"So, you are here…"
The voice, loud and intrusive, echoed through the audience as if burrowing into their minds.
"But why are you here? I'll tell you! Because you're all—every single one of you—virgins! And you don't like it, and you want to know why there's no sex in your life!…"
I glanced around. Almost all the guys in the audience were listening with their mouths agape, as if they were being handed the secrets of the cosmos. Were they serious? I didn't need this bald guy flailing his arms near the poster "Kill the Virgin in You" to tell me why there was no sex in my life. It's because they won't let me—that's the whole secret. At least I didn't have to pay anything; the first lesson was free.
"Remind me," I muttered, turning to my friend, "why did we even come here?"
"Well, there are girls!" Ethan whispered back. "Look at how beautiful they are!"
He wasn't wrong. The girls were everywhere: perched on the chair next to the lecturer with legs crossed, leaning against the windowsill with hips swaying, standing by the enchanted projection board, their smiles gleaming brighter than the glowing runes on the screen. They didn't serve any real purpose—they were just part of the scenery, like familiars drifting around a sorceress's tower, essential to the vibe. With practiced smiles, they wore tight white tunics emblazoned with "Kill the Virgin in You" stretched across their curves, making it clear to the entire room that there was nothing underneath.
"Because you immediately want beauties like these," the lecturer said, patting one of them on the thigh. "And this isn't your level yet…"
The only thing that bugged me was how the girls looked a little unhinged, like they'd sipped a potion before the lecture. Then again, if they had to listen to this nonsense all the time, I couldn't blame them.
"It's like in a quest," the lecturer went on, "to claim treasures like these—" he waved at his entourage of maidens—"you have to conquer the simpler trials first. And then you ask what he—that's me—did to win such prizes…"
Once again, the room filled with gaping mouths and eager faces. I sighed. It was so obvious: *I paid them.* Otherwise, these girls wouldn't have set foot in Lecture hall.
- "I have *ascended*!" the lecturer declared pompously. "And I'll give you the chance to ascend as I have…"
My hand instinctively rose to my face—though I wanted to plug my ears even more. Surely no one else in the room was as fed up as I was? I glanced at Ethan: nope, he was hooked, hanging on every word—which made me want to sink into my hand or flop onto the desk. Then, out of nowhere, the audience erupted into laughter—wild, unrestrained, slightly manic, and… feminine:
- "It was *ascending*!… I can't, I'll die laughing! It was *ascending*!…"
I turned, like everyone else, toward the sound. My eyes locked onto long, snow-white hair cascading over her shoulders, a wicked grin splitting her face, and a black leather corset hugging her chest, which jiggled with every cackle. Unfazed by the staring crowd, the woman laughed. Older than the girls on stage. Clearly more seasoned than anyone here. What was she doing in this place? She definitely wasn't a virgin.
- "Do you have something to say?" the lecturer snapped, his voice rising to smother her laughter. "This is a serious lecture!"
- "Actually, yes," she said, tossing her hair back. Her laughter stopped abruptly, and she fixed him with a stare that could've pinned him to the enchanted board behind him. "Don't you think it's not your place to teach them?"
"Don't *you* think," he shot back icily, "that you don't belong here at all?"
She snorted and swept her gaze over the audience.
- "And you, virgins, why are you sitting here? Ears perked, listening to this bald charlatan! If you want to have sex, go outside—real maidens, real life, real sex await!…"
A wave of disapproving murmurs rippled through the hall.
"I think you know you're crossing a line," the lecturer said dryly. "And you're not allowed to do that. So, I ask you to leave the room politely and stop disrupting the lesson."
- "Yeah, get lost!" someone yelled from the back row.
For a split second, I swore her black pupils flared bright red. Then her chair screeched loudly as she stood.
- "So, fools, if you want to *truly* have sex, get out of here! All the sex is waiting right outside that door! Got it?" With that, she stormed out.
The door's slam lingered in the air for a moment.
"Well," the lecturer said smugly, "it's exactly because of such harpies and brutes that you still haven't figured out how to approach a maiden."
He clearly saw her exit as a personal triumph.
