Chapter 130: 122. Field Town, Part 4: Indulgence

122. Field Town, Part 4: Indulgence

With that resolved, we can address something long overdue—Getting my gal Gabby her next evolution.

I lay a hand on beansprout boy’s shoulder, “How’s it hanging, sport?”

“Wha?”

“Human lingo; never mind. Like what you see?” I motion at the commotion of the monsters feasting and fucking with the Fruit Nymphs. Head nod. He’s so distracted by the sight he won’t make eye contact as he responds. “But not ready to dive in?”

That gets his attention. He glances at me and flushes. “Um, no, I… It’s a lot.”

I nod sympathetically. “That’s the deep end, kid. You want to start with something that’ll get your feet wet where you won’t drown if you slip.”

“I—what?” He’s completely lost the metaphor.

I take him by the shoulders and point him at my Goblin wife, who doffs her robes to reveal two glorious, pendulous orbs of green feminine splendor. His eyes go wide as saucers.

“Gabby here is fully prepared to let you play with her assets to your heart’s content. When you’re ready, she’ll even help you finish. You’ve masturbated before, right? No? Wow, you’re adorable! Well, she knows her way around a rod too, so she can help with that as well. All she wants is for you to let her have whatever comes out, alright?”

He nods absently, still transfixed by Gabby’s naked form.

Then I turn to her. “No funny business, alright? Nothing kinky. He’s eighteen but, you know.” I mouth the word, ‘virgin’ at her.

She nods at me; I don’t even see a Twisted rod between her legs at the moment. “I understand, Alex. Even a greedy Goblin such as myself can be gentle with an ingenue for a few minutes.”

The two of them step away from the chaos to extract some ethically sourced Mandragora nectar.

As I keep an eye on the two of them, choosing not to indulge in the feast myself until the day is fully through, Flou2 shlorps over toward me in her bunny-eared Fuzzy Slime form. “Alex, Suka just returned to the Lizardman Oasis!”

“I knew I forgot an introduction, earlier! Flou, where have you been?”

“Keeping an eye on the Away Team, but I heard everything, Lady Mayoress.”

I blush. “What I did was necessary. Monsters need a unifying element to come together peacefully. A human Mayor works for my hometown, so I figured I’d do the same thing on this side of the Forest.”

“Not doubting you for a second, boss,” Flou2 says, then proceeds to tell me everything that happened on Suka’s side up until she went off to challenge herself using the Cactus Turret. Sheesh. The Eastern Desert is no joke; there are essentially three third-tier monsters vying for control of that one area.

“Okay, put me through to them, please.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Go for it, over.”

“Suka, Dura, Lucinia, how are things?” I ask through the Flou-phone. “We’re back at the Hut—well, it’s Field Town, now. Long story. Hey, are you a long way off?” Ideally, it’d be great if Suka’s team could join the Elder Tree raid.

I hear some oddly sexual grunting coming from the other end of the line. What’s going on over there? Then I hear Suka’s voice. “Hey, Alex! Guess what? I evolved into an awesome monster! Yeah, everyone is alive and well. I don’t think we can make it back before dark, though. There’s a big monster in the way that senses heavy footfalls. I lost my wolf form, so we’ll have to tiptoe past it slowly since I can’t carry everyone. But I’m way faster by myself. Say the word, and I’ll be there in a heartbeat. Are Megan and the others alright?”

“You lost what? Nevermind. Yes, no losses on our side. No, Flou said you picked up a few new friends, so make sure they all make it here safe. We have a fight to pick and can’t wait for you; there’s too much left to do today. We’re already pushing the limit while expecting to get a decent night’s sleep after the orgy.”

“Orgy?” a small, male voice pipes up, sounding intrigued but mostly skeptical.

“Orgy?” a husky, but small female voice asks with clear avid interest.

“Yeah, I expect it’ll be a doozy. Who dat? They sound cute. Wait, I don’t have time for this.” Gabby will want to go fight the Elder Tree as soon as she’s done with beansprout boy. I need to wrap up my loose ends before I’m shoved out the proverbial door. “Introductions later. I have to get ready for a fight. Love you all, kisses, bye!”

“Over and out,” Flou2 ends the transmission.

“Thanks again, Flou,” I tell her. “Today would’ve been crazy stressful without you. Being able to communicate between our groups is a game-changer. Did you say hello to Megan or come straight to me?” Her silence tells me everything. “She watched you die at the Spring, Flou. I know she’s worried about you even if she doesn’t say anything. Don’t be a stranger just because you’re a Slime, now. Go see your family, and that’s an order.”

