The Hero Became a Succubus, and the Only Way to Level is to… What?!

Seif and Panner were kind enough to use their status as Ordane scholars to fix Seven and Kara with a place to stay. The university offered many gated dormitories from which students and academics lived. Kanae's top priority, at least for the moment, was to make sure those two were safe. Ideally, now that the cylindrical stone was in her possession rather than Seven, that should take some heat off him.

Two rooms were all they managed to acquire: one for Seven, and the other for Kara. Guards regularly patrolled the dormitories, which meant they should be safe here. The others waited outside. Only Kanae, Kara, and Seven entered with the scholars, who showed them to one of the rooms, a rather well-furnished quarter with more than enough accommodations. The communal baths were downstairs, each room had their own personal toilet, and there was a multi-tiered desk that its occupant likely wouldn't be using.

Panner was not at all happy about it in the slightest.

"I can't believe we'll be harboring the very thief who stole from the museum…" Panner grumbled to himself.

"I returned it, didn't I?" Seven exclaimed defensively.

Everyone turned their eyes to Kanae, who was leaning against the window sill. The cylindrical stone object was cold to the touch in her hands, never seeming to warm up no matter how long she held it. The Dryoak Consortium wanted this, and she had no intentions of letting them.

"Uhm… Remind me again why we didn't store that away in the museum again?" Seif stammered.

"You heard Seven." Kanae tossed it repeatedly in the air and caught it, much to the scholars' anxiousness. "There's a gang that chased him through the city for this. If a harpy boy managed to steal this from the museum, think what an organized group can do. I'm keeping it for now." She flashed a playful smirk. "Not like you can stop a succubus anyway."

"What do you plan to do with it anyway?" Panner asked, his voice tinged with scholarly curiosity.

"Seif thinks it's a key, and every key opens a lock. I'm going to see what's being kept hidden." She stuffed it away into her satchel.

There was a very good chance, after what Kanae learned from Claudia and Alicia, that this key opened a chamber somewhere in the Under Roads. If Sultana Dudula was ordering every mining settlement to collapse underground cultist or dwarven ruins, then they needed to get to them first before whatever this key opened was lost for good.

"Seif, Panner. You two probably get inside scoops of Under Road discoveries, right? I want you to come to me whenever you get the info," Kanae said.

"What? No! You can get us hanged for this. Sultana Dudula explicitly doesn't want outsiders finding out!" Panner exclaimed, and Seif agreed with his colleague.

Hmmm.

Kanae focused her eyes on Panner, and her new skill Identify Kink activated. Words appeared as foggy texts above the human man's head.

[Panner's kink: Boobjob, pampering, words of encouragement, infantilism, vanilla.]

"M-My resolve is firm!" Panner noticed her staring a little too hard and backed away.

"I know." Kanae put an arm around his shoulders, and lightly caressed his cheek with her other hand. "You're such a diligent and hard worker. Even standing up to a succubus? It must be so stressful for you lately. How about in exchange for the information…" She squished her chest against his. "I sandwich your dick between my breasts, and tell you what a gooooood boy you've been?"

"You'll be the first to know, mommy! I MEAN, Kanae!" He went red up to his ears, and when it became too embarrassing to stay, pushed Seif towards the door. "Ahem. Quickly, let's check to see if there have been any updates."

"You're so easy…" Sighing, Sief shook his head.

Once they were gone, Kanae was left alone with Kara and Seven. The harpy boy at the edge of the bed, head hanging and kicking his feet. The feline girl hadn't fixed the scabbard and rapier to her girdle yet, and instead clutched it fondly in both hands.

"I'm sorry," Seven began dejectedly, "for not asking you for help the first time… I really thought I could get Theena back by myself. Guess a Rookie like me really can't do shit."

"I probably would've done the same thing if my friends were kidnapped. I'll let Theena do the scolding after I save her, but for now, is there anything you can tell me? Like how she went missing?" Kanae asked.

The two exchanged glances as though to decide who should explain, but it was the normally quiet Kara who started first.

"We got to Bravost almost out of food and water. The monsters out here were tough, so it isn't like we can easily hunt game for something to eat. As Rookies, we never earned a lot to begin with. Quests were our only source of income. But when we got to the city's adventurers hall, they told us Rookies weren't being serviced anymore. No one knew why, and the receptionists never gave us a clear answer. Our coin pouches started getting light, we didn't have any trade skills, and the only readily available jobs were mining," Kara explained.

