Another day another scheme. This time you are trying to decide what to do with the Soul Contract you recevied from your boss. As much as you'd love to use it for your own ends and obtain a loyal subordinate you need to be realistic. The chances of you being able to actually keep the soul you nab via the contract are very slim. It's far more likely that The Torturer will immediately relieve you of that person and subject them to the same 'training' she put you through. The sort that involves lots of pain. So then, someone you don't particularly care about?
You consider handing over one of your school classmates. You are fairly sure you've worked on them enough to convince one of them to sign. The problem would be if one of your classmates disappears from school only days after the church were sniffing around. That will certainly raise alarm bells. So then, someone you couldn't care less about but know enough to get a basic idea how to approach them. Someone far enough away from your particular sphere of influence that it shouldn't lead any attention back to you. There aren't really that many of them.
Unless, if you don't count the people you met in your previous life. One of the homeless people would be ideal, but you don't really know any of them. You know Rita, a little bit, but you feel as though she wouldn't be fooled easily. Anyone else? Oh, wait, there was that one asshole...
That weedy little shit face shop clerk, who'd spent almost the entire time you'd been there oggling his work colleague who was way beyond him. A greasy little fucker like that would probably give up his soul if he thought it would help him get laid, right? And it would be particularly satisfying to hand him over to your tormentor and know what would be happening to him afterwards. It sounds like a plan.
Approaching him directly might not be the best of ideas. He's unlikely to believe anything you say without rock solid evidence. In which case, maybe it would be best to just target the colleague from the beginning. You'd seen her once before, on her way out of the place.
She was certainly a looker, way out of that guy's league. It would be such a waste to let him have even a taste of her. But it would also be a waste to sink your claws into her just for that. Would it not make more sense to keep her after you were done? Then you could rub it in his face all the more! Then again you already have so many other things to do would it be worth adding someone else who will be difficult to get in touch with?
Yes, you'd make her yours. If your plan is to work you will need a significant amount of influence on her anyway. Might as well go all the way while you are at it. You'll make sure to get some good use out of her, that's for sure. With a body like that she'd sure to be useful for tormenting the local men. You'd warp her, crank her sexual desires and flirtation all the way up. Turn her into a massive tease. Have her torment them, manipulate them, and drive them crazy with desire!
Maybe you'd even permit her to sleep with some of the more prominent contacts, just to leech as much useful info out of them as possible. But she wouldn't be able to enjoy it properly. Only knowing that she would be doing it all for you would really be able to get her off. That and your permission, of course. Maybe you could take advantage of that more fully once you've moved on from this form.
But you have a distinct problem. With so much on your plate already are you going to be able to make time for this? In particular there is really only going to be available time slots during the weekday evenings. The rest of those days you'll be at school and you have to assume they won't be working on the weekends. Is that enough time for the sorts of drastic changes you need? Maybe, this chick would have to be pretty vapid and easy to manipulate.
Unless you make things easier for yourself. You still have the Reality Notebook. It shouldn't be difficult to find her name. Once you have it you could alter her with the notebook, that would give you a better chance at getting what you need in time for the contract. But you'd already concluded that the higher risk targets are a better use of the book, not that you'd had any success with that so far. Would it be worth using up a page of the book to make sure this plan of yours works?
As much as you'd like to save the book for a more valuable target, no such target is really available right now. And it might be vital for this plan to work out. So this evening you'll head down to that shop, spy on the pair while pretending to buy something, find out the girl's name and try and speak to her alone and start working on her. You probably shouldn't use your Aura in public and Dream Invasion won't work unless you can track her back to her home. Using Sleep on her would give you an opportunity, but there's no way you'll get away with putting her to sleep in a place like that. This leaves you with only your Suggestions and the book. You'll have to make sure you make the most of it.
For now, though you need to head for school. It definitley irks you to have to spend so much of your valuable time in such a way, especially when you already have so much going on. If only you could just stop needing to go. Ms Erikson will let you get away with ditching one time, you'll need to make use of that. You also recall something about Wednesday being a holiday. Something about commemorating the day the school was founded. Lots of pomp and ceremony and important people talking about how much the school means to the community. Mostly it's just about press coverage. At least you can only assume as much. Regardless it gives you an extra day of free time and you'll have to make the most of it.
