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With a fairly sensible excuse she could think up in the heat of the moment, Erin pardoned herself from the campfire and trode briskly into the dark, away from the warm brilliance.

Erin heard her name being called from behind as she wandered into the dead of the night. However, she had no capacity to form a response. Right now in her mind, she was focused on distancing herself from her companions. It would be unspeakable if she lost all control right then and there.

Erin knew this was coming. In fact, she could faintly feel it building within her all this while. She half expected her lust to be greater than last night but just not to this degree. Her lust was not merely doubled. It was tripled, maybe even more. It took a great deal of strength and resolve to not just pounce on her companions right then.

She exerted whatever remaining sanity she had left to force herself far away from the camp. She needed to at least be at a considerable distance away where her moans wouldn’t be heard.

It was a fool’s errand to wander into the night all alone and without any source of light. However, Erin’s current state was not of the norms. Monsters which picked up her scent immediately bolted away from her. In spite of her declining sanity, she was more of a threat than ever. The monsters knew they would only be sealing their own fate if they approached her now.

As her mind became cloudier and her footsteps became heavier, Erin accidentally rammed into a large stump. She braced herself for the collision but it didn’t happen like she anticipated. Instead of bouncing off from the stump, she rammed through it. She lost her balance and tumbled across the ground.

“Wh-what…!?”

Erin was baffled. She knew she was strong since she had a few points invested in Might but not to this extent. What’s more, she didn’t ram into the stump with all intentions. She wasn’t even running. She was merely walking with full haste and stumbled into a tree. Yet, just like that, her simple fall destroyed the stump. Lust Deviant increased her ability values by fifty percent, she remembered reading about it but the fact that she destroyed a thick stump just by simply stumbling into it, it made her dubious of how much her ability stats had actually increased.

Something just didn’t feel right, she thought to herself. She gave her stats a quick look.

“What in the hell…!” She gasped in her heart. She couldn’t believe the numbers.

Might: 38 | Arcane: 30 | Finesse: 30

This was obviously more than just a fifty percent increase. She brought up the explanation for Lust Deviant in her mind.

Lust Deviant - Ability value increases by 100% upon carnal starvation but slowly loses one's sense of self. Pleasure of physical intimacy is heightened for the user and their partner(s). Upon orgasm, the user's pleasure is shared to all partners.

It was now a hundred percent. She distinctively remembered it being only fifty but now it was a hundred. There was no level indication for Lust Deviant which was why she hadn’t expected an increase in its variable. Thus, Erin came to a hypothesis. The increment value would increase if her lust from prior night was not properly taken care of.

She calmed her desires with onanism last night. It felt good but it wasn’t fulfilling. She wanted more but she didn’t have anyone to do it with and Maria was nowhere to be found. And now, she was dealing with the consequences.

“L-Lyra...” Erin spoke the name of the first person that crossed her mind. Erin needed her now more than ever but given Lyra’s circumstances, invoking her assistance would be simply boorish and incredibly odd.

Erin found her own hands slowly crawling to her womanhood.

Under such a cold night, Erin was only getting warmer. She found a tree that provided shade from the moonlight. Even if it was night, she could easily be seen from the camp if she was under the gentle beam of the moon. Erin sat herself against the trunk and hastily took off her armor before stripping herself down to her bare skin. At least she was still able to muster up some effort to place her weapons at a position that was easy to retrieve but wouldn’t be a hindrance during the session. The chill breeze hit her but the cold did not affect her even in the slightest. She felt only heat and a strange itch within her honeypot that her finger just couldn’t get rid off.

Erin wasted not a moment and proceeded to caress every inch of her body. Now with three tails, she embraced one with her arms, clamped another one between her legs, and bit down on the last one. Her right hand left the tails she was embracing and went to the tail between her legs. She grabbed it and began stroking it in pitch with her moans and fondlings of other parts of her body.

