Time was running out.
Milo knew he had wasted too many precious minutes dealing with this maid, not to mention being discovered and attacked because she got too loud. Not enough information was extracted from the Mamono to even justify the delay; while she certainly had a deep connection to his target, how long it took to break the loyal Kikimora down enough to be willing to part with Camilla's weakness… It just wasn't worth it.
The plan had been to find this Treasure of the Vampire, and to use it as bait to draw Camilla out into the open. Thinking rationally, it could also have been too big to easily move into position, so an alternative was needed.
"Hey mutt, how well does you Master care about you?"
The Kikimora's red feathers along her tail bristled at the insult, but aside from that she didn't reply, only to return the question with a deadpan state.
Moving away from the window the Hunter moved so that he towered over the bound girl like a looming shadow. "I asked you a question."
The Mamono frowned back up at the owl masked Human. "Oh, I heard. I just don't appreciate the way you've been talking to me."
The Hunter had to pick his jaw back up off the floor, this sudden shift in the Mamono's attitude shockingly sudden, to start talking back after being nothing but a crybaby all night came out of left field. "…Excuse me?"
"No, you're not excused, not until you first apologize for what you've called me just now and for your behaviour!" The maid huffed, puffing out her chest against the restraining rope; the bindings must have shifted, because the fabric of her apron bulged out in the center where the strings cut into her breasts. She snapped her head to the side so as to look away from the man in a huff.
Looking to the floor Milo stared at the cold bodies (or rather the body of the Demon Knight and two previously living armor sets in different heaps), then he roamed his eyes back to the Kikimora still tied securely in the chair, unable to do anything besides pouting.
Did… Did she go crazy? Was the killing and the atrocities of the night too much and sent her off the deep end? She did realize she's at my mercy at the moment, right?
Amused and also a bit confused the Human crossed his arms, he cocked his head to the side as he continued to watch his prisoner. "And why, pray tell, should I do that? I could be done with you with you in an instant without a second thought."
Turning back to face him the ruby haired girl gave him a stern, yet slightly gentle frown, "Because as my Mother once taught me: 'Manners make the Maman- er, Man. And besides, I believe you know it's the right thing to do."
"I'm sorry?"
"Yes, like that, but try again with more meaning behind it this time." This Kikimora was making fun of him, Milo was sure of it now.
Rolling his eyes in exasperation the cloaked Hunter sighed, slumping his shoulders he hunched down so that his avian mask was eye level with the girl's own light green eyes. "I apologize for insulting you… And for being overly rude. It was unprofessional of me."
The maid's bonnet bobbed as she nodded in satisfaction, pleased she had made some progress in giving the Human some manners. "I accept your apology Human, just remember that you shouldn't ever insult a Mora by calling her… Well a mutt. We as a species may have altered our appearance and manners over generations to become more approachable, but we're still descended from wolves. A matter we're quite proud of in fact."
Ah, so she was already insane. Milo stood back straight, mentally shrugging at how he had been tricked into being side tracked here. "Well, that's quite enlightening, thank you for sharing… That bit of info with me. Now, if you wouldn't mind, could you please give me a reason not to stab you?"
Perhaps realizing that she had been messing with a mass murdering assassin a bit too much the girl gulped down a lump in her throat. "…Because I might know where Mistress Camilla could be?" She quite obviously wouldn't betray her master quite so easily, as she had demonstrated earlier, and it was almost certainly a trap, but any movement towards any direction was better than standing around doing nothing.
Bringing out a pocket watch Milo saw that he was quite overdue for his plan to succeed, the timetable allowed for a small margin of error, but this was pushing it to the extreme. "…Good enough." With a flick of his blade the ropes binding the maid fell to the floor in two. The Kikimora rubbed her sore wrists as she rose from the chair.
"Ah, before I forget, I'll need a name to call you by. Just calling you 'Mamono' or 'Maid' seems rather rude of me after all, it is proper manners to know who's leading you around after all." Milo accentuated his point by placing a firm hand on the Kikimora's shoulder, his thick gloved thumb lightly resting just across her wind pipe. "…Or in case I need to reel you back in."
