Chapter 78

“Hurry! Wake up!” I feel something slapping my face.

It continues again, but this time keeps going on for awhile. It feels like a nice and small hand.

“Eh, hmm,” I think I hear myself mumbling and groaning.

“Wake up!” it happens again.

My eyes blink open instantly and my vision is a bit blurred as it corrects itself.

“Hurry bro! You need to hide!” It’s Rina.

She’s staring at me in alarm.

“What? What are you doing here? I thought you were Asakura,” I said stiffly. It can’t be helped, because I’m a little bit shocked.

“Hurry we have to get your clothes on! The dwarves are waking up!” she hissed through clenched teeth.

Oh shit. I’m naked. It’s even worse when I’m in front of Rina.

She’s staring at me, and seems to be smiling. She’s trying to hide it while she stares at me.

“Wow, bro, I had no idea you were so big!” she stops hiding her smile and her eyes are twinkling.

Oh dang. The pheromones might work in the air too? Or is that just Rina’s craziness acting up.

“Huh? What are you talking about?” I said.

She points to between my legs.

No way! It’s grown a lot. I wasn’t this big yesterday or the day before when I went to go pee. I have never been this big ever, and this is when I’m not excited. This is with no blood or excitement creating optimized bigness and this is still about five inches longer than what I used to get too when at my fullest…

Uh oh…

Suddenly I’m forced to be reminded of what Fox and Sunghee had told me about the demon race job. My heart pulses in fear. I have no idea what this means. I keep hoping it’s nothing. Maybe they are wrong. They have to be. There’s no way I’d change. I decided I was going to fight it.

I’d do more exercises, eat healthier, stretch and do whatever I had to do. I’d even risk church exorcisms if I have to. I wanted to stay as me, not as some creature.

I for sure didn’t want to be some mangy goat man like Akira. He was strong but…to be called goat man and have those awful, ugly hairy legs. I wondered how he tolerated it.

“Dang, bro! That’s like the biggest one I’ve ever seen! Can I touch it?” she is staring. She bends down like she’s going to reach out.

Reacting in fear, I pull back, and twist my legs to the side. “No! you’re my cousin! For hell’s sake! I can’t let you touch it!” I snarled.

“What? But…please! And step sister, or cousin, does it really matter?” she pleads.

“No! What the heck is wrong with you?” I demanded.

She shrugged. “Maybe a lot. But you are all I have. You didn’t honestly thing I can be with some other guy when you are like the only one that can keep me alive did you?”

I didn’t answer. She’s really on one today. She’s never said something that bold before.

“Oh well…but get dressed hurry. The dwarves are going to start patrolling. You know they will search every inch of this cavern for a way out. What happens when they find you and Asakura totally naked and acting like you are stoned?” Rina asks.

“My head hurts,” I said biting my lip.

Quickly I lunge for my pants, shirt, and shoes. I put everything back on as fast as I could.

“Where’s Asakura?” I asked.

Rina points to a darker part of the cavern. “Um, bro, you need to be careful. She’s acting really strange,” she seems afraid to go over there. It’s also darker in that part of the cavern.

“We need to hurry!” Rina reminds me.

She pushes me forward.

I hear like some kind of groaning over there. It’s not totally sounding like it’s un-human but as I move over there I can definitely see Asakura.

“Asakura? Are you OK?” I asked.

I peer into the dark hidden alcove. She’s still growling low and quiet like. She sees me and is hunkered low sitting on her heels almost with her elbows bent and her hands forward like she’s ready to claw something.

But she still looks human. It’s just that there is something really off in her mind it seems. She doesn’t see me at first, but is sniffing the air.

Damn it.

She’s also still naked. I have to do something, but what?

Weird.

She is sniffing me almost like a dog or a cat would when you are bringing them food. She comes over to me and I call out to her. She seems confused. She shakes her head a few times and starts growling.

Not good. The dwarves would definitely react weirdly to this…she isn’t even acting human.

I’m afraid of what she’ll do so I reach out with my hand to let her get used to me.

She stops and her face scrunches up. She acts like she’ll bite me and so I pull away a bit. She comes forward right up next to my face.

“Easy, easy,” I try to calm her down.

Weird…

“She isn’t calming down is she?” Rina asks worriedly.

Briefly Asakura’s eyes shot over to Rina looking at her menacingly.

