The next couple weeks continued in much the same vein. We went fishing some days and hunting other days. We explored more shops but were never as successful as the first time. The number of boarded up shops wasn’t as large as I first thought and the shops that were open to the elements had either been ransacked or the contents were in poor shape.
During this time Shadow had continued to get bigger and I thought she was at least twice as big as when she was first summoned. She regularly went hunting by herself and usually came back with a bird or two in her mouth. She would still sleep with Lin but when Lin would move to my bed then she would move to my bed as well. At first she slept on my chest like old times but then the weight was too much for me and I had to shoo her off so she reluctantly slept by our feet instead.
The sisters also continued to sneak into my bedroom at night. Sometimes I was awake for it and sometimes I slept through the intrusion. I was convinced that Lux knew what was going on but so far he hadn’t done or said anything. It was confined to cuddling for now and they were always close to me during the day. We traded stories about each others worlds and I got to know them better.
I learned their mother had died of an illness several years ago and the family had pulled together to eke out an existence as what I would consider adventurers. Doing odd jobs like guarding caravans, hunting, and monster subjugation. Ann had been lucky enough to be the apprentice to a local mage while the other siblings were trained by Lux. The girls had been too busy for romance so had never had official boyfriends although I thought Lux might also be the cause of that.
Lin was more of a tomboy while Ann was a bookworm. Ann was delighted whenever we found more intact books and could spend hours reading them. Lin loved the outdoors and hunting so was excited every time we went out. Both girls had been letting their hair grow longer. We were all wearing better clothes as well that we were able to find in the shops. When we weren’t out exploring in the city, Ann liked to wear summery dresses while Lin preferred shorts and a loose top.
Ann hinted that she and Lin might need my “assistance” during mating season. I wasn’t exactly sure when mating season was, but it was evidently something all the beast type people went through. She didn’t mention what they had done in the past during mating season, and I didn’t ask. I was actually a little afraid of seeing both wolfkin girls in heat and I was also afraid of their father finding out. Now that I thought about it, did the males go into heat as well? I decided I didn’t want to know.
If it wasn’t for my enhanced body, I don’t think I would have been able to handle the sisters. They were both very strong and when they hugged me, I could feel my bones creaking. I didn’t seem to have a choice in the matter the way both girls looked at me so just hoped I was up to the challenge. I could also now have intelligible conversations with Lin and Lux, not that Lux ever said much. My learning speed frankly surprised me, and I was able to pick up the common language quickly. It didn’t hurt that Ann was a great teacher and Lin even helped out.
My magic was coming along nicely as well. I had learned two spells while Ann learned one more. In addition to improving her stone arrow spell, Ann had learned a lightning bolt spell. As the name implied, she could shoot out a bolt of lightning that could fry or paralyze her target depending on how much mana she put into it.
With Ann’s help, I learned the healing spell then wanted something I could use in a fight. The healing spell wasn’t all powerful so I couldn’t bring someone back from the dead or regrow limbs, but I could heal most other injuries. Ann made sure that I was aware it didn’t work on poisons, paralysis, or curses. I wasn’t exactly sure what curses were, but I would think it would work on poisons and paralysis but evidently there was a separate spell for that.
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After perusing all the magic books we found, I settled on the wind blade spell. I could use it for attacking at long or short range and similar to the lightning spell, the more mana I put into it, the more powerful the blades would be. Ann and I practiced every day to improve our aim with the spells which wasn’t easy. I had no experience with shooting guns besides those in video games but felt it might be similar. As I practiced, the distance that I could hit things reliably increased much to my satisfaction.
The next spell I wanted to try was a little more complex. It was an earth spell similar to Ann’s stone arrow but more versatile. It was called earth manipulation and was for manipulating the ground to produce various objects out of the soil/rock. With it, a person could build structures, produce spikes that shot up from the ground to attack, produce an earthen wall for defense, or whatever else I could think of.
Unlike the stone arrow spell which conjured rock out of pure mana, the earth manipulation spell only modified the existing ground. I still thought it would be useful, but it would take a lot longer than the healing spell or wind blade spell to learn. Lin had tried learning more magic as well but was still struggling with the old empire language. Ann and I helped her but she just couldn’t get it and finally gave up. We found a fancy looking bow on one of our latest scavenging hunts which cheered Lin up and she has been practicing with it nonstop.
Lux still helped me practice with the sword and spear and now that we could talk, I got more out of it. The training sessions were also more intense for some reason. I still didn’t improve my fighting skills as much as my language and magic but I was getting there. There was discussion about taking what we could haul and returning to the fishing village. I could stay here for months learning new magic spells but getting back to actual civilization would be nice.
There was still one structure we wanted to explore but it was closer to the north side of the city which was mostly taken over by the jungle. From what we could see from our birds eye view in the summoning tower, it looked like a temple of some sort. At least that was Ann’s opinion. It was a large circular stone building with a domed roof. Angelic statues circled the domed roof which was about half as tall as the bell tower. I was curious about it too, but the closer you got to the jungle the more monsters there were lurking around.
We had avoided the northern areas of the city because of that but the mystery surrounding the building was too much. By now we all had better armor and weapons and even stronger magic spells so it was decided that we would go straight to the temple, look around, and then head straight back. That would hopefully expose us to the least amount of danger.
Preparations for the trip were made which consisted of packing supplies and making sure all our equipment was in good shape. We would start in the early morning so we would make it back before night so went to bed early. Unfortunately it stormed that night and the following day so we had to stay in the mansion. Both girls were already in my bed and hugged me tighter than usual. I thought I might die a few times when they were scared by the thunder and lightning and hugged me especially hard.
Somehow I managed to survive the night but didn’t get much sleep and my ribs were sore in the morning. We spent the rainy day playing some simple games I had shown them from Earth. Lux turned out to be quite the intense player, but I didn’t go easy on him. It probably wasn’t the best idea, but I was getting him back for the harsh training he had been putting me through. Lin and Ann seemed to be enjoying the competition but fought when we played games that required two versus two and they both wanted to be on my team. It was a fun time but made me miss my home which I tried not to think about too much.