Capture Target

Good morning, Master~

Like it~?  I found my old uniform!  I mean, it’s even tighter now than it was back then, so it’s a touch uncomfortable, but we all make sacrifices for fashion.

Oh, you noticed, huh?  Yup~  That’s a fancy little trick.  It’s surprisingly hard to get an outfit to rely on your nipples to stay in place… normally, just the slightest tug, and, ‘pop!’  To get this to work reliably took a lot of practice and experiments!

…What?

Being a good slut takes work!  You can’t just laze about for it!  It’s even harder when there are public decency laws you have to obey… hrmph.

Oh really?

Well then.  Since it’s so easy for me, I’m sure that you won’t mind if I explain, in detail, about how much effort I’ve put into ensuring that my outfits are always perfect.  I can start with making sure the colors match my --

Hehehe, that’s better~  Apology accepted.

…Oh, right!  The story!

---

I mentioned last time that the issue with human alchemy is how unstable it is.  I’m going to explain that in a bit more detail, since I managed to undo what Master had done even while half-asleep and thoroughly brainwashed.

The crux of the matter comes down to two details.

The first is that If a body is destroyed, the soul will try to pass on.

The second?  Alchemy works by destroying and reconstituting the items you melt down in the cauldron.

‘Human alchemy’ is a bit of a misnomer, because taken literally it would, by definition, always kill the subject.

Oh, sure, there are ways to prevent a soul from passing on, but those are all expensive, temporary, and not guaranteed.  Further, putting the soul into a new body is an entirely different problem!  Even if all you do is change the eye color or something, the soul will not want to enter it.  It’s not the soul's body.  It’s just a bunch of meat and keratin that’s nearly identical to it.  the original body is gone.

Sometimes you can get around those problems, but the result is usually a probably-soulless monstrosity.  Even if you can reliably manage to avoid it, then even the slightest variation in the recipe will result in a catastrophic failure.

Thus, in practice, usable ‘human alchemy’ is a form of partial mutation.  In other words, instead of replacing the body, you replace, say, the skin.

This is, uh.

This is also a bad idea.

Because you’re literally removing your skin and replacing it.

It’s painful and the body might reject it!

It’s much safer than ‘true’ human alchemy, though, so it’s used much more often.  This form is actually used to attach prosthetic limbs to somebody who lost an arm or leg.  It’s expensive, but doable, and you almost certainly won’t die.  Like modern surgery!

If that was what my Master was doing, I wouldn’t be able to easily revert it.  But I highly doubted that was the case.  ‘Partial’ human alchemy is painful, and Master…

…

He, uh, really didn’t take to ‘pain’ well.  One day he stubbed his toe and spent hours moaning about it…

A-anyway, there’s one final form of human alchemy:  You alter the ‘interpretation’ of your ‘instructions’, which changes how you interface with reality.

Humans in the reality of MISSY don’t actually have, uh, genetics.  Yes, the individual cells do, but what actually holds those cells together is something akin to a ball of magic, called the ‘core’.  This ball holds specific instructions that dictate certain things about a person, and it can be changed due to external influence.  The instructions are then filtered through a…

…Okay, the term is ‘quasi-real metaphysical interpretation matrix’.

I call it ‘bullshit magic mesh’.

The instructions are filtered through this ‘bullshit magic mesh’, and that then turns the instructions into effects.

Destroying the core would destroy a person, no matter how long the core was disrupted.  The mesh, however, can be destroyed for a few moments before a body starts to fall apart… and it’s surprisingly painless to do so.

Thus, the magic ball of instructions can not be touched by alchemy.

The bullshit magic mesh absolutely can, and it’s usually a terrible idea.  Because the mesh, that reads instructions from the core, reads its own instructions as well.

This is…

Ugh.

It’s terrible.  It’s a cludgy hack that the chief god put in place because he wanted an easy way to point at somebody and say ‘be sluttier now!’ without needing to actually mess with genetics.  The blessing system, for example, runs by adjusting the core.  However… reading instructions on how to run yourself?

Alchemical Corruption 5 had a massive reality bomb problem when some smartass learned how to segfault the mesh!

If you don’t know what a segfault is, then be glad, because I won’t curse you with that knowledge!  If you do, just know that the mesh can’t crash to protect itself like a computer can!

