Momona walked out of Marri's room and let out a long sigh. What the hell actually happened to her?

She plopped behind her desk, opened a drawer, and pulled a laptop out of it. She turned the thing on as she recounted what she what she understood from Marri. "White hair, probably rich, went to starlight academy with her and worked on something called origin of mana as a project, personally knows a saint called Abby Winter."

She scratched her ears as the laptop powered on. "I think I know the school, but if she's not wrong..."

Momona let out a groan of frustration at the situation as she logged in to her laptop. "Let's see what Abby Winter is about then."

[No connection]

"Strange, I should have a connection to Saint vine." She tried several more times but got the same result and eventually had to give up.

"I'll have to check later then." Momona stared at her laptop as she realized that she was back to doing nothing since she didn't want to bother Marri's sleeping.

"I definitely need to get something to play down here. I just don't feel right playing a game while they're fighting, but what the hell else am I going to do besides reorganize my tools or eat food out of the kitchen?" Momona's question was answered by a new tunnel appearing along with a low beep.

She tensed for a long moment, waiting for an alert but relaxed when none was called.

Full moon walked through the made entrance ragged. GoldenWing and HighJack were exhausted and collapsed on some chairs. "Hey Full moon. Did you pick up anything neat on your way here?"

The door shut and vanished as GoldenWing put the wolfen battle axe next to them. "Besides a experimented on saint? Her axe."

Momona glanced at GoldenWing's bandage arm, but she didn't need to tend to every wound, so she left it alone. "Mera mentioned husk archers. How did that go?"

"The husk archers targeted us after she got in the bunker, so the two people with barrier skills had to work overtime until I could put them down with Jabber." Echo sat next to Momona and pulled a large bottle of water out her jacket, taking a long drink from it.

"Why was Mera so hurt? It looked like she tossed in a blender and crawled out by sheer force of will."

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

HighJack chuckled at the description. "Pretty accurate comparison. Everything we fought went after her specifically and hive hawks even managed to separate us and put her behind rootcap, so she apparently fought off hive hawks on her own then got hit by the rootcap trying to get to us or at least that's what I believe happened."

Momona grimaced, imagining going through that. "That's must have been terrible on her."

"Mera somehow handled it even if I wish she didn't have to. Where is she anyway?" Echo looked around the infirmary for Marri.

"Sleeping. It was stressful treating her given how defensive she was. She got a little rough when I tried to take her jacket off without permission." Momona held up her bruised arm for just Echo to see.

Echo pushed Momona's arm under the table as she continued. "But she'll be ok in a few days besides for her fractured arm and the concussion. Those will probably take a month or more to get over. Have no idea about the slimefolk clinging to her, though."

Pulse walked up and leaned on the desk as she talked to Momona. "Yeah, she's a ball of nerves, and I can't blame her given how we found her."

"How you found her?" Momona tilted her head to the side, her ears dangling as she did so.

Met popped out of out Pulse's clothing and sat on the desk. "The poor girl was being crushed to death by a sluke. Then she woke up with sluke's fear poison in her system because, of course, it was a poison variant. It took far too long to give her the antidote because she ran from us out of suspicion."

"What do you think Mera's background is? My guess is a vampire who got given wolfen ears for better hearing. She was far too natural, with feeding not to be." GoldenWing chimed in as he got up to get food.

HighJack asked for GoldenWing to get everyone food before he added his thoughts. "Did you see how she fought those shades, though? She seemed to properly know how to fight as well, but she said she had amnesia, so I couldn't even ask her where she learned to fight like that."

Momona took a moment to understand what GoldenWing said and was shocked. "Wait, wait, did you say feeding? She has hollow fangs?"

"Yeah. You should have seen it. She actually turned a shade into a pile of goop and drank it all. Kind of horrifying, and she apparently gets a euphoric hit whenever she does it." Pulse shivered, recalling the scene."

Echo glanced at Pulse before focusing on Momona again. "She almost fed on me but held back with Met's help. She is really scary sometimes, but I think she's a wonderful person so far just... struggling with what's happened to her."

"Oh, that's what she was talking about. She mentioned liking things she shouldn't, so I guess it bothers her as well." Momona glanced at GoldenWing, who brought a tub of fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

Echo glanced at the food before humming to herself. "So, are you going to wait for her to wake up or get her up after?"

Momona took a drumstick and took a bite. "Yeah, I'll tell Kelck about it. I'll let her rest for a bit and wake her up. If she's not up by the 6th, I'll get her up. Could I call you after she's awake? I want to help her adjust before she goes to Olympus for training."

Echo nodded happily and gave her a hug. "Of course! She needs someone to trust for a while, and I know how it feels when you don't have that."

The conversation died shortly after as everyone besides Echo started eating before Full Moon went back out to finish things outside.

Time passed with Momona staying behind even after the fracture ended to wait for Marri to wake up.

It took 2 days of patient waiting for Momona to chose to wake her up.