Chapter 23

Note: Thanks to Alex for beta reading this!

Halia looked more than a little skeptical when we returned her armor to her the next day.

“What is this?” she demanded. “Are you going to take me to some arena and make me fight for your amusement?”

“Why would I do that?” I asked, staring at her in shock. “Do you think I’m into blood sports or something?”

“Then why are you arming me?”

“Because I’m setting you free,” I said. “We’re taking you to Astovin and releasing you.”

Her brow furrowed. “Just like that, you’re letting me go? After you went through the effort of capturing me? Your plan was to hold me for a few days and then...” She stared at me suspiciously. “What are you up to?”

“Keeping you locked up is never going to prove that I don’t want to hurt you or others. So I need to prove it. I need to demonstrate that I can be trusted. What better way to do that than to let you go? So, get dressed, we’re leaving soon.”

I was wearing different clothes from my obvious wizard robes. Just a pair of wool pants and a hemp shirt. The same sort of garb I saw the local farmers wearing. No armor. No weapons. Lana and Garnet were both wrapped up in dresses and cloaks to try and hide them. Garnet was easier. We undid her pigtails and her horns were hardly noticeable peeking out of her red hair. Her wings were folded up beneath her clothing.

She hadn’t been happy. “It’s too much clothing, big bro,” she had said. “How are they supposed to fall in love with my beauty and then become insanely jealous when they realize only you get to touch me?”

Halia donned her armor. When she was ready, I opened the door for her. I wore her blessed sword on my waist. She stared at that, eyeing it with hunger. I shook my head. If she tried to grab it, Lana and Garnet would make short work of her.

“Usiku, you have command,” I told her. “Keep my monster girls safe.”

“And the Void Crystal?” she asked, amusement on her lips.

“That is a tad important, isn’t it?” I asked, smiling.

“Just a tiny bit.” She smiled at me and then kissed me with passion on the lips.

I groaned into it, wanting to just do things with her. My cock was aching, but I broke it and forced myself to do the responsible stuff. I had to win Halia to my cause. If I could get her at least focusing her attention, and those of other adventurers, on attacking the bad dungeon builders, then at least I could buy myself some breathing room to figure things out.

So I didn’t have to be the cause of any more deaths than I had to be.

We escorted Halia through the dungeon. She walked in front of us. She kept glancing over her shoulder at us, her braid swinging down her back. She wore her bikini breastplate and steel panties. The metal enticingly molded to her rump. She was a gorgeous woman. Fit and strong, but curvy and feminine in all the right way.

Shame she thought I was an evil monster that had to die.

We moved through the traps, all disabled. Then into the labyrinth. My monster girls appeared from their posts. They all beamed at me in delight. None of them seemed to mind the endless waiting in their own sections.

“Good luck, Lord Leo,” said Sviesos, the first will o’ wisp I’d made. She leaned against the wall, her large breasts rising and falling. I loved the way her body glowed, the various hues of incandescent gas that made her form swirling about her in ever-changing patterns of delight.

“Be safe, Lord Leo,” a wildhound said. Marwo darted up to me and hugged me. She licked my cheek, rubbing her petite body on mine. “Come back.”

“I will,” I said. “We’re just buying supplies and returning Halia to her people.”

“Sure,” Halia muttered. She didn’t believe me.

Well, actions spoke louder than words. It was time to prove that.

We fetched our donkey and its cart. I kept it in a side cave that was part of my domain but separate from the dungeon proper. The donkey had a small pasture to graze and seemed healthy, if his coat was a little shaggy and wild. We hooked him up and guided him down the trail towards the village.

The walk was pleasant. Halia trooped before us, looking around like she expected the attack to come at any moment. She kept glancing at me, her eyes falling on my sword. I knew she was contemplating stealing it.

“She’s going to betray us to the village,” Lana said as we entered the farmland.

“Probably,” I said.

Several of the farms looked abandoned, their fields overrun with weeds. That was different. At other farms, there were people holding crossbows in sight. They watched us with suspicious eyes until they noticed Halia.

Then they waved at her.

“You’re popular,” I said.

“My father was a famous adventurer,” she said. “He slew several dungeon builders, including Argian the White, a foul user of light magic who had vaporized several villages before he was stopped.”

I gaped at that. “Why would he vaporize them?”

She looked back at me. “Because he could.”

My stomach sank. What was it about dungeon builders that led them to do the things they did? Mthunzi attacked me to get stronger. He wanted to have a second glyph and to harness my Void Crystal. Why?

Because he was afraid?

Dungeon builders had enemies that attacked us from all sides. The adventurers who thought we were evil and the others like us who wanted our crystals. Fuegin had come to talk to me, but he felt strong. Like he was way above me and had nothing to fear from me.

But others...

They stared down a path that led them to make some bad decisions. Those that cost lives. It was almost like a trap. To get stronger to survive, they had to do evil acts. And that proved they were evil, driving the adventurers to try even harder to kill them. That forced the dungeon builder to do more dark deeds. They corrupted them.

“Argian the White...” I muttered. “Did the villages defy him?”

“Does that make him justified?” Halia asked with a sneer.

“Absolutely not!” The words came out harsh. “I’m just trying to understand. He tried to control them, right? To have an area of the world where he didn’t have to worry about adventurers. He thought he had to use force to bully everyone. And he went way, way too far.”