Chapter 110

“She who lays with monsters should look to it that she herself does not become one, for if you fornicate with the dark, the dark also fornicates with you,” murmured Lyra looking over her black wool in wonder.

“Hmm? What was that?”

“N-nothing!”

Lyra avoided Rain’s gaze. Fortunately they were walking back through the forest beside each other and that wasn’t hard to do.

She brought her arm up to her eyes. Black wool. A Skill which she strongly suspected was a powerful key Skill just like her invisibility. Her wool was acting as a portal to some kind of space, a space that, according to Rain, held stone benches and basins of water and nothing else whatsoever. Obviously a place of safety for those in need.

She stared at the wool. She would just take a quick look, surely that would be fine right? Just bring her arm close to her face, sink inside, sink into that darkness ... But what if she couldn’t get back out? She’d been for lack of a better word, infected, by Rain’s- whatever Rain’s monsterness was, and that could mean anything! She found the things he summoned unsettling enough, and now that was somehow part of her. It was enough to make her shiver.

She brought her arm away. She would trust Rain’s word for now, it was just an empty space, not very exciting anyway, yeah.

Well, that wasn’t quite correct, it was all very exciting, she could admit that. What leveler wouldn’t be excited by having a new powerful Skill? That was enough to fill her with delight, it was just with the small sidenote that it seemed to have been produced by having sex with Rain.

She bit her lip. Would ... Would having sex again produce another powerful Skill when she next leveled? The thought gave her pause. A weak leveler with a ‘bad’ Class like herself couldn’t have even dreamed of something like this ... If she had a lot of sex maybe she could even get a lot of powerful wolf Skills. Her ear tips went a little pink. No, no, she couldn’t just- she couldn’t just sex her way into powerful skills, even if that did sound really really really appealing.

Her eyes unconsciously moved to Rain’s massive body, his legs, up, certain areas that made her breath come faster that she struggled to pull her gaze from, then up to his chest, and then above where she found Rain staring at her.

She froze.

“Is anything wrong?”

“UH- UHM- NO! EVERYTHING IS FINE! COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY FINE!”

Rain looked at her blankly. He had his paw held up in front of himself where a house cat was sitting comfortably. Apparently he had been experimenting as they walked. She wasn’t the only one pondering their abilities it seemed.

Desperate to change the subject she thrust out a hand and pointed at it.

“Y-your weird monster magic, you’ve gotten b-better with it?”

The house cat tilted its head at her adorably.

“No, I’ve been avoiding using certain parts of it because I don’t know what I’m doing. You must have seen it at some point, the Harpy Queen.”

Lyra blanched. She had seen it, a cackling ragged shadow flickering between a crowd of panicking Orcs unable to escape or flee from her, a whirlwind of razor talons, a wind of death. That Opal had picked her talon to use a weapon said something of how terrifying the out of control Harpy Queen had been.

“I did, she was, uhm, terrifying ... I don’t know why you thought it a good idea to copy her, she was intense even when I was imprisoned in the cell next to her’s in the half Goblin tribe.”

“ ... Was she a copy?”

“What are you saying? She was like the other-”

“She remembered me Lyra, she knew who I and Opal were.”

Lyra stared at him.

“But that can’t be, what does that even mean?”

“I don’t know. Something unthinkable maybe, or just disturbingly perfect copies, or something else entirely, I just don’t know. I think I need to know more, I can’t keep fumbling in the dark like this, that Harpy Queen would have killed Opal in a heartbeat and I’m not certain I could have stopped her. But I feel it’s worse than that, Opal is pregnant with something that if it’s anything like me is beyond dangerous, something that could put her life at risk, for all I know it could kill her. I don’t like that thought, it bothers me a lot, other monsters aren’t like me ... I’m worse ... what if it hurts her? ... what if it kills her?”

Lyra tapped her chin in thought.

“Well your species would probably be a good place to start.”

“I don’t know my species and as best I understand they last lived over a thousand years ago, maybe a lot more than a thousand years ago, not even Vash knows what I am and he is centuries old.”

“Then it’s simple, we just need to find a record of that. Knowing what you are is the first step in finding out what is going on with your magic and what Opal is, uh, going to pop out.”

Rain wrinkled the top of his nose and furrowed his brow. “Where?”

“Isn’t it obvious? In Florens! Florens has some really old and really big libraries. If your species wasn’t completely isolated from the world then chances are at least one leveler would have written something down. If it’s true that the ruined city we we found in the dungeon was made by your species like you think then there will be for sure a record of it, there’s no way that wasn’t recorded, heck, it was probably levelers who destroyed it and no leveler worth their salt wouldn’t boast about that!”

“That ... is true. Just knowing something would help a lot, well, as long as it isn’t something bad.”

“Mhmm! Knowledge is how you do something about it, uh, carefully, and without accidentally making anymore insane Harpy Queens.”

“I’d rather avoid a repeat of that, I couldn’t control her, I-

Rain paused and turned his head, drawing in air through his nose.

“Do you smell that?”

“No? Smell what?”

Rain didn’t reply but fell forward and powered into a bounding run that sent him shooting through the forest, leaves exploding around him.

Lyra was left mid step frozen in surprise, but then realising she was being left behind she hurried after him, following the trail of destruction.