A part of her mind was still aware of the dangers and risk but that was only the minority of her current thoughts. Her desire for ecstasy was tossing away any bit of reasoning out of her mind. She understood what it would entail but she couldn’t stop; she didn’t want to. Her hands left her tails and went for her bountiful chest. She treated them with her utmost care and attention while not forgetting to give her womanly region the attention it needed and craved.

Her moans slowly transcended into wails. Deep within her mind, she understood the dangers of being alone in the woods at night. There were bound to be monsters which were brave enough to approach her. She feared for her life but that fear didn’t dwell in her mind for too long. Her fears and the notions of danger were cast out of the window when she perceived the monsters retreating away from her, most likely mistaking her moans of pleasure with howls of intimidations. She could be wrong but she was in no condition to care about logic.

She just wanted to reach the peak of pleasure.

However, it wasn’t enough. It was already made evident from last night. She couldn’t achieve rapture just by playing with herself and by herself. She needed a partner. She wanted to just rush back to the camp and pounced on the first person she laid her eyes on. Fortunately, her senses returned slightly; enough to prevent herself from pulling such a scandalous stunt.

“Fuck! Fuck! I want to cum…! I want to cum, damn it!”

She screamed in her mind as her fingers increased in intensity with its wriggles. She found her own womanly spot. It gave her a lot of pleasure but none of it was able to sate her desires. In fact, it only made it worse. It made her craving even greater than when she started and she couldn’t even orgasm with own fingers now.

“Damn it! Damn it! Why did I have to suffer like this!?”

Only venereal desires were whirling in her mind. Time and time again she wanted to cast aside her last shred of reasoning but no matter what she did, there was a small piece of sensibility hanging onto the corner of her mind. And she was grateful for that even if she found it a hindrance now.

“Lyra… Lyra… Lyra…”

Lyra’s face surfaced into Erin’s mind. She was only the person present who could quell her acute lust. There was Selene but Erin wasn’t fond of the idea of being a thieving cat. There was Freed but even shaking hands with him brought shivers down her spine. Maybe she couldn’t care less about who she slept with now but she was sure she would regret it when she regained all of her sanity. And then, there was… Aedan…

“If it’s Aedan… maybe I could…”

She considered Aedan to be a candidate for a mere second.

“What!? No! Fuck no! Aedan’s a man and a fucking prick! What the fuck am I thinking?!”

She couldn’t believe herself. She had just considered Aedan as a possibility. She was astounded and horrified by herself. It was even weirder when Aedan was the only one she didn’t feel any lust towards. Yet somehow, she wanted him.

“I need to tell Lyra. I don’t want to use her but she is here for my sake after all, or so Aedan claimed. But how am I going to ask Lyra for help? I’m not exactly close to the camp where they could easily hear my voice. So how—”

“Erin?” a voice called out to her at the same moment a scent drifted into her nose.

Before her brain could register the owner of the voice and scent, Erin spun around immediately to face the person who called out to her. She didn’t know if it had been a voice of a male or female. She just knew that someone had called her name. She thought it to be Lyra since it was her name that was called and it was filled with concern.

“You?” Erin gasped when she saw her caller. To her surprise, it wasn’t Lyra at all. Quite the contrary, it turned out to be Aedan.

“Disappointed?” He let out a faint smile. His eyes going up and down on her body. “You looked terrible.”

Erin immediately covered up her exposed chest and nether regions in a hurry. It didn’t help much as her arm pressing on her ample bosom was only emphasizing them but it was better than nothing. She cast a piercing glare at the masque of a Dwarrow.

Aedan sighed. “We got to stop meeting like this, if fate allows us to.”

“Where’s Lyra?” she asked demandingly but her current condition didn’t provide much strength to her voice.

“She’s unavailable,” Aedan responded. “She has a child to take care of, remember? The girl may be asleep but she’s not letting her grip loose from Lyra’s apparels.”

