[Vol. 2 pt. 32]
Everything was ready. Ready as in ready ready. Things could not have possibly been more ready than they were already ready. The readiness level was as readiest as possible.
I still struggled to believe that “readiest” was actually a word. It sounded like a joke – like something somebody would say just to be dramatic. Yet, it actually was a word. A random search on the internet proved that one time and the internet was never wrong.
Never.
That being said, my marketing team went over to the city to get to work. AKA, Lily and Akorya went over there to hold up some signs and advertise the dungeon while taking questions. Akorya offered to do it and expected to go alone, but Lily went with her since she didn’t want to let her do all the work herself. Plus there wasn’t really anything Lily could do here at the dungeon other than make a bunch of men ask if she was part of the dungeon’s services before making them jealous of me. Lily might have been perfect, but there wasn’t really much she could do to help me out other than offer moral support.
Which was more than enough. Having her there just to keep me company and to support me was more than I ever could have asked from her. Even so, I could tell that she wanted to be useful. Thera was busy with managing the dungeon while also working on the plan she had to get revenge for Akorya. Cani now worked as the dungeon’s hostess and waitress. Akorya was the advertiser and hype girl. I was the owner who kept everybody together and came up with all the ideas and…
And basically, I realized I was the “ideas guy.” All I did was acquire the dungeon itself, filled it with monsters, and then let everybody else do all the more intricate work. Was that really enough?
It seemed like both me and Lily were going to need to find some new ways to feel useful. At the very least, I could go and find more monsters and traps for the dungeon. Plus I could always give massages to everybody after they were done getting fucked.
But before that could happen, I already had enough things on my to-do list to do and Akorya was happy to accept her assistance.
“So, darling, the day has finally come,” Thera said, sitting with me at the front of the dungeon. Well, I was sitting. She stood behind me and played with my hair, tracing her long, gentle fingers across my scalp and occasionally making tiny braids. That was something I didn’t mind at all. If she wanted to play with my head, I would always let her whether it was my normal head or my head.
“So it has,” I answered, using a more dramatic voice than necessary.
“Though, you did have those girls come before. Would they not count as your first true customers?”
“You mean the four?”
“Mhm.”
“Nope. If we’re being technical, then Lizamoo would be the first.”
“Ah. Good point. However, if we are being truly technical, then that would make Lily the first, yes?”
“Actually… yeah, you’re right. Lily was the dungeon’s first client. Lizamoo was second.”
“Are you sure? I do recall there being other guests before her.”
“Who? When?”
“Check the dungeon log.”
I wasn’t sure who else Thera could have been talking about, so I opened up the dungeon management menu that I severely neglected and looked through it. The “Dungeon Log” was an option in the management menu that I never actually opened before. And when I did open it… “What – what’s all this? Seriously? What? Who are all these people?”
“It logs every single player and expeditionary force to have visited the dungeon.”
Scrolling down the list… there were dozens of entries that made no sense to me. Players of all levels, a small force of NPC guards from the nearby town – there was at least one new visitor showing up every couple of days. “But I never saw any of these? When did – what happened?”
“They were hostile, so I dealt with them. The guards aside, the names of anybody who steps onto your territory shows in the log. It is an easy task to search the online players registry to see whether you are online or not. I am assuming that most, if not all, of these would-be invaders have waited for you to go offline before attacking. The guards simply had convenient timing to miss you.”
“And you never told me about any of this?”
“To be honest, I assumed you already knew and never thought it worth bringing up. After all, do you not see the unread dungeon notifications whenever you log in?”
“I – I do… but they were always for things like letting me know my monsters leveled up or had sex. I kind of… started ignoring them. And wait, how could you think I saw them? You know that I would have brought it up and given you praise!”
Thera’s fingers stopped playing with my hair for a moment before she said, “Oh. Good point. Perhaps I saw it as such a trivial matter that I did not believe it was worth giving much thought to in the first place.”
“Is defending the dungeon and killing everybody really that trivial? Almost all of these logs say that they were killed by you. The only ones who weren’t killed by you were killed by the monsters because they were way too low level to come in here.”
“Perhaps I would have cared more if even one of them managed to put up an entertaining fight.”
“One of these logs had two different max levels come in here together. Both killed by you.”
“Ah, I remember them. They told me I should stand aside and let them do as they wished, offering me the opportunity to leave with them afterward. I played along until their backs were turned.”
“And then?”
“And then I went for their throats with paralytic venom. They looked pathetic as they stared up at me, their eyes so full of desperation and fear as I hovered the tips of my daggers right in front of their eyes… ah, such a sweet sight.”
“You’re scaring me.”
Thera lowered one of her hands down to my neck, gently wrapping her fingers around it while she danced the tip of her other hand’s pointer finger around my nearest eye. “Then it is a good thing you enjoy being frightened, is it not? Even now, I know that no matter how scared you may be, it pales in comparison to the excitement you feel.” She lowered her lips to right next to my ear. “Even as I tighten my hand around your neck, you wish I would—”
“Someone’s coming,” Cani spoke up.