- "Remember this key truth," his voice boomed again, grating and inescapable, "forget the beauties you crave—they're beyond your rank! Seek those who'll take you—the flawed, the unsure, those with no other prospects. To them, you'll be a prince. Whoever's left is yours—that's the novice's creed!…"
My head began to throb; this lecture was frying my brain. I'm eighteen, and if I settle for scraps now, what'll I be stuck with at forty? Honestly, I hadn't even wanted to come here—Ethan dragged me along for company—but even if I'd chosen to, I wouldn't pay a single copper for this drivel.
"Okay, I'm out," I said, turning to my friend.
- "You sure?" He gawked at me. "The good stuff's just starting!"
- "It's rancid stuff. Let me know if anything useful comes up."
I stood carefully, trying not to draw eyes, but the chair betrayed me with a loud creak. The lecturer stopped mid-sentence, and every gaze in the hall pinned me. In dead silence, I reached the door, grabbed the handle, and a sarcastic, piercing voice rang out behind me:
- "Here's another example: look at this lad! He's ready to surrender, and if he leaves now, he'll never have sex! Because…"
I didn't hear the rest. I stepped into the corridor and shut the door. Sex might be off the table, but my coin—and my sanity—would stay intact.
- "What, just one?"
I recognized the voice instantly and spun around. A few steps from the door, lounging against the wall with her arms crossed, stood that same "harpy and brute."
"What kind of lads are these?" she mused.
It was obviously rhetorical, so I just shrugged.
"Fine," she said, pushing off the wall and sauntering toward me. "Want to be like Casanova?"
I shrugged again. What was there to say?
"Have you ever played enchanted tomes?" she asked, eyeing me with something close to pity.
- "Enchanted what?"
"I see," she sighed. "Give me your hand."
Before I could react, she snatched my palm and dragged a nail—sharp as a dagger—along one of the lines. It stung a little, but there was an odd thrill to it, too.
"Well, at least you're not hopeless," she muttered. "Come on, since no one else showed…"
- "Where are we going?" I blinked.
"To find sex," she replied flatly. "That's why you came out here, isn't it?"
It clicked. I studied her crisp blouse, fitted vest, and plain trousers. Strange—she looked more like a confident merchant than a courtesan. Then again, with the realm in chaos, who knew how merchants survived these days?
- "Thanks, but I don't have any coin."
Her lips curled into a smirk.
- "You think I'd have sex with *you*? I haven't done that in five hundred years! Let's go—I'll explain on the way." She flicked her nail, beckoning me.
- "Explain what?"
Her brow furrowed; she was losing patience.
- "Do you want sex or not?"
"Well, let's say I do," I hedged.
- "Then I'll show you how to drown in it."
It clicked again.
"Are you peddling rival lessons?" I ventured.
She stared at me like I was an idiot, then sighed heavily:
- "Fine, I know you won't believe me yet, but I'll try. I—" she jabbed her nail into her chest—"am Scarlett Samael del Astaroth, one of the five exalted succubi and the famed Maiden of Dawn." Noting my blank expression, she added with emphasis: "I'm a *demon*! And I can grant you rivers of sex 'til your last breath. Interested?"
My mind conjured an image of those tunics swapped for ones reading "Rivers of Sex 'til Your Last Breath."
- "Is that your sales pitch?"
- "Gods, you mortals are tedious!" She grimaced. "Always needing proof, never trusting a word! Pick a color."
"Uh… red," I said, thrown off.
She snapped her fingers, and I jolted back. Flames erupted around her, filling the corridor—yet there was no smoke, no scent, no blaring wards. No heat either; the fire felt cold, but I didn't dare test it. Tongues of flame licked her arms and shoulders, danced in her white hair, and blazed brightest in her eyes, now a vivid crimson. She could've torched me with that stare. Then the fire vanished, and she stood there in a red bikini. I gaped at her long legs, slim waist, and chest barely contained by thin straps. Another snap, and she was back in her stiff suit, eyes black as the void again.
"Okay, pick your jaw up and let's go," the demoness said.
I figured arguing with her wasn't wise.