Cursed Heroine

Chapter 33: Lily’s obligations

“Time for your punishment.”~Sofy

We had just gotten done with our nightly bath and massage when she entered the bedroom telling me that.

“Punishment for what, Mistress?”~me

“Your punishment for the teasing earlier. We’re going to try something new.”~Sofy

Oh, how I dread those words. Last time she said that, I became her own personal dairy supply.

“Huh, you’re still on about that? W-what exactly did you have in mind?”~me

“It seems like a simple enough punishment. The name of the punishment is ‘standing in time-out’ and the description says that the servant will be forced to, under her own ability, stand on her tippy-toes for the duration or suffer the consequences.”~Sofy

“That doesn’t sound so bad, how long did you want to punish me?”~me

“I had been thinking to go until breakfast. Just for that earlier comment, I’ll be extending the time to double that. You’ll be standing until dinner tomorrow. Don’t worry about being able to stand that long, I’ll leave you with permission to use your stamina boosts. You’ll likely be sore by the time it’s over, but it shouldn’t be impossible that way. Let’s add in your sensory deprivation gear to spice things up. Having that gag in your mouth stimulating your body will make it more interesting and be a constant reminder to tone down the teasing.”~Sofy

After getting the order that disallows any possible cheats except stamina blessings, I stood beside the bed awaiting the punishment’s activation. The first indication that it has started is the cuffs that appeared on my wrists and ankles. My wrists become attached to the sides of a belt around my waist and my ankles are dragged shoulder width apart by chains extending from my ankle cuffs into a shadowy whirlpool on the floor. A familiar object raises out from the shadow, aimed directly at my groin. Below the dong is a slender beam extending one foot forward and behind. The pole below it quickly pushes the toy into me and continues to extend until I’m forced up on my toes as the beam I’m straddling forces me up. A round disk appears around the bottom of the pole and has my ankle chains attached to it, leaving no chance to tip it over or jump off. Soon, I’m wearing the standard ball gag and silencing earrings. Immediately after, the pole descends just enough that I’m no longer sitting on the beam and the true punishment begins.

I’ve definitely underestimated this one by a lot. This was all I could think as the dong started to vibrate at varying intensity and I ended up trying to sit on the beam much to my regret. The beam between my legs shocked me as soon as I put any weight on it, requiring me to once again stand up on my toes. It hurt too, this wasn’t one of those pleasant shocks or even just surprising. Even though it wasn’t intense to the point of preventing me from speaking with Sofy, I still couldn’t request it be stopped due to the wording of her order: “I order you to take your punishment without trying to lessen it other than using stamina boosts.” Asking her to stop it before it finished would definitely be an attempt to lessen the punishment. After a while, I completely lost track of how many times I’d been shocked off the beam. The most unnerving part of this was the inability to keep track of just how long I’d been in this situation. It could be almost over or may have only just begun.

I barely even notice when it had concluded. I had once again lowered myself down after standing for a long period and noticed that my feet managed to completely flatten on the ground, nor did I get shocked. Discovering that I was no longer constrained and punished, I let my body relax. As soon as I do so, my legs cramp up horribly and I spend several minutes rubbing them after falling to the floor. After I healed myself and cleaned up, we made our way out for dinner. She had left me that way for nearly a whole day just as she had said. Sofy wanted to play while I wanted to just sleep that night.

“Mistress, If you wanted to have fun together, you should have shortened my punishment. Did you not consider that I might not be up for it after being worn out since the night before?”~me

“Talking back to your mistress, perhaps you need some more punishment?”~Sofy

“No no, that won’t be necessary! However, can we keep things casual and simple, pretty please?”~me

“Fine, but you have to do all the work. I want you to satisfy me until I fall asleep.”~Sofy

With things decided, I gave myself a big stamina boost before diving in. Though I was fatigued, I made a genuine effort to do my best. We ended up falling asleep after a few rounds and woke up the next morning still joined together by a toy. Having recovered thanks to sleep, I was able to participate in Sofy’s dance lesson this morning without problems and continued to train myself during her other classes. Ever since my hair began to have different styles each day since our last dress-up session, I’ve been helping the girls to braid and style their own hair during our lunch break. It’s gotten to the point that I’ve started to record the methods and overall designs into a book for them. I would write up the current day’s style during the morning and add pages to the book during lunch. The book would go home with one of the four girls each night so they would each be able to copy the six new additions each week.

