CHAOS BORN

Nero meticulously arranged the soft pillows, covering them with a blanket and creating a rough illusion of a silhouette lying on the bed. The chances of Granny getting up in the middle of the night and coming over to check his room were close to zero. But a touch of caution couldn’t hurt, right?

He then stealthily slipped off the home. These days Granny retired to bed earlier than ever. She claimed it was only her age getting the best of her and nothing more to be concerned about, a fact he double-checked and confirmed sadly. However, it also provided him with a sense of ease in pursuing his adulterous affair under the cover of darkness.

Nero looked up at the sky.

With the sun completing its duty, the moon had taken over the night shift, casting its light to keep the darkness at bay in the Agroville village. He blended himself in the shadows, moving under the guidance of the moonlight. The chill of the night on his skin felt like it was trying to heal the burning summer heat endured throughout the day.

He moved, enjoying the cold and allowing his thoughts to wander.

It was now summer. Harvest time was here along with the year’s first Ascension ceremony. He wondered whether the ceremony would reveal something different from what his system presented. Although uncertain, he secretly hoped the system would be proven wrong. The one thing he was certain of was that trading caravans would arrive soon, which meant Carlos would soon be there.

Besides a rough estimate, nobody can accurately predict the time of day the trade caravan will arrive. They could come in at early noon or midnight the day after tomorrow. Hell, they can even come by tomorrow morning itself. Stretching this affair anymore will only hike the odds of being caught. So Nero decided to cross out his late-night dillydallying with Sharron from his routine and take a break. Sharron would also be likely in the same boat. Whether they could afford to play around more depends on Carlos’s behavior and decisions when he reaches the village.  

Lost in his thoughts, he finally reached her home. Walking past the white fence, he didn’t go straight for the front door, rather his detoured steps took him near the windows of Sharron’s room. Inhaling deeply, he tapped on them with a distinctive rhythm. He was hoping for the windows to open but heard the muffled voice of a woman from inside.

“Come inside. The backdoor is open.”

Wasting no time, he entered the house and bolted the back door. The first thing he did was to check Jacob’s condition. The boy was fast asleep with his mind on la la land. There was an incense stick with a wispy smoke burning near his bed. 

One of Nero’s alchemical creations, built primarily based on the sedation he often used in bait and weapons. 

He used it to hunt monsters. 

The real deal could paralyze most beasts and put a lesser minion monster out of commission for at least 10 hours. This incense, however, was entirely harmless and more mellowed down that could at best put someone in a deep sleep for 7 or 8 hours. 

More than creating it, Nero’s effort went down in convincing Sharron to use it on her child. She had to test it and also use it a couple of times on herself before passing it on to Jacob. The floral scent that filled the air was Sharron’s handiwork and bug-repelling feature Nero’s. Both aspects added to the incense stick convinced Jacob to use it. For the past few months, it was the only thing that kept Jacob away from his mother’s loud lustful moans she made while being ploughed by Nero. 

Seeing everything okay, he left the boy’s room to prey on his inviting mother.

Sharron was leisurely lying face down on her stomach and playfully kicking the air with her legs. She was wearing a pink satin nightgown loosely stretched to her knees. He had never seen her wearing such fancy and indecent material in the last months.

I guess she also decided this to be our last night and dressed to make it special. 

With each flailing kick, the fabric rode up, revealing the juicy curves of her buttocks below. He could make out the outline of her underwear clearly in the sheer material. She seemed freshly out of the bath and her hair seemed carefully done. On the perfectly made bed, blooms of jasmine were littered. He couldn’t figure out whether the enticing aroma in the room was wafting from the flowers or her.

Overall, the beauty had meticulously arranged everything and dolled herself up like she was specifically waiting just for him. 

Watching her, he felt himself heat up and his lower head lifting itself, and he silently walked into the bed to jump on her.

But just before he could move, Sharron abruptly turned around. 

“W-what are you doing here, Nero?” Startled, she sat up immediately and questioned him after a surprised cry.

