It's from Saber!

[Master, this is Saber. Where are you?]

"Oh, Saber! Are you alright?"

[...]

James could almost feel Saber blushing from the other side of the call, which made him smirk.

Up until the 'milking-incident', Saber had usually held the reins between their interactions. It was a fresh experience for him to embarrass Saber for once.

[...I, I am fine, master. I'm feeling a lot better now, although the lactation itself became a feature.]

"Huh. That's interesting."

"Hmnph."

Lalter grunted from under James's crotch.

James looked down and realized that Lalter's face had turned bright red, most likely suffocating underneath his weight.

He slightly shifted back, allowing Lalter to reposition herself. Lalter moaned and began licking the cock from the under.

Slurp, slurp, slurp...!

Be it international or not, Lalter made no efforts to keep the noise down, so Saber quickly caught up on what was happening on the other side of the phone.

[Hmph, I must have interrupted something.]

Saber muttered in a rather colder voice than usual.

"I, well...look. I had ****..."

James started to make an excuse, but Saber let out a huge sigh.

[There is no need to explain yourself, Master. Especially not to me.

Please keep in mind that every characters you own, including me, are your properties.]

James looked down at Lalter, who had switched positions once again.

Now she was slobbering over his cock, letting her tongue slip out as she licked every inch of the erection as if it was her favorite lollipop.

James grunted from pleasure in despite of the phone call, which also suited as an fair answer to Saber.

[Anyway, there is a reason I called you, Master.

Characters are not allowed to take vehicles without their master, so Ryu and I are stuck at the emporium.

Would you come pick us up? Or if you'd prefer us to walk back to your mansion—]

"No, no. I'll get there. Just wait for a few more minutes, okay?"

[Thank you, Master.]

Saber left a small smooching noise right before she ended the call, much to James's surprise.

"Master..."

Lalter softly called her master.

James looked down to find his first claimed maid(He wasn't sure Saber counted as one) looking up with a disappointed expression.

"I need to go, Lalter. Saber and Ryu can't take a vehicle on their own."

"...I understand."

Lalter muttered, although she was less than enthusiastic about getting her time with her master cut short.

James was almost tempted to stay a little longer, but as much as he adored Lalter, he warned himself that he couldn't be picking favorites already.

If he wanted to be a nice owner for the characters, loving them equally would be the first—and most crucial—step.

After one last comforting pat on Lalter's head, James got dressed and left the master bedroom.

At the staircase down to the 1st floor, James ran into Karin.

"Ah, Master."

As soon as she saw James approaching, Karin gathered her hands on her stomach and politely bowed her head.

"I apologize for leaving the house tour prematurely."

"What? Oh! No, no, it's fine. I really don't mind. You don't have to apologize for that."

Kairn looked up with a releaved smile.

"Thank you for your generosity, Master."

"You are welcome."

James returned Karin's smile with his own.

Karin bowed politely once more.

'Come to think of it, this is the first time seeing Karin alone.'

"Say, Karin? Where is Asuna?"

"She is downstairs, cleaning the 1st floor corridor.

Rem has devided up the mansion in different areas and assigned each section to one of us to look after.

Asuna and I got the 1st/2nd floor hallways.

Ellen got the 1st floor's right wing and the pool, and Rem said she'll take care of the dining hall, food storage room and kitchen.

She also said she was thinking letting Ryu on the 1st floor's left wing, and Saber on the second."

"Ah, I see."

James nodded.

It seemed like Rem had smartly divided the areas according to each character's specialties.

Asuna and Karin were cleaning maids, so the corridor was the best chocie for them. Ellen was a shark girl, so leaving the water-pipe related facilities to her was logical.

...and he hoped Rem was a good cook. But then again, his previous quecen

He doubted Rem would offer to take the position when she was not confident on the field, but there was always a room for error.

'...hold on. Someone is missing on Rem's list.'

