Barely minutes after the secret passage sealed behind the vampires, the heavy oak doors of the study swung open without a knock.
A tall, broad-shouldered man with cropped blonde hair strode into the room. He wore a dark, impeccably tailored leather traveling doublet - devoid of family crests, gold embroidery, or ostentatious medals. Despite the absence of ceremonial flair, his cool, patrician self-assurance left no doubt as to his station in the world.
Edmund Ashcroft shot to his feet in a fraction of a second, bending his neck in a deep, deferential bow.
“Your Highness.”
Cassian Valemont - the Third Prince of the Empire - ignored the greeting. His pale, steel-gray eyes swept the room, lingering on the empty armchair across from the desk where the dazed girl had sat moments earlier.
“Did she agree?” the prince asked curtly, stepping over to the hearth and resting a hand on the marble mantelpiece.
“She accepted the terms presented,” the Viscount answered smoothly, conveniently glossing over the fact that refusal would have landed her in the dungeons to sate the appetites of stressed men.
Cassian did not press for details; in the realm of high politics, only results mattered. Dossiers of trade reports and promissory notes were stacked high upon the desk.
Backed by the vast capital of emerging merchant houses and an illicit alliance with powerful, aristocratic vampire clans, the Third Prince's faction was widely regarded as the most formidable power in the capital.
Gold and an intricate spy network gave him an immense advantage, but the Asterion Empire was not yet his. The Church of the Holy Sun remained a monolithic fortress, impervious to outside influence.
That was precisely why he needed someone like Mina.
A young Daughter of Light could freely cross the thresholds of sacred archives, chapels, and church curias, where the prince’s agents would arouse the immediate suspicion of the Inquisition. She was meant to be a silent, invisible wedge driven into the foundations of orthodoxy.
“I need someone they trust implicitly,” Cassian murmured coldly, turning back toward the room.
In that same breath, the concealed panel in the wall slid aside soundlessly.
The three silver-haired vampires stepped from the corridor, instantly dropping to one knee before the prince. The eldest held a small ebony casket in her hands, presenting it deferentially to Ashcroft. The Viscount lifted the lid, angling its contents toward Cassian.
Resting against the velvet was a slender, intricately wrought silver bracelet, centered with a teardrop gem the color of congealed blood.
The prince took the ornament and snapped it around his left wrist without hesitation.
The metal cinched around his skin with a faint hiss, the runes etched into its inner band flaring with a muted crimson glow.
A wave of foreign, resonant energy coursed up Cassian's arm. He heard neither her thoughts nor her breath, yet he felt a distinct, unbreakable thread - as if an invisible silk tether had been placed into his palm, leading straight to her chest.
“What is the risk of detection?” he asked firmly, looking up from the jewel.
“I assure Your Highness that I retained the finest specialists - ” Ashcroft began servilely, but Cassian cut him off with a flick of his wrist, locking eyes with the kneeling vampire.
“The mark is entirely masked against routine observation and standard aura screenings,” the woman answered dispassionately, raising blood-red irises. “However, should a high-ranking Inquisitor perform a deep spiritual core scan... they may detect minor anomalies in her mana flow.”
Cassian frowned.
“Then she must not give them the slightest reason to look. How does the subjugation take hold?”
“Gradually, Your Highness,” the second specialist explained. “The girl retains full memory, her existing personality, intellect, and capacity for rational thought. We have not reduced her to a mindless doll. The succubus magic underpinning the Scarlet Brand does not crush the will with a blunt blow; it slowly realigns her emotions, her loyalties, and her susceptibility to Your Highness's influence. She will remain capable of navigating complex tasks. Over time, the potency of the Scarlet Brand will only deepen.”
“Can the process be accelerated?” Cassian asked, rotating the bracelet on his wrist.
“Yes. Successive rituals and frequent core stimulation could condense the timeline to mere weeks. However, the behavioral shifts would become stark and abrupt, which would instantly draw the suspicion of her superiors within the church.”
The prince weighed the risks for a few heartbeats, then gave a slight shake of his head.
“We stick to the slow path. See to it, Ashcroft. She is to resume her daily duties and arouse absolute zero suspicion. I have far more pressing matters at hand than dallying with succubus rituals.”
“Understood, Your Highness. Everything shall be seen to,” the Viscount bowed deeply.
Cassian turned on his heel and strode from the study.
The moment the prince's footsteps receded down the corridor, the vampires rose from their knees, their solemn deference giving way to cool relaxation. One glanced at the closed door, stretching with a low, predatory giggle:
“That little priestess wouldn't suspect in her darkest nightmares that her true master is the Third Prince himself...”
The others answered with quiet, mocking smirks.
Ashcroft wasted no time on idle chatter. Dismissing the women with a curt nod of thanks for their professional work, he sank heavily into the armchair behind the desk once he was alone.
