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

Greatness in zealotry. Family above all, but not before the Supreme One. Walk in lockstep with purity, holiness, and righteousness. Glory to the Golden Empire of Ortesia.

What a load of crap.

The only person that matters was oneself. A teacher provided a student the materials with which to learn, but the onus was on the student to pick up the sword and open the books. Family? Just a group of people who happened to share the same blood, using it as an excuse to claim responsibility and importance. Stronger bonds had been formed by strangers.

Purity? Luxury instead. Holiness? Self-gratification sounded better. Righteousness? There was only virtue in selfishness.

Petyr Stormcloud whipped a high elven officer's bare back with a flogger. He threw his head back, biting the urge to cry out in pain. Streaks of red trickled down his back alongside sweat. She had been beating her officers all day and yet the frustration of being defeated had yet to subside.

Defeat. By that succubus bitch! Kanae Toyomi, Demon Queen of the Commonwealth and mastermind behind the Demon Three's Alliance.

"Aaaaahhhhh!" Petyr let her overwhelming anger loose and continued whipping. "Damn her! May her private parts rot and fester until she can no longer lay with anyone or anything! I'm Lord-Major Petyr Stormcloud, the Knight of Gold, destined for the seat on the Lord Council! I should be in Ortesia, not out here in this succubus and demon-infested swampland!"

She put her all behind one final strike, causing the officer to howl a different tune than usual. He was shuddering intensely. Her eyes fell to his crotch, where the outline of a very obvious erection formed on the leather pants.

"Disgusting! For showing me such a foul sight, you are hereby demoted from the rank of lieutenant to sergeant. Go shovel horse shit. Get out of my sight!" Petyr ordered.

"Y-Yes, Lord-Major!" He, and fourteen other officers who had received the same beating, hobbled out of the tent with their heads down.

Petyr wiped the sweat from her brows and sighed. Her cheeks were red. Hot from the image of an erect penis, even if it was hidden behind clothing.

"Lord-Major!" A courier made herself known from the entrance of the tent. "Grand Admiral DeSallais has sent us the latest batch of squire-aspirants. Who among our knights shall I sent them to?"

"You will send them to no one. Bring them to my personal carriage. I'll brief them personally," Petyr said.

"At once, Lord-Major!" She saluted and hurried off.

A high elf of great status such as a member of the revered Stormcould family must be treated to the highest of luxuries. Having been sent across the sea many leagues away from Ortesia, there was little of it to be found in the Commonwealth. The one silver lining, however, was that she had no shortage of other pleasures.

"Lord-Major… I'm…" The squire's breath grew hoarse and ragged the longer they continued.

"Are you close?" Petyr asked, bouncing on his throbbing member more enthusiastically. "It's okay. Let it all inside me! And don't call me Lord-Major. It's Petyr when we're alone— ahh! Keep swinging your hips! I feel you shaking so much! Your innocence… your purity… shoot it all into me, squire! Don't hold back!"

The squire let out a cute moan and ejaculated into Petyr. She shuddered in pure, unadulterated ecstasy that brought her to a quaking orgasm. Her eyes fell down to the panting squire. His own eyes were glossy. Petyr leaned down to kiss him, one of many firsts that she had taken. From the others, too, as she scanned her four holy conquests from the past few hours lying asleep in various states of undress.

This was bliss. A joy that belonged to her only. There was no greater satisfaction than the crossing point where boyhood innocence crossed to adulthood. However, even Petyr's usual wasn't able to abate the dirty feeling of that damned succubus' magic. She shuddered just thinking about it. The scent, the flavor of these squires couldn't wash away the bad taste the demon queen left behind.

