Chapter 315: Masks and Mirrors
Alexander adjusted his position on the edge of the bed, looking at the three women while lacing his fingers over his knees.
"Why did you get into this business?" asked Alexander. "With your skills, wouldn’t it be more effective to kill monsters and make money legally?"
The blonde let out a faint, bitter laugh and shook her head before looking him straight in the eye.
"You are a man, which is why you think the world is easy," said the blonde. "However, not everything is as simple as it seems. Obtaining an awakening stone is extremely difficult. Now we are your slaves, but in truth, we have always been slaves; we just switched owners. Nothing has changed, only the hand holding the whip."
"I would love to believe you," said Alexander, letting an icy smile slip onto his face, "but when you were coming after me in the forest, I heard how much you were enjoying it. So you’ll have to be a bit more convincing with your arguments."
"What do you want us to tell you?" said the blonde helplessly. "It’s the whole truth. Wild Rose is an organization that operates across the entire kingdom, handling what everyone wants but no one dares to do. Every woman wants a dick, and there are plenty willing to pay the price. 200,000 gems for your dick? Ha, you wouldn’t last five minutes on the slave market; there’d be a massive line waiting to buy you."
The woman grit her teeth and snapped her tongue with suppressed rage.
"And even then, the price stays fixed—why?" continued the blonde, spitting the words with disdain. "Because all the bitches in this kingdom are lying whores. They keep everything set up this way themselves and then pretend to be the heroes of the people. Tch! Fuck them."
Alexander remained silent, analyzing every shift in her expression. He could force confessions out of them using the contract’s pain, but he didn’t want to push too hard. If any of them lost their fear of death, they could betray him at a crucial moment and take him to the grave with them. High risk, low reward; therefore, giving them false hope was the best thing he could do to manipulate them in the long run.
Alexander took a deep breath. It had been a long time since he last attempted a dramatic performance, yet it seemed that here he would have to make use of all his acting skills. His posture shifted entirely, softening from cold detachment into empathetic warmth.
"I am sorry to hear that, ladies," said Alexander, making his voice gentle. "If you want to say anything else, feel free. I am quite soft when it comes to women, and I really don’t like hurting people... I believe women are the flowers that adorn our lives."
The blonde stared at him as if she had seen a ghost, knitting her brows in utter disbelief.
"You are a strange man, you know that?" said the blonde. "What kind of man talks like that? Do you actually think you can fool us with such sweet words?"
"Then tell me how a man is supposed to talk," said Alexander, tilting his head with curiosity. "Tell me what they are like here."
"A real man doesn’t talk about flowers or act subservient," said the blonde, lifting her chin to explain it to him. "A decent man is delicate, submissive, and elegant. He should wear soft colors, put on makeup to highlight his beauty, and speak with modesty and bashfulness. His role is to be a refined ornament, worry about his figure, tend to his woman with devotion, and wait patiently at home for her to return from hunting or trading. Men worth anything seek the protection of a strong woman; they don’t try to act like brutal warriors or business leaders."
Alexander listened to the description of the inverted gender roles with a deadpan face, storing the knowledge away to tweak his performance whenever he needed to navigate this world’s high society.
The blonde continued her rant without pause, haughtily detailing every single attribute a delicate, submissive, and accommodating male was supposed to possess.
Alexander listened to her for a few more seconds, but the utter absurdity of the description finally shattered his act. He dropped his mask and burst into an open, booming laugh that echoed throughout the room.
"That’s not a man," said Alexander, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye while shaking his head. "That’s just a woman with a dick."
All three mercenaries bristled taking his words as a direct insult to their understanding of life.
"How dare you make fun of us?!" said the blonde with indignation, assuming he was calling them lesbians or implying some form of depravity. "You know nothing about this world!"
"In my world, it doesn’t work like that," said Alexander, his laughter vanishing.
Before she had time to react, Alexander stepped forward, grabbed her by the hair, and shoved her against the edge of the bed, forcing her to sit down. Using his grip on her golden mane to subdue her, he tilted her face upward with authority, leaving her mere millimeters from his own.
"A man is someone who would give his life for the people he loves, someone who would seek to see his woman protected... but not just that," said Alexander.
He leaned in even closer, his lips barely brushing against hers while gazing at her with a piercing, consuming intensity.
"A man is arrogant, dominant, and possessive," continued Alexander in a low, heavy whisper. "He will be your calm in the storm... but the storm in your calm."
The blonde felt a sudden, intensely scorching heat pooling deep between her thighs. An electric shock shot up her spine; she had no idea what was happening to her, but Alexander’s words held an almost hypnotic sway over her mind. Her lips began to tremble in sheer desperation, instinctively reaching out to seal her mouth against his, but Alexander pulled back slightly, denying her the kiss and torturing her slowly with the distance.