Exhaling a breath, he pulled his accounting ledger closer. Dipping his pen into the inkwell, he methodically recorded the cost of the ritual, the deadline for the first installment, and a brief note beside Mina's name.
To him, the affair was simply another ledger entry balanced in black and red.
***
Mina saw neither the prince nor the vampires leave the estate.
When she was escorted from the subterranean level, only a silent valet waited in the corridor. He handed her a duplicate of the promissory note bearing the Viscount's wax seal, a small leather pouch with a handful of coppers, and wordlessly led her to a closed carriage waiting in the courtyard.
The ride through Asterion passed in a blur of disjointed, fleeting impressions.
Mina sat rigid on the leather bench, clutching the folder of documents tightly to her lap. Through the carriage's small window, she caught glimpses of stone bridges arching over murky canals, towering townhouses, wrought-iron guild signs, and bustling crowds - humans, dwarves, and elves brushing past one another in their daily rush.
Grand marble palace towers loomed above the rooftops, testament to the world's majesty, but none of it sparked wonder in her heart.
Her senses were completely frayed. When the bronze toll of a distant civic clock tower boomed nearby, Mina leaped in her seat with a muffled gasp, her heart leaping into her throat.
Suddenly, her terror morphed into a bizarre, visceral sensation as her lower abdomen flared with the heat of a red-hot coal.
A violent, searing spasm ripped through her loins and pelvis - an intimate wave of unnatural heat that cascaded down her thighs in a split second.
A trembling, helpless moan tore from her throat. Instinctively clamping her knees together with all her might, Mina dug her nails into the upholstery and shut her eyes in sheer horror.
The heat throbbed in rhythm with her pulse for several agonizing heartbeats before slowly ebbing away, leaving a clammy shiver in its wake.
By the time the carriage finally ground to a halt and the driver knocked on the partition, Mina could barely stand.
They had arrived in Veyrsend - the poorer, western district of the capital. Here, opulent marble yielded to cramped cobblestone alleys, cobbler workshops, and weathered tenements.
Standing on Wax Lantern Street was a modest, unassuming Church of the Holy Sun. Its stone belfry was cracked and visibly in need of repair, and the iron braziers beside the steps smoldered with the dregs of cheap tallow candles. It was a quiet place, forgotten by the grand world, yet still functioning.
Her new home turned out to be two small rooms adjoining the sacristy.
The moment she crossed the threshold and threw the heavy iron bolt, what little strength she had been forcing into her limbs drained away.
Mina dropped the papers onto the floorboards. Ripping the woolen mantle from her shoulders, she tossed it into a corner and collapsed heavily onto an old, threadbare sofa beneath the window.
The room was chilly, scented with stale incense. For a good fifteen minutes, she sat motionless, staring blankly at the wall. Only now, enveloped in absolute silence, did the vast, crushing void crash down upon her.
With trembling hands, she reached for the sash of her habit.
Unbuckling the clasp, she hitched up the dark wool and looked down at her lower belly.
The skin beneath her navel was still flushed and feverishly warm. The crimson lines of the demonic tattoo smoldered with a faint, pinkish glow - the stylized heart, horns, and bat-like succubus wings branded across her fair skin looked like a brazen, indelible slave mark.
Hesitantly, she reached out and brushed a fingertip against the edge of the seal.
In that exact millisecond, an electric jolt shot through her body.
The succubus nature of the curse turned the nerves in that spot into a minefield of unnatural, searing hypersensitivity. A wave of shameful, suffocating pleasure ripped through her lower abdomen and hips with such ferocity that Mina arched backward, a stifled, humiliating sob tearing from her throat. She yanked her hand back as if scalded, panting heavily as hot tears of rage spilled down her cheeks.
Her own body was betraying her at the simplest touch.
“Is there... any transmigrator on earth more pathetic than me?” she threw into the emptiness of the room, her voice cracking in a raspy, helpless laugh.
No legendary swords. No devoted companions. Instead, she had been dumped into an unfamiliar body, saddled with a debt that could bankrupt a mid-sized enterprise, and stamped with a magical brand courtesy of vampire witches.
She remembered everything she had read on the forum. She knew Ashcroft was merely a pawn, she knew about the Third Prince, she knew assassinating the creditor accomplished nothing, and she remembered the warnings about the Inquisition's fanaticism. But so what? Theoretical knowledge from internet threads was utterly useless when you lacked the tools to take action.
Instinctively, she reached down for the documents scattered across the floor. Her accountant's mind scrambled to anchor onto anything rational. She skimmed the rows of figures: fifty thousand coins in principal, weekly interest installments, draconian penalty clauses for delinquency, and the fine-print clause granting the right to “in-kind debt enforcement upon the debtor's person.”
She tossed the papers back onto the table. Without understanding local prices, the purchasing power of gold, or a priestess’s wages, those numbers were just an abstract death sentence.