The point is, human alchemy can affect the mesh.  This usually doesn’t do anything, as it’s constantly reading instructions for how to run itself from the core.  But if you change how it interprets its own instructions, you can, therefore, make the change stable.  Instead of reading instructions from the core and going, ‘Oh, something’s wrong’, it reads instructions from the core, and goes, ‘Oh, everything’s right!’

That said, messing with the mesh is a terrible idea.  The core that replaces genetics is far more powerful than it needs to be, and this can result in… unpredictable side effects.

Most of this was solved in Alchemical Corruption five.  Due to, again, reality bombs.  Essentially, the mesh now needs to send occasional ‘signals’ back to the core, to let it know that it’s functioning properly.  If you don’t send those signals, if even one is missed, then the core sends a ‘pulse’ to the mesh that forcibly resets it to default.

These signals are, by design, nearly impossible to fake.  But if you can find a way to do so anyway, and manage to keep it stable, then you can change how a person interfaces with reality itself.

It needs to be subtle, because after Alchemical Corruption five a lot of goddesses are constantly scanning for anything that could cause a ‘reality bomb’, but it can be done.

…Interrupting those signals, on the other hand?

That is far, far easier to accomplish.

The basic design of the mesh is actually fairly stable, and requires an individual solution for every person you want to affect.  A kind of -- encryption, I guess is a good way to put it.

It’s not accurate, but it’s a good way to put it.

But, if the mesh has been affected, then you know what part of the mesh looks like.  From there, it’s easy to figure out how to poke it in such a way that disrupts a signal from the mesh to the core, causing a forcible reset of the mesh.

Again.  Not an accurate description.

In reality it’s more like ‘the change makes a fixed point on a constantly shifting ocean of change that you can poke’, but that’s just a less wrong description.

Regardless of the mechanics, with a sample of what was used to affect somebody’s mesh?

It’s easy to create a simple counteragent.

You basically just make something that slams near what was changed until the mesh wobbles enough to miss one of the thousands of signals it sends to the core every second, and then -- poof!  It’s undone.

The concoction to do so is almost always some stinky, sticky, cold goop that you need to splash on the person in question.  It’s easy to make with a wide margin of error.

So before I had time to fully process what I was doing, I was done.  I had a large glass full of sticky goop, and I was standing by the side of my Master’s bed, staring at his sleeping form.  All I had to do was pour this onto him, and the effect he had on everybody would simply… shatter.

The memories would remain, but there would be no more upkeep.

His plans, gone in a moment.

Nearly fifty maids, suddenly able to realize what he had done to them.  Some of which were terrifyingly capable of combat.

And I…

…

…I hesitated.

I didn’t hesitate because I was feeling loyalty to him.  I did -- brainwashing, remember -- but that wasn’t why I hesitated.

I hesitated because I felt exhausted.

I was half asleep, and I had stressed myself to the point of an anxiety attack earlier that day.  I had spent two years pushing and pushing and pushing to get as far as I could, as fast as I could, responding to every emergency as soon as I realized they existed.

And I had three more years of that to go.

Three more years of pushing myself to maybe end a time loop and possibly end up as an immortal goddess for a childish asshole of a god.  I had to take into account everybody I knew.  I had to keep myself in check, and open to asking for help.  I had to accept that I was going to get corrupted and changed in ways that I might not like.

I had already changed so much.  The very world was designed to change me, and I was all but unrecognizable to who I was at the start.  I was looking forward to becoming even worse.

I would need to work to keep my mood up. To accept the changes as they come, while still keeping what was most important to me, fixed.  Others would change by my actions, others already had.  Sure, they would change on their own, too, but that doesn’t remove the fact that my actions would affect them.

…I knew I could deal with that.  For three more years, and possibly far longer afterwards, I could deal with that.

Or… I could just… not.

I was happy as his maid.

It was an artificial happiness, one designed and concocted by an asshole, but I was.  I could just be Master’s loyal slut-maid.  Get molested and fucked by everyone in my master’s manor, every day.  Fall into sexual debauchery and empty-headed, servile bliss.

I felt wet at the thought.

Of my just -- letting Master win.

I could see it.  I could earn his approval, his trust.  I would have proved my loyalty.  I could get whatever I wanted from him if I just woke him up here and now.  I could fuck him daily!

