Chapter 3
Mina twisted back and forth in her room. The only thing protecting her modesty was the jacket of her robes—Rys recalled that it was called a haori. Her pale skin poked out from the gap between its folds, and her chest threatened to bare itself at any moment. Thick, curvy thighs and well-balanced hips gave Mina a very distinct and beautiful hourglass figure.
Behind her, needle and thread rapidly worked their way through Mina’s robe from the previous day. Rys noticed her tails moving in a constant rhythm and felt the threads of magic between her and the needle.
“Don’t worry about that,” Mina chirped, waving her hands as if to draw his attention back to her. “I need to adjust my clothes. It’s been a while since I’ve needed to do needlework. I guess it’s good practice for my new tail.”
She twisted again, pushing her chest forward as she clasped her hands behind her back. As her naked tits escaped her jacket, Rys wondered where her bindings had gone. Then he spotted the torn cloth ribbons on the bed.
Apparently, she really had grown ten sizes overnight.
“So, do you like these?” Mina asked, pressing her chest together with her hands. She licked her lips as Rys stared at her. Her breath caught and her eyes widened. “Is that a yes?”
“You’re gorgeous, Mina,” he said. “I doubt you need me to tell you that. Although I didn’t expect you to double in size overnight.”
She pouted. “Only double? These are at least as big as that noble’s tits. What was her name? Vallis? She had tits like my mom.” Mina groped herself. “This is amazing. I was so worried I’d be like Auntie Fara for the rest of my life.”
“Is this normal?” he asked.
“Maybe?” Mina shrugged. “I mean, my fourth tail means I’m an adult right? When I got my second and third tails, I definitely got bigger. Although…”
As she trailed off, she strode up to Rys. Her hand clapped the top of her head, then shot forward to hit him in the chest. Mina scowled as she looked up at Rys.
The view from up here was rather nice, he had to admit. Resisting the urge to fluff her fox ears and fluffy tails was difficult.
“I’ve barely grown an inch,” she grumbled. “I wanted to be some sort of tall, busty warrior. Not a shortstack.”
“You don’t have anything to complain about,” Rys said drily.
“Oh, so you do like them?” Mina grinned at him.
“I doubt there are many men who don’t.”
“Oh, so does that mean we can do this?” she asked, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper.
Mina leaned in, her naked flesh pressing against Rys. Her hands wandered across his thighs, then closed over his crotch. She nibbled at his neck while standing on tiptoes. Her hot breath washed over his skin and she wrapped her tails around him.
While she might not know how to seduce a man with words, she knew how to do so with actions.
Rys grasped her chin and pulled her in front of him, causing her to gasp from the force he exerted on her. Then he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. Her amber eyes opened in shock. He felt her tails snap upright. Her tongue barely responded to his as he pushed it down her throat and elicited a moan from the young fox.
Then he pulled away and gently pushed her back with a hand against her stomach.
She stared at him. Tears rose to her eyes.
“Is… is that it?” she mumbled. “This still isn’t enough? I’m just Fara’s niece? A girl to be pitied because shit happened. I have the tits, the hips, and definitely the functioning body parts.” She hiccupped as her hands slipped down to her crotch and tried to open it, but despite her words it was bone dry.
Sighing, Rys pulled her hands away and held her still. “This is exactly why I stopped you.” He paused for a moment, as she glared at him sullenly. “Remember what I said yesterday. If you are genuinely interested in working for me, there is a place for you here. But I’m not your emotional rebound and I’m old enough that while I do want you”—he ran his fingers over her nipples, which hardened in response to his touch—“I’m more than willing to wait.”
Mina gulped. Her hands grasped his arms, and tried to pull them back to her breasts, as if his touch was all she wanted. He kept himself still. His strength Gift flared, resisting her inhuman might.
Eventually, Mina collapsed against him. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “But… what do I have to do?”
“Prove yourself. If I want a woman who bounces up and down on my cock, I can get that any time. You say that you’re so amazing that your clan gave you training no other fox received? I want to see the results of that training. If you make yourself worth my while, then I’ll give you a prize.” Rys ran a finger over her lips, then drew it lower and lower on her body.