Suddenly, a final, desperate thought sparked in her mind.
The game.
This was a fucking RPG.
She sat upright on the sofa, balling her fists.
“Menu,” she said aloud.
...
“Status? Inventory? Settings? Pause... damn it, pause!”
Yet despite her commands, the only reply was the faint creak of old floorboards and the wind whistling through drafty windowpanes. The silence grew increasingly suffocating, crushing her chest. Mina hung her head, feeling the final spark of hope flicker out in her heart.
And that was when, at the exact split second she was ready to surrender, the air before her eyes shimmered.
A thin, pale azure line ignited in the space before her. It expanded violently, resolving into a broad, translucent rectangle across which a golden progress bar glided with a quiet digital hum:
[Adaptation to local laws complete.]
[Restoring character progression functions...]
Mina caught her breath. Her heart leaped into her throat so hard the room spun. She scrambled off the sofa so violently she knocked over an adjacent stool.
Reaching a trembling hand toward the hovering panel, she recoiled in fear, then reached out again.
“It's here...” she whispered, a nervous, almost hysterical smile breaking across her face. “It’s really here! Oh gods, it actually works!”
For one brief, shining moment, she believed the nightmare was finally over. That she could click the right setting, cleanse the cursed brand, reset the debt, or simply hit an exit to desktop button.
Then her eyes drifted to the header of the panel.
The smile froze on her lips.
[SYSTEM OF INDECENT PIETY]
Mina stared at those words for entirely too long.
“We’ll... we’ll deal with the name later,” she muttered under her breath, swallowing hard and brushing aside her mounting dread.
The interface was sleek, responding to her mere focus. Heart pounding, Mina navigated straight to the Shop tab.
The catalog of available items stretched on almost endlessly - thousands of scrolls, elixirs, spells, and artifacts sorted neatly into categories. For a fleeting instant, a surge of her old corporate confidence returned.
She was looking at a massive inventory catalog, and every catalog had to contain the solution to her problem.
Reality slammed into her like a battering ram the moment her eyes tracked down to the purchasing conditions.
Almost every icon was grayed out, locked, and dead. The prices required either hundreds of gold coins she didn't possess, or a second, enigmatic currency labeled as Faith.
And that was when her eyes landed on the recommended category highlighted at the very top - a glaring, neon-pink banner stamped with bold letters:
[Recommended for Beginners]:
[Shameless Allure] - Price: 1 Faith (NOVICE DISCOUNT!)
Description: Enhances the host’s natural charm. Causes your sweat to exude a sweet pheromonal fragrance, drawing men’s eyes reflexively toward your hips.
[Voice of Temptation] - Price: 2 Faith
Description: Imbues your prayers and spoken words with a velvety, resonant timbre, lowering listeners' psychological resistance.
[Kiss of Infatuation] - Price: 5 Faith
[Temptress’s Dance] - Price: 10 Faith
[Art of Provocative Flirtation] - Price: 3 Faith
[Habit of Indecent Piety] - Price: 1 Gold Coin
Mina scrolled past the entries with mounting disbelief and a churning stomach.
“What in the actual fuck is this?...” she choked out.
She frantically typed standard clerical abilities into the search bar - skills that a proper Daughter of Light ought to possess. Sure enough, they were there:
[ Heal] - Price: 300 Faith + 15 Gold Coins
[Barrier of Holy Light] - Price: 500 Faith + 20 Gold Coins
[Body Fortification] - Price: 250 Faith + 10 Gold Coins
The discrepancy was monstrous.
To acquire even the simplest protective barrier or healing spell required a fortune in gold and an astronomical sum of Faith. Meanwhile, corrupt, seductive abilities were practically being handed to her on a silver platter for pocket change, tempting and herding her straight down the path of degradation.
Exactly as the jaded players on the forum had warned. The system had been maliciously engineered as an unyielding engine of corruption.
In a frenzy, she tore through the remaining tabs.
She searched for anything. The words Exit. Log Out. End Session. Customer Support.
Her fingers slammed against the translucent window with mounting desperation, but the panel answered with cold, mechanical indifference, merely toggling between gray, inaccessible listings.
Moments later, Mina’s hope popped like a soap bubble.
Her legs gave out completely, turning to water as she collapsed to her knees onto the hard floorboards before the couch. Clamping her hands into the wool of her pristine habit, she doubled over, burying her forehead against the edge of the sofa cushions.
A gut-wrenching, hysterical wail tore from her chest.
“Let me out...” she wept, choking on her own tears. “Please, just let me out of here... I only wanted to play a damn game...”
Lifting her tear-streaked face, contorted in anguish, she screamed into the emptiness of the sacristy until her throat rasped raw:
“LET ME OUT OF THIS HELL!”
The only reply was the dull, indifferent silence of the ancient church, while before her weeping eyes, the pristine azure interface hovered undisturbed.