Lilith hovered over the clearing, the last few notifications blurring past her eyes, pulsing with a steady, calming glow against the backdrop of the territory's grey, eternally clouded skies.
[TRADE SUCCESSFUL! YOU HAVE GAINED 3 GOLD!]
[TRADE SUCCESSFUL! YOU HAVE GAINED 3 GOLD!]
[...]
[ALL YOUR ITEMS HAVE BEEN SOLD!]
The price for wolf meat had plummeted, but Lilith merely nodded with an expression of deep understanding. She opened her wealth status window and held her breath for a moment.
16,322 gold coins. Despite the crushing fatigue beginning to weigh on her bones, she couldn't suppress a broad, almost predatory grin. A rhythmic, dry sound reached her from below. She looked down to see a group of four skeletons fiercely hacking away at a fallen tree with their bone sabers, attempting - rather clumsily - to strip it of its branches.
Their progress was sluggish, and their movements lacked any semblance of grace, but Lilith simply waved it off.
"At least I'm not the one who has to do it," she muttered under her breath, banking into a circle and landing softly at the border of her territory.
For the last twelve hours - practically the entire night, though it was hard to tell since the sun hadn't pierced the thick, dark clouds once - they had hunted without respite. Despite the lack of light, the air in this region was surprisingly stifling and warm.
Lilith, still in her powerful demonic form, wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her left hand, feeling her black hair clinging to her temples.
"We've slaughtered just about everything that had the nerve to move in this forest..." she said to herself, looking out over the unnaturally silent thicket.
She smiled crookedly, wondering for a second if such a massacre would destabilize the local ecosystem, but she quickly dismissed the thought. The opportunity was too good to waste. Her intuition had been flawless - the golden age of high food prices was coming to an end.
She toyed with two of her talons, tapping them together with a rhythmic metallic clink while her analytical mind processed market data.
It's not that the other Lords suddenly stopped being hungry, she analyzed. The market has simply been flooded. I'm not the only person who thought to butcher everything in sight and put it up for sale. Some probably have hundreds of combat units clearing forests faster than the four of us, even if we are more powerful as individuals.
The competition to see who could offload their stock fastest had inevitably led to a price crash. Lilith knew that such an easy, rapid source of income likely wouldn't repeat itself.
"Well, I've got nothing to complain about," she whispered, eyeing the five-figure sum in her treasury. "With a fortune like this at the start, I'm the one making the rules now."
Lilith rose a bit higher, casting one last look at the dark wall of the forest. Her analytical mind, though tired, was still trying to deconstruct the mechanisms of this world.
Demand won't just vanish, she thought, furrowing her brow. As long as Lords can summon more units, every new mouth to feed means higher demand. Even if the market is flooded now, as armies grow, food will become a scarce commodity once again...
She exhaled with clear irritation, tossing her black hair over her back. "Dammit, I'm not smart enough to predict how this market will eventually structure itself. Supply and demand basics are one thing, but magic and millions of players are a whole different ball game."
She decided to set aside economic dilemmas - her head was already throbbing from the numerical overload. She spread her wings and flew deeper into the woods, looking for her companions to announce the end of the shift. After a few minutes of flight, her eyes caught a familiar green silhouette.
Mina was sitting on a gigantic, mossy stone. The little succubus did not look like a joyful victor of the hunt, however. Her green hair was in total disarray, sticking out in every direction with leaves and twigs tangled in it.
Worse, her entire petite body - from her shoulders down to her thighs - was covered in strange marks, as if something had bitten or stung her severely. Despite this, the girl seemed not to notice, playing with almost obsessive focus with that strange, writhing green cord she had found in the ruins.
Lilith landed softly beside her, her talons scraping against the stone. She looked at her subordinate with a mix of concern and sheer bewilderment.
"Mina?" she asked in a strange, slightly hoarse voice. "What on earth happened to you? You look like you fought an entire swarm of angry wasps or crawled through a field of thorns."
Mina flinched, as if only just noticing her Monarch's presence. She slowly raised her gaze; her eyes, usually full of mischief, had a strange, glassy sheen. The cord in her hands immediately tightened around her wrist, pulsing rhythmically.
