"Get out! If you interrupt my pleasure for something this trivial again, you'll find yourself in the Pleasure House!"
The messenger, already turned into a puppet by the claws of fear, threw himself out of the room after these words cut his strings. The person speaking with rage from the bed was the highest-ranking member of the Grey Hyenas in the region—the organization conducting the occupation on behalf of the Mercenaries.
Commander Sırrı. Every power center on the continent of the Wild Swamp knew his name very well. If you think this fame stems from his personal qualities, you are gravely mistaken; this reputation was the result of him holding the same position for decades.
Three of the four occupying forces used the operation as a tool to train members who were talented but lacked strong backgrounds; genius engineers or the crème de la crème of their sects and communities would have no business in this remote land. Generally, the command levels changed frequently; only the most authorized names stayed in the Wild Swamp for about ten years to lead the units and train the youth beneath them.
Sırrı was the sole exception. Thanks to his father, the leader of the Grey Hyenas, he had managed to hold the same position since he reached adulthood. Almost all the traits of his weak and flaw-ridden character were reflected in his physical appearance. Despite being in a society that earned its living by fighting, he had a thin physique; since he spent the times when his development would be fastest enjoying every kind of beauty in bed, he had a puny appearance.
At first glance, his head, covered in shoulder-length hair, could be compared to a small cabbage with withered leaves. With a few strands of beard growing where his pointed chin ended, a nose that tapered toward the tip, and eyes sunken into their sockets—the clearest sign of the life he lived—Sırrı was, in every sense of the word, an ugly man.
In parallel with his appearance, the character driving his actions also possessed major defects. The puny man didn't care about any living soul on earth except himself, including the father who enabled him to live such a life. Contrary to all his bad traits, Sırrı wasn't stupid; because his own life was at stake, he knew everything that was going on.
That was exactly the reason for his aggressiveness today. When the turmoil in the region he managed reached an uncontrollable state, his first move was to ask his father to recall him. Despite a long time passing since his call, his foul mood was due to not receiving a satisfactory answer; even the more than ten druid beauties waiting to warm him in his bed no longer gave him pleasure.
"Guard!"
A team of elite soldiers always waited at Sırrı's door. Although these individuals had the talent to blow like a gale on the battlefield, they chose this job because of the Mercenaries' greatest source of motivation: money.
"Your orders, Commander!"
A man with a deep, sonorous voice entered the room; his age was clearly over fifty, evident from the graying hair turning white and the lines on his face that had succumbed to time. Of the team protecting him, only this person had permission to enter his private room. No matter how much he tried not to show it, this man—Slavisa—was perhaps the only person Sırrı trusted besides himself.
"Slavisa, send all of them to the Pleasure House!"
As soon as the puny commander finished speaking, multiple screams began to echo in the room; the women in the bed were fleeing in terror. How could they not be afraid? The place Sırrı wanted to send them was like the den of cruelty Nafız had discovered in the first border outpost, adapted for the main headquarters. In fact, these places established at points controlled by the Grey Hyenas, where agonizing events occurred, were mere simple copies of the place known as the Pleasure House.
Knowing their end had come, some of the druid women ended their own lives right there, in the commander's room decorated with pomp and arrogance, by biting their tongues. Those who lacked the courage for that threw themselves down from the two-leafed glass windows covered by thick velvet curtains.
Watching these scenes had restored the morale of the dejected Sırrı, but the thing he anticipated most had not happened yet. He needed to wait a bit longer; the thin ice imprisoning the souls of those who had gone into shock and become unable to move needed to melt.
"I beg you, master, have mercy on me!" "My Lord, don't send me there, I'll do anything you want!"
The five women who remained—those who hadn't chosen their own ends—collapsed at Sırrı's feet, pleading with the scrawny man who stood there as naked as the day he was born. Some kissed his feet, some his hands; some, desperate for their lives, did everything they could to appeal to Sırrı's sexual impulses.
Unfortunately, all their efforts were in vain. Since the age when he could first slightly touch the realm of adult pleasures, the son of the Leader of the Grey Hyenas had tasted everything there was to taste on earth. These days, his greatest satisfaction came from people looking into his eyes and begging him, compromising their very selves to be accepted. He had specifically chosen the women he was currently torturing from among the captives; watching the final state of these people, who hadn't compromised an inch of their pride when they first fell into his hands, carried him to the peaks of pleasure.
"What are you waiting for, Slavisa?"
These words contained the syllables signaling the end of the show; this was a requirement for Sırrı to be fully satisfied. With the edge of his hand, the hulking guard knocked out the women one by one as they clung to the scrawny man's legs like their last hope. A moment later, he would exit the now-silent room with the five death-bound travelers he had gripped in one move.
This ritual, which took place at specific times, was nothing more than a part of the ordinary flow of life for the guard team waiting outside the door. They would take the women they received from their leader and deliver them to their final stop, the Pleasure House.
While the day passed with such action in the western part of the Wild Swamp continent, a deep mystic peace prevailed in the east. Of course, this only applied to the siege forces; it was impossible to define the fearful waiting inside the Druid Main Settlement with such a spiritual metaphor.
"Third Root, as you know, a visible unrest has recently emerged where the Hell Realm units are located; today, we finally learned the reason!"
"According to the conversations within a new group that arrived to attack the shield, things have become complicated in the outside world."
The council, gathered in the hollow of a massive tree in the middle of the settlement, was listening to the messenger who couldn't hide his excitement while presenting his report. This person had to constantly wipe his sweaty palms, and the glimmers of light—not seen among druids for a long time—could easily be discerned in his eyes.
"Speak, what is happening on our continent?"
The Fourth Root, whose son had left the Main Settlement with the orcs wanting to save the continent from the siege forces, was the most anxious among all the elders.
"Our orc friends have blown like the wind in the region controlled by the Grey Hyenas; all their units, except those attacking the shield, have been neutralized by the Druid Liberation Army!"
There was now a silence in the council inside the giant tree, the kind brought by experiencing or witnessing unexpected events. The Roots just remained silent because they didn't know how to interpret the developments.
"What is this 'Druid Liberation Army'?"
The First Root managed to speak with difficulty; the white-haired woman was curious about what this name, heard for the first time, pointed to.
"Mistress, the Druid Liberation Army is an entity our orc friends established together with our brothers and sisters held as captives in the places they captured."
The faces of the assembly of elders soured. They found the word "druid" coming side-by-side with a concept so alien to them as "army" to be, at the very least, bizarre.
"With your permission, I want to give the most important news, Exalted Council Members!"
The Third Root, seeing the messenger's bursting state, sensed it would be useless to keep him waiting longer. While making a gesture with his hand to continue, he would open his curious ears wide.
"The Druid Liberation Army was using the Grey Hyenas' largest support headquarters as a base; by staying there, they succeeded in fending off two attacks consisting of the enemies' combined forces. In the last battle, our glorious army even took the niece of the Black Lilies' Commander, Lord Galeno, as a captive. Although the young woman has now returned to her uncle, it seems the commander's rage has not subsided!"
The messenger had dived into the telling so excitedly that his color would turn purple-red because he forgot to breathe. He had to cough harshly a few times before continuing; then, taking a deep breath, he resumed his forcedly interrupted words.
"Lord Galeno has decided to take most of his forces and personally destroy the Druid Liberation Army!"