There was a gasp.
To swear by Panthera was not a light oath. Everyone knew that. The women looked at each other, stunned, their hearts pounding now not from laughter, but from conviction.
"Sheâs serious..."
"She wouldnât dare invoke Panthera unless it was true."
"I canât believe this is real, but it has to be..."
Cassius gently continued.
"Believe me, I didnât want to believe it either. But when we tried it, when we poured a little into the lake, the Leviathan came."
One woman, breathless, whispered. "I saw it...I thought I imagined it...but it really was the Leviathan that came near the shore today..."
A chorus of murmurs, spreading faster.
"The rumors were true."
"Then what he says is real..."
"But still..." One woman blushed furiously. "He wants that fluid? Thatâs the job?!"
Cassius, despite himself, laughed softly.
"I know itâs shameful. Awkward. Uncomfortable to speak about...But it is our only way. The Leviathan has an uncanny attraction to that essence. So we must gather as much of it as possible, all at once, and pour it into a central point in the lake to trigger its instincts."
More silence.
Then...
"...How do we even...do that?"
"...You mean here? Now?"
"...Do we...just...go into a corner or something?!"
Cassius felt the weight of the silence, the sheer, unimaginable awkwardness of the request hanging over the crowded warehouse. He let the murmurs build, giving the women time to grapple with the implications.
But before the collective disbelief could fully settle, a new voice cut through the nervous chatter.
A middle-aged woman, dressed in the coarse, practical clothing of a fisherwoman, stood forward. Her face was weathered but intelligent, and she had been listening carefully from the very beginning.
"Young Master, forgive me for asking." She began, her tone respectful yet firm. "I trust you, and Lady Julieâs promise, I truly believe what youâre saying, even though itâs...as embarrassing as it is."
She managed a brief, nervous smile.
"But..." She continued, pressing her point. "How much of this fluid do you need, exactly? Can you give us an exact amount?"
In response, Cassius didnât answer with words.
He turned slightly, reaching behind him to where he had placed a few pre-prepared items. He returned holding up a small, standard wooden bucketâthe size used for fetching water or carrying a small haul of fish.
"You see this bucket over here?" He asked, holding it up for everyone to see.
A collective sigh of relief went through the crowd.
âAh, just a bucket. Difficult, but manageable.â
But then, Cassius held the bucket steady and let the relief settle for a beat before delivering the punchline.
"Well..." He said, a strained, almost apologetic look on his face. "Weâre going to need...about eighty to one hundred times that."
The moment he said that, the entire crowd reacted as one.
Several women gasped sharplyâa few stumbled backward, and the initial nervous laughter completely vanished, replaced by sheer, wide-eyed absurdity.
"One hundred buckets?!"
"Is he mad?!"
"Itâs impossible!"
"That canât be true at all! Thereâs no way itâs possible!"
The thought of filling up those hundreds of buckets with just their collective efforts was utterly shocking. The warehouse erupted in a fresh wave of panicked murmuring.
The middle-aged woman simply smiled, a wry, knowing expression.
"Itâs just as you heard, Young Master. Something like that is absolutely impossible for us. Sure, maybe a couple of buckets with every single one of us working hard would be possible."
"...But a hundred buckets or so? Thereâs no way that could ever happen."
Cassius frowned, confused by their certainty.
He knew it was a challenging amount, but with hundreds of women working over several hoursâespecially with the new powers he gained from the goddess, it wasnât out of the realm of possibility, especially if they reached true release.
"I understand the difficulty of the matter." He said, trying to reassure them. "I know what Iâm asking of you is a great effortâbut still, itâs not impossible. If you all squirtâ" He paused, catching himself. "...if you all manage to release the fluid repeatedly, many number of timesâwhich I have my own way of making sure you do, we can surely gather the amount, or at least close to it."
He was fully expecting them to argue about the labor involvedâbut instead, the woman asked another question entirely, one that surprised and shocked him to his core.
The lady tilted her head, a look of genuine curiosity replacing her earlier exasperation.
"Squirt? What is that? Iâve never heard that word before."
Cassius blinked. He stammered, feeling an awkward heat rush to his face.
"I mean...like ejaculate. A woman would ejaculate when sheâs extremely turned on, and would splash everywhere, you know that one, right?"
But to his utter astonishment, the woman shook her head.
"No, not at all. What in the world is that? How can those fluids just splash out? They donât! They just slowly seep out into the open. Thatâs all."
A confused chorus rose from the crowd.
"Splash out? That makes no sense!"
"Is this one of his perverted ideas?"
The whole crowd was in confusion, and Cassius felt a profound sense of shock settle over him. He couldnât help but let out a short, incredulous chuckle.
"Come on, ladies." He urged, his voice filled with disbelief. "Havenât you ever played with yourself and let out a splash of liquid all over the place?"
The question made all of them blush deeplyâbut they were fisherwomen, not noble ladies, and they were used to rough talk. Still, their denial was immediate and unanimous.
"No! We never do such things at all!"
"All of us follow the church devotedly! The church told us not to play with ourselves like that!"
The sheer conviction in their voices, the uniform disbelief regarding female ejaculation, slowly painted a startling picture in Cassiusâs mind.
They had never really experienced true pleasure.
A look of deep pity settled onto his face as he looked out at the hundreds of women.
Their lives had been so hard, focused only on labor and survival, that the simple, explosive capacity for female pleasure had been completely suppressed, or worse, was unknown due to cultural ignorance and the failings of their husbands.
The crowd noticed his expression, and the middle-aged womanâs curiosity sharpened.
"Why are you looking at us like that, Young Master?" She asked, a slight edge in her voice. "Why are you looking at us like that, pitying us? We look like helpless puppies in your eyes right now."
"I didnât mean to look at you like that." Cassius admitted, his voice genuinely gentle. "But itâs just that...I just realized that you havenât understood true pleasure at all."
"It seems like your husbands havenât been satisfying you in bed at all. No offense to their husbandsâbut thatâs simply the truth. Thatâs enough to say what sort of life you ladies have been living."
This only confused the crowd more, but it also made them desperately curious. The shame remained, but the prospect of a mysterious, unknown pleasure, one that could also save their village, was a powerful lure.
The lady stepped forward again.
"Young Master, could you first tell us what exactly this squirting is, and how it is done? We have no clue about it, and it would be better if you told us in detail what it was, so that we could understand it better."
Cassius thought about giving a detailed, anatomical explanation. He could describe the G-spot, the arousal fluid, the muscular spasms.
...But then, an incomparably better idea, more persuasive and far more immediate, flashed into his mind.
He gave a slow, mischievous smile, his eyes sparkling.
"Rather than telling you the details." He said, his voice rising with theatrical flair. "Iâd much rather show it to you. Show you what a woman looks like when she is squirting all over the place."
Julie, Aisha, and Skadi, who had been watching the entire exchange with a mixture of shock and bewildered fascination, suddenly exchanged horrified glances.
They didnât need to be told what Cassiusâs âdemonstrationâ would involve; they just wondered who he planned to use, and how they had ended up in a situation where they were debating the public performance of female ejaculation...