Chapter 427 - The Scattered Dawn II
Krail pushed his body up and down as he worked through his newly assigned nightly routine. They had spent the better part of the day working through the dungeon. It was already late into the evening; the sun was starting to work its way beneath the distant horizon, and dinner would soon be served.
Under Allegra’s instruction, they progressed with surprising ease, felling monsters as high as level 1500 without the magus’ direct assistance.
Known as Red Rabbit Junction, the dungeon they entered looked nothing like the mountain that lay beyond it. Most obvious among the changes was the apparent season. It was closer to late summer than early winter. There wasn’t a hint of snow anywhere to be seen and the temperatures were warm enough that the party had to shed its layers, else risk overheating even just standing still. It didn’t help that there were fires ablaze off in the distance, burning what was left of the forest that had once filled the dungeon’s domain.
Assuming the blaze to be the party’s fault was no doubt within the realm of reason. From the few times she had stepped in to help, Allegra had certainly unleashed some of the most powerful flames that the party had ever seen. They burned with the might of the sun itself, completely obliterating everything that they touched with pinpoint precision. Alas, she played only the tiniest of parts in the dungeon’s charring, for it had long been alight by the time of their entry.
The grassless terrain was dyed in a deep ash-grey, and the mostly deciduous trees that took root in the realm had been charred to blackened poles. There were many still standing—only a few had fallen over in the ever-expanding blaze—but their leaves and branches were burned right off, leaving only their trunks behind.
So ashen and charred was the scene that it looked like the backdrop to the apocalypse. And yet, there was life all over. All sorts of different animals wandered throughout the hills, pecking and digging at the collapse to find food among the forest’s funeral. Their shapes were fairly varied—there were coyotes, wild chickens, and goats aplenty—but for some bizarre reason, their sizes were eerily consistent.
Every single creature had the exact same dimensions; they were three meters tall, five meters long, and one meter wide, regardless of how easily their shapes conformed. It was almost like they had been made of rubber and compressed and stretched so they would fit the designated specifications. Everything just looked wrong. The coyotes were too tall and the chickens were too long. The vultures up above often grew far too skinny, especially when they spread their wings—the one meter constriction on the creatures’ width persisted even when body parts were extended.
It was a gimmick that the monsters themselves were happy to readily abuse. Though their levels were hardly the highest of the bunch, the birds were the hardest to fight because they would shrink the width of their bodies by extending their wings whenever they needed to avoid incoming attacks.
Still, they fell to the party’s efforts—not that they were functioning as much of a party at all.
They tackled the monsters either solo or in pairs in order to maximize the amount of experience gained, and it was precisely because it was not yet his turn that the old elf was engaged in more casual exercise. His world still bobbing up and down, he kept his eyes ahead and watched with curious interest as each of the party’s close combatants dueled a misshapen rooster.
Being much higher level—nearly 870 according to his elven eyes—Lana had far less trouble. Simply standing her ground, she met the giant chicken in a head-on confrontation and fought as would any other warrior. She swung her axe like a woman possessed, parrying the incoming beak and talons whilst returning blows of her own. Back and forth they went, with the chicken abusing its ultimate—the ability to negate the damage of any blow caught in its field of vision—and Lana further bolstering her speed as the exchange continued.
Refusing to match the approach, Chloe was focused on escaping the rooster’s purview while it chased her around the once-lush hills. Were it any slower, she likely would have been able to slip away, but it barely kept pace and stopped her from vanishing beyond its sightline.
Her predicament stemmed from a failed sneak attack. She had put all of her eggs into the basket of ripping open the chicken’s neck whilst she remained unnoticed, only for the bird to turn around right before she lowered her blade. It had come down to a stroke of misfortune. Her sneaking had been perfectly on point. The only reason she failed was because the misshapen bird finished its meal at that exact moment and raised its face to seek another.
Just when he thought that the maid would need assistance, however, she happened to pull through with a miraculous attack. She constructed a trap while on the run, and by laying it on the ground in front of her, she caught the chicken in a web of silken threads.
From there, she only needed to deliver its death, but it was proving a little too difficult. The tiny needles that she carried on her person were hardly long enough to puncture any of its vital organs. Even with her dagger, she struggled. The chicken was too good at turning its head; it was difficult to identify an angle that would allow her to deal any substantial damage. And eventually, it broke free and continued with its pursuit.