Nero paused himself and felt cold water dousing on all his enthusiasm. He sighed to himself deeply in his mind. He felt like giving up. 

Sharron liked role-playing. No, correction, she loved role-playing. She was so into it that there had never been a day without that in their sex for the last months. Not only that, the woman was so good at acting that he doubted why the fuck she didn’t receive an actress as her path in the Ascension ceremony. 

They had done it all. 

From the first day of being a teacher-student to a sleeping wife exploited by a thief, Sharron adopted various roles, including a seductive whore from the brothel, a colleague ravished by a fallen guardian, a compassionate healer tending to her patient’s needs, and even a local woman forced into submission by an oppressive imperial soldier stationed at the outpost. The list was endless.

When done right, she would go to any lengths to perfect the character and will try her utmost to please him to no end. But here comes the problem: Nero was terrible at it. Well, at least he used to be.

Sharron would never say what the setting was or their role. He had to figure out all these details from how the situation pan out. She would pull the curtain on the entire show if he delivered lines that were out of character or killed the mood. There were days when he endlessly gazed at darkness standing outside the door after getting kicked out. 

It wasn’t like she would diss him off. Rather, Sharron will end everything with a dull hand job and a goodbye kiss in 15 minutes. 

The stark contrast in treatment based on his performance was so drastic that it made him speechless.

So he started to think on his feet and play it according to her wishes. 

Nero knew he could never nail the characters she wished him to portray with accuracy. Instead, he just figured out the crux of the matter. His role was to understand the power dynamic at play and create an arousing atmosphere, to help her immerse in the setting. He realized Sharron merely desired to take advantage of role-playing as a justification to lower her reluctance and sexual inhibitions. It was about pushing boundaries, breaking social taboos, and indulging in forbidden fantasies. All he had to do was to understand at what end of the power structure she wished to stay and make the setting arousing, with a blend of convincing acts. 

If he could push his brain to pull that off, she would act accordingly, even if the setting and roles were entirely different from what she had in mind.

Sigh. But today, he just was not in the mood for anything complicated and wanted to enjoy the last moments he could play around with the beauty without frying his brains off.

Withdrawing focus from drifting thoughts, his mind scoured for clues. 

Sharron’s fluttering eyes were roaming all over the place. Her eyes kept looking at the door behind for an escape, but his stalwart body would be a tough hurdle to shove off. She scoured the room for anything handy to chase off the unwanted guest. Her face was one of confusion and shock.

Her full breasts tightly pushing against the nightgown rose and fell with each panicked breath.

She is acting scared and is treating me like someone not meant to be here. Sharron didn’t use ‘who’ but called me by my name. She regards my character as an intruder, someone familiar but not meant to be here.

Argh, I don’t want this to be a drag. Why don’t I throw in the classic troupe? It should fit in, right? And we are both familiar with it now.

“Relax, Mrs. Sharron, I was checking on you since Jacob dozed off. Will you treat your son’s only friend as a crook now?”

“Ah, M-my bad Nero. I was, you know, surprised. Why don’t you sit in the hall? Let me get you something to drink.” Sharron responded, acting feeling slightly embarrassed.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Nero replied as he casually sat on the edge of her bed, facing her. The soft mattress gave a slight creak under his weight. Sharron, startled by his action, promptly scooted backward on her butts until her back pressed against the headboard of the bed.

He only gave a bold grin, seeing her acting like a frightened kitten.

“L-let me wake Jacob up,” Sharron attempted to rise from the bed, but Nero quickly mirrored her movements, positioning himself in a way that suggested he intended to prevent her if she dared to leave.

“Calm down Mrs. Give the poor guy some rest. He just got his ass handed to him once more.”

“Did he get into a fight again? He said he had just fallen when he came back home.” Sharron said, her face morphing into a concerned mother.

“Haha, tell me, what kind of fall would end with a black eye? He lied to you like always.” He said, softly rubbing his curled fist, seemingly gloating over her son’s injury.