I need to evolve Flou into something with a humanoid body. It seems spending all her time as inanimate objects is rubbing off on her personality.

“…Will do, boss.”

“Before you go, and I hate to talk business after telling you to take a break, but how long will it take to replace Flou3?”

“At least a day.”

Damn, I need all hands on deck if we’re going to raid the Elder Tree. “Take this.” I have Olindia fetch my last spare Subjugated Slime core from uterine storage and give it to Flou. Getting more of these is a big reason to visit the Misty Grove tomorrow.

My Fuzzy Slime companion consumes the blank core, absorbing it into her being before using it to duplicate herself into a Swarm Slime clone. Flou3 is back in action!

“Hey, boss, I’mma head out,” Olindia says as she decants herself from my core. I give her a thumbs up and the Pink Jellyfish Slime goes to take her reward from all the cute boys at my party.

Both Flou2 and Flou3 go to join the orgy

feasting and reunite with Megan, Cottontail, and Lois twice as fast. Good. I’d have sent her away if she tried to leave a Slime clone with me.

“Vermillion, a moment of your time?” Spindle says from startlingly close behind me.

“Will it be quick? Gabby will want to leave as soon as she’s done with the Mandragora.”

“Miss Goblin appears to be having a little trouble, as a matter of fact. Sparing a few minutes shouldn’t impact anything.”

Looking over, I see beansprout boy is easily overwhelmed by every attempt Gabby makes to finish him quickly. But rather than being a quick shot, his member stubbornly refuses to reach a crescendo. Thankfully, he seems to be enjoying himself even if Gabby is a bit frustrated with the situation. She’s a big girl, though, and I doubt she’ll blow up on the kid.

“Then shoot.” The Wicked Webling’s expression seems oddly complicated. I sense a dozen conflicting emotions behind her cunning gaze. Reading her right now somehow feels like an impossible task.

“Would you say Spindle has been… good?”

“Um, if this is because I said you were evil, earlier…” I wasn’t being serious! I’m not prepared to have an existential conversation about what makes a person good or evil—their intentions, emotions, or strictly their actions and consequences. Such conversations are best had while drunk, and we didn’t manage to capture a Booze Nymph today.

“No, no. ‘Good,’ as in, ‘obedient,’ ‘trustworthy,’ ‘faithful,’ ‘reliable,’ ‘hardworking,’ ‘productive,’ and ‘conscientious.’ Today, Spindle has been good, yes?”

I nod. “Absolutely. I’ve never met a goodlier evil person.” Spindle has been extremely helpful since I met her in direct contrast with the nature of her Dark Magic evolution.

“Excellent.” The Webling flashes me a winning smile, bearing a pair of fangs I well know hold both mind-blowing aphrodisiac venom and a deathly vampiric drain. “Spindle is happy you feel that way, Vermillion. She aims to please. Since that’s the case, perhaps she can beg from you an… indulgence?”

“A what?” Where is she going with this?

“It’s an ancient human concept from one of their extinct religions. Consider it a ‘Permit’ to do something bad as a reward for having done lots of good.”

“I’m not letting you corrupt anyone.” Some things are off the table.

“Of course, of course, that wouldn’t make sense at this juncture. Her request is much smaller. Spindle happened to overhear the Fuzzy Slime’s report. You have a mess on your hands with this Goblin Sheikh. One could say cleaning up messes is the main responsibility of your Maid.”

I finally get it after all her beating around the bush, though it doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s an odd choice, to say the least. “Why pick a fight with the Sheikh?”

“Hearing of the Sheikh’s magic sparked an instinctual interest in Spindle. Perhaps she can learn something given time to study it. Perhaps not. There are no certainties in life.”

“So, you want to join the next Opal retrieval team?”

She slowly shakes her head in the negative, her lids lowered into predatory glinting slits. “Send Spindle alone.”

I blink in shock. “How can you possibly hope to fight a third-tier single-handed? According to what Suka found out, it sounds like he could even be a Leadership type. That’s crazy. No, it’s suicide.”

“Conquering more powerful monsters is one of her favorite hobbies. He will be as a fly in her web.” The Wicked Weaver opens her luminescent purple eyes glinting with malicious madness and raises them to me. A shiver runs down my spine. “Give Spindle twenty-four hours with the freedom to act at her discretion. At the end of the allotted time, Vermillion will have her Opal and even the captured Kobolds returned unharmed and uncorrupted. That is the deal.”