Thera might have thought that she was cool and relaxed, but I felt her fingers around my neck “jump” even if she managed to act composed everywhere else.
“Is this where you remind me that nothing will happen until I can beat you in a duel?” I asked.
Unfortunately, Thera completely retracted herself from me. She then cleared her throat and said, “Indeed, darling.”
“I’d rather be in you than indeed.”
The corner of her lip twitched upward before being forced back down.
As much as I wanted to tease her and try to make her smile to the point where she couldn’t resist showing it, I resisted. I had my first actual clients to deal with.
It was a small group of players. Three guys and a girl. All armed and… drawing their weapons.
“Shall I deal with them?” Thera asked.
“Maybe they’re just roleplayers,” I answered. “Maybe they want to fight their way through while hoping to get defeated and fucked.”
“Alright,” the player at the front of the group shouted, “take them out!”
“Hold on,” I said. “If you guys want to fight your way through, you still need to look at the rules first and—”
My objection didn’t stop them.
“Damn it.”
“Now, darling?” Thera asked.
“Yeah, let’s go. I’ll help out.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, they will be dealt with in an embarrassingly short amount of time.”
“Is that a compliment to me?”
“No. All I am saying is that I could already handle them on my own. You will make it even faster, as anybody would.”
“You know, you could compliment me.”
“Of course I could.”
“Please do?”
“Alright. Darling, I find you genuinely entertaining and I adore the time we spend together. It is beyond special to me and I am always looking forward to it.”
“Wa-wait a second, that was an actual compliment. I was expecting you to screw with me.”
“I gave you what you asked for. Should I have not?”
Once again, Thera proved that she was always ahead of me. She had me hooked and I couldn’t help but to stay on the line. “You seriously know how to drive me crazy.”
“I know,” Thera said and smiled.
I might not have purposely tried making her smile, but I still got to see her smile. That was enough to motivate me into trying my hardest against our intruders.
“That was even easier than I thought it would be,” Thera said, pulling her daggers out from the chest of the last attacker to go down.
“Is that one a compliment?” I asked.
“Still not. And before you consider it, do not try to get another genuine compliment out of me. You will have to wait at least a few weeks before you receive another one of those.”
“I don’t know if that’s worse or better than edging for weeks.”
“Beats me. I have never tried it, so I wouldn’t know.”
“You haven’t?”
“No. I always treated the act of… pleasuring myself to be a very matter of fact thing. I get it over with as quickly as possible to take my mind off of the desire. Then I go about my day.”
“So, you’re one of those types. It’s usually guys I know who are like that.”
“Even imagining something like purposely holding it back is frustrating.”
“And not in a good way?”
“Correct.”
“You sound like you’d definitely never want to sub then.”
“Most likely not. However, since I am sure you are thinking it, I would not consider myself a ‘dominant’ either.”
“I figure you might have some dominant tendencies, but aren’t all that kinky in general. Not that that’s a bad thing.”
“Then you have judged me correctly. Congratulations, darling. Are you sure it is not disappointing for me to be, as you would say, ‘vanilla?’”
“You’re still a sexy spider girl. That makes you less vanilla than most people in real life.”
“And in real life where I am not a woman who is half spider?”
“Then you’re still you, and you’re perfect as you are.”
“You know how to make me swoon, darling. Be careful. I may very well attack you here and now.”
“Attack me as in push me down and fuck me?”
“No, as in kill you before I get tempted to do that.”
“So, what you’re saying is that if I want you to push me down and fuck me, I have to run around dodging all of your attacks while shouting seduction attempts at you?”
“The idea of that alone is absurd enough to kill any excitement I felt.”
“But you are almost smiling again.”
Thera planted her face in her palm like usual. I was starting to think that all of her facepalms were actually attempts at hiding her smiles. Maybe she didn’t actually think I was just plain stupid on a regular basis and was hiding smiles instead.
Or she did think I was stupid on a regular basis while also hiding smiles.
She probably just thought I was stupid.
It took another hour, but some players finally arrived who actually wanted to have some fun with the dungeon. Two guys. My dungeon might have been set up with mostly male monsters, but I was sure that most clients would end up being guys and that turned out to be true right off the start. Of course, it might have been too early to judge, but I was fairly certain I would end up being right.
“Alright, Cani,” I said. “You’re up. Show us what you’ve got.”
Cani nodded and stepped forward to wait for the men to walk the rest of the way up to the dungeon. As soon as they stepped foot inside, Cani smiled and said, “Welcome to – uh…” She turned to face me. “Do we have a name?”
I felt a bead of sweat roll down my forehead.
I was so sure that everything was ready. Yet, I never actually named the dungeon.
“The Dungeon of Consentacles” was the first name that came to mind, but I felt like it wasn’t accurate enough. I needed something more fitting. Something less specific. “Damian’s Dungeon” was another potential name, but that one felt too basic.
Then I figured it out.
It was kind of cheesy, and I definitely wasn’t going to win any awards for it, but it would have to do.
“The Monster House,” I answered.
It felt like a pretty big deal to me to officially come up with a name, but Cani simply nodded and returned her attention to the men. “Welcome to The Monster House,” she said.