Mina shuddered in response, and whined when he withdrew before reaching her crotch.
“Oh,” she said. “I… figured sex was what you were after. You’re screwing Fara. There aren’t any other mystic foxes here and I know I’m an exotic beauty compared to all these bland girls from the archipelago. I just… I want this.”
“This?” Rys asked.
“A future,” Mina replied. “I want to be trusted and relied upon. To be told that everything I spent my life working toward was worthwhile and that I’m worthwhile? Isn’t that what my training was about? I want to matter. If I’m working for you, King Talarys, then that means I have to matter.”
She took a deep breath and puffed out her chest. “I’ll prove myself. I have four tails, which means I’m an adult. I’ve been trained in anything you can want. Just tell me what you need, master.”
“Call me Rys,” he said. “And your first job is to join me and Fara for breakfast, where you’ll explain this to your aunt.”
Mina deflated instantly. She glowered at him as she gathered up her unfinished robe and put it on. While it didn’t fully cover her massive chest, she seemed satisfied enough with the jacket, at least for now.
“Maybe I’ll just make an entirely new one,” Mina said. “It’s not like I can borrow robes from Fara. Does anyone else here wear robes?”
“No. Anything you borrow from Maria or Vallis will fit, but it will be in Gauron-style.” Rys approached the door. “You’re going to explain to Fara why you let me in looking like that, by the way.”
“I’ll tell her that I wanted to flaunt them in the face of her beloved king,” Mina said.
“Try to be less smug, given you were as unimpressive as she was yesterday.”
“No. I have huge tits now, and I refuse to ever be oppressed again.” Mina marched up to the door and opened it.
A moment later, she looked very oppressed as Fara’s glare bored holes in her niece.
“I’ve been out here for ages, and the reason is so that you can try to fuck Rys?” Fara asked, looking between the two of them. “I don’t smell anything, so it seems you kept it in your pants, Rys.”
“Breakfast now, fight later,” Rys said. He pushed both foxes from behind, ushering them toward one of the dining halls.
The three of them swiftly settled into one of the smaller dining rooms in the palace, and Rys let the servants know that they weren’t to be disturbed.
Now that he was king and ruled from a palace, Rys had a proper staff of servants and plenty of facilities to use. The days of relying on the poor cooking skills of the imps and Lilim were long past. Although most of the palace remained unoccupied for now, as his administrators didn’t have nearly enough staff to fill the massive building, he liked the space.
A large building meant that he could enjoy a subtly different atmosphere for his meals when he felt like it. There was something disheartening about eating in his office, especially as a king. He typically ate lunch there, because the servants often brought it to him before he thought of going elsewhere, but he made it a rule to eat elsewhere whenever possible.
This little dining room felt more like a lounge. The servants brought in the food—made to order—and the three of them relaxed on huge, plush recliners. An unused fireplace sat in the corner and there was a floor-to-ceiling glass window facing the central courtyard.
Rys had themed this place for winter, for when he wanted to curl up with a book. Preferably with a fox on his lap.
“Who makes your coffee?” Mina asked, staring at the mug in her hand as if it were magical. “I’ve only had stuff better than this in south-western Pharos.”
The imps did, but he didn’t say that. Mina still hadn’t realized his secret.
“Rys practically lives off coffee. If he didn’t have quality stuff, I think he’d go mad,” Fara said. “I still prefer tea.”
“Eh, I think I could get used to it.” Mina noisily slurped her coffee, while watching Rys.
Fara rolled her eyes in response. Nothing was said for a few minutes. Mina nibbled at her omelet and smoked fish, but her eyes kept bouncing between the others in the room.
“So, what do you think?” Mina blurted out at Fara, growing impatient. She waved her four tails in the air behind her, as if to illustrate what she was asking about.
“Welcome to the world of an adult. Now you get to learn how little you really know,” Fara said.
Mina smirked. “Aw, are you jealous of me?”
“No.”
“I got my fourth tail before everyone else in the family. Mom will be so happy.” Mina giggled.
