Of course, it'd be the coldness that returned first.
{Cold Resistance has increased to LVL 1.}
Interestingly, there was a heat resistance as well. However, it seemed like being burned alive wasn't the kind of thing that would increase these sort of resistance. When resistance increased, there was a diminishing return. The first ten levels induced a 50% resistance. The next ten 50% of the remaining, or another 25% of the total, and so on and so forth. After 30 levels, the cost and return for leveling was considered pointless compared to other factors. However, those first couple of levels were the most effective, and I immediately felt some relief from the cold.
It was insufficient for a woman being dragged naked through the snow, but I didn't fear the consequences of being frostbitten. I was an adequate alchemist now, and I still had a decent stash of healing potions. As long as I could survive without any amputations, I trusted I could heal the damage. However, I couldn't make any promises while surrounded by an angry mob as I was.
I was in darkness and being dragged somewhere. There was a blindfold over my eyes, a gag in my mouth, and my hands and feet seemed to be tied as well. I could hear the crowd around me screaming. Most of the words were the same. They were some variation of 'witch' or 'whore'. I don't think they even cared about the distinction at this point.
As I was dragged, my skin tore and burned against the icy path. I squeezed my thighs together, fighting back both the inappropriate sexual pleasure and pain. Trying to ignore the horrifying sense of arousal induced by that hated special skill, masochism, I checked my status. Without earning special skills or leveling, it had been a long time since I had last looked at it carefully.
{Name: Aria
Class: Seductress
Titles: Town Bicycle, Gang Banger, Dragon Layer, God Killer, The Reborn, Lesbian Lover, Rough Rider, Solo Player
Level: 30
Statistics: Strength 36, Intelligence 38, Wisdom 38, Endurance 62+7.5, Agility 40, Charisma 80
Resistance: Carnal 7, Charm 2, Concussion 2, Damage 4+5, Disease 3+10, Fear 3, Magic 3, Mental 20, Pain 11, Panic 4, Poison 2
Standard Skills: Climbing 1, Dagge 1, Flee 1, Magic MAX, Magic Sense 4, Multitasking 2, Potion Making MAX, Sword 1, Throwing 1, Whip 3
Advanced Skills: Enchantment 1, Lip Reading 1, Mana Alchemy 4, Poison Making 1
Arts: Sexual Art (Anal, Bondage, Blowjob, Cunnilingus, Deepthroat, Hand Job, Masturbation, Oral, Seduce, Titty Fuck, Vaginal Intercourse, Kegels, Dirty Talk, Tongue Craft) Total Level: 85
Art of Manipulation (Conceal, Deception, Etiquette, Sneak, Acting, Disguise, Role Playing, Sleight of Hand, Stealth) Total Level: 38
Techniques: Emotional Manipulation, Subliminal Message, Role Projection, Swipe, Grab, Waveform, Tie, Helicopter Swirl, Flicker
Special Skills: All Nighter, Beautification, Below the Belt, Black Widow, Cat's Meow, Celestial Whip, Charmless, Enhanced Positions, Eye of the Beholder, Frenzy, Freshen Up, Fuck Buddy, Limit Break, Lover's Breath, Many Titled, Masochist, Mental Fortitude, Pheromone, Phoenix Rises, Possession, Princess Kiss, Rejuvenation, Restoration, Rock A Bye, Sanctuary, Seduction, Sex Paralysis, Sexual Experience, Sexual Saint, Stalker, STD Immunity, Voyeur
Positions: Aries, Asian Cowgirl, Ben Dover, Bobbing for Apples, Cowgirl, Cunnilingus, Daisy Chain, Deep Stick, Doggie Style, Double Dip, Double Oral, Downward Dog, Eating Out, Face to Face, Fingering, Fully Loaded, Gemini, High Five, Italian Chandelier, Kneeling Blowjob, Lap Dance, Leg Up, Missionary, Ol' Fashioned, Rockin' Rockette, Rodeo, Scissoring, Sidewinder, 69, Spooning, Standing Spit Roast, Sultry Spooning, The Doggy Deluxe, The Fan, The Libido, Three's a Signal, Two in One, Valedictorian, Woman On Top, Workout
Status Effects: 10% extra experience per sexual partner beyond two in one day,+25% experience with two or more holes. }
I sighed at what I saw. I was still perpetually trapped at level 30. I had two arts now. If a basic skill could be considered 1st class and an advanced skill could be considered 2nd class, then an art was a 3rd class. As I understood it, when enough basic and advanced skills were earned, they evolved into an art. For a first class to have two arts, it would be considered amazing, but the sexual arts wouldn't help me out in this situation. The art of manipulation, a culmination of my acting, role-playing, concealing, and deception might have worked if my mouth wasn't stuffed while I was surrounded by a crowd. Manipulation worked well on a personal level, but crowd mentality was scary. I'd have been better off with a leadership art.
