Chapter 163 – Tessa’s Overthinking

By the time Noah finished retelling the horrors that he saw in the Red Bull clan's town, Tessa was livid with rage.

"The bastards! They will ruin the whole region!" She bellowed, hitting a wall so hard the whole mansion shook.

"Mom, we barely repaired it!" Exclaimed Priscilla.

Dahlia pressed her hand against the wall and closed her eyes. A few seconds later she removed the hand.

"Madam, please contain yourself or even my powers will not hold it together."

"Sorry." Said Tessa through clenched teeth, before sighing heavily. "Thank you, Dahlia." She added nodding to the Dryad.

"Tess, what do you mean they will ruin the whole region?" Asked Noah.

"These pills, they are made for monsters, like us. Not for humans and beastmen." Said Tessa. "For us, these pills would not hold overly much harm. But the way they used it. Those wicked fuckers! They know exactly what they are doing!" Said Theressa still too furious to explain her thoughts well.

"What do these pills do exactly?" Asked Noah.

Tessa breathed in and out to calm herself before speaking.

"This is an old alchemist trick. You see a problem, create its alchemical representation, and reverse it. It's not ideal, but it worked in cases when there were no other solutions." Said Tessa.

"I used this trick in Priscilla's case as well. The blue pill I created, represents Priscilla's problem. It was her unbound desire to procreate in her mating period. It was raising her lust and her motherly instincts. It influences the body, changing even fertility cycles." Said Tessa raising two hands and opening her left palm showing the blue pill, similar to the one that Noah saw in Red Bull Town.

Then she opened her other palm showing the red pill.

"The red pill is the reverse of it. It subdued these womanly instincts, by concentrating masculinity so to say. But as a side effect, it often gave her aggression and allowed her to concentrate her powers that I thoughtfully redirected into study and magic weaving practices. But after that would come periods of weariness. This is because the pills don't make you stronger than you are, they tap into your own strength. Suck out every last bit of your powers and concentrate them for one quick use." Explained Tessa before making another sigh.

"Of course, whether human or monster, bodies are not made to perform this way. Bodies burn energy gradually with the intent of long activity. These pills, however, burn power quickly and blazingly. It makes you spend all now, without leaving anything for later. It is a minor problem for us monsters as we are eternal. For us it is but a matter of long rest and a time of weakened state. For the human body, however, this is fatal. When everything is used up, the pill will make you tap into the vitality of your body.

In other words, mortals would become more powerful but wean too quickly. They will shine, but not long. That's what happens to the Red Bull clan right now. Their men, that fought as monsters, beyond their capabilities, would quite soon wean and die."

"Thus the crazy plan for repopulation. They turned their women into a new generation of warriors production factory." Said Noah closing his eyes and breathing heavily remembering the madness he has witnessed.

"Yes, but that is only what the Red Bull clan thought of doing. That alone would not be as bad for the region and the country. They are living in Bull territory, away from other clans. And the discord within their territory isn't felt in the other's territories. It is one of the reasons why no one has sounded an alarm so far. It has not harmed the region they are living in. But they can't hide something like that for too long. My guess is that this has gone on for half a year, maybe a year at most. It is of course too outrageous that their region's Archduke has not stopped it yet. There is no way he doesn't know what's happening in all the territories within his region. The only reason for that may be that…."

"He is corrupt." Said Noah and Tessa nodded in confirmation. "Cowardly Lion is already taken." He murmured a bit later, remembering Alice's words.

"Yes, if I remember correctly, The region where the White Bull clan's territories are situated is ruled by the Golden-Eyed Lion clan." Said Tessa. "How did you know?"

"Just something one friend mentioned in a passing." Said Noah waving his hand. "Forget it."

Tessa raised her eyebrow but did not say anything.

"Well, no matter how much they hide it, this will reach the ears of other clans. Bullmen are not the only ones living there, there are towns with a mix of species, many of which have families in Bull territory. Soon word will travel and other towns and villages in that region will find out the truth. Even if their Archduke keeps closing his eyes to the problem, soon information would leak beyond the region. King's army or Saintess will intervene and put an end to it. This is a matter of time. And unlike the dumb Red Bull chieftain, those bastards of the Dark Association understand it. So, no, ruining the Bullmen is not their end aim." Said Tessa with a grim look. "Their plan is way more ambitious."