Asakura’s hair is still a bit messy too, but she’s apparently good looking enough that most people wouldn’t notice it.

“Don’t say anything Rina, she’s not herself,” I warned.

I can hear Rina taking a step back.

“The dwarves are looking over here,” Rina warned me in a lilted voice.

Oh shit.

“Asakura, are you OK?” I asked. I lean forward to her letting her sniff my hands. Wow this is just like a dog. It worries me. Did last night trigger a memory loss? She seems like she’s getting to know me for the first time too, in addition to being more animal like.

She then cautiously edges forward bumping into me. I’m pushed back a bit. I’m alarmed that she’s really strong for her size. We are almost the same height but she’s like really forceful.

She then starts to lick my hands. It’s strange. She’s stopped growling for now, but I have no idea what will happen.

“It’s almost like she’s…a dog,” Rina whispers from ten feet behind me.

“This is weird huh?” I said.

“What did you do to her?” Rina asked curiously.

“I didn’t…” I said.

“You didn’t give her a drug of some kind? Maybe some kind of medicine you salvaged from an orc, or that the gnomes had picked up secondhand?” she asked.

“No, I wouldn’t do that. She just like wanted to be together last night,” I said.

“Oh. So you guys…well it’s kind of obvious,” Rina’s face blushes.

“I’m not sure what it is,” I said.

“You aren’t like turning into a goat man like Akira are you?” she asked.

“No way! Well, do you know if Akira and Yuriko were ever …you know…like together after he changed? I don’t think this is the same as him. But knowing that would be more sure,” I said.

Even though I’ve said that, I’m 90 percent sure that the demon race thing is not a goat man thing. Otherwise Yuriko would have had some kind of episode like this too.

Asakura comes in close and starts rubbing against me with her face and body. She seems almost like she’s purring in a way, while on all fours. She then rubs herself against my leg.

“Damn, this is going to take time to fix,” I said. I don’t even know how to do it.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Rina contested.

“You better start with getting her to wear clothes first,” Rina chirps smugly.

She’s right.

Damn.

I reach out to touch her, Asakura pulls away. Is she capable of language? This is so awkward. I might be able to fake like she’s sane if I can get her clothes on. It may help things if the dwarves can’t use our language in this situation too. But they will be too smart to not see what a deranged state she’s in.

We have to go slow. I grab her clothes and then pull over to follow me.

Unfortunately when I’d gone to get her clothes, they were more in the open visible part of the tunnel. So I had to get her to stay. I repeated the command to stay several times till she seemed to get it. Then I had to hurry and get them before she was tempted to disobey the stay command.

But it didn’t go the way I wanted it too.

First she resisted my wanting to put on clothes. But she got to be more docile and less aggressive. She at first was trying to fight my trying to get her to do things.

Slowly minute by minute I’m getting her to be more normal, but she still was on her hands and feet. I have to heal up scratches and bruising on her knees because of it. That got her to be less upset too.

After that I tried to get her clothes on again.

She resisted again.

What do I do?

She still is coming closer to me now and acting like she wants to be close to me. She sniffs me a lot. Sometimes she sniffs between my legs and tries to lick there. I push her back. I can’t have licking wetness on my pants when I go to get breakfast with the dwarves.

She doesn’t get it first.

But then I suddenly got an idea…

I find her comb from within her shoulder strap bag. She is used to it and combing her hair was a big part of her routine. I realize this is hard work and time consuming as she tries to resist me. But after the fourth try she starts to let me comb her hair.

I’m amazed as she starts to get more docile because of it. But she still has a sort of spacey look on her face. She is looking out at the cavern wall, even while I’ve been combing her hair for some time.

Of course I’m trying very hard not to think about sex. It’s hard. Plus I can still see that she has a lot of wet drainage between her legs. It’s not good if there’s that much there, but I think most of it is from last night?

Still, I’m so worried because she’s lost her mind.

What caused it?

She still looks human.

I finally get a chance to check her teeth. I was afraid she’d bite me earlier when I wanted to. Everything still looks normal, just the behavior and unnatural strength is off. But then I catch she’s starting to act a bit more normal.

She still resists standing on two legs. Even when on two legs she stays down hunched down, and likes to hide. It’s now impossible for her to get in the normal part of the cavern. When I try to pull her up to stand on her feet it doesn’t work. She wants to stay in the shadowy areas too.

