The Girl Plagued by Misfortune

Born in the Ebihad family, an influencial house of the pro-Hero faction within the kingdom, this little girl, bearing the lustrous black hair of her father, the pale skin of her mother, and beautiful almond shaped eyes, had all the tools she needed to one day inherit the her family's properties.

"It was a miracle that you were born  ██████." They told her. "But this also means we have no other choice but to make you the next heir of the family. Do you understand ?" Her father added.

The little girl nodded. She didn't fully understand what her role would entail, but she understood that she would never be able to choose a path for herself.

As the years went by and she immersed herself in her studies of geography, politics, etiquette and acting. One day everything suddenly crumbled.
Her father was caught making money off slavery in underground auctions and the information had reached the king. To their surprise however, Faluxis Ispron, said king, was willing to give them a second chance.
The price for it however would amount to sixty percent of the father's earnings. And, as collateral, because trust cannot be paid off with cash alone, he gave the couple an ultimatum.

"I heard your daughter was blessed with good looks." The mother's blood suddenly ran cold.
"If you sell her to the brothel of the castle-town's red district, I am willing to put my faith in you once more." 
Of course the king had had their situation investigated beforehand, and as a result he was well aware of the mother's inability to give birth. But the father, drunk on the idea that he would not have to give up either his life or his money, jumped on the proposal.

In the months that followed, the young girl entered hell for the first time. She was not old enough to service men or women personally but she learned how to dance, how to play chess and how to prepare cocktails.

"Trust me, soon enough you'll wish you could have kept on making these disgusting drinks over and over." One of her older colleagues had said to her. Because the little girl, still unused to the task she had been assigned with had complained about the complexity of it at first and had now taken to criticize its repetitiveness.

Soon after, It was finally her turn to move to the forefront.
However she found that her first customers were soft on her, so she began to marvel how in the world it could be worse than standing still behind a counter or dancing nonstop for hours on end. Little did she know, said customers had been in fact selected for that very reason.
The goal having been to slowly but surely have her acclimate to the closeness she was expected to have with the patrons, and to make sure she had no problematic condition preventing her from receiving the "affection" of older men and women.

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Sure enough, after a year of serving the customers directly, she understood what her colleague had meant to warn her about.

After about four months she had lost her virginity, two months later she had experienced her first threesome, and after another month she had finally been introduced to her first female patron.
At the time, she had innocently believed that with a fellow woman there would be less physical pain. However she could not have been more wrong.
"O-oh, I-I'm not familiar with this 'toy' ? H-how to you use it exactly ?"
What had been placed in her hands by the woman she had accompanied to the rooms at the back of the brothel was a whip. An object she had had no recollection seeing around, much less used.
Thus, that day she learnt how the definition of pleasure and the means to achieve such sensation, could differ greatly from one person to another.


Later on, and after almost ten years in the profession, she suddenly received a summon from the king. Obviously her first impression had been that she had somehow caught his eye and that he was her next "customer". So steeling herself, she prepared a few costumes –the ones her regular clients enjoyed the most– and elected to only bring a change of casual clothes before she left for the castle.

Upon setting foot in the main hall after almost a decade, her feelings were indescribable. Her emotions had long since died and not even a grudge against her parents remained. Speaking of the devil, her parents were also in attendance in the throne room. They must have been summoned for appearances' sake she supposed. Not like she even understood why she thought as much however. 

Once everyone who had been summoned was present, the king gestured for a man to lift a veil that was previously covering a large, rectangular object.
"In this reflection is a future Hero." The king started. "He was summoned from a faraway world much unlike ours and will serve our country in the struggle against our sworn enemy Glursem."
At the mention of the neighboring fiefdom, a few bigwigs chuckled audibly. But the king paid them no mind and continued. "However, this young man doesn't appear to have received a blessing from any of the deities ruling our planet."
At this information all trace of amusement from the previously relaxed attendants' faces disapeared.
"But worry not my dear subjects." The king assured with renewed vigor. "Because while there isn't, for now, a source of interest that could tie him to these lands, we still have the means to create one !"
The king may have succeeded in lifting everyone's spirit for a moment, but the whole proclamation would hold no value as long as he did not pronounce which solution he had come up with. Recognizing it, he proposed the following.
"In preparation for this event, I had the daughter of our esteemed friends of the Ebihad familiy learn the art of entertaining guests. Today, she comes back from ten years of rigorous training, and is finally ready to fulfill the long-lived ambition she had been entrusted with."