“You got your third tail before everyone else as well, so that’s not surprising. And Ariko will probably be happier that you’ve taken after her in other ways.” Fara glanced at her niece’s chest, then focused on her food. “That happened faster than usual.”
“They’re great, aren’t they? Hey, Fara, do you think mine or Vallis’s are bigger?” Mina’s eyes lit up.
“Vallis’s,” Fara said.
Rys suspected she was lying. He’d had a pretty good view of both by now. Maybe Fara really was ruffled by her niece’s impressive size.
“Bullshit!” Mina snapped. “Oh, Your Majesty, why don’t you put this to rest?” Mina leaned across the coffee table in the middle of the room and tried to grab Rys’s arms.
“Wait until we’re finished eating, Mina,” he said.
“Fiiiine.”
“Was this really fast?” Rys asked Fara.
“Yes and no. Usually it takes a few days for a tail to grow in, at least once you’re older. When you’re younger, you can literally gain an extra tail while playing and not notice until somebody reacts.” Fara shrugged. “It could be a good sign. We only know a little about tail growth in… atypical foxes.”
“Atypical?” he asked.
“You think I’m special?” Mina asked around a mouthful of food.
“Foxes have fairly predictable patterns of growth,” Fara explained. “We spend our first year as a gray fox kit, before the magic in our body settles and we take on our lifelong human forms.”
Mina bounced up and down in her chair. “Oh, I know this part. The color of our tails is determined by where we grow up during our first year. That’s why our clan lives in the mountains, because it gives us white tails.”
Rys didn’t miss the flicker of a grimace on Fara’s face.
Despite that, she continued, “Yes. The second tail usually forms at around 10 years. Then the third at 30, the fourth at 70, and the fifth at 150.”
The pattern immediately formed in Rys’s mind. The gap between each tail doubled in length.
“So the sixth would be at 310 years old?” he suggested.
Mina and Fara both smirked at him, as if he had fallen for some sort of trap.
“Less than 20 percent of all foxes get their sixth tail, even excluding those who die early,” Fara said. “And the numbers are grim for seven or more. The only natural-born fox with eight tails is Ren, the clan head of the Seven-Leaf Clan. Because of this, most foxes with six or more tails get them earlier than the pattern suggests.”
Something foul formed in Rys’s stomach. He had a bad feeling about what happened when a fox started getting their last tail. “What about you? You’re about to get your fifth tail. Is that it?”
“Foxes who receive their fourth tail before the adulthood ceremony always get their sixth tail, so I’m fine.” Fara shook her head with a smile, as if trying to dismiss his worry. “I’m surprised you missed the obvious, Rys. Foxes naturally get their fourth tail at 70, but we force it to appear early at 60. The ceremony may actually have some detrimental effects on long-term age, but the old alliance chief favored societal unity.”
He supposed that made sense. Having a singular age of adulthood avoided a lot of awkwardness.
“Right, can we get back to my amazingness?” Mina asked.
Rys sighed. “You received your fourth tail several years earlier than the ceremony. I’m assuming that means the process might be different, and you might turn out stronger than the average fox.”
“Oh. I like that.” She grinned. “I can match Fara now, but I’ll be better than her eventually? Don’t you want me bad, Rys?”
“Don’t joke about that,” Fara snapped. “You have four tails now. Nobody will take you lightly anymore. Insult the wrong fox like that and they will put you in the dirt. Or worse.”
“But I have four tails now. I can do arrays I couldn’t before,” Mina said, referring to the spellcasting method of mystic foxes.
“Fine. Cast a pair of two-tail arrays at the same time.”
Mina gulped. She stood up before attempting to cast a pair of force barriers in the far corner of the room. Within moments, Rys knew that she had already failed. One fizzled out, and the other formed slowly, at least by combat standards.
As if to prove her point, Fara lazily cast the same two barriers with a snap of her tails. It took her under a second, and she didn’t even stand up or turn around.
“I can cast four-tail arrays now,” Mina whined.