I wanted that.

…Honestly, part of me still wants that.

It would be easier.

…And the moment I realized that, I got a blessing.

[Servant's Bliss vr. C-17-A-0.7]
[Requirements:

 

• Be currently under an effect of submission and/or loyalty inducing mind control.
• Be aware you are currently brainwashed with an effect of submission and/or loyalty.
• Enjoy being brainwashed with an effect of submission and/or loyalty.
• Dislike your master despite being brainwashed with an effect of submission and/or loyalty towards them.
• Have the blessing of ‘Mental Fortitude’.
• Be on the verge of either removing your brainwashing, or altering it such that it no longer has an effect of inducing submission and/or loyalty in you.
• Have an important goal that is difficult or causes moderate to severe suffering.
• Be torn between your goal and your brainwashing for a period of 5 or more minutes.

]
[Effects:
For those who struggle in this world, I offer a choice.
Submit, and be happy.  No more shall doubt plague you.
Resist, and struggle.  Those that enforce their strength shall be ever-more appealing, and yet easier to move on from.]

A blessing from the goddess of power-play.

I… at the time, I wasn’t certain why.

But the blessing pissed me off.

Master woke up as I snarled, but he didn’t react fast enough to avoid my concoction as I overturned the glass right above his head.

---

What followed was…

…Unfortunately messy.

If I had more awareness at the time, I could have done things to better prepare for what happened next.  Maybe given subtle warnings to my fellow maids, or primed them for what was going to happen.  Maybe even waited until the party was almost over, and most of the guests were gone.

As it was, however… … …

…I don't really like talking about what came next.  It's important, so I'll still go over it, but please don't ask for details?  Please?

Thanks.

Okay.  So when I broke the brainwashing, it broke for all the maids, at once, without any warning.

That included Knight Maid, Ninja Maid, and the other maids with combat talents that were the party's guards… and only people that were prepared for a fight.

I don't know what happened in any detail, but with how the cultists treated women, it's not hard to imagine how things turned violent.

…Anyway, Ma- Raphael survived as my prisoner, the disappeared partygoers were tied up in the attic I hadn't known about, and the cultists who managed to run away from the angry maids were tracked down and captured by the Royal Guard within a few days.

All the maids, myself included, got cozy rooms in the royal palace while the Front King and Back King worked to untangle everything.

…Apparently, it was a conversation between Raphael and his father the Front King that decided things.  The Front King was… he was angry, that much was obvious, but the sheer disbelief that he couldn’t even hide…

…Sorry.

Raphael was held elsewhere in the palace, under some very loyal and very capable guards, and the Front King was…

…I’m glad my family -- both of them -- haven’t had to deal with something like that.

He apologized to us -- all of us -- and seemed to make it a personal mission to help the maids affected by his son's actions.  A lot of them actually ended up working for him, actually, as maids in the royal palace.  But whether they accepted his offer or not, all the maids got good therapy, and were able to move on with their lives.  The brainwashing from Master -- urgh, Raphael -- is still sticky in some situations, so a few of them decided to erase their memories of the entire affair.

…Which resulted in different issues for them, but let’s move on, yeah?

…I… Haaaaa.  I can confirm that Raphael was executed.  All of the cultists that survived were, actually, with the exception of everyone that was tied up in the attic for having moral compasses.  Which included the First Prince of the Back, actually!  I have no idea how Raphael thought he could get away with that, but there it was.  

The heir to the Back King was a rather plain, if polite man called Joseph Mason.  He had a really level head on his shoulders, completely unphased despite the… everything.

It took a week for the royal family to deal with everything, which apparently included the forcible seizure of everything all the cultists' owned.  

After a week of waiting while the royal family dealt with everything that had happened, with a certain focus on seizing the assets and wealth of the cultists and building a plausible cover-up to preserve the reputation of the royal family… I was finally offered a reward, for my loyalty to the crown.

The offers were… good goddesses, they were utterly insane.  Tax exemption for ten years?  Splitting off from my family to make my own noble house?  A massive pile of money?

Capping off the end of my second year by asking for a rusty old key from Atlantis was almost painful.

…And when the two kings glanced at each other like they'd expected that, I knew my third year was going to be even weirder.