<~> CHAPTER 35

The fiery tornado that had been surrounding us slowed to stop and faded away to reveal a ring of embers and ash that had formed around the alraune. Luna's controlled magic had kept the thinner vines at bay during the first part of the fight but now that the alraune had pulled its main body from the ground, those smaller vines were gone. Luna was now able to help us with the next phase of the fight against the plant monster that now resembled a giant spider. Fortunately the monster was still immobile and we wouldn't need to chase it down but unfortunately, it would now be a lot harder to retreat from the dozens of huge vines that were exposed.

As if to signal the start of the fight a large spear of fire shot over our heads and crashed into one of the vines and took a large chunk out of it. Unlike the fiery tornado, the flames didn't spread, they dissipated right after the impact. With that attack the three of us darted toward the nearest vine and began our assault. There were so many vines we would need to thin their number enough to make it to the more vulnerable bulb and hopefully take it out without killing the person suspended inside. When we talked about this, no one had mentioned the possibility of someone being stuck inside there, but none of them had looked surprised either.

I leapt over one of the vines that had dragged across the ground and tried to batter me. Each vine was the size of a tree trunk but my wolf form was agile even when lugging around my giant axe. I silently thanked the dungeon for it as I swung at a nearby vine with a two-handed chop that cleaved right through it. A large explosion next to me almost knocked me off my feet from the blast wave but Luna's attack blew right through a vine that had been about to swing at me. I also silently thanked Luna as I swung at the next one.

Maxwell and Piper were doing well. Maxwell in particular was doing fantastic. His magical shining sword sliced through each vine with barely any resistance, the blade had kept a miraculously sharp edge ever since we had found it. In this instance where cutting through the vines was much more important than raw strength, he showed how far apart the two of us were in skill. He was slicing through the vines at a rate more than twice what I was capable of and focused on tumbling out of the way of the vines rather than tanking them as he usually did.

Piper was an interesting case. She wasn't nearly as adept as Maxwell or as agile as I was but she made up for it in raw endurance. She wasn't a meek healer who stood in the back, no, she slashed through the vines and absorbed nasty hits with her shield, only to heal herself through the pain and keep going. In this fight, she focused on healing herself rather than Maxwell and her determined fighting style was a sight to behold. She was keeping up with me in severed vines because of her risky fighting style but she looked focused and sure of herself throughout the fight, not wavering at all.

I took a panting breath as I kept hacking at the vines. There were still tons of them left but the four of us had cut through more than half of them already, giving us some breathing room. Luna simultaneously supported us and thinned out the number from a distance. Her attacks weren't very rapid but each one was devastating and well aimed. Had we not been interested in collecting the alraune pearls and the person inside, I wouldn't have been surprised if she could have destroyed the bulb on her own by now.

("Helena, now! There's a clear path, I'll support you!") Luna's words rang clear in my head despite all of the chaos.

I dropped the axe behind me and bolted forward on all fours. Explosions rang out around me as I dodged past the attacks that got too close and raced to the bulb. I roared as my claws ripped through the thin walls and spilled a flow of thin sap onto the dirt under my feet. I jumped away, wary of another attack but the vines flailed for a moment before falling limp and hitting the ground. We had killed it. I howled in my excitement of taking down such a foe.

Maxwell ran to the bulb and began to firmly pull out the vine that was lodged deep in the unknown woman's esophagus while Piper prepared to heal her. The act couldn't have been pleasant because the naked woman woke and began to violently flail in Maxwell's arms before coughing and sputtering out sap that had gotten into her lungs. The woman had light brown skin and slitted hazel eyes. Like Luna, she had animalistic ears, though hers looked more like a feline's than a fox's, and a thin striped tail flicked in agitation under her. Her body overall was well-toned and petite.

When she finally stopped coughing her eyes worriedly shot between the four of us and then she screamed.

"Behind you!" she yelled.

All of us except for Maxwell spun on our heels and looked for the threat behind us but there was nothing there. There was a moment's pause while the three of us dumbly looked around for anything out of the ordinary but I couldn't see anything.

"Helena, I .... she's .... .... you," Maxwell said calmly.

I relaxed before turning around and squinting at Maxwell, not quite sure what he was saying.

("Maxwell said that he thinks the woman was talking about you, you were behind us,") Luna told me.

"Me?" I asked.

"What the .... .... talking," the woman gasped out.

Ah... right. I shifted back to my human form.

"Good?" I asked.

Her eyes widened and looked back and forth between us. "What the ....? Why can that umber hound .... .... a woman?"

Luna frowned and stepped in front of me defensively. I sighed and turned away to go grab my axe before I forgot it. I glanced back to see that the woman looked a lot calmer now that I had walked away but she was animatedly talking with Piper and Maxwell now. Even the two of them looked somewhat irritated by the situation. I pulled my axe from the dirt. Thankfully it didn't look damaged after the fight... or even any less sharp really.

