Chapter 19: 19: Healing the Damage

It was literally a shriveled old corpse! You think to yourself, but don’t say it out loud—while your sister’s waterfalls might be too much, you can’t bring yourself to be harsh in her moment of grief. She did lose her father, after all. Twice now! In a single day. Maybe she's only now coming to terms with his death? 

You sit down next to her and put your hand on her shoulder. She falls into your arms and hugs you tightly, not stopping the waterworks. How has this girl not run out of tears by now? Well, her nearly naked, ample bosom pressing against your chest is a nice compensation for getting your clothes wet.

You sit there for a minute… Two… Is it five or ten now? … Alright, enough is enough! There’s work to be done! But how to approach the subject?

“Ariadne… We will find who did this!” You promise your sister.

“Uhu…” She sobs and nods her head.

“When I get my hands on the person responsible—well, I might just let you decide. But, right now… There is something we must do first.”

“Eh?” Ariadne wipes away her tears and looks at you.

“The…”—you turn your eyes away for a moment—"interrogation did not go as well as I had hoped. A few of the girls got too restless, got out of my control and ended up injuring themselves.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Ariadne gets off you and wipes her face from the tears again. "Here I am just sitting and crying unproductively while you are busy gathering information on the bandits to fix a mistake that I made! I’m terribly sorry! Please forgive me!”

You do feel a sting of guilt when you hear just how hard you sister is wrong in her assumptions. You look at the minotaur girl as she bows, prominently displaying her two big, curved horns. A thought flashes through your mind, of you taking them like bike handles and—No, no, no! Not now!

“Well, you see…” You try to get your thoughts back on proper tracks. “You already have it hard with the… death of your father and… taking care of our… kingdom! I can’t have you overworked and collapse at the most crucial moment!”

“I see.” Ariadne keeps looking down. “Your consideration is more than I deserve for all my failures. Please, let me make it up to you!”

“There is something you might be able to help me with. Can you use healing spells? Specifically, the kind that can heal others? The only healing spell I have would not help in this situation.”

“Ah, yes, of course, My Lord! It’s not my specialty but I had to master several while taking care of—” Ariadne’s eyes fill with salty water again.

“Let us go then, there is no time to waste!” You get up. Finally, you can leave this sickening room!

You leave at once and head for the dungeons below with Ariadne following you close behind.

“You wouldn’t happen to have more of those light stones?” You ask your sister when she whispers to the crystal and lights it up.

“I’m terribly sorry, but this is the last one.”

“We’ll need more. Much more! Walk ahead for now!”

“Yes, My Lord!”

“Some of the girls are in pretty bad shape,” you warn Ariadne on your way down. “One was especially stubborn during interrogation. I tried to test the limits of my spells and almost lost control of most of them. But they could be very useful, so we must keep them alive.”

“Of course! I understand, My Lord! Do not worry, unless there are limbs or vital organs missing, I am pretty confident in my ability to heal them.”

“… Good! One way or the other I want them and their full fighting potential under my control with unquestionable loyalty. At the very least they could be kept as guards so that something like today doesn’t ever happen again!”

“Yes, but, pardon My Lord, only as guards?”

“Currently our entire kingdom consists of fifteen subjects: you; me; seven goblins—who I have not even seen yet—and six bunny girls. Not exactly an army that can conquer the world! Which is why we must proceed with caution. Our primary objective is to remain unnoticed for as long as possible while we gather resources. It is also the reason that I want to eradicate that outpost as soon as I have restored my energy! And if there’s one thing I’m convinced of now, is that those bunny girls cannot be entrusted with stealth missions. They get excited too easily!”

“Ah, I understand. But pardon my question—if our goal is to eradicate the outpost then wouldn’t the bunnies work just fine? Even as cannon fodder? We can always get more of them, can we not?”

“…” For a moment you’re left speechless at how easily your sister labeled your captives as disposable. Is that the reason she did not even suggest healing any of them at the start?

“We will probably split them up. Their leader must be handled with care, I cannot rush it. And using up most of my energy right before a fight is too dangerous. I’m confident they’ll be able to handle something as simple as standing guard at the gates with orders to kill anyone who approaches.”

“Ah, as expected of the son of the great Graf Wilhelm von Helmman! You think everything through!”

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“Yes, well,” —you can’t help but blush at such praise—“one step at a time!”

You arrive at the cell with Epsilon and Gamma and unlock the door. You ordered Delta to cover them up properly before locking herself up further ahead.

“These ones first,” you say.

Ariadne walks in and sheds some light on the still-unconscious, bleeding bunny girls. She crouches at their bodies that lie next to each other, places the palm of her hand on Epsilon’s forehead and mumbles some incantation. Not even ten seconds later she does the same thing with Gamma.

“Done!” Ariadne reports as she gets up.

That was fast! You almost let your jaw drop in shock, but are able to control yourself enough to ask calmly, “Would you be able to do the same thing while in combat?”

“I’m afraid not. It takes a lot of concentration and I cannot do it while also dodging arrows and sword strikes to my face.”

Seems reasonable, you conclude and ask, “Would they be fit to fight tomorrow?”

“Absolutely!” Ariadne answers as she walks out of the cell. You close the door and head to Alpha and Beta.

Satisfied that everything is going so well, but getting sleepy you hurry to the other cell. Only when you open the door and let Ariadne you remember that you never bothered to clean anything up. Neither the blood nor other… substances. Perhaps it dried up by now? You wonder hopefully and walk into the cell yourself.

Nope! The mix of cum and saliva preserved surprisingly well on the cold stone, in an area with cool, humid air and nearly no ventilation. Maybe she won’t notice it? You wonder as Ariadne steps over the whitish puddle.

“This one first?” your sister asks, approaching the curled up petite bunny girl.

“Yes,” you answer flatly. Did she not notice?

The minotaur girl spends a whole minute with Alpha, before switching to healing Beta, who’s still sleeping. Having done that she walks up to you and says, “I can heal physical wounds, but it seems that your interrogation damaged her mind as well as her body. I’m sorry, but I don’t have the skills to treat that.”

“Hm,” You walk forward and stand over Alpha. Some time has passed, so you’re able to use [Submission] again. Which is exactly what you do.

“Obey my orders!” You command the bunny girl, who doesn’t even bother to look up. “Stand up!”

The bunny girl stands up but doesn’t even look at you. Her gaze seems to be fixed on somewhere over your left ear like you’re not even here.

“Look me in the eyes!” You command.

Alpa complies. Even while staring in her dead eyes you don’t feel like she actually sees you.

“Rub your tummy in a circular motion with one hand, while stroking your right ear up and down with the other!”

Alpha does this perfectly. And silently. Looking straight at you with eyes that somehow fail to reflect the light from your sister’s crystal.

“Stop. Just... Go to sleep!” You command, not able to bear looking at her anymore.

“But sleep for eight hours precisely!” You add to your command, afraid that Alpha might just put herself into eternal slumber.

“It seems she obeys you splendidly!” Ariadne says as if congratulating you.

“We head out first thing in the morning!” you say as you walk out of the cell without even looking at Ariadne.

Only when you're already locking the cell do you realize that you've completely forgotten to even try cast [Submission] on Beta. Bah, I'll just do it in the morning! You declare to yourself, confident in your upgraded skill. And if she does wake up and try to turn Alpha, it will be a good test in its own way, to see how strong my hold on her is now. You're happy with your justification for leaving Alpha and Beta together, though most of it is just you rationalizing your mistake and desperately not wanting to ruin your dramatic exit and image right in front of your sister.

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