Petyr guided the squire's shakey hand to her breast and the other to her leaking crotch. Every pang of pleasure reminded her of how the succubus molested her with those Magic Hands. What depraved thoughts must cross someone to come up with that? It was a spell meant to… meant… to…

"Accursed creature. I am pure. I am not to be mishandled, and yet she… mmm!" Petyr climxed to the squire's inexperienced fingering. His penis was hard again, throbbing for release. It made her tongue salivate. If she remembered right, the rabble of this country used their mouths as much as they did their reproductive parts. Did it really feel that good? To put one's mouth on something so… dirty?

"Lord— erm, Petyr… what are you doing?" the squire stammered.

"Lay back and relax," she urged him, shuffling down between his legs until the penis was throbbing in front of her face. "This is… Right, this is important. During our crusade, you may come across succubus who will perform the most profane acts upon you. I'm merely preparing you!"

Petyr opened her mouth intending to envelope it with her lips when someone rapped on the carriage-mansion's ront door.

"Lord-Major, urgent message for you!" another courier announced and rudely interrupted her private time with the squire-aspirants.

"Did I ask to be interrupted?" Petyr shouted. "Young squires are impressionable. If I'm unable to drill into them the hallowed lessons of Ortesia and the Supreme One, then they will sooner fall to succubus and demon corruption— of which this land is rife with!"

"I-I apologize, Lord-Major… B-But it's a direct summon from Grand Admiral DeSalle!" the messenger relayed worriedly.

The blood in Petyr's veins went cold. Sighing, she left the squires to rest in bed and got dressed to meet DeSalle. Her armor was still stained from the previous battle, not that the worthless admirable was someone necessary to be presentable in front of. She equipped herself with Shifting Steel on the off chance that… Well, if it came to that, then it came to that.

Petyr followed the messenger to the Viviren portal. It transported her directly to Grand Admiral DeSalle's flagship, Chosen Royale of the Supreme One. A city on the sea manned by 1,000 crewmen, capable of carrying 5,000 infantry, 200 cannons and another 50 magical artillery cannons, and built to withstand the explosive might from even the likes of Elizabeth Bedlam.

The ship flew the DeSalle heraldry of a double-sided fishing hook, a reminder of the family's beginnings and to look like an anchor. Perhaps the most redeeming yet ironic monument on the ship was a statue of the Supreme One, holding a lantern glowing of holy magic to light the way in the open ocean night.

"This way, Lord-Major." A marine bearing the DeSalle crest and gilded seafaring uniform of the Chosen Royale stood at attention.

"I know where your damn admiral is. Don't follow me. I'll throw you overboard myself if you do." Petyr glared him down and pushed past to the captain's quarter.

DeSalle's bright bedchamber was painted white with gold accents. The man himself was dressed in a silken purple robe and hummed to himself from the middle of the room, painting on a canvas. Lying naked on the bed was a platinum-haired, high elven woman of around 30 years of age. Yet the figure in the painting didn't share the same facial features. The woman was probably only a reference.

"Beautiful, isn't she? Not the one on the bed, everyone else just pales in comparison. The painting, I mean! What beauty. Hair, silver like the moon. Her flawless skin, gold like the sun," Desalle mused in a sing-songy tone.

"Darren briefly fought her at Ehmvier. Your precious fiancee fights for the Commonwealth." Petyr recognized high elf in the painting now as former Archbishop Gretchen Redbaron.

"Against her will, I'd like to remind you! Oooh… My sweet Gretchen. I'll save you soon enough. Even if the succubus bitch has tainted her, even if the empire's made a pariah of her, I shan't forsake my love for her!" he exclaimed lamentingly.

Petyr swallowed the urge to gag. It was no secret that the Redbarons, in their desperate attempt to elevate themselves, threw their daughter to the highest bidder. Amusingly, few wanted to wed someone of tarnished high elven blood. The DeSalle's eldest son, this starling admiral of the Chosen Royale, wanted her though. By an unfortunate stroke of luck— to him, not to her— Gretchen climbed onto the path of Deification and was picked by the empire to bring Radevic back into the fold. She failed. Now, her name and status was worth about as much as dirt. Petyr almost pitied Gretchen, if it wasn't for all the teasing she inflicted as a mentor during training to become Knight of Gold.