"Boob sap potion." Said Dahlia. "They are poisoning the whole region."

"Yes. Maybe even more than a region." Said Tessa.

"Oh. I get it now. It is all now concentrated in one spot, so it's easy to do it." Said Priscilla, nodding.

"Hold it, hold it. The what, sap?" Asked Noah.

"The barrels that you saw. The ones filled with their female breast milk. There's a reason for that." Said Tessa seeing that he did not recognize the name.

"Bullmen of Beastmen are quite a special kind. Their males have raw physical strength beyond any other humanoid creature. Some of them can even contest with trolls and ogres, although their bodies are lesser in size. Females, however, are very attenuated to magic. And mostly one specific attribute. Earth magic." Explained Tessa

"In many magical theories, it is believed that both strength and earth magic have a connection. It is believed that it comes from strong attenuation with earth elements. Which is also believed to be connected with fertility and nutrition. Because of this attenuation, all Bullmen are so strong. It is also because of that all females are said to have very shapely forms." She said showing where exactly they were outstanding, making Noah gulp as he remembered the mesmerizing white bunnies of Firria.

"But, it is when they are pregnant that a very interesting phenomenon occurs. The breast milk of females in the Bullmen clan attenuates with the nutritious side of Earth element and saturate with mana making it very nutritious for their children. But it is also possible to use as a mana and health restorative ingredient for potions in alchemy."

"Unlike herbs used in traditional potions, breast milk of Bullmen female has no side effects and there is no need to complement it with many other ingredients. However, mana concentration is a lot lower than in herbs. So you have to raise the mana saturation by concentrating it from the vast amounts of liquid. Of course, normally it can be sold to the market only when females have excessive milk after feeding the baby. Also as with every Beastmen, they have seasonal fertility, and in case of Bullmen, this season is just a short period every few years. This all leads to it being quite a limited product on the market and making high-performance potions out of it is inefficient. So it is only used to make the lowest level potions that newbies adventurers with barely a dime in their pocket can afford. Everyone calls it Boob sap potion."

"Herbs are costly so even the lowest level potion made of them cost good money. Youngsters that left country life to become adventurers spend all they have to buy a weapon. When they come to register with an adventurers guild, they can't afford to buy traditional potions. So they buy a boob sap potion. That's why newbies in the guild are often poked fun at by experienced adventurers, saying that they still have milk on their lips." Explained Tessa.

"As an adventurer, I am ashamed to not know this." Said Noah shaking his head.

"You are noble. When you went to register you had no need of such information." Said Tessa. "You had money for weapons, potions, travel gear, and an inn when you went to Labyrinth town by carriage. Country boys usually have only a crap sword, their pants, and a ticket to the nearby town with a guild branch where they stay until they make some money. You can't be blamed for not knowing it. You lived a different life." Said Tessa, but somehow Noah did not feel better from it.

"And you had it easy with the wolf at your side in Labyrinth Town." Said Dahlia. "Normally newbies would drink boob sap potion for at least a year before climbing from below the red line and start making enough to live well, pay for a normal inn and buy a normal potion."

"Oh." Said Noah. "I'll have to treasure Wolfy more. But what did the Dark Society achieve with all this? He added turning the discussion back to the topic. "I get it that with blue pills it is now possible to produce this ingredient all year round, so what? They now have enough milk to make good potions with it? That's their plan?"

"No." Said Tessa shaking her hand. "That's not what they want to achieve."

"No?" Asked Noah raising an eyebrow.

"No. Because I keep a constant eye on politics and markets in the world and there was no news of vast amounts of boob sap potions with high performance occuring. Instead, the market shows no decrease or influx of the usual boob sap potion on the market."

"Hold on. I don't get it. They don't use excess milk for better potions and don't flood the market with it. Then why do they need it so much?"

"That's the main clue. They don't have excess." Explained Tessa. "It seems like a vast amount if produced by one town but on the global market, it is not. As the Red Bull clan ruined many towns of their kin, the population in their territory dropped. There is no doubt many women fought side by side with their men and died on the battlefield without yielding. Instead of many towns and villages, Red Bull town is now an almost exclusive producer of it in their region. But even then, they have to feed newborns to raise them as healthy warriors if they want to repopulate the quickly weaning adult men so they use up most milk like it was before.

