Kala, hearing the mention of rest, exhaled so deeply that her natural amaranth armor creaked against her chest.
"Finally... I thought those cursed boulders were going to snap my shoulders," she grunted, wiping grime from her cheek with the back of her hand.
Mina immediately nodded eagerly. "Yes, yes! I am totally spent! My complexion has lost its luster from all this dust, and my wings are officially on strike!" she chirped, before sticking her tongue out maliciously at Kala.
A thick vein immediately began to throb on the warrior's forehead. Kala clenched her fists, ready to lunge at the little provocateur, but before she could roar, Lilith cleared her throat uncertainly, drawing their attention.
"Eee... listen, guys," Lilith started, nervously fidgeting with her sharp talons. She felt a bit guilty seeing their exhaustion, especially since she was feeling the weight of the day herself, but the numbers in her interface wouldn't let her rest.
"I know you've worked incredibly hard all day, and I truly appreciate everything you've done, but..."
She looked at them with a sincere, somewhat apologetic smile - the look of a Monarch who has to ask for overtime.
"If you wouldn't have a huge problem with it... what would you say to hunting some more creatures in the forest?" she blurted out quickly. "I want to make the most of this absurd situation in the Demon King market. Right now, our meat is selling for a fortune, but we don't know how long this famine will last. If we rake in a massive hoard of gold now, we can buy rare artifacts and magic buildings or something like that from the trade menu."
Mina's face instantly soured, as if she'd suddenly bitten into a lemon. "But Lilith... my legs hurt! This is inhumane!" she started whining like the most spoiled child on earth.
Kala didn't silence her brutally this time; she stood in silence herself, shoulders slightly slumped, clearly wrestling with the idea. The vision of more hours in the thicket didn't exactly fill her with optimism.
However, the argument of gold and territorial power slowly began to take root in their minds. Only Lysandra stood unmoved, hands folded over her lower abdomen, accepting her Lady's will without a blink.
Suddenly, Mina's mood flipped a hundred and eighty degrees. She ran to Lilith and grabbed her leg, hugging her cheek to Lilith's thigh. She looked up at her with those big, sweet, green eyes.
"Since you want it, Lilith... and since it will really help our territory become the strongest... Mina is happy to help!" she cried out with sudden enthusiasm.
Lilith felt a wave of relief and smiled warmly, about to thank her for the sacrifice, but then Mina raised one finger, and her smile became disturbingly innocent.
"But we have one condition," she whispered in a sweet, honeyed voice.
Lilith tilted her head slightly, narrowing her eyes. "A condition? What condition?"
Mina blushed slightly, though a predatory glint characteristic of their race lurked in her gaze. "When we finish... and come back with all that meat..." she began, lowering her voice to an intimate whisper, "you'll have to play with us."
Lysandra, hearing Mina's bold proposal, sharply sucked in a breath, her hand already beginning to trace a silencing gesture in the air. She didn't get to say a word, though. In a fraction of a second, Kala materialized behind her.
In her human form, the warrior moved with the grace of a predatory cat. She wrapped a strong arm around Lysandra and firmly covered her mouth with the other hand, stifling any protest.
Lysandra shot her a murderous look, her icy blue eyes throwing lightning, but Kala only smiled hungrily. She leaned close to the white-haired Succubus's ear and whispered in a voice thick with promise:
"We know very well, Lysandra, that you want to play a bit with our Lilith too... Let Mina take the lead. We work hard, so we deserve a reward, right?"
Lysandra's eyes flared with the urge to fight for a moment, but Kala's words hit home. After a second, the tension left her body and she stopped resisting, though she still looked somewhat reluctant. Kala, seeing this, released her with satisfaction, and both turned their gaze back to the little "negotiator."
Lilith stood rooted to the spot, her mind in total chaos. "Play?" she repeated mechanically, while her imagination - fueled by Succubus instincts - began generating images that made her blood race.
Mina, sensing she was close to victory, began to innocently twine her fingers together, then pointed at Lilith's impressive breasts. "If you wouldn't have a problem with it... we'd like to play with your breasts a little," she said sweetly, narrowing her eyes.
Lilith felt a wave of massive embarrassment. Her first reaction was to firmly refuse, but when her gaze met Mina's "puppy dog eyes," she wavered. Her mind began feverishly searching for a rationalization.
