Alex found herself in dreamnd. Only she was not herself. She was a scantly-cd overly-curvy red-skinned, not human. She held up her hands and inspected them. She had bck fingernails with cws. Her feet were two-pronged hooves. She looked behind her and saw a bck tail that ended in a spade. Pcing a hand on her head she felt horns that curled backwards like a sheep or goats.

  “What is going on here?” Alex pinched her cheek with the sharp cws, to see if she was in a dream. It didn’t hurt.

  “It’s just a dream.” She sighed in relief. “Why am I dreaming about becoming a succubus? That is the st thing I’d want. Do I even have the same face? I can’t see myself.”

  As if in answer to her mental desire to see herself, a full length mirror appears before her. And yes, the person in the mirror is not Alex at all, but a tall sexy succubus who bears no resembnce to the magical girl Alex.

  She saw a couple in the mirror behind them and turned around to see what magically appeared. Herself, magical girl Alex, dressed in a low cut gown showing off her cleavage was walking side by side with Yvne’s son Cassius.

  “My dy, forgive me if my heart races ahead of my manners. I would never presume to trespass upon your virtue. But when you speak I wish only to be nearer to you. May I hold your hand?” He sounded like he was reciting poetry.

  Alex… (this was confusing because right now Alex was in the body of a demon) put a delicate hand to her chest, blushing. “Lord Cassius, such words are sweet. To hold hands is a gesture reserved for those bound in a secret vow. Anything less is a whisper of scandal.”

  Demon-Alex spoke to the dreamy couple. “What is this even? I don’t think I was attracted to that young noble. It was only his charisma bringing me weird feelings.”

  Alex could taste the sexual tension between the two. It tasted like a spark of electricity on the tongue. It made her feel a little excited, which was also weird.

  However, they continued as if she wasn’t there.

  “Then let my hands remain idle, and my heart do the reaching. I shall not ask for your hand, only time. Let me walk beside you, speak with you, learn the contours of your body. Perhaps one day I may earn the honor of your hand.” He made grandiose gestures in front of the blushing maiden.

  Alex opened and closed her hand. “Words such as yours are dangerous, my lord. They stir things that ought not be stirred. But . . . they are not unwelcome.”

  “I shall walk beside you with care, and if ever my words are too bold, may your silence remind me to tread softer.” He fshed a dazzling smile.

  “Tomorrow, I walk the gardens at dawn. Alone, as is my custom. If you happen to be there… I shall not call it improper.” Fake Alex had a glint in her eye.

  The scene shifted to gardens with a fog and the sun just peeking out enough to illuminate the pce.

  Cassius, walked into the gardens, with his hooded cloak pulled close. Pacing back and forth waiting for Alex to arrive.

  Alex walks in, steps light, gaze cautious. She pauses and looks around.

  “You came, I feared the sun would rise without you and I would be left to greet it alone.” Cassius approached Alex.

  Alex made sure no prying eyes were watching, checking all around her. “I should not have. But the morning felt colder without your words to warm it.”

  The pair walked side by side through the morning mist. As they passed beneath a flowering arch Alex’s hand brushes against Cassius’s. She hesitated and he does not draw his hand back.

  “If we are seen, it will be said that I have forgotten my virtue.” She shifted her gaze up to the young noble.

  “Then let this be a moment the world does not see.” Cassius gently said, matching Alex’s gaze. “The roses and mists can keep our secret.”

  They csped handed and walked on, the garden their only witness.

  Demon Alex stumbled after them, into the garden, suddenly not in a dream haze but in a new pce. She followed them and there were some other cringy scenes. Alex offering him a home cooked meal, then sitting on a bench together. They even danced together at one point, oddly enough there were puppets on strings like in that one dungeon dancing with them.

  “Why is this driving me nuts?” Alex felt really weird seeing herself be romantic, with a guy that she wasn’t attracted to for real.

  The fake Alex shot her gaze directly at demon-Alex. “I am you and you are me. You’ve caused us a lot of trouble. I’m not sure if I should thank you for eliminating my rivals or hate you for causing our hold on the ruling css to weaken so much.”

  “Wait, what?” Alex took a step back, her hoof foot making her stumble. “This is just a dream. You are not real.”

  “Dreams can be reflected in reality.” The woman cooed, using Alex’s own voice. “And the reality I envision is that magical girls make the best succubuses. And using that trick to hide in some pce that attempting to enter your dreams triggers pnar, you are such a trap.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alex felt a bit panicked, her tail swishing back and forth on its own. “This is turning into a nightmare. I want to wake up now.”