With blue pills effect they erased their women's fertility limitations making them fertile now at all times, which allowed them to produce a lot of milk from all the enslaved women. So yes, they have a vast amount of milk in their hands as they are monopolists but in regional amounts, it's just as much as it was previously produced in their territory and takes only one part of that region's production amount. And it's not the only region where Bullmen clans live."

"So if we look at the fact that supply of usual boob sap in their region did not drop, it means they are not producing high-level potions from it, but instead use it to maintain the facade. They use it to make it look like nothing serious is going on in the region. But this is just a matter of time. Women can't just keep giving birth and produce milk constantly. Their bodies will start to break. Dark Association bastards know it, but that dumb bull doesn't. When he realizes it, it will be too late, someone will come for his head shortly after the drop in milk production sends waves on the market alerting everyone of a big problem. That's why I said this will end soon.

However, by that time Bullmen clans in this region will forever drop in population and power. They will need centuries to repopulate. Their territory will most likely be taken by other Beastmen clans. Other beastmen would rebuild cities and rule them. If this was all the Dark Association planned then it would bring turbulent times only in part of that region but not the whole region as I said. And definitely not the entire Country. There are other Bullmen clans in other regions. The amount of milk on the market would drop but that would not be a disaster that the Dark Association aims to create."

"I see. But poisoning that milk as Dahlia said and spreading it around the whole region and even beyond the region would create that disaster." Said Noah.

"Poisoning it will have minimal effect. Clerics can cure poison. No. What these bastards did is a lot more wicked. You saw them feed pregnant women with the mixture, right? The problem with the pills is that they have addictive properties. For Cil, it wasn't a problem. Monster's body is tolerant to poisons and she soon started getting used to their effect so their effect dropped. But for humans it is different. They will start being addicted to it. And when pregnant women produce milk the drug would mix with milk in very small doses. Untraceable when you check it on poison presence, but after making potions the effect would rise. Soon all newbie warriors and adventurers in their region will start getting addicted to the boob sap potion."

"I see." Said Noah. "When their facade drops and the poisoned milk production stops, everyone will soon start getting withdrawal symptoms. And that is not curable by clerics. They will succeed in putting down an entire generation of newbie adventurers in that region and probably close-by regions as well." He said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"So you're saying that all this was not a strike at Bullmen or even their country but an attack on the adventurers guild? But why? They will only get the newest members, right? What does it give them?" Asked Noah after he understood the main picture.

"I am not sure. But if it was me I'd try raising a rival organization." Said Tessa. "Newbies make a vast amount of missions and tasks for merchants, cities, villages, and other guilds for small money. If the adventurer guild doesn't have a workforce, who would do it?

Experienced adventurers would not fart for the amount these tasks pay. So if you can time it so that you have a guild with people that did not fall down with withdrawal symptoms, you can start poaching clients. After some time these new second guild's members would gain experience and name starting to rival generations of more experienced adventurers and go beyond the region creating new branches and finally going globally." Said Tessa but then stopped as she noticed the silence around her and turn to look at the three pairs of eyes staring.

"What?" Asked Tessa worried.

"Holy fuck, Tessa. That sounds like a master plan of the most evil organization and you came up with it in a few minutes? Are you their mastermind by chance?"  Asked Noah, raising hands as if in surrender.

"Told you. I just had a lot of time to play these games." Said Tessa with a cunning smile. But her smile quickly passed. "But there is one hitch in that plan. You need a core organization for it with lots of members. Far more than Dark Association seems to have. They would need to be hiring a lot of fighters. And I never heard any rumors implying this. Where else would you find them if not by hiring? The only way I see is to unite the underworld and force bands and gangs that worked separately to work for the Dark Association and perform tasks under a facade of a clean and healthy organization."

"The problem is that rumors of Dark Association's ambition to unite the whole crime underworld have circulated ever since it first appeared. But is it even possible? Did they suddenly get confidence in achieving it? Something must have changed greatly in the underworld for that to happen." Said Tessa. "Unfortunately I have no idea what trump cards they might hold to achieve such ambition. Maybe I am simply overthinking it. Maybe, all they wanted is to shit on that country's King's head humiliating him in front of the whole world and that's it. Maybe, there is no master plan at all. I don't know. This is all just a theory." Said Tessa with a sigh.

"Or maybe you just uncovered their top secret." Said Noah.