You are back in your own classroom this week, though you can't help but feel as though it is in some way different. No doubt that sister from the church went around trying to 'purify' it to cleanse the corruption from the school. You don't know if that will have any sort of lasting affect on your classmates or you. At some point you might want to test out your influence on your class to make sure whatever the church did hasn't messed things up.
They certainly don't seem to be looking at you any differently than before. You are still the unelected leader of the class. You take a few minutes first thing in the morning speaking to each of your classmates in turn. Nothing but admiring faces and attentive attitudes. You feel as though you could actually lead the entire group out of the classroom in a moment. Not that you can think of how that would be helpful, right now.
While their attitudes haven't changed you can't say that same about your own. You can't say you enjoy being in this room. It isn't actually painful and you don't think remaining here will cost you malice but it certainly isn't pleasant. It's like a constant unpleasant tingling or itching sensation across your body. You certainly don't feel like trying to use your Aura again and can only hope this effect fades away as time goes on. You certainly don't think you can tolerate prolonged periods of time like this. You'll grit your teeth and bare it for now.
With only the luch period available to achieve anything you decide to spend lunch with Sherry and friends. You'd made a good start on Ami and you'd like to continue to influence her. Your complete power over Sherry should make it easier to spend time studying with Ami, you'd only have to worry about Maria. And the more rambunctious girl of the group had never been all that interested in studying before. You doubt she'll take too much interest this time. Hell, she might even pull a face and walk off. As much as you'd like to get her under your power as well you are stretched thin as it is. You really can't afford any more side projects. Best to finish off what you've already started first.
Ami is eager for another study session as you had hoped. Maria seems disinterested but not to the point that she feels the need to leave. You would have preferred that she did so but you aren't about to waste precious mana forcing the issue. Sherry's attitude is, of course, the most interesting. You did quite a number on her over the weekend, not that she knows that. Of course right now she is still her 'normal' self. Though for Sherry 'normal' now means being deprived of the ability to feel negative emotions and an unconcious desire to obey your instructions without questioning or thinking about why.
You had instructed all of those closest to Sherry to disregard any unusual behaviour from her via your Suggestion. But that didn't mean you were in the clear. There's always a chance they will break free of the Suggestion if they deem their friend's behaviour to be that much different. As such it will be worth monitoring any changes.
The greatest changes are of course in Sherry herself. Having lost her ability to feel the pain of your 'crush' on Ami, Sherry has gone back to the way she was before you started really messing with her head. Actually she seems to have interpreted her shyness and embarassment as negative as well, for she's now openly gazing at you with undisguised adoration and affection, so much so that it's patently obvious to people who aren't even on our table. You'll just have to keep pretending to be as dense as tungsten as far as Sherry is concerned.
Maria seems to have noticed some sort of change in her friend, she immediately begins to interogate Sherry as to why she's in such a great mood. The two begin whispering and giggling to themselves, likely Sherry is telling Maria about her visit to your house. Or at least whatever memories you gave her of her visit to your house. But this suits you. Let them gossip about their silly little romance ideas. It leaves you to spend time with Ami unimpeded.
Still reluctant to use Aura out of fear of being detected you simply reinforce Ami's 'training' without using powers. You guide her through some more basic problems and maintain a close proximity to her that she barely even notices. At times you lean over to point to an error or problem with her work and 'accidently' touch her hand or shoulder. She either is too engaged in her studies to notice or she doesn't mind these small contacts. Finally you slip a Suggestion into her head:
'Zach really knows his stuff, I should listen to him and follow his instructions in future.'
With this Suggestion place you hope to get an opportunity to encourage her Obedience with your Aura and then have her transition from 'needing' to obey you to 'wanting' to obey you. After that you'll need to condition her like you would a dog so that she derives pleasure from following your instructions. From there it will be easy enough to tweak her mentality so that she'll follow all of your instructions and not just the ones relating to her studies.