On the morning of Waterday, I accompanied nana to her office after breakfast that morning. I’m introduced to the others in her office and she tells them a little about me. I noticed somebody I recognized in the group. Tiff’s father is a member of nana’s research office.

“Lilia here is my granddaughter’s servant and is bound to her in a unique way, much more absolute than even a magic contract could achieve. There is no need to have any concern about her possibly leaking secrets. She’s mute, but will write down anything she needs to communicate. Her ability to remember things is likely better than all of you combined. It only took her a few days to memorize the contents of my personal library and her magic ability is at the fourth stage. Anthony can attest to this since he had a practice dual with her just last week.”~nana

“The little lass is indeed strong. Though she isn’t close to being as strong as me in raw power, she was able to accurately deduce each spell I would cast and perfectly counter them with the least effort. She forced our dual to a draw from mana depletion. Margarette, is she here as a scribe or will she be performing other duties?”~Anthony

“Although her current position is my secretary, her duties for the immediate future will be to familiarise herself with the books in the library and general daily tasks. I’m hopeful that she will eventually work her way up to a higher position.”~nana(Margarette)

She ended with a wink in my direction and I responded with an eye roll. I take a moment to get nana’s attention after I write out a message to her. The message read: I’ve been theorizing a possible new branch of magecraft that is very suitable for the military. I’m calling it tactical spell casting. It uses the principles taught in my guide to elemental affinities and the introduction to multi-elemental spells. It won’t require any additional preparation for me to write it now and I think it will surprise everyone here enough to warrant a promotion.

“It seems I may have underestimated Lilia a bit. She just informed me that she would like to add a new chapter to our current project and that she would like all of you to witness to prove her ability to you. Please kindly watch over her.”~nana

A few discontented murmurs were heard, but no one had the courage to complain too loudly. The new book isn’t too long, maybe thirty sheets and more than half of that was used to explain the principles of tactical magic. Tactical magic is employed by using several mages to complete multifaceted spells, at least one for each element or component. I included two example spells along with the basic set up in the book. First tactical spell formation is named lance barrage. The rear mage condenses water from the air, middle mage forms the water into ice spears and the forward mage uses a force spell to fling them into the enemy. It cost each mage a third of the time to cast their individual spells, each being only one third of the usual complexity of a normal ice lance tri-element spell. This allows the less capable mages to still be formidable when they combine forces as they can focus one hundred percent of their power on each stage of the spell forming instead of splitting their focus in three, tripling the overall power. I make sure to make a special note that such spells are only suitable to armies and a small individual team would not fair well using these magics. The second is firestorm which uses one fire mage to feed the flame and two air mages who strengthen and direct it. A devastating magic for any army. These magics are of course not limited to being used by only groups of three. They can expand indefinitely as long as the ratio of elements is good.

After approximately two hours of writing, I put down my quill to see the amazed and jaw dropped expressions on the researchers’ faces. Even nana seems to be deeply contemplating the pages I had just written. A few minutes tick by until a conversation starts and they begin to evaluate the plausibility and effectiveness of such magics. They came to the same conclusion as stated in my writings and their expressions turned serious. Questions were asked about if I had copied someone else’s work, where I got the idea and if anyone helped me with it. In answer to their questions, I brought out several of the books I had written previously that they would recognize and wrote a note telling them to examine the handwriting. To give the final blow, I showed them several new books that I had not yet exchanged with nana.

“That happened faster than I had thought. As you all have already guessed, Lilia is indeed the creator and authored the first books for this new magic system. I’m classifying her latest addition as a council military secret. You should all understand why. Lily, you remember where the library is, right? Good, head over and read some books until lunch. Then you can go meet up with Sofy. The rest of us have a matter to discuss.”~nana

She basically just told me to scram so they can talk about me behind my back. Since I don’t particularly care, I just nodded my head and walked to the library where I got to add quite a few books to my mental collection.