Seven steadied his quivering lower lip and continued next, "Theena started getting distant after a few days. We saw her less and less. Kara and I woke up one morning, and Theena just… vanished. She left us with a bulging pouch of gold and a note." He handed Kanae a wrinkled letter that must have been read over multiple times, likely from someone trying to make sense of it. Tear stains smudged some words, and they were no longer legible.

Kanae took her time reading the letter. She had only seen Theena's handwriting a few times during their time together in Kandis. Her writing was beautiful and came from someone who was well-learned, intelligent, and probably hailed from nobility. There were still traces of that in the letter, but stiff lines and harsh impressions in the text suggested it was written under duress. Almost as though Theena was in a hurry.

In short, it was an apology letter. Theena also asked that they not look for her, and that she loved Kara and Seven like siblings very much. It ended with her hoping to adventure again with them one day. Nothing indicated where she was going or why.

"Theena left you two with gold, right? But weren't you all running out of money?" Kanae asked to be clear.

Kara nodded. "We were confused, too. It was enough to keep us fed for at least a month."

"We were also together most of the time. I'd have known if she picked up odd jobs!" Seven added.

So, Theena came into a large amount of gold, left it to her companions, and disappeared. Did she steal it, or maybe someone gave it to her?

Kanae peeled her thumb back to reveal a powdery, gray smudge that was fine yet coarse in texture.

"What is this?" Kanae asked, rubbing it between her fingers.

"Hm?" Seven leaned over to look. "Oh, yeah. I remember that dust being there when I first read it. Not sure what it is."

"Can I hang onto this for now? Maybe I can glean something from it," she said.

Although Seven was hesitant to let the last trace of Theena go, he relented.

"I'm going to return to my friends now. You two, please stay here. Theena wants you to be safe. I'll bring her back to you. So, stay out of trouble." Kanae offered a reassuring smile.

"You promise?" Seven gazed up at her with pleading eyes.

"If you hear anything about Theena, please tell us right away," Kara said.

"Of course." She nodded.

The rest of Kanae's companions were waiting downstairs just outside of the dormitory. They came to life as she descended the steps, impatience written all over their faces.

"Seif and Panner let me keep the stone key. We're just waiting for them to come back with information on new Under Roads sightings. I also have this." Kanae showed them Theena's heartfelt letter and the powdery residue on it. "Anyone know what this powder is?"

They passed the letter around until it got to Petyr's hands, and her brows furrowed with recognition. She rubbed it across her five fingers, sniffed it, and finally gave the substance a quick lick.

"Marble dust," Petyr answered confidently. "Whoever wrote this letter either works in a quarry of marble, or fashions statues out of marble by trade."

"You got that from just feeling and tasting the powder?" Kanae gasped, mirroring her companions' awe and surprise of Petyr's knowledge.

"The lower rungs of Ortesian nobility often, foolishly, commission statues made of marble. They are porous and easily wear over time. Whenever lords try to impress me with their statues, I break them with my bare hands to show they should have gone with granite instead." The haughty high elf clenched a fist as though crushing one right now.

They headed into a bazaar in Ordane's Rise to search for anyone that worked with marble. Unfortunately, after the commotion from the other day, few people were willing to give them the time or day. After all, Kanae and her companions looked nothing like citizens of Savir. To them, they were foreigners, outsiders who had come to cause trouble.

Even though their fight against the Dryoak Consortium yesterday was in self-defense, people shied away from doing business with them. Claudia suggested charming someone, but Kanae didn't want to sow anymore distrust in the populace than they already did.

Bravost was an enormous city. It would take forever to find what they were looking for. Kanae was about to give up until she spotted a jewelry store. Her hand instinctively reached for the small ruby jewel Theo Mambahu had given her. If no one wanted to talk to them, maybe she could compel them to in another way.

Kanae had her friends wait while she entered the cozy round shop, selling trinkets affixed with gemstones. A finely-dressed, middle-aged human man glanced up, peering at her through a monocle and loupe. His demeanor wrinkled, probably from recognizing her, and made a shooing motion for her to leave.

"I don't think so." Kanae put Mambahu's ruby on the glass counter.

It took one glance before the jeweler gasped sharply and choked on his spit. 

"How may I serve, my lady?" The man changed his tune real quick.

"I'm looking for marble statue sculptors or marble quarry miners in the city. Hmm… Maybe someone who makes good money," Kanae said.

"Hah. Well, miners would not make good money. You also rarely find sculptors who make statues out of marble. Too brittle, you see. Most marble mined in Savir are exported to Ortesia. What little remains typically fall into the hands of the Hammer and Chisel, a school of masons who fashion marble into interior furniture for the upper classes of Savir," he explained.

"Where can I find this school?"

