The Guild was a major center for commerce and manpower. People from all walks of life converged on the massive structure in the center of the city to conduct their business; from merchants to adventurers looking to take on a worthy bounty. Whatever the profession, there was something for everyone. The Guild even offered training programs and lessons for those looking to improve themselves, a section of the compound serving as a school of sorts, complete with dorms and facilities for studying and training.

Thanks to that, the Guild was also known to produce many prodigal individuals who would go on to graduate and lead fulfilling lives, with most ending up as renowned heroes, famed adventurers and influential leaders in politics.

Not all who managed to earn a spot in its prestigious halls would be guaranteed a fast track through their respective careers though, as evident with Honda, a young girl aiming to make a name for herself as a powerful mage...if only it were that easy.

Honda had been struggling to find a proper foothold for herself, flanking module after module as she tried her best to master even the most basic of magic spells and alchemical formulae only to end up failing hard at it. Even her lecturers had given up hope on seeing her succeed, and she hadn't even gotten past half of the first semester yet…

Not one to be beaten though, Honda still did her daily rounds of practice and potion mixing, though the rest of the student body had learned to stay well away from her whenever she had a staff or cauldron mixing nearby. Her failures were known to be explosively potent after all.

However, a person remained hidden in the shadows as she eyed the flustered mage, interested in what drove her as she pushed through failure after failure while ignoring the criticism thrown at her from the others. She couldn't help but feel a warmth in her chest as she eyed the small girl powering through yet another of her failed spells.

This hadn't been the first time this person had felt this way about Honda. In fact, the two had met many times face to face throughout the campus and out in the streets while Honda was spending her day off to relax or look for supplies.

Unlike Honda however, the ashen haired woman was well known throughout the Guild as a well respected individual who was not to be trifled with, only high paying clients being able to afford her services as a Thief.

Thieves were known to be sly, deceptive individuals that were scorned wherever they went. Their job seen as something only street scum would ever take up as it involved stealing from others, and rarely, stealing the life of another, delving into Assassin territory as they took up murder for coin. It made the Guild wary when taking in individuals looking to learn the arts of the Thief. Only trusting in select individuals to partake in their knowledge and training.

Saki was her name, and she was one of the very few individuals selected to join the Thief training programme. Quickly growing in skill and power as her name spread like wildfire across the countryside, her stealth, speed and precision with the blade opened many opportunities for her to make plenty of coin from. She never once failed a job she'd taken.

Maybe that was why she'd grown used to watching Honda's training. She was the complete polar opposite to her after all; a ranged support class that failed at everything she tried her hand at. Add to that her short build and bright red bob of hair, the two couldn't be further apart from one another.

Yet, Saki wasn't quite as perfect of a person as she'd like the public to believe. Perfect as she was at being a Thief, her social skills as a person never quite matured, especially when she spent time with similar individuals in her time as a Thief. Words were of less use than a blade was in her profession.

Which meant her current interactions with Honda had been harsh to say the least. Insulting the poor girl when she hadn't meant to at all whenever they crossed paths. It had infuriated her to no end whenever words of hatred and disgust left her mouth instead of the kind encouragement she had in mind. It had her avoiding the brave rookie mage to avoid dampening her spirits any further.

But that hadn't stopped her from trying to get close to Honda though, anything she thought could help the poor girl improve was fair game to her, but not all of them were as beneficial to Honda as Saki thought. For instance, stealthily swapping out potion ingredients without Honda’s notice as Mandrake seemed a better fit to her instead of Popperberries, her mind attributing Honda’s failure to her mediocre abilities as a mage rather than her own ‘helping hand’.

Today was no different, for Saki had a special idea in mind for the innocent Honda as she smiled at the approach of the mage-in-training, inspecting her tiny frame as she silently closed the sliding doors of the training hall Saki had rented under the guise of “special training” with strict instructions for no interruptions. As Honda shuffled awkwardly up to her, she couldn’t help but smirk in excitement, her happiness at seeing her target of affection up close mixing with the dizziness of being able to enact her malicious plan to help Honda grow as a mage.

“Hey there newbie! You have any idea why you’re here today?”

Honda gulped as she fiddled with the wooden staff in her shaky grip, legs quivering as her fidgety eyes zip back and forth between the floor and the thief’s imposing glare as she tried her best to reply.

“I-I-I h-heard from Pr-Professor Talhann that-”

“Huh? What was that? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my own breathing! Speak up!”

“I’M SUPPOSED TO PARTY UP WITH YOU MA’AM!”

Saki giggled in amusement as she watched the flustered girl try to catch her breath after her spastic outburst. As much as she wanted to keep toying with her however, she had to move things along for the main event.

“Very good rookie~ But before you even think of heading out to raid dungeons with me, we’ll need to get you up to speed with some defensive training! Think you can handle that squirt?”

Honda looked about ready to bail before an indecisive frown fell across her brows, she seemed to be contemplating whether to high tail it out of the room, politely decline or just agree to it.Saki would be ready to nab her if she chose to flee though, the arms folded behind her twitching and flexing in anticipation of wrapping tight around Honda if she dared to turn her back on her...inching close to a certain item she'd nabbed back from her latest dive into the Dungeons.

In Honda's mind though, she wasn't thinking about running, moreso her abilities. She was an imbecile who couldn't even cast an easy spell to save her life, and here was Saki, one of the Guild's most prominent members  offering to lend her a hand and even asking to accompany her on a Dungeon run. She couldn't back down and say no now could she?

Seemingly settled on her answer, Honda looked up to Saki with a glowing look of appreciation, her staff clenched tightly in both hands as she hopped up and down.

“S-Sure am Ma’am! I’m ready for whatever you throw at me! So what’ll it be? Fireballs? Thunder? Ice?”