Everyone clapped their hands.

Of all the bullshit he could have spouted. She thought as she glared at the king, keenly aware that she would once again have no choice in the matter.

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Now in charge of the newly appointed Hero barging from that faraway place, the disowned and dirtied former daughter of House Ebihad had now transitioned from prostitute to maid.                                   
"Hey Shimka, how do you read this character ?"

"Let me see..."

The boy before her looked at her with sparkle in his eyes. He didn't appear to be much younger than her, but to the maid who had had her fair share of experience in the adult world, it was difficult to see him as anything other than a child.

"Hey Shimka look, Ive received a real sword from my instructor ! Isn't that neat ?!" He'd told her a few months later. Showing off the practice sword –a real sword nontheless– he had been entrusted with for his training.

"I see you have found a motivation at last, I am happy for you Hyouma-sama." She had answered with an even voice. That boy had been immersing himself in books for months since his arrival.
By that point he was well on his way to master the writing language used in the kingdom and had already devoured many books that were written in a tongue similar to the one he used back in his world.
One thing was for sure, his appetite for knowledge was well and truly present. That being said, the same could not be said about his sex drive.

He had been provided with a beauty of the standards they expected were those of his world. His swordplay instructor was also a woman and sported a different kind of appeal from the neat and tidy maid. And lastly he had started interacting with the second princess of Ispron, Nika Ispron. A beauty in her own right. Albeit different from the two previously mentioned. But despite all of that, he had yet to try anything. 
Shimka had gone as far as telling him when she took her baths, and he had never even tried to come and peek once. So then, worried that at this rate she would risk failing to fulfill her mission of seducing him and would be sent back to the brothel, she steeled herself once more and tried to ask him casually.
"Sir hero, sorry to ask you this out of the blue but I was wondering if perhaps you would have preferred to have been assigned a man as personnal aide ?"
At her sudden inquiry, the hero lifted his eyes from the book he was reading and cocked his head slightly to the side in confusion.
"This might not be my place to worry about such things, but I cannot help but wonder if perhaps you like men."
The hero, having made the mistake of bringing a teacup to his lips while he listened to her question, choked on the liquid. Once he calmed down however, he looked embarassed. His cheeks had flushed a pale crimson, his ears were much the same and his eyes darted around the room in apparent discomfort.

"Why do you ask ?"

"Well, I have found traces of your fluids on the blanket I prepared for you the other day so I assumed you must have been taking care of your urges by yourself. Which made me wonder why you would go to such lengths even though you have me at your disposition, that is all."
This was the one fault they had failed to perceive and correct when assigning this girl the role of caretaker.

With no experience or education about the opposite sex prior to the occupation she had exercised as punishment, Shimka lacked what other people would call common sense in regards to intimacy, sex, and the particulars of a young man's development. As a result, she was under the mistaken impression that it was the duty of all maids, butlers, servers, host and hostesses, to take care of their masters', clients', and customers' various needs. Which was obviously a well and truly wrong asumption to make, if the now crimson colored face of her master was any indication.

"...Okay well..first of all I'm sorry to have put you through this experience. I bet it wasn't very pleasant, to say the least." What experience ?  She wondered, but kept it to herself.
"And about your initial question, I can assure you that I am in fact interested in women. So well..don't worry about that." 

Recognizing that it had been difficult for him to speak about himself like that, Shimka elected to simply answer with an expression of gratitude as well as with an apology in regards to the suddenness of her question.