Hmm, it sure looks like a great deal. I know better than to doubt the Webling’s ability to keep up her end of the bargain even if she doesn’t want to explain how she’ll make it happen. Spindle is just that scary. “And the Sand Goblins?” I ask.

She shrugs, “You were going to kill them anyway. What does it matter?”

The Wicked Weaver has a point. In what scenario were we going to defeat the Goblin Sheikh and rescue Opal while sparing his thralls? I may be a friendly, peaceable gal, but this isn’t Pacifist Mode.

“Sleep on it,” she urges. “You have until tomorrow morning to decide.”

“An ‘Indulgence,’ huh? Are you thinking that allowing yourself to run wild will blow off some steam? Make being ‘good,’ easier? Isn’t there a chance that feeding that side of yourself will make the darkness stronger instead?”

Spindle titters like tinkling glass as her fangs glitter in the fading light. “Oh, but Vermillion, that’s the fun of it! Which could it be? We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”

I shudder to find her seemingly enthralled with either outcome. Whether it’s denial or release, an edging fetishist is always having fun.

“Is that why you wanted the job of protecting the Sweet Bee larvae?” I ask, curious. “Please don’t tell me you’re getting off on this. I don’t want them inheriting your weird kinks, um, no offense.”

The spider girl laughs away any insult I may have given. “Worry not, Vermillion. You carefully instructed Spindle to ‘nurture’ the apoid larvae. Otherwise, with a simpleminded direction to merely ‘protect’ their mortal shells, she may have exploited a loophole to pervert their spirits during her stint as a caretaker.”

“That choice of words was your idea, though…”

“So it was.” The Webling tilts her head slightly and looks at me, her expression suddenly soft and vulnerable. “Spindle may have decided to torture herself.”

“T-torture?!?” The thought of my lovely lady spider in pain is anathema to me. The urge to destroy the source of her discomfort swells in my chest like a geyser on the verge of eruption.

“Be at ease. As she said before, she witnessed the shattering of her mind within the prison of her body during her transformation. Most victims of corruption would either be seduced to madness by their potent new iniquitous instincts or have their souls become prisoners trapped within the iron cage of their master’s malevolent ordinances. Spindle is uniquely blessed to know you, Vermillion.

“That connection gave her the opportunity to subtly twist what she became. The old Spindle that would hate her current self is long since eroded, but this Wicked Spindle inherited the original’s perverse delight in thwarting her destructive impulses. To torture herself yields the most exquisite satisfaction. Like putting one’s hand into a flame—but fun.”

“Will caring for the Bee Girls be that painful?” I half-consider ordering Spindle to give the job to someone else to protect her from herself.

She flashes me a fanged grin. “Vermillion, do you have any idea what abominable horrors she could create with those ten flawless gems? That’s how Corruption works, after all. The more pure, innocent, and wonderful, the more extreme and powerful the dark metamorphosis. A Corrupted Moleman, for example, would be a lackluster individual barely worth the effort. But with a cleansed Bee Girl larvae full of limitless potential as the clay to work with… Using your Pacification Milk was a stroke of genius, by the way. Murder Hornets breed true; you did the impossible by converting the Grubbin.” I don’t have the heart to tell her it was a total accident. “To discover the milk’s hidden purification aspect—there must be a burgeoning connection to Light Magic within you. Containing the capacity for both Light and Darkness… what is the true nature of an Echidna?

“At any rate, Spindle’s wicked instincts scream, cry, barter, and beg for the chance to Corrupt her precious wards. It’s like putting a cool drink of water before a man dying of thirst or a bunny shaking their sumptuous ass in a starving Dire Wolf’s face. That is the torture of which Spindle speaks. To raise these apoid children to be good little girls, to birth and hatch the Kobold egg growing in her belly, these things will be pure agony to her Wicked sensibilities.

“And that is why Spindle wants them so badly. It will be the sweetest vengeance against the corruption inside her. Every moment her joyful torment. The ultimate denial of her nature. It will be… beautiful.”

Spindle’s blue skin glistens with perspiration from the intensity of her tirade, defiant eyes gleaming with contained insanity. There’s something hauntingly lovely about the scene. I can’t help my gaze lingering on the gorgeous Webling. I picture her spending years in the underground subsisting on rats so she could play ‘catch and release’ with her fragile Kobold lovers who in turn enjoyed their time with her. “You must have been an amazingly good person, before, if you’re this wonderful after being corrupted. I’m sorry I hardly got the chance to know you who you were.”

“Vermillion, you and her both know all Spindle was or ever will be is an irredeemable pervert.”