Demonic Pornstar System

Elara, meanwhile, blinked. One after the other.

The timid girl had remained quiet throughout the exchange, pretending to focus on the floor, but her eyes crept up toward Kaiden with a look of badly disguised wonder. Her gaze lingered on his hand stroking Luna's hair, then dropped to his leg, caught between Aria's, before settling on his face.

And for the first time since they'd met, she looked at him not as an awakened, nor as some controversial streamer… but as a man in control. Her face turned a deeper shade of red, and she quickly looked away again.

"So…" Tessa spoke up all of a sudden. She had a downcast look. "I would like to sincerely apologize for the behavior of my guild members."

Silence descended on the interior of the minivan, save for Bastet's incessant purring. The members of Valhalla's Sinners exchanged glances with each other.

"The way your junior subordinates behaved is straight-up unacceptable, Miss Tessa," Aria declared.

Luna had a few words of her own to add. "Yeah, and they not only knew that we were filming throughout the clear, but that blonde bitch herself broadcasted it all. The fact that they acted as they did with that knowledge in mind doesn't paint the Nova Circuit guild in a good light at all."

"Haaah…" Tessa sighed with dejection, and suddenly, the black, exhausted circles under her eyes became very accentuated. She nodded. "Yes, I'm aware. I don't expect you to forgive us. All I can do is promise we'll evaluate this dungeon dive strictly and mete out punishments where applicable."

"That Vaelira woman is giving you a lot of trouble, hm?" Nyx mused with a friendly tone. She liked this guild leader on a personal level quite a lot.

"As a guild leader, I won't be badmouthing my subordinates. But… If you guys want to have a relatively stress-free life, I can't recommend becoming guild masters." She chuckled dryly at her own misery.

They all understood what was going on. Throughout the clear, the prowess of Valhalla's Sinners was shown off greatly. Tessa, who is doing her utmost to make her fallen guild rise again, wanted to retain friendly relations with a promising upstart group like them so that she may call on them again in the future.

Many of the most prominent mercenaries would refuse to work with a guild like Nova Circuit after such a disaster of a dungeon clear.

And, frankly, Kaiden felt the same.

Tessa was a nice woman, sure, but her capabilities to rein her subordinates in were subpar at best. Despite her promise to 'mete out punishments,' they all knew Vaelira would get a minor slap on the wrist at best. As the sole A-tier awakened of the guild, she was basically untouchable for fear of her just up and walking away from the org.

But, at the same time, Kaiden was also an opportunist. He knew when to be amicable. Nova Circuit was the sole guild they had any sort of relationship with, and knowing how arduous their future would be now that the Bastet subjugation video was out, they could use all the allies they could get their hands on.

As such, he addressed Tessa. "We understand how difficult your job is, Tessa. Although Nova Circuit has greatly disappointed us, you were also the guild who saw potential in us when no one else did. We'll not close any doors with you if you agree not to stir trouble regarding the division of dungeon loot. We want Bastet, nothing else."

"I'm not loot…" Bastet grumbled with dissatisfaction.

"Of course," Tessa sighed with relief, and a happy smile crept onto her lips as the weight on her shoulders lessened. "I can already see that she likes you guys. I have four cats at home, and I love all of them. I can't imagine how it would feel to get them taken from me."

"I'm not a cat!" Bastet hissed with a much stronger tone this time around.

"Great," Kaiden said with a nod of his head, ignoring the distraught kitten in his lap, save for the calming stroking of her lush dark hair.

His head then turned toward the sole underage person present and declared without any further fanfare:

"I want to buy Elara."

"Huh?!" the girl in question yelped with utmost shock.

Tessa raised an eyebrow, alongside Luna and Aria. Nyx only smiled at her man proudly. She had a feeling it would be like this.

"Elara, you not only helped us get through this the ordeal, but you also saved Aria and Nyx when the sandstorm hit us. If you hadn't anchored them down with your strength, who knows if they would still be with us... As such, I want to repay our debt by buying your contract and setting you free," Kaiden explained.

Nyx nodded at her boyfriend, taking over the mantle of conversation. "A girl your age should be worried about getting good grades in school and scoring a handsome boyfriend, not running around in dungeons while carrying weighty backpacks and being in danger all the time."

"B-but I was only doing my job! You owe me nothing! We've been trained to know that saving combatants, even if it costs us our lives, is our duty. And the fees are very high…!"

"How high?" Aria asked, joining in on the conversation now that she got the gist of what was going on.

"T-the buyout fee is a 100 C-Chronos to Titanforge and whatever amount you agree to with Miss Tessa…"

Titanforge was the training company that made her into a capable dungeon aide, while Nova Circuit was the one who paid 10 Chronos to buy her services.

110 Chronos, or $11,000… That was a hefty asking price.

"I'll waive our part of the fee. Truth be told, I've been very guilty about your presence in our guild…" Tessa muttered with ashen, guilty eyes before growling, "It was a hiring manager who brought your contract, and I'd fired him already, but I couldn't afford to pay the buyout… But that doesn't change the fact that I sent a teenager into life-threatening situations knowing full well she was likely to fall sooner or later."

"Lady Tessa…" Elara whispered with a trembling voice. She became very emotional, not expecting her esteemed leader to feel so strongly about her.

"I would ask if you got the funds, but…" Tessa said wryly while replicating Kaiden's hand actions as she began petting Elara's head just as he was doing to Luna and Bastet.

"Yep," Kaiden grunted with a sly, smug smirk. "I have a faint inkling that our newest video will bring in quite a good amount of cash… We should have more than enough to fork out 100 Chronos and then some."