For a while, the two stalemates ensued. The screeching and banging of clashing steel rang through the hills, lasting for nearly five minutes before Lana arrived at a solution. Using her axe as a shield to obscure the enemy’s vision, she plunged her claws into its chest and ripped out its heart.
“Good work,” said Allegra, as the wolf girl joined them on the bench. “You did better than I was expecting.”
“I did?”
The rabbit nodded. “You did a good job of figuring out a way to stop it from seeing your attacks.”
“Thanks,” said the pirate.
“However,” Allegra adjusted her glasses, “you happened to miss the most obvious solution. You could have easily slid under its body and cut open its guts.”
Lana blinked. “That sounds risky.”
“Maybe, but getting used to dodging attacks from that position is key to the upcoming duels. Unless you’re fighting a monk, getting under a centaur will generally allow you to keep yourself out of harm’s way. Most are not particularly skilled in unarmed combat. The best they can do is maybe step on you, or give you a good kick. Either way, it’s much better than getting hit by their weapons or antlers, and much more predictable to boot.”
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Lana paused for a second. “I see.” With her eyes closed, she imagined lying on her back and rolling around as she tried to parry a series of falling hooves. “Won’t they just back off? Or leap away?”
“Their frames make it a lot more difficult than you’d think, and most will lock in their trajectory the moment they kick off,” said Allegra. “Even the ones with wings are vulnerable the moment they leave the ground.”
“I can’t reach them,” said Lana. “I don’t have any ranged attacks.”
The greataxe she carried was taller than she was, but her arms were stubby enough that her reach was still middling at best. It didn’t help that she stood somewhere between a third to half as tall as the average centaur. As it stood, she struggled to strike at anything that wasn’t their legs.
“That’s why you have to learn to maneuver while on your back,” said Allegra. “We’ll want to run a few drills and work on your explosive power. You’ll have an easy time tearing them apart if you get to your feet faster than they take to the air.”
The wolf girl frowned. “I’ll try.”
“Oh, come the fuck on,” grumbled Jules. “So you give them real advice, and make us mages waste our goddamn time? The fuck is this!?”
“It’s necessary.”
“Like fuck it is!”
Like Krail, the clam was alternating between approaching the world and shoving it away. Each push up he did elicited a spray of sweat, not because the man was out of shape, but rather the sheer quantity of exercise that he was forced to endure. The exact number was up in the hundreds, if not the thousands. They had been at it ever since the party had decided to make camp.
The elf was perhaps the least pained by the experience. By distancing his mind from his body, and simply not feeling the burning pain that coursed through his butchered pectorals, he continued to go up and down in turn. Jules was clearly struggling to lift his giant, shelled body with just his flimsy arms, but he was still better off than their nation’s queen.
Arciel was unmoving with her face in the dirt. A line of drool dripped from the corner of her lips while the rest of her body twitched on the odd occasion to affirm that she was technically still alive. Tempted was the elf to lay the blame on the giant weights strapped to her chest, but if anything, they had only prevented her from going quite as low with each push, and Jules’ shell proved far worse for both weight and convenience. Arciel simply lacked the muscle to keep up, no doubt because her maid so often spoiled her rotten.
Turning his eyes back on said maid, Krail found precisely the moment she emerged victorious, only to do a double take and collapse mid-push up.
So obvious was the solution to anyone named Chloe that the elf banged his head against the ashen ground.
Dashing behind a blackened tree, the maid threw off all of her clothes in the blink of an eye. She managed to keep the uniform mostly held in place, stuck against her frame, whilst rushing up the length of the tree with only a spool of wire between her lips.
The rooster crashed into the dead oak and rammed its beam straight into her dress, only for the bare naked half-succubus to land on its back. She wrapped the wire around the rooster’s neck, but found herself unable to finish it. The misshapen bird looked down just in time to prevent her from breaking its spine, though it seemed like the maid had planned around the eventuality.
Reeling in the wire, she pulled her dress over the crossdressing rooster’s head and rendered its ultimate inert. It struggled fiercely against the cloth, but Chloe skillfully reeled and released the wire in time with the bird’s movements and prevented all hints of damage. While her hands were busy, she reached forward with her face, bit through the chicken’s feathers, and into the flesh of its neck.
From then, it took only a few seconds for it to fall. When it rose again, it did so as her thrall and joined the twenty others standing on the sidelines. Though she gathered them as a contingency when otherwise overwhelmed. Allegra had banned her from abusing the racial ability in training on account of its inapplicability. Living weapons aside, companions were only allowed to be brought into the ring if summoned in the middle of combat or if the duel was specifically that of the mounted variety, and there was no point in practicing their use if she would be forced to fight without them.