“Damn it!” Erin cursed in her heart. She didn’t know how long she could retain her mind from being encroached by the lust welling up within her. She was sure even Aedan would soon become an irresistible target like others.

“Fate is really cruel with its whims, wouldn’t you say? Lyra’s role was to be your relief but she became a relief for somebody else. Ironic, wouldn’t you say? But then again, since when had things go all according to plan?”

“Cease your jest of a speech and get Lyra to come here.” Her breath was heating up and its pace became more and more erratic.

“She’s taking care of the girl. What do you think they would all say if I just strode right in and ask for Lyra on your behalf? I don’t think I would even need to say much then for them to have a good idea of why you ask for Lyra. Just imagine that scenario, okay? If you were in their shoes, what kind of notion would you have?”

Despite being in a state where only sex was the thing Erin cared about, she did understand what Aedan was trying to tell her. Asking Lyra to stop caring for a child just to meet her out in the woods would surely put all kinds of strange ideas into their head. Worse, they would come to a conclusion that could be close to the truth and risk having her secret exposed. While she didn’t particularly mind too much about her reincarnation secret, her Lust Deviant skill was a whole other matter. She didn’t know how temptress creatures were treated in this world and she wasn’t into the idea of finding it out with herself as the subject.

“Lyra wasn’t told—” Erin paused midway to recollect her breath. “—about my condition?”

“She was told that her reason being in this party was for your well-being, nothing more than that. My father thinks that it would be prudent for you to be the one to decide on revealing the whole truth. Even so, we are seeing how that "contingency" turned out.”

Erin wanted to lash out at Aedan’s nonchalant attitude but her carnal desires were having different ideas, ideas that Erin had no wish to follow through.

“Well, since things have devolved to such a state, allow me to suggest a solution.”

Erin didn’t have a good feeling about it but she motioned meekly at him to continue.

“You might just have to put aside your orientations and go with the only available choice you have at this very moment.”

Erin blinked.

“You and me.” Aedan pointed at Erin and then himself. He then made a gesture.

Erin’s languidly flailing tails all stiffened at Aedan’s suggestion. Her ears sprouted straight as if to pierce the air. “Fuck no, never. Not in a million years.”

“I guessed as much.” Aedan shrugged. “But you have to understand this; you are a core member of this party. If we can’t have you at your full capacity, this whole excursion is as good as jeopardized.”

“I said no!” Erin snarled.

“Your aversion for men— it’s starting to feel like it’s more than just your orientation. I know a few grand lilies who weren't even this adamant.”

Erin said nothing in return. More like this was the least suitable moment of all times for her to reveal that significant aspect of her reincarnation.

“Were you raped by men before? Is that why?”

Erin kept her silence. If she answered it, it would be easily revealed by the sharp-witted Aedan.

“Hmm… not that, huh.”

“What the— he can tell? Is he a mind reader of sorts?”

“Then what could it be…?”

“Stop your worthless guesses and just come out with another solution. We are not going to fuck, end of story. ”

“You’re really that against it, huh.” Aedan furrowed his brows as he worked his brain. “I don’t really have other solutions. I do have other solutions but let’s just say… you’ll hate those more than my current suggestion.

“You expect me to believe that you, a Dragon-kin who had gone through multiple incarnations, didn't at least have a single spell or skill to help suppress my urges?” Erin heaved a heavily rasped breath. “And what about your alchemy skills? Surely you must have something. I don’t believe you don’t have any.”

“I never said I don’t have any. I just said that I don’t have any suitable ones nor any other methods you would accept. Not if I took the side-effect and after-effects into account. And there's also the matter of preparations.”

“W-what do you m-mean?” Erin struggled to squeeze those words out of her throat.

“For one, I'm lacking the needed items, materials, and ingredients. Also, I don't know much about your... skill. I can't just give you some random potion or cast some random spell on you, at least not without an in-depth study of your skill first.”

“You’re telling me that the safest option is to shack up with you?” Erin said it like she had just swallowed a bug.