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Luna caught up to me and took my hand. ("Are you okay? That was really rude of her...")

I turned to Luna and smiled before squeezing her hand. ("It's... complicated. It did hurt to realize that she was screaming about me... but I kind of find it hard to blame her. I am a monster after all.")

("No!") Luna looked angry for the first time since I've known her. ("You're not a monster. You may look like one sometimes, but you are not one.")

Despite the glare she was giving me it made me smile so much that my cheeks kind of hurt. I didn't say anything but I pulled her into a hug. I was too tall to rest my head on her shoulder and for a moment I regretted how much height I had gained.

"Thank you," I whispered to her. She squeezed around me, hugging me tightly. Her pretty tail swayed back and forth behind her and her ears twitched. When I pulled away her face was flushed and she was having trouble meeting my gaze... Cute.

("What's wrong?") I asked.

She gulped and rubbed her throat a bit before meeting my gaze. ("You... smell nice...")

I frowned. ("You can't mean that...") We had just fought that monster. And just because I was in my wolf form for the fight, didn't make me any less sweaty right now.

Luna blushed and looked away but her flustered face had spread to me. I cleared my throat and looked back over to the woman who was crouching on the ground and covering herself. They were still talking but it seems things have calmed down a bit.

("Piper, is it safe for me to come back over there?") I asked her through the rings.

She turned and grinned at me. ("You sure you're not busy flirting with your fiancé?")

I froze and looked at Maxwell and the new person, they weren't laughing with her so that must not have been what they were talking about. Piper was just giving me shit again.

("I'm... yeah, I'm good,") I replied.

Piper laughed much to the new girl's confusion before she waved me over. ("We've explained things a little, should be fine now.")

The woman turned to Piper and quickly started asking her something, she didn't seem to get the reply she wanted because she looked at me rather nervously when I returned.

I glanced down at the woman who was covering her naked body with her arms before turning to Piper. "Clothes?" I asked her.

"I don't .... .... clothes for her," Piper replied. "That's why I didn't .... clothes for you ...."

I snapped my fingers and pointed to Luna's bag. Luna looked at me in confusion for a moment before she realized what I was talking about. Her shoulders shook as if she giggled. She dug through her back and pulled out... that silky underwear we got from the minotaur's chest. Piper started cackling just as she had the first time we found them and the new person blushed at the revealing clothing. Being naked must have been a decent motivator for her though because she cautiously took the underwear and turned away from Maxwell before slipping them on. When I caught Maxwell turning away with a blush I suddenly got a huge grin on my face.

Wondering what the plan was I bumped Luna's shoulder. ("So, have they said what's going on with her?")

("If they had, I didn't hear it. Let me ask Piper,") she replied.

I nodded and glanced at the newcomer. When she met my eyes she hurriedly looked away. It was in the, 'I'm afraid of you' kind of way rather than the 'I have a crush on you' kind of way though. It hurt a little whenever people averted their gazes from you when you looked at them. Maybe I had underestimated how scary I was to people who didn't know me. I mean, sure, those guys in the clearing had been afraid of me too but I had been actively fighting them and trying to intimidate them.

Luna turned back to me. ("Looks like she was in here with a man and a woman but she doesn't remember what happened to them or how she ended up in the alraune bulb. She says things are hazy for her since she came to this floor. Piper told me that didn't bode well for her friends but there is no way of knowing if they are still alive or not. She doesn't have her hunting association tags anymore either so even if they had died here there's no way to tell. She offered to pay us to take her up to the surface and Maxwell's inclined to agree since she's unarmed. He hadn't given her an answer yet though because they still wanted to ask us about it.")

I shrugged. ("I don't mind if she can handle being around me. What about the alraune pearls?")

She touched Piper on the shoulder and nodded before gesturing to the empty bulb. Piper said something about the alraune pearls to Maxwell. Whatever he said after that must have been an agreement for the woman to come with us because she suddenly looked relieved. Maxwell stood up and climbed into the remains of the alraune bulb to look for the pearls I guess.

I grabbed Luna's hand and pulled her away with me so we could sit in a soft patch of grass away from the others. Luna smiled up at me before leaning against my shoulder. I slipped my fingers into hers and laced them. Luna's presence relaxed me, made everything feel okay. I must have had a similar effect on her because she closed her eyes and rested her weight against my side. The two of us sat there for a while, not speaking, just enjoying each other's silent company. The new woman gave us a few appraising glances and asked Piper a few things but she didn't approach us. I did want to get to know her a little better, knowing her name at least would be nice, but right now I couldn't be bothered. Right now, I preferred to rest next to my Luna for a little while after such an exhausting fight.