Chapter 11

Zoey’s stomach clenched as she emptied herself onto Rosalie’s face. Rosalie pumped diligently away, reverting to her hands from the previous use of her tits and mouth, and expertly milked out Zoey’s sticky delivery.

Zoey really couldn’t understate how amazing Rosalie’s hands were. It didn’t make sense how they were so soft, yet so powerful. Probably her upbringing, her extensive training in combat, which resulted in strength and dexterity in equal measure. And a helping of natural talent. But still, Zoey didn’t know how such an ostensibly inexperienced girl—Zoey didn’t know that for sure, but Rosalie’s behaviors suggested it—knew with such intuitiveness which way to twist her wrists, and the perfect pace to slide her hands up and down to easily persuade Zoey’s cock to empty itself.

Afterward, Zoey enjoyed the sight of Rosalie’s chest and face so thoroughly covered in her warm girl spunk. Rosalie wiped her eyes clear, opened them, looked up at her, and leveled a scathing glare at Zoey’s self-satisfied smirk. “You really are disgusting, I hope you know that.”

Zoey would have teased back by alluding to Rosalie’s whining, perverted confessions, but she didn’t. Rosalie had been genuinely upset—something she’d worked past, Zoey thought, but it was best Zoey didn’t dig too hard into the weakness.

Best saved for when Zoey had her fingers wriggling around inside Rosalie, anyway. Embarrassing admissions only stayed embarrassing when forced out sparingly.

They washed themselves off in the hotspring, Zoey’s well of supernatural power now topped-off, then continued along their adventure.

“This is it,” Rosalie said. “I’m almost certain.”

“The boss room?”

“Just so.”

It had only taken an hour more of pressing forward before they reached an ominous sign driven into the road, blackened at the edges and time-weary. ‘BEWARE THE SLIME,’ the decaying wood read, scrawled in black paint that hadn’t dried before it started to drip, and while Zoey might not be genre-savvy, she could recognize the imminent warning of a boss encounter when she saw one.

“It’s about time,” Zoey said. “This ought to be interesting.”

Rosalie frowned at Zoey, then hesitated, as if bracing herself for an unpleasant topic.

Zoey’s stomach sank, Rosalie’s next words obvious. “You don’t want me to come with,” Zoey preempted.

“It’s for the best,” Rosalie said slowly. “This won’t be like the earlier fights. Bosses are smarter. They employ strategy. If they identify a weak point—”

“They’ll dig into it.” Zoey sighed. “You don’t need to defend yourself. I get it.” Zoey’s time spent advancing through the shard had made the difference in their combat proficiency starkly apparent. And while it was a kick to her pride to be told joining in on the final fight would do nothing but cripple her partner, she’d much rather take a kick to the pride than end up dead. The brutal reality of the shard had been presented to Zoey, and while both she and Rosalie remained unharmed, that was on part of the second’s competence, and not a lack of trying from the shard. They could be hurt. Killed, if they sufficiently misstepped. This adventure Zoey had been thrust into, while interesting, and even half-whimsical from its similarity to videogames back home, was still dangerous. It needed to be treated as the threat it represented.

So Zoey shoved down her protests and did what was better for the both of them. “Okay. Well. Good luck. And don’t get hurt.”

Rosalie sniffed. “This is a first advancement shard. Even without my armor, I’d be mortified to be injured, much less defeated.”

Zoey believed her. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t worried, seeing her partner go off and tackle the most dangerous part of the shard herself. “Remember to expect something weird. This isn’t a normal shard. Be ready for anything.”

Rosalie paused, then grimaced. “Right. I can’t say I’m looking forward to what it’s put together. But some parts of the shard are normal ... so perhaps the boss will be too.”

Rosalie didn’t sound like she believed it would. Zoey didn’t, either. But they could hope.

Rosalie gave a serious nod to Zoey, then turned and advanced forward.

Zoey posted up under the base of a tree, watching her figure disappear into the darkness, and tried not to worry too much.

It’d been about an hour, not that Zoey had a way to tell the time, but she knew something had gone wrong. Rosalie had departed too long ago. Why hadn’t Zoey asked when to expect her back? She’d assumed a handful of minutes, and when that had passed, she’d adjusted her estimate to ten or twenty. Then thirty.

An hour later, Zoey sat, stomach wringing in fear and expecting the worst.

Perhaps something odd had occurred. Maybe she’d won, and been shunted out of the shard as soon as she had. Zoey didn’t know how these things worked. But just because Rosalie hadn’t returned didn’t mean she’d lost—(and thus been injured? Killed? Surely not the second?)—but simply that she couldn’t return, which several situations could account for. Trapped, to name a second. Perhaps she’d fallen down a pit and needed Zoe’s help. Which was absurd, but she was just spitballing, here. Or maybe she’d gotten lost.

Either way, it was time to go lend aid. Not that Zoey could provide much of that in the case Rosalie had lost. Because anything that could square up against Rosalie and come out the victor, Zoey would last, hm, a minute? To be enormously generous. Ten seconds, the more realistic estimate. One attack? Probably a single attack.

Maybe someday she could hold her own, but she hadn’t had an opportunity to practice, and Zoe was hardly a talented fighter by her nature.

She stopped herself from pacing around in circles, then, deciding waiting only made things worse, and Rosalie wasn’t returning, continued down the trail, passing the hunched-over sign declaring ‘BEWARE THE SLIME’. Zoey gripped the light, spiked mace she’d raided from the armory earlier. Her spells were the more effective weapon, considering Zoey’s lack of proficiency with arms, but its reassuring weight helped steady her. And maces didn’t take much finesse to use at their simplest level, which was why Rosalie had suggested it.

The reason for the sign’s warning became apparent in short order. Thick green goo appeared in clumps as Zoey worked her way forward, coating rocks, trees, and grass in shiny globs that glinted in the permanent moonlight of the pocket dimension. Zoey wondered if it was poisonous. Not acidic, at least; the grass and trees seemed unharmed. But why ‘beware the slime’, then? She forced away her curiosity and didn’t attempt something as stupid as scooping up the green material. Bolded warnings scrawled on signs hammered into the floor were usually best heeded. Or so Zoey assumed.

Again, not an expert at this whole, dungeon-adventuring thing.

The beaten trail lost itself to nature as she ventured forward, disappearing just as the treeline opened up into a clearing. Zoey blinked as she took in the—frankly magnificent—sight laid in front of her.

An enormous clearing splayed out, the circular treeline almost unnaturally sharp, like it’d been cultivated—or designed by some greater Maker—to be that way. The stars seemed brighter, now, and the crescent-moon burned in the sky. The inappropriate word Zoey wanted to use was ‘cinematic’, but while at some moments in the past few hours Zoey had been able to treat her new reality as—well, not the reality it was—now was not one of those moments. The sight was breath-taking, but also unnerving. Ominous. It heralded a final encounter. An ending of some sorts.

Hers?

At the center lay an enormous pool of that green goo, larger even than the hot springs she and Rosalie had visited. The slime was thick and viscous and only slightly translucent; in such quantities it appeared almost as a solid object.

To the right of the pool, a blonde figure lay unconscious, supported by a boulder of the green slime. Her head and hair was visible, but the rest of her body was obscured by the slightly-opaque material; Zoey could only make out a shadow of it. Her stomach tightened in fear, because sure enough, Rosalie had lost.