"You would dare attack me for a human?" The Dark Fairy Queen snarled.
As soon as she spoke, countless spells came hurtling towards her. Celeste began moving, successfully dodging several attacks, but still getting hit by others. She may have evolved into a Fairy Queen, whatever that meant, but her levels and status were still the same. Her mother had attacked her before and managed to bring her down to nearly dying within a minute. The only difference between now and then was me!
"Armor!" I cast a protective spell on her, "Moderate Heal! Sanctify Land!"
I began to layout every spell I could. With her mother focused on Celeste, I had a few moments of breath to start building up my magical defenses. I downed the last of my mana potions which I had been saving for a rainy day and then started to attack with my own spells. I had to juggle with my jobs, trying to maintain Hero and Slave Master so that she had status up bonuses for being in my party and my slave, but then I needed to switch back to White Mage frequently so that I could cast spells and keep healing her. Damn, I really needed a third job slot!
I used Basic Monster Identify on her, but I wasn't able to get any information. Evil Eye also scouted no weaknesses. This, I wasted another pinch of fairy dust and used God Eye. With that, I was able to see she had no weaknesses. Ah… wonderful. I also found out her name was Astria.
The battle went on, but I found myself running out of mana quickly. Furthermore, I had squandered a lot of the waters of life I had in reserves. Simply put, I only saw us able to remain able to fight for another few minutes. Whether the Dark Fairy Queen was going easy on us because Celeste was her daughter, I didn't know but hoping her body would give out suddenly and we'd win this fight was impossible. Something had to change.
"Celeste!" I called out, "Keep distracting her!"
That was a stupid thing to yell out in front of a sentient boss. I was too used to dealing with dumb monster mobs who didn't understand English! The dark queen turned to me and began launching attacks. I began to run, heading for the staircase.
"See, daughter? See how humans run? He's leaving you now to die. That is just their hidden nature. Your father was just the same! You're lucky you never met him."
"I met his ghost…" Celeste shook her head, "He was a man full of guilt and repentance."
"There was no repentance for what that man did to me!"
"What did he do? Cheat on you? Sleep with other animalgirls? What's so wrong with that? If he still loved us… if he still owned us and took care of us… then why was his fate so cruel?"
The Queen grimaced. "He impregnated me with you, but still he fornicated with animalkin slavegirls for his own delight. How can you love a man just like him?"
As Astria said those words, she pointed at me. I wanted to deny it, but it was true. I had been sleeping with animalkin slave girls. I didn't recall seducing Celeste, let alone getting her pregnant, but the words the Fairy Queen said cut deep into my own insecurities. I wanted to believe that Lydia and Miki loved me for me. Maybe, I had hoped the same from Celeste. However, they were all slaves. I had various charms, and Slave Loyalty and Mina's blessing even added more slave affection. I slept with them because they were beautiful and I was weak-willed, but could I really call myself better. Would they love me once I set them free and they were no longer being manipulated by cheat skills?
My movements began to slow down as I felt the crushing blow of her words. It was one thing to carry these doubts myself. It was another thing to hear them out loud. Lore did like to repeat itself. Was I any better than the Lord of this mansion? I was no longer sure.