That left my remaining repertoire of special skills which had been unchanged for the last four months. With their guard up and already convinced of my witchcraft, it'd be difficult to turn even one of them to my side using any amount of charm skills. If I did, the mob would likely swallow them up and I'd unnecessarily cause the death of a person while only confirming the mob's fears.
I could Frenzy them, but that would only cause a massive orgy to break out around me. It wouldn't free me, but it would get me raped and possibly killed. During a frenzy, people lose all sexual inhibition. I was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman this village had ever seen. I had come to terms with how seductress had altered my body in that way. I was also tied up and unable to resist. What would every guy in this place do in that situation? The same thing could happen with pheromones. In fact, it was more likely I'd be hurt with pheromones.
As I went down the list, I only became more frustrated. All of these abilities were useless outside of sex. Special skills were awarded based on your experience, and as I leveled almost exclusively by having sex, all of my abilities became uselessly attached to the act. Is this the very definition of a poorly designed character? It's not like I ever really had much of a choice anyway. The only choice this world ever gave me was whether I wanted to take it from in front or behind. Wait…
Before my thoughts could solidify, my body was suddenly picked up. Two strong men lifted me up by my arms, and I could feel my back being pressed against a long wooden pole. I was glad it was wood, and not metal, as the thought of a metal pole freezing between my ass cheeks was unpleasant. It was at this point that my blindfold was yanked off.
As I looked around, it finally dawned on me what was happening. I was being tied to a giant pole that was set on top of a pyre. They not only accused me of being a witch. They were going to burn me for being a witch.
"I'm not a witch!" I shouted, starting to struggle now that I could focus my awareness.
The two men next to me didn't allow me to move, instead slamming my arms back with a creak as I gave out a moan. Ah, damn it why did that have to make me cum? Liquid started running down my legs, burning cold in the chilly outdoors. With the entire crowd on me, my body completely naked, there was really no way to hide what happened. For possibly the first time, I hoped that they confused it for me pissing myself from terror.
However, that kind of thinking only backfired. My Mental Fortitude was related to my sex. I lacked any shame cumming in front of a crowd. However, peeing in front of a crowd, at least in a way that was not sexual to me, did not get covered by mental protection. So, by treating it like they saw me peeing myself, I just increased my own humiliation. Fortunately, even without that special skill, my mental resistance was high, and so it only resulted in a light blush.
Of course, even managing that was amazing, considering the fear I should be feeling. They were piling wood under me, preparing to burn me alive. This wasn't a situation that I could meet calmly.
"Please, you made a mistake!" I shouted, using my art of manipulation to give myself the most pathetic appearance possible.
Rather than a prideful seductress, I had big tears running down my face. My body was completely red and swollen from the cold, covered in vicious bloody scratches. Even with this refined, sexually explicit body, the sight was hardly flattering.
"Shut up, you slut!"
My lips shut. I could deny being a witch, but at this point, I couldn't convince myself that the rest wasn't true. I was undoubtedly a sexually explicit woman. This world had turned me into this, although you could argue the signs were there before I ever came to this world. However, even in this world, fucking wasn't illegal, so these people who felt I should burn were only hypocrites. They all fucked. Their parents fucked. They wouldn't even be in this world if their slutty moms hadn't spread their legs because they liked the feel of some guy's dick inside her. If they hadn't decided at that moment of release to let him push it deep into her, so she could feel thick gobs of seed fill her up, no one here would exist. That's the reality of life that I had come to.
One of the torches was thrown onto the pyre. Then, another one. The dark stare I wore as I glared down into the crowd turned into fear. I wasn't as afraid of fire as I once had, after all, I had been burned alive once. However, the phoenix rises skill that I had used shortly after disappeared from my status. I only found out later that certain special skills had a one-time use function. These were usually skills that fundamentally altered the person in some way. If I was burned alive again, I wouldn't be walking out of it.
"Die, you bitch!" this came from an elderly lady who had sweetly sold me a loaf of bread when I first entered the town a few days ago.
How quickly two days changes things. I finally gave out a long sigh. I wasn't going to make it out of this situation without creating some waves. It's not that I didn't have ways to escape, but if news of me got out it could cause more problems. This world was a scary place, and I was too strange. I had hoped to escape in a way that wouldn't fan the flames, but it was impossible now.
"Jenai…" I let out the word.
Mana flowed through me as I released my skill. Although the people called me a witch, this was a world with magic after all. Normal villagers didn't typically have magic, but there were a handful of adventurers in the crowd who could likely wield a fireball or summon a bolt of lightning, so magic by itself wasn't unreasonable. However, true witches were those that dealt in skills, arts, and classes outlawed by the church. These often included spirit handling. Undoubtedly, seductress would be an outlawed class, if the church even knew it existed.
Meanwhile, these people had called me a witch, but they likely didn't actually think I was one. They were spectacularly wrong. These kinds of people would burn, hurt, and murder others simply because they didn't like them. The ones they propped these innocents up to be, the ones they falsely accused them of, if they met a real one, they wouldn't be able to handle them.
