I licked the Vampire Princess’s feet with utmost loyalty.
It wasn’t because I had any particular fetish for that sort of thing. I did it to show that I would serve her with the devotion of a dog—in other words, that I would do everything in my power for her.
“You were amazing, Trainer.”
“What was?”
The succubus secretary who had entered the Trainer’s private room sparkled at me with a gaze one would reserve for some incredibly extraordinary being.
Of course she would.
It was already serious enough for a human to kneel before a demon. But to lick her feet on top of that, begging for his life?
I had practically abandoned my humanity.
Though the Vampire Princess’s feet were clean and odorless—
Ah.
They did have a smell.
Correction.
It wasn’t a smell. It was a fragrance.
I didn’t know whether it was because she was a vampire, but her body did give off a faint scent like sweet fruit.
‘Even so, I wouldn’t lick just anyone’s feet if they told me to.’
No matter how desperate I was to survive, would I lick a goblin’s or an orc’s feet?
Against them, it would be better to survive by wagging my silver tongue rather than sucking on their feet with my own tongue.
In any case.
“So I’m officially a Trainer now, right?”
“Yes. However, there is one problem.”
“A problem?”
“Yes. The fact that you are human.”
Ah.
“…Would it help if I became a vampire? Or some other kind of demon?”
“It is not that. Master believes that because you are human, you will be able to corrupt humans more easily, and has permitted you to remain human.”
Whew.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I and the Holy Demon Corps under my command know that you are a Trainer, but the combat troops and ordinary legionnaires may misunderstand your identity.”
“……”
“Humans here are generally either prisoners or toys that are about to be discarded.”
“I suppose so.”
It might be a somewhat inappropriate comparison, but during the Age of Exploration, if a black man were seen wearing a suit in Europe, wouldn’t everyone think the same thing?
*Is that slave’s master particularly eccentric?*
‘It’s not entirely wrong, either.’
I was a traitor to humanity.
In exchange for receiving a suit and a whip from my master, the Vampire Princess, my role was to capture my fellow humans and turn them into corrupted beings like myself.
“Then what should I do to avoid being misunderstood?”
“You should have a mark carved into you to show that you are a member of the Vampire Legion. Other demons may be startled to see that you are human, but they will recognize you once they see the mark.”
“What sort of mark…?”
“A tattoo on your face.”
A tattoo, huh.
Neither in my previous life nor in this one had I particularly liked or disliked tattoos.
However, in my previous life, a woman who had once been my girlfriend used to get tattoos on her body.
She had one shaped like wings just above her butt, with the words, *‘Please put it here,’* which was a little arousing—but I hadn’t realized other men would be looking at it too.
“Hmm…”
“Do you dislike tattoos?”
“It’s not that I’m eager to get one, but if it’s going to cover my face… No, I should do it anyway. I don’t want to cause unnecessary misunderstandings.”
“…Hehe.”
The succubus secretary let out a low laugh and reached toward my face.
“Please rest assured. It will not be visible from the outside. It will be a symbol visible only to demons.”
“Something like that is possible?”
“That is the power of magic.”
The succubus secretary’s finger pressed against my right cheek.
It slowly circled around beneath my eye, as though drawing a teardrop.
“It’s done.”
“Already?”
“Yes. To demons, you will appear to be someone who has had this carved into his face… But that is precisely why it should be even more effective.”
The succubus secretary pointed toward her lower abdomen.
Vwoom.
As she ran her hand over her stomach, the mark between her legs began to shine, as though magic had been activated.
The same womb tattoo that had glowed on the lower abdomen of the female knight Eris.
…Don’t tell me?
“Isn’t it pretty? Master designed it herself.”
“That’s what you just put on my cheek?”
“Yes.”
“……”
A man walking around with the Vampire Legion’s womb tattoo—the kind invisible to humans—carved onto his face.
‘At least I won’t suddenly get beaten to death while walking around.’
At the very least, no one would recklessly kill me just because they thought I was human.
“Secretary.”
“Yes.”
“If someone sees this and still tries to kill me, what should I do with them?”
“Why, naturally…”
The secretary lightly mimed drawing the edge of her hand across her own neck.
“They will lose their head.”
* * *
I had become a Trainer.
Though I had become one, all I had accomplished so far was a single result.
The priestess Dalia.
And regarding that result, I had one thing to consider.
‘Should I set a new regression point?’
A full day had passed since the last time I had sex with ejaculation inside.
Dalia had been corrupted, I had licked the Vampire Princess’s feet, and I had become a Trainer. So it wouldn’t be a bad idea to adjust the timing of my creampie regression again now.
‘Or I could gather a little more information and buy myself some time.’
Even if I went back into the past, I would act exactly the same way toward Dalia and the Vampire Princess.
I would pretend not to know the information I had gained through regression.
I would pretend that I was corrupting Dalia for the first time and licking the Vampire Princess’s feet for the first time.
Unless someone could read my memories or I revealed that I possessed the ability to regress, I had to make the fullest possible use of this power.
Therefore—
“What are you planning to do for today’s training?”
Morning at the Trainer’s office.
“I need to decide on a direction.”
Before beginning the day’s work, I held up two fingers to the succubus secretary, who had come bearing breakfast.
“In the morning, I’ll manage the corrupted and take care of the new prisoners.”
“Are you referring to Dalia?”
“Yes.”
Dalia did not need to become a vampire or have the womb tattoo carved onto her face.
Instead, she bore the womb tattoo on her lower abdomen as a symbol of a corrupted being, but she didn’t seem particularly concerned about it.