  Normal Alex faded but gave one passing remark. “Your fantasies are quite tame. We’ll have to explore them more tomorrow night.”

  Alex shot up from bed. It was the middle of the night. She was covered with sweat from the nightmare. The fact that a succubus could invade one’s dreams terrified her. Yvne was right to be freaked out by the fact that Alex might have come in contact with one.

  Much to her shock, when she got up, she noticed that she had a new appendage. A tail with a spade on it extended from where her spine ended. Alex cursed and checked her phone.

  [Demonic corruption 10%]

  “That’s not good.” Alex thought she was in real trouble.

  Fufi, who looked to be doing her standing on one leg, sleeping didn’t stir.

  Alex wound the tail around her waist like it was a belt to conceal it. Hopefully that would prevent any unwanted questions.

  Being quiet, the magical girl snuck to the other end of the carriage where her little workshop was. She inspected the broken dream catcher and frowned. The spiraling pattern in the center of the loop had been broken through like something shoved its way through it and all the threads were hanging loosely along the outside.

  “I’ll try to fix this up a bit. Hopefully my clothcraft skills will give me a bit more protection.” Alex whispered to herself.

  She pulled out some string, and from memory was able to copy the spiraling pattern of the dream catcher. She found some pink feathers that a certain bird had shed and sewed them onto a string that would let them hang from the outside.

  “Please st long enough for me to fix this.” Alex patted the dream catcher and hung it back up above her bed.

  She got some of the simple stuff that passed for paint and drew up the runic symbol under where edelweiss kept. If things went south she could use that as a backup pn. Though she really wanted to create a better doll, perhaps one that was near human size and had full range of motion.

  Fufi woke up when the sun came up. “Alex, you are already up. Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

  “I um,” Alex squirmed a bit. “I just didn’t sleep well.”

  The fmingo gave her a suspicious look.

  “Maybe we should go and set out again after resupplying.” Alex didn’t want to deal with the massive amount of refugees and three nobles vying for power. “Mister skeleton is out there fighting demons right now. He might need our help.”

  “You could use the levels.” Fufi brightened. “Let's get you into the double digits!”

  It took another day to swap out to a fresh ship. Sadly the one that hit the iceberg would have to spend a week getting repairs. With the help of some of the workers from the newly built shipyard they were able to swap the ballista mechanism to another one of the concrete hulls that was just about ready. Alex got roped into enchanting another clockwork propulsion system. For it but they team was ready and wanted to get away from the chaos of almost tripling the popution overnight.

  When they had the ships resupplied, Ariel, Merumeru, Marina and a host of men with maritime csses volunteered to help them out. The rest of the bunks were filled with combat cssers looking to get some demon kills.

  Dun was already taking over the new shipyard and a ferro cement hull was thrown into the dry dock right after they left. Oddly enough, there were about a dozen of the 20 to 30 foot hulls lined up near the drydock in various states of construction.

  “I didn’t think you’d want to go out again so soon.” Ariel met up with them when they were out past the breakwater. “Figured you’d want at least a week to make some improvement or refit some dolls.”

  Alex nervously answered. “The demons didn’t put up as big of a fight as I thought they would. And with the news of the fire and ice cns fighting a big battle we have a limited time to farm some experience.”

  Ariel ughed. “Farm some experience. I like that phrase.” She flew off to the other ships, checking with the helmsmen and keeping the ships in formation.

  After the overnight journey, they got to the coast of the mainnd again. They went south until they found another small hamlet that had demons and raided it just like the first. It was a quick victory. The town had a hundreds of imps, mostly fire cn. The tier 2 demon was a fire cultivator. Ariel worked with Marina to cover the ballista bolts with ice.

  The combat cssers raided the town, but didn’t hard commit from the beaches until they spotted the leader.

  The leader came out and Marina sniped him with the magical ballista. It only took one shot.

  He bzed with fme, but the weird magical girl powers went right through it.

  Combat cssers swarmed him after that.

  Alex even got her dolls and Lily knocked out a few imps with her bow.

  Luckily, there was no noble, the town only had a mayor and he agreed to leave. The mayor got no help from the baron of the area and with the fishing in decline, everyone was slowly starving.

  So they picked up what loot would fit on the boats, crammed it full of dozen people and headed out.

  Alex checked her phone

  [Defeated 10 tier 1 monsters]

  [Error: progress to next level rejected. ]

  [Reason: Demonic corruption detected, level cap implemented]

  Alex cursed.

  “You okay Alex?” Fufi sounded worried.

  Alex looked to the dream catcher. It was still intact, for now.