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As the months passed, armed the previously acquired information on her master, the maid made her move. That being said there wasn't much she could do to a virgin. So first of all, she asked him permission to enter the bath with him. And then, she took to wear increasingly more revealing uniforms on duty.

In vain.

That man, now really looking the part thanks to his rigorous training with a sword, for some reason had not grown more confident or cocky with the results brough forth by his efforts. Needless to say, his sex drive had not improved in the slightest either. Worse, she had surprised him relieving himself in the bathroom as of late.

To her this man was an enigma. But the cherry on top was that, as much as it pained her to admit it, she was the one growing restless and frustrated by this situation. That being said, as if there wasn't already enough on her maidenly mind already, recently her master had taken to spend more and more time alone with the second princess. I cannot let her steal him away. She'd thought on impulse.
Did this feeling come from her pride as a former servicer in the sex industry, or was it a sort of possessiveness born from the time she had spent trying to understand him to better serve him ? She didn't know. What was certain however was that it no longer had anything to do with her mission. And because of that...

"...To be honest right now I doubt I will be able to trust you anymore" He'd finally told her. 

 She had gone too far.


It all happened after her master's first official deployment as the kingdom's hero.
He had come back unscathed thankfully. His spirit however, hadn't been so lucky by the looks of it.
Indeed, far from looking especially proud or exuding a sense of accomplishment for his deeds, he looked preoccupied with something. And exhausted. So Shimka had tried to put extra care into her service. She had prepared an early bath for him in the middle of the day at the risk of angering Vradio. She had asked Nelly, the cook, to prepare a few sandwiches as well as some cookies to go with black tea, the hero's favourite. All for nothing.
Because of all the things he could have done, that day he decided to try and secretly bring the second princess, Nika Ispron, to his room.

"What are you doing Master ?" She had asked him with as much calm as she could muster.

"Ah Shimka ! Please don't say a word to Nika's attendants. She is feeling unbelievably tired and she can't use her own room to rest, so I offered to lend her my bed so she could take a nap at least. Can I trust you to keep it to yourself ?" Had been his modest request. But at those words, Shimka felt like a string had snapped inside her head.

Supressing the urge to throw the whole trail she was holding at them, she instead gripped it more tightly and only gave him a slight bow in response. This is not my place to interfere. She tried to convince herself. Even if I fail this mission, I cannot bring myself to trip him up now that everything is moving along nicely for him. At some point her feelings for him had taken a more concrete form. She wasn't sure which it was, but one thing was for certain, she couldn't bear the idea of bringing him harm.

Or so she thought.


Late at night, around two in the morning to be precise. Shimka decided to visit her master's room.
She was wearing her most prized lingerie, the one gift she'd purchased for herself on impulse when she had been on her way to the castle following her summon. Her goal being to offer herself to her target, or rather, to the object of her fancy in this case.
What am I being so nervous for ? This won't be any different than sleeping with the lowlives of the nobility. Is what she told herself to keep a cool head, but in her heart she knew that it would, without a doubt, be fundamentally different from those experiences. After all, this man should have no experience. Maybe it's the fact he's a virgin ? That wasn't it either.
What she knew beyond the fact he was inexperienced, was that he was very sweet and considerate with women. Maybe I fear that I won't be able to enjoy the lack of stimulation and show him a bad time then ?  Now bordering on self-deprecation, her thoughts moved even farther away from the root and meaning of her emotions. And before long she reached the door to his room.

Alright stay calm, casual, if you feel tense he will feel it too. And that might get in the way of his drive. But as she quietly unlocked the door and made her way inside, she suddenly froze.
You're kidding me... She could not believe what she was seeing. Not only did the second princess had never gone back to her room in the end, she was now occupying his bed while he slept at the tea table, uncomfortably, and with only a simple blanket over his shoulders.
What is wrong with this guy...

