by us all and studied by us all. I don't want us to end up walking down a path we could have avoided if we weren't so infatuated with learning no matter the cost." "Wow~! The Demoness wants to share the burden of hubris with all of her women no matter what-? How utterly charming of you, Bluey~! Amazing!"
Cali popped into being above us and grinned as she drifted around lazily, just like she always did whenever she showed up; it had become so common that none of us even jumped at that sudden appearance, though I did know that Leone was currently pulling some of the bedsheets onto herself to cover up.
"It's a good idea that I think would do us more good than anything else, Sla'Caligo. A different perspective looking at it in its entirety could help the one who actually uses or has that thing see it in a new way and understand it even more. You of all people shouldn't be making fun of me wanting Kat to study Lust Mana in controlled environments where we can help her."
That made the Arch Fiend pause as she stared intently at me for a few moments, before her grin returned with a vengeance as she lowered herself slightly to fix us with her heavy gaze, the lust inside almost palpable as she began to purr at whatever was going on in her head. The snakes around her head began to hiss and glare at the Arch Fiend, her thoughts shared to these adorable little noodles, and some of them turned to stretch out towards me as they hissed a greeting, the softer tone and expressions making me smile as I reached up and caressed them.
For once she ignored them entirely as she whispered "On one hand - logically - I agree with you, Bluey; if she does something stupid because she's so lost to this 'Lust' inside her, I would be rather angry at the loss of such a good contractee, but... Think about it; the kind of shenanigans that she of all people might get up to if she did lose herself to that 'Lust'~?" Reaching down for us both, Cali licked her lips and stroked our cheeks as she continued on, each passing moment spent hovering above us giving me the impression of a bastardized painting of something that was meant to be divine...
"You think that a mistaken stroke of some subpar mutt would have been the end of it if she didn't need to worry about being a good little wife to you three~? By the time you came across that alleyway, Bluey, your dear Dogkin woman would have been high on the thrills of making that mutt into a slave with nothing but a quick jerk of her hand and the flashing of her honeypot...
Like an ant to a trap, that mutt would have been ensnared completely by your oh so wonderful slut of a lover, and whenever said slut wanted a quick fix of attention she would just turn towards that mindless fool and flashed her a sultry smile... Trust me, I would NOT mind seeing that at all, though at the end of it all I think I would be disappointed, but still... it might just be worth the disappointment~!"
Giggling to herself, Cali pat our cheeks like we were children and floated upwards just out of reach, ensuring the Demoness couldn't grab her as she lost herself to that thought for a few seconds, leaving us to contemplate her words.
"Lose myself to it... and you made it sound like it wasn't my own lust driving me back then..? As much as I hate saying it, a part of me was - and always will be - aroused by being able to control a simpleton like that 'mutt' with just the bare minimum, but..."
Jahi squeezed my shoulder while Anput and Leone let out slightly choked and angry grunts as they sat up to glare at me, but I stared intently at Cali as I asked "You're saying that the Lust Mana itself actually works both ways, and that it does actively affect me if I'm not controlling it completely? Is that what you're hinting at? I was trying to use it to first muddle and then alter that 'mutt's' mind, but I wasn't really guarding myself from it since... well, I don't guard myself from my normal mana at all..."
Cali's grin widened yet again as she bobbed her head back and forth and hummed to herself, not saying a word to me whilst also telling me to continue on speculating, her eyes sparkling with a mixture of mischief and pride as she drifted around the ceiling.
"And earlier, with that other Fiend, I did have an odd moment where it just... slipped out of my control completely, like it was almost sentient with how it was fighting against me and doing what it could to escape..."
When I trailed off again and tried to connect a myriad of dots together in my mind, Cali rolled her eyes and shook her head as she said "You think too much in singular directions sometimes... You're pursuing the idea of it being sentient right now and not thinking about what might have MADE it sentient."
My eyes widened slightly as I stared at the Arch Fiend above, only for Leone to gasp as she said "The Fiend we fought... you said you sapped it of its lust to do anything at all, right? What if you didn't just sap it, but you actually removed it completely when you extracted that Lust Mana from it? And the reason it was fighting against your control was because it was no longer JUST your Lust Mana, but instead-"
"A combination of my Lust Mana and its... will? Its desires given a 'physical' form thanks to the mana it was now connected to? That... would make sense, yet it doesn't explain how-"
"It doesn't need to make sense to you right now, dear. The same way you can barely explain the concept of light and it having a certain amount of speed tied to it to a toddler, you wouldn't understand it even if I smacked you in the face with it. Few of your mortals actually understand Fiend Magics, and I love watching you flounder around trying to claim you do~!" Her snakes hissed at her for that, and this time she gently smacked the nose of one of them as she growled "I'm not being rude, I'm being honest! Quiet now, alright?!", which earned her another chorus of hisses as that one snake pulled back and looked at me with a rather pitiful gaze, like it was begging me to come to its aid.
"Don't you start now..."Nôv(el)B\\jnn
She let out a sigh and rolled her eyes, and before I could help the adorable noodle she turned towards Leone as the Vampire asked "Then does that mean my assumption that those members of the Fingers with contracts with Fiends are likely being double crossed in exchange for short term power? Or should we worry that there are a few amongst them that are sort of like you and how you have a contract with Kat?"
"I want to be irritated with you for insinuating that those other lesser Fiends could even be anything remotely similar to me, but I understand the semantics well, Vampire, and I appreciate the way you were moving earlier with Kat, so... I'll let it slide."
Leone turned crimson at that, the reminder that Cali was completely and unabashedly aware of what we did since she most definitely watched us go at it embarrassing my lover, but that didn't matter at all to Cali as she waved her hand and continued on without missing a beat.
"The likelihood of those contracts being genuine depends entirely on how pressured and how smart the mortals were. See, a contract with a Fiend is a funny thing; we aren't obligated to do much, but our word - when made into a pact - binds us completely until we do what we said we would do or die trying.
That's the reason you all don't need to worry about me turning Kat here into a fun puppet to play this game called life through; I could have her selling herself at a corner for a single copper before having her slaughter an entire village for fun because I find it amusing, but I promised and vowed to let her continue making her own choices, and I promised to not interfere with her life in those ways. I'm also a wonderful~ person in general, so there's that
too~!"