The young woman shuddered at the poorly veiled threat, especially now that she noticed just how much taller the man was than her. If she was considered a runt of the litter by Mamono standards, then this man must be a mountain to other Humans. Her fluffy ears only reached halfway up his chest. "Diana… You can call me Diana."
"Well Diana, the Kikimora," the Human let go as he stepped back, "You may call me Kautz, the Hunter." He even bowed at the end, as if he were at a ball asking her to dance.
"A-a p-pleasure…" Then a red fluffy ear twitched, a look of slight puzzlement crossed her face. "Wait a moment… Isn't your name just 'Owl'?"
Diana didn't like the way he chuckled, it was without mirth. "Sagt die wölfin? It's as good of a name as any."
The owl bone mask eyed her up once more, surely he was thinking up best ways of gutting her and leaving her body to rot, like the night predator the mask was made to be. Then Kautz nodded towards the broken doorway, past the corpses, indicating his intention for her to fulfill her promise.
Her hazel eyes were filled with worry as Diana led the Hunter out the room. He was creepy, murderous, and had hurt her on several occasions… But something her instincts as a Mora told her that she needed to stay close to him. They were also telling her that it was reasonably safe to be near Kautz; while he did threaten her a lot there didn't appear to be any weight behind his words when he said them.
Perhaps it was what her mind had scraped at when she peered into his emotions, but there was a slimmer of good in the bleak shroud of his soul. If there was any hope of the Mamono stopping him from hurting her Master, even if that meant temporarily aiding him, then she needed to get close enough to that spark…
The men of the Order marched on through the castle. Bodies of the Mamono they had just battled stained the rich interior, their blood pooling in red puddles the same deep colour of the velvet carpets. The smell of burnt gunpowder and copper was everywhere in the main grand hall.
Captain Valdis led his men from the front, his hammer bashing away any resistance that came out to meet them. Each strike lessened the number of monsters that the men behind him had to deal with. But still, the monsters came.
Fortunately it appeared as if the force that had pushed out the main entrance to meet them on the battlefield were the 'heavy hitters'. Those still inside the fortress seemed to have been the enemy's reserve force and rear line combatants. The beastwomen clawing at their pikes were mostly Werewolves, though a few Lamia and Harpies slithered underfoot or tried to ambush from the arching ceiling high above. While these Mamono themselves were more than a match for any man, the Order's numbers outweighed them by a large enough margin to secure victory.
That didn't stop some of their number from being dragged away screaming before the sharpshooters could kill the monster carting them off.
"Damnit!" Jacob swore as he saw another of his men be snatched by the horde. They lustfully giggled and moans as they started to draw their hands down the thrashing man's pants. "Fire on that blasted hound!"
A shot from a rifleman pierced the canine through her brainpan, splattering sticky gore across her fellows. The soldier wisely used the moment to pull his trousers back up and beat a hasty retreat to their line.
The fighting continued as such, until there stopped being anything living inside the grand entrance hall except for those that fought under the banner of the Chief Goddess. At least a good fifth of their number were gone, but at least Jacob's men had secured their breech into the castle.
"Sir! We can't seem to find Sir Ainsworthy here, he must have been brought deeper in!" A soldier announced as he rejoined his CO.
"Right." Jacob internally groaned, "Form back up, we'll be making another-"
The large man was interrupted by the sound of ungodly screeching. It was as if the souls of the damned were drawing their claws against glass.
"What in the Hell was that!?" The Captain didn't know either. It was unlike any scream he had ever heard before, and it most certainly didn't belong to any Mamono that he knew of... Something about it sent shivers down his spine. Whatever had made the cry obviously wasn't moaning in pleasure… It was hungering for a different kind of flesh.
The wet meaty slapping of Mamono flesh upon captured Human soldiers echoed throughout the lower corridors. The thick musk of sweat and bodily fluids clung in the castle air. Sighs of pleasure and ecstasy left supple lips in high pitched moans of the monster women.