“Why did he get into a fight again? I scolded him last time and thought he would have learned his lesson.”

“Argh, don’t blame the guy. It was the usual stuff. He was bragging on and on about the fancy gift Uncle Carlos brought and…” Nero paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing, as he slowly let a twisted smile form on his lips. “Hehe, someone joked that he should get his feet back on the ground because, who knows, the trading caravan might come with a fancy casket instead.”

For a beat, Nero couldn’t tell whether the sorrow plaguing her face was genuine or just an act. However, he pushed forward, fearing he might break the character.

“Then Jacob taunted back, scolding his family. Within seconds, they were going back and forth at each other’s throats. You shouldn’t be hard on Jacob, Mrs. I mean, if someone talked shit about my family, I would’ve punched him in the face, too.”

“Those kids talk like that because it is likely what their parents say at home. Is this how everyone talks about us in the village?” Sharron asked, her head dropped slightly and voice low in defeat.

Damn, it’s getting harder to know whether she is acting. Her sad face is so convincing.

“Yeah, they all talk shit about you,” he whispered, his voice filled with malice. “Especially about you, Mrs. Sharron”

“Me?”

“Yes, they say you yell at your kid and act moody because you can’t handle being alone without your husband. They even say stuff like, you dress up like a hoe and act all pretty to steal their husbands. Honestly, I think they are full of shit and talk crap ‘cause their jealous ass can’t handle how stunning you are.”

“Fufu, does Nero think I am that attractive?”

“Of course you are. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” His eyes didn’t hold back at all as he said that. He scanned her from head to toe wolfishly to confirm his point.

Sharron acted slightly uncomfortable but didn’t bother to use her hand to cover her assets or block his vision.

“You shouldn’t pay much attention to these people. Once you move to the city, things will improve, especially with Uncle Carlos by your side. Folks in the city are too busy to poke their nose in other people’s lives.”

“I suppose things will get better. Well, it seems like someone knows a lot about the city.”

“Yeah, I plan on moving there to the academy. You know my family can secure a recommendation for me. I could have taken the general test like Jacob, but I’ve heard it’s extremely tough to crack with an insane number of applicants. So I’ll go for the recommendation since it gives me a higher chance of getting in than regular peeps.”

“The general test will be tough even for you, huh? I wonder whether Jacob could pull it off.” Sharron mused. The room fell into a thoughtful silence, as Nero seemed thinking about her problem.

“My family has an extra slot for recommendation. You know we have no one else to use that, right? Maybe I could ask them to use it for Jacob.”

“You would do that? It would be a huge help for us. If you do that… T-then you will always have my gratitude, Nero.”

“Huh? Gratitude? What am I supposed to do with that? Shouldn’t you offer something valuable in return for my favor? And don’t even bother talking about money and any gifts. There will be hardly anything that Uncle Carlos could get me that my family couldn’t.”

“Then what should I ask him to get for you, Nero?” Sharron asked, her voice filled with interest.

“Tsk, Tsk,” Nero continued, shaking his head. “Didn’t I say it already? There’s nothing Uncle Carlos can provide that caught my eye. But you, Mrs. Sharron, have something we could work out with. You are good at being nice. Everyone says so. All you have to do is strip down and be extra nice to me.”

Sharron looked at his face in shock, as if she had seen his lustful eyes on her body for the first time. She seemed disturbed by her son’s friend looking at her like a piece of meat and what his words implied.

Nero continued with his sales pitch as if undaunted by her condition.

“Think Mrs. Sharron. Even if you make it to the city, what of it? Maybe Uncle Carlos and you can get a cozy life, but what about Jacob? Are you going to send him down the same path as his father? Is he supposed to be a peddler who risks getting mauled by monsters in the unknown land for marginal profit? If the Ascension ceremony grants him a high-risk path, wouldn’t he suffer hard without getting into an academy? I am not forcing you or anything. Just think of the consequences.”

He shut his snake mouth, waiting for her decision.