I followed Elene, trying my best to tune out the high-pitched jingle of the bell attached to my tail.
Every single step announced my presence to the world.
Despite the mounting humiliation, I couldn't help but be fascinated by the interior of the castle.
The walls weren't made of ordinary stone, but a smooth, near-black rock embedded with pulsating, blue magic crystals at regular intervals. They bathed the corridor in a cold, steady light that cast almost no shadows, giving the entire place an ethereal, slightly sterile atmosphere.
After a few minutes of walking - my new pink shoes clicking softly against the marble floor - we stopped in a wide wing of the castle. I suddenly realized that since leaving the bedroom, we hadn't encountered a single living soul.
Elene, as if sensing my confusion, stopped and looked back at me with that same ironic smirk that always made me feel like a child caught asking a stupid question.
"I hate to break it to you, little one, but you won't be showing off your sweet little look to the rest of the staff just yet. We're in the wing reserved exclusively for Lady Lilith, her wives, and a few specially selected individuals," she explained.
My brows shot up at the word "wives."
So she has wives... well, of course she does. She's the Demon King of Desire. This whole castle is probably just one giant, luxury harem, and I'm the latest acquisition, I thought, my tail twitching nervously under my maid skirt.
Before I could ask anything, Elene snapped her fingers. Six pairs of heavy, ornate doors along the corridor slid open simultaneously with a soft hum, as if driven by an invisible mechanism. Elene looked at me, and the ring on her finger began to glow with an intense violet light. Suddenly, several strange objects materialized in the air before me, looking like a cross between high technology and an engineer's nightmare.
"Alright, playroom's over. Watch closely, because I'm not repeating how to keep this place clean," Elene said as we entered one of the rooms. Her voice had turned dry and professional - a jarring shift from her earlier flirting. "This is an Ethereal Dust Absorber."
She grabbed a device that looked like a long tube of polished obsidian ending in a swirling sphere of clear glass. Inside the glass, a miniature cyclone raged. When Elene pressed a runic button on the handle, the sphere glowed, and the device emitted a low, vibrating purr. It sucked every speck of dust from the rug with such force that the fabric actually lifted, creating a localized vacuum.
"If I see a single grain of dust on these carpets, you'll be answering to me. Now, look here," she continued, pointing to a copper tray with circular indentations. "This is the Charging Station. Use it to recharge the light crystals in the rooms. Swap the energy crystals when they start to dim and wait until the runes on the edge turn gold."
Next, she presented something that looked like a pair of levitating, mechanical hands connected by brass springs - a Kinetic Beater. Once activated, it vibrated at an incredible frequency.
When Elene brought it near one of the silk duvets, the hands began to strike the fabric with rhythmic, lightning-fast speed, shaking out debris while "fluffing" the fibers using subtle sound waves.
"Finally, the Silver Essence Sprayer." She pointed to a filigree metal orb hovering above her palm, burning magical incense inside. "You use this to purify the air and infuse it with the scent Lady Lilith prefers. Keep it delicate; if it's suffocating, you've failed."
With every word, the weight of my new responsibilities grew. The magic gadgets were fascinating, but overwhelming. I'd never touched anything like this in my life.
"Your task for today is to personally handle all six of these rooms," Elene concluded, extinguishing her ring's light and crossing her arms over her chest. The movement made her bust strain dangerously against her uniform again. "Start with the room on the right. And I'm warning you, Neko: be thorough. I have to report your progress to Lady Lilith, and that bell on your tail will tell me exactly whether you're working or just slacking off."
Hearing her words, I nodded obediently.
"Any questions, or are you going to stand there staring at me with those big eyes until the dust disappears on its own?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.
My head was a mess - questions about my body, this world, my past life - but I just clamped my mouth shut. I was too afraid that speaking would only irritate her.
Elene nodded as if she expected nothing less, but then she frowned, looking at my petite frame with clear doubt.
"Mmm... I've never dealt with anyone so pathetically weak. Your stats are a grim joke. Honestly, I doubt you can even hold that vacuum for more than ten minutes," she muttered, glancing at her flickering ring. She gestured for me to come closer. I obeyed slowly, the bell on my tail chiming nervously with every step.
Before I could react, the succubus grabbed my leather collar and yanked me toward her. I was forced face-to-face with her cleavage. Her ring flashed violet, and a small, sapphire-like gem pulsing with blue light materialized in her hand. Without a word of explanation, she clipped it to the metal ring on my collar - right where a leash would normally go - and let go so suddenly I nearly tripped.