“Thanks,” the first man said. “This the place where we fuck monsters?”
“The one and only.” Cani didn’t sound as peppy and girly as she did when serving customers in her bistro before, but she didn’t sound like she was depressed or anything, either. She just sounded… normal. She wasn’t trying to fake anything nor was she trying to hide who she was. She was just normal. Nothing less, nothing more.
“Sweet. And you’ve got monster girls here, right? Not just normal monsters?”
“That’s right.”
The other man smiled and stepped up. “What’s the selection?”
“Well, first, would you like to fight your way through your dungeon or choose a partner and have fun?”
The men nodded at each other and chose the latter option in unison.
“Great. Then we have slime girls, a ghost girl, and a metal cube girl.”
“A… a metal cube girl?” the first man asked.
“Yeah. You know those metal cubes? Imagine one that’s been turned into a girl and has infinite space inside of her.”
“Dibs,” the second man said before nudging the first in the arm with his elbow.
“Damn you,” the first man replied, giving a little, playful push back. “Uhh, I guess I’ll take a slime then.”
Cani might have been acting normal before, but then I saw her smile. It was an almost mischievous smile as she upper the pitch of her voice a little bit more. “Oh! By the way, there are three slimes. They really love playing together at the same time.”
“Seriously?! Hah! Suck it! You can have your box, I’m getting a slime gangbang!” he said to his friend who now looked jealous.
“Of course, you can have as many partners as you’d like for as long as you like… as long as you pay the price.”
That was something else I didn’t consider.
The price.
Preferably, I would have liked everything to be free so that we could all just focus on having fun and lewd times together, but accepting payment would make it easier to keep the dungeon running. Not to mention that I would actually be able to pay Cani instead of expecting her to work for nothing.
“What else am I going to spend all my money on? Name a price,” the second man said.
“Three girls, a hundred gold per girl sold by the hour – three hundred gold. If you go over an hour then we’ll require another three hundred,” Cani said.
The man looked a bit hesitant after hearing that despite what he previously said, but he sighed and opened up a window to transfer the money onto the table in front of Cani. “Deal. With three girls… don’t think I’ll be able to last more than an hour.”
“Just curious,” the first man said, “but what if somebody goes over an hour and doesn’t pay the extra? It’s not like you’re going to interrupt people in the middle of sex, and there’s no way to force them to pay afterwards, right?”
Cani looked at me for an answer. Before I could answer, though, Thera stepped forward and spoke up. “In that case, they are counted as enemies of the dungeon and will be dealt with. Blacklisting will then take place to ensure that they are never allowed back in the dungeon, and… let us just say that their remaining time within this world will not be pleasant outside of any safe zone until they pay what they owe.”
Both men gulped. “Da-damn, alright,” the first said. “Well, don’t worry. I promise I was just curious since it seemed like something easy to exploit. I plan on paying. Also, you uh… you part of the offer?”
“No.” Her answer was immediate and to the point.
“Damn. Alright. Metal cube girl it is.”
Another hundred coins appeared on Cani’s table.
Honestly… that price was far higher than I would have ever considered charging. I probably would have asked for a pathetic five gold coins per hour. If people were seriously willing to pay a hundred coins per partner per hour… we just began an extremely lucrative business.
“Great!” Cani said. “Follow me. I’ll take you to the girls’ chamber.”
“Hold on,” I said and stood up. “I think you’re forgetting something.”
Cani tilted her head before panicking a little when she realized what it was she forgot. “Right! Sorry… err, here.” She slid a couple sheets of paper across the table to the men. “Please read this and, if you accept, then I will take you to the girls. If you don’t accept, I’ll refund you your payments.”
The men picked up the sheets and looked them over.
As for what those sheets contained, they contained the dungeon’s rules. It was all pretty simple stuff. No rape, everything has to be consensual and granted permission, don’t disturb the other clients which includes not asking to join in with whatever they’re doing, don’t shame anybody for their fetishes, and so on. Basically, the rules could be summed up with “mind your own business and don’t rape.” Very simple stuff.
The men set the sheets back down on the table. “No problem here,” the first said.
The second nodded and said, “Simple enough.”
“Alright, great. Thanks for reading those,” Cani said and then looked at me. “I’ll make sure to show the rules first before taking payment next time.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re great,” I said.
Cani smiled for a quick second before leading the men into one of the deeper rooms of the dungeon where all of the monster girls were.
“Congratulations,” Thera said. “You’ve made your first sale as a dungeon master. How does it feel?”
“Pretty nice, honestly,” I answered. “I can’t wait to see this place full of people wanting to fuck monsters all day while a line of people wait outside or chill in Cani’s place. We’re going to become a safe haven for monster lovers.”
“Perhaps that will come sooner rather than later.” Thera pointed a finger toward the dungeon’s entrance where another man just landed with his flying gryphon, dismounting as soon as he was on the ground. And in the distance, it looked like the dungeon was about to have its first girl riding in on a floating chair held up by a couple of balloons.
Whatever Lily and Akorya were doing, their efforts were paying off.