“There’s no shack in these hills but… yeah.”

“D-damn it!” she shouted but she wasn’t worried about the camp hearing her. Her meek voice barely even reached Aedan’s ears.

“Taking care of your dangerous urges is more important than what you desire right now, lass.”

Erin hated it but he was right, like he always had been. Radically sound, as she had come to dub it as such.

Aedan shrugged. “Well, if you’re this adamant, I guess I could call Lyra over. It’ll raise some questions but I’ll make sure they at least don’t get the wrong idea about your circumstances.”

As Aedan was about to turn to leave, Erin stopped him. “Wait.”

“Hmm? Changed your mind?”

Erin nodded with whatever remaining sound resolve she had left. “Cast your strongest magic on me,” she managed to say. “Use your spells.”

Aedan widened his eyes. “Didn't you just hear what I just said? Are you out of your mind, lassie? Sorry, stupid question. Of course you are.”

“I can take it. I’m not just some frail lady.” Erin began to mouth off without any filter to her thoughts. Her urges were muddling her mind. “I’ll have you know, I was once a master swordsman known as the Sword Saint myself, like that so-called Astoria Stormedge.”

“Swords... man… is that a malapropism or you meant it literally as it is?”

“I was a man! Do you understand now?”

“Ah.” Aedan gaped open his mouth. “That’s.... utterly shocking… to say the least but not unbelievable considering how you have acted.”

“Now do you know why I don’t want to shack up with you?!”

“Your point is still invalid though. I personally knew a few straight men who had willingly fornicate with other men for the sake of their... well, position, health, wealth, those kinds of things. And you are no longer a man, milady. You are a woman now. A Fox-kin, a Fae.”

Erin was left astounded. She didn’t expect such a reply. Maybe she was being selfish, she thought. Truthfully, she also did know a few men who had been in the same circumstances and she was always wondering how they could have made such a decision… Perhaps now, she could understand it.

“Just for the record, I’m against using magic to suppress your urges, even if I had the right spell. From my experiences, they are very unreliable and highly unpredictable. Who knows what would happen if it entangled with some random spell your opponent threw at you in the heat of fight?”

Erin yelled through her teeth as she slammed her fist down at the ground, producing a miniature crater.

Aedan unleashed a spell at the right moment to dull the sound and tremor. With her current strength and power level, Lyra and the others would definitely feel it back at the camp.

"Such power..." Aedan mused. "Maybe... just maybe..."

“Fine!” Erin coughed out her resolve. She didn’t have any more time to look for alternatives. Even asking for Lyra now was too late. She felt it. Her urges had brimmed to its fullest. Her mind was on the verge and she wagered that she most likely only had less than a minute for any sensibility. After the minute was up, while she didn’t know what she would do, she was sure that what she would be doing, she wouldn’t stop until her urges were quelled.

Erin was about to declare her reluctant acceptance towards Aedan’s suggestion when the person himself stopped her words with a hand.

“What is it now?” Erin asked.

“I think I might have another method. One that doesn't involve my sword into your sheath.”

Erin narrowed her eyes. “Did you think of that method only now or did you purposely wait until I was in the lowest depth of anguish?”

“As much as I wished for the latter, the truth is the former.”

Erin was still dubious but she let him talk.

“But first, I have to test if this method was even worth trying.”

“How?” Erin canted her head.

Aedan smiled and said nothing. Though his hand moved.

He was quick, even swifter than yesterday when he fought her. Despite that, Erin was able to perceive his movement. Her hand raised and caught his fist. She amazed herself with her own reaction speed but it amazed her even more at how strong her grip was. She could feel Aedan trying to struggle his arm free but she held it tightly without budging.

“Impressive. Really impressive.” Aedan chuckled. “I think this method might work.”

“Explain your method now or I’ll tear your arm off,” Erin warned.

“It’s simple.” Aedan grinned. “We’ll duel.”