Chapter 45 Sorry.

Lenna stabbed the drider in the back of the neck and then staggered a step. “What’s wrong?” Isaac asked and held her by the shoulder to steady her.

“I leveled up.” She told him through gritted teeth. She felt like her own mana was reseering its own pathways through her body. Usually a level up would wait until she was asleep. This time however she had done one of the most sacrilegious things she could think of and the power of her broken oath had flared beyond anything she had felt since she had broken it in the first place.

Isaac just helped her stand for a long moment until the pain died down enough that she could work through it. “You can take a bit to rest.” Isaac reminded her as she knelt down next to the fallen drider.

“I know.” Lenna told him. She wanted to keep the momentum going by stripping the drider and taking her head. After that they would take as much drider silk as possible and burn whatever they couldn’t. It was the equivalent to raiding a temple and razing it afterwards. Dri’El would not be happy. Her ancestors would be even more furious.

Isaac nodded and picked up Shaeo’s sword. “Damn this thing is heavy.” He cursed while stashing it in Lenna’s bottomless bag. The weapon, being made of solid bone, was a full twelve pounds. Considering most greatswords were around five to seven pounds it was truly monstrous. “Do you remember the way back?” He asked Lenna.

Lenna shrugged. “I think so.” She seemed only mostly sure which didn’t inspire great confidence.

Isaac sat down against the tunnel wall in a place where he wouldn’t be able to see the front of the drider while Lenna struggled to get the armor off without being able to cut it. “I’ll wait for Kahtesh to heal up and come and get us.” He told her and decided to rest for a while.

Eventually Kahtesh had been rebuilt enough via his passive healing from his connection to Isaac that he could walk so he found his way to the duo. Lenna had to struggle with the armor for far longer than either of them expected. It was tight. So tight in fact that Lenna ended up dislocating both of Shaeo’s shoulders, complete with the sickening pop, in order to get it off.

Once the armor was removed Lenna tossed it into the bottomless bag. She then cut off Shaeo’s head and passed it to Isaac who put it in his Inventory. It was generally a better idea for Isaac to stash the messy things in there in order to make sure they didn’t drip anywhere. The pair then followed Kahtesh back to where they had engaged Shaeo in their deadly battle. On the way back the duo continued talking. “So?” Lenna asked. “Want to talk about what you did?”

“Hmm?” Isaac asked.

“Your mana.” Lenna clarified.

“Oh… Sorry.” Isaac replied.

“For what?” Lenna asked.

Isaac looked at her, searching for an emotion or expression on her face and finding nothing. “That must’ve hurt.”

Lenna shrugged. “Combat hurts. It was fine.” She responded.

“It must’ve been uncomfortable having all that mana inside of you.” He continued.

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“Only at the beginning.” Lenna explained.

“At the end, I basically took control of your movement’s. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to do that to me. It had to be incredibly disconcerting.” Isaac went on.

“It would have been. I was already trying to do what you made me do so it made no difference.” She replied.

“At the very least it was invasive.” Isaac shot back. He had no idea what she wanted from him. The way she had worded her initial statement sounded like she was looking for an apology and there was plenty to apologize for when it came to the technique that he had used on her but none of it seemed to matter to her.

Lenna nodded. “Yes, I felt… naked, with you guiding your mana through my entire body. It was much worse than usual.” She looked at Isaac. “But it led to our victory so there is nothing to apologize for.”

Isaac through his hands up in exasperation. “Then why did you word it like that?”

Lenna tilted her head in thought and then realized what Isaac had meant. She smiled at him. “No reason.”

Isaac almost tripped. She was being far too suspicious. He racked his brain for the rest of their trip back trying to understand her and coming up short. When she was back to normal a few minutes later Isaac finally realized that she had been messing with him from the start. “You’re mean.” Isaac grumbled.

Lenna couldn’t hold her straight face and started quietly chuckling at the comment. Once she was sure she could keep a mostly straight face she looked at him. “Sorry.” She winked with a smile.

Isaac shook his head. “You are always so serious that whenever you joke around I get blindsided.” He commented.

“Good.” Lenna replied.

The pair spent a very long time trying to collect as much of the silk as possible. They also found that Shaeo rarely used the sticky version of her silk. Almost everything she did with it was in the thinner and less stretchy version. She only ever used sticky silk to tack the thinner version in place. They disarmed all of her traps and rolled much of it into spools around pitons using the sticky silk to help hold it in place while they wrapped it. The pair ended up spending the night in Shaeo’s nest among the skeletons of her prey. They ended up just stuffing a massive tangled mess of it into the bottomless bag, as where she actually slept was a nest in the truest sense. It looked like a massive bird’s nest made of silver thread and given structure with large bones of unknown monsters. They removed as many of the bones as they could and simply stuffed the rest of the nest into the bag as there was no easy way to take it apart.

The next morning they headed home. Isaac had explained how his new skill worked to Lenna from his perspective and she explained it from hers. “Do you think you could do it on yourself?” Lenna asked.

Isaac shook his head. “Not yet. Not all of me is converted and I don’t want to melt my head off because I let some death mana get away from me.”

Lenna nodded in agreement. “What about afterwards?”

“I don’t see why I couldn’t.” He replied. “I am getting worried about the rest of my pathway conversion.”

“Why?” She asked.

“I’m up to the top of my mouth and halfway down my thighs.” He tapped his temple. “Messing with stuff that is inside your brain is scary.”

Lenna looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “You already did the base of your neck right?”

Isaac nodded. “Yeah. Why?” He asked.

She just blinked at him slowly. “That is the most dangerous part. Any damage to your brain stem and your heart could stop. Permanently.” She explained.

“Oh yeah… So you’re telling me not to worry and just get it over with.” He surmised.

“Slowly and carefully. But yes.” Lenna replied.

“Understood.” He replied with a wink.

Lenna looked at him with confusion for a moment. “Are you mocking me?” She asked.

Isaac shook his head. “No. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Lenna stared at him for a long moment. “I have no idea what you just said.” She explained.

“What?” Isaac asked. “Why not?”

“You switched languages again.” She informed.

“Was that a quote and that’s why?” He thought aloud.

Lenna left him to his contemplation until he inevitably clutched his head in pain. “You know better.” She chastised.

“Yeah, yeah.” He grumbled but didn’t argue her point.

Most of the pair’s journey back was uneventful. More dodging Ori’Masa but, oddly enough, nothing went in search of the cause of the massive wave of dark mana that Isaac had made right before their big fight. It made Isaac wonder why but there was no clear answer. While walking Isaac felt Lenna’s presence flare momentarily and then go back to normal. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Scrying magic.” She explained.

“Again?” He asked.

“They probably couldn’t find you.” She postulated.

Isaac hummed in thought. “We need to find out who is spying on us.”

“Agreed.” Lenna replied.