Upon seeing Lilith approach, Mina instantly abandoned her fascination with the green cord. In a flash of emerald light, she returned to her human form - a petite girl with disheveled hair who ran to her Monarch with a loud squeak, burying herself against her waist.
"Lilith! It's all their fault!" she cried with an incredibly aggrieved expression, nearly choking on her own indignation. "Kala and Lysandra... they're shameless! They claimed they were running out of stamina from all the hunting and they just used me! They absorbed the desire energy I produce without giving me anything in return!"
The girl stomped her foot so hard the echo rang through the woods. Her frustration was almost tactile. Before Lilith could react in any way, Mina spun around abruptly, thrust her rear toward her Lady, and leaned down low.
"Just look! Even my butt is still all red from them 'motivating' me to work!" she cried, pointing to her petite, clearly reddened curves.
Lilith felt the blood rush to her cheeks. She immediately averted her eyes from the provocative sight, feeling her patience with this little devil being put to a severe test. She shifted back to her human form as well; her massive wings and natural armor vanished, replaced by human skin.
She stepped toward Mina and, knowing it was the only way to quiet her, began to gently stroke her head. "There, now... it must have been really hard on you, right?" she asked in a low, soothing voice.
Mina immediately went quiet, her anger evaporating in a second. She nodded with exaggerated gravity, as if she had survived the greatest tragedy in demonic history.
"Do you want to rest for a bit?" Lilith asked with a smile, sitting on the gigantic flat stone that had previously served as Mina's throne.
She didn't have to ask twice. With one agile movement, Mina hopped onto her lap, nesting comfortably on Lilith's bare thighs. Lilith felt a slight warmth radiating from the girl's body. Mina looked up at her from below, grabbed Lilith's hand with both of hers, and placed it back on top of her own head.
"Thank you..." she whispered sweetly, narrowing her eyes in delight.
Lilith smiled crookedly, feeling more like a preschool teacher than a dark Monarch, but she didn't complain. With slow, rhythmic movements, she stroked Mina's soft hair.
Feeling her Lady's touch, Mina beamed, joyfully kicking her legs in the air. For a moment, peace settled over the dark forest, broken only by the distant, dry snap of branches and trees being broken by the skeletons.
The silence of the forest thicket, interrupted only by the distant rattle of the working skeletons, lasted for the next thirty minutes. Lilith, despite her initial tension, began to drift in thought, soothed by the steady breathing of Mina, who was practically purring under her hand. However, the peace was merely the calm before the storm.
Suddenly, Mina shifted on her bare thighs. She turned slowly, her gaze immediately wandering toward Lilith's chest. The Monarch, now in human form without her armor, felt the cool air on her skin and the burning stare of her subordinate.
Mina smiled wide, but there was more than just childish joy in her eyes now - a deep, instinctive Succubus glow had appeared.
"Lilith..." she began softly, almost in a whisper. "I worked really, really hard, didn't I? Have I earned my reward?"
Lilith felt her stomach twist into a strange knot. Seeing that specific glint in Mina's eyes, she smiled lopsidedly, knowing exactly where this conversation was headed. Her hand, still resting on the girl's head, trembled slightly.
"Yes, Mina..." she replied, trying to keep her voice steady. "You worked bravely. Thank you very much for that."
Mina bit her lower lip, looking surprisingly shy for a fraction of a second. She twined her fingers over Lilith's stomach, fidgeting slightly.
"So... if it really isn't a problem for you... can I... can I now?"
She didn't finish the sentence, but she let her voice trail off in such a way that the answer was obvious.
Lilith felt a wave of heat wash over her face. Though as a Demon Queen she should have emanated confidence, in this one matter, she still felt like a novice thrown into the deep end. She looked away slightly, staring at the ferns to hide her blush, but after a short moment, she gave a slow, solemn nod.
"Go ahead..." she whispered, giving silent consent to what was about to happen.
Hearing those words, Mina squeaked with pure happiness, but the sound quickly transitioned into a throaty purr of satisfaction. When she looked at Lilith's breasts again, her gaze was no longer shy - it became fiery, predatory, and full of the desire only a Succubus could manifest so openly.
The little demoness reached out hands trembling with excitement, and the aura around the two of them thickened rapidly.