“She can use divine power, can’t she?”
“…Yes. Whether we should call it corrupted divine power or not, we are still investigating its nature.”
The succubus secretary scratched her cheek and looked away.
Was there something she was keeping secret from me?
‘It doesn’t matter.’
If it were information I needed to know, she would have told me. If it was something I had no particular need to know, there was no reason for me to go poking at it and make trouble for myself.
I was curious, but there was a reason people said that scratching an itch could make it worse.
“Dalia herself says she can use the goddess’s power exactly as before. She considers it proof of her faith—that even though she has become a demon, the goddess is still watching over her.”
“Proof of the goddess, huh.”
“I don’t know whether that is what happens to people who originally possessed divine power when they fall into demonhood, or whether it is because of the vampire nature mixed into her.”
The one analyzing the cause and phenomenon was probably the succubus secretary—or the Vampire Princess herself.
“I only want to find out whether Dalia is the only case like this, or whether other priestesses are the same. If Dalia is special, we need to take better care of her. If she isn’t, then we may be able to produce countless corrupted beings.”
“……!!”
The succubus secretary’s eyes widened.
Apparently, I had been thinking in the right direction.
“That being the case, can we acquire more priestesses?”
At present, there were no human prisoners left in the dungeon.
“They don’t necessarily have to be priestesses. Any woman who possesses divine power will do. The important thing is simply that, like Dalia, they possess divine power in the first place.”
Of the four female prisoners who had been alive, the female knight Eris and the priestess Dalia were the only ones left. The demons had “devoured” the other two.
The men?
Dalia had disposed of them neatly as punishment for abandoning their faith.
The traces they left behind had been thoroughly cleaned up by the blood-sucking slimes in half a day under the pretext of tidying the rooms.
I had no particular interest in where the blood and flesh had gone.
This was the Demon King’s Army, and I was both a human and a demon.
I was simply grateful that I hadn’t been killed in the same way.
“It may be a little awkward for me to ask this, but is capturing people like us really difficult?”
“To be honest, it is not particularly difficult.”
The succubus secretary answered candidly.
“Do you remember how you were captured and brought here?”
“I do. We thought it was an ordinary dungeon and entered, but when we stepped into a place where something like mist had spread through one part of the dungeon, we were teleported to this dungeon.”
I had told them not to go in.
But they immediately dismissed my objection, asking what a mere porter could possibly know.
“Do you understand the structure of dungeons?”
“I do. There’s an entity corresponding to a ‘boss,’ and entrances can open anywhere in the world.”
“Yes. Of course, physical entrances still exist as they are, but an entrance does not have to be merely a physical door.”
The secretary pointed toward the full-length mirror placed across from the bed.
“There are magical doors as well.”
“Can that mirror teleport people or something?”
“If you wish, I can link it to one, but that mirror itself has no such function.”
I could more or less guess what the mirror was actually for.
“Dungeons contain magical doors. Just like the mist you entered through, there are areas through which one can cross over space itself. Demons call them the ‘Demon God’s Corridor,’ but…”
“The Demon God’s Corridor?”
“Yes. Borrowing the term from human language, you would call it a ‘gate.’”
“Ah.”
I immediately understood what she meant.
It was one of the basic things anyone who became an adventurer had to know.
A gate.
Simply put, it was a dimensional portal.
Although the Vampire Princess’s dungeon was located within the territory of the Demon King’s Army, a second gate leading into that territory could suddenly appear somewhere in the human kingdom.
“The dungeon you entered was a new juvenile dungeon created separately by our legion.”
“A juvenile dungeon?”
“Yes. We dug rooms filled with traps, and arranged for anyone caught in them to be summoned directly here.”
“…I see.”
I understood.
“Then other adventurers might come through that place as well.”
“Yes. No one has crossed over yet, but…”
“Good. Then I have a good idea.”
The nature of a good trap was simple.
“No matter what kind of enemy comes through, you can definitely capture them, right?”
“Unless they are a [Hero]-class or a [Diamond]-class adventurer, we can handle them without much difficulty.”
“Good. Then I have a proposal.”
This probably wasn’t crossing any lines.
“I’ll use the prisoners to capture other humans.”
To corrupt people, I needed prisoners. And to obtain those prisoners, I needed to lure in those who would become them.
“Not Dalia, since she’s already corrupted… You mean Eris?”
“No.”
“Then who…?”
“Jake.”
I rubbed my neck.
“We know he’s dead, but the people outside don’t know that our great knight has died, do they?”
“That is true.”
“So I’ll write a letter in his place and send it outside. A will.”
“…Wouldn’t they be suspicious?”
“They would. I can make up an excuse. Say that his arm was injured, so he had to write the letter with the help of a porter.”
There was a belief more solid than suspicion.
“That bastard Jake was technically a noble’s illegitimate son.”
The hope that he might still be alive.
“From the perspective of his brothers, this is the most troublesome situation imaginable.”
Or the hope that he might finally be dead.
“Even an illegitimate son can receive a share of the inheritance if he’s alive.”
Schrödinger’s Jake.
Until someone confirmed whether he was dead or alive, no one could know whether he had survived.
“Aren’t you curious? Whether his father will send people to check if his illegitimate son is still alive, or whether his children will send people to make sure he’s dead in case the inheritance somehow passes to their half-brother.”
The succubus secretary gazed at me.
Her eyes began to sparkle with excitement, delight, and anticipation.
“Whatever their reason for coming, ‘people are going to come here.’”