"Leave us!" Grand Admiral DeSalle put the paint brush down and shooed the woman away. As soon as she was out the door, he turned around. "I presume you were preoccupied with my gifts? Do you like them? Fished the urchins up from the Imperial Wharfs trying to shave gold off my galleons, can you believe it? The only good thing about orphans is that they have no parents to pay a pouch of gold to. Frankly, I'm glad to be rid of them. Those rodents were stinking up my—"

"What do you want? I have an invasion to lead. Unlike you, I can't afford to languish on a ship like some fat seal." Petyr growled.

DeSalle. Full name, Errenard DeSalle. He was a smooth-speaking high elven man in his 70s with deep black hair, unusual for their race. His thin moustache flared out cartoonishly, but it was extremely befitting for the countenance of a man with boundless arrogance. Errenard came from the great House DeSalle, whose origins began as simple fishermen. Their fishing flotilla expanded over the centuries until a threat of piracy forced them to arm trawlers and crew. The Church of One, having needed a great many ships and protection during the Holy Exodus a thousand years ago, sought help from the DeSalles and elevated the family for their efforts.

They went from fishermen, to privateers, to among the greatest Ortesian house in the empire as the naval arm and second in line to the imperial crown. Errenard's ego was second only to his family's wealth.

"Come. Partake in this wine with me. Ortesia Vintage 150. Supreme One bless the cutthroat Lemaren family for monopolizing the wine industry." DeSalle offered a crystal glass to Petyr and poured the wine to half.

"Straight from the Lemaren vineyards?" Petyr lifted the glass up to her nose and breathed in the fragrant scent of grapes, a scent of home.

"Nothing but the best for the likes of us." He smiled.

Petyr smiled back, then emptied the wine on the floor rather than to accept another inch of hospitality from DeSalle. They held each other's steely gaze as the stream dwindled to a trickle like the blood on her officers' backs.

"You're a wrinkled, old leather boot left to stew in the mud and dried beyond repair in the sun! I'd have conquered the Commonwealth by now if it wasn't for you. The Lord Council named me commander of this invasion, which means you should be answering to me. But I know what's going on. If I win, another seat at the Lord Council goes to my house. You don't want the Stormclouds to outnumber the DeSalles at the table, so you're sabotaging me. That's grounds for treason," Petyr warned playfully.

"Careful with your accusations, Lady Petyr. What would everyone think if rumors that scion of the Stormcloud family— nay, the empire's shining knight, had her sinful predilections come to light?" DeSalle smirked.

"You wouldn't…" Her eyes twitched. "I can sink you and this this ship with a single strike and blame it on the coral reefs of Shard Coast. We'll see how much closer you are to the crown from the deepest parts of the ocean," she returned with menacing glower in promise, not as a threat.

This bastard stood in Petyr's way of true luxury. Stood in the way of her finally putting the sword down. In the way of allowing her to simply lie in bed with her harem all day long! He was a bigger pain in the ass than the succubus.

"Wow! Look at these jitters. The hair on my arm are all standing. I believe you! I expected no less from the Knight of Gold. Bravo!" DeSalle backed off and poured himself a glass to drink.

"If you love Gretchen so much, then give me the manpower to take Ehmvier. I can settle this invasion in a month!" Petyr argued.

"Mm." He sipped leisurely on the wine and sighed. "This 150 is an absolute delight to the palate. I believe in its taste. Trust it, even. You, however, I find difficult to trust when you have lost not only the One-Eyed Cross, but also the key to the whole reason why we're here, the Ankh of Reincarnation!"

"How did you… It's fine! They don't know how it works. I do. Besides, Avaline and Darren are still looking for Saint Rue's resting place. We're close. We've narrowed it down to three places, the beastman city of Talahurah, northwest where another succubus queen has been invited into the Commonwealth resides, and east of Ehmvier," she explained.