"That is an Ethereal Stamina Core. it will constantly monitor your physical state and inject small doses of mana whenever your muscles start to give out. Theoretically, you should be full of energy twenty-four hours a day, no matter how hard you slave away," she explained. I felt a pleasant, tingling warmth spread from the gem through my neck and down to the rest of my body. "Now, I really don't have any more time for you. I have my own duties to attend to."
I watched her walk away toward the other end of the corridor. I felt a pang of surprise; I'd assumed life in a place like this was one non-stop orgy, but it seemed even succubi had a "normal" shift and a mountain of work to do.
Elene paused at the corner and looked back over her shoulder with that signature, slightly sadistic smirk.
"And one more thing, kitten... don't try any funny business with your own body while you're alone. That core registers any excessive physiological arousal," she added, her eyes flashing dangerously. "Unless, of course, you really want to see the much less 'polite' face of your Mistress when she finds out you'd rather test your new 'equipment' than clean."
Once she disappeared and the corridor fell silent - save for the low hum of the levitating tools - I let out a long breath. I leaned against the cold wall, looking resignedly at the magical instruments floating around me.
There I was: dressed as a pink maid, with a bell on my tail and a magical booster on my collar. I was the most absurd thing in this entire fantasy world. All I could do was get to work and hope I didn't find out what Elene meant by "punishment."
Shit, is this the part where I start crying, or should I just be glad I won't have sore muscles? I thought. I leaned over to grab the handle of the Ethereal Dust Absorber, feeling my skirt hike up and expose my panties to the empty hallway.
I turned toward the first door.
***
The magic clock on the wall - a pulsating dial of light - indicated that over six hours had passed since I entered this wing. Through the tall, stained-glass window of the final room, I could see the blue sky of this world fading into a deep, velvety black.
I let out a long, shaky sigh as I set the Dust Absorber aside. I scanned the room one last time. It shone with an unnatural, almost sterile brilliance. It gave me a brief, flicking moment of satisfaction - knowing that even in the body of a pink cat-girl, I could still put in a hard day's work.
At least I have that much left of my old life... though if anyone from the office saw me in this outfit, they'd die laughing before I could even try to explain, I thought. As I tilted my head, the bell on my tail gave that cursed, bright clink, and a vein of pure irritation throbbed in my temple.
Cleaning this castle, even with magic gadgets, was no walk in the park. These rooms were gargantuan and filled with so much detail that even with the beaters and absorbers, finishing a single suite took nearly an hour of painstaking labor. At first, I felt like a complete idiot, unable to gauge the suction power or the right angle, but by the fourth room, my brain started finding analogies to vacuums and mops from my old world. I finally got the hang of it.
I'd tried a few times to remember more about my life back home - a street name, a friend's face, anything - but I hit that same impenetrable fog every time. I'd just sigh helplessly and go back to scrubbing marble.
I adjusted the hem of my tight pink dress and tugged at my white gloves. I felt a rising, physical fury mixed with something I was afraid to name. The material clinging to my new body was so unnaturally soft and slick that every movement I made felt like an involuntary caress against my hypersensitive skin.
This job was a twisted combination of heaven and hell. On one hand, I was exhausted and humiliated; on the other, every time I bent over or swung the vacuum tube, the lace and silk teased my thighs and breasts so perfectly that more than once, I'd been tempted to just drop everything and give myself a little relief.
But Elene's icy warning about the Stamina Core stayed with me. Every time my hips started to seek out the friction of the fabric too much, I'd bite my lip and focus on counting the tassels on the rugs, desperate to occupy my mind with anything other than those building, perverted sensations.
I looked at the pulsating gem at my throat. Despite everything, I was grateful for it. Over the last few hours, I'd realized just how tragically weak my new body was. With my current stats, walking for five minutes without that magical "boost" would have probably ended in me fainting from exhaustion, let alone moving heavy ebony furniture or lugging around an absorber that weighed more than I did.
I stepped out of the last room, softly closing the heavy door behind me. I leaned against it for a moment, trying to catch my breath and ignore the jingling of my bell.
Suddenly, breaking the silence of the corridor, the steady, hard clack-clack-clack of high heels echoed up from the stairs.