I’m worried about it.

She’s now much friendlier, but still acting weird.

She won’t talk either. What do I do?

I try again with the clothes now.

I have to fight and wrestle with her to get her to wear them. It’s getting hard to not get excited, because wrestling with her when she’s naked makes me very aware of how beautiful and seductive she looks.

Wait a minute? What’s this?

I reach and feel her. She feels normal, but when I get to her boobs they look and feel really swollen. I can’t tell but they look about the same size? She seems to like it when I’m touching them. When I’m checking her health and condition she likes me touching her. But when I touched her boobs she starts to kind of get happy. She nuzzles up against me when I am touching them.

Weird girl.

She licks me again.

Rina comes back in a huff, “I think the dwarves want to leave soon. They don’t like this place,” she said.

“Damn.”

“They’ve already started cleaning the water again, and almost done burning the goblin bodies. I think they will send divers out again.”

“If I try to send Asakura out swimming I have no idea what will happen. Her mind is like blocked off, she might not even understand how to swim right now. If she goes underwater she could drown,” I said.

“Yeah that’s not good. You know her boobs look really swollen,” Rina said suddenly.

“Shut up,” I intervened.

“But it’s true,” she said.

“Well I’m having trouble getting her clothes on. Can you bring me her gnome overalls? Maybe they’ll work better than the blouse and skirt for now,” I said.

In a few minutes she’s bringing them back while I’m petting Asakura’s head to try to keep her calm. She’s started to like it.

“You know you are going to have to come up with a pretty freaking darn good story to explain all this,” Rina said quickly, tongue in cheek.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking about too,” I retorted thoughtfully.

Asakura has started like…pushing her head and neck against my hand when I pet her. Very cat like…

After a few minutes, she’s yawning, ready for a nap.

“Can you go watch the dwarves and see what they are doing?” I asked.

“You aren’t going to like … be fooling around are you? We don’t have time for that,” Rina said.

“No! Jeez, she’s resisting my putting clothes on her. It’s going to take me some time before I can get this worked out,” I said.

“Oh…”

It took a few minutes but somehow I got the overalls up Asakura’s legs. I didn’t bother with her underwear though in this case because it was just hard enough getting the overall shorts on. These were in better condition than the other clothes, but they had really short leggings, ending just under the hips. It left a lot of leg still exposed, but at least the straps would go over her shoulders and so they wouldn’t be easy for her to take off.

I then slowly got her to wear the new blouse after several tries.

It was a losing battle, taking another twenty minutes while I was afraid of the dwarves coming over. Rina helped me for this part. She’s gotten to tolerate Rina it seems but only after a little while and probably because Rina’s smell probably was similar to mine.

We finally got her arms in the sleeves. We gave each other high fives for that part. Rina seems to be enjoying it too. I’m partly worried about why she would enjoy it…

After that we start doing up the buttons, but this shirt is really tight. I’m worried about how that will work out.

But I had another idea. I cast the heal spells and a few cure disease spells on Asakura’s mind.

It seems it doesn’t change anything, so I frowned. I was hoping it might improve her mental state. It doesn’t.

I’m also terrified.

“Is this going to happen every time you have sex with someone bro?” Rina asked with a smirk on her face. My heartbeat quickens when she says it, because it’s what I’m afraid of too. Turning people’s minds to jelly from a quickie is really bad. I would be noticed and be hunted down for being a demon in a population. I suddenly think of the same witch trials and being burned at the stake. It’s a horrific future, I can’t let it happen.

But we finally got the buttons done up on her blouse, except its super tight, and we had to leave the top two undone. Then she was resisting and not understand what we were doing. We tried to hold her down; I’m holding her arms while Rina did the buttons for me, after she’d undone some of them. Then we get the overall strips fixed over her shoulders and snapped into place over her chest.

Of course we had to give up on the bra, like the underwear. I put those into my item box and together we get her socks and shoes on.

She doesn’t talk or make any noise. And then she’s resisting less finally, but still not compliant all the way.

She wants to take her clothes off, but we force her to keep them on. She looked like she was going to scratch Rina up too. So I have to stop that from happening several times. But I’m not sure what triggered that. Was it a pack rivalry thing, or just because she has imprinted on me or whatever this mess is? Or something else?

