Chapter 121: The Day After
The day after Helga submitted herself to Raven, she'd already returned to her usual stern self. Acting as if nothing had happened, the steadfast Valkyrie led their search for Mel. However, still remembering everything vividly as it had happened just minutes ago, Raven couldn't get what happened out of his head.
Especially the wings, of which she seemed embarrassed or even afraid that someone else had seen them.
'Why does she have them? And why hide it?' His eyes watching her hips swaying side by side as she walked in front of him, Raven wondered exactly why she would hide such graceful feathered wings.
"I hear something…" Moving to the side, Helga pulled Raven out of his thoughts. Looking around the corner, she was focusing on a lone person wandering through the cave. Their eyes sunken in, their ears tipped like an elf, and the ruffled blonde hair and clothes painted a clear picture of who it was. "It's Melicia or a shade pretending to be her."
Trusting her instincts for now, Raven stayed behind Helga and let her make the first move. Slowly moving out of the corner and towards the front, she held her left hand up and called out for a headcount.
"HEADCOUNT!"
"MEL!" Conditioned by the stern barbarian's commands the wandering zombie of a person jumped at Helga's words. Her eyes wide as an owl, Mel instinctually turned to the voice. Gawking at Helga with her eyes blinking in disbelief, an audible gasp left Mel's lips as she realized what was happening. "Oh my fucking god, finally!"
Running up to the duo, Mel wrapped her hands around Helga and just squeezed her body as tight as possible. Feeling comfort in finding another person she knew, her mind and body both finally felt at peace.
"Hey! Get off–" Trying to get Mel off Helga attempted to shove her, but burying her face right under her breastplate Mel refused to let go and began crying. Having only heard her own children crying in a while, her hands stopped for a moment as her motherly side surfaced.
'Ughhh…Fine, cry it out.' Moving her hand over to her head, Helga patted her on the head until the elf slowly backed away from the barbarian herself.
"You done?" Asked the Valkyrie and Mel nodded in response although still sobbing.
Glancing over at Raven, Mel smiled once more. Seeing familiar faces after being abandoned in the cave for an entire night, she couldn't help but feel a spec of joy at the familiar sight.
"Alright then, let's keep moving and find the exit if the others haven't already found it," leading the charge again, Helga kept the group moving.
As for those who were supposed to find an exit, well needless to say the maze had confused them just as much as Mel. Wandering all over with no exit in sight, they had genuinely begun to consider just digging their way out of the place somehow.
"Back here again?!" Seeing the mark placed by Erika on the ground again, Amedith was growing more and more frustrated. "We didn't go full circle, right? We kept going but then how?!"
"Amedith…" Reaching for his shoulder, Aria tried to calm him down, but shrugging her arm off, the hero glared sideways into her eyes.
"Calm down? How the fuck am I supposed to calm down when we can't find an exit or the rest of our group?!" Screaming into Aria's face, Amedith turned to her and began moving closer.
However, before the matter escalated in the heat of the moment, Erika conjured a red spectral hand. Grabbing Amedith by the back of his collar it carried him back to where he was standing before dropping him back on his feet.
"Stop acting like children," shaking her head, Erika couldn't believe how Amedith had been acting up since waking.
From rushing everyone to find the exit to going round and round about looking for Mel instead. That's all he'd been doing, yapping about one thing or the other, only to abandon it halfway through since none of it seemed to work.
"What's wrong with you today?" Aria took a shot at him as he was forced back, something Erika didn't let pass by slapping her on her back. "AH! What the hell?!"
Ignoring the dark elf, she quickly looked at Amedith to talk to him before continuing their search, yet before she could open her mouth, he barked out loud once again.
"What's wrong with me?! I can't understand how you're all not freaking out either since Mel has been missing since yesterday!" Huffing and puffing with his fists tightly gripped to the side, he seemed mad enough to throw hands at the slightest slip of the tongue.
'What am I gonna do with these two?' Feeling like the big sister in the quarrel again, Erika walked up to the hero. Looking down into his eyes, she decided to give him another chance before diffusing him for good for the day.
"You think we're not worried that she's missing? We are bu–"
"You don't seem worried!" This time as he interjected, Erika's blue eyes flicked a crimson hue in rage. Not wasting another second, she moved her feet between his legs and kicked him right in his nuts. "AGGGHHH!"
Screaming in pain, Amedith fell to the ground. Flailing around with his hands covering his groin, he kept screaming in agony as Erika glared down at him from above.
'What the fuck happened?!' Freaking out by Erika's unusual aggression, Aria took a few steps away fearing she might get similar treatment from the alleged big sister.
Instead, however, leaning forward on her knees, the priestess with her eyes still glowing a crimson hue, whispered something grave to Amedith.
"No wonder, Mel sucked that juicy cock with me that night when you were gone with Aria hunting nothing inside that forest," for a moment the words meant nothing to Amedith, but as their meaning slowly settled in, a shocked gasp left his mouth as he turned to look at the priestess's face.
"What?!" Before he got an answer, however, Erika breathed a spell and blew it at him with a flying kiss. The moment it landed on Amedith's forehead, his body went limp and he lost consciousness entirely.
Straightening her back with a devilish smirk, Erika felt strange joy at breaking the news to Amedith. But slowly as her eyes lost their crimson hue and returned to normal, she blinked a few times dumbfounded at what she'd just done.
'I DIDN'T JUST DO THAT?! DID I?! NO! NO! NO!' Internally freaking out, she gripped her hands closer to her heart, but somehow the longer she thought about it, the feeling of joy began to return even though Asmodia's grasp on her tongue was no longer present. 'I just told him the truth, right?
How is it my fault that Mel sucked off Raven? Ahaha…'
"E-Erika…Are you okay?" Approaching the priestess timidly, Aria tapped her on the shoulder to bring her out of her own head.
"Oh!" Realizing where she was and what was happening, Erika jumped up on the spot and turned around smiling. "I'll have the spectral hand carry him, he was getting kind of annoying to listen to anyways."
"I-I guess?" Having never heard Erika speak in such a negative way, Aria felt a bit creeped out by the whole thing. But having no issue with not being yapped at by Amedith, she simply decided to do as Erika said.
'When did she learn these spells anyway? From the high priestess at camp?' Unsure how to feel and unaware of Asmodia's presence, the dark elf much like the rest of the party had no idea how Erika was slowly embracing the cruel side of human nature more and more.