“How was that?” asked Chloe, as she threw her clothes back over her body. Krail couldn’t help but notice that only her dress and apron were accounted for. There wasn’t a hint of underwear anywhere to be seen.
“I’m not sure if I should be confused, appalled, or impressed,” said Allegra. It was certainly creative, but also incredibly inappropriate. “Even if you have a plan, you can’t just take off your clothes in the middle of a duel.”
“Why not?” asked the maid, with a slow blink.
“You’d be far too embarrassed to fight,” said Allegra. “Just imagine yourself standing naked in front of a crowd several million strong. Not everyone present will be quite as… defective as the two men in our party. Yo—”
“Hey! What the fuck is that supposed to mean!?” screamed Jules. “My junk works fine! It just doesn’t work for that.”
Allegra coughed. “Right, so as I was sayi—”
“Bitch! Don’t just brush me off like that! Acknowledge it goddammit! Fucking apologize at least!”
“R-right, I’m sorry,” said Allegra, as she snuck a look into Jules’ shell. “So a—”
“Did you just check!? I swear to fucking Griselda!”
“You can’t really blame her,” said Chloe, as she adjusted her apron. “It’s really hard to tell just by looking at you.”
“That’s literally fucking true of everyone! Look at fucking Krail! You see his balls? No, you fucking don’t!”
“It ju—”
“Well, that’s because he’s wearing clothes,” said Chloe, matter-of-factly.
“I’m wearing clothes too!”
“All you have is a tie. It’s not exactly hiding anything,” said the maid.
“Can the two of you please let me finish?” shouted Allegra. She gritted her teeth and forced a smile as she looked around the camp before lowering her voice to its prior volume. “Thank you. Now, as I was trying to say earlier, it just wouldn’t work. Can you imagine yourself standing naked in front of millions of people?”
“Easily,” said Chloe, as she toyed with her chest. “I’m pretty well endowed, and I take good care of myself. I wouldn’t mind showing off at all.”
Allegra blinked. “I don’t think getting excited would help either.”
“I’m not an exhibitionist,” said the maid. Her voice was steady, entirely nonchalant. “I wouldn’t get off to it either. I just don’t mind.”
Allegra blinked again. “I was under the impression that even succubi have senses of shame.”
“We do, and I do,” she said.
“Right,” muttered the rabbit, her eyes somewhat distant.
“Yeah, it’s probably better not to think about anything she says,” said Jules, with a laugh.
“I’ve met many humans in my time, and she stands out among them for being one of the most curious,” said Krail. “Though I suppose she isn’t exactly human anymore.”
“Lewd ancestor,” said Lana. “I think.”
“Wasn’t that her last ascension?” asked Jules. “What’re you now?”
Chloe twitched. “S-so anyway, great day out, isn’t it? The skies sure are nice and ashen.”
“So you weren’t lying about the sense of shame then?” Allegra toyed with her glasses. “Interesting. I wonder if your species is distorting your perception in some way?”
“I don’t think her race has had any effect on her,” said Krail. “She has always been this way. Our first encounter was a little bit strange…”
“Wait, hold the fuck on,” said Jules. “We should make her spill the beans before you two get too carried away and forget.”
“There aren’t really any beans to spill,” said Chloe. She was trying to be calm, but she was clearly still fidgeting.
“Yeah? Then how come you aren’t telling us your race?”
“I-I’m a uhhh, succubus, yeah,” she said.
“Bitch, I ain’t falling for that. Spit it out already. You’ve made it plenty fucking clear that it’s way more embarrassing than that.”
“Not at all!” Laughing awkwardly, Chloe spun around and started walking off. “I’m going to go look for another thing to fight. I’ll be back later!”
“Oh, no you fucki—” The clam pushed himself off the ground with a grunt and began constructing the spells he needed to give chase, but Allegra held out an arm, stopped him, and slowly shook her head.
“Leave her,” she said. “She needs the experience, and she’s rarely this motivated.”
The clam frowned, but threw up his arms and sighed after taking a few moments to stare at the rabbit lady’s face. “Fine, have it your way,” he grumbled. “But just saying, I’m interrogating the ever-loving shit out of her as soon as she gets back.”
His eyes still on the fleeing sex demon, he lumbered his way over to the fire and put his mind to work. The maid clearly wasn’t planning to talk even upon her return. He was going to need to think up a way to force her to divulge her secrets.