Saki admired that enthusiasm of hers, despite everything going wrong for her, Honda still carried on with that bright exuberant attitude as if nothing had gone wrong at all.It almost made her feel sorry for what she was about to do.

“Oh no no no dear rookie, fireballs and ice shards are elementary…I'm gonna be launching a curse at ya!”

“Got it ma’a-wait, what did you jus-”

Honda didn’t even have the time to flinch before Saki had unfurled a scroll in her face, smothering the mage in a shower of dark smoke that seemed alive as it wrapped around Honda, still struggling to put up a warding barrier around herself as the smoke began to seep into her body, the curse beginning to take immediate effect as Honda fell to the floor, her staff clattering uselessly to the side a few inches away from her shrinking body as her clothes soon began to dwarf her body.

“Pathetic! This is why people walk all over you rookie! That can’t be all the fight you got in you right?”

Saki watched in disappointment as Honda’s body began to deflate as more of the cloud entered her, the once healthy pink of her skin turning a pale white as she struggled to recite more curative spells and wards to no avail as her body continued to shrink and contort as it took on more of the smog, her skirt sliding off her waist to reveal nothing as her legs shrunk into tiny twitching nubs of smooth white material that had overtaken her body, leaving Honda looking more like a sock puppet than a flesh and blood human as her tongue began to retreat back into her mouth, rendering her mute as she gasped and struggled to move her body in panic, her still organic eyes pleading for Saki’s aid, returning her desperate gaze with a frown even as those wide eyes soon became nothing more than inanimate fabric damp with tears as they began to soak into the soft cotton that had replaced her cheeks. Her hair exploding into a lump of roughly sewn hay dyed her usual red.

“S-s-ki-he-l-p…”

With her final cries for help being silenced as her oral cavity sewed itself shut, all that remained of the former Honda was a child’s toy resembling the former mage, surrounded by a pile of discarded clothes and underwear along with a satchel of magic ingredients and tools. But the curse wasn’t done just yet.

Now rendered a mockery of her former self as her new doll like body slumped and jerked around on the floor, her ragged body beginning to undo itself into strings of thread as the curse proceeded onto the final stages, the smoke acting like a puppeteer's hands as it lifted doll Honda into the air, her stiff limbs being the first to go as the gathered thread began to reform into something new…

–

“Where am i?”

Honda wondered as she floated in a serene ocean of haze, the last memory she had was a terrible one; being tricked by the infamous thief, Saki, before being reduced into a mere doll as darkness blanked her out for just a second. Now she was here, floating in the air. She felt as if she were being split apart and put together again.

Almost as soon as she got used to the sensation though, she felt herself falling as whatever had help her aloft before suddenly vanished, screaming in fear until she hit the cold hard floor with the soft fluttering sound of fabric…human bodies didn't make that sort of sound if they ever fell from that height, she opened her eyes in fear, looking into the distance as she recognized the blurry background to be the familiar tiled ceiling of the training hall, everything looked so…titanic…to her now, even as she looked across the floor, each panel of wood looked to be about the size of a small room from her new perspective.

That was when the next realization hit her as she seemed to catch on to the fact that she was ‘rotating’ her viewpoint rather than moving her neck to do so, the rest of her body not responding to her will as she struggled and grunted in effort. In fact, her sense of touch seemed to be out of whack, unable to even sense her own body as she tried to think things over. At least she could still see and smell.

“J-Just what did that thief do to me?!”

Almost as if in response, the enormous frame of Saki stepped into view as her vision shook slightly, the giantess leaning down with an arm to pick her up off the floor, her body still refusing to answer her will as she tried to slap at her arms while blushing fiercely as she was tried to look away from where she was bringing her to. The madwoman had removed her skirt and underwear! What was she thinking?

“Let’s see how you fare as my own personal set of underwear Honda~”

Underwear? And did she just refer to her by her full name? Honda panicked further as she tried to recite a fireball spell as Saki’s other hand grabbed ahold of her, stretching her wide as she pushed a muscular leg through the left side of her but felt a cold pit of fear build up in her consciousness as the usual flow of mana she’d expected didn’t come, if she had indeed been turned into women’s underwear then she had no hope of escape after all.

Her brooding thoughts would be interrupted however, as she heard the ruffling of soft fabric against fingers as she looked back up to see Saki caressing her with tender hands as she was mid-way through sliding the rest of her up her right leg.

“Ahh you’re already feeling so much better this way Honda! Don’t worry now, I’ll take good care of you~"

Honda was in no way reassured by this sudden turn of events; from being turned into an immobile set of panties to finding out her tormentor had harbored hidden feelings of warped affection towards her. She so desperately wanted to go back to being a regular human girl again but as she heard the slap of Saki’s plump buttocks as her tight, fabric form encased her privates, she knew she had no hope of ever returning to her human form unless Saki kept her word in finding a cure.

And when she did return to being human, she’d swear she’d pay Saki back at least twice as much as what she’d done to her. But even then she wondered how she could even accomplish any fantasy of revenge when she couldn’t even cast Novice ranked spells properly…Saki’s excited voice however, snapped her out of her brooding thoughts as she looked up to see her tormentor standing with her legs spread wide in front of a mirror, her skirt in one hand as she proudly showed Honda her new form as she stared at the plain set of white panties reflected back at her, intricate patterns of red and black that seemed to take after her old attire as a human on its front.

“Look, aren’t you absolutely adorable? You’re a tad bit on the small side though…so tight! Even as panties you're still so inefficient...maybe I'll turn you back if you hold out after our little expedition”

Well…at least she still looked sort of cute…as a plain, ordinary set of panties could ever hope to be. As Honda tried to ignore that final jab by Saki, she wondered if this nightmare would ever end with Saki's voice constantly droning in her ears.

THE END