“And I guarantee you’re slow at those, too.” Fara’s eyes flashed. “I have nearly a century on you, Mina. You’re extremely talented, and you’ve honed your skills. But you’ve just gained a new tail. If you talk shit instead of continuing to train, then you’ll never learn how to use it properly.”
“Yes, Auntie Fara,” the younger fox mumbled.
“It’s just Fara now.” The black-tailed fox sighed, before standing up and walking behind her niece. She began to play with Mina’s hair. “You’re an adult now. Whatever path you walk is your own decision, and you need to learn from your own mistakes. But I do love you, and don’t want you to make a fatal mistake. So remember to ask for help.”
Mina mumbled something that sounded like a thank you as she stared at her lap.
Fara returned to the earlier topic, “I haven’t finished my explanation. As I said, foxes can get their tails early. Sometimes extremely early. I mentioned Ren earlier—he received his fourth tail at thirty. The most we know is that it corresponds with the potential of a fox, but it also might be related to their emotional state.”
“That sounds odd,” he said.
“It’s a theory, and a weak one at that. The short version is that foxes gain tails faster under pressure. During the clan war, before the Alliance was formed, seven-tailed foxes grew on trees. The Alliance tries to increase the pressure on foxes through training—removing us from our villages, forcing us into service the moment we become adults, rotations through Hellgate. I can’t say if it’s working,” Fara explained.
“Maybe it did on me? I got my third tail before my sister Sarae,” Mina chirped. “And I trained my ass off to beat her when we were kids here.”
“Don’t I know it,” Fara said. “Ariko used to brag about how hard you worked as if it made up for her lazy childhood.”
Rys stroked his chin. “So the possible reason that Mina got her fourth tail overnight…”
“Is because she felt that she needed it,” Fara finished. “After being rejected by the clan, subconsciously she felt her only hope of success was to become an adult before you could send away the crying child.”
Mina winced and pointedly stared away from them.
It was a fairly cold and analytical explanation for the event, and one that took away from the magic of Mina growing tits big enough to smother her aunt with.
Unfortunately, the world wasn’t magical. It merely contained people who could use magic, and those people had a long, storied history of ruining the world with said magic.
Rys decided it was time to cheer Mina up, now that the explanation was over. “So, Mina, now that you’ve calmed down a little, what mistakes do you intend to make first with your new tail?”
“Rys!” Fara said, but her voice was choked with laughter.
Mina giggled and looked up at him, cheering up instantly. She sipped her coffee, which was now lukewarm. Rys helpfully warmed it with a spell, and she gave him an odd look.
“I’m an adult, right? You do mean that I can make my own choices?” Mina asked, looking at Fara.
“Yes. Just know that if you regret them, I’ll listen, but my response might be to tell you that you were an idiot and should learn from it. Taking responsibility is a significant part of being an adult. Others can help you, but your life is your own. Nobody can live it for you,” the older fox said.
Huh. Rys felt like he was hearing some of his own advice being passed down to Mina. He remained quiet as the white-haired fox soaked it in.
“Then…” Mina gulped. “I want to work for you, Your Majesty. I don’t care how, or in what capacity. I told you how I trained. You know how powerful Fara is and what mystic foxes can do. If you need an intelligence officer, I’ll do it. A spy, that’s me. Or an enforcer. I’ll even plumb the red light districts of the local cities if that’s really necessary. Just tell me how to prove myself.”
Her amber eyes shined as she leaned forward, and she clasped her hands together. Hope and desperation battled each other when Rys met her gaze, and he knew that refusing her would deeply wound her.
Not that he had a reason to say no. What kind of idiot said no to a gorgeous mystic fox who was desperate to work for you, especially when he was going to be enjoying her aunt shortly?
Not this idiot.
“There are two tests I need you to pass before I can seriously consider you,” he replied, voice cold.
Tension flooded Mina, and her muscles tensed. She straightened up in her recliner. Fara resumed her seat from earlier, watching the exchange.
“First, I have some prisoners that need interrogating. They are the guild officers of Compagnon. Are you aware of what Compagnon is?” he asked.