The jeweler pulled out a worn map and pointed to a block closer to where Kanae had first entered the city from. She returned to her companions, and they hailed a carriage that ferried them all the way to the Hammer and Chisel.

School was in session, it seemed. Students chipped and chiseled away at blocks of marble. A layer of dust, stone, and sand swept across the ground. The rhythmic tinks of iron tools on marble echoed repeatedly as sculptors slowly turned earth into works of art or countertops. Their school was a modest U-shaped building, but most of the sculpting took place outside on the quad. A few artisans waltzed around, watching their pupils work.

Kanae kneeled down and pinched some marble dust off the ground. It was the exact same substance on Kara's letter.

"Don't you think this would look better with bigger tits?" Claudia nudged a man in the middle of sculpting a feminine abdomen.

"Please, refrain from bothering the apprentices!" An older centaur woman galloped up to them in a huff. "Sculpting is delicate work, and each strike is made with precision in mind. You will ruin entire blocks of marble by distracting them!"

"I'm just saying. If you want to immortalize something, why not these?" She snuck up behind Kanae and grabbed two handfuls of her breasts.

"S-Stop! You're going to turn me on if you play with them!" Kanae squirmed, causing some of the men around them to turn as hard as the stone they worked on.

Something knocked the wind out of Claudia's lungs. Her hands went limp, and so did she. The succubus fell to the ground, paralyzed with a knife sticking out of her back.

"My apologies for my sister's insubordination, Knight-Commander." Alicia bowed her head.

"Great, now we have a paralyzed Claudia on our hands. Sorry for bothering you, but we're looking for someone who may have had contact with some Rookie adventurers. I believe one of your students met with a human adventurer named Theena. She went missing, and we're looking for her," Kanae explained.

While the centaur woman was sympathetic, she had no clue what they were talking about. Kanae kept her distracted as Petyr, Alicia, and Edina fanned out. A harpy man with tan plumage stopped working and set his tools on his marble block. He calmly walked away until Petyr stopped in front of him.

Without warning, the harpy darted off and shoved an upright marble block in Petyr's way. She smashed through it with a single punch, sending chunks flying over the students.

"See how weak marble is?" Petyr exclaimed.

The harpy spread his wings to take flight, but Kanae flew up to intercept him and casted Charm.

"I'm not a fan of chase scenes, so go back down for me," Kanae ordered

He obediently returned to the surface, where Petyr waited to bind him with a restraint spell. The centaur woman and sculpting students shuffled away, not wanting any trouble.

"Are you the one who met with Theena?" Kanae asked.

"What's the matter, bub? Squirrel got your tongue? I'll really pluck it out if you don't answer her," Edina warned menacingly.

"Theena returned to the fold. She willingly submitted herself to Praijya. What happened in Kandis was only a minor setback. You outsiders may have stolen the relic, but it won't stop Sultana Dudula's fall. The Harpy King will seize control of Bravost," the harpy said.

Everyone turned to Kanae for answers. She was the only one who knew Praijya, the Left Talon of the Harpy King. She and Arenade had fought her during the attack on the Cerulean Palace in Kandis. They managed to fool the harpy woman into thinking she had the relic from the Necro Lord's Tomb in her possession, but it was fake.

"I don't care about any of that. Where's Theena?" Kanae demanded to know.

"With… wherever Praijya is… but she is constantly on the move. As all of us are. The next time you see her, the Emerald Palace will be up in flames. Speaking of which…" He turned his head to the giant viridian jewel that stood as a monument of Bravost.

The palace where Kanae and her companions had made their first stop when arriving was in flames. Ribbons that stretched from rooftop to rooftop of tall spires caught fire. Citizens stopped in the middle of the streets, gaping at the sight of the fiery backdrop behind the emerald jewel. Guards rushed in the direction of the burning palace, and those who could fly did so in haste. A loud bell rang across the city, and people made a run for it to their homes.

"Wasn't it Cerberus and the Ortesians plotting Sultana Dudula's overthrow?" Edina gasped.

"I think they were plotting it together." Petyr growled.

"Why do you think…" Kanae got her answer when she followed the high elf's gaze.

Members of the Dryoak Consortium surrounded them. A hundred strong, and all of them looked like they were out for blood. It couldn't be just a coincidence that they showed up when the Emerald Palace was under attack.

"Kanae, you and the others can fly. Get to the castle. The Dryoak Consortium and I have some ironing out to do." Petyr empowered her warhammer with holy energy and cracked her neck.

"You— what? If we all get out of this alive, you better tell us what you know about the consortium!" Kanae exclaimed and spread her wings to take flight.