Debauchery Hunter 4 (Patreon)

Debauchery Hunter
Chapter 4

-VB-

We got more visitors while a third of the clones were out trying to find some waifus and not orphans.

Looking at you, C7.

Three of us, all masked and armored, stared down at what looked very much like a group of refugees from the rampart of our newly made fortified compound that stood at the valley entrance.

And they were speaking something we were only vaguely familiar with because we haven’t studied Italian too well yet.

I tried Latin.

None of them understood.

I tried again with Italian.

They understood this time.

“We ***** you **** food for *** and children!”

All we got out of that was they wanted food. We responded as best as we can.

“Food, okay. Come in, rest.”

And then opened the metal wall gates to let them in.

The hundred or so people looked alarmed by the automated doors but they came in at the prospect of food. We counted them as they walked in, and when the last of them entered, our count stopped at eighty-five.

While the three of us went back to patrolling the walls, C5 came out and gestured for them to follow. They did, and we observed them from multiple angles as we walked. Many of them were women, some men, and many more were children. They wore the typical rural clothes, but were far dirtier than the ones we saw in the local area. What also distinguished them from the locals was their hair color. Unlike the brown that dominated the Alps, these people all had black hair with very few brunettes among them.

We led them to the cafeteria and had them line up, children included. Then I began to hand out potato stews to them, mainly because their gaunt faces told me that they might not be able to handle meat.

To my surprise, all of them, children excluded, began to put down coins onto the countertop.

And then we realized that outside of churches, most places didn’t do charity or alms because most people weren’t well off enough to do so. They thought that they needed to pay. Well, we weren’t going to refuse them, but each time they dropped two copper coins, we - the cooking clone - pushed one coin back. The parents paid for their children, but we shook our heads and pushed the cost of the potato stews for the children back to the parents. They saw and then bowed their heads while muttering what sounded like thank yous in Italian.

As they ate, we had the cooking clone wrap up and sit down with them. As he ate with them, we had him question them.

The answers were … we supposed that their situation was of the norm.

These eighty-five people were from a multitude of areas but mainly from southern Italy in what the modern world called Naples and Sicily. Their homes had burnt and they had fled conflicts in their home regions. We could only guess that this was their world’s version of the Norman invasions of Sicily. It was the only conflict that fit the time period.

But why were they so far up north?

We asked them that, too.

Apparently, no one wanted them. As far as they saw, the entire world had been suffering through famine. No village on their way up north to our valley had wanted them. The few places that did house them demanded payment for the meals because life wasn’t just hard for them; life was just hard for everyone.

We told them that they could sleep in one of the empty houses, which was a manor as far as they were concerned.

Next morning, seventy-seven of them left.

Of the seven who remained, there were three children and four adults.

For given definitions of adult and children of this time, anyways.

All of the children were orphans and the adults were all also very young, barely into adulthood. They stayed because they couldn’t continue with the group anymore, either too weak to continue or hoping to get some sort of mercy from us.

A single clone sat down with the children while another sat down to negotiate with the adults.

---

“You work for me. Get food and bed,” we spoke through C10, having returned with an empty hand but a lot of random bits and bobs of technology from the Star Wars universe. He was currently sitting in front of the children, most of whom were between eight and twelve. We also had to talk like an idiot because we knew very little Italian.

We didn’t intend to make them do hard work. Just like the bunny warrior slaves, we just needed them to do some kind of trivial work to justify to ourselves why we were housing and feeding them. We were trying to do whatever it was that we wanted like big ass bases, women, gold, and a base full of rockets, not become a goddamn orphanage.

“Y-Yes!” one of them said quickly, and the others followed, some more enthusiastically than others, no doubt at the prospect of a warm bed and food.

“Yes. Good. We make farm. You work farm. Yes?”

---

The talk with the adults was a bit different. In fact, we didn’t talk to them as a whole but one by one in interviews in closed rooms.

Of the four, three were women, and considering their age, they had no trade to speak of.