"What about Lalter? Doesn't she have any place assigned to her?"

"Uhm..."

Karin figited in her spot with a blush steadily spreading over her face.

"Since, well, you seemed to take a special liking to her, Rem suggested Lalter be the bodyguard. Actually, I should go tell her...if she is not..."

Karin ended her sentence in an incoherent mumble.

But still, her incomplete answer was enough for James to paint a picture of how the rest of his characters thought about him and Lalter.

"Look, Karin. I may have...in-bedded with Lalter first, but that doesn't mean I favor her over others."

However, his hasty explanation only made Karin blush more.

"I-I understand you'll...bed us all eventually.

It's just since you started with Lalter, we assumed it'll be best for you if she is closer to you..."

Karin mumbled in an even lower voice.

“No, that’s not...”

James tried to explain again that Karin had completely misinterpreted his words, but the tanned school maid quickly scooted away before he could.

James sighed.

By the looks of it, even if he took the time to reiterate his point he doubted his point would make it through.

'I will have to deal with that problem later...'

He could deal with his maids whenever he wanted; for now, getting Saber and Ryu was a more pressing matter.

"Master!"

Ryu jumped into James's arms as soon as she saw him coming out of the automobile car.

"Whoa! There, there..."

James clumsily wrapped his arms around the elf maid. For whatever reason, Ryu was trembling under his embrace, as if something had scared her.

"Ryu, what's wrong?"

"..."

James asked, but Ryu didn't answer. She shook her head, keeping her face buried into his chest.

So instead, James looked up at Saber for answers.

Saber walked up next to her master with a troubled expression.

"For the record, I must say that leaving right now is the smarter option."

"Hey, I was never praised for my intelligence. Shoot."

Saber closed her eyes and sighed.

"...It's about the Ram from Maison De Maid."

James ran into the building in the middle of Saber's explanation, disregarding his two maid's dissuasion completely.

Instead of the usual showcase of utter debauchery, the customers and their characters stayed where they were.

They were all collectivly staring at the commotion happening in the middle of the main hall.

"I don't know! I don't know where he is! I—"

Ram was **** down on the ground with a Wonder Woman digging her foot into her face with a cold, blank expression.

Her maid dress was tattered with blood, and tears were falling from the pink eyes as they desperately looked up at a man hunched over her face.

The man blew out a whiff of smoke from his cigarette, then pressed the small fire onto Ram's neck, making her cry in pain again.

"Bullshit. I know you are competent enough to keep a log on every customer that come and go.

W.W, I think my little shop keep needs some more persuasion."

"Yes, Master."

Wonder Woman nodded. She grabbed one of Ram's arm and began pulling them in an odd angle.

"Stop it!"

James hurridly pushed past several customers forming an inner circle and stepped into the commotion.

The man torturing Ram looked up with a frown.

"And who the fuck are you? Subaru-wanabie?"

He jeered. Agter a quick scan over James's attire, he even smirked a little.

Ram, on the other hand, looked utterly shocked at James's apperance.

With her eyes even wider than before, she tried to silent-mouth at him to go away, but James ignored her.

There was no way he was going to just leave when she was getting so brutally tortured.

"Who are you? Why are you doing this to her?!"

He sharply asked at the man.

The man snorted, flicked the cigarette onto the floor and walked up to James.

"The name's Dexter. I'm the owner of the shop named Mansion De Maid, and I'm interrogating that sneakt bitch, because she smuggled a character from the roster for free."

James hesitated.

Unlike anyone else around, he knew exactly what the shop owner was talking about.

He was the one who received a character for free.

Dexter, on the other hand, mistook James's hesitation as a sign of scruple and grinned wider.

"For your information, I'm that thing's owner, so I can do whatever I want with it. So get lost!"

He lightly tapped James's shoulder with his fist and pushed him back.

From behind, Ram was staring at James, her face still scrunched up with pain. She still mouthed at him to go away, but...was that the right choice?