Demon Lord Charron and the resurgent Queen-Mother Zariah complicated everything. No one expected the Demon Three's Alliance. No one. They and Demon Queen Kanae should have been at war with each other.

"Come here for a moment, would you?" DeSalle beckoned from his desk.

"Is it another painting of Gretchen? Or a story of when she was younger? Because I had enough to last a lifetime when we were sailing here." Petyr groaned.

"I'm afraid not. Unfortunately, I had to sully my talents by drawing the faces of two rather foul creatures," he said.

Petyr ultimately humored him and walked up to his desk. Sketched onto an open book were faces of two extremely young elven girls. Or, they would have been elven girls had it not been the horns. Succubus. One of their complexions was shaded darker, likely to imply dark elven heritage. The other carried a prideful, almost regal look about her. Possibly high elven.

"What am I looking at? You're trying your hand at drawing succubi now?" Petyr asked.

DeSalle tapped the drawings with a uncalloused finger. "Before the last fragments of Gretchen's rebellion went cold— likely captured and imprisoned now, I received a letter from her conspirators. They were attempting to kidnap these two succubus spawn. Why, I'm not sure. The letter simply alluded that they may be of great importance to the demon queen. Daughters is my best guess. Commit their faces to memory. Uncover their whereabouts and capture them. They will make for great bargaining chips. I will even release 10,000 infantry into your command to do as you wish. The rest will continue to remain in Port Kandis and Lograin to deter Radevic's involvement."

"Wha—?!" She went slack-jawed. "You're crazy, right? There's a good chance they are in Ehmvier. Darren attacked it not too long ago. It is heavily defended. They have alraunes. ALRAUNES! Even the Rotandrix dragoons are hard-pressed to lay siege any farther than the fortifications!"

"You will find a way, because this… eugh, high elven succubus is an affront to the empire and all high elves. The Lord Council may even forgive your failures in losing two relics. Go on now, Petyr. This invasion won't settle itself!" he said, shooing her away like he did the model.

Petyr stared at the drawings for a few moments later, then stormed out of DeSalle's quarters and returned to the upperdeck. She sidled up to the edge of the Chosen Royale. Calm waters crashed gently against the hull.

"Lord-Major." A DeSalle marine came up from behind her. "The portal is this way—"

"GAAAAHHHHH!" Petyr grabbed the marine and hurled him overboard.

Two more marines raced up in an attempt to restrain her, but she picked them up with each hand and tossed them over, too. The rest of the sailors and marines backed away, fearful of meeting their fellows in the waters. She cracked her neck, feeling a bit of the frustration leaving her. DeSalle came up onto the deck and watched from the entryway. He had an amused smile on his face.

Petyr pointed at the admiral, drew a thumb across her neck, and then entered the portal. After returning to the encampment, she retired to the carriage-mansion right away and threw herself onto bed, hugging the nearest two squires.

"Lord-Ma… Petyr! How was your meeting with the admiral?" one bug-eyed squire asked.

"Will be doing more succubus-resistance training?" Another gazed up expectantly.

"I heard," Petyr began as she climbed off the bed and loomed over them, "you were all orphans from the Imperial Wharfs?"

The five of them froze up.

"Th-The admiral said he would keep that a secret! We never meant to deceive you, Lord-Major! We truly wanted to serve you!" a particularly terrified boy cried.

Petyr lifted a hand. "I could already tell as much from your dirty fingernails that you weren't from any noble families." In a quieter voice, she added," I sort of envy that."

They traded uneasy glances between each other.

"Form a line!" She grabbed a nail filer from her vanity desk. "You will be taught proper hygiene. Lessons in cooking comes next. You're going to need to learn to feed yourselves in time. Following that, I'll teach you to wield and swing a sword. If your efforts are satisfactory and time permits, then we may recommence our earlier training."

"Yes, Petyr!" They beamed with the dewy-eyed, innocent joy that she adored so much.