The first person we talked with was the man. Short, black haired, strong nosed, and gaunt because of his current state, we didn’t know what to make of him.

His eyes, though, told us that he considered staying here to be an opportunity.

He bowed immediately upon sitting down.

“Please *** me be ** soldier!”

C4, the interviewer, blinked.

We thought seriously about his request. We were a Hive Mind that only made one additional person per day, no matter the number of the Hive Mind’s clones. We also were in the Alps, one of the most contested regions in Central Europe. If it wasn’t the Austrian Habsburgs expanding their influence, then it was the Swiss fighting for their independence. That was in the future, though, and though we were likely to survive til then, our goal right now was to remain hidden. That said, there was no guarantee that we would forever remain hidden.

We could use some soldiers in the case where someone decided to conquer us.

“... Okay.”

The man looked up.

“You learn our speech. Good?”

He nodded fervently.

We had C3 enter the room and guide him out towards a new house that was being built. He also told the next person to enter the room.

The first woman to enter was a black haired woman. Her clothes hung from her shoulders from how thin she was.

It was also a good thing that we had C6 and C7 doing their best to translate and learn Italian as the interview continued - and have been learning since yesterday night.

“How old are you?”

“17.”

“Name?”

“Agnes of Tritora.”

“What work you do?” Our grammar still sucked.

“I-I can clean?”

We had C4 raise an eyebrow.

“No trade?”

She shrunk into the chair, which was a definite no. Her lips trembled as she spoke her next words. “I-I can work in … bed.”

We blinked.

We looked her over.

Sure, she was thin right now, but what about after she’s had some proper meals?

Yeah, we could go out there and gather some waifus, but until we did, we were stuck with the backlash of Hive Mind freezing every time some clone thought something lewd, which happened quite often.

We could solve this problem right now.

But at the same time, we really weren’t into necrophilia? This woman was very close to death (probably would have died if we hadn’t been here) and her body showed. She was more bone and skin than anything worth tapping.

Maybe once she filled back.

“Maybe. You will clean for now.”

She nodded and then C3 guided her out to her new apartment unit.

The other two women were in similar situations as well. Too young to have a trade. Too disadvantaged to know better.

The second woman was a twenty year old named Sophia. She had been married once but her husband died in the Norman invasions and she barely got away. Destitute and hungry, she did whatever she had to do to survive. She was also the smartest of the three. She straight-up told us that she knew we were “rich” because despite living in the mountains, we had enough food and land to feed eighty plus people without a problem and didn’t demand more coin to make up for the loss. Despite the wisdom she had, she was also without a trade that we could employ and offered her body.

Unlike the first woman, this woman was not a skeleton, and though she had clearly been starving a little, she wasn’t all bone and skin.

… We accepted.

The third woman was the youngest and the boldest of them all. She saw the man get accepted as a soldier and so she declared that she wanted to be a soldier as well.

We had no reason to refuse.

That’s how we got four farmhand, two soldiers, and a concubine in one day less than a week after we got seven orphan/farmhands.

My second life was becoming a parody of the first.

Powerful, yes, but with more responsibilities.

-VB-

Sophia knew that the man who fed her and the rest of the refugees had to be a magician, because she’s seen their faces.

Or rather the same face on all of them.

She refused to believe that a single woman gave birth to over fifteen children at once. That was physically impossible! (right?)

She also knew that this man (these men?) had to be powerful enough to hold an entire valley for themselves with forts and walls and also keep a farm running that could feed nearly a hundred people a day and not worry about the impact.

This place was her ticket to a better life.

She was actually surprised when he accepted her offer. She knew that she wasn’t beautiful or even pretty. Maybe above average, but that was as far as she went. Her head was just a tad too big, her breasts - while perky - a bit too round and small, and her long legs didn’t really do well since she wore a long skirt like all other women. Still, her above average beauty and her merchant father was why she was married off to the baron in the first place.

She really hoped there wasn’t anything horrible going on here.