They worked like crazy today... I really demanded a lot from them, she thought, trying to calm her thumping heart. I'm a Succubus myself after all, maybe it won't be so bad? It's just... an energy exchange, right?
The vision of three beautiful demonesses focused on her chest made her feel a sudden heat spreading from her stomach upward. Her purple mark above her womb glowed faintly with violet light, responding to the burgeoning arousal. The girls, seeing that glow, smiled at each other knowingly.
Ultimately, greed and a growing curiosity won out over shyness. She looked at Mina and gave an uncertain nod.
That was the starting gun. Mina squealed with joy, threw herself at Lilith, squeezing her waist, and then shifted into her demonic form in a split second. With a green flash of her wings, she shot toward the forest at a speed Lilith had never seen from her before.
"What the… "
Lilith didn't get to finish because Kala and Lysandra underwent their transformations as well. The gust from their wings nearly knocked her off her feet as they both raced after Mina.
Lilith watched them in stunned silence. "Just a moment ago they could barely stand..." she muttered to herself, smoothing her hair. "Do they really want to get their hands on my breasts that badly?"
Instinctively, she lifted her hands and lightly supported her bust, feeling its weight and the smoothness of her armor. The delicate touch of her own fingers sent a shiver of pleasure through her, which she quickly suppressed, reminding herself of the mountains of gold waiting in the forest.
"Whatever. Gold doesn't earn itself," she whispered with a greedy smile and, unfurling her night-black wings, flew after her subordinates into the deep, dark woods.
***
Lilith hovered over the clearing, her black wings rhythmically slicing through the cool forest air. Golden notification letters bloomed before her eyes every few moments; she treated them almost like a soothing lullaby now.
[TRADE SUCCESSFUL! YOU HAVE GAINED 15 GOLD!]
[TRADE SUCCESSFUL! YOU HAVE GAINED 15 GOLD!]
"Fifteen gold a piece..." she sighed, performing a lightning-fast bank and ending the life of another Unicorn-deer with a single slash of her talons. "The price dropped from twenty-five; the market is slowly saturating, or the others just have nothing left to pay with. But still... it's pure profit."
She snapped her fingers, and the monster's carcass dematerialized in violet sparks, landing straight in her inventory.
"This is simply magical," she murmured in admiration. "No wagons, no field dressing, just a 'click' and I have the goods in my pocket. Good thing I talked the girls into this hunt. If we let up now, these coins would go to someone else."
Suddenly, the image of Mina's and Kala's hands wandering over her body popped back into her mind, causing a sudden flash of heat. She shook her head violently, throwing her raven hair back over her shoulders.
Focus, Lilith! Money first, play... later, she scolded herself mentally, and to distract herself, she opened the global chat window.
What she saw there confirmed her belief that she was living in true luxury compared to the rest of her "colleagues."
"Please, someone lower the meat prices! My servants have started eating their own fingers because I have nothing to feed them. This territory is a fucking desert, there aren't even lizards here!"
"I bought 'delicious bird meat' for 15 gold, and my underwater units just spat it out. Does anyone have fish? I'll give 20 gold for a kilo of raw salmon, my whole personal guard is about to drop!"
"Some Lilith is making a fortune off us. Fifteen gold for a bird? It's robbery! But what can I do... only poisonous mushrooms grow in my caves, and after eating them my warriors go berserk and attack me instead of intruders..."
"At least you don't have to spend money on maintaining your energy... but the necromantic energy costs are killing me. I have no gold for new units because everything goes to sustaining the ones I have. This world is a poverty simulator, not a Demon King sim!"
Lilith closed the chat window with a faint, pitying smile.
Poor bastards... she thought, looking over her vibrant kingdom. Maybe being a Succubus in a territory like this - where the forest provides an infinite supply of food and we don't even have to eat it to survive - isn't so bad after all... On the contrary, it's the perfect start.
In the distance, she heard Mina's joyful shout and the sound of several trees breaking at once, meaning another batch of goods had just been "prepared" for shipping. Lilith felt a surge of pride - her treasury was swelling, her skeleton army was working, and this night promised to be... extremely interesting for her territory's earnings.