There's an unpleasant sensation in the air when you get back home. After interrogating your mother about it, she mentions that a certain blind girl came to visit her while you were at school. It would appear you just missed a visit from Sister Cassandra. You aren't sure if you should be pleased to have missed her visit, or horrified that she would come to visit in the first place. At least there doesn't seem to be any damage done, your mother is still here and the bracelet is still on her arm so the soul fragment is likely still safe. You'll need to grill Elisa for specific details later on. For now you need to continue with the plan.
You glance at the copper cross lying on the kitchen table. The sister must have left that behind after her visit. It simply radiates purity. Repulsive, you certainly won't be touching that thing! Though it might actually be useful in someway. If you have such a strong reaction to the thing it's bound to have similar affects on Aria and the others. Not that you think trying to use this thing on her would do good things for you. You get the feeling that such a thing would be beyond the sort of playing she's thus far forgiven you for. You'll just have to instruct Elisa to move the cross somewhere less intrusive. For now you need to head out. Though before that you should decide if you want to send Lucy round Roger's for more training.
You can't think of a reason why Lucy should stay at home so you send Roger a message and have him come pick her up to stay at his. More time for Lucy to endear herself to Usa and possibly increase her skills can't be sniffed at. With that in hand you grab a hold of your mother's arm to stop her from tugging her top off and ask her to take you shopping. A Suggestion burns away her confusion and she's quickly getting back into the car to take you for a ride. You really do get a kick out of ordering people around, it's such a pleasant change from your old life.
As much as you'd like to leave your mother outside while you do this a seven year old lingering in a shop on his own would draw attention so the two of you enter together. You are fairly certain this is the right sort of time. Then again it was only the once. It sure would be conveniant if...
Fuck, there he is, you feel Wrath stirring inside you at the sight of the bastard. No need for that, if things go well we won't need to do anything to him ourselves. Next we need to see if she is here as well. Ah, there she is. Working the next til over, so close and yet so far away. You can imagine why a pathetic little loser like this guy would pine after her. Of course she probably already has a boyfriend but that's a bridge you'll have to cross later. You make sure you and your mother end up at her till and take a good look at her nametag. It reads 'Cassie' in big red letters. She clearly wrote it on herself, she's even put a heart on the 'I.'
You remember her shift ending shortly so you make a show of going around the shop again while Elisa waits by the door, looking a tad impatient. Fortunately you don't need to wait long before another staff member takes over Cassie's spot and she disappears into the back room. The little shit watches her depart as though all the happiness in his life just disappeared along with her. You decide to take advantage of the opportunity to try and slip in a Suggestion.
'I'd give anything to spend just one night with her!'
You don't really expect such a Suggestion to take hold, but it actually does. In fact it sinks in naturally. Maybe he really does think that? That will make things easier. Though the hard bit was always going to be prepping Cassie. You linger outside the shop and wait for her to come out. As she does so her phone starts to ring.
'Cassie here,' she answers it, 'oh hello! No problem! I just got off work so I'll be over shortly!' She quickly climbs into her car and is soon heading off. Seeing as she answered the phone with the same name as is on her tag you are fairly certain the Reality Notebook will respond to it. Though you've been wrong once already.
You tentatively write 'Cassie' on the first page of the Reality Notebook. This time the word actually comes out on the top of the page and you feel the connection established between you and the poor young woman whose life you are about to change irrevocably, She'll be completely rewritten just so you can get back at a rude jerk for being a dick to you one time. You don't really feel bad about it, you'll make sure she enjoys it.
You think about what you plan on doing with her. You need her to be obedient to you and enjoy serving you wholeheartedly. You also want her to get off from teasing and tormenting other men. Those two aims will likely need to be seperated and kept as different instructions on the book. That leads you with one more to decide on later. More likely than not you'll save it for some sort of enhancement that will let her do her assigned job better. Her body doesn't likely need much alteration but her skillset might. It'll have to be a decision for later.
As for the current instructions you decide to go for time efficiency first and foremost. You don't have that much time to spend doing this, you need the little shit to sign the contract before the end of Friday. And to convince him to sign you'll need to be able to command Cassie to do whatever you need to satisfy him. Of course, the beautiful caveat of the Soul Contract, as your boss demonstrated on you, is that you don't need to necessarily specify 'when' you'll be fulfilling the terms of the agreement.