We have to go slowly. I get her used to walking on two legs, but she still seems to hunch over in a predator like fashion with her arms ready to claw at stuff, even though she doesn’t have claws. This is the first time she resembles an animal different from a dog or cat. It throws me completely off. When I get her to stand, her natural posture seems to be like a reverse V at the hip with her legs straight out while her head is hunched over and arms with elbows bent, and slightly extended like a T rex’s arms hang out.

I wasn’t sure what to think now. I thought I’d seen everything.

It’s like she’s some kind of living zombie? She sometimes wants to bite stuff too, but doesn’t bite me. She only playfully bites me but not breaking skin. I’m not sure what would happen if Rina let her bite her, so I don’t want to risk it.

I know I’m not a necromancer either, so I find this even more confusing.

Of course I try to think in my mind what else could cause this? If she got some kind of mana infection from me? Or if the demon race job infected her with something?

My heart skips a beat thinking that. No…not Asakura! Shit! This is the worst thing ever.

She still seems docile enough, that it’s not a full zombie transformation and she’s not rotting flesh either…thank goodness. On the contrary her skin and health look even better and hotter than ever. Just her mind is gone…

Her eyes seem bright and full of life. But she doesn’t seem to like looking at people.

So I have to camouflage this somehow. I comb her bangs over her eyes on one side, but mostly open on the other side. Her hair is long enough it will work a bit. It looks sloppier but may help hide the fact she’s not exactly human right now.

We’re lucky when the dwarves have to stop. Apparently they aren’t ready to try to cross the water tunnel yet. But it’s a race against time. Not only are we low on food, but our water supply here will have to be purified and that will mean them having to boil water almost non-stop for drinking water for us and the other surviving dwarves, numbering almost sixty of them alone.

There isn’t fuel for more than one fire and they have to be careful of budgeting it. I do see that they are trying to scavenge coal and anything burnable down here but it’s a crap shoot.

What will happen? I can see they are tense, so our levity game in tricking them did keep their spirits up.

Then the dwarves showed us another drawing that they are communicating with us about. It seems they are trying to figure out what to do about air to cross the tunnel. It’s the biggest issue right now while other supplies start to founder.

I’m not sure such a thing will work. On my own world there would be diver suits and compressed air in tanks but I’m sure they don’t have the technology to make that here. Without being able to talk to them I can’t even suggest something primitive.

Would a compressed air sack or bag of air being held while crossing even work? Old cartoons showed divers wearing a gold fish bowl on their head. But what happens when you add in the water pressure? Does it make the body tighten up too much to breathe?

It seems the dwarves had this idea. They have made a portable smithing forge at the single campfire which is also boiling water. It’s a tight fit to have everything there. They have overcome the problem of heat by some kind of portable smithing coke. That is the main problem with a smithing forge. You can’t use any kind of fuel, you have to have something that will generate enough heat. Thus, real smiths at least in the human world where we came from used something they called ‘coke’, which isn’t the drink or the drug. It’s a type of pre-conditioned fuel.

The dwarves have scrounged stuff together and are trying to make some kind of breathing apparatuses. I’m not sure what they’ll do, they could use metal or make something from glass if they have a glass blower.

Once again I feel frustrated about not being able to communicate them. I could definitely suggest a few things…my cover as a mage could also get rid of suspicions on why I might be able to figure something out if only I could talk to them.

So I have to trust they’ll do the right thing.

The dwarves are sure to notice Asakura is acting weird too.

What the hell am I going to do?

They won’t buy our little comedy act forever.

I’ve also learned that deception makes me feel stressful more than killing orcs for some reason. I don’t like trying to lie to people on my same team.

It’s been a long day. I’ve worked so hard trying to work with Asakura and get her passable enough for normal and getting used to things that I’ve sweat a lot. Rina with me has also been sweating too. By the time we go to bed we’re thoroughly exhausted. The other dwarves are also exhausted.

But even so they keep a heavy guard.

It seems they don’t want us to help with guard duty in the night. They are sacrificing themselves for that, so that I can charge up my power. I feel grateful for them. It must be hard for them to do that. They aren’t just going on less sleep, but having to stay up longer when they already hurt really bad, and are hungry and thirsty.

I feel moved.

I hope that Fox can bail me out on this one. It’s another bad deal.

Still she’s probably got like a chalk of tick marks now like a war plane for all the times she’s helped me.

Will she also have a solution for dealing with Asakura?