Nothing made sense in this situation to Shimka. It had been obvious to her that her master had taken an interest in the second princess. And from what she had observed, the feeling had seemed to be mutual. But despite that, neither of them had ever seemed intent on taking their chance. Because of that, Shimka had conveniently concluded that they must have been fine with the state of their relationship. But when earlier he had brought Nika to his room and had asked for privacy, she'd thought: right it was meant to happen eventually anyway, and had tried to move on. 

Little did she know, her feelings were stronger than she'd anticipated. As a result, later that day she had used the excuse of bringing him the meal she had previously requested Nelly to make, to sneak a peek at them around dinnertime. Which is when she'd found him sitting at the desk and her sleeping soundly in his bed. Leading her to believe her initial interpepretation had been on the mark.

But then, faced with that situation, she didn't know what to believe anymore.
Would a man really let the girl he is interested in sleep so defenseless beside him and not make his move ?  She asked no one in particular. Regardless, now that she wouldn't be able to fulfill her desire and duty, she found herself contemplating what to do next. Her emotions a mess.

If you are not going to make a move, I guess I could lend you a hand. Before she understood what she was herself planning to do, she began lifting Hyouma from his chair. What is this, when did he get this big and heavy ?!  Far from oblivious to his glow-up, Shimka had nevertheless underestimated how much he had grown since the first time she had lifted him off the balcony's couch to bring him in back to his bed.
There you go. Thanks to her physique honed by her years of dancing, as well as the continuous physical activity she had been forced to keep up with, she managed to lower him to the bed without waking him. Then all she had to do was to leave the blanket he had taken out of the closet on the tea table, and to put him in his pajamas. With that, surely even he should be in the right condition to muster the guts to make a move, she thought with exasperation.

Burrying her feelings at the depth of her heart, she had made the choice to give him a little push.

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The next morning, upon entering her master's room, stumped she found that all of her expectations had been betrayed.
He was still where she had left him, sleeping in his bed beside the princess, but there was no indication of anything having happened.
You must be kidding me. 
Shimka was furious. She had done her best to tuck away all of her growing feelings and had gone as far as giving him a golden opportunity to seal the deal, and that was what he'd done with it ?
She refused to believe it. Are you going to toy with the hearts of all the women you come in contact with then ? Her frustration turned to anger. Fine then, I'm going to ruin you. You who gave me the illusion of a normal kind of love, I will treat you the same way I have been tasked with in the first place. To hell with these feelings !  She no longer tought straight and her reason was giving way to pure instinct.

So she betrayed him.

Without waiting for him to wake up, she rushed to inform Vradio. And, after insisting that he must address the issue as soon as possible, she led him to the hero's quarters.

"It would appear your report was correct indeed." Was Vradio's only reaction. After that he ordered her to inform the king, who later on would setup a gathering in the throne room to address the matter.

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Finally the next day, and after the hero's trial had resolved itself by turning into some sort of marketing campaign for the second prince Felvis Ispron, Shimka found herself facing the aftermath of her rash conduct.

"...What I want you to do is to investigate something for me." This was the compromise the hero offered the maid. "It means what you think it does." He continued. Shimka however was only half listening to his words.
I should just kill myself. My own family used me as a bargaining chip to ensure they wouldn't lose their position which resulted in them throwing me in hell for a whole decade... And now that I thought I had finally found the illusion of stability, I destroyed it all. With my own two hands.

"...The same way you were able to betray my trust, now I want you to betray everyone's." He told her next. But her mouth didn't move in response.

Sure, anything. She thought.

Her intent was now to devote herself entirely to his every whims. She would never attempt to act on her feelings again. That way she wouldn't risk being discarded a second time.

Contrary to her parents, this man was ready to offer her a second chance after all. She couldn't betray him twice. So she made a silent vow. May the gods strike me down if I ever bring harm to this man again.

She had never believed in the existence of the gods until now, but with no one else to watch over her and to help in making sure she held true to her word, for the first time in her life she decided to pray.