So long as you deliberately obfuscate the actual time of your fulfilment of his demands you could actually hand him to your mistress without Cassie needing to so much as touch him. Once your boss has finished fucking him up you can still fulfil your end, assuming he's left in any fit state to appreciate it. Then again, the downside of this is that it leaves the completion of your agreement up to The Torturer. If she ends up doing something different with him, like selling him to some other demon you won't be able to fulfill your end of the bargain and that would be bad. So it would probably be better to just uphold your end first, unless it isn't feasible for some reason.
With these thoughts in mind you spend some time trying to design the most time efficient method to obtain Cassie's unconditional obedience. In the end 'Instinctively obey me' is what you decide on. It will only take two and a half days to take hold and should do what you need on it's own. As an extra you play around with the other half of your design, picking a nice simple instruction to begin getting her ready to become the devious little cocktease you invision her as. After throwing around a few more ideas you settle on 'Casual flirting is harmless, sexy, and fun.' A nice easy four hours. It sure is conveniant that the notebook provides guidance as to how long your instructions will take to sink in.
Then again, if this instruction is only going to take four hours it probably makes sense to write that in first. If you do it now it'll be finished long before you need to go to bed. Then you can get your other idea started before night truly begins. By your calculation you reckon that instruction will then be finished around Thursday morning. That might even give you time for one more before you make your move that evening. Probably you can enhance your first instruction to a higher level. That way she might even enjoy some of whatever the greasy little fuck will be demanding as part of his contract.
Your decision made you add the first instruction on the top of the page as close to her name as you can get it without overlaping your writing. You feel the magic go into action as you finish writing: 'Casual flirting is harmless, sexy, and fun' Considering the low duration this instruction doesn't really deviate all that much from Cassie's current mentality. Meaning it's likely no one will notice any significant changes. And the second instruction will involve you, so no chances of anyone spotting that one, either. This should be perfect. You just need to hope the guy takes the bait.
Having finished for now you take a moment to consider. You really didn't spend as much time doing this as you'd thought. And it would be a waste to just head straight home. You are a fair distance away from your home so you might be able to get up to a bit of mischief without attracting too much negative attention.
You spend a couple of hours ducking into back alleys and having a look around. You just need a single opportunity, a single figure alone in an out of the way location. A quick knife in the chest and you'll have another soul in your pocket. Unfortunately, it is not to be. A couple of hours likely isn't enough for something like this. Nevermind, at least you aren't the victim this time. With your confused mother tagging along no one was going to mess with you. A couple of wasted hours later you return home.
You spend what is left of the evening in the usual way, too preocuppied with checking the time to do much else. After four hours have passed you check the Reality Notebook. It seems as though your first instruction has sunk in. Now you write in the next one: 'Instinctively obey me.' Once this has finished installing itself in Cassie's brain you should be able to instruct her to do whatever you want, though you'll likely need to be careful how you use that ability as she'll still have control of all her mental faculties. You have no idea how she's likely to react. You'll be able to install a new instruction during your morning class on Thursday. If you pick the right instruction it should be ready by the time you make it to evening.
For now though it's time for bed. You decide to visit The Diary again tonight, hopefully you can get something good tonight.
You greet The Diary and she summons the Free Gacha. Your result: Legs, granting you 40 malice. You immediately burn it and another 10 malice on the regular Gacha earning you 2D. You aren't sure if that's worth it or not, but there are a number of ways to obtain malice and only a couple of ways to get D so you think it's probably worthwhile. You decide to only do it once though, best not to use up all your malice. Next you opt for Storytime.
You listen to The Diary read off the next part of soon to be Demon Lord Kairos' life after receiving his power. Unlike you, Kairos had no real pressure to perform quickly. The Genie, from what you hear, seemed like a pretty decent guy, as demons go, and allowed Kairos to proceed at his own pace. As such Kairos determined to build up his power much slower than you have, hiding the true power he'd been granted to make sure no one ended up recognising the threat he could present. The Diary goes on to describe the first month of Kairos' new life, which seemed to consist mainly of him farming malice in various ways, effective and less effective, and trying to score with various women in ways both successful and decidedly not.
After that you obtain your D and decide to hold onto it. Most of the great stuff seems to become available at 10D anyway.