“Yes,” Mina said, giving him a swift nod. “They’re the merchant company that tried to conquer this region. Last time I was here, I didn’t even know what a Compagnon was, but all the rumors now are about how you utterly destroyed them.” She grinned wolfishly.
Good enough, he supposed. The less Mina knew, the more she’d need to learn through the interrogation. Her skills would be pressed harder, and this would ensure that she couldn’t rely on external knowledge.
“I need you to learn everything you can about their dealings with the Malus League, other merchants, and nations in the archipelago, and any secret stashes or bases they might have. Any secrets at all are invaluable,” he said. “Consider this to be the equivalent of toppling an enemy, and we need to learn everything we can from their leaders.”
Something shifted in Mina’s expression. Rys wasn’t sure how to express it, but it was different to anything he had seen in his time in the Empire. Her gaze turned distant, the expression on her face hardened, and her focus redoubled.
“Do you need them for anything afterward?” Mina asked, her voice still playful but carrying an edge.
“Only if they know someone important that I will need them alive to meet,” he replied.
Mina nodded, and he saw her mind whirring behind her sharp eyes. “Do you need them alive for public executions? Or in good enough shape to be displayed somewhere?”
“No. Things have calmed down enough with the execution of a large number of Malus League mages. Bringing back Compagnon might stoke flames best left to burn out.”
“Okay. I think I know everything I need to know. I’ll dispose of their bodies cleanly once I’m done.” Mina stood up, a smile on her lips. “I’ll just need somebody to show me where they are.”
“Sit down,” Rys said.
She did, although she looked puzzled.
“A few things.” He leaned back and steepled his fingers. “First, you can get away with acting like that once somebody trusts you implicitly. Right now, I don’t. Don’t try to rush off without confirming everything.”
Mina nodded, appearing a little chastised.
“Second, I need to tell you the other task you need to complete before I hire you. And third, elaborate on ‘cleanly,’ please.” He spread his hands, as if asking a question.
“A small hole above their temple, cast using a concentrated force blast.” Mina placed a finger against the side of her head. “That kills them quickly and efficiently, although I don’t know how the interrogation will go before that. Afterward, I’ll use my elementalism to reduce even their bones to ash. One of my tutors told me I was good enough at it to become a knight if I wanted.”
Fara grimaced at the cold way that Mina talked about killing and disintegrating the bodies of people, but Rys didn’t react.
“Fair enough,” he said. “The second task will happen shortly. I need you to meet someone. When you do, you’ll understand a lot more about me. But you also can’t go back from this. While you are welcome to stay here for as long as you like, I am a king. If you can’t handle what you learn, then you may regret ever coming here at all.”
Mina froze. Sweat formed on her brow. Slowly, she twisted her head to look at Fara, who returned the gaze with utmost seriousness.
“You’re working with him, Au… Fara,” Mina said, correcting her stumble over how she addressed Fara. Seemed it might be a little while before she got used to not calling Fara “Auntie.”
“I can trust him?” Mina continued.
“I told you that everybody makes their own mistakes,” Fara said. “This may turn out to be one of mine, but right now I think it’s the best decision I’ve made in my life. But I will say that the clan would disagree completely. That’s why it’s a secret. If you don’t think you can handle that, you need to walk away, Mina.”
Closing her eyes, Mina remained still.
“The clan threw me away,” she said. “I’ll do it. Then I’ll go interrogate the prisoners.”
Rys notified Grigor to come to the room with a magical sending. He had improved enough at evocation to use them now, after months of practice. They allowed him to telepathically communicate with anyone nearby using magic, although they were clumsier than mindspeak.
The door opened, and the demon prince Grigor stepped inside. He was in his demon form, rather than his illusioned human form, and stood over thirteen feet tall. His muscles bulged under his charcoal black skin and a thick layer of white bone armor and ash-colored fur. A stone mask shaped like a dragon’s skull covered his head, through which four glowing red eyes surveyed the room.
“Ah, you must be Fara’s niece,” Grigor boomed. “Welcome, little one. Permanently, I hope.”
Mina stared up at the towering demon prince, her pupils shrinking in fear. Instinctively, her tails began to move.