"You know all of those words you accused me of? All that fear you have in your heart? The demons that corrupt your children? The succubus that consumes your husbands?" My voice rang out in a hollow silence as the mana inside me continued to rise. "I'm her."
The flames suddenly seemed to die, shrinking drastically as my shadow grew from within the pyre. My demeanor, the surging mana of a magic user, and the darkening world, all of this added to a terrifying effect on the already emotionally driven crowd. A few instantly dropped their torches and fled. The adventurers drew their swords. They were likely just local sellswords only there for the money, but they knew a threat when they saw one.
The shadow started to form into a person, and the remaining crowd stared warily. Perhaps they would have tried to stab me dead before whatever magic I was casting completed, but the fire around the pyre was too hot for them to approach. For me, my previously frozen skin was now red hot, and my heat resistance had increased by two. However, as soon as I gave Jenai's name, a coldness rushed around me as if the heat couldn't penetrate.
The shadows finally started to coalesce, and what was left standing on the pyre a few feet from me was a dark-skinned woman. She was dressed in something undeniably erotic. There was a small loin cloth protecting her nether regions and a translucent cloth around her breasts that were so transparent that any detail on the shape and color of her dark nipples were not lost to the crowd. It was clothing that had any children been present, would have caused every adult in the room to race to cover their eyes. It was only slightly more modest than what she wore when she was alive.
"Does mistress wish me to kill these miscreants?"
The woman suddenly asked, brandishing a knife. It took a second for the crowd to realize that she wasn't holding a knife. Instead, her hand had merely become a knife. The casual way she asked to murder a crowd of thirty people, with several adventurers around, sent shivers running down every spine.
"No…" I said, hearing several sighs of relief from the crowd. "Actually, I need you to eat my pussy."
Jenai turned to me calmly, but the corner of her lip move up into a smirk. "Excuse me?"
Her words only echoed the words of half the crowd, who, in the intervening few seconds, had almost completely forgotten they were in the middle of burning a witch.
"I order you to eat me out!" I gave a command, raising my chin.
"As my mistress commands." She responded smoothly without asking questions.
In a single swift motion, she took two steps over to the spot where I stood and kneeled down on the logs at my feet. A few of them were starting to smolder, but she was completely unaffected by this. Instead, she lifted my legs, pushing on thigh over each folder, and immediately slid her tongue into me. Her lips and tongue began to work, and while she lacked the basic and advanced skills and techniques I prided myself on, it was clear that this was something she was experienced with.
The crowd had completely lost all logical thought. A woman was being burned alive, a fire slowly rising up around her. She suddenly summoned a horrifically terrifying, yet beautiful spirit that could create blades from her hands. That spirit immediately dropped down to her knees and started fornicating with the burning woman. Now, that woman had her thighs wrapped around the spirits head, riding her face while making moaning noises. Not only was this impossibly erotic to the point that everyone there was effected, it was so strange that no one even could fathom that this was real.
"Ah, I got distracted, it's starting to get hot." I laughed slightly.
Jenai's appearance had diminished the fire for a moment, and her continued presence seemed to take away the heat, emitting a continued presence of cold. It was to the extent that even I became distracted by how good she felt. Well, if all of the rough treatment previously hadn't gotten me riled up, this wouldn't have been a problem in the first place.
"Position shift."
Although the words weren't necessary, I liked to say it. A second later, I was on my knees. Jenai's thighs were on my shoulders, and my tongue was in her snatch. While I couldn't speak much to my own taste and smell, Jenai was an otherworldly spirit, and her pussy tasted sweet, devoid of any salty taste at all. It wasn't as sweet as a desert, but it was addicting like if I just gave one more lick I'd reach her creamy center.
However, I didn't have time to enjoy her, even if it had been nearly four months since the last time I had. While she didn't feel the heat. I did, and I immediately jumped up off my knees and pushed her off of me. My feet were now dancing on the burning embers which would become a raging fire in a few seconds.
I had merely switched position with Jenai, but now she was strapped to the pole. This was meaningless as the straps fell away, failing to contain her ethereal body. However, she was giving me a wry look as I danced on the hot logs under my feet.
"Can you go let him know? I should be able to handle the next part on my own." I said hurriedly.
"Of course." She nodded and then turned away before stopping and looking back with a smirk, "You know mistress, you could have just ordered me to cut away your restraints."
I sniffed. "What fun is that?"
She gave a smile and then disappeared. Her absence immediately caused the heat to jump up several levels. I let out a cry half in orgasm, half in pain.
{Heat resistance has increased to level 3.}
"Celestial whip!" I snapped as the whip appeared in my hands.
I immediately snapped the whip, causing it to catch on the branch of a nearby tree. As I swung out of the fire moments before it came to the point where I really would have burned alive, I grumbled to myself. Of course, I'd make sure Jenai would never learn that the reason I had asked her to eat me out instead of untying me is that the latter option had never occurred to me.
Sorry if the status holds mistakes, it's quite the chore to sort through all those numbers.