Guide to tamming vilanesses

Yasmin returned to the makeshift shelter as quickly as she could.

Shin was still standing guard outside, his attention fixed on the silent forest. When he felt a ghostly kiss on his lips, Yasmin materialized right next to him, revealing her form.

"Welcome back," he whispered with a smile, admiring her beauty as the moonlight illuminated the beautiful woman.

"So, did you find something?" Shin asked.

"Actually..." the succubus took a long time to tell him everything she had seen.

She described finding the dark-skinned woman desperately running from a pack of gigantic rabbits, her repeated brushes with death, the absurd series of lucky accidents that somehow kept her alive, and how she had actually gone back to recover her backpack after a rabbit had stolen it.

Midway through the report, Shin was already laughing hard. He could perfectly picture Carolina charging into a monster to recover the items it had stolen.

Anyway, Yasmin continued her report, describing how Carolina had discovered a magnificent palace surrounded by enormous flowers, and how the giant rabbits had fled after the flowers released their spores into the air.

Shin nodded thoughtfully.

"So that girl found the old king’s palace..."

"You know what that place is?"

"Yes." Shin shrugged. "It belonged to Castro, a human who, long ago, became the King of the Amazonians and betrayed the human race." He was recalling the plot of the game.

His palace, his legendary weapon, and countless demons had all been sealed inside that hidden dimension. Castro himself had died centuries ago.

What really mattered, however, was that the palace contained many priceless treasures. Its gardens were filled with countless rare and magical flowers.

The only problem was that the palace was almost impossible to find. A powerful concealment spell had been cast over it to keep it hidden from the world.

Apparently, Carolina’s absurd luck had been enough to overcome even that.

"Luring that greedy woman here really was the right choice..." Shin muttered to himself. Then he turned to Yasmin. "Would you be able to show me the way to the palace?"

"Yes. I made sure to leave plenty of markers so I could find my way back if necessary," Yasmin replied. "I even thought about collecting one of those flowers, but I wasn’t sure whether it would be dangerous."

"You made the right decision." Shin gently patted the top of her head. "Those flowers are highly poisonous. You probably would’ve died trying to harvest one without the proper precautions. Carolina only survived because... well, she has a completely broken ability."

"What is her power?" Yasmin asked curiously.

"It’s difficult to explain... and we have more important things to worry about right now." Shin smiled at her. "But first, how are you feeling? Are you too tired?"

"I’m perfectly fine," she answered with a warm smile. "I could even collect my reward right now," she whispered teasingly into his ear.

Shin smiled before gently cupping her cheek.

"Sorry. It’ll have to wait, but I promise it’ll be worth it. You did an excellent job following Carolina."

He leaned forward and gave her a slow, tender kiss. His hand naturally wandered down to her waist, making Yasmin let out a soft, involuntary moan.

"Mmm..."

She happily melted into the kiss before resting her forehead against his.

"You don’t need to worry about the reward," she whispered with a blissful smile. "You’ve already kept your promise."

Her expression softened even further.

"That kiss was so good..."

"No way." Shin gave her a playful tap on the forehead. "You’ve earned much more than that."

Her crimson eyes sparkled with anticipation for what would come later.

Meanwhile, Shin’s smile quickly faded as he became serious again.

At that moment, Lilel materialized on his shoulder. She had been busy dealing with other matters, but this was too important to ignore.

"We need to reach the palace as quickly as possible," the tiny fairy said. "We can’t afford to lose this opportunity."

"Agreed."

Castro’s crystal palace had the unique property of changing its location exactly six hours after being discovered. That meant they didn’t have much time left.

Shin looked toward the horizon. The sun was just beginning to rise.

After a moment of thought, he decided they could wait just a little longer. Traveling during daylight would be considerably safer. Based on Yasmin’s report, they should still have roughly four hours before the palace disappeared again.

"I’ll wake everyone up," Shin finally decided. "We leave in twenty minutes." Then he turned to Yasmin. "Could you gather everything we’ll need for the expedition?"

"Okay!" she replied immediately before hurrying off to get to work.

ⵔⵔⵔ

Waking everyone up proved to be a bit of a challenge, as the girls were completely exhausted.

Mora, in particular, could barely move. With a tired groan, she even told Shin he could just grab her by the ankles and drag her along like a useless sack of luggage.

Of course, he wasn’t about to do that. Instead, he asked Madea to cast a levitation spell so they could carry Mora with them. She was simply too exhausted to walk properly.

Both Octavia and Materna took quite a while to open their eyes, but they eventually forced themselves out of bed and got ready as quickly as they could.

Madea, on the other hand, was the only one who caused no trouble at all. She had already been half-awake by the time Shin came to wake her.

Twenty-five minutes later, the group was already entering the forest. Shin wished they could have left a little sooner, but considering how exhausted everyone had been, they had prepared remarkably quickly.

Above them, the sun was just beginning to rise, its golden light bathing the entire forest. Guided by Yasmin, the whole group finally arrived at their destination.

The castle was hidden in a valley between two mountains, the thick vegetation making it almost impossible to spot. If they didn’t know it was there, they likely wouldn’t have noticed it.

And Carolina was nowhere to be found.

"She probably entered the castle," Shin commented with a long sigh.

"Knowing the girl, yes..." Lilel agreed with a shrug.

"Well, she probably won’t die," Shin said, changing his focus to what was important. "I’m going down there and will extract the pollen from the flowers. You girls stay here and keep a lookout to make sure no monsters approach me."

"Okay!" the girls answered.

"But couldn’t we use this palace as our base from now on?" Materna asked.

"No chance." Shin was resolute. "This place has become a dungeon; it’s extremely dangerous."