The same could not be said for most of their captives however…
The men that still retained their flame of humanity and had not fallen into becoming Incubi made their protests known; their shouts and cries were met with deaf ears however, especially if the Mamono wringing the man dry was rougher with their 'Husbands' than they really ought to have been. The snap of a wrist or pelvis was quickly followed by the harrowing scream of agony.
Bielka had to flatten her black Hellhound ears each time she heard the painful crunch, her superior hearing unfortunately allowed her to hear the bones fracturing in gritty detail.
"What the fuck is wrong with those girls?!" The Gazer floating next to her witnessed all the bloody and brutal mating going on around them with her eyed appendages. She covered her mouth with a black hand as she forced herself not to puke at the sight of a femur sticking out of a nearby stricken male.
Even though Hellhounds were a brutal and vicious species of Mamono, no stranger to being rough with their prey, there were limits to it. If they found someone that they fancied there was nothing in the world that could stop them from having their way with the man. That poor soul would be bound to them as their mate for all eternity, and in return the hound would jealously horde the man to herself. They would never let the man take the reigns, even if he should prove stronger than her, but their chosen Husband was always still a precious existence to the Hellhounds.
Bielka turned away from the scene, slightly sick herself at the gorefest. She didn't like the way she saw one of her sisters bite down on a man's throat, his blood a red geyser. "T-they're Hellhounds, rough sex is what they live for Herma..."
"Bullshit!" The one eyed girl snapped, "If that's 'Roughin it' then put me in a fru-fru dress and call me Alice! Because they're just straight up EATING a man over there!" A tentacle aimed at where a small pack of Werewolves had just finished tearing off a limb from the still body of a man. A fight broke out over who would get the limb, the girls no more than feral hounds than the servants of Lady Camilla.
"I-I don't know!" Bielka stammered, "S-something must have happened to them, a Mamono never kills their Husbands, ever!"
The captive Human soldier they had been escorting down to the "Pleasure Prison" stared in abject horror at the sight of his fellows being dismembered instead of deflowered. Being slightly distracted by the scene Bielka had let her grip on his collar wane, it was enough for the man to rip himself from her hold. The Hellhound swore, but it was too late to catch the young man. He made a mad dash for the steps behind him, freedom and salvation was at the top, beyond the nightmare he had found himself in.
He didn't make it up the sixth step before an Arachne dropped from the ceiling, from there the two girls could only watch in mute shock as the spider reeled herself back to the shadows above with her screaming prize.
Both the Hellhound and the Gazer slowly turned to look at each other in silent dread. This… This was not supposed to happen. At all.
The two normally at each other's throats agreed upon one thing right then: they needed to IMMEDIATELY inform their Captain about what they were seeing down below.
Several floors above, hidden away behind a barricaded door there came a ticking.
Tick-toc, tick-toc…
Several items within the room had been rearranged, altered, and otherwise made into something more volatile then they normally would have been. Their edition was for a singular purpose, one which the inhabitants of Castle Kharstien would not have been too pleased with, or at least amongst the residents still retaining a measure of their sanity wouldn't.
Tick-toc, tick-toc…
An old grandfather clock stood in the center of several giant kegs, each filled to the brim with alcohol pilfered from some guest suit. The foreign brew was indeed quite the hard liquor, noxious gases breathed out of an opened barrel, the fumes coming off of it nearly choked the air out of the room. There was a thin trail of gunpowder that led from each wooden keg to the strange device strapped to the old clock.
Tick-toc, tick-toc…
The tiny box hummed with power, it's latch was undone, the lid tied to the hand of the clock gradually opened with each passing minute. As each second passed the mana held within the greedy little box grew in strength. The enchantments engraved into the sides blazed with more magic then was deemed safe to hold.
Tick-toc, tick-toc…
Time kept marching on, spelling doom for the castle, even to the one who fabricated volatile contraption.